HMHItm HMMMiPiMft. mmiiBiiitiiimiiiiii 'iiiriimiiMimri rvenca t 1 '%?■ igiiiimiMUiiii.iiii II mBmmim FROM THE BENNQ LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY To in ffiis volume ^as ta&Jent tUs boefc eSpyiWeiii iHo. and give to the ubramn. HOME USE RULES All books subject to recall AH .borrowers must, regis- ter in the library to borrow books for home use. All books must be re- turned at end of college year for inspection and Repairs. Limited books must be . returned within the four week Umit and hot renBwed. Students must return all books before leaving town. OfHcers should arrange for the return of books wanted during their - absence from i town. Volumes of periodicals ■ and of pamphlets are held in the library as much as • possible. For special pur- poses they are given out for a limited time. Borrowers should not use their library privileges for ■■ the benefit of other persons. Books of special value and gift iMoks, when the giver wishes it, are not allbwed to circulate. Readers are asked to re- port all cases of books marked or mutilated. Do not deface books by marks and writing. 3 11 1 f. f\ / ^ / The original of tiiis book 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/cu31924082223789 niSTOET OF FRENCH LITERATURE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE BY HENRI YAN LAUN I. PEOM ITS OEIGIN TO THE REN"AISSANCE NEW YOEK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 183 FIFTH AVENUE 1878. A^uftife' TO M. PAUL LACROIX (l/B BIBLIOPHILE JACOB), CONSEEVATEUE A LA BIBLIOTHEQUE DB L'AESENAL, PAUIS, THIS HISTOKT OF FRENCH LITEEATUEE IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction.'— What the history of a literature ought to be — Necessity of studying the literature of a country — What the literature of a country is — Opinions of M. Taine — Influence of literature upon history — Influences ■which produce a writer— Political influences on litera- ture — Religious influences on literature — Influence of Philosophy on literature — Influence of the literary man upon his times — Why this history has .been written — Literature in France from the beginning — Age of Louis XIV. — Literature in France during the eighteenth century — Literature in France from the Revolution to the present day — Origin of the French nation — Reasons for studying French literature — The man and the book 1 BOOK I— OEIGIN or THE FEENCH NATIOK CHAPTER L § 1. The Celts and the Iberians. — Origin of the Iberians — Origin of the Celts — The typical Gaul — Their dash — Inconsistencies of Latin historians — Gallic dress — Slavery, religion — Condition of women and children — Struggles for equality in Gaul 25 § 2. Remains of Celtic Poetry. — Difference between Celts and Gauls — Welsh settlements in Gaul — Probable re- mains of worship of Moloch, Astarte, and. Bel — The Druids— The Ouadd— The Druid proper— The Bard — Bardic poetry of Britain 36 40 viii CONTENTS. § 3. Kemaiws of Iberian Poetey.— Traces of the Iberians in names of places— Their language— Their literature- Fragment of an Iberian poem ^ . . • • § 4. Influence of Greece on Gaul.— The Phoenicians- Foundation of Marseilles— Greek commerce— Greek art — Greek influence upon literature : upon language — Early Massalian travellers ^^ § 5. Influence of Rome on Gaul. — Eomanisation of Gaul Change of names of places — Attempts of the Gauls to regain their independence— Gallic rhetoricians and gram- marians 49 § 6. Influence of Germany on Gaul.— Entrance of the Germans into Gaul — The Visigoths — Invasion of Gaul by Teutonic tribes — Invasion of Etzel — ^Downfall of Rome— Odoacer—Ohild^ric—Clovis— Division of the kingdom — Difference between the German and the Gaul — Predominance of the Franks in Gaul — Adaptation of • the Gallo-Roman tongue — Poetry of the Teutonic race — Teutonic legend in France . . . . .52 CHAPTER II. § 1. Influence of CHRisTiANiTY.-^Intellectual development by Christianity — Letter of the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne — Irenseus : his Treatise on Heresies — Barren- ness after Irenaeus's death — Titian . . . . 60 § 2. The Panegyrists. — The twelve Pan&jirici Veteres — Two panegyrics pronounced before Maximinian — Eumenius and his oration — Slight evidence of literary activity in Gaul during the third century — Social condition of the country 64 § 3. The Teachers. — The Gallo-Roman Church — Story re- CONTENTS. IX PlOE lated by Gregory of Tours— Council of Aries— Council of Nicsea — Lactantius : his Catholic judgment : his Divine instittUiotis — Ausonius : his Onlo Nohilium Urbium; his^Piaj/ of the Seven Suges—The Play of Querolns—Othex Gallic Christian writers—The struggle of Christianity in Gaul : against Rome ; against heresy ; against monasticism ; against the world ; against Pagan philosophy — Rutilius — Salvian 67 § 4. The Cheoniclers.— Sidonius ApoUinaris : his life ; his letters — Letter to Eriphius — Disappearance of Pagan literature — Gregory of Tours : his life ; his History; his opposition to king and queen — Influence of the Teutons on their subjects' — Portunatus : his influence . . 76 § 5, Chaelemagne, his Lai^oues and his Fellow-Woek- MEN. — His life — Eginhard's description of him — Char- lemagne's dress — Anecdote about the Emperor; his courtiers; his administrative faculties — Another anecdote about Charlemagne ; his schools — Alcuin ; his letter ; his pupils — Theodu'lf-Clement — John Scotus Erigena — Comparison between the literary culture in France and the rest of the Continent at that period . . 88 BOOK II.— FEUDAL SOCIETY. CHAPTER I. § 1. Oeigin of the Langije d'Oc and the Langue D'OiX. — Modification of the Latin tongue — Euphonic law of accentuation — Influence of the Franks — Latin spoken in the ninth century — Oaths of Lewis the German and Charles the Bald — Distinction between the early French of the North and the South — Influence of the original tongues of Gaul on the corruption of Latin — The Lingtia romana rustiax — Causes of the difference between North and South 99 CONTENTS. PAQI § 2. The Langue d'Oc and its Liteeatuke. — Its various dia- lects—Countries wtere they were spoken — The Cru- sades and the wars against the Albigenses — Pictures of social life — Provence the chief residence of the trouba- dours — pifferent compositions 106 § 3. The Trotjbadoues. — Early troubadours — Verses of Ber- trand de Born — Of the Emperor Frederick I. — The war against the Albigenses — Jongleurs and jongleresses — An evening's entertainment in the castle — Chosen audience of a troubadour — Courts of love — The code of love-^Petition to and decision of a Court of love — ■ Specimen of a demi^chansoii — Specimen of a sirveiiU — Specimen of a tenson — Specimen of an aubade — Divers other songs of the troubadours — Decline of the literature of the troubadours . . . . .114 § 4. Early Epics of the Langue d'Oil. — First poems — The trouvferes — Their first eflForts — Impossibility to fix the date of the popular epics 136 § 5. The Caelovingian Cycle. — Why Charlemagne's cam- paign against the Saracens was the chosen subject of the trouvferes — The Chanson de Roland — The Roman des Loherains — Third part of the Roman des Loheiaina — Christian death of the warriors . . . .141 § 6. The Aethueian Cycle. — Its origin from Britain — Chre- tien de Troyes and his Cltevalierde la Charette — Pereival of Wales — Anglo-Norman rhyming chroniclers . .155 § 7. The Classical Cycle. — The Roman d'Alexandre . . 161 § 8. Satirical Poems. — Satire in love songs : in religion Chorus of Hilarius — Life in the North of France — Thibaut of Champagne, his enemies, and his religious lays — Gaupil U Renard . . , . . .164 CONTENTS. CHAPTER II. § 1. The Decline op the TEOuviUES. — Reign of Saint Loais — The Roman de la Base — Similarity to the opening of the Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales — Continua- tion of the Roman de la Rose by Jean de Meung — Com- parison of Chaucer with the trouvferes — Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meung, and Chaucer— Difference be- tween the first two poets I74 § 2. The Roysteeing TeouvJiees.— Disrepute of the minstrels — Rutebeuf— His career — His poetic example — Adam de la Halle — His farewell to Arras .... 187 § 3. TEOTJvfeEEs OE THE FouETOBNTH Centuey.— Eustace Deschamps — Guillaume de Machault and his rondeau — Letter from Deschamps to his father — Deschamps and Agnes of Navarre — The State and the Church . .193 CHAPTEE III. § 1. Peose Weitees op THE Thieteenth Centuey. — The vulgar tongue the language of the majority — The be- ginning of history — Monastic chroniclers — Villehardou- in: his Histoire de la ConqiiSte de Constantinople; his faithful descriptions — Passage from that history Primat ; his Chrmiiques — Passage from them — Nicolas de Senlis — Estienne Boilesve — Pierre de Fontaines — Philippe de Rdmi — Lorens I97 § 2. Peose Weitees op the Foueteenth Centuey. — Join- ville — The dedication of his ilfemoirs— Comparison be- tween Joinville and Villehardouin— Portrait of St. Louis — Froissart — His descriptions — Philippe de Commines : his portrait of Louis XI. — Walter Scott's description of both — Commines' picture of the death of Charles VIII. — Christine de Pisan 208 220 ^i CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. § 1. The Ohukch and the Dbama.— Influence of the Glmrch —Seeds of rebellion— Adaptation of the drama by the Church — Keligious plays § 2. The Mikaclb Plays.— The MiracU de Thecyphil&—&aXa.-a's recommendation— Thdophile's repentance— The play of Saint Nicolas— Ta.-vevn scenes— The Jeu de la Feuillie— OOf) Bobin and Marion "^^ § 3. The Stage, the Comedies, and the Actoks.— What the stage was— The Confr&ie de la Passion— The Enfants sans SoMci— The Clercs de la Basoc/te— The Farce duCuvier —The Farce de Pathelin .... 232 § 4, The Three last TeouvJiees.- Charles of Orl&ns : his life ; his verses when in prison ; his rondeaux ; some of his verses written in English — Rend of Anjou : his life ■ his pastoral BegnauU et Jelmnneton — Frangois Villon : his adventures ; his recklessness ; his works edited by Marot — A ballad from le Grand Testament — His pathos 240 BOOK III— THE EENAISSANCE. CHAPTEE I. § 1. Causes of the Renaissance. — What a renaissance really is — Experience of men in the sixteenth century . 259 § 2. The Renaissance in Feance. — The Church and liberty of belief — ^Difference of the Renaissance in England and in France — Energy — ^Action of man upon man — Influence of Italy — Of printing — Of learning— Francis the First. 262 § 3. BuDfi AND HIS Fellow- WoEKEES. — Foundation of the College de France — Budd's literary labours; his CONTENTS. . xiii . PAOB fellow-workers and successors — Henri Estienne — Etienne Dolet : his death-song 269 CHAPTEE II. § 1. Satiee in the Renaissance. — Vindication of the rights of thought — Marguerite of Navarre and the HeptamSron — Desperriers and the Gymialum Mundi — Clement Marot : his works ; his career; his propensity to Satire j his Temple Gupidique . 274 § 2. Eabelais. — His life; coarseness; his friends and enemies; his attacks on the monastic orders ; his psean of triumph ; his advanced opinions on education ; his philosophy — Comparison between Socrates and Eabelais — " The Furred Law-cats " — His successors Noel du Fail and B&oalde de Verville 281 CHAPTER III. § 1. Montaigne and the Moralists. — His own opinion of himself : his position as a philosopher ; his essay on Democritus and Beraelitus ; his mental and physical portrait ; his career ; his consistency ; his theories ; about the pomp of kings ; on the poor ; his prudence ; his catholicity of mind 296 § 2. Montaigne's Friends and Disciples. — La Boetie : his Be la Servitude volontaire — Charron : his Traitt de la Sarjesse ; his indebtedness to Montaigne — De Pibrac : his quatrains ,....,,, 307 § 3. Contemporary Lawyers. — Etienne Pasquier : advice to his son ; his life ; his Recherches de la France ; his legal knowledge — Loisel — Nicholas Pasquier: his Letters ; his tolerance ; his opinion about duelling— Eobert Gamier, La Eresnay, Du Vair — Michel de rH6pital : his life ; his justification of parliamentary government — Pierre la Eamfe — Jacques Amyot — Bodin 312 ,j^ CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. P4G> § 1. The Keformation.— Rebellion against tradition— Per- secutions of the Waldenses— Progress of Calvinism The youthful Francis the Second and his reign — National council at Poissy 327 § 2. Oalvin and his Feiends.— Comparison between Calvin and Mazzini: Calvin's career; his correspondence; his Christian Institution ; his death — Theodore de Beza : his works ; his farewell to France— Farel and Viret . 333 INTEODUCTIOK The history of a literature is the history of a people ; if not what the this, it is worthless. To know merely what books have been nteratare * •written, and who wrote them, is to know a nunber of dry °°s''**°^ facts which may encumber the mind, but cannot inform it. To know what our predecessors and our contemporaries have written and thought, to throw ourselves into the mood of an author, assimilate his work, comprehend and develope his meaning, to make a literary production our own, so as to have the power of reproducing it at our pleasure, without at the same time being familiar with the circumstances under which it was first conceived, and the annals of the age in ■which it saw the light, — this is impossible. A book, in fact, is a part of its author, as he is a part of his generation ; and a serviceable knowledge of the one without the other is just as much beyond our reach as it would be to understand a mathematical formula apart from the axioms and definitions upon which it is based. We might as well say that a plant is classified by a description of its colour, form, and texture, as to boast that we had recorded the literature of a nation before connecting it with, and showing its origin from, and dependence upon, that nation's history. And if a knowledge of history is necessary to a knowledge of literature, it is, as a natural consequence, and still more unquestionably, an assistance thereto. Just as in everyday life we perceive the full meaning of what is said to us when we are familiar with the person who speaks, interpreting in a moment the gestures of his face and body, aided by the VOL. I. B 2 HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. inflections of his voice, recognising tlie tnrns of expression and the idioms which he employs, so in the perusal of a book we are assisted by our acquaintance with the author, having been previously assisted, in forming that acquaintance, by a knowledge of the times which have developed him. How much weaker, for instance, would be the hold which In Memoriavi has gained upon us, how much of its spirit and of its beauty would have been lost upon us, if we did not independently know what kind of a man the poet Tennyson is— his sensitive, retiring disposition, his abstraction, absorp- tion, repulsion from vulgar and commonplace manifestations of feeling ; or if we did not know the circumstances of his connection with Arthur Henry Hallam, the ways and customs of that Cambridge university life to which such frequent reference is made, the tone of the intercourse habitual to young Englishmen in the nineteenth century ; or, again, if we were unacquainted with the accustomed manners and grooves of thought in English society, with the aspira- tions, the phases of science and of faith, the material condi- tion of the country — nay, even with its configuration, its climate, the varied aspects which it has assumed under the hand of God and of man. This latter thought leads us to a consideration which has more to do with geography than with history ; or at least with geography as one description and subdivision of history. But we suppose that it is altogether unnecessary to dwell upon the importance of connecting every author and every literary production with the country in which he or it has been produced. To read the work of a German as we should read the work of an Italian, ignoring the features in each which are attributable to the sky beneath which they were born, and the scenery amidst which their ideas have taken shape, would be to read with closed eyes, and a mind wilfully insensible to one of the greatest allurements of literature. INTRODUCTION. 3 And this is true not only of works wliich confessedly depend for their interest upon descriptions of external nature, or m which the conditions of climate and the impressions of phy- sical surroundings are constantly being drawn .upon for the purpose of illustration, but also of those more subtle and less manifest phases of the human intellect and imagination, which reveal themselves in manner and in mannerism, in various degrees of sprightliness and of sobriety, in richness or in poverty of thought, but which are none the less a result of the modifying influences of nature. Now, whilst the literature of a country, and the literary Necessity productions of an individual writer, cannot be thoroughly t^g"'*itera"^ studied and mastered apart from the history of the race and t»™ °f * country. of the epoch, it is very necessary to realise the fact that such a literature, or such a literary production, is, when once created, itself an active organisni, having a distinct and in- dependent energy of its own, whereby it forthwith begins to react upon its creators, and to assist in the development of the race and of the epoch from which it sprang. The attributes of the creator are shaped and moulded by the creature ; the poera modifies the poet ; the history of a people nourishes and educates the people, reproducing itself, as we say, through successive generations with all the added philosophy of ex- perience. Thus, if Guyot de Provins, Marot, Villon, are the genuine products of mediEcval France, offshoots of the old Gallic stock, nourished by neo-Latin ideas, brought to per- fection amidst the lights and shadows of monkish corruptions, they in their turn became the pi^ogenitors of Scarron, Eegnier, B^ranger, amongst the factors of whose riper and richer minds those earlier satirists must not be neglected. It is not simply that a literary product is, from the moment of its creation, added to the causes of its own existence, but it includes and ■ extends them. The esjprU gaulois is as potent to-day as it was in the 4 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. tenth century ; but whereas it was in Guyot's day a popular sentiment, fostered by the rough intercourse of everyday life, it is in our own age more characteristically a literaiy inheritance, transmitted from mind to mind by the media- tion of poetry and fiction, and refined by this process in its coarser and more offensive features. The narguois of yester- day becomes the moqueur of to-day ; just as the wild Bretons of the sixth centuiy, the ruthless Normans of the eleventh century, and the Jacques of a later date, have been moulded into the political opposition party and the theoretical com- munists of the times in which we live. The process is much the same in either case ; and the literary annals of tha countiy will furnish its explanations hat the '^^^ Central idea which we would gladly assume to be im- erature pjessed upon the mind of the student and of the general reader a country '^ ^ ° is this — that the literature of a country is, in a genuine and Very important sense, the history of that country, and that it is, at all events, quite as much as the chronological annals of wars and dynasties, of politics and sociological facts, the sum and product of a national energy. History is in fact capable of many subdivisions. We might write the political, social, economical, religious, intellectual history of a country ; but hone of them would be complete, even for its own special purposes, without the combination of all. And thus to cut ofJ the intellectual records from the rest, and to call that residuum history, as though it could be and was naturally distinct from literature, is a misleading and inoonveliient custom, which has but little to be said in its favour. For children, and Students of a riper age, it is altogether mischievous ; whilst it is difficult to conceive the circumstances under which a reader could be benefited or assisted by the exclusion of literary annals from the history of any country. Of course it may be both expedient and interesting to make closer acquaint- ance vitb some special branch of history, touching more or INTRODUCTION. S less lightly on all the rest. Such, indeed, is our present attitude towards the literary history of France ; and the reason for this lies partly in the very defect of previous historical works to which reference has just been made The literature of France, strange as the fact may appear, has been neglected in England until within the last few years, and it is necessary, therefore, that it should be treated with something more of exclusiveness than if the case had been otherwise. But, at the same time, no history of literature worthy of the name can afford to pass by in silence the dynastic changes, the national and civil wars, the growth of the constitution, the progress of law, the gradual conquest of personal freedom, the steady amelioration of social habits and institutions, amidst which its own triumphs have been gained, its own monu- ments erected ; to whose formation it largely contributed, after having been itself the outcome and the issue of coinci- dent, not to say identical, causes. What account of French literature would be complete without some reference to the Fronde and to Louis XIV. ; without a record of Hugh Capet's struggles against his powerful rivals, or of the quarrel between Pope" Boniface VIII. and PMip the Fair ; without a nuention of the persecution of the Huguenots ? And again, the leading facts of sociology are indispens&,ble to any serviceable literary history, the pi'ogress of civilisation in its thousand forms, the advancement of art, science, commerce, the development of the ideas of self-government, equity, subordination of ranks, coloni- sation, and the like, the interdependence of material prosperity and mental culture, the refinements of satire and the vagaries of popular caricature, the history of manners and conventions, of courtly dress and national costumes, of sumptuary laws, and no less imperative fashions — all these in their several relations have an important bearing upon the evolution, as upon the exegesis of a literature, and. cannot be overlooked 6 HISTORY' OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. without the infliction of a distinct and irremediable wrong. For, let us repeat, the literature is the product of the man, and the man is the product of such surroundings as these. The man is the social unit ; neither he nor his works can be understood unless we understand the social aggregate of which he is a unit. Eace, climate, the influences of nature, may have done much to give the original bent to his mind ; but when we have mastered all these, we know but an infini- tesimal part of what we need to know. Virgil is not Bavius, Dryden is not Shadwell, Molifere is not Boursault. They have ' been subjected to the same influences of race, and climate, and epoch, and general surroundings, and yet in the end stand at the very antipodes of thought. We must pierce still deeper into the history of their age ; we must discover how it is that the one is a poet whilst the other lacks the divine afflatus. Innate genius cannot be made to account for the whole of this measureless difference ; and it is the work of the biographer and the critic to show how much of it is attributable to the contact of the two men's souls with the circumstances of their day and generation, inionsof "This umch we can say with confidence," writes an ^™°' eminent literary Frenchman,^ " that the unknown creations towards which the current of the centuries coiiducts us will be raised up and regulated altogether by the three primordial forces of race, epoch, and surroundings ; that if those forces could be measured and computed, one might deduce from them, as from a formula, the specialities of future civilisation , and that if, in spite of the evident crudeness of our notations, and the fundamental inexactness of our measures, we try now to form some idea of our general destiny, it is upon an exami- nation of these forces that we must ground our prophecy. For, in enumerating them, we traverse the complete circle of ' H. A. Taine, History of English Idterature. Introduction, § 5. INTRODUCTION. y the agencies ; aud when we have considered race, circum- stances, and epoclis, which are the internal mainsprings, the external pressure, and tlie acquired momentum, we have ex- hausted not only the whole of the actual causes, but also the whole of the possible causes of motion." True, in the sense of a truism, and true, if by the possi- bility of divination we simply mean that we could predict tlie future as soon as we knew the future j but, in any less general sense, M. Taine's opinion must not lead us into holding too lightly the difficulty of comprehending an author and his woAs. Tlie passage which we have quoted contains the pith and substance of the distinguished critic's method, and if we follow it too blindly as the formula on which our critical system is to be based, it may possibly betray us into a rather superficial and incomplete estimate of men and things. Of course, in naming the word "circumstance," we include all and everything which can possibly affect the mind ; and equally of course, this all and everything is what we can never hope to know, even of a contemporary writer, even of ourselves. Therefore the efforts which we make to become acquainted with the mainsprings and tributary streams of human thought and action will be successful only in the degree in which they are coinplete, assiduous, and far-reaching, taking nothing for granted, and nothing for insignificant. M. Taine has done for English literature what no Englishman has done, and he has made contributions to the general history of literature such as hardly any other historian had previously made ; but in two important aspects — and I state this with all due deference and diffidence — he ap- pears to have fallen short of the standard which he has adopted. He has valued too cheaply the paramount influ- snce which the political — perhaps also the social — history of a generation exerts upon an author and his works ; and lie has passed too lightly over the immeasurable reflex influ- 8 HIS TOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. ence which literary productions have iipon political and social history, luence of These influences are not only vast and mutual ; they to a !,'**^? large extent balance and compensate each other. It is an y- eternal process in which humanity worts out its own deve- lopment, and progresses according to its own inherent laws. As the physical race is perpetuated by the birth of successive generations — the present springing from the loins of the past, and becoming pregnant with the promise of the future— so the growth of the intellect iKoceeds by the constant reproduc- tion of vital and vitalising germs. A book is the offsprifcg of the aggregate intellect of humanity, which, issuing mature from its parent mind, becomes thenceforth itself a fertilising agent, and has its part in all future generations. It gives back to the world of thought that which it took therefrom ; appropriating, in so far as it is of any computable value, new ideas and the combinations of old ideas, and restoring them to humanity impregnated with life. It is thus that facts, and the history of facts, are perpetually being wedded to thought; thus that, from their prolific union, a new generation of iacta and thoughts is added to the grand total of human know- ledge.^ ifluences Of the influences which combine to produce the writer, wsV™ that of race is fundamental and preliminary. In France it is "**"■• as strong and as marked as in any other country. The esfwit gaulois — for perhaps the common term is correctly applied to the leading and predominant characteristics of the French genius — is sharply defined and easily recognised. Its pro- minent feature is satire — the tendency to catch in the first instance, quickly, and clearly, and comprehensively, the mcongruous elements of a composite fact, and to receive them, ^ " All the past of time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder peals, Wherever thought hath wedded fact." INTRODUCTION. 9 not as an Englishman might, with a broad grin, but with a gay mocking smile which hides the shock of offended taste under a show of indifference. The show becomes a habit, and it is presently a real indifference which the Frenchman feels as to the conformity of his experience with his natural ideas on the fitness of things. These natural ideas the Gaul pos- sessed in the first instance ; and they were strengthened and enlarged, in the very dawn of his literature, by his eager adoption of Latin refinement. The satire is not very cruel ; it is, as a late commentator has expressed it, " malice wrapped in bonhommie ; " its accompanying shrug of the shoulders disarms resentment, as if the speaker added to his quip some such words as these ; " Take my observation for what it may be wortL I give it under reserve ; there may be an incongruity in the very words I utter. We cannot escape the common lot ; there is incongruity in everything." We can- not be wrong in adopting 'the description of gaulois for this spirit ; for though the Gauls, pure and simple, have left no literature behind them, we know tliat they were the substratum of the composite French, and though Iberians, Eomans, Franks, Goths, Normans, have all contributed their elements to the race as it now exists, Gallic blood still runs, perhaps the most copiously, in their veins. Eabelais dis- played this mocking characteristic as fully as any of tis fellow-countrymen ; and, indeed, he typified it in its hardest and sternest aspect; for he hated the corrupt monks, and rebelled against the tyranny and hollo wness of a debased religious denomination. That rebellion was another typical feature, which enters largely into the character of French- men. They may have inherited it specially from the Franks and Burgundians ; in any case they have been possessed, from an early period of their history, with the passion for social freedom, for the- social equality of man. Other characteristics thev have, which it would be vain to try and trace to their i6 HISTOR V OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. source ;— irreverent, sceptical, rash in theory, fiery and im- patient rather than persistent in action ; easily susceptible of emotion ; overflowing with animal spirits, self-indulgent, not incapable of, but disinclined to, long endurance, triumphing rather by fitful enthusiasm than by painful adherence to duty, restraint, and obedience. Their reasoning faculties are strong ; they are quick-witted, logical, philosophical ; but, with^ttle perseverance, they are liable to inaccuracy, and make com- paratively small use of experience. With such virtues and such failings, they have reaped the most splendid triumphs and have suffered the most provoking defeats. Alternately in. the van and in the rear of humanity, they have for their con- solation the fact that the brilliancy of their victories outlives the shame of their repulses ; and they have earned the praise which is their proudest boast, — that of being the cynosure of Europe, itioai in- 'f he political influences which act in the development and inoes on rature. modification of literature are many and potent; and these, unlike the influence of race, differ more or less in every age. Their effect may, as a rule, be traced with the greatest facility ; and the writers on whom they have left no marked impres- sions are few indeed. Perhaps the most powerful influence of all is that exerted by the form of government, including here- in the effects of good or bad government, which result in material prosperity or social unhappiness. Frenchmen have, as already implied, been ever peculiarly sensitive before the manifestation of injustice from their rulers ; and unjust rule in France has produced greater popular misery than in any other country in Europe. As a consecLuence, we find their literature studded over with the traces of this external suffer- ing, and with the marks of a spirit of fiery impatience and revolt. Not to dwell, in this connection, upon the few relics of Celtic poetry, or upon the evidences of sturdy popular rebellion contained in the Ghansoris de Geste, we may instance INTRODUCTION. ii the pamplilets of tlie Ligue, the lofty indignation of D'Aubign^ rhe sad revelations of the period of the Fronde, the stern denunciations of Rousseau and Mirabeau, the terribly scathing verses of Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset, and Barbier, and the reproaches of a score of recent authors whom it is super- fluous to name, because the sorrows which inspired their words have hardly passed away from contemporary history. With respect to ideal forms of government, France has instinctively, and with a remarkable degree of constancy, aimed at and advanced towards a condition of self-dominion. It is neces- sary to be very careful upon this point, for there is much that is conflicting in the history of the country, and many circumstances which might plausibly mislead us. In the fundamental Gallic race it is not probable that the chiefs — and far less that the short-lived dynasties of chiefs — pos- sessed any great despotic strength. We cannot place much reliance on the mention by Zosimus^ of the Eepublic of Armorica, though it is probable enough that a virtual con- federation of cities did exist in the north-west corner of France at the beginning of the fifth century, for purposes of mutual aid and defence against the Alani, Goths, Huns, and Vandals, who poured across the Ehine when the Eoman organisation was no longer strong enough to resist them. But the indomit- able assertion of the spirit of independence did no doubt characterise the Gallic race, and had made itself felt in the hagaudes,"^ or peasant-risings, which were for a long series of years a thorn in the side of Eoman occupation. It is a fair question, moreover, whether the esprit gaulois, the tendencies whereof have already been glanced at, was not specially un- favourable to the maintenance of those habits of subordina- tion and obedience which are so necessary to the stability of monarchical institutions. The Latin race, again, had reached ^ Zosimus, luTopla via, vi. 5. * Celtic bagad, a troop or band. There was such a rising in A.r. 270. 12 HISTORY OF FRENCH LIT ERA TURE. the acme of its happiness and glory under a republic ; and ita posterity in thfe south-west of Europe has displayed a constant leaning towards democratic government, in the best sense of the word democracy. The very idea of Cfesarism lias been defined, by some of its legitimate exponents, as an " imperial democracy ;" and we are justified in referring to the present temper of the French nation in support of the view that if not a majority, at least a large number of Frenchmen are inalien- ably attached to a democratic form of government, whether the external determination of that form be allowed to pass under the name of Coesarism or Eepublieanism. In any case the tone of French literature has been largely affected, in earlier times by the perpetual struggle for popular independ- ence, and in more recent times by the direct rivalry between the rule of tlie people and the rule of monarchs. The anni- hilation of the aristocracy at the close of the last century was amongst the results of this struggle and this rivalry, and, as one of the most deeply impressed marks of the Eevolution, it has stamped itself indelibly upon the literary monuments of the age.' iiigioiis The religious influence is again an important factor in utera- French literature. France has prided herself from the earliest times upon being the patroness of Christianity— even when she has preferred to call her monarch the " eldest son of the Church." This arrogance does not, of course, extend to the individual champions of the Gospel, who have been as modest in their assumptions as they have been distinguished for their ability and noted for their success. Ampere has concisely described the contrast thus intro- duced into French literature.^ " On the part of the orators and the wits, we have care and cunning of expression : on tho 1 It is cHefly in the newspapers of that period that this impress is to be found. " Histoire litUrain de la FraTtce aiiwnt h douaUme siMe, 3 vols. 1839. 1840. Preface, p. xiii. re. INTRODUCTION. 13 part of the first doctors and Christian writers, interest of matter, convictions, opinions, a cause for which they con- tend. Hence arises an energetic feature in Christian litera- ture, and a certain hoilowness in pagan literature ; the latter is elegant and vain, the other more loose, but stronger. On the side of Christianity are all those champions of the faith, who fight for it, who repel the successive attacks of various heresies. Grand is the spectacle of the Church in its infancy, combat- ing, not as it has too often combated, by persecution and violence, but by talent, by eloquence, by reason." Those early combatants have left their mark on Prench literature,— IreniEus of Lyons, Lactantius of Treves, Ambrosius of Milan, a native of Treves, Sulpicius Severus, Paulinus of Milan, Ausonius, Avitus of Vienne, Sidonius Apollinaris, Salvian, Fortunatus, Gregory of Tours, "the Herodotus of barbarism," Columban (an Irishman), St. Boniface, the apostle of Ger- many, and born in Devonshire; Charlemagne himself, with his friend Alcuin; and, less eminent, more corrupt in argu- ment, if not in manners, Hincmar of Eheims, and Scotus Erigena, " the last of the Platonists," who tried his best to wed Christianity with the ripest of ancient philosophies. All these were, by birth or adoption, Frenclimen ; and though tliey wrote chiefly in Latin, they have given a tone and colour to the classical literature of France. Unorthodox Christianity has also left its deep impressions, thanks to Pelagius, Celestius, Cassiauus, Vincent of L^rins, Hilarius of Aries, who reaped their triumph particularly in Southern Gaul ; nor was the inde- pendent spirit which they introduced into French theology ever subsequently abandoned, even by such confessors as Bossuet and Bourdaloue, whilst its influence on such minds as that of Pascal, and through them on the modern Christian literature of France, can hardly be overrated. It is with the religious influence as with all other incidental influences ; it has acted upon literature by superposition over the fundamental influenoa 14 HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. of race, and, consequently, througli the characteristics and varied tendencies of race. The habit of satire, for instance, the love of equality, the strain for independence, and the like, have modified theology in France, have secularised religion, > and finally, to a large extent, shaken off or depreciated religi- ous forms and fetters ; until at last the negation of religion has become a prominent feature on the face of French literature, luence of So, too, of philosophical influences, into which we shall i°tera-^ not here pursue the thread of our suggestions, lest we be ■®- carried too nearly over the ground already traversed. In philosophy, even more than in religion, we shall find certain race-characteristics of the French exerting a very powerful sway over the writers of their literature. A quick-witted per- ception of cause and effect, combined with an extreme fertility of the logical faculty, has served to produce not only great triumphs in the field of mental exertion, but also great origin- ality, or even eccentricity, in the conception of novel philoso- phical systems. Witness Descartes on the one hand, Augusta Comte on the other. This excess of the logical capacity is worthy of special attention, for it explains much in the French intellect which would otherwise appear forlnitous. It is in part, no doubt, the effect of training and acquired habits of thought ; but it is no less certainly a race-characterstic. Compare it with i\\& finesse of expression and the rhetorical gift— with the sprightliness of mood and the individuality of criticism — with the independence of manner and the adroitness of repartie for which the nation is distinguished, and you wiU be ready to admit that this logical skill and patience is a characteristio-r- a composite one, it may be, but still a characteristic of the fundamental tendency of the race. Coupled with the power of passing rapidly to an inference or conclusion, it has enabled the Frenchman to reap brilliant triumphs of oratory and argu- ment, and has made him, in conversation more than in written literature, the most elegant and polished of mankind. INTRODUCTION. ij These few considerations may have sufficed to show how iiifliier,ce jI largely the literature of France— how largely tlie literature of *an up™^ every country— has been influenced by external circumstances ; '''^ *™^- near or remote ; political, social, or historical. No less striking is the effect which the literary man produces upon the circum- stances in which he moves, upon the institutions and the histpry of his age. Think, for example, of the " Young Germany," created by Schiller, Goethe, and Lessing ; of the "Young Italy " created, in two senses, by Mazziui on. the one hand, by Cesare Balbo, d'Azeglio and Gioberti on the other ; of the " Young England " created by Byron and nourished by Carlyle. Think of the upheaval of religious thought and life effected in" England by John Henry Kewman, the elder Froude, and their Oxford contemporaries ; of the enthusiasm for humanity stimulated in France by Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset. Instances crowd upon the brain as we write ; but there can be no necessity to refer to the thousand schools of thought which have been gathered round the persons of bold, thinkers and eloquent exponents of thought in almost every age and country, for poor humanity must always have some one to ad- mire and to follow, or something to criticise. If, in this study of French literature, we were to neglect this active and pro- ductive side of literary creators, and fail to gauge the influ- ences of each, as well as the influences upon each, we should forfeit all claims to the satisfaction which conscientious labour can alone afford. If any one should ask why this history of French Litera- why this ture is undertaken, the reason is a simple one, namely, that ^^on'^^ ''*' no such history, either in extent or in scope, exists in the ■written. English language. To a certain point Mr. Hallam, in his Literature of the Middle Ages, has dealt philosophically with a subject which he felt and demonstrated to be full of varied interest ; but his design precluded him from drawing a com- plete picture. Demogeot's valuable work has been trans- 16 HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITERA TURE. lated into English, at all events in a condensed form ; but he •wrote professedly for the mere student, thus sacrificing general discussions and conclusions. Several other handbooks of Fiench literature, such as G^rusez, Gidel, Baron, Albert, Auber- tin, Baret, are practically unknown to the English reader, and it may safely be said that no Englishman has yet attempted to do for French literature what the Germans have done for it, and what both Frenchmen and Germans have done for English literature. And the fact appears all the more strange when we consider how much has been lost by the omission. For the intellectual history of France is certainly unique. It is the history of a race which has ever been in the van of modern European thought, which has conquered more by its mind than by its arms, which has conferred upon the world gifts whose value is not to be calculated by any material standard. It is the history of a nation to which the supre- macy of the soul has always been as dear as the supremacy of the sword, and which has more than once asserted that supremacy at the very moment when its military and politi- cal influence have been most in dispute. We have to deal with a people essentially spirited and intellectual, whose spirit and intellect have been invariably the wonder and admi- ration, if not the model and mould, of contemporary human thought, and whose literary triumphs remain to this day amongst the most notable landmarks of universal literature. If we set on one side the master-minds of England, it is to France that we must look for the great lights of modern days, the great pioneers of modern thought, the great leaders of modern intelligence. From France have come the poets whose burning words inflamed the dull hearts of the middle ages, the dramatists who reared the classical stage of the seventeenth century, the mathematicians who opened up to our gaze the marvellous simplicities of astronomical truths, the logicians and metaphysicians who taught the solid mind to INTROD UCTION. 17 revolve in the orbit of rational faith, the historians who first reduced the ohaos of tradition to a science, and emulated, with hereditary genius, the simplicity and concision of Livy and Tacitus. To her, above aU, we owe the orderly and logical discrimination of ideas, arrangement of thoughts, clearness and severity of expression, readiness of deduction and elegance of diction, without which a literature can appear at the best ' but a splendid heap of unknown and unclassified gems. France is the land of Chansons de Geste, of romances Literature culled from the rich fields of mediaeval history, and legends ^om toe^ bright with the glow of a triumphant Christianity. Her''^8"™™8- troubadours, her trouvferes and jongleurs, filled Europe with their songs, and wrote the nursery rhymes of infant civilisa- tions. Spain, Germany, England in particular, owe to her tales and fabliaux many of the most beautiful of their earliest poetic utterances. It was France who fertilised the barren cloisters, and reaped from them chronicles and memoirs which still serve as the basis of our modern history. From the French convents came also that religious philosophy which was the first mature offspring of Christian and pagan thought, and which handed down to aU. time the golden fryit of an Abelard and a Saint Bernard. In France quickened the first gernj of religious reformation, niirsed by the mocking, scath- ing, scarifying satire of Eabelais, stimulated by the cold, light, good-tempered banter of Montaigne. France was pre-emi- nently the cradle of the Eenaissance ; religion, langtiage, and literature alike revived beneath her cherishing care. The end of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries are crowded with writers of indescribable freshness, vigour, and bril- liancy — a brilliancy which has well-nigh eclipsed the sweeter and paler refulgence of Villon and the preceding trouvferes. It was the age of the Pl^iade and of the Ligue, of the H8tel de Eambouillet and the Port-Eoyal, of the Satire Mdnipp^e and of the Prdcieuses ; of poets as varied as Eonsard and du Bartas, VOL. L C i8 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERA TURK. of purists like Malherbe, of romancists like d'Urfd, of euphu- ists like Voiture. It was the age of historians like de Thou and d'Aubignd, of writers of fnemoirs like Sully and de La Noue, of theologians like Frangois de Sales, of philosophers like Descartes and Pascal, of philologists and scholars like Joseph Scaliger and Casaubon. It was, once more, the age of human misery and of human glory, of the Fronde and of the Grand Monarque, the age of ultra-refinement and of the Academy, where the French language was toned down and purified till it lost much of its pristine energy and vigour, and became fit to be spoken by courtiers and whispered into the ears of high-born dames. And lastly, it was the age of the reviv- ing drama, from Jodelle to Corneille, from Corneille and Eacine to, the one man who knew well how to bring out' upon his canvas the lights and shadows of every-day life, the king of dramatists, the anatomist of humanity, Moliere. Ss^xiv '^^^ ^o® °^ Louis XIV. embraces an Augustan literature of the greatest conceivable splendour, and even this has not been worthily treated in English. The seventy years' reign of this self-sufficient patron of learning and culture succeeded immediately upon the dark days of the Fronde ; and in more than one sense he dispersed the ominous shadows which had already begun to creep up from beneath over the fair face of France. The king's motives were selfish, he wanted to be aiiiused; and lience he became a constant friend to men of letters. His court was frequented by men and women to whom the refinements of literature were a boast, and even sometimes a passport. The theatre under Louis XIV. was at the acme of its high repute. The Hotel de Bourgogne, the Italian come- dians, .the companies at the Marais and at the Palais Eoyal, divided the monarch's favours ; but Louis, though selfish, was not without discrimination, and he must receive at least the patron's share of credit for several of Moli^re's inimitable comedies, which, but for him, might never have seen the INTRODUCTION. 19 liglit.^ Amongst the courtiers who were authors appear the Duke de la Eochefoucauld and the Count de Bussy-Eabutin, who paid for his sarcasms by a long exile ; amongst the pulpit orators, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon. With these were Boileau, the "lawgiver of Parnassus," the pun- gent La Bruy^re, the refined and literary ladies Mesdames de la Fayette, de Sdvign^ and de Maiutenon, as well as Eacine, then at the height of his fame, the gentle Fi^nelon, far too libe- ral-minded for his age, the amiable La Fontaine, the judicious Duke de Saint-Simon ; and again, exiles from their native country but still her own children, St. Evremond, Bayle, Le Clerc, Claude, Saurin, and their fellow refugees. Once more, in the dawn of another and perhaps a still Literature greater renovation of intellect, we meet with a bright roll during the of names, amongst which the novelist Le Sage, the far-sighted cenj^™"' pioneers of political and mental progress, Turgot, Montesquieu, Maraiontel, the versatile and courageous Voltaire, the learned encyclopedists d'Alembert, Diderot, and Helv4tius, the psychologists and naturalists Condillac and Buffon, the social reformers Eousseau, and de Saint Pierre, stand forth pre-eminent. ' The revolutionary epoch in France — by which, of course, Literature is meant the epoch wherein the ever-present tlpugh latent from' the^ desire for human equality in the Gallic race finally broke all Re™!"'""" bounds, and entered upon that struggle which has succeeded, presentday. or must succeed, in establishing the central fixed idea of its genius — was an age of literary as well as of political and social ferment, and the strife issued in the emancipation of Icjtters as of institutions and men. Amidst that chaos of conflict and destruction lived and wrote the eloquent Mirabeau, Maury, Sieyfes, Desmoulins ; authors who met the full brunt of the Tenor, and succumbed to it, like M. A. de Chenier, Saint ^ See the introductory notices to Ban Jvian and TaHuffe in my Transktion of Molibre's Dramatic Works, 1875-1876. 30 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. Just, Madame Eoland ; men who emerged from it bearing the manifest traces of that long agony, Volney, Necker, Joseph de Maistre. The struggle over, and the short period of natural exhaustion past, after the splendid disgrace of the first Empire, and when for once the intellect of France had per- ceived that, if she fell back from the van of thought and civilisation, England and Germany were more than able to assume her place, the best and most durable triumphs of the revolution began to be realised, not merely in political freedom, orderly self-government, commercial prosperity, but also in the fields of learning and art. From Madame de Stael, Chateaubriand, P. L. Courier, Benjamin Constant, we pass on through the brilliant age of Louis Philippe to the giants of modern history, the wizards of romance, the pundits of criti- cism, the novelists, dramatists, philosophers, who restored their country to something like its old supremacy, and ushered in the teeming mental activity of the present day. iginof Such is the literature with which we have to deal; an tion!"^ undertaking full of interest and responsibility, but which carries with it its own justification. And if we pass from the facts to the causes of those facts, we shall find that the intellectual history of France is the history of a nation which, though Gallic or Celtic in its origin, is a legitimate heir of the ancient Latin race — a race in which Englishmen them- selves have an interest of relationship, and in whose trans- mitted genius we must necessarily feel a hearty sympathy wherever we meet with its traces. France represents in a special degree the development of the Latin civilisation, more fully, if not more directly, than Italy. She was the chosen, if not the natural home, of Eoman culture and refinement durin(» the later years of the Empire's decline, even before the trans- ference of the sceptre from Italy to Byzantium had robbed the seat of the Casars of its principal allurements. As we shall see hereafter, the last of the Eoman emperors set Gaul INTRODUCTION. 21 in their affections higher than the city which had heen the boast and glory of their ancestors, and Gaul herself returned the embrace of her conquerors with all the euthusiasm of fascination. Eoman arts, Eonian letters, Eoman habits and fashions, became the touchstone of the siniple Gauls, and of the still more impressionable Franks, who, in their turn, con- quered and were absorbed by Gaul. And yet again, if France has played the part of mistress to Europe, courted in succession by each strong race, yielding to them her beauty and her soul, now by compulsion, now by voluntary self-substitution ; if she has triumphed over all by the glamour of her charms, and tyrannised over all in the fulness of her pride, she has also taken from each in turn the impression of their several exc.ellencies, and has moulded her many-sided heart into a reflex of all who have had commerce with her. Eome was her first love, and stamped its charac- teristics upon her virgin soul ; but after Eome came the Frank, the Goth, the Iberian, the Norman, the Englishman ; and, loved of many, yet retaining her own individuality, she reflects back upon all her lovers with subtlest flattery their refined and ennobled lineaments. No wonder that Europe looks upon France as the spoiled beauty of the Caucasian family, admiring and loving her even though it may be con- strained to be cruel in its love. There is yet another and more prosaic reason why we Reasons foi should, in this age and generation, address ourselves to the French"^ study of French literature. The epoch of- the revolution was I'terature. not favourable to the student and the critic, and we have already seen that between the reigns of Louis XV. and Louis Philippe there occurred a period of comparative dearth, when the turmoil of political strife overclouded for a time the fields of moral and intellectual progress. It was natural that, under these circumstances, the records of French literature should fall into arrears, that men should lose sight of biographical 22 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. and incidental details which would otiierwise have been more carefully preserved, that facts should be overloolied and documents laid aside. It had happened thus to a much greater degree both in France and England during the fifteenth century ; for a protracted period of war is of necessity a period of more or less intellectual darkness. The end of the eighteenth century resembled in some respects the beginning and middle of the fifteenth ; and it is in any case a fact that critics and historians of the First Empire and the Eestoration could not at once lay their hands on all the materials necessary to com- plete the literary history of their predecessors. But during the past half-centiiry many fresh materials have been brought to light, and many forgotten documents are now at our service which liave never, in England at least, been categorically "arranged for the purpose which they are calcukted to serve. Examples of this advance in the value of our knowledge are hardly necessary, but we may instance the new light which has been thrown by recent researches upon the personal his- tory of Moliere, and the handful of papers which have served to cast a shadow on the character of Montaisue. 3 man From all that has been said, I trust the inference is clear, that the literature of a country is a reflex of that country's history. Tlie history of human society, whether in its politi- cal or in its domestic aspects, is, more or less definitely, a succession of biographies and biographical details ; and this is precisely what we discover at the base of all literary niove- pients. The book is the man holding commerce with his fellows ; the man is the exemplar and epitome of his day and generation. From the documents of a past a"e we can in some sense reconstruct the age, and he will prove himself the most faitliful historian who most clearly realises this. fact. The rhere piecing together of documents, poems, chronicles, and State papers will not suffice for genuine history ; we must perceive behind these the living and breathiuo- men and I the ik. INTRODUCTION. 23 women. Moreover, no literature will be found to be more truly the reflex of a nation's history than that which it is our design to study, unless it be the literature of England. French writers have written with their souls in theii work, even when the soul was hollowest and its feelings least genuine. Wliatever we may find of mannerism in Trench literature is but a proof that the words bear the impress of the man who wrote them, and mannerism is a characteristic of French literature. Few Frenchmen could be named whose style would not at once recur to us, with its own specialities of expression, its own excellencies or tricks of language. The reason is that the nation writes as it thinks, straight from the heart, or from the fancy, or from the mood of the hour ; and from this straightforwardness it has arisen that its litera- ture is, in a peculiar and remarkable degree, a reflection of its history. The value of such a literature is manifest. It is lifted by virtue of its speciality above the mere lists of authors and their works, the tables of contents and dramatis personce, the abstracts and excerpts which are often called upon to do ser- vice as a " history of literature." It becomes, in fact, rather a literature of history, or better, a history of men and things in their best aspects and from the worthiest point of view. HISTORY OF YMMK LITERATURE. BOOK I. ORIGIN OF THE FEENCH NATION. CHAPTEE I. § 1. THE CELTS AND THE IBERIANS. The Iberians were the vanguard of 'the invading races who overwhelmed and swept before them the oldest known in- habitants of Western Europe— the Celts. These latter, in pre-historic times (so far, at least, as France and Spain are concei'ned), had been driven h&cli before the immigration of the eastern races ; but they held their ground in the extreme west, and are to this day represented amongst the European family, by characteristics of race, manners, and even physio". nomy. In France their descendants have their principal home in the north-western part of the promontory of Brit- tany ; in Spain they may be recognised to the north-west of a line drawn from Bilbao to the mouth of the Guadalquivir. K. W. von Humboldt has shown, chiefly by considerations of geographical nomenclature, that on the eastern side of this line there remains hardly a single trace of the Celtic tongue ; the primeval names of mountains, rivers, and other physical features of the earth's surface being germane to the present- Basque language, which has few points in common with any 2b HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book i. other existing tongue. And he concurs with other writers worthy of credit in identifying the ancient Iberians with the modern Basques. The Iberians, at the dawn of their authentic history, occupied the southern part of Spain and France, from the line above mentioned as far east as the mouth of tliC Amo. No doubt the Aquitanians, whom Strabo^ represents as differing in language and appearance from the rest of Gaul, belonged to this ancjent race, the connection of which with the great Indo-European family is lost in obscurity. They were possibly themselves an indigenous European race, driven back upon the Celts by tlie invading tribes which so per- sistently trod upon their heels. A curious etymological coincidence^ tends to confirm us in this supposition. In the Basque tongue we find the words atzean, signifying " behind," and atzea, signifying a "foreigner." The Iberian, we may suppose, had made common cause with the Celt, who was in like case with himself, whilst the ever-encroaching Goth and Erank, who pressed upon him in the rear, became generalised as " the people behind him." It was not, however, in'pre-historic times that Brittany, the old Armorica, became the asylum of the Celt. In the time of Julius Csesar — that is, during the century preceding the Christian era — the Celts occupied that corner of Europe which we now call France, being protected upon the east by the natural boundary of the Alps and the Ehine. The Celtic race is divided into two branches ; and of these the Cimbrian branch, or Cymris, were chiefly settled between the Loire and the Seine, in the north-west of the country ; whilst the Gallic branch, the Gaels or Gauls, occupied the middle. The lead- ing tribes of the Gallic race are described by Julius Csesar ' The Geography ot Strabo, ed. Hamilton and Falconer, 1. lilj. iv. § 1. ' K. W. vou Humbolilt, rriifung der Uittermchungen liber die XJrbemohner Hlspaniens, vermitldst der SaskiKchen SpracJie, p. 139, CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 27 under the name of Arvernians, Aeduans, and Sequanians. It was with these that he came into closest contact ; and, taking the name by which they were known amongst themselves, he applies it, in a Latinised form, to the whole country between tho Ocean and the Ehine, and calls it Gallia. The Gallic league, as Caesar found it constituted, comprised the whole middle region of Gaul, from the neighbourhood of Quercy (Cadurci) in the south to Clermont (Gergovia) in the north, and from Besan^ou ( Vesoniid) on the east to the basin of the lower Garonne. Into this league two powerful tribes on the south-east refused to enter ; the Allobrogians, occupy- ing the ' western slopes of the Alps, nearly correspond- ing with Savoy, and the Helvetians, peopling the modern Switzerland. On the north-east were the Belgians — themselves, probably, not the last of the Celtic race who crossed the lower Ehine. Their western boundary — still ■ referring to the date of Julius Caesar's invasion — ran, from the coast a little to the west of Amiens, passed between Clermont and Beauvais (in the district of the Bellovaci), and so through Champagne to the source of the Marne. They formed no strong confederations, being kept, no doubt, in a state of ceaseless disturbance by continual irruptions across their eastern boundary. It was, in fact, not long after the commencement of the Christian era that the western banks of the Ehine, as far, at the farthest point, as the modern Sedan, had acquired the name of Upper and Lower Germany. Such, in mere outline, was the subdivision of Gaul at the time of the Eoman invasion. However, no account is taken of the ancient colonies on the Mediterranean, the offshoots of Greek, . Eoman, and other eastern civilisations ; of which Marseilles and Narbonne were the most celebrated. Into the liistorical origin of, the early inhabitants of Trance it would not serve our purpose to enter more deeply ; but it will repay us to inquire into their personal and social characteristics. 28 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. m6vi\. The typical Gaul seems to Lave been of medium height, coming between the taller German and the shorter Eoman ; of fair complexion, with ruddy cheeks, blue eyes, and long Mght-coloured hair. He was spare of form ; his head round, eyes large, nose and chin and forehead rounded off — " a face blunted like a well-worn river pebble ;" beard and whiskers short, or entirely absent. The type is familiar, and may be met with in any hap-hazard assembly of Frenchmen ; but it is still most abundant in Auvergne, in the Cevennes, and in Savoy. The Belgians were larger in the head, taller, with squarer foreheads, more pointed noses, more luxuriant beards. Such is still the description most applicable to the French- men dwelling north of the Seine, and eastwards in the direction of Belgium ; whilst in the south-west, between the Garonne and the Pyrenees, we find to this day a darker, smaller, more sombre, and more enduring race, cognate in appearance as in the blood with the Spaniards of the north. The Gaul, again, was full of fire and dash ; eager for the battle, but not patient under its hardships ; full of spirit, both in war and in peace — in the war of words as well as of arms. The Gallic race, says Cato, is passionately devoted to these two things : fighting well, and speaking shrewdly. Italians have a byword which speaks of the/iwm francese; the Frenchman himself has another, when he boasts of his esprit de finesse. They are the two principal key-notes of the French character. With all their dash — 4lan is their apt modern word — they have never been permanently stron" in the field ; and this because they were lacking in two essen- tials — enduring and cunning. ■ Dion Cassius ^ accuses them of timidity. Ctesar^ puts it that " as the temper of the Gauls is impetuous and ready to undertake wars, so their mind is weak and by no means resolute in enduring calamities.'' And 1 Lib. xvii. c 6. » De Bdlo Gallico, lib. iii. c. 19. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 29 again, Strabo ^ says : '■ The entire race ... is warlike . . . tut otherwise simple . . . thus they are easily vanquished by those who employ stratagem. 'For any one may exasperate them when, where, and under whatever pretext he pleases ; he will always find them ready for danger, with nothing to support them except their violence and daring." " The value of Frenchmen in battle has often been tested. When we see the Gauls hurling themselves upon the Romans with a blind fury, and the latter awaiting them unmoved, or, by a slight avoidance, letting the sword of the Gaul bury it- self in the earth, and then unerringly smiting their enemy, disarmed by his own dash, we think inevitably of the Gaels and their claymores at CuUoden, or of the French at Poitiers, at Crecy, at Agincourt, rushing upon the English archers, who, as Froissart says, sat coolly waiting for them, and then rose all together, with thorough unanimity and calmness, and crushed them as the Romans crushed the Gauls." So writes Ampere, himself a Frenchman, whose accurate and candid estimate of the characteristics of his race it would be difficult to improve upon. The conservation of the old Gallic type is remarkable ; but in tracing it down the current of successive ages it will be necessary for us to avoid the many false and conflicting judgments of historians, both ancient and modern, who have been misled, now by ignorance, now by favourable or unfavourable prejudice. The writer just quoted points out two notable inconsistencies in Latin historians, which may serve as examples of the danger arising from the incautious adoption of any single authority, however re- putedly trustworthy. Cicero, in his Oration for Fonteius, stigmatises the Gauls as inimical to all religion. He spoke indeed as a special pleader, but he doubtlessly believed, in this instance, what he said ; for this is not the only passage in which he levels the same shaft against*the Gauls. Caesar, 1 1., lib. iv. § 2. 30 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book I. on the other hand, who had had better opportunities of ob- taining a knowledge of the country than his eloquent contem- porary, says : " The nation of all the Gauls is extremely devoted to s,uperstitious rites." ^ Again, Strabo^ says that the Gauls were wont to combine in " crowds and vast num- bers" for the accomplishment of their designs. Assuming this, and contrasting the acknowledged fondness of the Iberians for isolated fighting — the guerilla warfare of modern Spain — we might suppose ourselves to have arrived at the source of the respective characteristics of the two races as we now know them. But It would be necessary to correct this view by the light of Caesar's explicit statement, that, not only in the towns, but in every district, almost in every house, there were divi- sions between opposing parties of men.' The Gauls were rather brave than courageous ; brave, that is, in the sense of being fond of display and of defiance. They braved their enemies with their dashing onslauglit and their whirling broadsword ; they braved their friends with gay and splendid garments, with necklaces and bracelets of gold, with the virgatis sagulis* which answered to the tartans of the Scottish Gaels. The figure of a Gallic chieftain is before us as we write, enlarged by Hueher from ancient coins. His tunic (Lat sarpim, Fr. saie) falls just below tlie thiglis. It is gathered in at the waist by a cord, ending in two tassels, which were evidently of elaborate make, and apparently orna- mented, above the knots, with rings of bronze or gold. Lap- pets fall over the shoulders from behind, and these have a deep edging, doubtless of some richer and gayer material. The helmet is adorned by six rays, three on each side, which, if they were likewise composed of metal, would serve to protect the neck and shoulders from tlie blows of an enemy's sword. On the throat is a boss of gold or bronze, which must have ^ De Sella Oallico, Ifli. vi. c. 16. » p., lib. iv. c. 2. » De Bella Oallico, lib. vi. c. 2-10. •• Eunius, lib. viii. v. 660. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. ■ 31 been attached either to a necklet, or to the fastenings of the helmet. In his right hand the chief holds his javelin and ensign — the latter evidently a very elaborate ornament, repre- senting the emblematic wild boar. The left hand rests upon a shield. Such was the gorgeous panoply with which the Gallic warrior went to battle ; and his horse was as gaily caparisoned as himself. Amongst the institutions of the ancient Gauls, we find, of course, those wkich are common to all races in their in- fancy ; such as slavery, polytheism, contempt for women and children. If we were to confine ourselves to the accounts of Roman historians — which accounts are, in fact, almost all that we have to go by — we should be driven to conclude tliat the condition of the Gauls in these three respects was quite as bad as, if not worse than that of other uncivilised races. No doubt much that these historians tell us is true. The slave in Eome, according to Eoman law, was " non tarn vilis quam nullvs ;" and even before the Eoman law was adopted in Gaul, the Gallic slave was perhaps equally insignificant. According to CsEsar,^ he used to be immolated on the tomb of his master, that he might serve him in the other world. There were " but two classes worthy of note," the priest and the warrior ; the residuum were slaves ; either men of war, following their masters to the battle, and doing their behests in time of peace, or attached to the soil, and sharing in its good or evil fortunes. In religion the Gauls were Druidic; the Druids constiti\ting the governing class, in whose hands were the legislation, the administration, the education, the divination, the general tutelage of the state. They were, moreover, the poets, tlie seers, the oracles, and interpreters of the mysterious ; adding the sanction of superstition to the stern authority of the warrior-chiefs, and feared,, in the frequent absence of the latter from home, perhaps still more than when they were 1 De Bella GalUco, lib. vi. c. 19. J HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK I; resent. It is true that the religion of Druidism was rather antheistic than polytheistic ; though in Southern Gaul, mongst the Iberians and the Greek and Eoman colonists n the Mediterranean, the impure fetishism of Egypt and the ifined idolatry of the Aryan race prevailed. The condition of women and children in Europe during le ages to which we refer was such as to make us hesitate hether we ought to place the Indo-European races in the an of civilisation, or man himself above the brutes. Women ere bought and sold, defined by law as disposable property, ?.pudiated at will, hired out by their husbands for gold, pro- ;ituted on the very altar of the gods, held to labour like the lost degraded of slaves, left to die in their old age, or killed ) assuage the displeasure of their brutal owners. In Gaul le tillage of the ground was one of their special duties; hilst, as for the children, those that were sickly or crippled ere rarely allowed to live. There was no sanctity in mar- age, save by-way of exception ; no homage from the strong ) the weak, save by way of appetisation to lust ; no ease and ixury for women in the domestic life, save when a man of 'ealth set store by his wives and concubines, as amongst the ^t costly and ornamental of his possessions. In the ancient orld there were many temples raised in honour of adultery ad prostitution ; not one to the purity of conjugal affection.^ a brief, the liberty, faith, unselfish love, which are the three jntral and purifying instincts of modern life, were amongst le ancients all but empty names ; or, more precisely, the ames of hideous vices enthroned in virtue's place. So much being admitted, it remains to be said that the ■orst part of this corruption came into Europe from the east, nd into Gaul from Eome and Greece. The stream of Te- nement and mental cultivation flowed, no doubt, in the hannel which brought the Pelasgians and Etruscans to the 1 Lavallee, Eistoire des Fran^ais, 19th edition, 1874, vol. i., p. 14. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 33 Mediterranean shores ; tut the stream of moral civilisatiou flowed southwards in Europe, and had its source and tribu- taries in our own regions of the globe. The barbarians who hurled themselves in successive hordes upon the disciplined armies of Eome, and who ended by overwhelming the mis- tress of the world, were the real pioneers of human regenera- tion ; and even in the darkest phases of their history they displayed the germs of their inherent power. It is not to the classical influence alone, though it may be to it in the main, that we must look for the dawn of learnintt in north-western Europe — for the brilliant effulgence of Kterary and social culture which we know by the name of the Eenaissance, and for the full splendour of mental refinement in which it has been our happy lot to be born. It is, at most, the marriage of the North and the South to which we owe the fertility of modern thought ; and in that marriage the South, with all her rich apparel and dowry of lettered grace, was the bride, whilst the virile intellect and reproductive energy of the North was necessary to bring to birth the stupendous issue of their union. The fact cannot be too strongly insisted upon. It would indeed be absurd to grudge the credit which has been assigned to Greece and Eome for their share in the in- tellectual fertilisation of the modern world ; ^ but undoubt- edly the panegyric bestowed upon them has frequently been excessive, and at times immoderate. The bright dawn of Gallic literature, the galaxy wherein moved the morning stars of French song, owed but little of its brightness to classical ideas ; and the same is true of the literary infancy of the rest ^ "Dans ces trois peuples, les Grecs, les Romaing, les Hebreux, ^tait I'avenir de I'humanit^. " — Lavallee, Histoire des Frangais, vol. i. p. 18. It is impossible not to dissent, (oto orbe, from this judgment of a shrewd and generally impartial writer, who has in this instance done too little justice to his own Gallic ancestors. As for the influence of the Hebrews on modem thought, we shall not be held to undervalue it when we have occasion to speak of the eflfeet of Christian literature on the literature of France. VOL. I. * D 34 HISTORY OF FRENCH UTERA TURE. book 1. of northern Europe. N"or had Greek or Latin learning or imagination — notwithstanding what is generally thought to be the case — made any remarkable impression upon such men as Villon, Marot, and Rabelais, without whom, it is hardly too much to say, French literature is not. Let us revert to the social characteristics which, as we have admitted, and particularly in respect of three distinct features, leave their blot upon the early history of Gallic society. It is trae that the institution of slavery took strong root in Gaul, especially after the Eomaa infusion. And yet nothing is more certain than that the struggle for equality was always one of the dominant ideas of the Gallic race, which has distinguished it from the very first to the very last page of its history. The Teutonic nations have preferred liberty to equality, and the highest and lowest ranks have, times without number, united to shed their blood in the con- quest of political freedom. The Gauls and their descendants, on the other hand, have often consented without a murmur to a condition of political servitude, engrossed in the paramount desire to attain a greater degree of equality between rich and poor. Here was, at all events, a notable redeeming feature, which elevated them, even in their savage days, above the aver- age level of savages. It was manifested in Caesar's time by a remarkable institution, according to which the soil of the coun- try was redistributed every year, in order, as Caesar says, that " the common people might be in a contented state of mind when each sees his own means placed on an equality with those of the most powerful." ^ In religion, again, the Gauls could compare favourably with the Aryan and Egyptian races, who had attained a certain, degree of civilisation before them. Bar- barous as were some of the rites of Druidism, the Druids taught men to worship one God, with a worship which derived its cruelty from the prevailing tone of a warlike age, but i Do Bdlo Gallico, lib. vi. c. 22. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 35 which was not a mere hollow idolatry. Such considerations as these justify us in saying that, although the Teutonic in- vaders were superior to the Gauls, in their respect for liberty, in. their method of worship, and in their care for women and children, the Gauls were in these respects little, if at all, behind the Greek and Latin invaders, from whom they learned such invaluable lessons of civilisation. § 2. Eemains of Celtic Poetry. There were, as has been observed, two distinct races In Gaul previous to the arrival of the Eomans — the Iberians of the south-west, in the district known as Aquitaine, and the Celts of the north. These latter were described by Julius Caesar as Celts and Gauls, between whom he distinguished a difference of speech. The " Celts " of the north-west, per- haps, belonged to the Cymric branch of the family, and were allied more closely than the Gauls with the Cymri of Eng- land, "Wales, and Ireland. It is impossible in this age to discriminate, in any important sense, between the Gauls proper and the Armorican branch, and no noteworthy error will be incurred by adhering to the commonly-accepted term of "Gauls," in referring to the inhabitants of the whole northern and eastern country — that is, to the bulk of the nation which we now call French. Even as regards the language of the Celts, it would be difficult to trace, in the modern French tongue, many distinctions between the old Gallic and Cymric. M. Ampere has pointed to a few in- stances ; and he reminds us that, as late as the fifth century, Sulpicius Severus, in his dialogues on the life of St. Martin, makes one of his interlocutors say : — "Speak to us in Celtic or in Gallic, so long as you speak to us of Martin ;" which shows that the two forms noted by Julius Caesar were still ) HISTORY OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. BOOK i. dant. And St. Gregory, in the sixth century, employs the ord " fol " more gallico, as he explains it.^ Beyond this time we find no evidence of a distinctly Cel- c speech beyond the borders of Brittany ; where it had been ) some extent reinforced in the fourth century by a colony f Welsh, wlio settled there under the auspices of the surper Maximus. After them Armorica was called Petite- 'retagne, Little Britain.^ Here, to this day, the Cymric form I Celtic has endured with a certain kind of vitality ; though ot to such a remarkable degree as in Wales and in Ireland, 'f a Celtic alphabet in Gaul there is no satisfactory trace ; hilst Caesar ^ informs us that the Gauls made use of Greek iiaracters, a remnant, no doubt, of the Phoenician importations. the Phoenicians, in fact, whose commercial relations with ■estern Europe, and with Gaul in particular, date from a eriod at all events anterior to the sixth century before Christ, le country owed not merely its earliest models of Greek civili- ition but also many of the characteristics of its religion — lany of the. distinctive features of Druidism itself. Human nmolations had their origin, probably enough, in the instincts f human nature ; but the osier-baskets filled with men and uimals, and fired by the hand of the priest, bear a resem- lance ^whieh can hardly be accidental to the brazen statue of loloch. The worship not only of Moloch but of Astarte, of iel (Belenus), of the Tyrian Hercules, found its unmistakable jflection in the religion of Gaul. Gregory of Tours mentions hill in Auvergne which was known to him under the name f Mons Belenatensis. In the Highlands of Scotland and in reland, the first of May went at one time by the name La ' Ampfere, Eisioire littirairc de la France, vol. i. prelim, ch. 2. ' See History of English Poetry by Warton, ed. by "W. Carew Hazlitt, )1. i., p. 95, note 6, in which the probability of^ a colony of Welsh anderiug into Armorica is discussed, as well as the time of their settling lere. ' De Bella Gallico, lib. vi. c. 14. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 37 Bealteine, and in the Isle of Man a priest was called Belec; and it is not impossible that Ampere may be right in tracing to the worship of the Babylonian Bel the common phrase of " being between two fires." The practice of driving the flock between two fires subsisted until recent times in the wUds of Ireland. The Druids were themselves divided into three orders ; the Ouadd, the Druid proper, and the Bard.^ The Ouadd was the wielder of the sacrificial knife, and performed the most menial or ordinary duties of Druidic ritual. The Druid pro- per, who derived his name from the Cymric dei-w, the oak, was the divining priest, the oracle and interpreter, who pre- sided at religious rites, who cut the sacred mistletoe, and was supposed to be in direct communion with Deity. The Bard was the inspired prophet and poet, the bearer of the harp, who sang the sacred mysteries of religion. He was the vehicle of learning, transmitted from generation to generation by means of verses which he had ccMght from the lips of his predecessors, and which he instilled into the minds of his pupils. He was at once the poet, the historian, and the teacher of his race ; and to him the warrior chiefs looked to inflame the passions of the people on the eve of war. The Druidic poetry was never committed to writing, and hardly a trace of it — at all events of the ancient Gallic poetry — survives. Lucan, indeed, a Span- iard by birth, has a passage in his poem Fharsalia, the scene of which is partly laid in Gaul, which is in aU probability in- spired — to say the least of it— by the same thoughts which inspired the ancient bards. The passage is as follows : — " There was a grove, never violated during long ages, which with its knitted branches shut in the darkened air and the cold shade, the rays of the suri being far removed. This no rustic Pans, and Fauns, and Nymphs, all-powerful in the groves, 1 Toland, History of the Dr^dds, ed. Huddleston, 1814, second letter S3-4. 38 HISTOR V OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book i. possessed, but sacred rites of the gods, barbarous in their cere- monial, and elevations crowned with ruthless altars, and every tree was stained with human gore. If at all, antiquity, struck with awe at the gods of heaven, has been deserving of belief j upon these branches, too, the birds of the air flew to perch, and the wild beasts to lie in the caves ; nor does any wind blow upon those groves, and lightnings hurled from the dense clouds ; a shudder- ing in themselves prevails among the trees that spread forth their branches to no breezes. Besides, from black springs plenteous water falls, and the saddened images of the gods are devoid of art, and stand unsightly, formed from hewn trunks. ■ The very mouldiness and paleness of the rotting wood now renders people stricken with awe ; not thus do they dread the deities consecrated with ordinary forms ; so much does it add to the terror not to know what gods they are in dread of. Fame, too, reported that full oft the hollow caverns roared amid the earthquake, and that yews that had fallen rose again, and that flames shone from a grove that did not burn, and that serpents embracing the oaks entwined around them. The people throng that place with no approaching worship, but have left it to the Gods. When Phoebus is in the mid sky, or dark night possesses the heavens, the priest himself dreads the approach, and is afraid to meet with the guardian of the grove." ' The sacred forests of the Druids unquestionably live in modern literature, reappearing under the name of enchanted forests in the fabliaux and legends of later days. Such was the forest of Brockeliand, in Brittany, with its dark lake, whereof the surface being disturbed, a storm forthwith arose, and wonderful events took place ; which sceptical Wace ex- plored in the twelfth century, and, finding nothing, wrote : — " Merveilles quis mais ne trouvai, Fol m'en revins, fol y allai." The Druidic bards were, in one phase, when they showed themselves sufficiently degraded to become the parasites of a powerful chief, forerunners of the most mercenary jongleun ^ Pharsalia, ed. Eiley, tk. 3, r. 398 CHAP. 1. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 39 and troubadours of ten centuries later. Poseidonius, a con- temporary of Cfesar, relates a story of Luern, the most powerful " King " amongst the Arvernians. One day, when he had given a great feast, a certain bard, who had been delayed in his arrival, found Luern on the point of depart- ure ; and not willing to lose his opportunity, he ran beside the king's chariot, and sang some impromptu verses, in which he extolled Liiern and lamented his own delay. Luern' took a purse of gold from one of his attendants and flung it to the bard ; who, having picked it up, renewed his song in these words : — " The earth over which thy chariot-wheels pass in- stantly brings forth gold and precious gifts to enrich man- kind."i To the Druidic bards succeed the natural inheritors of their poetic gifts, the lay musicians who, in the six or seven centuries after Christ, hung upon the trains of mighty monarchs, or shared, in the mountain passes of western Europe, the straitened liberty of the unconquei-ed Celts. In Brittany, however, we search for them in vain ; but they made their home for many generations in "Wales and Scot- land. Of these the most celebrated were Taliessin and Merlin, whom a deathless tradition has preserved from generation to generation in loving memory. They are described as Christians and warriors ; Christians who de- spised the monks, and warriors who did not love bloodshed for its own sake. In an early legend Taliessin is represented as saying contemptuously of the monks, " They know not the signs of the dawn ; they cannot tell the path of the wind." And Merlin : " I will not receive the sacraments from these hateful black-clad monks; God Himself shall give me His sacraments."^ If such was the language of Arthur's bard, no ' TMs story is differently related in Wartou's History of English Poetry, yol. i. p. 135, note 3. ' Amp&re, Histoire lUteraire de la France, vol. i. prelim, ch. iii. 56. 40 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book i. wonder Merlin has been stigmatised to all ages as a sorcerer. And however apocryphal may be all that we know of the utterances of Merlin, the Arthurian legends bear out the notion that the Christianity of the ancient Britons, and of their bards in particular, was but slightly sympathetic with the spirit of sacerdotalism. The bardic poetry of Britain was doubtless of much the same 'character with the bardic poetry of Brittany ; but, un- fortunately, the latter has been lost in obscurity. There is indeed the tradition of a Breton bard of the fifth or sixth century, known by the name of Guinklan ; and it is possible that even yet some relics of his songs may be brought to light. But the evidences of a national Gallic poetry in the first seven or eight centuries of the Christian era are extremely slight. Marie de France, a trouv^re of the twelfth century, speaks of certain lais Iretons^ from which she professes to have taken the subjects of several of her fabliaux. But only one of these fabliaux deals with the traditions of the Eound Table. The themes of the rest are such as might be indige- nous in any part of France ; and thus, even if Mary learned them in Brittany, they may, as probably as not, have passed thither from Normandy. Nevertheless, the Arthurian legends are found current in France at the very dawn of her Middle- Age literature, and form the staple of her chivalric poetry ; which adds a confirmation to the belief that the subjects, the spirit, and the manner of the post-Druidic bards were all but identical in Britain and in Gaul.^ § 3. Eemains of Iberian Poetey. Amongst the traces which the ancient Iberians have left behind them in Aquitaine, Languedoc, and Provence, we may \ See Warton's Stsior^ of English Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, vol. i., pp. 93-95, and p. 163, on the Lais of Marie de France. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 106, note 3. CHAP I. ORIGIN OF THE. FRENCH NATION. 41 mention certain names of places ; whereof Calagorris, in Aqui- taine (now Caz^res in the department of the Ariege), is an ex- ample, and whicl|. is clearly identical with Calahorra, in the north-east of Spain. Now the Basques of Spain and the Gascons of France are both representatives of the old Vascones, a later appellation of the Iberians ; and Calahorra is but the Basque form of the Gascon Calagorris, the name being given to two towns, one on either side of the Pyrenees, by the same Iberian i-cice. A French historian has enumerated nineteen names of localities in Southern Gaul which are repeated in slightly different forms in the north of Spain. Nomenclature is, how- ever, oue of the least important aspects in which the opposite slopes of the Pyrenees declare to this day the common origin of their original inhabitants. The most distinctive feature, and the one which most assists our present investigations, is the similarity of personal diaracteristics, habits, and bent of thought between the two branches of the same race ; a simi- larity which displays itself through successive ages of history, which can be traced in every epoch of literature, and the remembrance of which will guide us to right conclusions where we might otherwise readily go astray. The Iberian character, as already observed, was especially lively, uncon- strained, off-hand, independent, even eccentric. The Gascon spirit is proverbial in more senses than one; gasconnade being neither its best nor its worst element. " It has often been remarked," says M. Ampere, " that in reading the history of France one is astonished at the number of men of naturally easy manners, full of coolness and freedom, who have in every age turned up from the banks of the Garonne. To confine ourselves to literary history, observe the liveliness, the fresh- ness, the readiness which distinguishes the character of many Gascon authors. Do they not all seem to write without pre- meditation? Look at Montaigne, Brantome, d'Aubigne ; has not Montesquieu himself, with his great and serious qualities, 42 HIS TOR V OF FRENCH LITER A TUR E. book i. a certain agility and speed in his temper which seem to be at one with the sprightly and tripping attractiveness of his compatriots ?" The Iberian language was synthetical in the extreme, re sembling in the multiplicity of its inflexions no European lan- guage so much as that of the Lapps, and none more than those of the Indian tribes of North America. In this respect it can have had but slight influence upon the Gallic tongue, and even less uppn the amalgamated speech which we now call French. The tendency of grammatical laws was against it ; the natural selection which has exhibited itself in language as much as iu anything else, favoured, as we know, the Teu- tonic syntax, the Indo-European vocabulary. Nevertheless, the Gascon vocabulary has made some contributions to the modern French, of which only a very small proportion can be problematically traced back to their origin.'^ In the matter of alphabets the Iberians were superior to the Gauls ; for they used more than one. That which has been most fully deciphered comes tolerably near to the Greek alphabet of sixteen characters, and was perhaps introduced by the Phoenicians. Of the literature of the ancient Iberians, history says very little ; but that little is suggestive. According to Strabo,^ the Turditans, the most cultivated tribe of the Iberians, "understand the use of letters, and possess monuments inscribed with ancient records, poems, and laws in verse, reputed to be six thousand years old. The other Iberians have different alphabets and different tongues." And he J Amongst them are such words as ennui (Basque enojiM, fatigue, dis- content) ; aisi (B. aisia, rest) ; vague (B. bag&, a wave). Larrameudi, Delia Per- fection de al Bascmnce, p. xxi. All these etymologies seem erroneous, or very doubtful. Compare also Diez, ISlymological Dictionary of the Romance Lan- guages, ed. by Doulcin, which gives a, different etymology of the above-men- tioned words. Wedgwood, in his Dictionary of English Etymology, agi-ees in the main with Diez. a -[^^ 3^ ^._ j CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 43 speaks elsewhere of their culture and civilisation. The records of this early poetry are lost to us ; but there exists in the Basque language a curious fragment relating to a stand made against the Romans in the time of Augustus, in the Biscayan mountains. The poem is doubtless of a later date than the battle, but it bears manifest signs of the rudeness of its original form, and the looseness of its transmission from age to age. Its language may have become modified in the process, but it probably represents fairly enough the spirit and the ideas of a very early age. The bare facts of this obstinate resistance to Eoman aggression seem to have been as follows : The Eoman general, unable to force his way through the enemy's position, deter- mined to reduce him by siege, hoping to gain by famine what he could not gain by force. It is said that the siege endured for several years, and was terminated at last by a pact honourable to both parties. Thus runs the poem in question : — "The strangers from Eome wished to take Biscay by force; and Biscay raised the song of war. Octavian (is) the lord of the earth ; Lecobidi of the Bis- cayans. From the ocean, from the land ; Octavian besieges us. The parched plains are theirs ; (ours are) the woods of the mountains, and the caves. Favourably were we placed; each (of us) firm in his courage. Light (is our) fear when our arms meet ; (but) our vessel of bread thou (art) Hi-stored. K they wear strong armour; the undefended bodies (are) active. For five years, day and night ; without any rest the siege endures. When they slay one of us ; fifteen of them (are) destroyed. They being many, and we a little band ; in the end we make peace. 44 HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book i. § 4. Influence of Greece on Gaul. The most remote influences of Greek civilisation on Gaul were probably those which came in the train of Phoenician commerce. With the earliest Phoenicians there appear to have come a number of Ehodian settlers, who christened the Ehone (Ehodanus) after their native island, and built a town on its banks which bore the name of Ehodamisia. Of the Phoenician influence something has already been said ; and it remains to be seen in what manner the Greeks them- selves, contemporaries of the Phoenician merchants, who, either independently of, or in conjunction with them, settled from time to time on the Gallic sea-board, availed themselves of this new outlet of their genius. Herodotus does not men- tion Marseilles, though the colony was founded about a cen- tury before his time ; and it is significant of the scant- ness of geographical knowledge amongst the Greeks in those days that the "father of history" makes the Danube rise in the Pyrenees. Even Diodorus Siculus, writing after Julius Caesar, speaks of the rivers of Gaul as being covered with ice. Strabo has preserved a fragment of Aeschylus, in which Prometheus tells Hercules how he came to the land of the Ligurians, and, being attacked by them, and having emptied his quiver, Jupiter sent him a cloud of stones. The aUu- siou seems, from Strabo's context, to be to the plain of La Crau, on the left bank of the Ehone, which is covered with alluvial boulders for several miles in extent. And thus it happens that the country which, out of all Europe, was destined to receive the most notable impressions from Greek literature was itself the first to contribute to that literature, in however indirect a manner, a similitude for one of its grandest poets. The date of the foundation of Marseilles is about 600 b.g CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 45 ' Massalia was built by Phocaean colonists from Asia Minor ; and in the time of Caesar (who took it by storm in his Pom- peian wars) it was at once the most prosperous and the most civilised town in Gaul. According to Strabo there was not a single man of leisure in Massalia who did not devote himself to rhetoric or philosophy. The whole southern coast of Gaul, from Spain to Italy, was strung with Greek towns — Narbo (Karbonne), Agath^ Kren^ (Agde), Olbia (Hy^res), Antipolis (Antibes), with the islands of the Stechades, opposite to Mas- salia. Inland also the culture of the colonists extended, the most notable offshoot being at Thelin^, the modern Aries. The constitution of Massalia, and probably of the other Greek settlements, was originally Doric, with an aristocracy as its distinctive feature ; and the " patrician severity " which Tacitus so greatly admires may have had something to do with the radical convictions of the Marseilles of to-day. Their most honoured divinity was the Doric Apollo, and after him Ephesian Diana. Phocaea had itself been founded, on the Asian coast, by emigrants from Phocis and Ionia ; and the Phocseans had imported into Gaul the Diana whose central ' shrine was at Ephesus — the Ionian goddess of Asia, type of material beauty and unfettered natural life ; not the chaste Doric Diana as worshipped by the Greeks at home. Commerce was perhaps the most important vehicle of early Greek civilisation, and it was by commerce, without doubt, that Gallic civilisation learned to make her first strides in advance. The lower Ehone was, from the earliest historic period, a busy artery of commerce, as was the Loire on the west, with the thriving town of Corbilo at its mouth. Not only from historical records, such as the writings of Polybius,^ but also from coins and inscriptions, we learn that Greek civilisation in various forms, religion, political institutions, » Lib. 3. 46 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK I. commerce, the Greek alphabet, and to a certain extent the Greek language, existed in Gaul before the incursions of the Eomans became frequent.-^ Greek art followed in the train of Greek commerce and Greek institutions. Zenodorus of Clermont is mentioned by Pliny as an able sculptor. His statue of Mercuiy earned him such fame that he was sent for to Eome in order to execute a statue of Nero. On the other hand, Greek sculptors worked uoon the bas-reliefs of Gallic monuments. Silver vases and jtatues, ornaments for the house and for the person, have been discovered as far north as Bernay in Normandy and Bavay in rianders, which, though they may have been Gallic in concep- tion, must certainly have been executed by the hands of Greeks. The general persistence of the Greek colonists in the lan- guage, institutions, and ideas of their ancestral race has been remarked upon by many writers, and it was as striking a feature in Gaul as elsewhere. More than this, some have gone so far as to assert that they made their influence felt upon the surrounding race, even to the extent of impressing upon the national literature of their adopted home the stamp of their native country. The fact that it has been so, more or less indirectly, with the pastoral vein of Greek poetry, which has been in different ages imitated by the Latins, the French, and the English, requires no illustration. The troubadours in particular, as we shall hereafter see, affected the graceful thought and style of Theocritus ; and their work maybe de- scribed rather as rivalling than as merely imitating the Greek model. M. FaurieP pushes the observation still further, ^ At Avignon an inscription has teen found wherein occur such forms as KoicTos (quintus), E/)e(/pios (reKoui»Sos, E/ieyj'tu Tpeicevn (Erennio prtesenti), which show that, even after the Eoman invasion, Greek characters continued to be used. At Emporise, a town which must have 6een originally Iberian, then Greek by colonisation, then Eoman by conquest, coins have been found bearing legends in a medley of Iberian, Greek, and Latin characters. ' Mistoire de la Po^sie provencale, vol. i. pp. 83-130 ; vol. ii. pp. 96-98. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 47 maintaining that the aubades and the sdrdnades, a genre which we might think so essentially Prench in its flavour, are but themes upon a note cherished through many ages of recollection from the Greek songs of dawn. The Greeks must not claim all that is exquisite and delicate in art, and we venture to challenge the coiTectness of M. Fauriel's surmise. Another conjecture is that certain early chivalric poems in France had their origin in Greek reminiscences — the adventures of the Proven5al nobleman Eaymond, for instarfce, in the legend of Ulysses. Eaymond Dubousquet was three days tossed upon the sea ; he returned after many wanderings to his Proven9al home, hiding in the hut of a peasant. His castle and his wife had been appropri- ated by an importunate suitor, and, finally, he is recognised while in the bath by the scar of an old wound. The resem- blance here to the story of Ulysses is not to be mistaken ; and, as M. Ampere points out, it is not by the mediation of the schools that this coincidence is to be explained, but only on the supposition that the Odyssey was transmitted from the immigrant Phocseans to their descendants, and from them to the French bards. The Greek tongue was spoken in southern Gaul certainly for six centuries after Christ, and probably for one or two more. When, in the fifth century, Ifestorius wrote to Celes- tine I., Bishop of Eome, a letter in Greek, the latter had to send for a Marseilles scholar to translate it. A hundred years later the Bishop of Aries, having introduced- a new psalmody from the east, directed that the priests and the people should sing alternate verses ; and this, we are told, was done, sometimes in Latin, sometimes in Greek — the latter being introduced clearly on account of the number of people who understood that language without understanding Latin. Of Greek roots in the Provengal dialect there are even now said to be a certain number, whilst in the Middle Ages they were still 48 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. BOOK I. more abundant.^ It would, of course, be unsafe to draw oui illustrations on this point too freely from modern French, although there are instances in which the introduction of a Greek root, or perhaps an idiomatic Greek phrase, may be referred to the period of which we have been speaking ; and if this be true of the French language, it is undoubtedly trae, in a much wider sense, of the Greek spirit. Throughout the successive phases through which we pursue the course of French Literature, we will attempt to make it conspicuously manifest that the mantle of classical culture and intellectual refinement has fallen — not exclusively, but in a marked and special manner — upon the shoulders of France. Form, style, beauty, arrangement, precision, — these have been pre-eminently the virtues at which French authors have aimed, from the dawn to the noonday of their literature. The observance of classical rules and the attainment of classical standards have been the end which they sought, and the crown of their highest efforts ; until that which began by being a purely imitative and dif&dent process became what it- now is — the spontaneous and unfettered exercise of classical taste. In England, also, there was a classical age, the results whereof upon the national style have been permanent (let us hope) and stable ; but, as it was 'not steadily aimed at and cultivated, as in France, so it was less brilliant in its advent, and less effectual in its influence. Moreover, we were in this 1 In early Provensal literature we find some whicli are now obsolete, such as peUch, the sea; styl, a column ; idria,, a vase for water, and the like. Amongst modern Proven9al words possibly of early Greek oripfin one of the most striking is artoun, bread, which is extant in the neighbourhood of Marseilles. See for the Greek elements in the Eomance dialects, F. Diez, Introduction to the Grammar of the Somance Languages, who, however, in his Grammar, states that artoun is not from the Greek dpros, but probably from the Basciue a/rtoa, maize-bread, which Humboldt says meant originally aoom-bread, from artea, a sort of oak. Brachet, in his Etymological French Dictionary, says, "The Greek language has scarcely given anything to the French since the time of its popular formation " CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 49 respect a hundred years behind our neighbours — behind them by at least the interval which elapsed between Eacine and - Addison, or between the youth of Massillon and the old age of Johnson. History and tradition are all but silent as regards the written literature of Massalia, and of the Greeks generally in Gaul. But it would be unjust to omit all mention of Pytheas in a work on French literature. About four centuries before Christ Massalia despatched two travellers — precursors of all African and Arctic expeditions ; — Euthymenes to Senegal, and Pytheas towards the frozen ocean. The latter brought back strange tales of what he had discovered, and he has been amply laughed at for his pains — by Strabo, by Polybius, by Bayle, and others. Undoubtedly Pytheas may have been an insatiable devourer of fables, even if he did not embroider his facts. So also was Herodotus, and travellers of a much later day than that of Mandevilie. One fable of this same Pytheas, related by Apollonius of Khodes — to the effect that a piece of unwrought iron, left overnight on Vulcan's islands of Lipara and Strongyle, whilst at the same time the supposed value of the labour was deposited, would be found next day woiked into a sword or a spearhead — has at least had the credit of inspiring many a legend in succeeding ages. Witness the Valley of the White Horse in Kenilworth, and the legend of the vale 'of Berkshire, which, the missing links supplied, would probably find their origin in the fertile brain of the Massalian. § 5. Influence of Eome in Gaul. After Greece Eome ; in the annals of their national glory, in their entry into Gaul, in the order of their influeqee upon the mind of Prance, in the degree of authority exerted by their respective civilisations. Greece, the commercial nation, VOL. L B JO HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK I. had charmed and penetrated her hosts by her poetry, her rhetoric, her arts ; Eome, tlie militaiy nation, remodelled her victims by her laws, her administration, her moral vigour.^ Something has already been said of the work of Csesar in Gaul. He had so far subjugated the country that there was, at the time of his death, no longer an army that dare face him in the field. But he left much for his successors to do. Cicero, speaking of the consular provinces,^ said : " Great nations have been conquered by Csesar, but they have not yet been bound down by laws, by an undisputed system of justice,^ by a solid peace." The work was undertaken by Augustus and those who wore the purple after him ; and they set themselves steadily to Eomanise the Gallic nationality. Anything like national spirit and patriotism was henceforth a heinous crime, crushed out as soon as it showed itself They established municipalities, and dis- tributed Eoman officials throughout the country, almost entirely irrespective of national needs and traditions. They put back the boundary of Aquitaine from the Garonne to the Loire, thus confounding Iberians and Celts under the super- imposed name of Romans. They made Lyons, then an unim- portant place, the political centre of the country. In some instances the names of places were capriciously altered. Thus Bihracte became Augusto-dumim (Autun) ; and later still it reappears as Flavia. Claudius, himself a Gaul by birth, continued the work of denationalisation. It is true that his methods were more statesmanlike. Cajsar- had admitted the Narbonensians to the Eoman Senate ; Claudius extended the privilege, and, but for his premature death, would have still further conciliated the people. Vespasian, , again, displayed discrimination in his Gallic policy. About a hundred years after the death of Julius Csesar the Gauls ^ See Amp&re, Bistoire litUraire de la France, vol. i. prelim, cli, 6, p. 128. ' De Provindis Consularibus. ' Ccrto jure. CHAP. 1. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 51 made several attempts to regain their independence. Sacrovir, an Aedaan, unable to incite his feUow-couutrymen to war, had stabbed and burnt himself iu his house at Autun. Sabinus not only took up arms, but aspired to the Eoman purple ; and he suffered under Vespasian the natural reward of his temerity. Claudius Civilis followed ; but as his ambi- tion had not gone beyond the liberation of the Batavi, the emperor pardoned him (a.d. 70). In the second century history is all but silent concerning Gaul. It was the age of the Antoninea, and the world had coinparative rest. Then the demoralisation of the Empire fairly set in, and Gaul shared the fate of Eome's other dependencies, and of Eome herself. Tlie legionaries preyed upon the countries in which they were settled ; the. generals quarrelled, and even fought out their private grievances in the face of the subjugated people ; Severus himself sacked the city of Lyons on the most flimsy pretext. Gaul, too, became demoralised with her masters, and no determined effort was made to cast off their yoke. It was in letters as in society and politics ; the intellectual existence of Gaul, as well as her physical existence, was to be inextricably interwoven with -that of her Eoman conquerors. Gaul's destiny was to follow the principal phases of con- temporary Latin literature ; and she began forthwith to play her part. Hence arises one of the most remarkable features of her early literary liistory ; the great number of Gallic orators, or rather rhetoricians tnd grammarians,^ who spoke and wrote in the Latin tongue. Amongst the Gallo-Eomans who thus adorned the land of their birth before the prevalence of Christianity, we may name^ Valerius Cato, Eoscius, Varro Atacinus, Cornelius Gallus (immortalised by a dedication of ' By the word grammanan the Alexandrians understood very much what we describe as " a m,an of letters." 2 Suetonius (De Illustribvs GramTnoHeis) mentions Octavius Teucer, Sis- cennius Jacchus, Oppius Care."!. 52 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book I. Virgil)/ Trogus Pompeius, Marcus Aper, Domitius Afer, and Petronius, who, as has been pungently observed,^ "kneaded into statues of exquisite workmanship the Eoman filth." S 6. Influence of Geemany on Gaul. Towards the close of the third century another enemy fastened itself upon the doomed country. The Pranks crossed the Ehiue, and, uniting with their brethren upon the left bank, in the district which had already come to be known as Upper and Lower Germany, overran Gaul, and even Spain. The theatre of events was from this- time' gradually transferred from the south to the north ; or at least it was in the north that the Pranks met with the most obstinate resistance and settled themselves most firmly. It was in the north also that the Emperor Julian* made Parisii Lutetiorum the seat of imperial government. The ^ermans, however, can hardly be said to have established themselves iu Eoman Gaul, to any large extent, before the beginning of the fifth century. Mean- while the country became more g,nd more demoralised under the corrupt tyranny of Eome. '^'Speaking of the age of Dio- cletian, Constantine, and their successors, a Prench historian says :° "The reign of the legions ends; the power of the palace domestic begins." Prom palace domestics spring dukes and counts ; from besotted and weak-minded emperors a foolish aristocracy. Prom the two together were generated' the wars of the Bagaudes, antetype of the Jacquerie, which endured with greater or less vigour for some two centuries, and in one of which Augusto-dunum, with her Latin schools, was destroyed. In fact, Gaul was at this period, in the worst sense of the word, enslaved. Prom this depth Christianity ' Virgil dedicated his Tenth Eclogue to him. ' Ampfere, Histoire litMrairc de la France, vol. i. ph. i. p. 156. ' 284. * 857. ° M. LavaUde, Histoire des Franqais. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 53 was to raise her ; and it was under a Christian standard that Constantine led an army of Gauls to triumph over his enemies at Eome.-' Of the Teutonic invaders who now overran the country, the Visigoths occupied Southern Gaul and Spain; overlapping the Iberian race ; the Ostrogoths settled in Northern Italy ; the Vandals, including Burgundians and Longobards, halted, on their way to Spain, in Eastern Gaul and Italy ; the Franks, including the Salians from the Ysel and tlie Eipuarians from the Rhine, formed the bulk of the newcomers, and spread over the whole of Korthern Gaul. On a winter's day, the last of the year 406, a vast host of Goths, Vandals, Huns, and AUemans crossed the Rhine on the ice, and, pushing westward, gained their iirst great victory at Moguntiacum (Mainz), where they slaughtered hundreds of citizens in the cathedral. They traversed the country with- out any notable check, and penetrated even to the extreme south-west. The Bagaudes rose again and added to the chaos of slaughter. In 412 came the Visigoths under Ataulf, who, two years afterwards, married Placidia, sister of the Emperor Honorius. The Burgundians seized a new home between the Ehoue and the Jura, where the brave Sequanians had once dwelt. They were Christians, and perhaps of all the Teutons the most peaceable, if they met with no opposition. Orosius says that they treated the Gallo-Eomans like brothers. In 419 Honorius, who has the credit of being the first volun- tarily to alienate the soil of France, ceded to the Visigoths the, district cut off by a line running from the mouth of the Loire to a point a little eastward of Narbonne, including such important towns as Santones (Saintes), Burdigalia (Bordeaux), Pictavi (Poitiers), and Tolosa (Toulouse). The Visigoth, like the Burgundian, was disposed to be amicable with his neigh- bours. He took half of the forests, two-thirds of the culti- 1 312. 54 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK 1. vated lands, and one-third of the slaves — very approximately, no doubt, in the proportion in which he felt himself fitted to manage his new possessions. The Gallo-Eomans displayed a certain characteristic politeness and' equanimity on the occasion. They styled themselves " hosts," and the forcible settlement " hospitality." So both sides took matters philo- sophically, and amalgamation began forthwith. A generation passed, and then barbarism in its worst form launched itself against western civilisation. Attila-^ whom under the name of Etzel we meet with in the Nibelun- gen Lied — bore down on GauV at the head of vast hordes of Teutons, Slaves, and even Tartars, and pushed his conquest as far as Aureliacum (Orleans). There he was encountered by Theodosius, the king of tlie Visigoths, with his son Toris- nmnd, and Aetius, a Eomau general. Etzel fell back to Gampi Catalauuici (Chalons), and there the invaders were routed, though the king did not live to be hailed the con- queror. And so Europe was saved from Tartar rule. But Eome was past saving. Aetius, who in happier times might have been a Csesar, fell by the hand of Valentinian ; Torismund was slain by his own brothers ; and Aegidius, who fought for Eome in Gaul, was assassinated.^ And now the Eoman empire crumbled to pieces like a burning ruin. Julius Kepos,^ Em- peror of the "West, ceded the whole of Gaul, westward of the Ehone, to the Visigoths. Britain, Greece, Spain, and Italy, fell asunder from the mouldering edifice. The very date of Eome's crowning disaster is uncertain, when the Goth, Odoacer, took the Eternal City and sent the imperial emblems to Constantinople. From the ruins of Eome's splendid for- tunes two bastard empires were indeed to rise. The one was the spiritual dominion of the Church, destined to rule as im- perially, and to decay, perhaps, as hopelessly as the dominion of the sword ; the other, bearing the proud title of the Holy '451. 2 464. 3474 CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 55 Eoman Empire, was to be built out of the very barbarian elements "vvhicli, alone amongst barbarians, never learned to endure the yoke of Eonie. Odoacer resigned to Ewarik, a Visigoth, such authority as he had wielded in Gaul ; and if Ewarik had lived longer he miglit have cemented the power of the Goths. But the star of Clovis ^ was in the ascendant, and it was for the Franks that the supremacy in Gaul was reserved. The Franks were the old friends and allies of the Eoman people, and they had long remained content with the western bank of the Ehine. But on the decay of Eome they caught the infection from their Teutonic brethren. In 481, Child^ric, king of the Salian Franks, died, leaving his son Clovis, a boy of fifteen, to succeed him. The youthful chief won the hearts of his people, and in 486, at tlie age of twenty-one, he entered Gaul, and defeated Syagrius,- the last Eoman who fought under the shadow of the Eoman name. In 496 he repelled the AUe- maus, who were invading Gaul by way of the Eipuarian Franks. This battle, fought near Zulpich (Tolbiac), was the crisis of Clovis's fortunes and of the fortunes of France. The Franks were pagans ; but Clovis had married the Christian Clotilde (Hlotehild), daughter of a Burgundian chief, influ- enced thereto by the judicious Eemigius, bishop of Eheims, who had gained the friendship of the young Frank. The battle of Zulpich was at first .doubtful, and Clovis swore to Clotilde that, if he gained the victory, her God should be his God. The victory was gained ; Clovis, whose example was followed by 3000 of his warriors, kept his word. Christian- ity was wedded with the sword, and the Church secured to her new convert the kingdom which he coveted. Before Clovis died^ he was not only the sole head of the Franks, but virtual master of the whole of Gaul, except Aquitaine, 1 Hlodowig, the h Ijeing a guttural, and rendered in Latin bye. The first Latinised fonn was Chlodoveohus, then Ludovicus. ^ 511- 56 HISTORY OF FRENCH IITERATURE. BO Brittany, and a neighbouring portion of Normandy. Dii the half-century succeeding Clevis's death, his kingdom divided into three parts — Burgundy, Austrasia (on e; bank of the Ehine), and Neustria (between the Loire anc Meuse). Neustria was added to Austrasia by Pepin of H tal.^ Thus the Merving dynasty ended, and the Karc dynasty began ; and in the year 771, Karl the Great, ( monly called Charlemagne, once more united all the Fn under a single sceptre. Such, in mere outline, was the chain of events by w Pagan and Koman Gaul became changed into Christian Fra and it is to the growth of Christianity in Gaul that we i look for the mainsprings of early French literature, before passing on to this task it is necessary that we sh inquire what were the principal influences of the Germ infusion upon the social and intellectual condition of Gai The German was a bigger, duller, simpler, more rese and more independent man than his western neighbour ; of course, at the time of his irruption into Gaul, he was civilised- Characteristically a silent man, he was not cl at talking, and had no taste for oratory ; whereas the ( was essentially a talker, and could talk well. The Gei was a child of the forest, who was accustomed to hunt food before he ate it, and to dress himself in the skins ol prey. The Gaul preferred life in communities, and espec in well-built and well-governed towns, and his favourite d as we have seen, was such as would attract notice in a or The German was, furthermore, domestic, and, as a rule, in his affections ; the Gaul preferred a wider social c than could be enjoyed in a single family or household, his relations with Lis fellow-creatures were somewhat ] and light. The religion of the German was for the most as between God and the individual ; whilst that of the ' '687. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 57 was rather as between God and the tribe. Herein we may de- tect the characteristics which subsequently made the Teutonic race the leaders of a Protestant reaction ; whilst the descend- ants of the Gaul, the Iberian, the Eoman, have clung to the hierarchical system of the Latin Church. The Gaul, again, readily admitted the institution of slavery ; but the German has never failed to repudiate it. In the Gallo-Eoman house- hold the slave was a conspicuous element ; but the well- to-do German was a patriarch in his own house, surrounded by his leudes — hangers-on, but not slaves — his antrustions (trusty fellows), and his gesellen or gesithas (comrades). The predominance of the Franks in Gaul meant the pre- dominance of these qualities in France for many gen^ations, at all events until the general character of Frenchmen had • become deeply imbued with the special virtues of their con- querors. On the development of Christianity in ;^rance, the Franks had, as will presently be seen, a powerful effect. If, in the ultimate formation of the French national character, the Gallic peculiarities have prevailed over the German — so different to- what has happened in England between the ancient Britons and the Teutonic element — it is at least not difficult to trace through successive generations the important and durable influences of the Franks, the Goths, and the Bur- gundians. It was not long after the definite settlement of the Germans in Gaul that this action and reaction of race- characteristics began to manifest itself The invaders freed the Gallo-Eomans from much of their former dependence and helplessness ; but, on the other hand, the freedom of the meaner Germans gradually diminished, and domestic slavery, in spite of their manly efforts, gradually immeshed them. The two extreme conditions of society, which usually flourish side by side — slavery and an aristocracy of wealth and might — all but effaced the middle classes. For several centuries we find little trace of the latter except in commercial towns and muni- HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book l. lalities ; whereas the efforts from below and the oppression m above bear witness to the continual tendency ot ' manity to redress itself. And in particular the old gaudes broke out from time to time — largely recruited by s additional force which the people had acquired by the ermixture of races. The wars of kings and mayors suc- ided for a long time in checking the wars between the slaved and the powerful ; but when the kings ceased to h.t the people had their day. The speech of the invading Germans was not identical longst the several tribes ; and their dialects were again dis- ct from the language of the Goths. All were affiliated to ! In do-Teutonic family of tongues, and bore to each other loser relationship than did any of them to the Celtic or 3rian. It is not necessary for us to pursue these differences speech, which have left few corresponding traces in the idern French tongue. It was the adopted Latin of the llo-Eomans which was finally developed into the French of 3 troubadours and of the Eenaissance ; and it was this Ian- age which the Franks were compelled to learn before -they aid govern their new possessions. Nor was the German jrature much more influential upon the people who had 3n fascinated by and M-ho sedulously cultivated the literature Rome. Nevertheless it is important that we should bear in nd what the German literature actually was.^ The art of poetry, cultivated in some form or other by 3ry nation, however young, was in the Teutonic race the it art brought to anything like perfection. The early poetic ' srature of the Germans was rich and varied ; they not only d the rudimentary lyric poetry common to all warlike tribes songs of triumph, of moxirning, of commemoration, — but jy could boast of didactic poems, and of grand national epics e the Nibelungen Lied. The epic commemorating the For an able summary read Ozanam, Shules Germaniqucs, i.. La Po4sie. CHAP. I. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 59 deeds of the Yisigotli Brnnliild, wife of Siegbert, King of Austrasia, would indeed riglitlj belong to the literature of France — as they do to her history — if the Franks of the sixth century had not yet been purely German ; and had not their epics been written in the German language. It is per- haps a matter of surprise that the wars of the Neustrians, Austrasians, Burgundians, and Goths, have not left a deeper mark on French literature. If the reason is not already sufficiently evident, it will become more so as we proceed. Yet one instance of a few may be here given, in which a Teutonic legend — which may probably be of Greek origin — has found a permanent home in France, and has reproduced itself in the French chivalrous romance. It is the legend which we glanced at ten pages back, the legend of the forgeman Vieland, which is to be met with in every Germanic tongue. In Iceland, to this day, a good smith is known by the name of a " volundr." An early English poem narrates the sorrows of Vieland, who shod the horses of travellers as they broke their journey at his forge in Berkshire.^ And the early French legend&record how Galand (or Waland) made the three famous blades, Flamberge, Ilauteclere, and Joyeusa ^ For an interesting epitome of nearly everything relating to tlie foige- man Wayland Smith, see Warton, History of English Poetry, ed. Haditt, i, Price's preface, pp. 63-65, and^also 70L i. p. 135, note 1. HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book i. CHAPTEE II § 1. Influence of Cheistianitt. A.CTIOALLY speaking, the only written literature existing in mce for many centuries after the birth of Christ consisted ihe Latin and Greek writings of the Christian fathers and itoxs, together with the works, in the same ancient tongues, a few pagan grammarians and rhetoricians. As the popu- literature, rarely committed to writing, and sung for the st part in the Iberian, Celtic, or Teutonic language, was [fined exclusively to poetry, so the Latin and Greek writ- is, to which we have referred, were composed, as a rule, in re or less ornate prose. One or two Latin poets of Gallic gin have already been named, who acquired no inconsider- e fame amongst their contemporaries ; but they had ured this fame only by residing in Eome, under the ironage of influential men, and appealing to the wider Hence of cultivated Italy. In estimating the effect produced upon the intellectual ^elopment of Gaul by Christian institutions and Christian itings, we must take into account the peculiar circuni- nces of the early Gallic Church. The converts were, to ;in with, a small and persecuted sect ; Greek emigrants from ia Minor, the first of whom had possibly seen the Apostle the Gentiles ; and, after them, soldiers or runaway ves from Eome. The earliest Christian community appears have -been founded at Lyons, which, from the time of CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 6i Augustus, had. been the capital of Eoman Gaul. Here, and at Vienne, the converts furtively worshipped, under the spiritual direction of Pothinus, an Asiatic Greek, who had been a disciple of Polycarp, said by some to have been a con- temporary of the Apostles. The Greek origin of this iirst Galli- can Christian Church is still further confirmed by tradition, as well as by the famous letter of the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne, which was written to Greeks in the Greek language. This letter^ was addressed by the martyrs from their prison, after enduring torture and mutilation, expecting every moment to be led out to death. They had braved the cruelty of the authorities ; but certain Christian slaves being less constant, had given way beneath their torments, and had accused their masters of nameless crimes. One of them, how- ever, the young Blandina, had shown extreme fortitude, saying, " I am a Christian ; and no wickedness is carried on by us." For her reward she is held as the protomartyr of France, her name coming first in the commemoration of that glorious little band, in almost all the ancient martyrologies. The inscription of the letter referred to is as follows : " The ser- vants of Jesus Cln-ist, dwelling at Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to the brethren of Asia and Phrygia, having the same faith and hope with us." After giving particulars of the persecu- tion, the letter proceeds to say that there were about ten who fell through weakness, being ill prepared for the strife ; that their fall afflicted them greatly, and depressed the courage of others who, not having yet been seized, were attending on the martyrs, and would not leave them, in spite of all which they had to endure, and that they were all in great fear by reason of the uncertainty of their confession ; not dreading tortures, but looking to the end, and fearing lest one of them should ^ The letter is given in the Ecclesiastical ffistory by Eusebius. Its authority is accepted by the majority of historians and critics, though Sis- mondi rejects it. HIS TOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURK. BOOK I. 1. And in describing the butchery the writer says, " The irtyrs offered to 'God a crown of many colours, wherein me all kinds of assorted flowers." The first father of Gaul was Irenseus, another of Poly- •p's disciples, and himself a Greek. He never lost his miration for the Pagan literature of his native country, oting Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and the great dramatists. He s at Lyons during the persecution under Marcus Aurelius,^ 1 Eusebius informs us that it was he who carried from ! martyrs a second letter to Eleutherus, the Bishop of me. At all events he did not undertake this journey, as 3 been said, to obtain his appointment as successor to thinus, whom he replaced in the episcopal see of Lyons. could not occur to any one, at the close of the second itury, that the election of a bishop need be approved confirmed by the Bishop of Kome.^ The subsequent iduct of Irenseus in the dispute between eastern and stern Christians concerning tlie observance of Easter, pre- des the idea that he regarded Pome as supreme in the lesiastical economy. He held the Pioman view of the tter, but he protested against the attempt to enforce it upon lers, and energetically counselled the eastern bishops to intain their independence. Thus the sturdy tojie of the Uican Church, which was destined to be characteristic of Christian Churches of Greek origin, was manifested in the liest age of Prench Christianity. The only extant work of Irenseus is his Treatise on resies, wherein he attacks the errors of Gnosticism, and the ler primary corruptions of the Christian faith. It is portant to observe that already, at the close of the second itury, we find emanating from Prench Christianity two icies of documents which were to have a lasting influence m French literature ; namely, the " dogmatic treatise," in 177. ' Ampire, Histoire Utliraire de la France, vol. i. ch. 2, p. 169. CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 63 a style severe, ckssical, more or less ornate, and the records of Cliristian suffering, the basis of future " martyrologies." To these must be added a third species, the letters written from church to church, containing edifying records of the death of cliildren and others, which were read out in an interval of divine service, and which formed the foundation of the " sacred legends," which have in all ages been a speciality of Christian literature. Such were the elements of Christian literature in France ; but the vista thus opened is instantly closed again. For more than a century after the death of Irenseus, no doctor, no commentator on Christian dogma, ethics, or history, wrote in Gaul what succeeding generations cared to imitate or pre- serve ; or, at all eTents, no documents of the character indi- cated are extant. But the third century has a literature of its own ; and Gaul boasts during this period many gram- marians, orators, and panegyrists, who adorned — or rather illumined — the paganism of the time. Their style was distinctly classical, though their matter was not always so. They were classical in the most meagre and least worthy sense ; being utterly devoid of originality, and yet adepts in the art of imitation. They shaped their writings upon the best models ; and the genius of their race, to whom Cato ascribes the gift argidl loqui, enabled them to succeed in pro- ducing elegant copies of their originals. One of the best of these writers was Titian, who taught rhetoric in the schools of Lyons and Besan^on (the Eoman Lugdunum and Vesontio). Much admired in his own day, and even since, he has been called the ape of orators. His favourite productions were imitations of Ovid in manner and of Cicero in style ; consist- ing of fictitious letters from famous women of ancient times. Mademoiselle de Scudery wrote something like it, in lesFemmes illustres, and Walter Savage Landor, in England, in some of his Tmaginary Conversatiom ; and perhaps neither of the HISTOR V OF FRENCH LIBERA TURE. BOOK I. ter would yield to Titian ia his attachment to the literary ms of classic Eome. § 2. The Panegyrists. The panegyrists are the most prominent figures of this ■iod. The Gallo-Eomans who could write well seem to /e vied with each other in declaiming on the virtues and ries of the great men of their day, from the Emperors .vnwards ; and as the Emperors of Eome in her decadence ed Gaul, and frequently resided there, one cannot he at a s to find prohable reasons for the complacencies of these irary men. It speakg little for the national spirit of inde- idence, and less for the self-respect of those whose culture ght have raised them above a taste for sycophancy ; but i fact remains that these panegyrics, though built upon eek models, or imitated after the least worthy of the Eoman .ogists, were in this age pre-eminjsntly characteristic of Gallic iters. A collection has been made of twelve Panegirici teres, as affording a sample of what the third century pro- sed ; and ten of these are the work of Gallo-Eomans. The me of this kind of composition is, like its origin, Greek ; it was during the Olympic Games that the earliest pane- rics — extempore discourses on an assigned subject — were )ken. The coarser idea of personal eulogy was of later ;e, and was accepted by the GaUo-Eomans — of course as ng congenial — from the neighbours whom they strove so [ulously to imitate. Nevertheless their immediate models re Latin, not Greek ; and the eulogy of Trajan by Pliny s the great exemplar. Of the ten panegyrics referred to, two were pronounced bre tlie Emperor Maximian I., in honour of himself and of Dcletian, a.d. 292. They have been wrongly ascribed to tmertinus, who declaimed before Julian seventy years later. CHAP. ir. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 65 Their authorship cannot be assigned ; and it is no more than a surmise that they were spoken at Treves on the Ehine. "With respect to another, uttered in the year 296 at Autun, before Constantius Chlorus, the particulars are more exact. It was the work of Eumenius, a Greek by parentage but Gallic by birtli. He was under the patronage of Chlorus, held a legal appointment, and was a director of schools ; and the little that we know of him entitles him to be absolved from the reproach which his panegyric might be supposed to attach to his memory. Por we are told that when the Emperor be- stowed upon him offices amounting in value to something like one thousand pounds of our present money, Eumenius accepted them only on the condition of applying the proceeds to tlie restoration of the schools at Autun ; which thenceforth recovered their ancient repute — a repute at least as old as the time of Tacitus. Tlie panegyric of Eumenius is addressed to the prefect of the province who represented Chlorus in his absence, and whom the orator styles " vir perfectissimus" — whether conventionally, or out of a genuine appreciation of his merits, or, as a com- mentator suggests, as an exhortation to deserve the title. One of the most striking passages in the oration is that wherein Eumenius contrasts the rhetoric of the school with the forensic eloquence of the courts. "Here," he says, "the wits arm themselves, there they fight ; here is the skirmish, there the onslaught ; here they attack each other with arrows and stones, there they cross their gleaming swords ! " This is perhaps the most worthy and independent of the Gallo-Eoman panegyrics, which would hardly have repaid even this short notice if they had not been almost the only evidence of literary activity in Gaul during the third century. Hard pushed by the Germans, crushed and plundered by the Eomans, disturbed by the insurreetiqjjs of the peasants, the unfortunate country had but little spirit or opportunity for VOL. I. F 66 JBISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. ^ BOOK intellectual exertion. That which they did display wa directed, as we have seen, to a more or less abject flattery c the Eoman Emperors. One of the panegyrists praises Cor stantine for his slaughter of the barbarians, declaring that th very beasts were satiated by the number of their victimi Another asks, " "What is there more grand than the triump which makes the destruction of our enemies contribute to on pleasures ?" Another traces the descent of Maximian froi Hercules, asserting Alexander himself too humble for th purpose of comparison. Meanwhile the social condition of the country was by n means the chaos which we might have expected to find i Side by side with the despotic government of the Eomani and with the hardly less despotic government of the Goth aud Franks, who succeeded them ; side by side with the aris tocracy wliich had been introduced into the Greek colonies c the south, or which had grown up spontaneously in otht parts of Gaul ; in spite of the incursions of barbarians, i spite of grinding taxation, of slavery, of insurrections, we fin throughout these Ages, dating its origin almost before th records of trustworthy history, growing gradually in powt and stability, a democratic element, municipal right, fre citizenship. Eoman despotism resigned its position as guardia over the State ; the German invaders fought amongst then selves, seldom On any other plea than that of selfish interest the, aristocracy showed no coherent power which was capaU of rescuing society from imminent dissolution ; but the mun cipalities survived. The cities became asylums for those wli fled to them for refuge, and they kept alive the flickerir llame of learning and literature in the schools. Based, doub less, on the foundation of commerce and trade, these Gall municipalities raised a standard of comparative order and goo government under which letters and religion rallied for ri newed efforts, and prepared for further conquests. And it CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 67 to Christianity in particular — to the Christianity of Irenseus ' and of the martyrs of Vienne and Lyons, cherished and handed down during this silent epoch in the history of the Gallic intellect — that we must look for the regeneration of intellec- tual life. § 3. The Teachers. The Christian Church in Gaul in the second century was a Greek Church ; in tlie fourth century it was a Latin Church. After the time of Irenseus we hear little more of the com- munity of Christians at Lyons, whilst, during the third and fourth centuries, we find many accounts of Eoman evangelists and Eoman martyrs. Nevertheless the Gallic Church main- ■tains many of the characteristics which were impressed upon it in its first phase, and never loses its distinctive feature of independence, although, of course, it soon came to acknow- ledge the spiritual pre-eminence of Eome. The accounts of the foundation of the Gallo-Eoman Church differ considerably, and it is not for us to decide between them. One tiling, how- ever, is certain and natural, that Gaul was to a large extent Christianised from within. The "little leaven" of the early Greek Churches in the south spread far and wide during the second and third centuries, and the blood of the martyrs of Vienne and Lyons became the seed of the Galilean Church. Priority in point of time would render this a matter of course, but it is not to be doubted that the Eoman Christians who followed them carried the Gospel into regions whither the disciples of Irenseus and Photinus had never penetrated. Gregory of Tours,^ who asserts that Irenseus himself suffered "horrible torments," relates that in tlie reign of the Emperor Decius, after a widespread persecution of the Christians, during which the Eoman believers would naturally be scatr' 1 Born 539. HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LI TERA TURE. BOOK i. red throughout the Latin-speaking colonies of Europe, seven srsous of the rank of bishops " were sent to preach in Gaul ;" id he gives for his authority " the liistory of the sufferings the holy martyr Saturninus," one of the seven, and the first shop of Toulouse. The other six were Gatian of Tours, ml of Narbonne, Martial of Limoges, Stremon of Clermont, ?ophiinus of Aries, and Bacchus or Denis of Paris. It will i observed that the latter names are Greek, so that even ider this- new evangelisation Christianity came to Gaul in imbination with Greek ideas and idiosyncrasies. A disciple ' one of these, says Gregory, went to Bourges, and there made inverts and ordained priests. Eequiring a house in which to ilebrate divine worship, and his converts being amongst the )Drest citizens, he went to " one of the leading senators^ in aul," Leocades, a descendant of the Lyons martyr Vettius pagathus, and therefore a Greek, and stated their need. 30cades replied, " If the house which I own in Bourges is orthy of such an employment, I will not refuse it." Where- 3on they offered him tliree hundred pieces of gold and a Iver dish, assuring him that his house was worthy. Leocades lok three pieces in token of good will, and, furthermore, him- ilf became a Christian. The story has its manifest improba- lities, but, even if it were not true, it would be characteristic. After the persecutions under Diocletian the Christians id a respite from their sufferings under his successor Con- antine, the thirty-fourth Eoman Emperor, who accepted the 3W faith. He was a patron of letters as well as of Cliristi- lity, and Jerome asserts that he encouraged Juvencus to iraphrase the Gospel in verse. During his reign tlie iirst hristian councils were held in Gaul. That of Aries, a.d. 14, was convened for the purpose of considering and pro- ' Gregory uses the word ' ' senators " of mtvuicipal couucillors, as well as of emters of the Eoman Senate, or sometimes of any one whose family had educed a man of senatorial maik. CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 69 nouncing upon the Donatist heresy. Forty-four churches were here represented, of which sixteen were Gallic, and the place of meeting attests the activity and influence of the Gallic Christians. The second council was held at Nicsea, a.d. 325. The Emperor Constantine attended both these councils, and formally directed their deliberations. The very presence of the Emperor in a council was a triumph of the Church, and bore witness to its victory rather than to its submission.^ Si.xteen councils were held during the fourth century, almost all in Gaul, and at least six of these were confined to the bishops of Gaul alone. To this century belongs the poet and philosopher Lactan- tius,^ an African Eoman settled at Treves. He began life as a pagan rhetorician, being a disciple of the African i\ rnobius. He adopted Christianity during the persecution under Diocletian, and in the year 317 he came to Gaul as tutor to one of the sons of Constantine. His principal philosophical work is his Divine, Institutions. He also wrote treatises on the Anger of God and on the Death of Persecutors. Some are even inclined to credit him with the authorship of the Phcenix, a poem in the vidian style, though they do so on grounds which are not sufficient to establish more than a probability. He was certainly a genuine man of letters, whose literary tastes were moulded upon the classic poets and orators of Eome, and he has been not undeservedly called the " Christian Cicero." He was a zealous apologist of his adopted faith, though his detractors have made a list of ninety-four passages in which his orthodoxy is subject to exception. He certainly displayed his catholic judgment in the freedom of his appeal to pagan authoi'ities, passing in this respect far beyond the example of St. Paul and Irenseus, though not reaching the point attained in later days by Jeremy Taylor. Less catliolio in spirit was the prejudice manifested by Lactantius against ' Guizot, Histoin de la Givilisation en France, vol. i., legon 3. " 250-330. 70 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK I. the enemies of Christianity, whom he consigned to everlasting shame and torment, and in whom he would see no redeeming points. Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and other pagan emperors, who were by no means destitute of noble qualities, he places on a level with Nero and Diocletian. " Where are they ?" he exclaims. " God has destroyed them ; they are blotted out from the earth." His Divine Institutions consist of a defence of Christianity and an exposition of Christian dogma ; and whilst they are crude and imperfect in their argument, trying to prove too much and proving nothing thoroughly, they are nevertheless elegant in style and persuasive in manner, calculated, there- fore, to exert no inconsiderable influence on succeeding gener- ations. He was strongly imbued with the idea that the work of destruction would be homologous with the work of creation so far as the material world was concerned ; that after six millenniums of humanity's labour there \\ould come a millen- nium of rest for the human race, when Jesus Christ would reign visibly on earth. He himself was born towards the close of the sixth millennium ; the world had reached its tempora pessima, ultima tempora, and the catastrophe was at hand. "The whole earth," he says, " shall be in confusion ; war shall rage throughout ; nations shall take arms, and attack each other. . . . The sword shall pass through the world, sweeping down and laying low as it were a harvest ; and the cause of this desolation and bloodshed shall be that the Eoman name, which now governs the universe (it is hard to say it, but I say it because it must be)— the Eoman name shall be wiped from the earth. The empire shall return to the east, the east shall reign again, and the west shall be subdued." And again, presaging ruin from the north:— "Then shall come a hateful, abominable time, when life shall be pleasant to no man. Cities shall be turned upside CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 71 down ; they shall perish, not only by water and fire, but by earthquakes, deluges, plagues, and famines. The air shall be corrupted and plague-stricken. . . . The land shall bear fruit no more ; the harvest, the tree, the vine shall be smitten with barrenness ; the streams and springs shall , dry up ; their waters shall be turned to blood and bitter- ness ; the animals shall die, upon earth, in the air, and in the sea." Then follow prophecies more distinct, of Antichrist and of the second coming of the Lord : — " The heavens shall be opened in the middle of a dark and stormy night. To the whole universe shall appear, like a sheet of lightning, the splendour of the descending God. But, before descending, the liberator, the judge, the avenger, the King, shall cause a sign to appear : a sword shall suddenly fall from heaven, that the just may know that the leader of the holy army is at hand," Of such a kind are the outbursts of imagination and poetry which proclaim the predecessor of the eloquent pulpit- orators of the age of Louis XIV. Another Gaul of the fourth century, a native of Bordeaux, successively a professor of rhetoric, the tutor of the Emperor Valentinian's son, and a consul of the empire under his former pupil Gratian, was Ausonius,^ a Christian imitator of the pagan panegyrists, whose taste clung to pagan litera- ture whilst his heart was given to Christianity. We in these days think no shame of mingling the classical mythology of Greece and Eome even with the discussion of things divine. It is inextricably interwoven with our intellectual culture and tendencies, but the use which Ausonius made of it betrays a characteristic hardihood of mind. It was a literary fashion, over which Boileau and Bossuet were to argue with no slight degree of warmth ; a literary license which is to be carefully distinguished between a new and an old creed, ' 310-394. 72 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK I. whereby, perhaps, some of the early Christians — it may be Ausonius amongst the number — suffered themselves to be seduced. Ausonius was also a poet, and he celebrates in verse the great cities of antiquity. His Ordo Ndbilium Urlium enume- rates the glories and the industries of Eome, Constantinople, Carthage, Alexan\Jria, Antioch, Treves, thus placing sixth in his list the Eoman city on the Ehine, where the emperors had long preferred to hold their court, which contained an extensive manufactory of aimour, and which was the great foreign emporium of English woollen goods. His tenth city is Aries, and Toulouse, the fourteenth, is succeeded by Nar- bonne and Bordeaux. His description of Aries is interesting. He calls it the Lesser Eome of Gaul, which received the commerce of the world. Bordeaux he describes as insignis Bacclw. Aquitaine he vaunts as a district famous for its elegant and polished manners. In fact, the south-west of Gaul was the fostering home of letters, and Ausonius himself addressed thirty copies of verse to as many professors pf rhetoric at Bordeaux. The insiglit which he gives us, here and elsewhere, into the state of learning in Gaul during the fourth century, is such as we cannot afford to neglect. A rescript of G^atian authorises every metropolitan town to elect professors of rhetoric, who were remunerated from the state coffers with twenty-four annones, that is twenty times the amount paid to a Eoman legionary, whilst the "gram- marian" received half that amount. In the royal city of Treves a professor received thirty annones, a Latin gram- marian twenty, and a Greek grammarian twelve. The work of the grammarian varied from the instruction of children to the delivery of public letters during six hours of the day, or, in the case of one mentioned by Ausonius, to the pursuit of a comparison between the legislation of different countries. The endowment of research was a matter which, by a caprice CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 73 of despotism, was as thoroughly provided for ia the Dark Ages as in our own more enlightened days.^ Ausonius was in addition a dramatist — he wrote the Play of the Seven Sages. It is rather a succession of monologues than a drama. The seven sages of Greece are made to appear one after the other, and, after pronouncing a maxim in Greek, expound it in Latin. The author clearly intended his work for public representation, for he describes how his characters advance upon the stage, clad in their cloaks.^ And, apolo- gising for his actors in the prologue, he says : " Why do you blush, Eoman, in your toga, because these illustrious men appear upon the stage ? It is a reproach to us, but it was none to the Athenians, amongst whom the theatre was con- sidered a public meeting-place. ... So it is in the whole of Greece." M. Ampke would claim the contemporary play of Que- rolus, the Grumbler, which has-been attributed to Plautus, for a Gallic' writer. It is certainly not anterior to the third century. It refers to the revolt of the Bagaudes, on the banks of the Loire, and is dedicated to Eutilius, a celebrated Gallo-Latin poet. Qiierolus is a genuine drama, and a piece of spirited character-drawing. If its Gallic origin were well established, it would have demanded at ouu hands a most careful dissection and discussion. Amongst the Gallic Christian writers of the fourth cen- tury were Paulinus, a poet full of tenderness, a disciple and friend of Ausonius, his correspondence with whom is still preserved, and to whom St. Augustine dedicated one of his treatises ; Sulpicius Severus, an ecclesiastical historian of no mean order, though — or rather because — he attempted to give little more than an abstract of his predecessors' voluminous narratives; Martin, a writer of legends and 1 Ampfere, Histoire litUraire de la France, vol. i. ch. 6. " PalUati in orchestrum prodewnt. 74 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book i. Christian sagas, and an epigrammatist of whom even the monks of his day had cause to be afraid, and who managed on several occasions to get the better of Satan in argument; Hilarius, bishop of Poitiers, a notable opponent of Arianism, exiled to Phrygia on that account by the Council of Beziers, author of a. Treatise, on the Trinity, and other controversial works ; Ambrosius, the champion of Christianity against pagan reaction, as instanced in his discussion with Sym- machus, and of morality and ecclesiastical independence against the corrupt presumption of the usurper Maximus, to whom he would pay no open honour or deference ; and Cas- sianus, the anchorite, author of Institutio7is of Monasteries, and a volume of Collations or dialogues ; Vigilantius, a southern Gaul, who protested against the vow of celibacy, and who has been described as " the Gascon Luther ; " and Prosper of Aqui- taine, who has left us his biography, a Chronicle, a volume of Epigrams, and a poem on Orace. Such were the Christians of Gaul who, albeit in a foreign tongue, laid the foundations of Prench literature ; who re- vealed, as they wrote, many of the same characteristics which are to be discovered in their descendants, and whose works have had their due effect in modelling the style and spirit of , the moderns. The struggle and victory of Christianity in Gaul was something more than a struggle of the Gospel against pagan- ism, and of a new morality against the ancient corruption of the world ; it was a revendication of the victims of Imperial Pi,ome. Por the country, as we have seen, did not accept her faith from the oppressors who had passed her under the yoke, but rather in spite of them. The early confessors of Christi- anity in Gaul had reason to fear the favour of the emperors and their courts as much as their hatred ; the hurt which the Gallic Church received from the one was as great as that which resulted from the other. Nor was Eome the only enemy against whom she had to contend, and against whom CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION: 75 she contended so successfully that, on more than one occasion, Gaul inarched in the van of pure and orthodox Christianity. Errors of practice and doctrine assailed her from the East and from the West ; Gnosticism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Nes- torianism, Eutychism — all of these felt the weight of her independent logic, her intellectual vigour and shrewdness. Nevertheless against one or two, the first two of these en- croachments, her arm was destined to prove weak, and her resistance comparatively brief The pride of knowledge which, in the schools of Alexandria and the East, generated the earliest Christian heresy, had its special temptations for the vainglorious and self-confident Gaul, whilst the legacy of the Greek and Eoman philosophies, the Arian tendency towards rationalism — the offspring especially of Platonism and Christianity — proved in the end irresistible to a race which had so eagerly accepted the civilisation of southern ' Europe. Another enemy had appeared, hardly less formi- dable, in the oriental idea of monasticism, which, what- ever it might have done for Christianity, could not be other than baneful in its effects on the intellect. Against this cor- ruption also the genius of Gallic Christianity maintained a vigorous struggle ; and thus, amidst strife and victory, re- lapse and recovery, the bulwarks of faith and intelligence were sustained until the worldly empire of Eonie had passed away, and her ecclesiastical supremacj' had begun to assert itself Meanwhile the Germans had entered Gaul, driving out the Eoman soldiers before them, and three great battles raged side by side upon the soil which has so often been the theatre of the fortunes of Europe. They were the battles of Chris- tianitj' against the world, of the Gallic Church against pagan philosoph)', of Gaul and Eome against the barbarians. Side by side stood three men, so different in their character and their tendencies, representing such varied phases of human history and inteUect, as Theodoric the Goth, Salvian the 76 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book 1. Christian Gaul, and Eutilius, the last great pagan writer of the Gallo-Eomans. Amidst these struggles the Church lost much of her early purity, stooping, but stooping too low, in order to conquer the neM' masters of Gaul. Eutilius aud Salvian alike, from their different points of view, attacked the corruptions of the Christian community ; and they were alike in one thing else, that they both attacked them with satire. Eutilius wrote epigrams against the Jews and the monks; Salvian inveighs bitterly against the avarice and decaying faith of his co-religionists. " Tlioii hast lost," thus he apostrophises the Church in Gaul, "thy indifference to earthly wealth and thy love of heavenly blessings . . . thou hast gained more vices in proportion as thou hast gained more nations . . . the richer thou hast become in numbers, the poorer hast thou become in devotion, at once greater and smaller, in progress and in decay." Amongst the Teutonic invaders there were Christians, the majority of whom had accepted Ariauism. In his hatred of corruption, Salvian passes lightly over this error of belief. "They are heretics," he says of the barbarians, "but they know it not; with us they are so, but not with tliemselves. Tliey think themselves catholic, even accusing you of heresy ; the truth is on our side, but they think Ihey possess it ; they err, but their in- tention is right." And again he bears witness to the morality of life amongst the Saxons, the Vandals, and the Goths ; contrasting it with the vices of the Eomans, not without im- plication against the professed Christians of Eoman Gaul. § 4. The Chroniclers. The life of Sidonius ApoUinaris, a native of Lyons, vho flourished in the middle of the fifth century, contains a valu- able illustration of the action and reaction between Gallie CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 77 Christianity and Teutonic barbarism. He married the daugli- ler of Avitus, afterwards enjperor, and at the coronation of the latter he pronounced a panegyric in verse before the Roman Senate, which he did lilcewise for Majorianus and .Anthemius. At this time he was a pagan, and yet, within three years of his return from Eome, after his attendance upon Anthemius, he was consecrated bishop. He was not a lionian patrician for nothing. One of his first acts was to condemn the writing of profane poetry, and he abandoned a history of Attila's invasion, which he had ah-eady begun. No doubt his conversion was sincere, and his adoption of Christianity conscientious ; but he never attempted to throw aside his lightness of heart, his pungency of expression, and his satirical humour. He makes a joke on the subject of fasting ; he laughs pleasantly at the notion of praying for rain or fine weather, suggesting that the potter and the gar- dener might not agree about the matter. Mamertius dedi- cated to him a refutation of Faustus on the materiality of the soul. Sidonius thanks him in a hundred hyperboles, adding that he knows nothing of the subject in dispute. Nor is he afraid of indulging in pagan illustrations, or of continuing to model his style on that of pagan authors. He is, in fact, the Dean Swift, or better, the Sydney Smith of the Gallic Church. The centre of his see was Arvernum, now replaced by Clermont, and this town was taken possession of by the Goths. Sidonius displayed the best side of his character in the face of his country's enemies, and maintained the dignity and sanctity of his faith in presence of the invading hordes. His wife's family, the most influential Eomans of Auvergne, withstood the Goths for several years ; but Sidonius inter- vened to bring about a truce. This induciarum imago, as he calls it, was soon broken ; and he writes to Mamertius — " It is rumoured that the Goths are advancing upon the Eoman territory. Wretched Arvernians. we are ever the gateway of 78 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERA TURE. book i. invasion." The bishop inspired courage into his people, and appointed days of rogation and prayer, uniting the patriot and the Christian. The Goths retired ; but the Arvernians were presently delivered by treaty into the hands of their enemies, in order to stave off the advance upon Marseilles. Exile and imprisonment were the lot of Sidonius ; but he was released through the mediation of a friend, and after gaining a certain influence over Erik, king of the Visigoths, who had taken up his quarters at Bordeaux, he was restored to his bishopric, and died there a.d. 489. The letters of Sidonius, together with other contemporary and later documents, give us a vivid picture of the customs and manner of life in Gaul during the fifth century, from which it appears that the Gallo-Eoman civilisation was not by any means contemptible, nor their literary culture insig- nificant. And the documents in question betray, moreover, that the Christian and pagan communities had by this time approximated in a very remarkable degree, being no longer divided by a sharp line of demarcation, as indeed must have been evident in the very meagre sketch above given of the life of Sidonius. " Great lords, hardly to be called Chris- tians, ex-prefects of Gaul, men of the world and men of plea- sure, frequently became bishops. In the end they were compelled to this course, if they wished to bear a part in the moral movement of the age, to preserve any real importance, to exert any active influence." ^ For example, let us take this letter from Sidonius to Eriphius, the son-in-law of Philimathius, the writer's deceased friend : — " You are ever the same, dear Eriphius ; the hunting-field, the city, the country never attract you so powerfully that the love of letters cannot still retain you. . . . You bid me send you the verses which I made at the request of your father-in-law, 1 Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, Leot 3. CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION 79 that respected gentleman, who, in the society of his equals, was equally ready to command and to obey. But as you wish to know where and on what occasion these verses were made, that you may the better understand this trifling production, blame yourself if the preface be longer than the work itself. " We had met at the tomb of St. Just,^ when sickness pre- vented your being with us. The annual procession had been made before dawn, amidst a vast assemblage of the populace of both sexes, which the basilica and the crypt could not contain, although they are surrounded by immense porches. After the monks and clerks had celebrated matins, singing the psalms alternately with much sweetness, every one withdrew in various directions, though not very far, so as to be ready for the tierce when the priests were to celebrate the divine sacrifice. The narrow dimensions of the place, the crowd pressing about us, and the great number of lights, had suffocated us ; the oppressive moisture of a summer night, still recent, albeit cooled by the first freshness of an autumn morn, had yet warmed the edifice. Whilst the different classes of society were scattered on all sides, the principal citizens went and gathered round the tomb of Syagrius, not a bowshot away. Some were seated under the shade of a trellis formed of laths, wJiich were covered by the green branches of the vine ; we were reclining on a green lawn balmy with the perfume of flowers. The conversation was pleasant, mirthful, jocular; moreover (which was particularly agreeable), there was no discussion concerning powers or tributes, not a word which could compromise, and not a soul who could be compromised. Whoever could relate an interesting story in apt words was sure to be listened to with attention. Above all, there was no giving of connected narratives, for our hilarity often interrupted our speech. Tired at last pf this long rest, we felt a desire to do something. Presently dividing ourselves into two companies, according to age, the first loudly called for a game of tennis, the others for a table and dice. I was the first to make a move for the tennis ; for, as you know, I love it as much as my books. On the other hand, my brother Domicius, a man of great elegance and love of sport, got hold of some dice, rattled 1 The feast of St. Just, a former bishop, was held on the 2d of September. 8o HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK I. them, and rapped Lis dice-box as though he was sounding a trumpet to summon the players to him. As for us, we had a long game with the scholars, in order to refresh our hmhs, numbed by a too long rest, by this healthy exercise. The noble Philimathius himself, as the Mantuan poet says, Ausus et ipse manu juvenum tentare laborem, constantly mingled with the tennis-players. He excelled at it when he was younger ; but when he had been frequently hustled from the middle, where they stood upright, by the shock of some player running against him ; when, at other times, going within the base, he could neither bar the way nor get out of the way of the ball, as it flew before him, or came upon him, and found a difficulty in recovering himself from his falls, being frequently overturned, he was the first to leave the game, panting and greatly heated. The exercise had caused his liver to swell, and he suffered a sharp pain. I stopped shortly afterwards, by way of charitably stopping at the same time as he, and thus relieving our brother from the annoyance of his fatigue. We then seated ourselves once more, and presently his perspiring made him ask for some water to bathe his face. They brought him some, and with it a plate bearing a napkin which had been washed over night, and happened to be hung upon a rope stretched over a pulley, before the folding-doors of the porter's cottage. As he was slowly drying his cheeks, he said : ' I wish you would dictate for me four verses on the article which I am making use of ' Done,' I replied. ' But,' he added, ' let my name be included in the verses.' I answered that what he asked was feasible. ' Well,' he rejoined, ' dictate then.' Where- upon I said, smiling, ' But, you ought to know that the muses will take it ill if I attempt to mingle in their company amongst so many witnesses.' Then he replied smartly, and yet with courtesy (for he was a man of spirit and inexhaustible wit), ' Eather take heed, my lord Solius, that Apollo is not still more irritated if you seek to seduce in secret and apart one of his dear pupils.' You may imagine the applause excited by this quick and well-turned reply. Then, without delay, I called his secretary, who stood by with his tablets in his hand, and dictated to him the following quatrain : — ' Another morning when he leaves CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 8i his hot bath, or when the chase has heated his brow, may hand- some Philimathius still find this linen to dry his dripping face, so that the water may pass from his brow into this fleece as into a drinker's throat.' Hardly had your Epiphanius written these verses when we were told that the hour had struck, and that the bishop was leaving his house, and we rose at once." Of such a nature were the recreations of a bishop — and possibly enough Sidonius was not the only bishop in that company — in the. fifth century; and the picture is full of suggestions and outlines that may easily be filled in. One thing is manifest, that the aristocracy of Gaul had for the most part become transferred from the civil to the religious community ; or, at least, that the Christian Church comprised within itself a genuine aristocracy, not only of wealth but of learning, accomplishments, and manners. There were of course men of influence and culture in the army, and in the highest offices of the State ; and of these, no doubt, many were pagans. But it was within the pale of the church, and occasionally in the still greater security of the monasteries, that the Gallic literature of this period mainly sought refuge, and that particularly when there ceased to be a Eoman court in Gaul. It has been the same in every country. Learning has saved itself from suppression by its marriage with Christianity, and the church has been the patron and the foster-mother of that very culture which began by despising her. It is true that a partial separation has since become necessary, when the danger of obscurantism on one hand, and scepticism on the other, made both a little shy of their mutual intimacy ; but neither Literature nor Christianity could have dispensed with the interchange of benefits which has resulted from their communion. It is to be observed that the pagan classical literature disappeared rapidly at the time of which we speak ; and this under a double discouragement. The Teutons had little or VOL. I. O 82 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOO no taste for Greek or Latin authors, and rarely cared, even Trance, to learn the Greek or Latin language. The Ch tians who had been converted from paganism either resigi their classical studies, or refrained from urging them uj others ; whilst Christians born into the Church found lil encouragement to beconle acquainted with any literat: save that of the inspired writers, the fathers and the doct of Christianity. It is true that the two ancient languages southern Europe became, and remained for many centur the universal languages of the Church ; and by virtue of t adoption, they became the medium for such extraneous lite ture as was permitted to emanate from within her pale. T inhabitants of the monasteries, for instance, were origins all laymen, and they were 7ree from many of the restrai which held the intellect of the ecclesiastics in a nan groove. Hence it is from the monasteries chiefly that m of the early secular history and poetry proceeded ; and it : in the schools of the monks that the most liberal educat was to be obtained. The Teutons themselves, before tl had adopted Christianity to any large extent, rarely buill supported schools ; whilst the Church, though it never fai to establish seminaries in connection with every bishopric not with every important centre of worship, did so in first place mainly for the training of her own priests, or those who were in any capacity to take part in her sei-vii ]N"evertheless, we do not wish to imply that the study pagan antiquity entirely ceased. There can have been few literary pagans in the sixth century ; but at all eve there were professed philosophers, after the ancient Greek i Latin schools of philosophy ; and it was probably in monasteries that these relics of the learning of the old wc found their asylum. Thus, in fact, was preserved in darkness of these Ages the savour of knowledcre which ^ to form the basis of modern intellectual reseneration. CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 83 Forty years after the death of Sidoiiius was born Gregory, bishop of Tours •} and his famous Ecclesiastical History of the Franks makes us acquainted with muoli concerning the pro- gress of letters, and the reactions of religious and civil society, of which we should otherwise have remained in ignorance. He also, like Sidonius, belonged to a patrician family, count- ing amongst his ancestors both senators and bisliops. His uncle v/as bishop of Arvernum, and he had given his nephew a liberal education. Gregory obtained, at all events before his death, an acquaintance witli Virgil, Sallust, Pliny, and Aulus Gellius ; but he takes care expressly to guard himself against being thought to admire them too strongly, or even to imitate their style. He prides himself on being, rough and straightforward in his manner of writing ; departing thus, to a certain extent, from the genius of his race, and affording an apt illustration of the opposition between Christian and pagan literature, to which reference was made above. At the same time he was a historian by choice and by fact, and not a theologian ; and though he calls his history ecclesiastical, the bulk of it is secular. Yet Gregory appears to have been a sincere Christian, as well as a blunt and obstinate Gaul. He stood like a rock against the encroachments of the world upon Christianity, as well as against the overbearing con- duct of the Frank and Gothic kings, towards all who appealed to him for protection. He was a general of the Church militant in Gaul. When the young Merovig sought asylum with him, he held him safe against the wrath of Cliilp^ric and Frdd^gonde, without losing the respect of either. He himself relates an anecdote which displays at once his bluntness and courage in the face of those who had the power to crush him, his obsti- nacy in argument, and his want of skill in intellectual fence. Chilpdric, grandson of Clovis, set up as a poet and as a theologian. He was distinguished in the one accomplishment 1 539. 84 HISTORY OF FREA'CH LITERATURE. BOOK by his false quantities, arid in the other by his Ariaiiism ; br Gregory, who hated the Arians, and who had flatly disobeye the behest of rr4degonde to drive Merovig out of his churcl on the plea " that one must not do under Catholic kings the Avhich was not done under Arian kings," did not shine in hi arguments with Chilpdric. The latter objected to speak c the persons of the Trinity. " You," he said to Gregory, " an the other doctors have taken that view." Gregory discusse the subject warmly, and adduced Hilarius and Eusebius a authorities on his side. But ChilpMc was too strong fc him, proving on the spot that those two writers did not agre on the question. Whereupon the stubborn bishop declare that "one must be mad to think so." And Chilp^ric grumble and was silent.^ The Gallic Church had made its mark befor this became possible. Gregory withstood Chilperic and Freddgonde, in the nam of the Church, in far more critical circumstances, and wit' greater success. The king imagined that Pretextatus, bisho of Eouen, had brought about the marriage of Merovig an Brunhild, and he summoned him to Paris before a council c Gallic bishops. Gregory defended the accused, and did nc stint his arguments against the flattery of the king, the bribe of the queen, or the subservience of his fellow-bishops. Bu Pretextatus was cowed ; he admitted his offence, and crave Chilp^ric's pardon. Then Chilperic "prostrated himself a the feet of the bishops, and said, ' Hear, most pious bishops Tlie guilty one has confessed his execrable crime.' Then w wept, and raised the king, and he ordered Pretextatus to leav the Church. He himself withdrew to his residence, and ser to us the books of the canons, whereto had been added a ne^ part, containmg those which are called apostolic, wherein ai these words : 'The bishop convicted of homicide, adultery, c perjury, shall be deprived of his see.' . . . After that the kin ' Freudens siluit. CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. ' 85 demanded, either that his (Pretextatus') gowa should be torn, or that we should read over him the 1 08th Psalm, containing the curses against Judas Iscariot, or that we should sign a judgment to deprive him for ever of communion, I refused all these conditions, iu view of the king's promise that nothing should be done contrary to the canons. Then Pretextatus was carried out before our eyes, and delivered over to the guards. Having attempted to escape during the night, he was severely beaten, and exiled to an island near Coutances."^ On this an eminent French historian^ remarks, "The idea of a rule raised above the unfettered passions which disturb the barbarian community exists nowhere but in the Church." Amidst the dark chronicle of bloodshed and crime which Gregory has transmitted to us, we obtain little evidence of liglit or of intellectual promise beyond that which is I'evealed in the history of the Church. There are not wanting, how- ever, certain indistinct evidences of a literary influence exerted by the Teutons over their Gallic subjects, which may fairly supplement what we have said on the same topic iu the previous chapter. Gregory mentions several legends and songs which can be traced to an older German source. Such is the story of Ermanric,^ and the circumstances of his murder, for which a precedent may be found in the Lay of Hamdir ;* the battle of Theodoric with the Thuringians, when the corpses of the slain choked the bed of the river, so that the king's army inarched over the palpitating human bridge — significantly reminding us of an episode in the Nibe- lungen Lied ; the account of Clovis seeking a ford over the Vienne, and discovering it by the sight of a crossing stag — which is related also of the Huns, on their advance upon 1 Gregory of Tours, ITistoria Francorum, book v. 19. " M. Ainpfere. » Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, book iii. 7. * See in The Edda of Stiemund the Learned, ed. Thorpe, part ii. 141, "The Lay of Hamdir." 85 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book i Rome. So again of the legend of Basina, queen of Thuringis who left her husband for ChildMc, feeling him to be the mos valiant of kings. Here indeed we have a legend which ha been many times appropriated, not only in Germany, but in th case of the Amazon queen who offered herself to Alexander, and later again, of Agnes Sorel, who said to Charles the Sevent] that she must needs love the strongest king in ChristendoiE and, as it was not he, she would seek him in England. A contemporary of Gregory, Fortunatus,^ who passed somi yeftrs in Ghilperic's court, and wrote verses in honour o Siegbert, Brunhild, and Frdddgonde' had known Boethius ii Italy, and had profited by the encouragement shown to letter by Theodoric the Goth. He fled from Italy, his nativ country, before the invading Lombards, li\-ed for some tim in Austrasia, and finally settled at Poitiers. He had travellei much for a man of his time ; and his impressions dc voyag crop up here and there in his writings. But, for the mos part, he was a panegyrist in verse, exhausting tlie vocabular of flattery on behalf of the cruel northern kings, whom h cannot but have hated and despised. Eadegonde, having fle from the violence of her husband Clotaire, had founded convent at Poitiers. With her and with the abbess Agnei Fortunatus contracted what seems to have been a pure! spiritual and intellectual intimacy. Based upon commo tastes and mutual respect, the communion of these three — fc it does not appear to have included a fourth — was adorne by a literature of its own. The best and most imngiuativ poems of Fortunatus are those which he addressed to h; mother and sister. Nor was his influence on the barbariar who surrounded him inconsiderable. " To the fortune of tranquillity unique in that age, the Italian exile added that ( a fame which was not less unique ; and indeed he might we , deceive himself as to the durability of that expiiing literatu; ^ Died about 609. CHAf II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 87 of wliicli he was the last representative. The barbarians admired his slightest utterance, and did tlieir best to enjoy his flashes of wit. The most meagre productions, letters written as he stood, whilst the messenger waited, simple couplets improvised at a meal, passed quickly from hand to hand, were read, copied, committed to memory. His religious poems, and copies of verse, addressed to the kings, attracted public attention."^ And with him, the literature wliich had its foundation in the reminiscences of the Latin classical writers, died ; and the age of the sacred legends began. Of course there had been legends in the Church from its earliest days ; legends written to be read during divine service, or on the celebration of the saints' days, or even during an ordinary- feast. But hitherto they had been overshadowed — or at least in our eyes they are overshadowed — by the works of the panegyrists, the poets, the historians, and the doctors ; from the seventh century onwards they stand almost alone as the representatives of French literature. The Church, too, must have its literature ; semi-profane, more attractive to the multi- tude than the sacred text and its commentaries ; and this literature was found in the lives of the saints. N"o art or device of imagination was neglected by the writers who com- posed these holy legends, or by the ecclesiastics who availed themselves of them ; and it would be a matter for surprise if we did not find them charged from beginning to end with miracles. Here also the romances of the Teutonic race found occasional welcome ; for when once fiction is called in to tlie aid of fact, the less imaginative a writer happens to be, the more naturally will he have recourse to ideas already shaped and moulded. One hero of Germanic story, Walther of Aquitaine, is imported bodily into the lives of the saints. A certain legend relates how the valiant warrior, tired of liis many exploits, withdrew to a inonastery to spend there the ^ A. Thierry, Histoire des Gaulois. 88 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK remainder of his days ; but the monastery being attacked b lawless men, the remembrance of his old valour returns t him ; and he seizes the sword in defence of himself and hi friends. Little as there is of literary value in these legend of the Church, they have not been without their effect o modern literature ; for they have suggested and inspired som of the noblest productions of eveiy succeeding age. § 5. Charlemagne, his Labours and his rELLOw-woEKMEi The history of France in the eighth century reveals figure of greater prominence and importance than any ( those upon whom we have been turning our attention. Kai the Great, commonly called Charlerniigne, was the son of Pepi the Short, and grandson's son of Pepiu of Heristal, an Austr; sian, Mayor of the Palace, who, after the battle of Testry, ws acknowledged as Duke of the Franks. Charlemagne, born A.i 742, succeeded his father in the kingdom of Neustria in 76i obtained the kingdom of all the Franks three years later, an the crown of Lombardy in 774 ; assuming the title of Emperc in the year 800. At the time of his death, in 814, hi dominions were bounded by the ocean from north of tlie Elt to the Pyrenees (always excepting Brittany). From th Bidassoa the boundary line ran across north-eastern Spuin t the mouth of the Ebro, and thence followed the sea-coast to point some miles south of Eome. Crossing Italy, it skirte the Adriatic as far as southern Dalmatia, and leavins Bul"ari on the east, ■ ran westward round the Carpathians, and s north by Magdeburg to Jutland. Over this wide domain hi sway was, throughout the latter part of his reign, undisputed and his authority, due as much to his commanding persons characteristics as to his success in arms, was superior both i kind and degree to that of any contemporary sovereign. H CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 89 did for France what Alfred did for England, but he was greater than the English king in the iield, more influential in the court, and, let us add, more fortunate in the biographer who has transmitted his fame to succeeding generations. Einhard (Eginhard),^ who describes himself as " a barba- rian little verse'd in the tongue of the Eomans," was a chronicler endowed with something of the spirit of the panegyrists ; but his Life of Charlemagne may be taken, with discrimination, as a valuable narrative of the acts of his illustrious patron ; whilst it is undoubtedly superior in tliis respect to the spuri- ous Chronicle of Turpin. Eginhard describes Karl the Great as tall of stature, with light hair, large and sparkling eyes, a rather long nose, a smiling and agreeable countenance, and very captivating manners. He was fond of war, and seems to have had little difficulty in collecting large and numerous armies, whom he almost invariably led to victory. He governed his court and his empire with remarkable skill. Twice a year, in spring and in autumn, he called together general assemblies, some consisting of the great officers and influential men in Church and State, together with men of inferior position ; others being open to the superior class alone. The object of these assemblies was to deliberate and decide upon matters of national or local interest ; and their results were preserved in the form of Capitularies, which, first instituted by Pepin the Short, contain rather the decrees and decisions than the legislation of the Carlovingian kings and their assemblies. Of these there are some hundred and fifty extant, whereof upwards of sixty belong to the reign of Charlemagne. The subjects dealt with in these Capitularies, which doubtless had all the force of a formal deposition of law, vary considerably from questions of morality to ques- tions of politics, from penal and civil edicts to religious ordi- nances, and to regulations of domestic and social life.'^ By 1 Bom about 770. ^ Gw.ot, Sistoire de la Oivilisation en France, Lect. 21 go HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK such means as these he held together and attempted to coi solidate his widespread dominions, and made every provinc feel and acknowledge the validity of his sway. Not satisfie with a mere centralisation of his power, backed and supporte by the tenor of his military authority, he maintained persoui relations with all his principal subjects ; making his indiv duality weigh, through them, upon the most distant corners ( his empire. Thus he strove, and with some success, to wel his Franks, Saxons, Avars, Goths, Italians, Aquitanians, Gaul Iberians, into one homogeneous and harmonious nation ; anc if he failed, it was because the task was an utterly impossibl one ; not because he omitted anything which a cultivate barbarian of the eighth century could have found to do. It is interesting to note in what manner the individualit of Charlemagne impressed itself upon those with whom h came in contact. In one respect, that of clothing, he ws himself an imitator of the original inhabitants of Gaul ; fc his dress, as Eginhard describes it, partook both of the Fran and Gallic fashion. His long white or blue cloak hung ovc his shoulders, closed as far as the loins, where it separate into two parts, the one falling over the knees, the other an longer one flowing behind. The legs were clothed in clot hose, laced down the sides, with trousers of the same materia Beneath the cloak was a tunic, edged with silk ; and beneat that a shirt of linen. A belt of gold or silver encircled th waist, from which hung, in its sheath of gold, the famou sword Joyeuse, which the troubadours of later days loved t celebrate, and which, like the Excalibur of King Arthu: boasted a fabulous origin. Over his shoulder Charlemagn was wont to wear a short mantle of marten or other skin ; garment differing from the favourite adornment of hi humblest subjects only hi tlie costliness of its material.^ The Emperor's courtiers were not slow in imitating an ^ B. Haureau, Charlemagne ct sa cowr, cli. i. CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 9> even surpassing their master in the richness of their attire ; and Charlemagne, disliking their ostentation, took an opportunity of effectually reproving it. One day he attended mass in an old cloak of sheepskin ; and, as soon as the service was over, said to his attendants : " Let us not rust in idleness, but now, clad as we are, without returning to our houses, let us go a-hunting." There was no shirking such an invitation ; so they mounted at once, and followed the Emperor. The sky was laden with rain, which presently fell in heavy showers. The courtiers were all clad in the best robes and gewgaws which the Vene- tian merchants had been able to supply. Some had their breasts covered with gay silks, set off by plumes of many colours, by peacock's feathers, and the heads and breasts of birds imported from Phoenicia. Others had robes of Tyrian purple, bordered with a fringe of cedar bark. Others wore quilted silks and cloths, or furs of every degree of value, from that of the dormouse to that of the marten. Charlemagne kept them at their sport throughout the day, until their dresses were completely soaked with rain, and torn to rags by the brandies, the brambles, and thorns of the underwood. _ Nor did this end their unpleasant ordeal ; for the Emperor commanded that they should attpnd his court on the follow- ing morning, attired precisely as they appeared on returning from the chase. He himself set the example by donning his sheepskin ; and thus bantered at his ease the shamefaced counts and marquises who surrounded him.^ But our present concern with Charlemagne is not so much to recognise in him the conqueror, the imperial ruler, or even the administrator. It is of more interest that we should know him as the patron of art and science, the encourager of learn- ing, himself a student and the friend of students. A man of ■war from his youth, he seems to have always nursed a sincere admiration for those who had conquered the difficulties of the ^ See Teulet, CEavres computes dEginliard, vol. i. p. 32. 92 HISTORY OF FREXCH LITERATURE. BOOK mind, as he had mastered the force and courage of h enemies. In one of his many expeditions he found himsel in Italy, in the presence of a number of learned men ; pn bably from Eome, or Pisa, or Bologna ; and, after listening I them, and treating them with great respect, he prevailed o several to return with him. He established schools, an monasteries to which schools were attached, in many parts ( his dominions ; and settled lecturers, professors, artists, gran marians, wherever it occurred to him that their talents niigl be used to the best account. He also employed architects an engineers to erect places of worship and of education, or f build bridges and lay down roads. In this encouragement ( learning and art, as in social life, Charlemagne succeeded, man festly through his personal influence, through the contagio of his own enthusiasm, by co-operation rather than by con mand, by example rather than by direction. He learned t read and write long after he had reached the prime of mar hood ; and all who wished to please their august master b treading in his steps felt no shame in sitting with him at tli feet of his instructors. He coveted for himself the fame of writer, and ordered a grammar of the national tongue to t written.^ Whether or no this can be taken to imply that li began to write with his own hand, or by dictation, a treatis on the Frank language, it would be sufficiently to the cred: of Charlemagne if he had done nothing more than suggei such a work to one of his friends. A certain anonymous chronicler reports a story, r( produced by M. Guizot, which at least bears on its fac the marks of probability. Eeturning from a long absenc Charlemagne summoned the pupils of one of the school and desired to see evidence of their application to stud; The children of the poorest parents acquitted themselvc * Eginhard, Vila Carolis Imperatoris, c. xxix. ; "inolioavit et grammat cam patrii serinonis." CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 93 well, whilst the better-born had nothing to show but a few mediocre attempts. Chfirlemagne set the former ou his right hand and the latter on his left ; and, turning to the poor children with a beaming face, said : " My child- ren, I praise you very much for your zeal in fulfilling my desires, and for seeking your own welfare by all the means in your power. Strive to attain perfection ; then T will give you rich bishoprics, splendid abbeys, and I will always esteem you as men worthy of consideration." Turning next, with marks of anger, to those whom he had placed on his left, who stood in terror at his wrathful look, he addressed them with bitter irony : " As for you, sons of the chief men in this nation, you delicate and well-born children, you resting con- tent with your birth and your fortune, you have neglected my orders, and the pursuit of your own fame in your studies, and chosen to abandon yourself to softness, play, idleness, or vain occupations." Then, raising towards heaven his majestic head and his invincible arm, he cried in a voice of thunder : " By the King of the heavens, let others admire you ; I, for my part, make no account of your birth and your beauty. Know, and keep it well in your minds, that if you are not urgent to make up by constant application for your past negligence, you shall obtain nothing from Charles."-' Amongst the schools which owed their foundation, or rather restoration, to the enlightened Emperor at the close of the eighth century, was that attached to the palace, which some have chosen to consider as the origin of the famous University of Paris. No doubt when a University of Paris was formally established in the thirteenth century, the capital was already one of the principal seats of learning in the king- dom, and schools existed there with some sort of definite endowment ; but this is all that can safely be said. In any case Charlemagne did establish from the very best materials 1 Des Fails et Gcstes de Charles le Grand, book i. 94 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK I. at his command tins school of the palace ; not assigning to it, in the iirst instance, any public building or fixed location, but entertaining its professors and learned men as his own guests, who travelled from place to place with his court, and only- settled down in Pans as their permanent home when Charle- magne finally took up his abode in Aix-la-Chapelle. The names of his assistants in the grand work of the restoration of learning, and in particular of those who were attached to his person, sufficiently attest the penetration, the good fortune, the success with which he attracted to his side men of genuine intellectual power, well fitted to be the instruments of his far- sighted purposes. Of these the principal was Alcuin, who had presided over the famous school connected with the mona- stery of York. On his return from Eome, in 781, whither he had been sent to fetch the 'pallium of the newly-consecrated Archbishop Eanbald, he met Charlemagne at Parma, and was induced by the Emperor to come to Paris, in the capacity of his instructor and counsellor. Here Alcuin employed his time in revising sacred manuscripts, in collating texts of the Holy Scriptures, and generally, in presiding over the great educa- tional movement which his patron had inaugurated. He had, amongst his immediate pupils in the palace School, not only Charlemagne himself, but his children, Charles, Pepin, Louis, Gisla ; his sister Gisla ; Piiculf and Eigbold, afterwards arch- bishops of Mayence and of Treves ; Adalhard, Angilbert, Fla- vius, Damoetas, and Eginhard, friends and counsellors of the Emperor ; Gundrade the sister of Adalhard, and Pdchtrude a nun.'' There are extant a number of letters which Alcuin wrote to Charlemagne during their temporary separations, and from the different places where the first was engaged in the labours which he had undertaken. In one of these, written from Tours— where the Emperor had given him the abbey of St. Martin— he gives his patron an account of what he had been ' Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, Lect. 22. CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NA TION. 95 doing in that town for the school attached to the abbey. He says — " I, your Flavius, according to your exhortation and wise desire, have been busy under the roof of Saint Martin, in dispens- ing to some the honey of the Holy Scriptures. Others I strive to inebriate with the old wine of ancient studies ; these I nourish wibh the fruit of grammatical knowledge ; in the eyes of these again I seek to make bright the courses of the stars. . . . But I have need of the most excellent books of scholastic learning, which I had procured in my own country, either by the devoted care of my master, or by my own labours. I therefore beseech your majesty that it may please your wisdom to permit me to send certain of our household to bring over into France the flowers of Britain. ... In the morning of my life I sowed in Britain the seeds of knowledge ; now, in the evening, although my blood has grown cool, I do not cease to sow them in France ; and I trust that, with the favour of God, they will prosper in both lands." ! A couple of years later, Alcuin, having written to Charle- magne an explanation of the terms " septuagesima " and " sexagesima," and having been gently remonstrated with by the Emperor upon his unyielding adherence to his own opinion, rejoins as follows : — " With regard to the injunction which you give me at the close of your letter, in a friendly way, and for my good — that if there be aught needing qualification in my opinion, I should qualify it with humility — I thank God I have never been obstinate in my error, nor confident in my disposition. I can advance with ease to a better counsel, for I know how it has been said that one ought more frequently to employ one's ears than one's tongue.- I therefore pray your ■wisdom to think I write not as to a disciple but as to a judge, and that I address to him my humble thoughts, not as to one who is ignorant, but as to one who may correct." A pleasant ^ See Guizot's Stsloire de la Cimlisation en Frwnce, for specimens of Alcuin'i lessons, and of many of his letters. 96 HISTORV OF FREXCH LITERATURE. BOOK I. touch of nature on botli sides, doing credit to the independence of each, at the same time that it betrays the assertion and the recognition of Charlemagne's imperious character. Two of Alcuin's fellow-workmen were from Ireland ; the monkish chronicler of St. Gall describes them as "duos Scotos de Hibernia." They seem to have come of their own accord, and to have conceived the idea of pressing upon France the learning of which they felt her to be in need, and which they felt themselves capable of imparting. It was their custom for some time to collect a crowd about them, much in the same way that is now practised by a mounte- bank at a fair. "If any one wishes for knowledge," they ■would proclaim, " let him come to us and take it, for we have it on sale." Charlemagne gave them a welcome at his court. Clement, one of them, was a Greek scholar, but he has left nothing behind him, except memorials of the hatred in which he was held by Theodulf, a Spaniard, bishop of Orleans, whom his friends called Pindar, because he was a poet. Tor some reason or other he had conceived a fierce antipathy to Clement,^ and called him " Scottus Sotus ; " but Clement nevertheless seems to have been a hearty co-operator with Alcuin, and to have commanded the respect of his pupils, if not of all his colleagues. It is possible enough that the Irish- man's orthodoxy did not precisely attain the standard of that of a Spaniard. Another Irishman, greater than either Alcuin or Clement, lived at tlie court of Charles the Bald (grandson of Charle- magne through Louis le Debonnaire). This was John Scotus Erigena, who has been, called the only really learned man of ^ Theodulf wrote the following Latin verses upon Clement, which bflar testimony to his hatred : — Ees dira, hostis atrox, hebes horror, pestis acerba, Litigiosa lues, res fera, grande nefas ; Ees fera, res turpis, res segnis, resque nefanda, Bes infesta piis ; res inimica bonis. CHAP. II. ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH NATION. 97 the Middle Ages. Others of Alcuin's coatemporaiies in France were Smaragdus, who wrote a Latin grammar ; Bene- dict of Aniane, a terror to evil-living monks ; Peter of Pisa, brought by the Emperor from Pavia ; Paul the Lombard, who has left behind him a History of the Loiribards, a Chronicle of Events at Metz, and a continuation of the Abstract of Euter- pi-us; and Paulinus of Aquileia, a theologian of no little acuteness and independence. Of Eginhard we have already- heard something. He was one of Alcuin's pupils, and has left us the most trustwortliy account of Charlemagne, having pro- bably been one of the Emperor's chancellors, and subsequently the tutor and chief minister of Lothaire, associated by Louis le D(5bonnaire in his government. As a man of letters Egin- hard was infinitely superior to Gregory of Tours, though as a historian he ranks below him. It is to be observed that the civilisation of France during the epocli of Charlemagne and his immediate successors, and, in a still more remarkable degree, the learning and literary culture of France, came from men of foreign extraction. The influences of Christianity had been brought to bear upon the nation by modes and instruments for the most part indige- nous, but this restoration of learning in the eighth an^ ninth centuries must be attributed to causes of external origin. "Before Charlemagne almost all the countries of Western Europe were more advanced than France, and it may be said without national vanity such a state of things was a real anomaly in the history of civilisation. Nevertheless so it was in the epoch of barbarism and the decadence of the Merovin- gians. At that time France was eclipsed by Spain, by Italy, by England. Spain had, in the tenth century, Isidore of Seville. In Italy, after Boetius and Cassiodorus, those latest representatives of antiquity at the moment when antiquity had expired on the threshold of modern ages, two great Popes VOL. I. 98 HI ST OR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book i. arose, Saint Leo and Saint Gregory. Latei on, whilst the densest darkness covei'ed Gaul, England produced the Yener- able Bede, celebrated by the extent ofhis knowledge. France had no one to compare with these." ^ ' Ampere, Sktoire litUraire de la France, vol. iii. ch. i. BOOK II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. CHAPTEE I. § 1. Origin of the Langue d'Oo and the Langde d'Oil. TllK process whereby the Latin tongue gradually became modified into Trench was slow and ill defined. Our informa- tion upon this point, at all events such as is derived from external evidence, is little more satisfactory than that which relates to the superposition of Latin upon the Gallic and Iberian languages which it displaced. But we have sufficient evidence that the Latin spoken in France during and shortly previous to the eighth century was very corrupt.^ Even in the age of Gregory of Tours, in the sixth century, we have his word for it that it was very common to confound the genders, the government of prepositions, and other grammatical rules. Nevertheless there was of course a method in every modifica- tion which did not spring from the mere neglect of ignorant men ; therefore they Avho treat the transition language of the ■French as a jargon speak without a notion of what it really was.^ ^ In 752, for instance. Pope Zaoharias found himself called on to decide concerning the validity of a baptism pronounced in these terms : — " Ego te baptizo in nomine Patria, et Filia, et Spiritus sancti." A form of contract of about the same date is couched in the following words : — " Cedo tibi de rem paupeiiatis mese tarn pro sponsalia quam pro largitate tuse, hoc est vasa cum curte circumaucta, mobile et immobile. Cedo tibi bracile valente soli- dus tantus ;" and so forth. ^ Littr^, Eistmre de la langue franqaise. loo HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ll. Of the methods which undoubtedly regulated these lin- ' guistic changes, one of the most important and manifest was the euphonic law of accentuation. It has been justl.y said that,^ "considered in its form as compared with the Latin, and in its origin, I would define French as a language which adheres to the accentuated syllables, usually suppressing the intermediate consonant and the short vowel, wliieh then re- constructs the word according to the euphony demanded by the ear amongst the letters remaining, and which thus estab- lishes its new and distinct accentuation, resting, in a masculine termination, upon the final syllable, and in a feminine termi- nation upon the penultimate." ^ The influence of the Franks in this respect was, as we have already seen, very slight, being perceived rather in cer- tain additions to the vocabulary than in any organic modifi- cation.^ It has been asserted that traces of this new-borii tongue are to be discovered as early as the sixth century.* The fact is doubtful, not because the evidences were not present at that date, but because we possess no literary documents of the sixth century written in the most popular forms of speech then employed.* In France, as in all contemporary Christian ' Littre, Histoire de la langue franqaise. ' Bearing this law of accentuation in mind, we may say that the great modifying force of neo-Latin in France was tlie law of crasis. Many examples will at once suggest themselves. Thus, sdllieiidre becomes soulcier ; minis- Uriv/m becomes meatier; cogitare, cvider ; cupiditare, convoiier ; sccurus, aeur, sHr ; maturus, meur, mUr ; and the like. ' From them we have such feudal terms as mall (mahaV), ian (banti), allm {dl6d), 4chevin (skepeno), mariclml {maraTiscalh), sindchal (simscalh) ; and terms of war, like haubert {halsberc), heaume (Jidrn), guerre {werra), and the like. But, in tracing' the rise of the new language, the Teutonic element would scarcely require more than a-few passing words of comment. * The Benedictine authors of the Histoire littdraire de la France, vol. vii. p. xxxiii. ' There is, however, a fragment known as the Gloss of BeichAaiau, brought to light in 1863, which is at all events as old as the days of Charlemagne, of which a few words may serve as a specimen. Thus we have from the Latin CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. lot landS; the BiLle has been the handmaid of literature, and has had a large influence on the formation of the modern tongue. The Latin spoken in the ninth century by the most edu- cated laymen in France-^setting aside those who had spent many years in the schools— is exemplified by the well-known oaths of Lewis the German and Charles the Bald, preserved by Nithard, nephew of Charlemagne, in his History of the Franlcs} Here we have evidence both of the extent to which the corruption of the Latin language had proceeded, and of the advance already made towards the modern form of speech. Another and later example is contained in the song of St. Eulalia,* preserved by Ordericus Vitalis, one of the earliest fragments of the popular poetry, afterwards so abundant, which centred round the lives of the'saints, and which was to give place in the aflFections of the French people to the songs of the troubadours. The distinction between the early French of the north and the south must have existed from the very first ; and it is neqessary, to a proper appreciation of French literature, to text of the BiUe the word minas, upon which the gloss given is manatees, thi modern French menaces ; and so, galea, helmo (^heaume) ; tuguriv/m, cabanna, (cabana) ; simxdariter, solam^nie (seulement) ; cmtnentarii, madoni (mofons) ; gindones, Uncioli (lincetds), etc. Brach'et, Histoire de la Langue Frangaise, p. 34. ' The oath of Lewis tlie German, taken before the army of Charles the Bald in 842, is as follows : — " Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo et nostro conimun salvament, dist di en avaut, in quant Deus savir et-podir me dunat, si salvarai-eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in adjudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum ora per dreit son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid nnnquam prindrai qui, meon vol, cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit" The oath of the French lords of the army of Charles the Bald is as fol- lows : — "Si Lodhuwigs sagrament, que son' fradre Karlo jurat conservat, et Karlns nieos sendra, de suo part non lo stanit, si io returnar non I'int pois, ne io ne neuls cui eo returnar int pois in nulla adjudha contra Lodhuwig non li iv er.'' " We give the four first lines only, with the modem French on the other side : — Buona pulcella fut Enlalia ; Bonne puelle fut Eulalie, Hel avret corps, tellejour anima Beau avait le corps, plus belle I'lme. Voldrent la voindre li Deo ininii, Voulurent ia vaincre lea ennemis de Diea, Voldrent la faire dlaule servif. Voulurent la faire le diable servir. 102 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ii notice the principal features of each form of language. As early as the thirteenth century, French writers had observed and commented on this difference. The grammarian and trouba- dour, Eaymond Vidal, in his La Dreyta Manera de Trdbar} remarks : " The French tongue is best and most suitable for the making of romances, pastorals, and lays ; but that of Limousin is to be preferred for making verses, songs, and sirventes."^ Of course there were various kinds of dialects spoken in dif- ferent parts of the country long before the thirteenth century ; but the exact process by which they attained their first literary form and their geographical limits jcannot be satisfactorily explained. It would be as rash to conclude that the Latin tongue gave place to a uniform idiom throughout France, which was subsequently corrupted in different districts, as it would be to suppose that the French of Aquitaine was simply Latin flus Iberian, the French of Auvergne Latin 'plus Gaelic, the French of Armorica Latin iplus Cymric. Yet there is little doubt but that the original tongues of Gaul had their share in directing the several corruptions of the adopted Latin ; although the traces of this influence are not much more distinct than the traces of Teutonic admixture. Many causes must have contributed to produce the dialects of Limousin, Gascony, and Saintonge, of Auvergne, Toulouse, Narbonne, of Vienne and Montferrat ; and the dialects them- selves, in a more or less imperfect form, must have been commonly spoken in the various provinces many years before they became the vehicle of literature. The same thing was happening at the same time — perhaps somewhat later — in England, although under other conditions, and according to more definite or ascertained laws of linguistic development ; 1 "The right way to write poetry."— Guessard, BMiothique de VEcoU de3 Chartes. " In Zes Troubadours et Uur influence sur la UUiraiure dv, Midi de VMirope, M. E. Baret suggests that the romances, lays, and ahove all the pastorals, are of Proyen9al origin. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 103 the older continental forms giving way before the popular dialects, out of which the genius of the early writers of ro- naance was to evolve the modern English tongue. It is certain, as it is of course very natural, that the cor- rupted Latin of Italy and of Spain ran for a long time side by side with the corrupted Latin of France ; that the forma of corruption were frequently identical; and more, that some forms which were in the first instance common to all the neo- Latin tongues, have come to be adopted in one of those coun- tries, whilst they have been rejected in the others.^ Thus the lingua rom.ana rustica was formed between the sixth and seventh centuries. In the latter century we hear of a Life of Saint Faro, written in a popular form of speech, so as to be understood as widely as possible.^ Paschatius Eadbert tells us, in his Life of Adalhard (about 800), that "if you had heard him spealc in the common tongue, he uttered his words in pleasantly-flowing periods ; whereas if you heard hirn use the foreign tongues, which they called Teutsch ... he excelled all others ; but if he spoke Latin, then was there no grander diction from the charm of its sweetness. Here we have a men- tion of three forms of speedh, one of which is described as commonly spoken ; and being neither Teutsch nor Latin ^ In Diez's Introduction to the Ctraminmr of the Romance Languages, we find "the two Romance dialects of Gaul, the French and the Provensal, have been produced from nearly the same materials ; and the characteristics which the former possesses, in common with the Spanish and Italian, are not of a nature to separate it from its neighbour, to which it bears a very intimate relationship. It is conceivable that within certain limitations the same Eomance language reigned at one time over the whole of Gaul. This language preserved itself with more purity in the Provenyal than in the French, which from somewhere about the ninth century has been separating itself thence by a gradual attrition of its forms." Burguy, in his introduction to the Gram- maire de la Langvs Wml, p. 13, says also, "II est tr&s-probable, grammati- calement parlant, qu'il y eut d'abord dans les Gaules une seule et meme langue, avec des nuances diverses toutefois selon les localites. Dfes la fin du IXe siiole nous y trouvons deux langnes fort distinctes ; le Provencal au sud, et le Fran^ais pi-oprement dit au nord." • " Juxta rusticitatem " is the epithet applied. 104 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book II. was evidently the lingua romana in use by tlie majority of Frenchmen. In 813 the Council of Tours directed the .clergy to employ the rustic Latin, which we may call Eomance, alternately with the Teutsoh. The former was, of course, the most widely understood language in France in tlie ninth cen- tury ; and as such, it was employed. on all occasions v.-hen the intelligence of the masses was to be reached. It became divided, as we have seen, into two dialectic families, that of the north being still further subdivided, and comprising one . particular form, spoken in the He de France, which, as being the language of the capital and the court, was destined ulti- mately, to prevail over all the re.st. The grand distinction observable amongst the dialects, of France is that between the north and the south ; and for this the geographical separation would alone be sufficient to ac- count. But there were other causes at work, both political and social. The descent of the Norsemen upon the north, during the tenth century, must have produced an immediate effect in modifying the speech of the conquered country ; for though the victors doubtless adopted the language of those whom they had to rule, they certainly did not do so without consi- derably modifying it. They neglected the accentuation, they changed the vowel-sounds, — in particular turning the a into e, as in charitat, charity ; and they must, in like manner, have altered the features of the tongue which they adopted in sundry more or less conspicuous modes. The south of France, on the other hand, occupied a few centuries previously by the Visigoths and Buvgundians, the most peaceful of all the eastern ^ invaders, became united from the year 879 under Boson, King of Provence, or of Aries, as he was sometimes described ; wlulst at the end of the eleventh century it was 1 "Quem si«Ki?oaudisses,dulcifluu.seman!ibat; si vero idem 'barliara, quara lcuiisca;n aicunt . . . pise-eminebat ; quod si latiiie, jam ulterius prse aviditate dulcoris non erat spiritus." — Pcrtz. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. I OS divided between the Counts of Toulouse and Barcelona. These changes were made without much bloodshed or resistance ; and this fact, added to the natural influences of a more southern climate, tended to widen and emphasise the differ- ence between the Provencal language and literature and the heavier and ruder speech of the north. The former has been distinguished by the name of lawjue, d'oc ; the latter by that of laiigue 6! ml} Between the more warlike, yet the more barbarous, French- men of the North and the softer yet more ingenious French- men of the South, there arose a certain rivalry and jealousy, which has been manifested in the political history of subse- quent generations : and which has left its marks upon the social history and literature of the Middle Ages. _ When, in the year lOOG, Constance, daughter of the Count of Toulouse, came to be given in marriage to Eobert the Second, King of France, and brought with her certain of her father's courtiers, the rude men from the Nortli were scandalised by the frivolity of the Southerners. " Their arms," says the chronicler Glaber,^ "and the trappings of their horses are extremely quaint. Their hair falls barely to the middle of their heads, tliey shave their beards like players, wear boots ending unbecom- ' M. G6rusez in his Histoire de la Littiratun frawyiise, vol. i., p. 5, remarks that " oe is evidently the hoc of the Latins ; oil, of which we have formed our oui, which is certainly not, as has been said so often, the past participle of the verb ouir, is derived, by a double syncope, from hoc and illiid, united and abridged. Boc was pronounced o, as oc is still pronounced in the south of France. Illvd has given its first syllable, upon which the tonic accent rests, and our fathers had thus for affirmation the dissyllable oil, which is wrongly written and pronounced oil. The Italians took for a similar use the adverb sic, of which they made si. Italian is the language of si, just as the romance from the south is the language of oc, and that from the centre and the north of France the language of oil." " Eaoul Glaber, a monk who died towards 1050, in the monastery of Cluny, wrote a Ckronique, which contains the most memorable events from 900 until 1046. A translation of this chronicle has been published in the collection of Mimoires pour seroir & VHisioire de France, edited by the late M. Guizot. io6 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. ingly in a curved beak, short skirts down to their knees, and open behind and before. They never walk without springing. Perpetual wranglers, they never act in good faith. And these are the frightful models which the princess has unfortunately offered to Frenchmen, the most honest and refined of all nations '" The picture is one which bears on its face the stamp of truth ; and the French literature of the Middle Ages is marked by the same contrast as their social history. We pass on to consider the nature of this literature, as it sprang to life in the eleventh century ; when the pure Latin tongue was no longer spoken, when the labours of Charle- magne and Alcuin had almost ceased to bear fruit, save in the monastic schools, and when the whole of western Europe stood upon the verge of a new historic epoch. And we will begin with the literature of the langue d'oc, the literature of the south of France. § 2. The Langue d'Oo and its Literature. The language of the South, distinguished from its greater propinquity to Eome as the langue d'oc (hoc), was spoken generallj' up to the close of the thirteenth century on the banks of the Ebro and of the Po, on the Mediterranean coast, and in the districts drained by the Loire and the Ehone. Its principal variations were the dialects of Provence, Gascony, Catalonia, and Piedmont ; the latter comprising elements which account for its development into the modern Italian, whilst the Catalan dialect tended towards the modern Spanish. In the twelfth century these four forms were sufficiently similar to be intel- ligible over the whole district just defined, and even by the more cultivated speakers of the langue d'oU. Many of the troubadours employed the several dialects indiscriminately, and we shall find them frequently combining the features CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. \orj of all in the Game song. Altliough we are conceruud uo v simply with the literature of France, it is well to hear in mind that this brilliant lyric poetry of the Middle Ages belongs virtually to at least three nationalities, and that the political aspect of the country of the troubadours was consider ably more varied than it is in the present day. Soutli of the Pyrenees were the kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon, independent and compact. During the greater part of the twelfth century Aragon held Provence as a fief, until, in 1196, the latter was made over to a younger brother of the reigning king, and from his successor it passed into the hands of the Capets. Provence lay on the Mediterranean, between the Alps and the Phone. Its neighbour on the north was the duchy of Savoy ; on the west, extending between the PJione and the upper Garonne, and between the Pyrenees and the mountains of Auvergne, was the Count of Toulouse, wliereof the ruling family was closely allied, by successive marriages, with the royal house of Aragon. Westward of Toulouse, in the south-west corner of France, came the Duchy of Gascony, including Bdarn in the south, Pdrigord in the north, Albret on the west, and Agenois on the east. Nortli of Gascony and Toulouse was the extensive duchy of Aqui- taiue, comprising Auvergne, Limousin, Poitou, and La Marche. All these French provinces paid fealty to the French king who reigned in Paris, though they preserved a certain amount of independence, at least to the time of Louis IX.,^ eighth in direct descent from Hugh Capet. The history of Frai>ce, and of the south in particular, during the Capetian period is full of interest, and of course it had no little influence on the literature of the langue d'oc. In 1095 Pope Urban, assisted by Peter the Hermit, both of them being Frenchmen, preached the first crusade from Clermont in Auvergne. Since the death of Hildebrand, ten yeara 1 1226-1290. io8 ■ HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. before, the power of the papacy had. been declining, and the Eraperors of Germany contested the supremacy of the Pontiff, who was moreover continually liable to be thwarted by the headstrong independence of the feudal barons. For these and other reasons Urban determined to make a diversion which sliould bring him more prominently forward as the liead of Christendom, and he therefore took steps to carry out a project which had long found a place in the counsels of Rome. He had well chosen the spot fi-om wliich to move the hearts of the Christian warriors of France ; for it was the adhesion of Bishop Adh-^mar of Puy and Eaymond de Saint Gilles, Count of Toulouse, which assured the success of the crusade. The hatred of the Sai-acens in Euroj)e stinnilated men's enthusiasm against the Saracens of the Holy Land ; but it was no doubt rather policy than religious fervour which caused Urban and his advisers to embark upon this important enterprise. And the first fruits of his success was the expul- sion of Henry IV. of Germany from Italy by the Norman and Burgundian host which came to crave the blessing of the Pontiff'. Amongst the followers of Eaymond, who formed the finest army in the whole crusade, were not only his own sub- jects, but a large number of Gascons, Aquitanians, and Pro- ven9als. Although amongst the effects of the crusades must he placed the increased immorality of western Europe, and the enormous strengthening of the hands of the Popes, it is also to be remembered that men were, by their agency, brought more closely together, caste was broken down, feudalism was pre- vented from degenerating into anarohy, tlie conditions of serf- dom were alienated, and the municipalities, left in a large degree to their own devices, gained in power and authority. Civic liberties made a large stride in the reign of Lonis VII. ;i and indeed the general immunity enjoyed by south- ern France from the long and devastating wars whicli liad ' 11.S7-1180. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 109 afflicted each and all of the neighbouring countries had brought, especially- to Provence, much prosperity, leisure, and literary culture in its train. The art of poetry, above all, flourished in a remarkable manner, and the central districts of the langue Woe became a veritable land of song. By about the year 1160, Henry of Anjou, Henry II. of England, became master of tlie greater part of southern France. He had ac- quired Poitou and Aquitaine by his marriage with Eleanor, divorced wife of Louis ; Touraine and Maine had, together with Anjou, been his original patrimony ; he had feudal suzer- ainty over Auvergne ; he conquered Gaseony, and seized upon Quercy from the Count of Toulouse ; but all tliis had been done with comparatively little lighting, and the country at large was never greatly disturbed by him. The cruel war waged against the Albigenses, wherein the greater part of Languedoc was laid waste, B6ziers, Aries, Narbonne, Avignon, were sacked; wherein Pedro of Arragon, an enlightened patron of letters, fell at Muret* with 18,000 of his followers, destroyed the delicate literary southern efflorescence ; but the records of at least a couple of centuries remain to show the splendour and importance of the epoch. Striking figures are those who stand prominent in the his- tory of southern France during the thirteenth century. The philosophical Albigenses, whqge head-quarters were at Tou- louse but who were spread over a wide district, and whose dis- ciples numbered many thousands ; the ascetic "Waldenses, the " poor men of Lyons," who would not go bej'ond the Bible for the rule of their faith — tliese two sects, against whom all the bitterness of orthodox hatred was to be poured forth, alike distinguished for the purity of their life, and alike rejected by the priestly domination of Kome ; Folquet, the false and unscrupulous Bishop of Toulouse, himself once a gay and gallant troubadour, who, with his culture of the poetic » 1213. J I o HISTOR V OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book ii. art, had cast off all the grace and tenderness of humanity ; Domenico, canon of Osma, the parent and founder of the inquisition, wlio baptized his offspring in the blood of a thou- sand victims, and did more than any one man of his generation for the cause of Roman supremacy ; Raymond YI., Count of Toulouse, excommunicated by thePope,* formidable to Rome by the indifference with which he regarded her denunciations of his heretic subjects, weak and vacillating, first resisting tlie pressure brought to bear npon him, then yielding himself as a tool in the hands of the persecutors ; his gallant nephew, the Viscount ofBeziers, opposing the emissaries of Rome by word and deed, until his hapless capital was taken by storm, sacked and consumed by fire, the very last of its inhabitants was killed, and he himself, previously lured into the be- siegers' camp, done to death by the basest treachery ; Simon do Montfort, succeeding to the honours of his victim, taking henceforth the leading part in this cruel mockery of a cru- sade ; — these are figures worthy the skill of a great painter, grouped as they are in lurid light against the dark back- ground which, in the thirteenth century, began to overlay the land of song. Turn from the theatre of war to the stage of peaceful everyday life, and the actors who first attract onr notice are scarcely less noteworthy. " "When Monseigneur the Bishop of Cahors," writes a chronicler, " takes possession of his see, the Yiscount of Saissac, his principal vassal, ought to await him at the gate of the town bareheaded, his right leg naked, and his right foot in a slipper. He ought to take the bridle of Monseigneur's mule, and lead him to the episcopal palace. While Monseigneur dines, the Yiscount ought to wait on hiin, his head being still uncovered and his right foot naked ; and after dinner, the lord of Saissac is to take the sideboard, which must be of silver gilt, and, putting it on a mule, go his way— '1207. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. n, both mule and sideboard (the value whereof was fixed at three ■ thousand livres) becoming his own in right of his service. It is told of one Bishop of Cahors that he never said mass without a sword or a pair of gauntlets being laid beside the altar. Another ecclesiastic of Provence claimed the right of inixinn- with the choir in boots and spurs, his sword by his side, and a hawk on his wrist. The Abbot of Figeac was entitled to be led into the principal town of his see by the lord of Mont- brun dressed like a harlequin, save that one of his legs should be naked. These ceremonies were not more fantastic than the tricks which knights and troubadours dignified by the name of the proprieties, and the immorality covered by such a grotesque conventionality was as unsatisfactory in the one case as in the other. Gregory VII., writing of France iu 1074, says that " law is forgotten and justice trampled under foot. There is no kind of infamy or cruelty, no act, liowever vile or intolerable, that is not perpetrated with impunity .... bysaerilegiouSjincestuous, and perjured men, who are ready to betray one another for the veriest trifle." The vices described and hinted at by contemporary historians are such as it would, in the present age, be unclean to put to paper. The country of the Albigenses and Waldenses did not escape the general contagion ; but we can at least claim for it that it was less corrupt than the remainder of France. The trou- badours refined and attenuated vice ; they covered it with a delicate fretwork of etiquette and fastidiousness, but, at the same time they repudiated its brutality ; they ate the honey of indulgence, but they did not devour the comb. The evils of vice, as of war, singed but did not blacken them ; they were the void heart of the flame which, consuming their neigh- bours, left them comparatively unscathed. Provence was the focus of the lyrical poetry of the langue d'oc, and from its troubadours of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries 1 1 2 HISTOR V OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book it. spring almost every form of lyrical prosody known to modern Europe.^ The literature of southern France in the Middle Ages is the more worthy of study, because it was in many ways a revival of the tone and spirit of the culture displayed by the Gallo- Eonians of an earlier age. The refinement of the panegyrists, the literary elegance of a Sidonius relived in the words of the modern Aquitanians and Provencals, who inherited the delicate ear and tongue, the fastidious and discriminative minds of the patrician families who so long resisted, but finally accepted and coalesced with, the Visigoths. There can be no question whatever that the poetry of the troubadours was a flower of indigenous growth, matured and brought to perfection by the same developing influences wliich had nourished the general civilisation of the south, and had aTii- mulated the connnercial prosperity and luxury of towns like Aries, Toulouse, Narbonne, Bordeaux. But, if this poetry was indigenous, if it even extended its influence over northern ^ The troubadours had the cwnson, or cJianson, consisting of frora ialf-a- dozen to a score of stanzas, all cast in the same mould, and invariably ending with a commiato or envoi, apostrophising the song, and delivering the mission which it was sent forth to fulfil ; the more lax and satirical sirveute, with lines and stanzas of valuing length, the succession of rhymes being similarly optional ; the soniiet, originally always chanted to the sound of a musical in- strument — hence the name, and one form whereof may possibly have suggested to Petrarch that which he definitely adopted ; the ballad, sung during the dance. With them also originated many whimsicalities of poetry — the maca- ronic, alternating from language to language, either line by line or verse by verse— a style which Dante himself did not disdain to imitate ; the frotlola, a mere amalgam of proverbs and familiar maxims, strung together with rhyme and metre, but with very little reason. They attuned their voices to the predicansas, inciting their hearers to the dangers and glories of the crusades ; to theplamhs, or complaints against fate, or the cmelties of their mistresses ; to the iensons, characterised by the ingenious replies of a pair of lovers ; to the abbas (aubades), the morning songs of natui'e's beauty and freshness ; to the nerenas (siririades), in which they invited to the tenderness of love. They even attempted, in their tezaurs (tresors) and enscnhamais {en^cigncme-i.ts) i.n give expression to what little they knew of the wonders of science, the rules of philosophy, the art of living. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 113 Italy and north-eastern Spain, leaving an ineffaceable mark on the literatures of these two countries, it does not appear that the Provencals modified in any appreciable degree the literature of the north of France. We have heard that Eay- mond Vidal, himself a troubadour and .a, grammarian, claimed a "superior authority" forthe "songs in the Limousin tongue;" but he did not for a moment pretend that the trouvere's were indebted to the troubadours for any part of their inspiration, nor that the Chans He died in 117S CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 135 happened to have come under the writer's cognisance. That of Pierre de Corbiac^ consists of some eight hundred and forty alexandrines limited to a single rhyme. He says of himself — "^ " I am rich in mind, and though I have no great inheritance, castles, hamlets, and other domains; although I have neither gold, silver, nor silk, no other wealth than my own person, I am nevertheless not poor. I am even richer than a man who has a thousand golden -marks. I was born at Corbiac, where I have relatives and friends. My income is moderate, but my cour- tesy and my intelligence make me live respected by gentlefolks. I walk with my head erect, like a rich, man ; and indeed I am one, as I have collected a treasure " (knowledge). This splendid literature, this poetic blossom of southeru France, was completely crushed by the terrible wars and sufferings of the country in the fanatical crusade directed against it from the north. The inspiration of the trouba- dours perished with the independence of the southern king- doms and counties, and with the religious freedom and purity 'of the Albigenses. The Romance lyric poetry, which had from the beginning flourished chiefly in Provence, found at the court of the Provencal Counts its latest refuge. " These good Counts," ^ Nostradamus pays, "were, as if by inheritance, so munificent and liberal towards lofty and noble spirits,; that they heaped upon them honours, lordships, and. wealth,. that day by day one found rare and illustrious poets brought to the light, so that it seemed as, if Provence would never be ban-en, nor cease from the production of lofty spirits, excel- lent and distinguished men." The death of the last of the B^rengers, and the accession of Charles of Anjou, who cared ' Probably about the thirteenth century. " Manuscript of the National Library at Paris. ' Sons Ccnraes was the name usually given by the troubadours to the Counts of Toulouse. 136 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book 11. more for politics than for letters, brought this Augustan age to an end ; and before many years had passed, the cession by Amaury de Montfort of his father's possessions to the king of northern France virtually ended the indepen- dence of the south. In 1229 was founded the university of Toulouse, and Innocent IV., stigmatising the Eomance language as being identified with heretical opinions, forbade its employment by the students, and so contributed to hasten the decline of the literature of the troubadours. The language of the north was thus, in a manner, forced upon the south ; and from this time we find, without surprise, that Eomance literature, in so far as it may be said to have con- tinued in existence, steadily deteriorated, whilst the langiie d'oc became more and more affected by the influence of its northern rival. The troubadours of the fourteentb century afford ample evidence of the fact, as may be readily per- ceived from a glance at the pages of Geffroy de Luc, Eay- mond de la Tour de Marseille, who wrote a sirvente against his mother-in-law, and of Bernard Eascas.^ § 4. Eaely Epics of the Langue d'oil The tenth century had been the darkest of the dark ages ; and the meagre trace which it has left upon the page of his- tory tells us of little more than terrible plagues, famines of almost incredible severity recurring year after year, universal horror and depression, during which men's hearts failed them, and nothing less than the destruction of the world was looked for day by day. The eleventh century lifted this dark veil ; > Take for example the following lines from Eascas, inspired by the death of his wife: — " Lous ours hardys . . . I/on dauphin dins la mar, lou tone e la balena, llonstres impetuous, ryaumes e comtats Lous princes e lous rays saran per mort domtas." CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 13/ pestilence and famine had done their worst ; the hopes of men , revived, and they set themselves once more to build, and plant, and enjoy, and fight. Then once more literature revived ; and that which was really the dawn of French literature at last appeared. It is of course extremely natural, and precisely what we s^iould have expected, that the first poetry of the north was epic rather than lyric ; based as it was rather upon the deeds of heroes than of lovers. And again it is natural that the trouvferes of this epic poetry rather sought for their heroes in the history and traditions of the countries with which their ancestors had been most closely associated ; that is to say, in the history of ancient Greece and Eome, in the traditions of Britain and Brittany, and in the recent traditions of their own country. As for the Teutons on the continent, the genius of Prance seemed as unwilling to be indebted to them for her literature as for their language. The trouveres were the makers of the poems wherewith they delighted to cheer all classes, and to rouse their spirits, even for war. They took it iU that their less staid and decorous rivals, the jongleurs, who were singers rather than poets, should sometimes attract the praises and the rewards of their patrons ; they called them troviors Idtards, and asserted that they degraded the noble art ; priding themselves especially on their intellectual superiority which enabled them to be original. Benoit de Sainte-Maure ^ boasts that his " story is not worn, nor scarcely found in any places, nor has as yet been writ- ten." And the unknown author of the Roman de Thehes^ says bitterly, "Now they go, of all trades, though neither scholar nor knight ; for as many can listen as asses to a * In the Soman de Troie. ^ " Or s'en aillent de tons mestiers, " Cette ystoire n'est pas usee, Se il n'est clers on chevaliers : Ni en guire de lieux trouvde, Car autant peuvent ecouter Ji icrite ne fut encore. " Comme les toes au harper. " 1.38 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITE.RATURE. book ii. harper." And another sings : ^ " Now lords, whoni may God bless, listen to a song of many a great lordship ; jongleurs sing it, but hardly know it. A scholar has put it in rhyme, and ar- ranged it again." And another,^ " These jongleurs who do not know how to rhyme, made the work go wrong in several places, and did not know how to place the words." From which it is clear that the jongleurs ventured sometimes to turn the tables on the trouvferes by emendations and glosses as well as by original versification. The jongleur was usually, however, a man of no preten- sion to social consideration ; , being either a wandering knave, blest with a strong ■ constitution, a good memory, and abun- dance of coolness and cleverness, or else a household servant — in the same sense that a m^nestreP was primarily a domestic. He carried with him his vielie, a small kind of violin,. across the strings whereof he drew his bow in the inter- vals between his strophes, whilst he sang his stories, with a monotonous cadence at the end of each line. He was welcome enough at feasts, marriages, tournaments, and generally at the tables of the rich. , His audience^ — now within doors, now without^ would gather round him and listen greedily to his songs ; "baron, knight, and sergeant-at-law, men and women great and small." At the sound of his fiddle he was sure to have a crowd about him ; and he would whet the appetite of his hearers by boasting that " there was none in the whole world who knew so many Chansons de Geste * as he, that he 1 " Or 4eoutez, seigneurs que Dieu Wnie, TJne chanson de moult grand seignenrie ; Jongleurs la chantent et ne la savent mie Tin clerc en vers I'a mise, et r^tablie." 2 " Ces jongleurs qui ne savent rimer Firent I'ouvrage en plusieurs lieux fausser, Ne surent pas les paroles placer." ' Minister minislrelhis. * The name by which the national French epics were usually described was Chansons de Geste; from the Latjn phrase res gestae, public acts, authentic narrative. Of these Chwnsons, 800 manuscripts have been already (1876) dia. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 139 tnew tales of adventures, delightful to hear, and also tales of tlie Eound Table." And after all was over, he or his wife would go round collecting the coin, apostrophising those who gave nothing, much in the style of wandering jugglers in the nineteenth century. The first efforts of the trouv^res were partly directed towards the celebration of national heroes ; both because the deeds of illustrious Frenchmen were most familiar to them, and were the subject of greater pride to themselves and to their hearers, and because their poetic genius, still only half-fledged, had not acquired the courage to venture far afield. And truly there was, in the history of the Carlovingian kings and their knights, as well as of their predecessors and successors, abundant inspiration for romantic minds. Throughout the long night of the tenth century Frenchmen had cherished the glories of the previous epoch, during which the sword of Charlemagne had established a mighty empire, stretching between the North Sea and the Mediterranean, between the Ebro and the Oder. No sooner had a new prosperity taught the poet to sing, and given to kings, nobles, and people, the leisure and the inclina- tion to hear, than the mind of the nation fell back upon its happiest traditions, and began to create its popular literature. Some of the earliest poems of the trouveres go as far back as the times of Clovis and Dagobert ; ^ whilst others come down almost to contemporary heroes.^ But of all the epics of the national French cycle, the figure of Charlemagne is the centre, as Arthur is the centre of the epics of Britain. covered, including those of the Carlovingian, Classical, and Arthurian cycles. The word gosU came to he used as an abstract substantive ; gens cle geste were men of historic fame or ancestry. ' The romances of Parthenopex de Blois, and Florient et Octavien. The old English versions of the first romance have been edited for the Roxburghe Club by the Eev. W. E. Buckley, 1862. " The romances of Hugh Capet (who died a.d. 996), Le Chevalier au Gygne, and Le Bastard de Bouillon. An English abridgment of the second romance, called The Knight of the Swan, has been often published ; the last edition by Mr, H. H. Gibbs, for the Early English Text Society. HO HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ll. The best poems of this national French cycle were written, or at least the date of their first documentary evidence occurs, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; hut there is little doubt that many of these existed, in more or less incomplete form, as early as the eleventh century. And in any case, this latter epoch is sufficiently distinguished by poems which un- questionably had their origin soon after the death of Hugh Capet. We read of a jongleur in the army of William the Conqueror, A.D. 1066, who sang the deeds of Eoland as he rode to meet the foe. Wace describes him in the Roman de Rou, as " Taillefer, who sang very well, upon a horse which quickly went, rode before the duke, singing of Charlemagne and of Eoland, and of Oliver and his vassals who died at Eoncevaux." ^ It M'ould be impossible to state with precision the date when the popular epics of France — whether in the Eomance, in the purer Latin, or in any other tongue — had birth. It would be difficult, in the first place, to assign the period when the ancient Gaelic and Iberian ceased to be employed in the remote country districts, where these languages would certainly endure long after Latin had become common in the towns. And, in the absence of documentary evidence, it would be rash to assert that there was no popular poetry in France, even in the Eomance language, before the seventh and eighth centuries. That there was a certain quantity of poetic narrative composed and preserved by the Druids in the Gaelic language, before and during the Eoman occupation, is certain. Of this poetry we have no literary remains, unless fragments of it exist in the north-western peninsula. Had this Druidic verse no legiti- mate successor in the popular esteem, which has perished, ^ " Taillefer ki moult bien cantout \ Sur un ronssin qui tot alout Devant li dus alout cantant De Kalcrmaine e de Rolant, E d'Oliver et des vassals Ki moururent h, Eonccvals." CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCJETY. 141 even from histoiy, more completely than tlie nieiiiorial records of the Gauls and Celts ? There have been some writers, at all events, who have found, in the earlier parts of the epic of the Loheraim, traditions of the invasion of Attila and the Huns (A.D. 451). The facts correspond, whilst the names may have been changed ; and a literary instinct will not be able to pass over as insignificant the fact that the author of this poem, referring to the plunder of the Christian ctergy in order to pay the barbarian soldiers, justifies Attila for his conduct in this respect. That the epic itself was written at disjointed periods of time is probable from internal evidence. Thus, the enemies of the French, who are at first described as "Wandles," Vandals, appear later on as Saracens. It is dis- tinctly an epic of national heroism opposed to invasion ; the spirit is uniform throughout, but the character of the inci- dent varies. Be it observed, moreover, that an epic of the eleventh century, dealing professedly or implicitly with events of the fifth, may have been original so far as the words were concerned, whilst it was retrouv4 rather than trouve, based upon a foregoing epic in an archaic tongue, which a scholar or learned priest alone was able to decipher. § 5. The Caelovingian Cycle. In the time of Charlemagne the Saracens had begun to press heavily upon the outposts of Christian Europe, and whilst the typical hero of the Chansons de Geste was a Chris- tian knight, his typical foe was a Saracen. The instinct of the trouvkes led them persistently away from the exploits of Charlemagne in the north and east, and centred the interest of their poems in the campaigns, historical or traditional, of himself, his knights, and his successors, against the Mussul- man invaders of Spain and the south of Europe. Of the three-and-thirty undoubted expeditions of Charlemagne only 142 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. one, which was not undertaken against the Saracens, is cele- brated by Jean Bodel in the Chanson des Saxons, of which the hero is Witikind. Historical accuracy was sacrificed to the taste of the hearers and the fashion of the trouveres ; and, no doubt, many a deed of prowess, wrought by the great Emperor and his followers on the banks of the Ehine and the Oder, was remodelled and transferred by the complaisant poets to the plains of Septimania or the deiiles of the Pyrenees. Not only thus are honours thrust upon Charlemagne to which he himself never aspired, but he ■ is credited now and again with the acts of his predecessors, and even of his descendants. Yet more, according to a later writer, possibly a monk, Charle-. magne and his twelve knights^ went to the Holy City itself, and sat in the temple of Jerusalem ; miracles were performed in their honour, and they returned laden with relics for the Abbey of Saint Denis. The Chanson de Roland, the best known,ithe longest, and incomparably the finest epic dealing with Charlemagne and the Saracens, illustrates very aptly the best features of the early national poetry of the Langue d'O'il} It was probably the work of more than one hand, for the plot bears evidence of having been extended from poiut to point. The work of the first trouv^re was no doubt conterminous with the song of Roland which Taillefer sang before William of Normandy ; but the epic as we now have it, as it was discovered at Oxford 1 Probably an Arthurian reminiscence. Alexander and several other heathen kings have been gifted by the trouveres with twelve peers. In 'Wavton^s History of English Literature, ed. Hazlitt, vol. ii., p. 197, Mr. Shelly observes — " It is worth while remarking how entirely the meaning of the title given "to the peers has been lost by the English poets. . . . We read of the 'twelve dussypere' (les douze pairs), and in other places we find each single knight called 'a dozeper,' while in the Ashmole MS. of Sir I'^erumbras the word becomes ' doththeper.' " ' According to M. Leon Gautier, Epopees Frangaiscs, only one poem of the Carlovingian cycle, the Chanson de Roland, was written at the end of the eleventh century, twenty-two belong to the twelfth, nearly fifty to the thirteenth, and seven to the two following centuries. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 143 and first printed in 1837, goes far beyond the death of Eoland and Oliver. We add a brief summary of the events, which are recounted, of course, with a minimum of histdrical accu- racy, in this interesting epic.^ The Saracen Marsillus, King of Spain, nemnied ui by Charlemagne's army round Saragossa, sends to the Emperor a petition for peace. Charlemagne, by advice of Eoland, despatches his answer by Ganelon, who, hating the task, and probably inspired by previous antipathy to his brother Icnight, resolves to betray him. He returns from Marsillus laden with rich presents, and bearing the full submission of the Saracens, on condition that Charlemagne shall retire into France. The Emperor, not without misgivings and sinister dreams, consents, and Ganelon contrives that Eoland shall be in command of the rear-guard of the French army, which was, in fact, the post of honour. But he had plotted with Mar- sillus that the Saracen host should treacherously fall upon this rear-guard in the mountain passes, whilst Charlemagne was far ahead with the bulk of the army. With Eoland were Oliver and Archbishop Turpin ; and on this battlefield par excellence of Middle Age chivalry the Church figures side by side with the sword. Christianity has its triumphs as grand as those of war. Here also the hand of the clerc-trouvire is to be recognised. Long is the unequal struggle maintained between the twenty thousand French and the innumerable pagans who pour down the mountain-side from every cleft and defile. Eoland refuses to summon Charlemagne to his assistance ; Oliver dies by his side ; his gallant friends are hewn down ; the good archbishop blesses those who fight and those who die, until he also breathes his ' There exists in French a prose romance, published first in 1486, about the deeds of Charlemagne, and called Fierabras, translated from the Latin, and also remodelled from an older French romance in verse, which, according to M. Gaston Paris, Rislovre PoStiqiue de Charlemagne, is even, at the present time, reprinted in a more or less disfigured form at Epinal and at Montbiliard for popular ".irculation. 144 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book u. last; and, finally, Eoland himself, who cannot break his famous sword Durandal, places it underneath him, as well as his horn, and shares the lot of his friends, who cover the glorious battlefield. But before he died he had sounded his miraculous horn, and Charlemagne, who was thirty leagues ahead, heard the ominous note, and returned. Ganelon would have dissuaded him, but the Emperor, for all reply, ordered the traitor to be bound hand and foot. He reached the field only to find the completeness of the Saracens' success, and, after obtaining from God that the day should be prolonged, in order that the fight may last the longer, he pursues the pagans and' drives them into the Ebro. Marsillus, at the point of death, cedes his kingdom to Baligant, Emir of Babylon, who had arrived for the purpose of succouring him. But Charlemagne, who had returned to Eoncevaux, and collected the remains of his faithful servants, hears of Baligant's approach, turns upon him, and destroys the second Saracen host. This latter por- tion of the epic is related at great length, and includes a long enumeration of the opposing hosts, bringing to mind the like feature in the Homeric poems. It is full of incident and epi- sode, and it ends with the honourable interment of the heroes of Eoncevaux, and with the punishment of the traitor Gane- lon. The whole epic is charged with Christian as well as warlike fervour, and deals largely in the miraculous and the supernatural. The passage between Eoland and Oliver, when they first become aware of the treachery which has been practised upon them, is sufficiently fine to be quoted as an example of the spirit and language of the poem, which may with probability be ascribed to the eleventh century : — " Oliver has climbed upon a lofty hill. Looks to the right along the grassy valley ; He sees approach the Saracen army. And thus addresses Eoland, his comrade : — . CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 145 ' From Spain I see (hear) come such a noise, So many white hauberks, so many dazzling helmets ! Here our French will feel great rage. Ganes knew it, the felon, the traitor Who induced us before the Emperor (to go in the rear).' ' Be silent, Oliver,' the valiant Eoland replies — ' He is my father-in-law ; do not say a Avord against him.' " The two paladins had not always been friends ; their ]"e- conciliation had been effected by a supernatural agency. In their youth they had met in mortal combat. "The fight endures for a whole day, the two horses of the knights lie cut to pieces at their feet, the fire leaps from their battered breast- plates, and still the combat endures. The sword of Oliver is broken on the helmet of Eoland. ' Sire Oliver,' says Eoland, ' go and find another, and a cup of wine, for I am sore athirst.' A boatman brings from the town three swords and a jar of wine. The knights drink from the same cup, after which the battle begins again. About the end of the second day Eoland crie5, 'I am ill ; I would lie down and rest.' But Oliver answers ironically, ' Lie down, if you will, on the green grass ; I will rip you open to cool you.' Then Eoland rejoins in a loud voice, ' Vassal, I said it to prove you ; I would gladly fight still another four days without eating or drinking.' Accordingly the combat proceeds." At length a cloud sinks down from heaven between the two champions, and from the cloud there comes an angel. He salutes the two French knights, and in the name of God bids them be at peace, and reserve their prowess for the misbelievers at Eoncevaux. They obey, trembling with awe.^ ' Several early English romances, which are move or less imitations of the French, relate to Charlemagne. They are Eoland (probably written in the thirteenth ceutuiy), edited by Mr. Thomas Wright, at the end of M. Michel's edition ot La GImnson de Bohmd; Otuwel, edited by Mr. Ellis for the Abbotsford Club ; Oharlemagne and Eoland, which exists only in scattered fragments, and has partly been edited by Mr. Ellis in his Otuwel s Fervmhras, VOL. I. L 146 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book iij Another part of the poem describes how Roland, perceiv- ing that a battle with the treacherous Saracens is inevitable, and having rejected Oliver's last entreaties to sound his horn and summon the Emperor to their aid, exhorts his friend to fight worthily, as the vassal of a worthy lord. "For one's lord," he says, " one must suffer great evils, and endure great cold and great heat ; one must lose for him both blood and flesh." The CTiansMi de Roland is distinguished from the other Chansons de Oeste by this loftier conception of the feudal relations ; and it contains no word derogatory to the dignity of the Emperor. This is another proof, if it were needed, of the early date of the epic. With the mixture of fervent Christian piety and unques- tioning credulity, another explanation of the supernatural element in the poems of the more learned trouveres may perhaps be associated; namely, unconscious imitation of the epics of Greece and Rome. It is by no means improbable that the author of the first part of the Chanson de Roland was acquainted with the ^neid ; or, perhaps, even a later hand in the twelfth or thirteenth century interpolated the matter-of-fact description of the " conscia terra," which we append. " The battle is marvellous and severe. Very well strike there Oliver and Roland. The archbishop (Turpin) more than a thousand blows there returns. The twelve peers are not slow, And the French there strike as one. Died there pagans by thousands and hundreds. No one, unless he runs away from death, escapes. Whether they will it or not all there leave life. of which two versions exist, one analysed by Mr. Ellis, the other published for the Early English Text Society. I have abridged this list from one given iu Warton's History of English Literature, ed. Hazlitt, vol. ii. p. 196, et passim. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 147 The French lose there their best booty. They shall never see again their parents or their relatives, Nor Charlemagne who awaits them at the gorges. In France there rages a most wonderful stormj Now is heard there thunder and wind. Rain and hoar frost tremendously Fall there, and thunder, quickly and often The earth quakes there truly, From Saint Michel, at Paris, unto Sens, From Besan9on unto the harbour of Wissant, There is no abode of which the walls do not crack. Southwards there is great darkness; It only becomes clear when the Heaven is cleft. No one sees it who is not much frightened; Several say: ' This is the end, The end of the age in which we are now.' They do not know and do not speak the truth : It is the great grief for the death of Roland. " ' This last line is very fine. The whole of Nature is throb- bing, full of woe and mourning for the death of a doughty paladin, showing its sorrow by earthquakes, tempests, thun- der, and lightning :— " It is the great grief for the death ol • We give the above lines of the CImmon de Moland (ed. MuUer) in the original : — " La ISltaille est merveilluse e pesant, Mult ben i fiert Oliver et Reliant, Li arcevesques (Turpin) plus de mil colps i rent, Li XIL pers ne s'en targent nient, E li Franceis i fierent cum unement. Moerent paien h, millers e i cenz ; Ki ne s'en fuit de mort n'i ad guarent, Voeillet nnn, tuti laisset sun tens. Franceis i perilent lor meillors garnemenz, Ne revemmt lor peres ne lor parenz, Ne Carlemagne ki as porz les atent. En France en ad mult merveillus tunnent, Orez i ad de tuneire e de vent, Pluies e gresilz desmesureement, Chiedent i fuildres e menut e suvent ; E terre moete co i ad veirement I4S HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. Eoland." Does it not remind us of the mythical complaint of nature, " Pan is dead " ? One of the grandest of all the early French epics, is the Roman des Loherains — "the Lorrainers" — which probably dates as far back as the twelfth century.' It is an epic of feudal society ; and as such it deserves particular attention, as illustrating in a remarkable manner the institutions and customs of feudalism in France. The empire of Charlemagne was divided and subdivided amongst his children and their successors, whose power over their subjects diminished with the extent of their possessions. Their barons frequently exercised more real authority than themselves; the leudes repeatedly asserted their right of elect- ing the occupant of the throne. Feudal privileges were perhaps, in France, more often exacted by the barons from a vainly- resisting monarch than voluntarily bestowed by tlie latter upon the former ; and the later trouveres, always depending for their most valuable patronage upon the noble and wealthy families, adopted their views and championed their cause. The second period of the national epic is mainly com- posed of chansons, wherein the contests, rebedlions, triumphs, and virtues of the great barons are celebrated at the expense of the monarch — Charlemagne himself not excepted. The De seint Michel de Paris josqu' as Seinz^ De Besen^un tresqu' as (porz) de Giiitsajid, N'en ad recet dunt li mur ne cravent ; Cuntre midi tenebres i ad granz N'i ad clartet se li (eels) nen i fent. Hume ne V veit ki nmlt ne s'espaent ; Dient plusor : ' Qo est li definement, La fin del seole ki nus est en present. ' 11 ne le sevent ne dient veir nient : ^0 est li granz dulors por la mort de Eollant." ' M. Paulin P3,ris published in 1833-5 JA Romans de Garin le Lohcrain, etc., 2 vols. Most of the twenty manuscripts consulted date from the twelfth century, and disagree in their texts, probably through the caprices of the trouvires. They are written, moreover, in different dialects of the langue d'oll. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 149 feudal relations of the Emperor with his greater vassals are recorded ^ in many romances in this spirit. Les Loherains pro- bably owes its authorship to more than one mind, and virtually covers events of more than one century. But it giyes us a clearer view than any other chanson of the growth of feudal authority. The weakness of the king, Pepin, is implied the more naturally and delicately, inasmuch as he is represented as an infant; and the anti-monarchical prejudice is toned down by the fact that, when he grows up, he sides with the victorious party in the long feud which provides the action of the epic. This feud rages between the Lorrainers and the Picards — Germans and Frenchmen. The former are event- ually triumphant; and the partiality of the successive authors of the poem is displayed for them throughout. In- deed Les Loherains is, in spirit, rather a Teutonic than a French epic. It was written, doubtless, by Germans who had adopted the French nationality, who cherished their descent from the followers of Pepin and Charlemagne, and who could not forget that their ancestors had conquered the country which was their home. To such a length is their partiality Carried, that they cannot even suffer the brave leader of the vanquished party to fall in fight, but represent him as driven back into Spain, and forswearing the Christian faith. No wonder the poem was neglected when the French national spirit became harmonious and consolidated. No wonder it slept in obscurity for at least five centuries, only to be revived when the genius of literature had risen superior to feudal passion and national prejudice. Meanwhile it served, through- out its slow incubation, to gather up the manifold jealousies of the Teuton ; just as the contemptuous silence concerning Teutonic prowess and success proved the deep-seated jea- lousies of the Gaul. ' By Huon de Villeneuve, in Suon de Bordeaux and in Doolin de Mayence ; by Bertrans in the Roman de Vmne; by Raymbert and Adams le Boy in Ogier U Danois. ISO HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. The struggle between Promont and Garin, the Lorrauier, arose out of their rivalry for the hand of Blancheflor, the heiress of wide domains, which she had inherited from her father, the rich King " Thierris." The latter had prayed on his deathbed that she might obtain for a husband some " franc baron," who would know how to defend her and her wealth ; and he thought he had provided for her beet inter- ests in affiancing her to Garin, Duke of Lorraine. This betrothal, however, was subject to the consent of Pepin, for no vassal would venture to marry a rich heiress, the owner of important fiefs, without his suzerain's consent; unless, indeed, he was prepared to throw oflE his allegiance and violate his oath. But Garin swore to her that, come what would, she might count upon his assistance against all her foes, Garin was a brave and skilful warrior; his brother Eegues was yet more skilful and renowned. The "Emperor" was besieging Saint Quentin, and could not take it. Duke Garin also was under the walls ; and, great as was his prowess, he could not humble the proud and obstinately-defended town. The siege must have been raised, but by good fortune Begues, who had been absent on a long expedition, suddenly arrived in the camp. His fame had spread far and wide ; his enemies trembled before him, and his friends drew new courage from his presence. The tide of fortune was turned, and the city fell. Here was glory such as the trouveres loved to heap upon their patrons ; a vassal coming to the rescue of an Emperor, and saving him from disgrace. Blancheflor was not destined to fall to the lot of Garin. Pepin himself laid claim to her ; and the betrothed pair sub- mitted to his superior authority. But " The Lorrainers " is an epic of battle, not of love ; and the exploits of the duke and his brother against the Picards, interspersed with episodes in the lives of the principal heroes, occupy the bulk of the poem. Terrible and ruthless are the encounters which these CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 151 old poets love to narrate ; unbounded the joy which the knights take in their deadly struggles; great their courage and generosity, marred, however, now and then by the most bloodthirsty cruelty. One Lorrainer sends to Fromont the head of one of his relatives whom he had slain in battle. Again, when Guillaume de Montclin fell into the hands of Begues, the latter, having killed Isord de Boulogne, remembers how Guillaume had incited Isore to cut off his opponent's head. The enraged victor, thereupon, tears out the entrails of his victim, and dashes them in Guillaume's face, crying : " There, vassal, is the heart of your cousin ; now you can salt it and roast it." All this is told, of course, without apology ; and it is to be observed that the deeds of the greatest cruelty are ^ascribed, even by Teuton writers, to the Teuton knights. The third part of the Roman des Loherains was written by Jehan de Flagy, and is in many respects the most plea- sing of the epic. This is especially the judgment to which one is forced after reading the passage describing the part- ing between Begues and his family. " You would have seen the castle stormed. And the citizens come to the walls, The knights arm themselves and don iron, For they thought they should be attacked. Bfegues gets ready, and makes haste, Laces one hose, ne'er fairer aye was seen ; Spurs they place at his heels. Put on a coat of mail, fasten his burnished helmet, And Beatrix girds on the bright steel sword, Yclept Floherge, with hilt of purest gold. ' My lord,' said she, ' may God the crucified Guard you to-day 'gainst death and every danger 1 ' The duke replied : ' My lady, you speak well.' He looked at her, and pity stirred his heart, For she had lately borne him young G6rin. Then spoke, ' My lady, listen now to me, IS2 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK 11 For the Lord's sake, I pray you, mind my son.' She answered, ' Sire, it shall be as you wish ! ' They brought him then a noble Arab steed, He in the stirrups straight leapt from the ground 5 Shield round his neck ; and then he took a lance, Of which the point was green and burnished steel." ' The next scene is drawn ■with more delicate tenches still. Begnes, long separated from the brother whom lie loves so much, cannot resist the desire to see him again. Garin is at Metz, Begues at his castle of Belin, near Bordeaiix ; all France lies between them, but it is not wide enough to keep these two grizzled warriors apart. The younger brother is happy in the midst of his family when the irresistible yearning comes upon him. A dozen lines of Flagy describe a scene of domestic bliss, such as Teutons in all ages have loved to paint : — ' The extracts from ies Lohej'ains are sUshtly modernised from the orl' glnal, the text of M. Demogeot being adopted : — " Vous euasiez vu le chastel estormir, Et les bourgeois aux defenses venir, Les chevaliers armer et fer-v6tir, Car ils pensaient qu'ou dut les assailir. Begues a'apprgte, d la hftte il le fit, Lace une chausse, mil plus belle ne vit ; Sur les talons lui ont ^perons mis, Vgt Un haubert, lace un heaume bruni, Et Beatrix lui ceint le brand fourbi : Ce flit Flobevge la belle au pont d'or fin. 'Sire,' fait-elle, 'Dieu qu'en la croix fut mis, Vous d^fende hni de mort et de p&il I ' Et dit le duo : ' Dame, bien avez dit 1 ' II la regards, moult grand pitie Ten prit. Kelev^e est de nouvel de Gerin. ' Dame,' dit-il, • entendez 5a J, mi : Pour Dieu tous prie que pensiez de mon flis.' EUe repond : ' Biaus sire, h vos plaisirs I ' On lui amfene un destrier arabi, De pleine t6rre est aux arfons aalli ; L'4cu au col, il a un dpieux pris, Dont le fer fut d'nn vert acier bruni." CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 153 " One day, Bfegues in castle Belin was, And near him was the liandsome Beatrix ; The duke upon her mouth and hand a kiss impressed, And then the duchess very gently smiled, She saw her two boys come into the hall (For so the story runs) : G6rin was the eldest named, Hemaudin the second was called. The one was twelve, and the other ten years old ; With them were six young men, all nobly born. They move towards each other, run and leap. And play, and laugh, and sport with many tricks." ' By and by B^gues tells Beatrix of his longing ; how, moreover, he means to take his brother a present in the shape of a boar's head. He has heard of a famous old boar two hundred leagues away, in the forest of Valenciennes, and he is determined to kill it, and carry its head to Garin. Beatrix, in vain, endeavours to dissuade him : " My heart tells me, and it told ever true, that if you go there you shall never return." But B^gues remains firm to his purpose, prepares for the chase, and is ready to be gone. Before he goes he " to God commends the fair Beatrix, and Hernaudin and Gdrin, his two children." And the trouv^re adds the melancholy line, " God ! what grief ! he never saw them more ! " Bfegues departs, slays the boar, and is about to resume his journey, when he is treacherously killed by a band of robbers whom he had previously driven from his path. '^ " Un jour fut Beguea au chastel de Belin : Auprfes de lui la belle Biatrix. Le due lui baise et la bouche et la main, Et la duohesse moult doucement sourit. Farmi la salle vit ses deux fils venir (Ce dit I'hisfcoire) : I'aln^ eut nom Gdrin, Et le second s'appelait Hemaudin. L'un eut douze ans, et I'autre en avait diz, Sont avec eux six damoiseaux de prix, Vont l'un vers I'autre et coure et tressaUlir Joucr et rire et mener leurs dilits." 154 HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. BOOK II. Great is the gi-ief of his family and friends at the inglorious death of the famous warrior; and his brother Garin says, " Ah ! my lord B^.gues, true knight, brave and bold, terrible and merciless towards enemies, gentle and simple towards all your friends ; you have lost much, Girbert, my noble son ! Earth, open up to receive me, unfortunate man that I am ; it would be a great pity if I were to live long ! " * Garin brings the body to Beatrix, who weeps and laments' over it ; and the friends of the dead man cry vengeance. The young Her- naudin cries — "Heavens, why have I not a little breastplate ? I would help you against your enemies." The duke heard him, and took him up in his arms, kissed his mouth aud face, and said, "By God, fair nephew, you are too courageous; you are like my brother in mouth and in face, the noble duke, to whom God may grant mercy ! " So they buried the hero with great solemnities, and placed upon his marble tomb the epitaph, " He was the best man who ever rode on horse- back." The spirit of Christianity breathes through these Chansons de Gesfe rather by implication, and through the virtues of chivalrous generosity and self-devotion, than by direct mani- festation. In death, however, it is always present ; and the headstrong, bloodthirsty men, who in their lives were so difficult to curb, and who seldom suffered a scruple to inter- vene between themselves and their revenge, no sooner bite the dust on a field of battle than they pluck some leaves of grass with their relaxing fingers, and symbolise to themselves ^ The following passage Is taken from Panlin Paris, Roman de Garin, ii. p. 263, and is not modernised : — " Ha ! sire B&gues, li loherains a dit, Fraiis chevaliers, corageus et hardis ! Fel et angris centre vos anemis, Et dols et simples a trestoz vos amis ; Tant as perdu, Girbert, beau sire flls ! Terre ! car ouvre, si rejois moi, chaitis ; Ce est domage, si je longuement vis." CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. iJS with these the consecrated elements. None so humble or so superstitious in their last moments as those who, in the lust of life, defied both earthly and heavenly monarchs, like the young lord of Fauconn^s, whom his dying father adjured to deliver the castle of Naisil to the enemy, and who replied defiantly^-" If I had one foot in Paradise, and the other in the castle of Naisil, I would draw back the one I had in Paradise, in order to put it back in Naisil." § 6. The Arthurian Cvcle. "Arthur is a present from Britain to France. M. H. de Villeraarque has placed the fact beyond doubt.^ After read- ing the book, in which he compares with the text before him the romances of the Eound Table and the ancient legends of Britain, we are convinced for example that the British legend of Owen preceded and inspired the romance of Yvain, or Le Chevalier au Lion. It is equally evident that P4redur is the prototype of Perceval. We are less certain that the Mael of the British legends is the same person as the Lancelot of the romances, although Mael has in the Gaelic tongue the same signification as Lancelot, or rather Aucelot, which signifies a domestic."^ It is impossible to disagree with this, so long as we make full allowance for the common origin of the Gael and Cymri of France and of the early inhabitants of Great Britain, remem- bering also the close relationship which subsisted for many generations between the Britons of these islands and the Bretons of Armorica. It was, indeed, the followers of King Arthur himself who, after his final reverse and death in the vain endeavour to withstand the onset of the Teutonic con- querors, in the sixth century crossed the Channel into Armo- ^ In Les Romans de la Tahle rtmde et lea Conies dcs anciens Bretoiis. * Genisez, Sistoire de la I/ittirattire fran^ise, vol. i. p. 68. IS6 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book ii. I'ica, and gave it thenceforth the name of Brittany. There they settled ; and their descendants continued to wait for the return of the son of "mythic Uther," celebrating his praises in the meanwhile, and consoling their own evil fortunes, by- constructing poetic legends out of their richly stored memories, or by repeating to each other the legends composed by the bards of Britain. The best of the trouveres who contributed to the Arthurian cycle of cJiansons was Chretien de Troyes ; and his Chevalier de la Gharrctte, independent as it is in its episodes, original as it is in its manner of treatment, yet takes its principal cha- racters from the British epic of Arthur and his Bound Table. The " Knight of the "Waggon " is Lancelot of the Lake, who, despatched to rescue Guinevere from the caitiff Meleagans, who had carried off the wife destined for King Arthur, loses his horse by the way, and avails himself of the waggon of a peasant. He is successful in his quest, as we know j and too successful for the subsequent happiness of Arthur and Guine- vere. The poem is worthy of attention. It is "little else than a fabliau, in which we meet with grace and archness, and as the trouv^re who composed it is a true son of Cham- pagne, the archness is ingenuous. Chretien de Troyes is a precursor of La Fontaine, with mtich of the simplicity and pungency of his narrative style. The incident of the waggon allows him to introduce a spice of comedy into a chivalrio subject. In fact Lancelot can simulate cowardice and awkwardness in his passages of arms, after the manner of the English clowns, and mislead the spectators as well as his adversaries. "When he shows his skill and courage, the effect is all the more telling by force of contrast. Thus he wins all hearts.^ * See G^nisez, Histoire de la Literature frcmfaise, vol. i. p. 72, et passim, Chretien de Troyes is greatly indebted to the erudite French literary critio for the esteem in which he is held in the nineteenth centui-y. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. IS7 " And the ladies said, Who looked at him with wonder, That he should take them in marriage, For they did not dare to trust much In their beauty, nor in their riches, Nor in their power, nor in their lofty birth, Who neither for beauty nor for possessions, Were worthy, any one of them, to have This Knight, who is too valiant. And nevertheless they make such vows, Most of them, that they say That, if to this one they are not married. They will not be married this year. Nor given to husband or master." ^ The queen, who hears this talk, laughs iu her sleeve, having no reason to be troubled about it. In fact she knows that for all the gold in the world " lie would not take the best of them, nor the most beautiful, nor the most graceful, he who pleases all." Our trouvere can even be refined. When the queen leaves Lancelot to enter her apartment, the latter would fain pass in with her ; but " can only accompany her with his eyes and his heart," — "But the way of the eyes was short, For the room was too near ; And they would have entered then Very willingly, if it could have been. The heart, which more is lord and master, And of much greater power, Did enter after her, * " Et les demoiselles disoient, Deignast nule d'eles avoir Qui a meivoilles I'esgardoient, Oil chevaliers, que trop est prouz, Que cil les tolt a marier, Et neporquant se font tex vouz Car tant ne s'osoient fier Les pliisors d'eles, qu'eles dient An lor biautez, n'an lor richeces, Que s'a cestui ne se marient N'an leurpooir, n'an lor hauteces, Ne serout ouan niariees, Que por biaute ne por avoir N'ii muri, n'a seignor donn^es." 158 HISTORY OF FRENCH, LITERATURE. BOOK il And the eyes remained without, Filled with tears, with the body." ' "The Knight of the "Waggon introduces several characters of the Arthurian legends, and preserves the features with which we are acquainted. Arthur is as gentle as usual, and more credulous than ever ; his wife as tender and as treacher- ous ; the seneschal Keu — in English Sir Key — no less jeering, no less presumptuous, no less unsuccessful in his undertak- ings ; the good Gavain,- ever brave, ever loyal, ever devoted, does not belie himself for a moment ; Launcelot remains a model of courtesy, gallantry and fidelity j he is refined and cheerful ; and if he does for this once stoop to a jest, he is not slow in compensating it. There are no new creations except the traitor Mfl&gans and his fatlier Baudemagus. The character of this old king, who loves his son, who hates and seeks to counteract his treasons, is, towards this ravisher, this Paris of the British epic, a mixture of the gentleness of Priam and the wisdom of Antenor in their opposition to the ravisher of Helen. This comparison is not a fancy of criticism; it swells the list of the debts which the Middle Ages have in- curred to antiquity in these poems of the Eound Table, wherein have been observed the resemblance of the birth of Arthur to that of Hercules, the black sail of the vessel of Theseus to that which brings Iseult to her husband, and the precautions taken by the mother of Perceval to keep that second Achilles in ignorance and obscurity, far from the perils of war. All these reminiscences, more or less cloaked, are to be recog- ^ " Mfea as ials fu oorte la voie Que trop estait la cham'bre pris : Et il fuasent autre apris Molt volentiers s'il poist estre, Li cuers, que plus est sire et mestre Et de plus grant pooir assez, S'an est outre aprfes li passez, Et li oil sont rem&s defers, Plein de lennes, avec le cors. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 159 uised, and ought to be dwelt upon. It is well to remember that the chain of time has never been completely broken."^ Perceval of Wales is another Arthurian legend, of which the French version, Perceval le Oallois, is attributed to Chretien de Troyes. Perceval was the one knight who, in the quest of the Holy Graal, retained his purity of body and soul with suffi- cient steadfastness to secure the sacred relic from its guardian. ^Yhen yet a stripling he escapes from his mother's care, and encounters three of Arthur's knights, whose noble appear- ance and splendid armour delight his mind and excite his curiosity to the utmost. He observes their coat of mail, and inquires of the knights if they are the God of whom his mother had spoken to him so often. " Then answered Sir Gawayn, Fair and courteously again, ' Son, as Christ us sayne. Such are we not.' Then said that true knight's child. Who had lived in the woods wild, To Gawayn the meek and mild, And soft of answer. ' I shall slay you all three, If you don't smartly now tell me What things or folk ye be. Since ye no Gods are.' Then answered Sir Kay, * Who then shall we say Slew us all to-day In this wild holt so bare?' But says Gawayn to Kay, 'With thy proud words away; I can win this child with play If thou hold still' 'Sweet son,' then said he, ' We are knights all three, • G^rusez, Slstmre de la LUUraturefranpaise, vol. i. p. 75. i6o HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITERA TURE. book II. With King Arthur ride we, That dwells on yon hill.' Then said Perceval the light, In goat-skins that was dight, ' Will King Arthur make me knight If my vows I fulfil ? ' Then said Gawayn right there ' I can give thee none answer : But to the King I bid thee fare To learn his will.' " The boy then leaves them, returns to his mother, and tella her he will go to the king to be knighted. She informs him ' that whenever he sees a knight with a " minever hood " he \ must doff his hood and embrace him ; and she gives him a Ting, which he must bring back : — " He took the ring and took the spear, Starts up upon the mare, And from the mother that bore him Now forth he goes to ride." ^ He proves afterwards that " the child is father to the man," by becoming a perfect and stainless knight. Several other poems have also been attributed to that sweetest of trouv^res, Chretien de Troyes, who died in the year 1191.^ Jean Bodel, another trouvere, who lived in the reign of Philip Augustus,^ wrote the Chanson des Saxons, of which the hero is Guiteclin, or Witikind, whose wife, Sebile, is of the class to which Guinevere and Iseult belong, and who has furnished those of her sex who tread in her paths with the time-worn excuse : " "What is the use of woman's beauty if she does not employ it in her youth ? " * ' I have borrowed these verses from the late Mr. Walter Thombury's talented paraphrasing of an early English condensation of Chretien de Troyes' Sir Perceval of Wales. ^ These poems are : Lc Chevalier au Lion, GuillauiAe d' Angleterre, iirec et l^nide, Cliget, and Tristan. s 1165-1223. * "Que sert beaut6 de femme s'en jovant ne I'emploie ? " CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. i6i At this point we may refer to the Anglo-N"ormaii rhym- ing chroniclers, such as Geoffrey Gaimar, Benolt de Sainte- Maure, and Eobert Wace, the latter being the author of the Boniant de Eou (EoUo), which is little more than a pedigree of the conquerors of Normandy. The prose writer Geoffry of Monmouth, by the encouragement of the English king, collected, about A.D. 1140, the ancient traditions of Britain. These were translated from Latin into Eomauce by Luces du Gast, Gasse le Blond, Walther Map, archdeacon of Oxford, Eobert de Borron, Helie de Borron,^ Eusticien of Pisa, and the versions were the principal sources from which Chrdtien de Troyes, his contemporaries and successors, drew the sub- jects of their poems. The first named of these. Lord of Gast near Salisbury, and a relative of Henry II., gives us very clear and satisfactory reasons for undertaking the task of trans- lation.^ § 7. The Classical Cycle. It would have been strange if the trouvhres had overlooked the great lieroisms and enthusiasms of those ancient civilisa- tions to which tlieir nation owed so much, and in wliich their adopted tongue had so large and legitimate an interest. Something has already been said of the influence produced on the French national spirit by the history and literature of Greece and Eonie ; and the illustrations of this influence may now be copiously enlarged. Perhaps the first romance bor- rowed from the pages of the Greek poets was that of the life ^ Mr. Pearson has tried to prove in the preface to the San Graal, ed. by Mr. Furnivall for the Eoxburghe Club, that Eobert de Borron was born in the village of Buces, arrondissement of Caen, and was an ancestor of Lord Byron. Mr. E. Hucher, in his preface to le Saint Graal, 1874, maintains that the family came from the French GS,tiuais, in the neighbourhood of Sens. ^ Luces du Gast does not pretend to be a very good French scholar, but he says that he translates the San Graal from Latin into "Eoumans" because "tele est ma volontez en mon proposement, que je en langue fran9aise le trans- laterai." VOL. L M 1 62 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii, of Ulysses. The earliest poem on the subject in the French language is, as we have seen, Proven9al ; but the siege of Troy, with its numerous adventures and episodes, naturally attracted the trouveres who had bethought themselves of turning to the ancients for their themes. The first who took this history as the groundwork of his poetical embroidery was Benolt de Sainte-Maure, who lived in England under Henry Beauclerc,' and who had the patience to write about thirty thousand lines, as well as another three-and-tweuty thousand on the Histoire des dues de Normandie ; and others, both in England and France, followed in his train. The life of Alexander was still more in vogue amongst the trouveres ; and in the reign of Philip Augustus,^ Lambert le Court, and Alexander de Bernai, contributed to produce a Chanson de Geste of some literary im- portance, under the title of Roman d! Alexandre. It is in Alexandrine verse ; the matter is taken chiefly from Quintus Curtius and the spurious Callisthenes ; whilst the treatment is characteristically in the chivakic style, with abundance of the supernatural element. The poem might reasonably adopt as second title " The Mirror of Kings ; " for it attributes to Alexander all the royal virtues which would become a monarch in the twelfth century. Thus say the writers : — " The king who his kingdom wishes rightly to govern, And the duke and the count who have land to keep, All those ought to listen to the life of Alexander ; For he was a Christian, there never was such a knight j No king was braver, or could better speak. Nor ever was there a man more free in giving , Ever since he died we never saw a man his equal." ' 1 1068-1135. 2 1165-1223. * " Li rois qui son royaume veut par droit gouverner Et li dus et H conte qui terre ont Ji garder, Tou.? cil doirent la vie Alexandre escouter. Se il fut crestiens, onques ne fu teus ber ; Eois ne fut plus hardis, ni mius seust parler, Ki onques ne fu hom phis larges de douner ; Onques puis qu'il fu mors, ne vit nus hom son per." CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 163 The character of Alexander is clearly held up as a pattern to the kings of latter days ; arid the ideal relations between suzerain and vassals — the first elevating but not detracting from the dignity of the latter — are expressed in some of the noblest, as they are the most characteristic passages of the poem. Take the following speech of Eminidus of Arcadia to his comrades, who were terrified by the approach of Gadifer aniidst the noise of clarions and drums : — " My lords, it does not become you to be frightened, For in our company there is no room for cowards ; Let each one think of the means of defending his life. We are all noblemen, dukes, counts, and princes ; Therefore we ought to do much, to suffer much, to act much, So that no one shall be able, after us, to reproach our heirs. He who does not behave well here, ought henceforth not to eat At the table of the king whom we love so dearly. The blade of this sword does not wish to rest Before I see it bathed in the brain (ot the enemy). To-day I wish to develope the battle and the mSl^e ; Let each one tliink to do well ; I shall begin the game." ' We cannot but turn back in our minds to the speech of Eoland to Oliver, before the battle of Eoncevaux ; and cer- tainly the later passage does not pale in loftiness of thought before the earlier one. Nor is this the only reminiscence ^ " Seigneur, ne vous caut esmaier, Car en notre compagiie n'ont li couart mestier. Peust ancuns que il puist sa vie calengier. Tout sonimes gentil homme, due et conte et princier ; Si devomes tant faire, pener et esploitier Con ne I'puist aprfes nous, h. nos oirs reprocher : Que ci ne fera bien, puis ne devra mangier ^ A la table le roi que nous avomes oier. Li brans de ceste espee ne se viut estancier De si que jou le voie en cervielle baignier. Hui mais voel la bataille et I'esaor surhauder ; I'eust ccscuns de bien faire ; le jeu voel commencer." i64 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. •which the reader will acknowledge, as he hears of the great prowess of Alexander and his'twelve chivalrous knights.^ § 8. SATIEICA.L Poems. Has satire its birth in love ? and is it by satirising ourselves that we learn to satirise others ? Certainly it is in the love- songs of France, the amorous chansons of the north and the amative ditties of the south, that we discover the first gleams of literary archness. The lover's jealousy of himself would supply the readiest motive; his jealousy of others would speedily do the rest. Out of the well-spring of delight comes the drop of bitterness. Every lover's compliment is a self- despite. I After love, religion ; and it is hard to say which of the two provided the aptest excuse for satire. More la Courtisane was not a pretty name for a bishop ; but under that name a certain Deacon John, the archbishop's favourite, created Bishop of Orleans by favour of the king's mistress, Bertrade de Montfort, was the subject of many a pleasant rhyme in the eleventh century. He was consecrated on the feast of the Innocents ; a day on which religious Frenchmen had already been wont to relax both tongue and pen. So one of the clergy wrote,^ " We elect a boy, observing the feast of the boys ; not in accordance with our custom, but with the royal behests." The time came when the clergy in France had reason to wince at the pleasantries of others ; but they began by being merry amongst themselves. Landri was also a ' There exist several other cJumsmis about Alexander, such as la Venycance d'Alexandre, le Testament d'Alcxandre, Signification de la mart d'Alexandre, le lioman de Cassarms, le Parfait du, Paon, and le Eestor du Paon. Some of the earlier trouveres had even sung the fabulous adventures of Alexander's father, Philip of Macedonia. " Eligimus puerum, pueromm festa colentes ; Non nostrum morem, sed regia jussa sequentes. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 165 famous satirical chanson written by a priest. King Eobert had divorced liis wife ; the country was under an interdict ; and the blame was put upon Count Landri of Auxerre, the reputed lover of the queen. Neither clergy nor people saw why they should he under interdict because Eobert had parted with his wife, whom they believed to be unworthy of him ; so they sang the song of Landri throughout the country, and even jested at the expense of the Pope. One of Abelard's disciples, Hilarius, wrote a chorus de Fapa Scholastico ; hav- ing, of course, the additional incitement of his master's con- demnation by Eome. This, too, is in Latin, though it has a Romance refrain. " To give to the Pope is no disgrace ; Shame to him who gives not. The Pope, having a fancy, deceives man and woman, The Pope takes what he will to his bed, The Pope passes over neither man nor woman. Give to the Pope, for the Pope enjoins it ; Shame to him who gives not." ' We shall find more of this kind later on, for the French genius greedily caught the infection. The north had other ample justifications for the employ- ment of this two-edged blade of literature. " There life is hard and laborious, the social distinctions are deeply marked. At the top a haughty aristocracy, powerful, oppressive, which cannot forget its conquest ; beneath, the vast crowd of tribu- taries, serfs, victims. There the townsman is less rich, less dignified, less full of himself, than in the south ; but if he has ^ " Papae dari non est injuria , Tort a qui ne li dune. Papa captiis liunc vel banc decipit, Papa quid valt in lectum recipit, Papa nullum vel nullani excipit, Papae detur, nam Papa praecipit ; Tort a qui tie li dune. " \ 1 66 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERA TURE. book ii, more misery he will have more malice. Look at the old towns of the north ; theirs are not the stone cities of Lan- guedoc and Provence, nor the merchants' embattled towers, nor the luxury of eastern commerce. No ; but low and humble cots, built of wood, with their disgraceful sheds and their gables staring awkwardly down on the streets. Petty workmen, petty shopkeepers, often also petty minds, embit- tered by suffering, and for that reason more apt to speak ill, and to look at things on their narrow and ridiculous side. These poor folks will be none the less for that the fathers of the communes, the saviours of France at Brenneville. They sweat, they suffer, pour forth their money with a groan, and, if need be, their blood, to secure a spark of liberty, to have a bell to themselves, the great tongue of the city. And what a pleasure by night, when all is well closed, when the lire crackles on the hearth, what a pleasure, before a mug of cider or claret, to make merry at the expense of the lord whose black and threatening castle rises beside them! On this soil are to flourish all the graces, the simplicities, and the archness of the Gallic spirit." ^ Champagne, Normandy, Picardy, were especially the provinces wherein the more comic and satirical vein of French literature iirst displayed itself, and whe;-e also the bitterest side of the French character was impressed upon the trouveres. Thibaiit IV., Count of Champagne, a knight who had perforce followed the King of France in the ruthless expedi- tion against the Albigenses,^ was bitterly ashamed of his part in the bloody work, and earned partly his absolution by de- nouncing it in burning words : — " They are clergymen who have left their sermons To wage war and to kill the people ; Never in God did such men believe. Our head makes all the limbs to suffer . . . * Lenient, ^a Satire-en France ait, iloyen Age. " 1225. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 167 Hypocrites cause the age to stagger . . . They have taken away joy, and pleasure, and peace." ' We have seen already that the war against the Albigenses had aroused the ire of the troubadours. An epoch of Trench literature commences with these persecutions and these poetic protests. From that time forv/ard, the corruptions of the Church were never without a satirist. Thibaut deserves another word before we leave him. He was a kind of French Fitz-Osbert ; a nobleman who roundly accused the barons of causing half the ills of their country ; a democratic aristocrat who could' sing : — " In the time full of felony, Of envy and of treason. Of wrong and of contempt, Without good and without courtesy, And when between us barons we make The whole age grow worse. When I see excommunicated Those who give the most cause Then wish I to sing a song."' Of course he fell into great disfavour, and as he had a more tender side to his character than is above displayed, he was ^ " Ce est des clers qui ont Uisie sermons Pour gerroier et pour tuer les gens ; Jamais en Dieu ne fust tels homes organs, Notre chief fait tons les membres doloir . . . Papelars font li si&cle chanceler . . . lis ont tolu joie, et solas et pals.'' The "chef" was Pope Innocent III. The "clers" and "papelars" were the Cistercians and Dominicans, who preached the " Holy war " against the Albigenses. « Au tens plein de felonie, Toit le si&cle empirier, D'envie et de traison, Que je vols esoumenier De tort et de mes)irison, Ceux qui plus offrent raison, Sans bien et sans cortoisie, Lors veuil dire uue chanjon. Et que entre nos barons faisons 1 68 HIS TOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. BOOK II, attached on that side. He wished to retire to his estates, but the king would not permit him. Shortly afterwards, Louis VIII. died at Montpensier,^ and there were instant accusation.s against Thibaut of having poisoned him. Blanche of Castile, the dowager queen, became regent ; she had not been popular before, and Thibaut had, in his verses at least, manifested great tenderness for her. Both became the mark for ran- cour, variously expressed by word and by act. Hue de la Ferte, fond of rhyming and fighting, assailed Thibaut with bitterness, and did not even spare the mother of Saint Louis, against whom little can be alleged except the indiscretions of her admirer. In one of his chansons Hue wrote : — " Count Thibaut, all covered with envy. Laden with felony. For chivalry You are in no way renowned, On the contrary, you are better formed To know surgery;'" meaning of course the surgery of poison. In a later chanson he addresses the young Louis, exhorting him to cast off the domination of priests and women, and rely on his barons, who would aid him in driving out the English : — " Make the clergymen to go And sing in their churches. King, the prophecy Spoken does not lie. That such a woman knows to hurt Who knows to love her barons." ' 1 1226. • " Quens Tibaut, dorf d'enrie > " Faites les clers aler De felonie h-ibk. En lor ^glise chanter. De faire chevalerie Eois, la prophecie N'estes vos mie alos^, Qu'on dit ne ment mie, Ainfois estea mieux moUes Que feme sut ceus gTever A savoir de aimrgie. " Qui ses barons sot amer. " CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 169 rhibaut has yet to te studied in another phase of his character; he encouraged the Crusades, and went himself to the Holy Land. He wrote several lays full of religious fer- vour,^ of one of which we give two stanzas : — " Take him, Lord ! who shall go To that land where God died and lived ; But those who will not take the cross to go beyond the sea Shall scarcely ever go to paradise. But such as have compassion, and remember Our mighty Lord, should seek for vengeance And free his land and his country. . . . God for us suflfered on the cross, And shall say on that day, to which all must come, ' Ye, who have helped to bear the rood for me, Ye to that place shall go where angels dwell, You shall see me there, the Holy Virgin too ; And ye, by whom I never had aid Descend ye all into the deep of hell.' " * Queen Blanche lives in another famous but anonymous poem of the same or immediately succeeding age ; being pil- loried as Dame Hersent, the brazen wife of Wolf Ysengrin, in the Roman de Renart. This fabliau, this burlesque poem, this ^ Perhaps Dante, in his Inferno, c. xxii. calls him for this. reason "huon re Tebaldo." ° " Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira En cele terre, u Diex fu mors et vis, Et ki la crow d'outre mer ne prendra, A paines mais ira en paradis : Ki a en soi pitie et ramembrance Au haut Seignor, doit qnerre sa vengeance^ Et deliverer sa terre et son pais ... Diex se laissa per nos en crois pener, Et nous dira au jour, ou tuit venront, ' Vos, ki ma croia m'aidates i porter, Vos en irez la, ou li Angele sont, Li me vrrrez, et ma Mfere Marie ; Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques aie, Descendez tuit en infer le parfont.' " I70 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK IL epic ^our rire, however we may prefer to describe it, though of German origin, became at once vastly popular in France, and was translated before many years had passed into almost all- the languages of western Europe. The reason was that satire, from being an instinct and a necessity in the Middle Ages, was becoming an art. The conditions of society, ecclesiastical corruption and public opinion, were much the same in each country, and France did but lead the van in this particular method of attacking grave and undisputed evils. The Church itself set the example of this new species of warfare which it was destined to find- so formidable, and the temptation to indulge in satire was yielded to in religious ceremonies and in the sacred edifices almost as freely as in sirventes and fabliaux. Sculptors did not hesitate to adorn the cathedrals with all the quaint devices which a riotous imagination could suggest. Picture a venerable priest ex- pounding the sacred texts to his lighthearted congregation from the cathedral pulpit at Strasburg, and striving to gain their attention and good humour by coarse jests and question- able allusions. Staring him in the face from the capital of a column opposite, he would be able every now and then to refresh his mind and stimulate his imagination by the sight of an ass performing the sacrament of the mass, with other animals standing round to assist him ; whilst in another place he might detect a priest, with the head of a fox, ensconced in the pulpit ; not to speak of the carved representations of a hundred trivial and licentious acts. If this was the limit which the Church imposed upon itself, what wonder if the man of letters adopted a similar plan, without much caring where he drew the line ' The apologue of the fox and his companions, GoupU le Benard,^ was added to from time to time, until at last it ' " Vulpes Eeginardus '' would represent the primary forms of the two names. CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 171 lormed a gigantic story of four-and-twenty thousand verses.' The entire satirical faculty of more than a century may be considered to have been concentrated in this popular and highly edifying fabliau. It is, in effect, an epic satire on feudal society, which never failed, in any age, to provide original types of Isengrin the wolf, Tibert the cat, Eenard the fox, and — let us be candid — Noble the lion. Throughout the whole romance we never lose sight of the central figure of Eenard, impersonation of cunning holding its own against force, who, losing his individuality whilst retaining his spirit, reappears in succeeding generations as the familiar Scapin or Mascarille. It is probable enough tliat the original fable had a German source, as Jacob Grimm has maintained ; but the fact remains that the earliest manuscripts date only from the twelfth century, and that they are in the language of northern France. The roman of Eenard comprises some thirty different stories, whereof the authorship of no more than four is known. Two are the works of Pierre de Saint Cloud, one of the cur^ de la Croix en Brie, the other of Eichard de Lison. Much, however, of tlie best poetry and the most striking situations is due to the anonymous trouv^res, from one of whom we may borrow a short passage. Chantecleer, having lost a daughter by the treachery of Eenard, complains to the king of the beasts, who, moved with pity, sets his court trembling by his rage, " quant braire oirent lor seignor." He vows vengeance against the murderer, and sends Bruin the bear, Tibert the cat, and Guimbert the badger, one after the othes, to summon him to Court. The first two return unsuccessful, and in sorry plight ; the third is more fortunate, and brings the caitiff with him. A dozen accusers are eager to heap ^ Je Couronnemeni de Menard, Eenard le Nouvel, Heruv'i corUrefait, Renard le BestonnS. 172 HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITERA TURE. BOOK ii. charges upou Eenard, who in the end is condemned to ba hanged. " On a high hill, upon a rock, The king sets up the gallows-tree To hang Renart the fox. Theije was he in great peril ; The ape made a grimace at him, Gave him a great blow on the cheek. Eenart looks behind him, Sees that more than three are coming on Mm. One drags him, the other pushes him, No wonder if his heart misgives him. Coward the hare threw stones at him From afar, but did not come near. At the stones that Coward threw Eenart shook his head. Coward thereat was so alarmed That he was no more seen. He was dismayed by the gesture he had seen, Then hid he himself in a hedge. From thence, it is said, he watched What punishment might overtake him. " ' The crafty Eenard escapes death by volunteering to go to the Holy Land. Doubtless the fable was true to the life ; but he only ^intends to trick the king, as he has tricked so many of his subjects. Once free, he shuts himself in his castle at 1 "Sor Tin haut mont en uu roohier Fet li rois les forches drecier, Por Renart pendie le Gorpil. Estes le vos en grant piril. Li singes H a fet la moe, Grant coup li done lez la joe. Eenart regarde arere soi, Voit que i viegnent plus de troi ; Li tin le trait, I'autre le bote, N'est merveille sell se dote. Coars li lievres I'arochoit De loin, que pas ne I'aprochoit. A I'aroGhier qu'a fet coart En a croM le chief Eenart. Coarz en fu si esperduz Que onques puis ne fu v^nz ; Del signe qu'ot vdu, s'esmaie, Lors s'est muchez en une haie : D'ilor, ce dist, es gardera Quel justise I'en en fera." CHAP. I. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 173 Malpertuis, whither Noble, the lion, comes to besiege him. Eenard is taken in a sortie, but again makes shift to escape his doom, and lives to thrive and cheat again, and to create incidents for many other pleasant ej)isode8 in his career. 1/4 HISTORY 01< FRENCH LITERATURE, book II. CHAPTER n. § 1. The Decline of the TEOuviiEES. The reign of Saint Louis ^ marks an important epoch in the history, language, and literature of Trance. Grandson of Philip Augustus, son of the noble Queen Blanche of Castile, whom Thibaut of Champagne chose to commemorate in so equivocal a manner, Louis IX. succeeded his weak father at the age of twelve, and might, but for his heroic mother, have succumbed to the determined opposition which he found arrayed against him. The haughty barons had for some time past been growing more and more alarmed by the gradually increasing authority of the kings of France, and the year before Louis VIII. died — poisoned, as his friends gave out, by Thibaut — Pierre de Dreux, regent of Brittany, had made a league with the English, in the hope of restoring the waning influence of his order. Not more than four or five great feudatories stood by the young monarch ; but his own nobility of character, his piety and tact, the wisdom of the dowager queen, and the fidelity of his friends, sufficed to over- come all opposition. Nevertheless it was not until sixteen years had passed that the barons finally abandoned their efforts to overthrow him. Before he died he had beaten the English more than once in the open field ; he had placed his brother Alphonse, Count of Poitiers, in the lordship of Poitou and Auvergne ; he had established his younger brother, 1 He reigned from 1226 until 1270, and was only eleven years old when he came to the throne. CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 175 Charles of Anjou, in Provence ; he had fought in two Crusades ; he had brought to a close the sanguinary religious wars in the south ; and he had done more to pave the way for a united and powerful France than any of his predecessors. It was during his reign that the Eomance tongue was dis- couraged and the Eomance literature of the troubadours began to fall into oblivion ; and it was in his reign likewise that the Trench of the north became gradually acknowledged as the master tongue of the whole country, whilst its literature as ■ steadily deteriorated. We have seen how far Thibaut of Champagne departed from the spirit of the older trouveres, and how much his audacious and occasionally ribald verse — I do not speak of his religious lays — contrasted with the dignity of the epic cycles, and with the purity of the Court of Saint Louis. We have seen how the quaint poem of Benard and the earlier fabliaux had begun to depress the character of the literature which is associated with the langue d'o'Ll in its primary periods. Let us turn to a poem of a trouvere of the decadence, a poem of great exquisiteness in style and treatment, with a sulgect to some extent moulded upon a classical model wholly profane and worldly — tlie Roman de la Bose of Guillaume de Lorris.^ It is an Ars Ainandi, couched in the allegorical language of a Middle-Age morality, in form a romance, but in reality a didactic poem on the art of successful love. Its im- personations recall to mind the entities and quiddities of the schoolmen ; its nomenclature anticipates, as it may have con- tributed to suggest, the characters of the Faery Queene; its plan and treatment are not dissimilar to those of the Flower and the Leaf. We are scarcely able from beginning to end to pass from the-domain of ideas to that of actual persons and things ; the theory is present with us throughout, and we are conscious that the author does not himself succeed in translat- ' Died about 1260. 176 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book 11. ing it iuto practice. It is manifest that we cannot exaggerate . the importance of a poem such as this, which in a manner links the ideas of the Classical age with the ideas of the Eenaissance, and in particular with the ideas of the Eenais- sance in England, and of its great precursor Chaucer. The allegory itself is slight. Guillaume travels in a dream towards the Garden of Love, presided over by Pleasure. On its lofty walls are represented Hate, Disloyalty, Avarice, Villany, Greed, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, Hypocrisy, Poverty, to signify that there is no admission for such. The only entrance is by a small gate, whereat the votary of Love knocks timidly. It is opened by Leisure, who admits the applicant on the strength of his prepossessing appearance. Inside he finds Pleasure, Mirth, Love ; and in the place of honour Beauty, Wealth, Jollity, Liberality, Frankness, Courtesy, and Youth. The lover is rav^ished by sweet sights and sounds ; he wanders amongst the beautiful flowers which embellish the garden. At the fountain of Narcissus he learns to shun the fate of him who made light of tlie power of Love ; and whilst he is penetrated by this thought he comes upon the Eose, emblem of loveliness, and his heart is subdued. Love himself now pierces the prostrate youth with his arrows, and gains in him a new subject. The conqueror instructs his victim in the art of gaining the object of his desires, and the lover's first efforts are encouraged by Good Eeception. But Aiithority ^ frowns upon him, and lleason vainly tries to in- spire the lover with his frigid philosophy. Good Eeception enables him to elude Authority, and contrives an interview. This first success brings him into new trouble,'for Jealousy comes between him and the Eose, and even casts Good Eeception into prison. And there the allegory, so far as ' Dangier in the oiiginal — the same root from which we have "domain" and " dungeon "—meant "power" or "jurisdiction." The lover's enemy is the father, the duenna, those to whom the object of his passion pertains, and who oppose his suit. CHAPUI. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 177 Guillaume de Lorris conceived it, leaves the dreamer sighing at the foot of the tower where his friend is in durance. The break is an abrupt one, and it is impossible for ns to feel certain whether it was made designedly by the author or caused by his early death, or whether the original continuation has been lost. Forty years later, at the instigation of Philip the Fair/ the Roman de la Rose was completed by Jean de Meung, who, as we shall find, had virtues of his own, but who did not succeed in catching the spirit, perhaps not even the idea, of his predecessor. To Guillaume de Lorris and his successors there can be no doubt that Chaucer owed much of his inspiration ; and the style of the Roman de la Rose every now and again brings forcibly to the mind of the reader some of his happiest remi- niscences of the English poet, who wrote more than a century later. The very opening of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales would almost seem to have been modelled upon the first few lines of the older poem. " Whan that Aprils with his showres swote The drought of Marche hath perced to the rote . . . Whan Zephirus eek with his swote breeth Enspired hath in every holte and heeth The tendre croppes . . . And smale fowles maken melodie, That slepen all the night with open yhe, So priketh hem nature in here corages." . . . The Roman d-e la Rose opens in a somewhat similar vein: — " El terns amoreus plein de joie, El tems oil tote riens s'esgaie, Que Ten ne voit boisson ne haie Qui en mai parer ne se voille Et covrir de novele foille . . . Li rossignos lores s'eflForce De chanter et de faire noise ; 1 1285-1314. VOL. I. N 178 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE BOOK n. Lors s'esvertue et lors s'envoise Li papegaus et la kalandre . . . Moult a dur cuer qui en mai n'aime, Quand U ot chanter sus la raime As oisiaus les dous chans piteus." ' There is indeed nothing better in the Frenchman's poem than his description of Nature in her lovely and peaceful moods. For the rest, the allegory is long and vague, dillnse and monotonous ; it is learned, revealing a considerable knowledge of human nature, and of Ovid in particular amongst those who have analysed humanity ; but its design is evidently not clearly conceived, and still less ably executed. Its sketches of character are well drawn ; as good, and per- haps even better, than the same characters were subsequently portrayed by Spenser. There is a pungency of satire in Guillaume de Lorris to which the author of the Faery Qmene could never attain ; it was approximately the difference between a cultivated Frenchman of the thirteenth century and a cultivated Englishman of the sixteenth. Nothing could be finer than the touches whereby de Lorris makes Avarice stand out from the canvas. " Avarice held in her hand a purse, which she was drawing back, and she knotted it so tightly that it took a long time before she could get anything out of it ; but she had nothing else to do." ' Roman de la Rose, ed. Meon, v. 49, et passim. We give here Chaucer's translation of the few linesquotedabove from the openingof the original p&em;— . . . "In tyme of love and jolite That al thing gynneth waxen gay. For ther is neither busk nor hay In May, that it nyl shrouded bene And it with newe leves wrene . . . Than doth the nyghtyngale hir myght To make noyse, and syugen blythe, Thau isblisful many sithe The chelaundre and the papyngay. Than yonge folk entenden ay For to ben gay and amorous, The tyme is than so saverous." CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. lyq Hypocrisy (Papelardie) is no less vididly depicted : — " She appears a holy creature ; but there is no evil practice under heaven which she does not meditate in her heart. . . . She carries a psalm-book in her hand, and be assured that she puts herself to great trouble to make feigned prayers to God." Observe that the art of writing — or at all events tlie art of writing didactically — was in its infancy in France in the time of Guillaume de Lorris ; the blending of fiction and instruc- tion is not well done, and the design is not, as it would be in the present day, concealed from the eyes of the heedless. In this respect perhaps Guillaume de Lorris is excelled by Jean de Meung ; who, on the other hand, wearies us with his monotonous display of learning, which is as recondite as it is often inapplicable or without force. Cicero, Nero, Crassus, Heraclitus, Suetonius, Diogenes, Claudian, Livy, Sisigambis, Virginius, Boetius, are dragged in, ostensibly to point a moral, either by their lives or by their words ; and few, in all proba- bility, have been the readers who have displayed more patience under Dame Keason's long harangues than the hero of the alle- gory himself. But this boast of erudition of old Jean Clopinel (the Lame one), as his contemporaries christened him, may be pardoned on account of the relish with which he attacked the vices and abuses of his time. If he is below Guillaume de Lorris in poetic elevation and beauty, he is undoubtedly above him in moral courage, and perhaps also in didactic force. Jean de Meimg was a scientist, too, in his way ; and there is a gleam of philosophic inspiration in the passages wherein he treats of such subjects as alchemy, astrology, and the oper- ations of nature. One of his best pieces of work is the scene in which he represents nature, busied in the conserva- tion of the material universe. She labours, he tells us, in renewing the type of all that fall victims to death ; whilst art, the feeble imitator of nature, is on his knees, copying her pro- cesses, and attempting to counterfeit her works. But he is i8o HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERA TURE. BOOK 11 ever far behind her, in spite of liis cogitations and persistence. Whether he paints, forges, or moulds, whether he fashions fully-equipped knights, quadrupeds, birds, flowers, plants, or fish, graceful dames or handsomely dressed ladies, all this can but produce an imperfect and lifeless image of the works of nature. Guillaume de Lorris attemjjts no such flights as this. His four thousand verses contain more clear portraiture and exuberant fancy than the eighteen thousand of his continuator ; but he must yield the palm to Jean de Meung, not only in bitter sarcasm and licentious allusion, but also in philosophical reach and in practical effectiveness. The latter part of the poem, in fact, created a more than literary sensation on its first appearance. Jean was a reformer and a democrat ; his work was denounced from the pulpits v;hicli he had satirised, and banued in the polite society which his strictures had out- raged. Apparently he did not think that zeal for natural morality was worth retaining at the expen-se of all that was pleasant and comfortable in life, for he retracted in old age the opinions which had gained him so many enemies in his youth. In this Chaucer resembled him ; and it is by no means the only point in which the English poet resembles Jean de Meung and his fellow-trouv^res. The romantic poems of Chaucer, indeed, breathe throughout the spirit of the French chansons and fabliaux, of which he was manifestly a close and loving student. He must have had a special admiration for the Roman de la Rose, which he carried so far as to translate, or rather paraphrase, some seven thousand seven hundred lines. Hovy he has fulfilled his task we may judge in some measure by comparing the version which ^^■e have already given. It would be a long task, and hardly within the scope of our present design, however pleasant it might be to discharge, if we were to institute a full comparison between the romantic writings of Chaucer and of the French trouveres. Every student of the two literatures must have been struck by the CHAP. 11. FEUDAL SOCIETY. i8l plienomcnou of tlieir close resemblance ; a resemblance which extends to both genres of French poetry — to the lyrical exqui- siteness of the troubadours as well as to the exuberant ima- gination of northern romance. And indeed there- is nothing in this approximation of taste and treatment which can in any manner surprise us, when we consider the intimate relations between the two countries, the identity of language, and at times of individuals, through whose mediation the poetic fervour of tlie age has been transmitted to posterity. It is useful to dwell upon this approximation of literary taste, as displayed in particular by the authors of the Roman dc la Rose and by Geoffrey Chaucer, because it forms, in more senses than one, a common starting-point for the poetic development of France and of England. And perhaps we may discover, in the manner and method of Chaucer's Rom.aunt of the Rose, some indication of the contrasted national characteristics, and of the divergences which were thereafter to carry the two literatures so far apart. Mark how tliese three men — Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meung, and Geoffrey Chaucer — were severally the creatures of their past, the exponents of their present, the creators of their future. Observe, in the first, how this overflowing force and vigour of lusty life, born of the joyousness of the older trouvferes and of his own ardent imagination, was held within certain bounds of propriety by the conditions amidst which he lived. His years were much the same as those of Saint Louis ; his mother had had before her eyes the example of Blanche of Castile— one of those mothers who have done so much to purify and ennoble the world, because, in the face of temptations and trials to which the majority of our race so easily succumb, they have trained from the cradle to the height of the world's ambition a pure and noble son. The innocent boyhood, the studious and conscientious youth, the meek and magnanimous manhood of the flower of French 1 82 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book ii. monarchs, formed a grand type for the imitation of his sub- jects ; and, if we may judge from his writings, the example had not been lost upon Guillaume de liOrris. His pictures are rarely, if ever, such as would shock the eyes of those for whom he wrote them ; he strove to please the grateful and the refined, not to outrage them, nor yet violently to mould them into another shape. The sap is there, abundant and with difficulty restrained ; but it never breaks through and disfigures the delicate bark of the fair straight tree. Jean de Meung lived in another epoch, and was altogether a different kind of man. Deformed, apparently, in his person, the mind seems to have acquired the body's twist, and to have thirsted instinctively for revenge against those who were not respon- sible for his misfortune. Moreover, the interval of forty years had done much to alter the complexion of society in France, and that considerably for the worse. Louis had been zealous for religion, he had matei-ially assisted, the aggrandisement of the Papacy, and he had kept his subjects continually at his own high level of religious, if somewhat stern and cruel zeal. But, the temporal power of the Popes once established, faith decreased, an almost irresponsible priesthood became a prey to great abuses ; and, on the other hand, the ambitious Philip the Fair set himself to improve upon the work of his sainted predecessor, making the ecclesiastical subservient to the poli- tical, and elevating civil duties above religious. He had sufficient influence over the Pope to constrain him to transfer his court from Eome to Avignon ; and, little as he seems to have really cared for literature, he contrived to bend even the poets and philosophers to his will. It is said that Jean de Meung undertook the completion of the Roman de la Base at the instigation of Philip ; and undoubtedly the doctrines inculcated by the second portion of this poem, which extol industry, free and generous living, the begetting of children, as amongst the greatest virtues, are precisely such as would CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 183 accord with the far-reaching designs of the monarch. He, moreover, chose his instrument discreetly, for Jean was well calculated to preach this novel gospel of nature, and to impress his generation with a sense of its desirableness. We may indeed be permitted to feel a doubt on the subject of the royal commission in face of the somewhat subversive ideas of civil obligations and of royalty in which the poet indulges ; as witness the following account of the first king amongst men : " A great villain they elected amongst themselves, the most cowardly of all who were there, the stoutest and the greatest, and they made him prince and lord." If a few passages of this remarkable poem may be supposed to have been dis- pleasing to Philip, there v.'as much more which the latter must have found to his liking ; whilst the objurgations of the scandalised churchmen, and the fact that Jean de Meung lived to repudiate many of the notions to which he had given utterance, are quite in consonance with the idea of his having taken a brief from the king. Certain it is that the poet was as natural an outcome of the age of Philip the Fair as Guil- laume de Lorris was of the age of Saint Louis ; whereas his reflex influence upon his age was infinitely greater. Of his two originals, Chaucer decidedly preferred the first, both from the natural bent of his mind, and also because he would readily perceive that Englishmen would not tolerate the licence of Jean de Meung. The contemporaries of the English poet had their licentious tastes, which were gratified to the full in such stories as those of the " Miller of Trump- ington " and " Hendy Nicolas." It was a greater licence, too, in its way, coarse, and with less wit, and brutalising. It was the rough licence of the alehouse clown, full of rude loud merri- ment, and a faithful picture enough of a familiar side of life. But it was not subtle and seductive ; it did not deliberately aim at the loosening of social ties ; it did not deny all truth and faithfulness to woman. It was one thing for Englishmen 1 84 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book II, to laugh at what actually existed, to make a passiug jest of impurity — especially where the brunt of the ridicule fell upon a hypocrite or a double-dealer ; but it was quite another thing to sit down and study the art of corrupting each man his neighbour's wife and daughters, or to set about destroying, in cold blood, the ideal purity of the weaker sex. Chaucer knew his countrymen well, and did not care to give them more than o629 out of the 17,930 verses of Jean de Meung. He omits the democracy as well as the seductive indecency of his original ; and in both cases he doubtless followed the lead of his personal taste, as well as of his literary judgment. He had been bro\ight up at court, and was by training in har- mony with the loyal aristocratic feeling of his day ; and he was, moreover, in all probability, a Lollard, or at least a sympathiser with the Lollards, having married the sister of John of Gaunt's second wife, and being, we may presume, no little influenced by the opinions of that staunch patron of the religious purists. But indeed his genius was cast in a different mould from that of Jean de Meung, who was natural philosopher first, and romancist afterwards. Chaucer, like Guillaume de Lorris, was before all a romancist ; and it is therefore perfectly natural that he should have reproduced the latter's verses with the greatest zest and completeness. It is difficult to estimate the effect produced on the French national character, and on French literature of later ages, by the shrewd philosophy of Jean de Meung, of whom it has been justly said that his boldness of thought and expression far excels that of Voltaire. His work deserves yet more attention for this reason ; for though he chose to tack it on to the Roman de la Rose, perhaps on account of the popularity of the latter, or because the allegorical form precisely suited his purpose, yet his scope and design were more extensive, and in some respects quite distinct from those of Guillaume de Lorris. He worked effectively upon his predecessor's models j CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 185 but his new impersonations were still more striking ; Nature herself, and her priest Genius, are grand conceptions, by whose assistance he is enabled to weave a hundred theories, to expound a thousand ideas, and to multiply suggestions without end. The earlier poem had left Good Eeception in prison, and the lover spares no pains to deliver him. Love espouses his cause, and brings up an army to his assistance, amongst whom are False-Seeming and Abstinence. The former, having found an entrance into the tower, glozes over Evil Speaking, one of the guardians of Good Eeception, and, after cutting out his tongue, slays him. The lover now draws near to the accomplishment of his desires, thanks to the assistance of an old duenna ; but Authority, Fear, and Shame, come up in the nick of time and mar the plot. Love then resolves upon an assault, and is assisted in it by his mother Venus. It is at this point, whilst the battle rages, that Nature, distressed at the wholesale destruction of her children, laments her loss to Genius — much indeed as Philip the Fair may have represented the serious diminution of his subjects. Man alone, says Nature, disobeys the law imposed upon him. The stars revolve, the brutes follow their instincts ; man goes forth to war, or dies in idleness, before pro- viding for the reprodiiction of his species. We cannot here develop the theories -and suggestions of our mother Nature, as interpreted for her by Jean de Meung, and by a few of our own contemporaries, under such names as the rehabilitation of humanity, natural selection, and the like. The curious reader may find occasion to see for himself how the French philosopher has handled the subject of which Ovid made an art, and Lucretius a religion.^ Guillaume's rough sketch of hypocrisy in Papelardie, * "Toutea (femmes) estea, serfs, ou futes De faict ou de volonte piites ; Et qui bien vous en cheroheroit, Toutes putes vous trouveroit" 1 86 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ii. which was destined to be refined into Moli^re's Tartuffe, just as his Avarice was to become Harpagon, did not satisfy Jean de Meung ; and, as has been acutely said,^ raise-Seeming (Faux-Semblant) was the symbol, and Tartuffe the type, of what in Papelardie was a simple allegory. De Meung's is a fine creation, and is by no means the mere impersonation of our modern and respectable virtue of hypocrisy. He is rather the worldly-minded, chapel-going, money-making man or woman of the nineteenth century ; not so much cloaking his vices under an assumption of virtue, as displaying his deliberate acceptance of conventional false appearances as a thing that will " pay." He is always unmasking out of sheer bravado, and makes no secret of his tastes and pre- ferences. " I dwell," he informs us, " amongst the proud, the impostors, the cunning, who covet worldly honour, and profit by great undertakings, and go in search of grand feasts, and compass the acquaintance of powerful men, and hang on to them, and make out that they are poor, and so live upon fine delicate scraps, and drink costly wines ; and go about preaching poverty, and fishing for great wealth." Mr. Harold Skimpole has caught a trick or two of Faux-Sem- blant, as also Mr. Bounderby, and many others who might be named. Not Pecksniff, who is too purely hypocritical to confess as much. It is true that Faux-Semblant can don the hood and cowl of Papelardie on occasion, in order the more easily -to snare his usual prey — the simple and cowardly among his fellow-creatures ; but as a rule he prefers the bounce of professed selfishness. "When I see all these beggarly rascals," he says again, "shivering in these filthy dunghills, snivelling and whining with cold and hunger, 1 do not meddle with their private concerns." Hypocrisy is his art, not his nature ; a weapon which he can take and lay aside rather than a character of which he cannot divest himselfi * M. G^rusez, Histoire de la Liit6rature frani^aise, vol. i., p. 134, CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 187 "Would he know the weak points of his fellow-creatures ? "For the salvation of souls, I inquire of lords and ladies, and of all their household, concerning their property and their lives." Would he satisfy his curiosity from the fountain-head ? " I am wont to reveal to them, without reservation, the secrets of others ; and they also tell me everything, concealing nothing whatever." He does not trouble to do this with the poor and uninfluential, but with the rich and powerful ; and he finds it pay. " There is no prelate who dare injure or insult my friends, for I have surely closed their mouths." Who does not recognise Faux-Semblant amongst his intimate acquaint- . ances — the "over good-natured " with whom it is fatal even to gossip : from whom you cannot listen to a commonplace tale without thenceforth being at the mercy- of their tongue ; to know whom is to lay up for yourself a mysterious retribution, coming how and when you know not, but coming surely, as a punishment for having failed in the art of discriminating char- acter. Jean de Meung might be a satirist of the nineteenth century. § 2. The Eoystering TEOuvi;EEs. We have advanced a little in the engaging company of the continuator of de Lorris, and must return to the reign of Saint Louis in order to exchange a word with Eutebeuf,* a roysterer among the roysterers, type and precursor of many a witty-tongued, empty-pocketed Parisian of the present day ; in literary tone the forerunner of Villon ; in self-railing, poverty-stricken genius, the poetic ancestor of Henri Murger. He sang for his bread, like the poorest of the old trouveres ; but he had the salt of wit in greater abundance; and he struck more varied and more resonant strings than they. Fabliaux, war-songs, pious legends, personal panegyrics, all came in his way, for all brought him a trifle wherewith to ^ He died at the end of the thirteenth century. i88 HISTORy OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. keep body and soul together ; and it was worth his while keeping body and soul together, if only for the prospect of having one more throw with the dice, and singing, in some quiet corner, one more song that might pass sweetly between his lips. Misery was his bed-fellow, but never his verse- fellow. He could marry on nothing, and produce a family more easily than he could earn bread to keep them with, and yet sing in gaiety of heart : " Since Mary gave birth to our Saviour in a manger, never was seen such a marriage." His is a type of a certain French litt&'ateur which we shall meet over and over again ; and the prototype of the whole class is perhaps its best example. France had been almost overdone with singing, and the line was no longer as profitable as it had been. The trouvfere and his melle, had fallen into almost as much disrepute as the Savoyard and his hurdy-gurdy now enjoy in London streets. Philip Augustus had found them — or perhaps we ought to say the jongleurs and cliarlatans — so numerous throughout France that he caused many of them to be packed off beyond the frontiers. Their business became unprofitable by dint of too much free-trade. At Bologna they passed a law forbidding them to sing in the public places. Then the more capable amongst them, who were able to write as well as to sing, earned a precarious livelihood by inditing verses in honour of wealthy men, from whom they continued to get at least a little payment in kind, and an occasional turn of board and lodging. Such was the pass to which things had come in Eutebeuf's time ; which was indeed a blessing in disguise, as may possibly have occurred to him now and then in his weary wanderings. For poetry is the stuff which is wont to show its merits under the test of adversity ; and adversity gave the songs of our genial tramp what they might not otherwise have attained— 'immortality. Eutebeuf is a figure on the stage of the thirteenth century. CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 189 Sprang, it seems, from the very ruts of the social highway, he came into the -world with a tune in his throat as well as in his head, and this gained for him a little schooling amongst the choristers of some church in Champagne. The priests or monks taught him to sing and play ; and having pleased one or other of his masters or hearers, he was afterwards sent to the University of Paris, where he learned, amongst other things, how to gamble and fight. In book- learning he did not advance beyond the rudiments, and he left the university without taking his degree. So far, indeed, the picture might belong to our own day ; but now his career began in earnest; for his patron seems to have grown tired of him. However, Eutebeuf was a genuine musician ; he could bring music out of every known instrument, and his head was stored with songs &-}ii(ii fabliaux, old and new. He took to the road forthwith ; and strange companions were some of those whom he encountered there. Tlie highwaymen of the thirteenth century were not Claude Duvals ; and a minstrel to them was as lawful prey as any other — especially if he happened to be leaving a large town, with a moderately well- filled knapsack on his shoulders. There was nothing for it but to stand and deliver if you en- countered one of these desperate gangs, for any attempt at resistance or concealment of valuables was pretty sure to be tortured, roasted, or boiled into submission. Eutebeuf was soon tired of vagrancy under these conditions. He settled in the capital, and applied himself more steadily than ever to gratify the political, religious, or artistic tastes of the rich and powerful ; preaching crusades for the king, versifying the lives of saints for the clergy, and immortalising dead nobodies to tickle the vanity of their heirs ; forgetting, for the time, the modesty which had formerly led him to depreciate himself.^ ^ We give Rutebeuf s self-depreciation in order to show how he could plaj on wonls, a taste very common in that age : — " Eudes est et rudement euvre Li rudes hons fait rdde euvre . . . Eudes est, s'a non Eudebeus. '' 190 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE.. BOOK II. Eutebeuf did not always place his pen at the service of the monks, whom he really hated, and against whom he was glad to fling an occasional rhyme. During the quarrel be- tween Guillaume de Saint-Amour and Thomas Aquinas, he championed the cause of his university, and put into the students' mouths many a popular song, which earned for him the indirect censure of Pope Alexander IV. For when the latter issued a bull in condemnation of Saint- Amour, he added a word against certain pieces " composed in infamy, and to the discredit of the preaching brothers and inferior clergy, lately published in the common tongue, together with indecent rhymes and songs upon the same subject." Our poet's pro- ductions vvere many and of many kinds ; and not a few of those which have been preserved bear witness to the power of his satire, which 1]^ was wont to embody in verses bearing the name of Bits, or in fabliaux} He was, moreover, one of the earliest French comedy-writers, as we shall presently find. And yet, with all this industry and brainwork, which might have placed a prudent man far above the reach of want, he was in a state of periodic poverty and wretchedness : the reason whereof he does not hesitate to inform us, saying that " the dice whicli the dice-maker has made have cleared me out of my wardrobe, the dice kill me, the dice lay in wait for me and spy me out, the dice attack me and defy me ; that weighs me down." Or again, reduced in old age to a late respectability, holding himself up as a warning to others in the following pathetic words ; — which, indeed, he might rea- sonably have withheld, seping that there were none amongst his hearers with sufficient genius to " be liis parallel" : — " My pots are broken and shivered, And I have spent all my days . . . If ever man has prayed for the dead * Among the Dits the Dit de I'Odl, the Bit dcs Jacobins, the one of the Cordeliers, and of the Memonge ; and among the fabliaux, Le Testament di VAsne and Chariot le Juif seem to deserve their former reputation. CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 191 Let him pray for me . . . I am exhausted if I am moved . . . Know ye how I pass my time ? The hope in to-morrow Such are my feasts. One would think I was a priest, For I make more men cross themselves, (It is no sin), Than if I were preaching the gospel. Men cross themselves all over the town At the spectacle I present, Which ought to be told as a story by night. For there is nought like it . . . God has no martyr on his roll Who has suffered as much. If they have been slain for God Burned, stoned, or betrayed, I make no doubt at all That their punishment was soon at an end. But this will endure as long as I live." ' The reader will have observed that, if the poetic brilliancy of the age of the trouveres was becoming dim towards the close of the thirteenth century, it was at the same time dis- appearing with many splendid coruscations of light, destined indeed to flicker low upon the ashes of the altar, but destined also to be fanned anew into a brighter and more consuming ' " Mes pos est brisiez et quassez Et j'ai tos mesjors passez . . . S'onques nus hom por mort pria Si pi'i por moi . . . Je n'en puism&ssijem'esmoi . . . Saves conient je me demain ? L'esp^rance de I'endemaiu Ce sont mes festes. L'eu cuide que je soi» nrestres ; Quar je fas plus sainier de te.stes (Ce n'est pas guile) Que se je cliantaisse evangile. L'on se saine parmi la ville De mes merveilles, Ou les doit bien conter aux veilles, II u'y a nules lor pareilles . . . Diex n'a mil martyr en sa route Qui taut ait fait ; S'ils out este por Dieu deffait, Eosti, lapide ou detrait, Je ne dout mie Que lor paine fu tost fenie ; Mais ce durra tote ma vie." IQZ HISTORY OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book ii. flame. Thibaut of Champagne himself was no mere trouvfere ; and one might quote many a lyric morsel from him and his contemporaries worthy to be compared with Eutebanf s best. Gace Bruld and Gautier d'Argies wrote delicately enough at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and possibly owed no little of their grace of style to their acquaintance with the songs of the troubadours. Adam de la Halle, who died per- haps a year or two sooner than Eutebeuf, gives stiU clearer evidence of southern influence 'in his refined and easy can- chons, rondeaux, and partwes or jeux-partis. Two stanzas from his •well-known Cong4, in which he bids farewell to Arras, may serve as an example of the bright, nervous sim- plicity of thought, and the tender grace of expression to which the langue d'oil of the thirteenth century lent itself in the mouths of the elegant and cultivated men of the time : — " Arras ! Arras ! town of quarrels And of hatred and of treason, Which was once so noble. Men go about saying that you are being restored ; But if God do not bring back the good (feelings), I see not who is to reconcile you. They love there too much heads or tails (money). Every one deceives in this town As much as he did in the spring that is past. Farewell, more than a hundred thousand times 1 Now will I go and listen to the gospel, For here they know nought but to lie . . , Fair and very sweet beloved friend, I cannot put on a joyful face. For more in grief from you I part Than from aught else I leave behind. Of my heart be the guardian, And the body shall go elsewhere To learn and seek the means and art Of being more worthy (of thee) . . . CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 193 In order to reap a better harvest later, For three or four years We let our land lie fallow." ' § 3. TEOUVilRES OF THE FoUKTEENTH CeNTUEY. The lyrical trouv^res of the fourteenth century might lay claim to a chapter on their own account, if only because they represent almost the sole surviving poetic spirit of France in an age of comparative literary sterility, when there was little besides them of freshness, beauty, or originality. Our limits, however, will not permit us to go at leisure over the grounc' occupied by Eustache Deschamps, "himself a most prolific trouvere.^ His friend Guillaume de Machault,^ musician and poet, and. the chronicler Froissart^ himself, , were his rivals in Ij'rical proficiency and prolixity. And the new or newly perfected styles were well suited to the not very sustained efforts of these poets. The ballad most in favour with the age consisted of two or more stanzas rhymed on an identical model, all ending with the same line. The rondeau, in its earlier shape, had eight lines, the first, fourth, and seventh being identical, as were the second and last. The virclai turned on two rhymes, of which the first had ^ "Arras ! Arras ! ville de plait Bele trfes douche amie chlere, Et de liaine et de detrait, Je ne pxiis faire bele chiere ; Qui soliez etre si nobile, Car plus dolans de vous me part On va disant c'on vous refait ; Que de rieu que je laisse arriire. Mais se Diex le bien n'i ratrait, De mou ciier serfe tresorifere, ■Je ue voi qui vous reconcile. Et li cors ira d'autre part On i aime trop crois et pile ; Aprendre et querre engieu et art Chaseuns fuberte eu ceste vile, De miex valoir . . . Au point c'on estoit a le mait. Pour miex fructefier plus tart, Adieu de tbis plus de cent mile ! De ai au tiers an ooi au quart Aillors vois oir I'Evangile, Laist on bien se terre en jachiere." Car chi fors mentir on ne salt . . . = He was bora in 1320 and died at the beginning of the fifteenth century ; he was the author of the Arte de Sictier et Fere Ohanqmis, Ealades, VirelaU et Eondeaux, published in 1392. ' 1290-1377. ^ 1337-1410. ■VOL. I. 194 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. to predominate throughout the whole ; the first verses were I'epeated together or separately, as often as necessary ; hence the name. The following is an excellent rondeau of de Machault's, which rings already with the mellow tone more perfectly attained a century or two later : — "'As white as a lily, more ruddy than the rose, Brilliant as an oriental ruby ; In beholding your beauty without an equal, As white as a lily, more ruddy than the rose, I am so delighted that my heart always watches, So that it may serve as a law for a true lover ; As white as a lily, more ruddy than the rose, Brilliant as an oriental ruby." ^ Deschamps will not be dismissed without another word, and his satirical vein, if nothing else, deserves it. Witness this letter to his father : — " My dear father — I have not a penny, nor can I have unless you send it to me. Study is very costly. I cannot use my Code nor my Digest, because they are dropping to pieces. I owe the provost two crowns, and no one will lend me the money. The fact is, that if I am to continue my studies, you must send me money to buy books, to pay my fees, and to keep myself. I want decent dress, too; and if you do not want your son to appear a mere clown, you will send me money for that too. Wiue is dear, lodgings are dear, everything is dear. I am in debt all round. I fully expect to be excommunicated, and I have already been summoned. If you do not send me money, I shall be most cer- tainly turned out at Easter." " ' " Blanche com Ij's, plus que rose vermeille, Resplendissaiit com rubis d'Oriant, En remirant vo biaute non pareille, Blanche com lys, plus que rose vermeille, Suy si ravis que mes cuers toudis veille Afin que serve k ley de fin amant, Blanche com lys, plus que rose vermeille, Eesplendissant com rubis d' Oriant." ' Besaiit, Tlie Frsnch HuTnourisls, p. 82, CHAP. II. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 195 How nearly was the fourteenth century a counterpart of the nineteenth ; except perhaps that the fourteenth was ahle to paint its pictures with fewer touches ! Less like a counterpart is the scene in which Deschamps, then fifty- five years old, relates how he was admitted to an inter- view with Agnes of Navarre in her garden ; on which occasion he had the prudence to take his secretary with him. The artless girl laid her head in the poet's lap and fell asleep. Whereupon the secretary placed a leaf upon her lips, and motioned to Deschamps to kiss the leaf. He did so ; or rather he would have done so ; but the secretary withdrew the leaf at the moment of impact, and the young princess awoke. "She said to me quite softly," continues the poet, " ' My friend, you are very insulting ; know you no otlier sport than that ? ' But the fair one broke into a smile with her lovely mouth ; which gave me to imagine, and at all events to hope, that the thing did not displease her." Agnes married Gaston de Foix, and her history is sad enough to make us wish that it had stopped short at this point. Meanwhile, behind and distinct from all these poetic out- bursts of the national genius — except that mutual action and reaction maintained their never-ceasing laws, and that the history of literature and of civilisation reflects from one to the other the co'mmon light of human and national development — the State and the Church were gradually perfecting their organisation. Philip Augustus, Saint Louis, Philip the Pair, contributed each his share towards cementing and consolidat- ing the inheritance of the Carlovingians and the Capets. The power of the monarchs had increased, the power of the barons had been restricted. The people lost almost as much as they gained by the subjection of the aristocracy ; but the communes and municipalities little by little increased their quota of freedom. The royal prerogative was pushed far by Louis IX., and farther still, to the very verge of weakness, by igS HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book ii. PMlip the Fair ; whilst the tendency of the third estate of tlie realm towards the democratic idea manifested itself even side by side with the decreasing influence of the communes. The Church; as we have already seen, raised to high authority and even civil dignity by Louis, had been shorn of much of its power under his high-handed grandson, but gradually regained it in the reigns of Philip's weaker successors, and during the hundred years' war between France and England. In the fourteenth century, French ecclesiastics bore themselves bravely before the civil power, and in the face of a spiritless and obedient people. The events which were so fatal to the unhappy House of Yalois strengthened the hands of the Church; and the anarchy of France created for her an opportunity which she was not altogether incapable of seizing. CHAP. Ill, FEUDAL SOCIETY. 1^7 CHAPTER in. § 1. Peose-Weitees of the Thieteenth Oentcby. In the infancy of every literature, which is also the infancy of a language, men of ardent imagination, who write what the most unlearned can readily understand, and who naturally seek a wide and popular audience, make use of the popular form of speech ; whereas scholars who write for scholars, and neither expect nor seek a wide audience for their historic narratives and theological discussions, are wont to use the ancient tongue, which circumstances have con- tributed to make the classical, learned, or sacred form of speech. So it was between the Sanscrit and the younger Indian languages, between the Chaldean and younger Semitic languages, and, in Europe, between the Latin on the one hand and the neo-Latin and Teutonic languages on the other. It is not in itself a sufficient reason for, but it contributes to explain, the fact that the poetic literature of the French lan- guage preceded its prose literature by several centuries ; whereas we have seen that the early prose-writers of Gaul who used the Latin language were hoth more numerous and more skilful than the Gallo-Pioman poets of the earlier Chris- tian centuries. We must not overlook the fact that the vulgar tongue, the neo-Latin tongue, which was called lingua romana, to distin- guish it both from pure Latin and from Teutonic, but which was not commonly known as French until the ninth century, had been from the fifth or sixth century the language of the 198 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ir. great majority of !Brenclimen ; that councils of French bishops, early in the ninth centurj% had ordered the Fathers to be translated iato lingua romana for the use of "the people ;"^ that the same injunction was many times repeated during that and the two following centuries ; by which time the Eomauce form of speech was the language of the Court and State in England,^ in Spain, in Italy, and in Greece. Up to the fourteenth century, however, this popular form of speech, so far as prose is concerned, was rather a spoken than a written tongue ; although it may be taken for granted that any language in common use, which was daily and fami- liarly spoken, must also occasionally have been written in prose. It is true that a large portion of the poetry of the trouv^res would be, in the first instance, transmitted from memory to memory without the intervention of written docu- ments, whereas the same method could not so easily be applied to prose ; whilst the ready writers who were not poets would be mere copyists, or, if themselves producers, would, as a rule, be priests, monks, or professors in the universities and schools, and would consequently use Latin. Nevertheless, prose Romance documents, in addition to those above named, are to he met with from the eleventh century onwards. God- frey of Bouillon caused the Assises du Royaume de Jerusalem to be written in French, and Thomas de Couci gives us in the same language tlie well-known lawof Yervins. To Pieardy the Abb^ Lebeuf^ attributes certain Romance translations of the Booh o/Jb&, the two Books of the Kings, and the Dialogues of Saint Gregoire; whereas in England we have prose Romance 1 The Council of Tows, 813, "after having enjoined upon the bishops tho nse of the Patristic writings as heing most indispensable to instract the people committed to their charge in the principles of religion, required that each of them should translate or have them translated into the Homanoe or the Teutsoh dialect, that all might the more readily listen to the truth which should be imparted to them." ' Under Edward the Confessor, 1043, and more completely after the Con' quest. a 1687-1760. CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. •99 works from the pens of several of Henry Beauclerk's assistants, such as Wace, "Walter Map, and Fantosme. It was in the thirteenth century that Frenchmen began to write their history in their own tongue, and laid the founda- tions of what has since proved to be one of the characteristic excellences of French literature. Nursed by the grand epics in which their fathers and grandfathers had sung the glories of ancient and modern proM'ess, the noble adventures of chivalry, and the mighty exploits of kings, they began to record in serious earnest the events in which they had them- selves borne part, and which they felt ought not to be lost upon their children. For the most part, doubtless, it was the men who thought themselves unequal to the task of writing a worthily-sustained poem to whom the idea first occurred of setting forth a matter-of-fact narrative in prose. Froissart, it is true, had an ardent poetic genius, but it was exclusively in the lyric vein, and he would have shrunk from the idea of composing his chronicles in verse. Naturally enough the his- toric narratives which claim our attention were, to begin with, simple and unambitious records, candid and even colloquial in style, and much in the manner of a protracted letter to a friend. When we think of the difficulties of this new de- parture, and the stedfast efforts necessary to overcome them, we have reason to be surprised at the readiness with which success was achieved. The special historic genius of the nation was manifested by Villehardouin, JoinviEe, and Frois- sart. In England the step from poetry to history was not so easily made ; English literature had many prose-writers before it acquired one respectable historian. These were not, indeed, the earliest French historians even of the Middle Ages, for the cloister had already performed its part. But the monastic chroniclers would not or could not depart from their consecrated Latin, which, though it had its facilities, had also its restraints. And the monks, moreover, 2CX3 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITER A TURK, book ii. wrote chiefly of events which they had never seen, sometimes of events which had never happened.^ They wrote, again, with a predisposition to rely npon accepted traditions, and for readers whom they expected to take the truth of their narra- tives for granted. They were, in fact, monastic first and Frenclimen afterwards, and the breath of Trench historic genius barely deigned to assist them ; whereas the truer his- torians whom we are about to study narrated the events of their own experience. Their scope was limited, and within that scope they were masters of their own powers ; they undertook no more than they could firmly grasp, and what they undertook they felt themselves able to accomplish. In this they were but unwittingly adopting the plan which the Frenchman of to-day follows of set purpose. His circle must be drawn sharply, and his radius fixed ; that done, his talent enables him to subdivide his ground, and to fill in his details with ease. The earlier historian had to do rather with a straight line than with a circle, but even there he was careful to mark his boundaries. The monks, on the other hand, neither realised nor cared to acknowledge the necessity of any limits to their talent ; so that, although their chronicles serve a useful purpose, and although certain shorter and more per- sonal narratives are valuable as historical memoirs, we possess no monastic history of the first rank. Gregory of Tours, Egin- hard, the so-called Turpin, and Hincmar, have supplied many a fact which would otherwise have been lost to us ; but their records are far from trustworthy. The patriotic labours of the Benedictines of the Abbey of Saint Denis, which have bequeathed to posterity an invaluable collection of historic documents, did much to redeem the cloister from the reproach which rests upon it; and Suger" himself, to whom the grand idea was ^ The monaatio chroniclers usually hegin with the creation of the world, and work their way through much imperfect compilation before they anire at their own times. ' A man of the people (1082-1152), who became Chancellor of St. Denis and the shrewd counsellor of Louis VI. and Louis VIL CHAP. in. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 201 probably due, came nearest of all his order to the possession of tlie genuine historic gift. He wrote the annals of at least one of the reigns in which he occupied so prominent a posi- tion, but his naiTative exhibits the dimness of perception which was fatal to all the monastic writers. After him came several other historians,^ and, last of the Latin chroniclers, the anonymous author of the reign of Charles VP Earely have these monastic records been translated, and still more rarely read, in their original form. Nevertheless, we must not quit the subject without rendering justice to the same Abbey of St. Denis, which gave the French in their own tongue a collection of the Gkroniques de France. The first French historian whose work was originally written in the common form of speech is also — and the fact must be emphasised as one of special significance — the first noteworthj' writer of French prose. This was Geoffroy de Villehardouin, a soldier and diplomatist, who was born about the middle of the twelfth century, and who died in the year 1213. In 1199 he was sent by Thibault III. of Champagne to treat with the Eepublie of Venice for the passage of the troops of the fourth crusade through their country. He was himself a soldier of the Cross, and was present at the taking of Con- stantinople. Tliese events he describes in his Histoire de la CoTiquete de CoTistantinople — the work of a soldier, simple if somewhat stiff in manner, bearing every mark of fidelity to fact, but not wanting in ambitious passages and in complacent effbits after rhetoric. Villehardouin probably thought he was writing a poem, and would, in any case, have held that the events recorded by him deserved a poetic dress as much as the subjects of the grandest CJuinsoTis de Gesfe. And yet he had the true feeling of the historian, giving us with great ' Rigord, Guillaume le Breton, the anonymous writer of the lives of Saint Louis and Louis the Bald, and GniUanme de Nangis, who brought his chronicle down to the year 1340. " 1368-1422. 202 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK II. minuteness the enumeration of the hosts, the plans and deli- herations of the chiefs, the position of the opposing armies, the varying fortunes of the struggle ; whilst he forgets neither the causes nor the issues of the war, so far as he was able to discern them. He is the Xenophon of his own history, having himself been an actor in all which he narrates ; a fact which adds a special freshness and vigour to his account. He was, as a consequence, more than the Mandeville of French prose, for his subject was more purely historical, and he had the art of laying down the model and practice of historic narrative. He had precisely that dignity which Froissart needed, though it was left to Froissart to excel him in graphic and picturesque description. The nervous readiness, with which our valiant soldier re- counts the scenes he had passed through, makes his work interesting and readable down to the present day ; for one is carried along by natural sympathy with all his dangers, fears, and successes. The pilgrim army is before us as we read ; or rather it is beside us and behind us, whilst we smite down the paynim in the front of the battle. At every turn we hear the voice of the Christian warrior by our side. "Now hear one of the grandest marvels, one of the greatest adventures that you ever heard ! . . . Now may you hear of great prowess ! . . . Know that there was none so bold but his heart trem- bled ! . . . Know that never was any town so proudly taken ! . . . Know that God did never deliver any people from greater perils than he did the host on that day !" He is always bring- ing himself as witness to the truth of what he says ; and so great is the respect with which he inspires us that we readily accept the sufficiency of the confirmation. " So great was the booty made," he says, speaking of the capture of the city, " that none of you could tell the end of the gold and silver, and of the vessels and precious stones, and of samite, and of silken stuff, and of miniver and grey and ermine robes, and CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 203 all the valuable possessions which were ever found in the world. And Geoffroi de Villehardouin, the marshal of Cham- pagne, solemnly bears witness to his knowledge of the truth, that, since the present age was in existence, never was so much gained in one town." Villehardouin had, of course, the advantage of being per- haps first in the field of French historians, with none of the modes and mannerisms of predecessors which modern writers often find so troublesome. If he tells us anything of him- self, or if he gives an opinion about the plans and actions of his fellow-leaders, or if he wishes to qualify or to confirm a statement, he does not wait to bring it in by way of digres- sion, or add it in a note, or refer us to an appendix ; but out comes his idea at the moment when it occurs to him, and, strange to say, it does not confuse the narrative, but mani- festly assists and illumines it. " Many kept badly their pro- mises," he says in one place, pausing in the description of a chain of circumstances to remark upon what subsequently happened, "and many were blamed for it." And again in a critical mood he says, " Know that such a one could do a great deal better." His History is a trustworthy and lively picture of the times, and of the valorous barons and their retainers in particular, a few pages whereof tell us far more than a chapter of considera- tions drawn from the whole field of contemporary external his- tory. It is a candid confession from the mouth of one of those famous knights of the Middle Ages, who would follow their chosen banner into the field, but would fight there as if each individual were the sole hope and stay of his cause. Disci- pline there might be amongst the inferior ranks ; but amongst the superior little indeed, except the discipline of a common purpose, and of an ever-present religious obligation. Yet the latter was strong enough to assure a victory over hosts well calculated to inspire awe. The Christians had the ever-pre- 204 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK II. sent belief that their true leader was the God who had sent them forth to fight, and who was directing the battle from on high. The following passage expresses clearly enough the spirit which led the crusaders to victory : — "The Emperor Morchufles had come to lodge, before the assault, in a place with all his army, and with all his red tents put up. Thus the affair lasted until Monday morning ; and then were armed those vessels and transports and galleys. And those of the town feared them more than they did at first ; they were so astounded, that upon the walls and upon the towers appeared nothing but men. And then began the ferocious and marvellous assault. And each vessel attacked straight before it. The cry of the noise was so great, that it seemed that the earth was going to be destroyed. Then the assault lasted long, so that our Lord for them raised a wind, which is called Boire, and brought the vessels and the transports more on the shore than they were before. And two ships which were tied together, of which one was called the Pilgrim and the other Paradise, approached so near the tower, the one on one side, the other on the other, as God and the wind led them, that the ladder of the Pilgrim was right against the tower, and now a Venetian and a French knight, who was named Andr6 d'Urboise, entered the tower." ' Eleven years after the death of Villehardouin was horn another master of the art of prose, Jean de Joinville, of whom we shall presently have occasion to speak. But the annals ' " L'Empereres Morchufles s'ere vemiz herbergier devant I'assaut en une place & tot son pooir, et ot tendues sea verraeillea tentes. Ensi dura oil afaires trosque lundi matin ; e lors furent arme cil des nes et des vissiers et oil des galies. Et oil de la rille les doterent mains que il ne firent Jv premiers ; si furent si esbaudi que sor les murs et sor les tors ne paroient se genz uou. Et lors commenja li assaus fiers et merveilleus. Et chascuns vaissiaux asaail- loit endroit lui. Li huz de la noise fu si granz que il sembla que tene fondist Ensi dura li assaus longement, tant que nostre Sires lor fit lever nn vent, qu'on appelle Boire, et bota les n6s et les vaissiaux sor la rive plus qu'ils n'estoient devant. Et deux nes qui estoient liees ensemble dont I'nne avoit nom la Pelerifle et I'aultre li Paravis, aprochiferent tant \ la tor, I'une d'une part, et I'aultre d'aultre si com Diex et li venz li mena, que I'escliicle de la Pelerine se joinst Ji la tor, et maihtenant uns Veniciens et uns chevalieru da France qui avait nom Andri d'Urboise entrferent en la tor." CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 205 of the thirteenth century preserve the names of several other writers of French prose, to whom we may conveniently turn our attention in the meantime. Amongst the labours of the Abbey of Saint Denis, one of the most serviceable was the trans- lation of the old Latin chronicles, a work undertaken by the monk Primat, at the suggestion of Matthieu de Vend6me, in the year 1274. The originals turned to account by Primat were very numerous ;^ the translation was clearly and judici- ously effected, and it has been largely drawn upon in every succeeding age for the materials of the early history of France. In the mere matter of style, it was not to be expected that Primat should display the same qualities which had distin- guished Villehardouin ; nor indeed was it possible to aim at so high a model in what did not profess to be much more than a translation. But the language of these Clironiques is marked by precision and elegance of no mean order, as the following passage, which is the very beginning, will testify. " Because several people doubted the genealogy of the kings of France, from what origin, from what family they have sprung, he (Privat) undertook to do this work, by the command of such a man whom he could not, nor ought, to refuse. . . . And this history shall be written according to the letter and arrangement of the chronicles of the Abbey of Saint Denis, where the history and the actions of all the kings are written. . . . For thence the origin of history must be drawn. And if he can find in the chronicles of other churches something which may be wanting in the work, he may add to it, according to the pure truth of the letter, without omitting anything, unless it produces con- fusion. . . . And in order that he should not be considered a liar, he begs all those who shall read this history to look in the Chronicles of Saint Denis ; there they will be able to find out by the letter if he has told the truth or a falsehood." '' 1 They include the Chronicle of Aimoin, Gesta Dagoherti, Gesta Begum, .the chronicJle of Siegbert, Eginhard, Saint Bertin, Guillaume de Jumifeges, Hngues de Fleuri, tlie works of Suger, and many others. '' " Pour ce c^ue plusieurs gens doutoient de la genealogie des toys de 2o6 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. An historical fragment by Nicholas de Senlis, commencing with the Trojan war, and coming rapidly down as far as the* Merovingian period, the date whereof may be assigned to the first or second decade of the thirteenth century, shows that the cultivation of a prose style extended to a dialect which is neither Southern nor Northern. The writer winds up his labours with a remark which explains from one point of view the gradual abandonment of poetry as the medium of historic narrative. " Here ends the history. May God give life to the Count of Saint Pol, who caused it to be turned from Latin into Eomance, without rhyme for better understanding, so that many a one may learn it." The reason is a natural one; and the like cause will account for the unrliyming of many of the old romances which took place during the same century.^ The work of Estienne Boilesve or Boileau, whose life covered the first seventy years of the thirteenth century, and who was frevdt of Paris under Louis IX., derives its chief value from the fact of its making us acquainted with the police regulations of the capital in his day, with the rules of the ancient trade corporations, and the nature and amount of the taxes levied upon the city for the benefit of the king. It is addressed " to all the citizens and all the residents in Paris,, and to all those who may come within the boundaries of that same piace," and it opens with a quaint remonstrance against France, de quel original, de quel lignie ils sont descendus, emprist-il ceste ceuvre a faire, par le commandement de tel homme qu'il ne put, ne dut refuser. . . . Et sera ceste histoire descrite selon la lettre et I'ordonnance des chroniques de Tabtaye de Saint-Denis, oil les histoires et les fais de tous les roys sont escrits. . . . Car Ik doit-oii puiser I'origiual de I'histoire. Et s'il peut trouver fcs croniques d'autres ^glises chose qui vaille a la besoigne, il i pourra bien adjouster, selon la pure verity de la lettre, sans riens oster se ce n'est obose qui face confusion. . . Et pour ce que on ne le tiegne h. meiicongier, il i)rie k tous ciaus que ceste histoire liront que ils regardent ans croniques de Saint- Denis ; \k poiTa on esprover par la lettre s'il dist voir on menconge." I.suspect that this extract has been partly modernised. 1 Ba\idoin Butors applied himself industriously to paraphrasing in prose tha heroic poems of his predecessors. CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 207 the indiscriminate trade of certain merchants, "because they had sold as foreign certain things belonging to their trade which were not so good nor so valuable as they ought to have been." A strange echo from other days, whicli proves that Paris had already begun, at least in one respect, to earn the character which was thereafter to distinguish her. A contemporary of Boilesve's, who died in the same year, was a lawyer of no mean repute, Pierre de Fontaines ; to whom Saint Louis, perplexed by any complicated questions of justice, was wont to apply for assistance, saying, " Judge this case." He lias left beliind him a treatise on the Eoman law, as it had been accepted and interpreted in France. His lan- guage is rude and difScxilt, or must at least have appeared so, even at that time, to the Parisians. It is, in fact, the Picard dialect, but even more archaic.^ Another jurisconsult was Philippe de Piemi, lord of Beau- manoir,^ who left behind him a reputation as the French Justinian, so able and so profound, that, until the time of Montesquieu, France produced none who can be compared to him. He was a zealous champion of the royal prero- gative, and at the same time a firm maintainer of the common law of France, and of the ancient liberties of the people, which had been somewliat overborne by the feudal supremacy of the aristocracy. It was in this spirit that he compiled his book des Coutumes et Usages de Beauvoisis. Clermont was his native county ; but the customs and usages which he reasserted with all the convincing arguments of a skilful lawyer, and with much of the eloquence of a rhetorician, applied almost equally well to the whole of France. The method and manner of his work, as well as the style of his prose as it was written by cultivated Frenchmen at the end of 1 " Tu qui te veus doutriner de droit, et de terre tenir, si te 16 ke tu aies eii toi quatre coses piinchipaus : cremeur de Dieu, contenir soi, castiement de tes serjans, amour !l deffeiidre tes sougis." ■^ He died in 1296. 2o8 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK II. the thirteenth century, are certainly very deserving.^ Beau- nianoir was also a poet, and several of his pieces, of uo great literary merit, are extant.^ The list of the prose writers of the thirteenth century is by no means exhausted ; and it might easily be extended to pi'oportions too great for our present purpose. Lorens, a preaching friar, who wrote the Somme des Vices et des Vertus,^ better known under the short title of Somme le Roi, from the fact of its having been suggested by Philip III. ; Agn^s d'Har- court, abbess of Longchamps, who wrote the life of Isabella, sister of Saint Louis ; Marguerite de Duyn, prioress of Pole- tin, the authoress of a book of meditations ; the anonymous author of a touching account of the last moments of Jeanne, Countess of Alen9on,* are amongst the writers who in this century set their mark upon the earlier prose literature of France. § 2. Prose- Wkitees of the Poukteenth Centuky. One other great figure arrests our notice in the group of jioble and intellectual men whereof Saint Louis is the centre ; the figure of a man who had fought by the good king's side, and sat at his feet, who served him faithfully in life and perhaps still better in death ; for Jean, Sire de Joinville,^ not only wrote the Memoirs of his royal master, but by that means assisted to secure his canonisation. The nature, style, ' " 11 nous est avis que cheli qui veut estre loyaux baillis et droituriers doit avoir en soy dix vertus, en laquele I'une si est qui doit estre dame et mattresse de toutes les autres, ne sans lui, ne pueent estre, les aiitres vertus gouvernees, et ciele vertu si est appellee sapience ; car autretant vaut estre sapiens comme sage." '' They are two long tales in verse, La Manekitie (the Woman without Hands) and Jehan et Blonde (of Oxford), a Beauvaisian epic, interspersed with criticism on English manners and language ; Li salus d'amours, La Gomplaintl ft' amours, a tale o{ Fole larguece, and several other songs. 3 Written in 1279. * She died in 1292. « 1223-1317. CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 209 and value of his work may be exemplified by its dedication and design.'' 1. "To his good lord Louis (X.), son of the king of France, by the grace of God King of Navarre, Count Palatine of Cham- pagne and Brie, Jehan, Sire de Joinville, his seneschal of Champagne, health, and love, and honour, and his service at command. 2. " Beloved Sire, I give you to know that madam the queen, your mother, who loved me much (to whom God grant his good mercy !) desired me as urgently as she could that I would cause to he made for her a book of the holy words and the good deeds of our king the holy Louis ; and I promised it to her, and with the aid of God the book is finished in two parts. The first part relates how he governed all his time in accord with God and the Church, and to the advantage of his reign. The second part of the book speaks of his great knightly deeds and of his great feats of arms. 3. " Sire, because it is written, ' Do first that which pertains to God, and he will see to all thy other needs,' I have, in the first place, caused to be written that which pertains to the three things mentioned above ; namely that which pertains to the profit of souls and of bodies, and that which pertains to the government of the people. ' "We give the firat three paragraphs in the original. 1. " A son bon Signour Looys, fll dou roy de France, par la gi-ace de Dieu roy de Navarre, de Champaigne et de Brie oonte palazin, .Tehans, sires de Joinville, ses senesohaus de Champaigne, saint et amour et honnour, et son service appareillie. 2. " Ohiers sire, je vous faiz \ savoir que Mme. La Eoyne vostre mere, qui mout m'amoit (a cui Diex bone meroi face !) me pria si i certes comme elle pot, que je li feisse faire un livre des saintes paroles et des bons faiz nostre roy saint Looys ; et je le li oi en couvenant, et i I'aide de Dieu li livres est assou- vis en dons parties. La premiere partie si devise comment il se gouverna tout son tens selono Dieu et selono I'Eglise, et au profit de son regne. La seconde partie dou livre si parle de ses grauz clievaleries et de ses granz faiz d'armes. 3. " Sires, pour ce qu'il est escrit : ' fai premier ce qui afiert d Dieu, et il te adrescera toutes tes autres besoignes,' ai-je tout premier fait esorire ce qui afiert aus trois ohoses desus dites ; c'est \ savoir ce qui aflert an profit des ames et des cors, et ce qui aflert au gouvernement dou peuple." VOL. I. P 210 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book n. 4. " And those other things have I caused to be written also to the honour of the truly holy body ; ip order that by these thinqs mentioned below one may see quite clearly that never a lay man of our time lived so holily all his time, from the begin- ning of his reign to the end of his life. I was not myself at the end of his life ; but the Count Pierre d'Alen5on, his son, was there (who loved me much), who related to me the fine end which he made, which you will find written in the end of this book. 5. " And it seems to me that they did by no means enough for him when they did not place him in the number of the martyrs, for the great torments which he suffered in the pilgrim- age of the cross, during the space of six years that I was in his company, and for this likewise, that he followed our Lord in the matter of the cross. For if God died on the cross, so did he ; for crusader was he when he died at Tunis. 6. "The second book will speak to you of his great knightly deeds and of his great acts of daring, which is such that I saw him four times place his body in risk of death, as you shall hear later on, to avert the loss of his people." The translation is bare, and word for word, and hardly does justice to the simplicity and freshness of the original. The style of Joinville possesses in advance all the clearness and precision which were to become the chief characteristics of French prose — which were, indeed, legacies of the Latin prose upon which it was founded. If Joinville appears, by his writings, less sustained and dignified than his predecessor Ville- hardouin, less concise and supple in expression, he is at all events more reflective, more thoughtful, more redundant in idea and language, and more rich in vocabulary. The two have many virtues of manner and form in common ; and if each is to be credited with particular and distinctive marks, they have yet deservedly come down to posterity bracketed together as the two first masters of the French historic style. Joinville and Villehardouin had, in fact, much in com- CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 211 mon, not only in their writings but in the circumstances of their lives. Both were favoured servants and companions of Saint Louis ; both followed him as pilgrims of the cross — the latter to Constantinople, the former in the second and abortive crusade which terminated by the king's death. Both had fought by his side, and both came home to write of his prowess and his goodness. The parallel extends still farther back, for both were born in Champagne, and held honourable office there. As regards their writings, the resemblance might have been still more marked if their subjects had been more nearly identical ; but whilst Villehardouin's work is a narrative of events pure and simple, Joinville's consists of a personal memoir, and deals not only with events, but with words and opinions. Yet what we have said concerning the special French characteristics which found their scope in and impressed their seal upon the plastic language of the older historian, is no less true of the younger one. The historic genius of France embraces her talent for the composition of personal memoirs ; the qualities which induce success in the one variety are the cause of success in the other. If anything, perhaps a French writer has greater reason to apply himself with confidence to the writing of a memoir than of a period of history. His subject is more strictly limited, he is better able to grasp his materials, and to throw himself into the . conditions and circumstances which he undertakes to describe. The biographer can make' himself one with the man he has set himself to study — can think his thoughts, experience his feelings, and even rehearse his acts. The historian can but partially and imperfectly follow a like course with an epoch of history, however narrow the group of circumstances com- prised in it. He pan indeed give us, actually or virtually, the biography of each of the figures who march across his stage ; and if he be a genuine historian, this is precisely whal he will do, bringing together and harmonising the men 212 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book ll. whose actions created the history which he lias to write. But when all is done, his work cannot have the concision, the tone, the completeness of a single memoir.^ In Joinville, of course, as in Villehardouin, we find such virtues as these in a rudimentary form ; but they are there. A few touches suiBce to bring tlie sainted king before us, with something of the actual vividness of reality, if not with the absolute distinctness which existed in the author's mind. Let us take a couple of paragraphs, almost at random, from the earlier part of the work.^ 22. " He (St Louis) was so sober of mouth that I never heard him, any day of my life, order any viands as do many rich men ; and so he ate patiently that which his cooks prepared and placed before him. In his words he was moderate ; for no day of my life did I hear him speak ill of any man, nor ever heard him name the devil, which name is far spread through the king- dom : the which I think by no means pleases God." 26. "He called me one time and said to me: 'I dare not ^ Even the late M, Michelet seems no exception to this. ' 22. " De la bouohe fu il si sobres que onques jour Je ma vie je ne li oy devisier nuUes viandes, aussi comme maint riche home font ; ain^ois manjoit pacientment ce que ses queus li appareilloit et mettoit on devant li. En ses paroles fu il attrempez ; car onques jour de ma vie je ne li oy mal dire de nullui, ne onques ne li oy nommer le dyable, liquex nons est bien espandus par le royaume : oe que je croy qui ne plait mie \ Dieu." 26. "11 m'apela une foiz et me dist : ' Je n'os parler k vous pour le soutil senz dont vous estes, dc chose qui touche a Dieu ; et pour oe ai-je apelie ces dous frferes qui ci sont, que je vous vueil faire une demande.' La demande fu teix : ' Senesohaus, fist-il, quex chose est Diex? ' Et je li diz : 'Sire, ce est si bone chose que mieudre ne puct estre.' — 'Vraiement,' fist-il, 'c'estbien respondn ; que ceste response que vous avez faite, est escripte en c'est livre que je tieing en ma main.' 27. " ' Or vous deniant je,' fist-il, 'lequel vous ameries miex, ou que vous fussids mesiaus, ou que vous eussies fait un peehie mortel ? ' Et je onques ne li menti, li respond! que je en ameroie miex avoir fait trente que estre mesiaus. Et quant li fr&re s'en furent parti, il m'apela tout seul, et me fist seoir a ses piez et me dist : ' Comment me deistes-vous hier ce ? ' Et je li diz que encore le disoie-je ? Et il me dist : ' Vous deistes comme hastis niusarz ; car vous devez savoir que nuUe si laide mezelerie n'est comme d'estre en peehie au dyable : par quoy nulle si laide meselerie ne puet estre." CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 213 speak to you for the subtle sense which you have in that which touches on God ; and for this have I called these two monks who are here, because I wish to put a question to you.' The question was this : ' Seneschal," said he, ' what thing is God f ' And I said to him : ' Sire, it is so good a thing that better can- not be.' ' Verily,' said he, ' it is well answered ; for this reply which you have made is written in this book which I hold in my hand.' 27. "'Now I ask you,' said he, 'which would you^ike best, that you should be leprous, or that you had committed a mortal sin \ ' And I never lied to him ; I answered ' that I should like better to have committed thirty (mortal sins) than to be leprous.' And when the monks were gone,, he called me alone, and made me sit at his feet, and said : ' What did you say to me yester- day 1 ' And I said to him that I should still say it. And he said to me : ' You spoke as a blundering fool ; for you oiight to know that there is no so repulsive leprosy as being in sin with the devil.'" King, seneselial, and monks are before us as we read ; for no poet wliicli Prance had yet produced knew more cun- ningly how to wield the limner's brush than the earliest memoir-writer of France with his simple periods. To Villehardouin and Joinville in the thirteenth century succeeded Froissart and Commines in the fourteenth — chroni- clers worthy to tread in the steps of the fathers of French his- rory, prose-writers who carried on the traditions of their masters to the verge of the Eenaissanee.^ Jean Froissart, a native of Valenciennes in Hainault, became canon and treasurer of the collegiate church of Chimay in Normandy. He was a poet as well as a chronicler, but his poetic genius was lyrical, and for his history he found no medium so much under his com- mand as tlie simple, nervous, and agreeable prose which entities him to be regarded as a legitimate descendant of the fihroniqueurs de gede. Such indeed he was, in spirit as well as ^ Froissart, 1337— about 1410 ; Commines, 1-445-1509. 2 14 HISTOR Y OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. BOOK ii. in style. The subject which he selected, or which he found ready to his hand, was a record of chivalry as romantic as the Carlovingian epics constituted by the earlier Norman chansons. It may at once be admitted that Froissart was in a sense less patriotic than the majority of his predecessors or successors ; and perhaps no historian can fall short in patriotism, as we understand the word, without gaining somewhat in fidelity. His first and kindest patron was Philijjpa of Hainault, wife of Edward III. of England. Froissart was a favourite of the English court ; and had lived also in Scotland, Spain, and Gascony. He was, in short, a cosmopolitan ; he spoke, thought, and wrote like one. His own countrymen have accused him of displaying his gratitude in his history ; Marie Joseph Ch^nier went so far as to style him a "valet des princes." He hardly seems to merit so much contempt. Having described him as a prose trouv^re and as a cosmopolitan, we have given the measure of his literary and historical value. At the suggestion of Philippa's father, Eobert of Nanmr, he wrote the chronicles on which his fame is built. The first edition bore for its title, Chrordqucs de France, d'Angleterre, d'Ecosse, d'Espagne, de Bretagne, de Gascogne, de Flavdre et fays d'alentowr. If this grandiloquent description is not suf- ficient to show the value which he placed on his work, read his own opinion frankly set forth— " I well know, that in time to come, when I shall be dead, this grand and noble histoiy will be much in vogue, and all noble and valiant men will take delight therein, and an example to act well. I also considered that, thanks to God, I have good sense and a retentive memorj', and a thorough remembrance of all past occurrences, with a clear understandmg to comprehend the facts I should gain information of, relative to my principal matters, and also having strength of body, and at a time of life to undergo difficulties; I therefore determined not to remain idle in the pursuit of the trath of distant occurrences, nor to employ any other but myself in this inquiry. In consequence. CHAP. in. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 215 I availed myself of an opportunity of visiting that high and re- doubted prince Gaston Phoebus, Count de Foix and de Beam." ' Yet who will say that his boast is not justified by the event ? It may be that with a supfarior subject he is less of a true historian than Villehardouiu or Joinville. "Little enough of a cleric," as he describes himself, " fond of seeing dances, hearing minstrels and words of pleasant conceit," with "pleasure for his law," candidly setting "battle and pleasure" above every other consideration, he misses the severity and dignity of the earlier prose chroniclers, but he surpasses them in vivacity, detailed interest, and, possibly, in the close faith- fulness of his pictures of men and events. Moreover, as a painter of chivalrous deeds, and as the "own correspondent" of his times, as ubiquitous cicerone of a battle-field — witness his account of roitiers— he does, in fact, fulfil his prophecy that posterity would find in his " history " both pleasure and example of noble acts. Montaigne says of him : " I love . . . the worthy Froissart, who has gone on liis work with such a frank simplicity, that, having committed a fault, he is no way ashamed of avowing it, and correcting it at the place where ' he is informed of it — and who tells us the diversity of ru- mours which were current, and the different accounts that were told to him. It is history naked and unadorned : every one may profit by it, according to the depth of his under- standing." To Philippe de Coramines, a native of Lille, we owe an ' " Je savais bien que un temps ii venir et quand je serai mort, sera cette haute et noble histoire eu graud cours, et y prendront tous, nobles et vail- lants horames, plaisauce et exemple de bieu fiiire ; et entremeute que j'avais, Dieu luerci, sens, memoire et bonne souvenance de toutes les choses passees, engin clair et aigu pouv concevoii' tous les faits dont je pouirais etre inform^ touclians & ma pi'incipale raati&re ; dge, corps et membie pour soiiffiir peine ; me avisai que je ne voulais mo sojourner de non poursuivre ma matiere, et pour savoir la v^iit^ de lontaines besoignes, sans que j'envoyasse aucune autre persoune au lieu de moi, pris voie et acljaison raisounable d'aller devers haut prince et redouts seigneur Gaston, coiute de Foix et de. Bern. " — Froissart'* Chroniqiie, book iii. ch. xxiii. 2i6 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK II, appreciative, uot to say an indiscriminate portrait, of Louis XI. ; a king wlio has been more frequently blamed and sati- rised than praised, but who has been described, and probably with justice, as-' " of ready, quick, and versatile spirit, shrewd and dissimulating in his enterprises, prompt in the commis- sion of faults for which he atoned at his leisure, and by sheer weight of gold." Such, in fact, is the chai-acter which Corn- mines gives of him,^ though with many a gloss and apology. He has the art of a true narrator, aiid does not set up for being a philosopher. He tells us straight out what he wishes^ to tell — probably most of the evil as well as most of the good points of his hero ; and wastes no words in trying to ari'ange them upon a preconceived plan. The sayings and doings of the king are thus recorde'd in the most natural manner, and gain our implicit credence. In Quentin Durward^ Sir Walter Scottmakes Louis XL converse with Comraines, and the latter answer the king in a manner which they naturally must have used with one another. No doubt the novelist had before his eyes the special relations existing between the monarch and his subject, whicli resulted in the writing of the biography ; and he puts into the king's mouth words which he is very likely to have used to his satellite, without wishing that we should take them as literally true. For it is a question whether Commines was either specially conscientious or a remarkably good diplomatist ; and he certainly does not make pretension to the former virtue in his writings. On the contrary, if he has to report any such equivocal sentiment of the king's as this : " He who has gain has glory," he never dreams of making it the text for a reflection of any kind, but gives it at least the partial approbation of silence. Commines is cliefly known as the historian of Louis XL, but Charles VIII. employed him also in diplomatic negotia- ' Etienne Pasquier in his Letter to the Lord ofBissy. ^ In his Mlmoires. '^ Chapter xxx. CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 1VJ tions, and he was present at the battle of Fornovo. Louis XII. did not use his talents, and thus he employed his leisure in writing his Mimoires. The following extract, describing the death of Charles VIII., is one of the rare passages in which our author shows some faint traces of emotion, and is a very fair sample of his ordinary style, simple and to the point, not without the adornments of a natural and unstudied eloquence : — The Icing being in such great glory in relation to the world, and in such a good mind as to God, on the 7th of April 1498, being the eve of Palm Sunday, took his queen (Anne of Bre- tagne) by the hand, and led her out of her chamber to a place where she had never been before, to see them play at tennis in the castle ditch. They entered together into a gallery called the Haquelebac Gallery, upon the account of its having been formerly guarded by one Haquelebac. It was the nastiest place about the castle, broken down at the entrance. . . . The king was not a tall man, yet he knocked his head as he went in. He spent some time in looking upon the players, and talked freely with everybody. I was not there myself (for I had gone to my country- house about a week before), but his confessor, the Bishop of Angers, and the gentlemen of his bed-chamber, who were then about him, told me what I write. The last expression he used whilst- he was in health was, that he hoped never to commit a mortal sin again, nor a venial sin if he could help it ; and with those words in his mouth he fell down backwards and lost his speech. It was about two in the afternoon when he fell, and he lay motionless till eleven o'clock at night. Thrice he recovered his speech, but he quickly lost it again, as his confessor told me, who had confessed him twice that week — once of course, and a second time upon occasion of his touching for the King's evil. Every one went into the gallery that pleased, where the king was laid upon a coarse bed ; and he never left it till he died, which was nine hours after. The confessor told me that every time he recovered his speech he called out upon God, the glo- rious Virgin Mary, St. Claude, and St. Blaise, to assist him. And thus died that great and powerful monarch in a sordid and 2i8 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. filthy place, though he had so many magnificent palaces of his own, and was building another more stately than any of them, yet he died in this poor chamber. How plain, then, and natural is it, from these two examples, for us to acknowledge the power and omnipotence of God, and that our life is but a span and a trifle, though we are so greedy and ambitious after the riches " of this world ; and that princes no more than peasants are able to resist the Almighty. " ' We must not quit the century, nor the literaiy limit, •without referring to another prose-writer, Christine de Pisan ;^ the first Frenchwoman who, at all events in prose, gave evi- dence of a finished literary perception. Brought up at the ' " Estant le Eoy en cette grande gloire, quant au monde, et en bon vouloir, quant k Dieu, le septifeme jour d'avril, I'an mil quatre cens quatre-vingt-dix- huict, veille de Pasques floiies, il partit de la chambre de la Reine Anne de Bretagne, sa femme, et la mena aveo luy, pour voirjouerala paume ceux qui joiioient aux fossez du ehasteau oi il ne I'avoit jamais men^e que cette fois, et entrferent ensemble en une galerie, qu'on appeloit la galerie d'Haquelebao, parceque cettuy Haquelebac I'amt eiie autrefois en garde, et estoit le plus deshonnete lieu de ceans et etoit rompiie h, I'eutr^e . . . et s'y lieurta le Eoy du front, centre I'huys, combien qu'il fut bien petit, et puis regarda long- temps las joiieurs, et devisoit a tout le moude. Je n'y estois point present : mais son dit confesseur I'Evesque d'Angers, et ses prochains chambelans, le m'ont conte ; oar j'eu estois party liuit jours avant, et estois alld h. ma maison. La derni&re parole qu'il pronouQa jamais en devisant en sante, c'estoit qu'il dit qu'il avoit esperanoe de ne faire jamais peclie mortel, ne veniel s'il pouvoit, et en disant cette parole il cheut \ I'envers, et perdit la parole (il pouvait 6tre deux heures aprfes midy) et demeura Ik jusques \ onze heures de uuict. Trois fois lui revint la parole ; mais pen luy dura, conime me conta ledit confesseur, qui deux fois cette semaiue I'avoit confess^. Toute personne entroit en la dite galerie, qui vouloit, et le trouvoit-on couchi sur une pauvre paillasse, dont jamais il ne partit, jusques A ce qu'il eut rendu I'Sme, et y fut neuf heures. Ledit confesseur, qui tousiours y fut, me dit que lorsque la parole liiy revint a toutes les trois fois il disoit : 'Mon Dieu, et la glorieuse Vierge Marie, Monseigneur sainct Claude, Monseigneur sainct Blaise me soit en nyde ! ' et ainsi d^partit de ce monde si puissant et si grand Eoy, et en si miserable lien, qui tant avoit de belles maisons, et en faisnit une si belle, et si ne sceut a ce besoin finir d'une pauvre chambre. Combien done se peut, par ces deux exemples cy-dessus couohez, cognoistre la puissance de Qieu estre grande, et que c'est peu de chose que de nostre miserable vie, qui tant nous donne de peine pour les choses du monde, et que les Roys n'y peuvent resister non plus que les laboureurs. "— jl/lmonVcs de Commines, Bk. viii. ch. 25. ^ 1363-1430. CHAP. III. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 219 court of Charles V. until she was seventeen years old, she was happy in the king's protection. Upon the death of her patron she published a panegyric, under the title of Zes Faits et bonnes Moeurs du sage Eoi Charles V. There can be no doubt that Christine de Pisan had studied the ancient classi- cal, or post-classical models, and that she deserved the praise which Marot lavished on her " knowledge and teaching." The forerunner of Marguerite de Valois, Christine was born out her time. She too belonged to the Eenaissance ; and her star would have shone more brightly in a brighter atmos- phere. She also wrote verses, and some of them show great naturalness of expression, as well as delicacy of feeling. 220 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book n CHAPTEE IV. § 1. The Church and the Drama. By all that we have hitherto seen, the Church in the Middle Ages had not yet completed her task. She had used her influence originally for good, by strengthening and purifying social bonds, by inculcating obedience to constituted autho- rities, by imposing upon rough and turbulent natures a code of duty towards God and man. It is true that by abuse of the highest privileges she had brought some discredit upon religion ; and that, through ambition and greed, she had first connived at the wars of discordant states, and then adopted warfare as the readiest means of self-aggrandisement. It is true, "that both by her virtues and her crimes she was fulfilling the idea of her far-sighted founder, in destroying the corrupt civilisations and cultures of the past, upon the ruins whereof might be built something more valuable and lasting. The refinement, the learning, the literature, the drama of Greece and Eome disappeared I'rom the world, or lingered almost exclusively amongst the more educated of Christian professors, who thought themselves entitled to feast in secret upon what was banned to the ignorant many ; the reflected glory of the south, which had for a few centuries illumined the ingenuous minds of the Gallo-Eomans, became extinct amongst their posterity, or, if it survived in any degree, was latent in expecta- tion of a glorious revival. The natural gift of eloquence which had revealed itself in the Gallic orators and panegyrists in the time of the last Eoman Emperors was but ill repre- CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 221 sented by the later French doctors and professors. The Church had laid her chilling fingers upon all mere worldly culture and learning, and even the brief glow of intelligence which distinguished the days of Charlemagne was checked and dimmed by the mists of ecclesiastical narrowness through which it would in vain have attempted to break. The poetic outbursts of tlie eleventh and succeeding centuries were in themselves acts of rebellion against the spirit of ecclesiasticism, a rebellion which made itself felt by satire and parody and even open defiance — a rebellion, in fact, which expressed itself in non-poetic minds by the formidable heresies of the south. For, after all, the Proven5al poetry and the Albigensian heresy were but two distinct and dissimilar manifestations of one and the same effort of humanity to assert its independence. The ■ Crusades to the Holy Land diverted and dissipated what might have proved to be an irresistible revolt ; but the gallant self-assertion of French intellect and imagination had already succeeded in opening up the paths whereby a future age was to march forward to liberty. For, in spite of herself, the Church steadily contributed to the downfall of her sway over the human mind. Her ecclesi- astical dominion could be maintained only by stamping out, completely and unremittingly, every spark of superior intelli- gence, and .forbidding, even in her own ministers, the cultiva- tion of profane knowledge. If her policy had been directed throughout by a stern and individual will, such a supreme act of violation might, indeed, have been possible ; and the annihilation of independent human thought would have resulted in the despotic subjection of the human race. But this policy, constant in its main principles and modes of operation, varied in details, and in the thoroughness of its application, witli every new pope, and council, and ecclesi- astical authority. The mental activity which was discouraged in the laymen should have been a crime in the priest and 222 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ll, monk ; for knowledge is the mother of rebellion, and it was in the Church itself that the seeds of revolt first swelled and germinated. And thus, in the Church itself, at the moment when it had been brought safely through the greatest dangers, and had conquered its most formidable enemies, we find a worse foe than any that had hitherto menaced its authority, already struggling to cast off an unnatural and uncongenial allegiance. , The Church had adopted the Drama, as a handmaid peculiarly fitted to do her worthy and valuable service. For, in demanding that men should dispense with and despise the pleasures of the senses -which the world had to offer them, and in cutting off the source of such compensation as they •might have obtained through the intellect, it became neces- sary that she should herself minister to the natural demands of humanity, and provide in her own domain the attraction which she forbade them to seek outside. She expanded the ■worship of God into a spectacle, the sacred edifice into a theatre, the altar into a stage. The work was thoroughly and admirably done ; the rude, simple, ignorant people learned to attend upon the offices of religion with eager anticipation, as affording to them the brightest and lightest moments of their lives. They came away, not mystified or wearied by what they had heard and seen, but charmed and refreshed. With- out, they had cares and troubles, anxieties and pains ; within, they had pleasant and appetising food for eye and ear, for imagination and reflection. The Church was in fact the club of the Middle Ages, always open, always peaceful and cheer- ful, nearly always entertaining. The whole social life of the age appears to have taken refuge within the Church.^ Nor was the mere performance of divine worship, pompous and gorgeous as it gradually became, the limit of the spec- tacles presented to the congregation. Veritable dramas were ^ Michelet. CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 223 enacted in many of the cathedrals, which rivalled in attractive- ness all that tradition could recall of the infamous exhibitions of Eome.^ A double reason suggested and warranted the first introduction of these g'wasi-sacred dramas into the Church. Not only was it necessary to hold out a constant allurement to the people, but the time came when the majority of the congregation no longer understood the language of prayer and hymn, and when the heart must be reached, if at all, directly through the bodily senses. The first Christian drama was a gesture ; it was by a succession of gestures that the priests and their assistants were constrained to illustrate and interpret their dead-letter of devotion. On Ascension day a priest was wont to stand in his surplice upon the outer gallery of Notre- Dame, and with outstretched arms represent the assumption of Christ into heaven. On the feast of Pentecost a dove figured the presence of the Holy Ghost, whilst tongues of fire descended from the roof of the church. At Easter, three men, dressed in white robes, with hoods irpon their heads, a silver flask of consecrated oil in their hands, interpreted the story of the three Marys proceeding to the sepulchre, whilst a fourth, in the form of an angel, announced to them the resurrection of their Lord. At Christmas, the infant Jesus was shown in his manger, the Magi and the shepherds gathered round, the youngest choristers playing the parts of angels from the galleries. From spectacles such as these not even the lower animals were excluded : the oxen present at the birth of Christ, the ass which carried him into Egypt, the cock which crowed the conviction of Peter, — all were admitted. Little by little, embellishments of the sacred narrative, and, later still, inventions found an entry into these ecclesi- astical dramas. Tlie Mysthre, d! Adam, the work of a priest in the twelfth century, was acted at the church doors by priests M-ho doffed their vestments in order to put on — with more ^ See Ernest Etoan, VAntMirist, p. 169. 224 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ll. of decency than dram Boiert le Diable, la Nonne enhvie, U BapUme de Clovis, la Marquise de Oaudine, le Voyage de Saint Louis en Terre Sainte. 234 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE BOOK ll. wealth. The artizans of the large towns took to following the stage as a means of increasing their incomes, even if they may not be said, at the close of the fourteenth century, to have adopted it as an exclusive profession. At all events the year 1398 was marked by the establishment of a company, by royal patent, devoted to the production of mysUres ; and the corporation or Confririe de la Passion, as it was called, soon laid by money, bought land, and built a theatre. They kept very steadily to their original part, never seeking to strike out a new line for themselves, although naturally inclined, or led by the taste of their audience, to the most lax and profane of the plays at their disposal. But the Church began at last to take alarm at the popu- larity of these more questionable dramas. Villon had his part in aggravating the fear, as we shall presently see ; and the civil government agreed with the ecclesiastics. A sen- tence of the procureur-ghnks:!!! of Paris, of the date of 1542, speaks of " these unlettered people, of no understanding in such matters, of the lowest condition, such as a carpenter, an upholsterer, a fishmonger, who have played the Acts of the Apostles, adding thereto various apociyphal things. Both the managers and the players are ignorant men, not knowing A from B, who were never instructed nor trained for the stage." Six years later, Parliament renewed the privilege of the cor- poration of the brethren of the Passion, but gave them autho- rity only for " lawful, profane, and proper subjects," and ex- pressly excluding the representation of sacred mysteries. It was a blow from which the confr^rie never recovered. Theatrical companies of quite a different complexion were those of the Enfants Sans-Souci and the Clercs de la Basoche, who, with the simplest possible stage and accessories, con- tented themselves with playing farces and soties, although they were not long in rising to the level of poetic dramas. Their rivalry with the Confreres de la Passion was not dissimilar, if CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 235 we make all due allowance, from the rivalry between the com- pany of Moliere, more than a century later, and the cultivators of the severer style at the Hotel de Bourgogne. Like the latter, the old confrdrie at the Hdpital de la TriniU began to find the public slipping away from them, and sought to bring them back by condescending to buffoonery and burlesque. But they ended by coalescing with the Enfants Sans-Souci. Amongst their most distinguished members was Clement Marot, whose favour with the king rescued his company from imminent suppression in 1512. We give the general invita- tion which " the Prince of Fools,'' the elective chief of the Unfants, was wont to address to the public in announcing a forthcoming representation : " Lunatic fools, fools giddy, fools wise, Town fools, fools in the castles, village fools, Fools doating, fools artless, fools subtle, Fools amorous, fools private, savage fools. Fools old and new, and fools of every age, Fools barbarous, strange, and genteel. Fools reasonable, fools perverse, fools stubborn, Your prince, without any intervals, Shall act his plays on Shrove Tuesday at the halls. "^ One of the favourite pieces in the repertoire of these com- panies was the Farce du Cuvier, which displays a very quaint and characteristic French humour. Jaquinot is a henpecked husband, whose round of household duties is never completed, and rarely even attempted to the satisfaction of the exacting ' "Sots lunatiques, sots etourdis, sots sages, Sots de villes, sots de chateaux, sots de villages, Sots rassottez, sots nyais, sots subtils, Sots amoureux, sots privez, sots sauvages. Sots vieiix, nouveaiix, et sots de tous ages, Sots barbares, toanges, et gentils, Sots raisonables, sots pervers, sots retifs, Votre i)riiice, sans nulles intervalles, Le mardi gras jouera ses jeux aux hailed." 236 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. BOOK ll. wife. The written list of his duties requires liim to hake, to attend to tl\e oven, to wash, to sift, to cook, to go, to come, to hustle, to run, to hake the hread, to heat the oven, to hring the corn to the mill, to make the had early in the morning, to put the pot on the fire, to keep the kitchen clean, to wash up the pots, the plates, and the dishes. One day whilst he was helping his wife to wash the linen, she unfortunately tumbles into the copper. There is no one but Jaquinot to assist her ; but she begs and entreats him in vain. Her training has been only too successful, for, earnestly as he consults his list, he can find no mention of tliis particular duty. The scene is lively enough to deserve quoting, and will remind the reader of many a later, and no more spirited, parallel. Wife, (in the copper). Good husband, save my life. I am already quite fainting, give me your hand a while. Jaquinot. It is not in my list. . . Wife. Alas ! who will hear me ? Death will come and take me away. Jaguinot (readhig his list). " To bake, to attend to the oven, to wash, to sift, and to cook." Wife. My blood is already quite changed ; I am at the point of death. Jaquinot (continuing to read). " To rub, to mend, to keep bright the kitchen utensils." Wife. Come quickly to my assistance. Jaquinot. " To come, to go, to bustle, to run." Wife. Never shall I pass this day. Jaquinot. " To bake the bread, to heat the oven." Wife. Ah, your hand ; I am approaching my last moment. Jaquinot. " To bring the corn to the mill." Wife. You are worse than a mastiff. Jaquinot. " To make the bed early in the morning." Wife. Oh ! you think this is a joke. Jaquinot. " And then to put the pot on the fire." Wife. Oh 1 where is my mother Jaquette ? Jaquinot. " And to keep the kitchen clean." CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 237 Wife,. Go and fetch the priest. Jaquinot. My paper is wholly ended ; but I tell you, vdthout more ado, that it is not on my list. In the end the poor man extracts a promise from his wife to give him his due share of authority, and so releases her, saying, "From henceforth, then, I shall be master, for my wife allows it." The theatre had manifestly made a great stride in France since it had its origin in the desire of the Church to increase the attractiveness of her services ; and it had also played a notable part in cultivating the tastes of the people. The influence was, of course, mutual ; for if the French character was to be confirmed and sharpened by the stage, it was from the national characteristics themselves that its peculiarities were in the first instance impressed upon it. True, there was not much in the drama preceding the Renaissance which can be said to exhibit the specialities of the nation and the litera- ture ; but there was at all events enough to show the nature of what was to follow. There had not been much time for the growth of that luxuriant genius which was to produce and inspire a Corneille, a Eacine, and a Moliere, and which was eventually to make France the home of the didactic drama and the satirical comedy ; but the brief examples above given show the richness of the soil from which the harvest was to be gathered. One play remains to be noticed, worthy the name of a comedy, which was produced about the close of the fifteenth century ; the Farce de Pathelin, attributed variously to Villon, Antoine de la Salle, and Pierre Blanchet, and most probably the work of the latter. Pathelin is the descendant of Eenard, the ancestor of Mascarille and Scapin, a "first-rate teacher of cheating," who, being reproached by his wife with their poverty, engages to proviae her with handsome garments, and pitches upon a certain Guillaunie .Toceaume, draper, as the victim of his skill in deception, fie goes and selects some cloths, prais- 238 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ii. iug their beauty, and flattering the honest tradesman to the top of his bent. A long time is occupied in beating down the price, which is finally settled at nine francs ; but unfortu- nately the draper will not give credit to the needy starveling advocate. Pathelin resorts to another device ; he invites the draper to come to his house in the evening and share a fat goose, which is even now before the fire. The trick succeeds. The tradesman's heart is melted, and he gives up the cloth, Pathelin carries it home ; and when the draper arrives in the evening he is met by the advocate's wife, who is barely able for grief to inform him that her husband has been for eleven weeks ill in bed, and is now at the point of death. The scene changes. The draper has a farm ; and he discovers that his shepherd has been killing his sheep for his own consumption. He sum- mons him before the judge, and chance leads the shepherd to Pathelin's door. He could not have had a better advocate. Arrived in court, the draper is commencing his tale of wrong when he suddenly recognises Pathelin. He is confounded ; he begins to wander in his mind and in his words, mixing up his sheep with the trickeries of the advocate for the accused : " See, my lord ; but the business affects me j However, upon my faith, my mouth To-day will not say a single word of it. . . . I must swallow it, Without chewing . . . Now, I was saying How I had Delivered to him six yards . . . need I say Sheep ... I pray you, sir. To pardon me. This fine fellow My shepherd, when he ought to be In the fields ... he said that I should have Six golden crowns when I came . . . I say, that for three years past My sliepherd agreed CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 239 That he would faithfully guard My sheep, and would practise No wrong or villany . . . And now he denies Both cloth and money plainly ! Ah, master Peter, truly This rogue here stole the wool Of my sheep, and, when they were quite healthy, He made them die and perish. By knocking them down, and striking them With a big stick on the head : When my cloth was under his arm, He went away very quickly. And told me to come For the six crowns to his house." ' It is in vain that the judge keeps on recalling him to the point : " Come, let us return to these sheep." Pathelin takes advantage of his confusion, makes his client play the idiot ; until at last, wearied out by a case of which he can make neither head nor tail, the judge dismisses the suit saying to the unfortunate draper : " I forbid you to proceed. It is very fine to listen to the complaints of a fool." And to the shepherd : " Eeturn to your beasts." But Pathelin is himself outdone by the shepherd, from whom he would fain '"Monseigneur ; mais le cas me Que loyaument me garderoit touche ; Mes brebis, et ne my feroit Tontesfois, par ma foy, ma bouche Ne dommaige ne villenie. . . Meshuy un seul mot n'en dira ... Et puis, maintenant il me nie II le me conviert avaller Et drap et argent plainement 1 Sans mascher ... Or 5J1, je disoye, Ah ! maistre Pierre, vrayement, A mon propos, comment j'avoye Ce ribaut-cy m'embloit les laines Bailld six aulnes . . . Doy-je dire De mes bestes ; et, toutes saines, Mes brebis . . . je vous en pry, sire, Les faisoit mourir et p^rir, Pardonnez-moy ? Ce gentil maistre Par les assommer et ferir Mon bergier quant il devoit estre De gros baston snr la cervelle . . Aux champs . . . il me dit que Quant mon drap fut soubz son aisselle^ j'auroye II se mist en chemin grant erre, Sixescuzd'or, quantje viendroye ... Et me dist que j'allasse querre Dy-je, depnis trois ans en fa. Six escuz d'or en sa maisoo." Mon berger me convenansa 240 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. book ii. have extracted a fee. His too apt pupil only continues liis idiocy, and thus comes off the best of all the three. Here, clearly, is humour of the most genuine kind ; and with this bright anticipation of the Eenaissance, the drama may rest for a while. § 4. The Three Last TRouviiEES. Before emerging from the Middle Ages we are arrested by three poets, different in style and in character, the last of tho race of trouvferes, who will not be so easily dismissed as the rest of the romantic and lyric minstrels who shed their late glory over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Frenchmen have reason to be proud of this trio, whereof one was a noble prince, another a king, and the third, eminently French, eminently endowed with the simple virtues, the brilliant frailties, the easy recklessness, of the land of his birth. Charles of Orleans^ was the son of the murdered Louis, Duke of Orleans, and of Valentine of Milan. He was taken prisoner by the English at the battle of Agincourt, and remained a captive in England for a period of twenty-five years. Yet he himself had invited, in 1410, the English to come into France, in order to assist him to avenge the death of his father. During his long sojourn in a foreign, land he wrote many poems, in different langunges, and sang chiefly about the beauties of nature and of love with infinite and artless grace, though he is maiTed not seldom by excess of allegory. His songs reflect the mind of a poet, but not the history of his times ; and even after his return, and until his death, he dallied vi-ith poetry at his court at Blois, after a vain attempt to oppose Charles VII. He was killed at last by sorrow at an angry rebuke of Louis XI. In less perilous times he might have become a great poet, but as a prince he neglected his duties. This is what he wrote when in prison : — » 1391-1465. CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. " A report has been spread in France, In many places, that I was dead ; Of which were not very sorry Some who hate me wrongly ; Others have been greatly pained, Who love me loyally. Like good and true friends ; Therefore I let every one know That the mouse is still alive. I have had neither illness nor sorrow, But, thank G-od, am healthy and strong And pass (my) time in hope That peace, which sleeps too long. Shall awaken, and by treaty Will bring joy to all ; For this, may be cursed by God Those, who are sorry to see That still the mouse is alive. Youth has power over me But old age does its best To have me under its influence ; Now it will fail in its endeavours, I am far enough from its port. I wish to keep my heir from weeping. Praised be God in Paradise, Who has given me strength and power, That the mouse is still alive. No one wears black for me, Grey cloth is sold much cheaper ; Now each one may know, in short. That the mouse is still alive." ^ 1 " Nouvelles out couru en France, Qui m'ayment de loyal vouloir, Par mains lieux, que j'estoye mort ; Comme mes bons et vrais amis ; Dont avoient pen de desplaisance Si fais k toutes gens sgavoir Aucuns ceux qui me liayent b, tort ; Qu' encore est vive la souria. Autres en ont eu descoufort, VOL. I. E 241 242 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. When Charles of Orleans had returned to France he wrote to one of his friends, who would not come to see him : " Let the bellman cry aloud, On the highway, everywhere; Fredet, he is no more seen ; Is he put in prison 1 " ' The following rondeau? which has heen universally quoted and greatly admired, will justify what we have said about his appreciation of the beauties of nature : " The weather has doffed its cloak Of wind, and cold, and rain. It has donned embroideries Of sparkling, clear, and handsome sun. There is not an animal or bird But in its own tongue sings or shouts. The weather has doffed its cloak Of wind, and cold, and rain. Eiver, fountain, and small stream Je n'ai eu mal, ne grevance, Or, tiengne chascun, pour tout roJr, Dieu mercy, maia sui sain et fort, Qii'encore est vive la souris." Et passe temps en esperance , .. ^^. ^_^.^ ^ j^ ^^^^^^^ QuePaix,quitroplo«guementdort, p^^j^^ ^„^ ^^^^ ^^ S'esyeiUera et par accort j,^^^^^_ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^ j^^ . Est-il mis en oubliete ? ' A tons fera liesse avoir Pour ce, de Dieu soient maudis Ceulx qui sent dolens de veoix ' " Le temps a laissie son manteau Qu'encore est vive la souris De vent, de froidnre et de pluye, II s'est vestu de broderie, J eunesse sur moy a puissance ; ^^ ^^j^jj ^^.^^^^ ^j^^ ^^ ^^^._^_ Mais vieillesse fait son esfort jj ^, ^ ^^^^ ^^ ^.^^^^ De m'avoir en sa gouvernance, „ , . , . „ .„. ° , Qu en son jargon ne chante on crye ; A present faiUira son sort : t .. „ i • • ■ ^ ^ . , . , . J'-'B temps a laissie son manteau Je suis assez loin de sou port. t, j. j <• -j ,. j ^ „ , ., , , . De vent, de froiduie et de plnye« De plourer veuil garder mon hoir -r,- ■ c ^ ■ . ■ - , . -r,. n T^ ,. Kiviere, Jontame et rmsseau Loue soit Dieu de raradis t> i. i. i ■ j • i Q. , , , „ ^ . Portent en hvree lolye ui ma donne force et povoir, „ .. ,, ^ ,, - ^ , . . , . Gouttes d'argent, d orfavene : Qu encore est vive la souns. ^n > i-u ■> ^ Unacun s abiUe de uouveau ; Nul ne porte pour moy le noir, Le temps a laissie son manteau On ventmeilleurmarchiedrapgris; De vent, de froidure et de pluye." CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 243 Wear a handsome livery Of drops of silver finely wrought ; Each one puts on new clothes. The weather has doffed its cloak Of wind, and cold, and rain." We give a few specimens of his English poems composed during his captivity, and of which he wrote a goodly number, whereof some display gallantry towards his princess, others lamentation upon her death. The poems of gallantry open thus : — •• The god Cupide and Venus the goddes Whiche power han on all worldly gladnes We hertly gretyng sende of cure humbles To louers alle." Here is a short stanza, descriptive of his uxorious regret in being alone : — " Most goodly fayre if hit were yowre plesere, So moche forto enriche yowre servant here, Of recomfort of ioy and of gladnes, I wolde biseche yow lady and maystres Nor lete me dye as all in displesere Syn that in me ther nys wele nor desere, Saue trewly serue you unto my powere Without eschewyng payne or hevynes, For goode doon good wherfore my hertis blis. As for the I thanke Myh hert wol evir thynke him silf in greve, To that desert hit ben to yow y wis, Of which that long y trust ye shall not mys Parcas sumwhat to raunsom yow or eve. As for the I thanke." ' ' Poems written in English, by Charles, Duke of Orleans ; ed. G. W. Taylor, p. 149. In the Collection des Documents inldits sur I'Histoire de France, 1835, it is argued that these poems are not by Charles of Orleans, but are translations done by an English contemporary poet. 244 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK n. But, though he can bewail so sweetly the absence of his second spouse, who died during his captivity, he married, immediately after his liberation, in 1440, his third wife, Mary, daughter of the Duke of Cleves. His son Louis, after the death of Charles VIII., became King of Prance as Louis XII. Perhaps Charles of Orleans, before be was a captive, may have had some lessons in English from his first wife, Isabel, the widow of Richard the Second of England. Sometimes our royal author writes very short lines ; for example, when he says " Swethert Mercy For smart Avert On sert Ydie And ye Alias Pita Parda On me Non has Trawly Madame Thaty On whi Shulde dy Ware shame." ' At other times he writes in a tripping, lively metre, which is very pretty.^ " When that ye goo Then am y woo But ye swete foo For ought y playne Ye sett not no To sle me so 1 Vom3 loHUenin English, by Charles. Duke of Orleans ; ed. G."W. Taylor, P- '99- 'iM. p. 200. CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 245 Alias and lo But whi soverayne Doon ye thus pajme Upon me rayne Shall y be slayn." I am inclined to agree with the learned editor of Charles of Orleans' English poems, who says : ^ " The English version has all the spirit of originality, and evinces a masterly know- ledge of tliat language, which would do credit to the native writers cotemporary with the royal French prisoner, from whom, however, no poetic productions have descended to us." We have now arrived at a royal trouvere, Rene, Duke of Anjou, Lorraine, and Bar, Coimt of Provence and Piemont, King of Naples, Sicily, Jerusalem,^ etc. Like his cousin Charles of Orleans he also was for many years a prisoner ; like him, too, he sang chiefly of the pleasures of love and the beauties of nature ; and like him, too, he neglected too much his princely duties to occupy himself, when returned from prison, with his curiosities, his painters, and his poets at his castle of Tarascon. And yet he was not such a drivelling old fool as Sir Walter Scott has sketched him,' nor such a great hero as two of his French biographers* wish to make him out. His daughter, Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VL of England, appears to have accaparated the spirit which ought to have belonged to her father, who only wished for peace and quietness, and piecemeal abandoned all his estates in order to secure the, to him, priceless boon. He is said to have been an artist. He has also written several devotional and allegorical works in prose and in verse, some tales, a book on tournaments, and a great many short poetical pieces, which bear the impress of a certain true admiration 1 Poems written, in English, by Charles, Duke of Orleans ; ed. G. W. Taylor, Introduction, p. iv. " 1409-1480. ' Anne 0/ Oeierstein. * MM. de Villeneuve-Bargemont and de Quatrtfbarbes. 248 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERA TURE. BOOK U for the beauties of nature, and a peculiar artlessness of style, not without its charm. We shall give only one example of his descriptive power. In RegnauU et Jehanneton he describes his own wanderings with his second wife, Jeanne de Laval, along the shores of the Durance, " about the middle of April, when Spring makes already leaf and flower to bud." All kinds of birds sing a hymn in praise of love, the balmy air resounds with their varied song ; they fly in couples under the thick foliage, or along the flowery hedges to choose there where to build their nests ; the larks mount upwards carolling in the sky; the bees and butterflies flutter from flower to flower j the whispering groves, the murmuring brooks, the wavy mea- dows, the echoes of the woods and valleys, repeat songs of love; the shepherds and shepherdesses begin to play, when a pil- grim appears on the scene. He sees the shepherdess Jehan- neton and the shepherd Eegnault at breakfast, and this meal is described as follows in very tripping verselets : — " The shepherd then made her a present, Without any more delay, Of a little barrel Full of wine, and of a pretty Little nice well-looking knife, And of a net, with meshes Made of hemp. . . To speech was given respite. They beginning with good appetite To eat, and all came out Of a small basket : First a little napkin, Some garlic, also a ham, And a small soft cheese, Some shalots. Some salt, and also some nuts, And plenty of wild apples, Salad roots and lettuces, Champignons. CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. Thin wine and onions, Also two saucers of wood, And of earthenware two bottles ; And the cup Was of a new bark Of oak, which the shepherdess, As a thing pretty and beautiful, Much valued ; Some milk was kept in it. Then I saw the shepherd, who toclt Some wood and put fire to it ; And Jeanneton Placed upon it the little kettle j Then Regnault came near And supported it with a stick. That it should not fall." ' 247 Is this not a very nice rural breakfast? Onions and shalots may not suit northern palates ; there may also not be enough substantial viands for them, but we are in the sunny south, the land of song and garlic, where the heart thirsts for poetry and love, and the palate for alliaceous condiments. The 1 We give the following lines as a sample of Ren^ of Anjou's style : — " Le pasteur si lui fist pr^sint, Sans plus tarder lors a presant, D'un barillet . Plain de vin et d'un joliet, Petit, constant, gent coustelet, £t d'nue pannetiire k plet Faicte de teille . . . Au parler fut donn^ respit. Eux prenant de bon appetit A menger, par quoy tout sortit Du panneron : Premier ung petit touaillon, Des aillez, aussi ung jambon Et ung petit moul fromageon, Des eschalletes, Du sel et aussi des noisetes, Et foisou sauvages pommetes. Des responses et des herbetes, Des champignons, Du vin aigre et des oignons, Aussi de boys deux sausseroiis, Et de terre deux goderons ; Et I'esouelle. Estoit d'une escorce nouvelle De chaine, que la pastourelle, Pour une chose gente et belle, Bien la tenoit, Qui du lait gard^ I'y avoit, Puis vy le pasteur qui prenoit Du boys, et le feu y mectoit ; Et Janneton. Mectoit dessus le palleron Pnis Eegnault vint i, I'environ Qui le soustenoit d'un baston, Qu'il ne tombast." 248 HISTORY OF FRENCH UTERATURE. book ii. pilgrim continues to listen, and sees the shepherdess show to her shepherd a pair of loving turtledoves, which she upholds as a model of fidelity. Then a quarrel ensues about the rela- tive faithftilness of lovers, and at last they perceive the pil- grim and beg him to be their judge. He puts off his sentence to the next morning, and goes away to say his prayers at the little chapel in the wood, where " The nice little joyful birds, So pleasant, gentle, and loving, Ceased their melodious warbling ; And here and there each did their best To go and sleep in pairs Within their very pretty nests. And no longer sang their songs. The quails loudly did raise their voices In the meadows, so that they resounded In the woods, which were near there ; And then the stags rushed out of the forests, And came to eat the corn. Then more than one did listen, And often kept looking around them. The partridges also uttered their cries, And then in covies fled away. And came down where the fields are. And there stopped all night. The bull-flies buzzed through the air ; In other parts the coneys were trotting about And leaping too at the same time. The sun was absent, And no longer showed there. Nor appeared any where. Except on the steeple, where what she touched, Was made rather dazzling ; But scarcely I beheld it, Tor I soon lost sight of it. CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 249 The screech-owl coming out of his hole, Was already seated on a tree, Uttering his wretched and harsh note ; And the bat was flying (to look) For the sun which was hiding, And the air was a little more cool, And I felt it at the top of my fingers." ^ The pilgrim says his orisons, passes the whole night in prayer, and when he returns to the appointed place next morning, finds the two lovers gone. This is a fair description of the entire pastoral, as perfect as any that exists in the old fabliaux, and in which the accurate, minute, and poetical de- scription of landscape is only equalled by the delicate delinea- tion of human feelings, and by the chastity of thoughts. We must, however, admit that now and then some obscure verses, as well as a certain affectation, and some childish play on words, in imitation of the Italian concetti, are to be found in it ; but of course Een6, though a king, did not escape the influence of his age and of the times in which he lived. The last and greatest of the trio is Fran9ois Villon. His ' "We shall only give the first two couplets of the lines we quote, in order to show the difference of mstre from the extract given on page 2i7 : — " Et les gents oiseletz joyculx, Plaisans et doulx et amoureulx, Cessoient lenr glay melodieulx ; Et 5^. et \k chascun qui mienlx S' alloient oouscher deux et deulx Dedans leurs niz tris gracieulx, Ne plus leurs doulx chans ne chantoient. Les cailles leurs voix fort haussoient Es prez, si qu'en retentissoient Les boys qui prfes de \h. estoient ; Et les cerfs lors des fors issoient, Et is blez Ik menger venoient, Pour ce que plus aino adono n'oient Autour d'eulx souvent regardant. 2S0 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book n. poems are sermons in dishabille, moralities in the garb of loose- ness, history in romance, philosophy, in love-songs. His strength and his weakness are precisely the strength and weak- ness of much of the French light literature of the present day ; and if he inherited these with his nationality, we must not forget that Villon was to some extent the literary progenitor of those who followed him ; and that his special character- istics, the qualities which distinguished him from his con- temporaries and his predecessors, have been transmitted to succeeding generations from him as their origin. If he took from his race and from his age, he gave back infinitely more ; it is the privilege and the glory of every vividly original soul J and it was tlie privilege of Villon in a more than ordi- nary degree. It is true of him, as of Rutebeuf, of Adam de la Halle, of the author of the Farce de Pathelin, that we know little of his life beyond what he himself has told us. It was not because he lacked popularity in his own day, but rather because his friends and fellow countrymen were not given to much writing, and because the generation which immediately fol- lowed his own was specially barren of literary activity. Born probably at Paris, in the year 1431, he was of poor parentage, the son of a working man, and of an illiterate mother. He had a taste for reading, and was a graduate of the University of Paris, which was closed in those days by no bar of fortune or birth. He learned there little more than had been learned by Eutebeuf in his day. His nature' and true tastes began to display theinselves. Less fitted for arduous studies than for a life of pleasure and recklessness, he attained such an emi- nence amongst his idle companions that they made him their Reader in all their madcap enterprises, which included strange and lawless methods of supplying themselves with the means of purchasing their amusements. An awkward circumstance brought this easy though perilous career to an end. He had CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 251 been paying court to a beauty who for some time listened favourably to his prayers, but who presently flouted and threw him over. He took revenge with his tongue, perhaps went still farther, and played a few unpleasant practical jokes upon her ; whereupon the lady complained to the ecclesiastical authorities ; and a graphic picture of the times is brought before our eyes by the fact that the said authorities — perhaps, indeed, the authorities of the university — ordered him to be whipped. Villon underwent his punishment, and then quitted Paris, not, however, without leaving behind him a volume of poems entitled Jjays, now known as his Petit Testament. He was twenty-five years old when this degradation fell upon him, and this, togell.er with his poverty and wretched- ness, seemed for a time to destroy every particle of his self- respect. He did not go far from Paris, but hung about the environs in the company of the worst or lowest of both sexes, at one moment steeped to the hair in almost indescribable moral and physical defilement, and the next moment writing witty and even refined poems and ballads. In 1457 we find him in the cells of the Ch§,telet, condemned to death for some crime or other — not necessarily a very grave one,^ after any other standard than that of the. ruthless laws of the Middle Ages. Of course the trial which preceded the sentence was in itself no trifle, for Villon had undergone "question by water," ^ long a favourite process in the French courts. The accused was laid out for this examination upon a stretcher, bound thereto with strong cords round his chest, his loins, and his ankles, or else suspended in the air by his four extremi- ties, to each of which was attached a heavy weight. The ^ According to the latest discovered documents, Villon is said to have heen connected with a hand of rohhers, who even plundered the College de Navarre ; hence his condemnation. ' Such, at least, seems to be the only meaning which we can attach to the following couplet from his Grand Testarrmit : — ".On ne m'eust, parmi ce drapel, Faict hoyre d ceUe escorcherie." 252 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. former is the method illustrated in a wood-engraving by Damhoudere, issued at Antwerp just a hundred years aftei Villon had passed under the ordeal. The executioner then grasped his victim hy the nose, until the exhausted lungs forced open his mouth, when, the moment being adroitly seized, some nine litres of water were poured gradually in a continuous stream down the unhappy wretch's throat. Double the quantity of water was employed for the " ques- tion extraordinary," and when all was over the (very possibly innocent) man was considerately laid before the iire to dry.^ Our poet contrived to escape the capital sentence through the mediation of a prince unnamed, to whom he had cunningly appealed on the day of his daughter's birth. In all proba- bility this friend in need was Charles of Orleans, a sufficiently genuine poet to be beyond the influence of envy. Villon was grateful to his patron, and addressed a copy of verses full of delicate feeling to the infant princess who had so opportunely arrived on the scene. He apostrophises her thus : — " honoured birth, sent here below from heaven ; Worthy offshoot of the noble lily ; Most precious gift of Jesus ; Mary, most f racious name, Fount of pity, source of grace. The happy consolation of mine eyes, ■ Who dost build and confirm my peace. The peace, that is, of the rich, The substance of the poor. The hiding-place of felons and wretches.'" The double allusion to the Virgin and the princess is most judiciously handled ; and, be it observed, Villon was a genuinely religious man, doubt it who will, though the lion's share of his life was given rather to the cause than the fact of his repentance. ' P. LacToiz, Momrs, Usages et Costumes au Moym Age, PSnalitt. ' Oeuvrea de Fillon, Jannet, p. 105. CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 253 We hear no more of him until 1461, when he turns up at Meung, once more in prison, and this time by order of Bishop Thibault. There he wrote verses for many weary months, it may be for years, cursing at intervals the folU plaisance which had led to his sojourn in that dismal hole beneath the moat. Surely he had been more unfortunate or more reckless than ninety-nine out of a hundred of his contemporaries, for his crimes do not appear to have been very heinous in tlieui- selves ; or were two imprisonments and a whipping not much more than the average experience of a vagabond of the fifteenth century ? And does our poet owe his evil repute chiefly to his garrulous muse ? It is by no means im- probable. At all events this man suffered enough in his life- time to make of the poet a devil-may-care and thoroughly dis- reputable scamp, a rebel of any kind whatsoever. It is not for Englishmen to wonder at such a result, for there is the making of a rebel in nearly every one of them, and nothing would do it more readily than hopeless wretchedness 'and perpetual oppression. But few Englishmen could have sung out their miseries in graceful and spiritual " ballads." That requires a Eutebeuf, a Villon, a B^ranger, a Frenchman in fact ; not caring for the morrow, nor much for personal ap- pearances, but with abounding genius and philosophy and lightness of heart. So our poet went on writing as gaily as ever. It is doubtful how long he survived the prison of Meung, which must have sorely tried his constitution, for he had " to drink water many a morning and evening." Eabelais tells us that Villon had made a journey to England, and that in his old age he retired to Saint Maxent in Poitou, under the favour of a wealthy man, abbd of the said place. There, to entertain the people, he took in hand to produce the play of the Passion in the Poitevin manner and language.'- Let us hope so. If he ended his life respectably and in comfort 1 Pantagrml, Bk. iv. di. 13. 254 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book ii. he may not have written many more songs in the old gay fashion ; but perhaps he had written enough, and old age sings its own mute song of contentment all the better for superfluity of food and warmth and raiment. It is certain that Villon dabbled in the drama, but all that he has left us of an authentic character is purely lyrical. Of course he was more honoured after his death than before it, and Francis I. encouraged Cl(5ment Marot to collect his poems, which was done with a will and with a hearty appre- ciation. In an octave prefacing this edition, Marot says that if anything is found wrong in it he should be blamed, but that if this edition of Villon is better arranged and more highly valued, thanks should be given for it to the king, " who alone was the cause of the undertaking." The preface of Marot's edition displays editorial instinct of no mean order, but he fell under the lash of the Pleiade for having anything whatever to say to " so miserable a workman " as VHlon, and for giving undue importance to " what was worth nothing." There can be no doubt that Villon, like Byron and a few more of his world-despising sort, blackened his own character out of mere indifference or defiance. We do not for a moment incline to take literally the repulsive word-pic'.ure which he draws of himself in Gh-osse Margot, whereof ihe. envoi bears its own refutation, or at least its own explanation, on its face. Eeckless, not to say bitter, defiance of the world breathes in too many of his lines. They have maligned, tortured, de- graded him : they shall have text for their commentary, and substance for their shadows. But he is not always in this mood. He is fond at times of giving good advice to his old companions, though in giving it he can hardly forbear the final wink of the eye which expresses more than all his words. Eead his Ballade de honne Doctrine, which we have not the heart to translate lest it should lose its delicate aroma. Per- haps he is best of all when dealing with " the ladies of Paris," CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 255 or with one or other of the particular ladies on whom he sets his affection for the time being. Turn over the leaves of his works where you will, there are the same overflowing spirits, the same jests and wiles and pranks of wit, the same froth of humour and joyousness ; rarely passion of great depth, rarely seriousness of long duration, but just sufficient of each to show that we are in presence of a soul infinitely varied, unstintedly gifted, full of character and human significance, full also of the perplexing inconsistencies and abandonments of genius. A fair specimen of Villon's pathos, badinage, and grace of treatment combined may be found in this ballad from Ze Grand Testament : Des Dames du Temps Jadis : — " Tell me where or in what land Is Flora, the lovely Eoman Archipiada, or Thais, Who was her cousin-german? Echo, answering when a sound is thrown Across the river or over a lake, Who had a beauty too far beyond her kind 1 But where are last year's snows ? W^here is the most wise Helois ? For whom was mutilated and turned monk Pierre Abelard at Saint Denys ; For his love he had this punishment. Where, I ask, is the queen Who ordered that Buridan Should be cast in a sack into the Seine ? But where are last year's snows ? The queen, white like a lily, Who sang with the voice of a siren, Bertha, the big-footed, Beatrix, Alice Harembouges, who governed Mayne, And Jeanne, the good maiden from Lorraine, Whom the English burned at Rouen : 2S6 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ii. "Where are they, Virgin-Queen ] But where are last year's snows 1 Prince, you may ask for a week Where they are, or for a year, Yet shall this refrain endure — But where are last year's snows ] " He was not the only poet, by many thousands, whose best efforts were put forth in the hour of affliction, and whose favour with posterity has sprung, in no slight degree, from the cruelty of their contemporaries. He saw and foresaw this himself, lying in his prison under sentence of death ; ^ " Dictes moy, ou, ne en quel pays Est Flora la belle Romaine, Archipiada, ne Thais Qui fut sa oousine germainej Echo pavlant quand bruyt on maine Deasus riviire, ou sua estan. Qui beault6 eut trop plus que humainel Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ? Ou est la tressage Helois ? Pour qui fort chastrd (et pny Moyne) Pierre Esbaillart Ji Sainct Denys Pour son amour eut cest essoyne. Semblablement ou est la Eoyne Qui commanda que Buridan Fut jette en ung sac en Seine ? Mais ou sont sont les neiges d'antan I La Eoyne blanche comme ung lys Qui ehantoit Ji voix de Sereine, Berthe au gi-and pied, Bietria, Allya, Harembouges qui tint le Mayne, Et Jehaune la bonne Lorraine Qu' Angloys brnslerent Ji Rouen. Ou sont ilz, Vierge souveraine ? Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan ? Prince u'enquerez de sepmaine Ou elles sont, ne de cost an, Que ce refrain ne vous remaine : Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan t" CHAP. IV. FEUDAL SOCIETY. 257 and he tells us that "trouble has sharpened my clumsy thoughts, round as a skein, teacliing me more than all the commentaries in the Ethics of Aristotle." He made a jest of his condemnation, as he had made a jest of his masters, of his parents, of his poverty and wretchedness, writing his own epigram in words which could hardly have come from the tongue of a heinous criminal. Yet, side by side with this jest, comes an outburst of that ever-present pi.thos which was with him so near akin to jest ; a challenge which, it may be, he had given to one of his friends, with the petition that he would affi.x: it to a pillar at the ghastly gibbet of Mont- faucon when he and his companions should be dangling there in chains — food for the vultures, but not for inhuman gibes : — " brother men, who after us endure. Be not in heart against us hardened; For if ye show pity on us poor wretches, God will for this have greater mercy on you. You see us here suspended, five or six ; As for the flesh which we had over-nourished, It is long since devoured and rotten, And we bones are turning to ashes and dust ; Let no man laugh at our evil case. But pray God tliat he will absolve us all.' ' " Fr&res humains qui apria nous vivez N'ayez les cueurs centre nous endurcis, Car si pitie de nous pouvres avez Dieu en aura plustost de vous meroiz j Vous nous voyez cy attachez, cinq, six ; Quant de la chair, qui trop avons nourrie, EUe est pie9a devorde et pourrie, Et noua les os, devenous cendre et pouldre; De nostre mal personne ne s'en rie, Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absonldre." VOL.L BOOK III. THE EENAISSANCE. CHAPTEIl I. § 1. Causes of the Eenaissance. Let us for a moment dismiss from our minds the order of the centuries, the succession of dynasties, the political divisions of the world, and, free from interruptions, stand face to face with half-a-dozen facts. To begin with, let us realise this truth, that heaven, earth, and humanity were discovered within the limits of a lifetime. Imagine that you exist upon a platform in space, sup- ported you know not how, limited you know not where; that round about you in the firmament of heaven are whirled the sun and moon, the innumerable stars ; that somewhere be- neath your feet burns tlie malebolge of the wicked, and some- where above your head stands the paradise of the saints. You have taken all this for granted upon the faith of your father's word ; you have had it confirmed from the pulpit and in the lecture room ; you have found its sanction in the Bible. ■ You no more think of questioning it than of doubting those other irrefragable facts, that the blood rests in j'our veins like the wine in a bottle, that the winds blow " where they list," without law or explanation, that every weight falls " downwards," and that to question any of these unquestion- able facts would be a grievous ofTence against the God who made you. And now suppose that you are suddenly made 26o HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book hi. aware, by incontestable proofs and confirmations, that the belief of your life has been false ; that from your youth up- wards you have been living in gross darkness, and accepting " a vain thing fondly imagined." Suppose that a new teacher — a dozen new teachers — arise, who convince you by an alto- gether novel process of argument, by an appeal to faculties which you had scarcely yet ventured to exercise, and which you now exercise almost against your will, that the world whereon you live is not flat but round, not fixed but moving, and moving with a double motion, round an axis and round a point, moving at a pace which it makes you giddy to con- template, and which can never be appreciated or illustrated by any process within our mental grasp. Suppose yourself forced to adnjit that the unquestionableness of these new and stupendous facts is of an entirely different kind from the unquestionableness of your previous faith, no more absolute in its degree, but beyond the reach of uncertainty in its cha- racter. Suppose, again, that you are informed of other worlds of men existing on the earth which you had imagined to be parcelled out between yourself and your neighbours, that you speak with travellers who have been there, and who describe to you these new-discovered races — their manners, their ap- pearance, their civilisations ; — and that, in short, you begin to realise how different are the maps of heaven and earth from those which you had been wont to keep before your eyes. And finally, suppose that, contemplating all these, and a score of facts besides — foremost amongst them tho discovery of a process by which the copies of a book njiiy be multiplied indefinitely, thus assuring at once the preservation f.nd wider dissemination of sacred and profane knowledge — you are astounded at the grandeur, the richness, the promise of the vista opened before you ; you perceive your duty to God, to the Church, to humanity, in a new light ; you rebel against your former ignorance, and against those to whom you con- CHAP. I. THE RENAISSANCE. 261 ceive it to have been due. A vast change comes over you, for which you are at a loss to account ; but presently the explanation is discovered. You have ceased to be content with deductions from tlie mind to the senses, but require your mind to interpret your senses. You are no longer before all things a votary of faith, but admit yourself to be a convert of reason. Enter into the spirit of this contrast between your first and your last condition, perceive the full nature and extent of your advance, and then tell us the result. Is it not a revolu- tion, a reconception, a renaissance ? In the sixteenth century men found themselves in this predicament. Columbus had discovered America a few years before the century commenced. Copernicus and Galileo explored the heavens, and hung the revolving world in space. Luther and Calvin liberated the soul, as Eabelais and Mon- taigne liberated the mind, and as Shakspeare and Cervantes gave wings to the imagination. The art of printing had already reaped its first triumphs, and more than realised the anticipations of its inventors. It had been the principal means of carrying back the attention of the world to classical antiquity, and of restoring the rich treasures of Greek and Latin literature. By this service alone it deserved to rank with the discoveries of the astronomers, and to be compared with the intellectual conquests of the reformers. More than once in the Middle Ages attempts had been made, from the days of Alcuin to the days of Abelard and Occam, to reconquer the lost learning of the world — now through the schoolmen, now by rejection of the schoolmen's barren methods : now through the medium of profane literature, now by (the ineffectual aid of religious philosophy ; but the effort had failed. "The struggle of the Middle Ages," says a brIUiant French historian,^ "had been continually directed * Michclet, Eenaissance, IntToi. 262 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book iir." against a relapse into nature. With partial and temporary- successes, they encountered frequent and long rebuffs. The revolution of the sixteenth century, occurring more than a hundred years after the death of the preceding philosophy, found an inconceivable absence of life, a complete blank, and sprang from the loins of nothing. It was the heroic offspring of a vast exercise of will." The art of printing aided it, but slowly and imperfectly ; aided it by resuscitation of the ancient intellectual forms, but at the same time obstructed it by the perpetuation of the modern vacuities. "If they pub- lished antiquity, yet on the other hand they published the Middle Ages, and above all the class-books, summaries, abstracts, the whole doctrine of folly, the manuals of- con- fessors and the cases of conscience ; ten Xyders for one Iliad ; with one Virgil a score of Fichets."^ If the Eenaissance could not have been without the discovery of printing, it triumphed almost in spite of it. § 2. The Eenaissance in France. The phases of this revolution — or rather, of this new evolution of the human intellect — were many ; and its results upon the literary and political progress of France were such that the nation may be said to have passed from childhood to adolescence without the interval of boyhood. The new light which had been admitted into the minds of men, having once pierced the mists and clouds of their ignorance, could never thereafter be extinguished, though there were many who would have thought that by extinguishing it they would ' Michelet, Renaissance, Introd. Nyder was a famous German theo- logian who died about 1440, after destroying thousands of Bohemians in a crusade, and several of whose works were reprinted at Paris early in the sixteenth century. His most ridiculous book is called Formicarium. Fichet was a theologian, an orator, and rector of the University of Paris in 1467. His letters and treatise on Ehotoric were printed in Paris, 1470-1474. CHAP. I. THE RENAISSANCE. 263, render God service. The fruit of the forbidden tree had been tasted, and, strange to say, tasted with impunity ; for the sword of the Church had no terrors when it was known that the Eden on which men had turned their backs was but a paradise of fools, a garden of sloth and ignorance and super- stition. Yet it was more than an unsubstantial sword which was turned against those who had braved the proscription of freedom and knowledge, and who, with the enthusiasm of a lofty rebellion, set themselves to till, with the sweat of their brains, the intellectual ground upon which Church and Parlia- ments, kings and doctors, had planted the briers and thistles of their curse. Political liberty and power were regarded as the sacred monopoly of a privileged class, waived only on rare occasions in behalf of such as managed to flatter the pride or disarm the prejudices of the ruling minds, and jealously guarded by Parliaments which were themselves subservient to the monarchy and the Church. Liberty of discussion, freedom of tongue and pen, were sternly limited, not only by ecclesiastical despotism, but by the universities themselves, and in particular by the right of censure vested in the Sor- bonne. Liberty of belief, of religious inquiry and theological controversy, was repressed bj' the vast influence and wealth of the Church, which could at need set in motion every political engine in the state ; which never hesitated to hurl its anathe- mas against all who raised the note of scepticism or denial ; which had its stake for the recusant, its army of Jesuits for the suspected, its almost equally powerful league for those who ventured to whisper of reform. Eoyalty, which began by sympathising with the Eenaissance and the Eeformation, ended by casting in its lot with the champions of darkness ; yet selfishly enough, always for its own interest, burning Huguenots in France, but allying itself with Protestants in Germany ; combining with the Church against the Huguenots, with the Eeformation against the Ligue, crushing one sup- 264 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ill. posed enemy by the aid of another, and escaping for a time, not -without difficulty, from the fury of insurrection and from the peril of the assassin.^ Thus the Eenaissance in France had its baptism of blood, and only by a long and cruel struggle attained in the end the right to exist. In England it had less to fear. Henry the Eighth, indeed, would have crushed it by the sheer brutality of a prejudiced mind. Himself a scholar, l»e would fain have been the only one in his kingdom ; hostile to the Church from the desire of an illicit freedom, he was hostile to intel- lectual progress from the wantoimess of a fastidious 'autocracy. Under his eldest daughter the supremacy of the ecclesiastics was once more established ; but their brief fury was directed rather against religious than against intellectual freedom. In England it was the Eeformation which had to pass through fire and blood ; the Eenaissance worked its way almost with- out obstacle or check. Yet France had her consolation for this agony. Her political and literary triumphs were delayed, but not less sure ; and in the end she has been the first to reach the threshold of that complete mental emancipation to which Eabelais and Montaigne almost unconsciously looked forward. The manifold energy of the Eenaissance manifested itself in all its militant vigour and intensity during the sixteenth century. By its resort to the models of antiquity, by its keen- edged and polished satire, by its rehabilitation of philosophy and jurisprudence, by its spirit of scepticism, by its reforma- tion of religion, at least attempted from within the Church, this crisis of intellectual thought in France gave evidence of all the highest faculties and capabilities of the national mind. We must study each phenomenon in its turn before we can hope to realise the power and the achievements of this newly awakened activity * Lenient, ScUire en France, Introd. CHAP. I. THE RENAISSANCE. 265 Have we made too much of indirect causes, of impressions, of the influence of discoveries and new facts, in our attempt to place ourselves at the source of the Eenaissance in France? Let us hasten to remove the impression, which would un- doubtedly be false and incomplete. The action of man upon man is, at all events as a general rule, superior in force to the action of a formula or of a fact. We have said it before ; the mail's effect upon his generation is distinct from the effect of the generation upon the man, and may, on occasion, be the greater. Was there a man, or were there a group of men, who can take high rank amongst the influences which brought about the French Eenaissance ? The revelations of science, the discoveries of geographers, the spread of ancient lore by means of the printing press, could sharpen the intellect and excite the imagination ; but could they reflne the taste and develope the literary style ? The study of antiquity undoubt- edly could; but hardly so the new facts of physical science. Beyond question there were individual human agencies at work in this grand revival of thought and imagination — agencies which set at nought the boundaries of race, tongue, and nationality, which traversed the Alps from a regenerate Italy, and brought a new Eoman conquest into modern Gaul. As Montaigne and Eonsard and Pascal were destined to have their schools of imitation and disciples, so were Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Medici and the Borgias, Lascaris, Leonardo da Vinci, Poggi, Bembo, Politian, amongst the first leaders of the resuscitated intellect of France. For the revolt against the darkness of the Middle Ages began on classical soil ; an- tiquity was renewed in the home of its original glory. Italy had never been so overwhelmed with the grossness of mediaeval ignorance as were the countries of western and northern Europe. The Italian poets and romancists of the fourteenth century had handled manusci ipts which the monks and eccles- iastics contemptuously left af a prey to the dust and the worm, Z66 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ill. or cut up into missals and talismans for women and children. Petrarch himself, not ashamed to draw occasional inspiration from the delicate poetry of Provence, virtually inaugurated the Italian Eenaissance, though the Popes Alexander VI. and Leo X. were to foster and bring it to completion by their polished taste and munificent encouragement. In the fifteenth century Italy could hoast a crowd of lofty intellects, ripe scholars, and worthy cultivators of the Muses. Machiavelli wrote his immortal treatise on the art of government,' and commented on the History of Livy. Cardinal Bembo, the friend and admirer of Lucrezia Borgia, herself a woman of cul- tivated taste, and the daughter of a Pope, was an elegant scholar and writer, saturated by the classical spirit, as learned and as polished an ecclesiastic as the Gallo-Eoman Sidonius. Poggi epitomised in liis Facetim the wit and cynicism of a life whose severer studies were given to the legacies of classic Eome. It took fifty years for these artists and men of taste — for, in fact, if we except Machiavelli, they were little more — to arouse the eager fancies of the northern nations ; but their influence gradually made itself felt, and thus added precisely tlie neces- sary complement to the intellectual awakening produced by the circumstances previously referred to. It was on the last day of 1494 that Charles the Eighth of France, who had thoroughly united the never yet homogeneous country, entered Eome as a conquering invader amidst a gor- geous pageantry of triumph. He showfed to the Italians for the first time the superiority in warfare which CiBsar had by brute force impressed upon the barbarous Gaul, refined and elevated into an art. The national genius of the northern race had its victory of revenge over the genius of the south; a victory of the intellect which Frenchmen have always preferred, in their inmost heart, to the coarse supremacy of gunpowder, sinews, and steel. But if Charlea ^ n rrincipe. CHAP. I. THE RENAISSANCE. 26? brought a lesson with him, he took a lesson back ; France, united, having conceived and grasped the idea of nationality, liad become the most powerful nation of continental Europe. Philippe Pot had said from his place in Parliament— himself being a favoured courtier of Louis the Eleventh— " All power comes from the people ; all power returns to it. And by the people I mean the mass of men ; I do not except a single in- habitant of the kingdom. The people has made the kings, and it is for the people tliat they reign. The king gone, the power pertains to the State.''^ And, strong in this idea, France had begun to throw itself into the old groove of war and con- quest, forasmuch as its kings knew of no better way. But Italy was to instruct her ancient tributary, and to show her the path to victories more glorious and complete than the victory of arms. The human intellect, the mind and spirit of the nation, provided a field of battle whereof the triumphs, no less difficult of attainment, were infinitely more permanent and assured, incalculably more grand, and fraught with better augury for the welfare and the satisfaction of the nation. Of such a kind was the moral of Italian art and literature in the fifteenth century ; and France did not fail to see it and apply it to herself. The country which had yielded to the fas- cination of the later Eoman Empire was docile to learn from regenerate Italy ; and it was but natural that the taste for classical antiquity sliould be amongst its first evidences of the revival. The art of printing had not been slow in brkiging ancient literary documents within the reach of almost every studious man. It was in 1474 that William Caxton printed his first book. Before the end of that century the Venetian Aldi had produced an edition of Aristotle in Greek. Demosthenes, Plutarch, Livy, Cicero, Tacitus, followed in rapid succession. After the text came the commentaries. Eival printers ran« ' Cf. Michelet, Ranaissawus, p. 180. 268 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITER A TURE. book hi. sacked the raamiscripts of every age to discover tit subjects wherewith to appeal to an anxious public. Henceforth men began to live in and by antiquity, which absorbed them from the world, and passed through its severe yet congenial discip- line the souls that were to react upon future generations by their culture and their originality. To this day the classical source inspires us ; and we can imagine the effect produced upon tlie blank minds of men to whom a whole intellectual world was thus suddenly opened up. Theywere intoxicated with the unaccustomed draught ; they lived again in the brilliant days which had produced so noble a generation ; they made themselves fellow-citizens with Cicero and Livy, with Thucydides and Demosthenes ; they reproduced the very fail- ings and beliefs of the classical age. Never was there an apter illustration of the fact that the author of a literary docu- ment, himself the creation of his own age, becomes from that moment a potent creator of the ages to come. Greece and Rome have conquered more in their death than when they sent out an Alexander and a Caesar to trample on the liberties of the world. Prance had her Medici, her Elizabeth, her guardian and nourisher of learning, in the early days of Francis the First. It is true that he was one of those to whom we have referred as subjecting all things to their political needs, and playing off friend against friend, foe against foe. It is true that he closed the printing-presses in 1535, twenty years after his accession ; that he established the censure of the Sorbonne, and made it a capital offence to publish a religious book with- out its authorisation ; that he burned Berquin and Etienne Dolet, and sanctioned the massacre of heretics. Xevei-theless he began well, and he did good service to letters. He founded the Collie de France, establishing chairs of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew; he emulated Charlemagne by inviting learned foreigners to his court ; he encouraged art, and went so far CHAP. I. THE RENAISSANCE. 269 ill the liberal path, condemned and hated by the ecclesiastics, as to direct Clement Marot to edit the poems of Villon. A strange anomaly, whom literature can neither love nor despise; and yet a strangely apposite picture of the century which he ushered in, full of contrasts and contradictions, of chaotic dis- cord and of splendid illumination. § 3 BUDAEUS AND HIS FeLLOW-WoRKERS. Amongst the distinguished men who shed lustre on the court of Francis the First was Budaeus (Guillaume Bude),^ the most industrious and noted classical scholar of his age. Born at Paris of wealthy parents, in the same year as his friend and rival Erasmus, he had already gained a great literary reputaT tion before Francis arrived at the throne. Throughout his life he retained the favour and esteem of his versatile and fickle patron, and was the firm promoter and even protector of learning, assisting the king in the encouragement of letters, and withstanding him, if need be, in his retrograde moods. It was to a great extent by his advice that Francis the First determined on founding the College de France — originally styled the College des Trois Langues — which was set on foot in the yea;' 1531, and which contained not only chairs of Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, but also professorships of Mathematics, Pliilosophy, and Medicine. Erasmus was invited from Eot- terdam to occupy the position of its first principal ; but, though he loved Paris well, and frequently visited it, espe- cially during the residence there of Bude, he declined the proffered honour. The reason which this Voltaire of the sixteenth century, as he has been called, privately alleged for this determination is characteristic. "Of all the birds" he says, " the eagle is the only one which has seemed to thi) wise » 1467-1540. rjo HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK in. folk -worthily to represent royalty ; it lias neither beauty nor song, but it is carnivorous, a bird of piey, a thief, a devastator, a wrangler, a solitary ; hated of all, the scourge of all, it has immense power of injury, and still more inclination than power." He remembered that the King of France had a beast of prey for his emblem ; and he preferred to live in learned seclusion at Basle, with friends such as the Frobens, with distinguished visitors and correspondents, and amidst literary consolations such as he knew how to find in the composition of works like his Colloguia. Bude's own literary labours were confined to learned exegesis and commentaries. He wrote annotations on the Pandects, applying the acuteness of a philologist and the judgment of an historian to the elucidation of Eoman law ; a treatise De Asse, upon the varying value of Eoman money in successive ages ; and an inestimable contribution to Greek etymological knowledge, the work of a genuine grammarian, his Commentaries on the Greek language. He does not seem to have ever fully mastered the difficulties of French style ; or, at least, he has left us nothing of importance written in French. The general adoption by learned men in the Eenais- sance period of the Latin language as a medium for the diffusion of their writings was very natural. They must have been comparatively few in that age who mastered the modern foreign tongues ; whilst translations from one to the other were both rare and slowly effected. It would have been useless for a man like Bude, and perhaps even difficult, to write in his native language ; so that for him, and the many scholars situated like him, Latin was almost the only available medium. And, in general, the scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who in fact wrote mainly for each other and for the universities, were constrained to adopt the one language which was common to them all. Budd's influence upon French literature was therefore an indirect one, acting through the CHAP. I. THE RENAISSANCE 271 minds of those who, receiving a learned education in their youth, passed by natural preference to the more popular do- mains of literary activity. It is not difficult to imagine, though it might be hard to estimate precisely, the true and immediate value of such a man in such an age. But a single trait is recorded of him which says more than a dozen suppo- sitions. One day he was informed — in the house from which, during ten years, he was hardly ever known to emerge— that a couple of monks had been thrown into prison for their con- tumacy in secretly applying themselves to the study of Greek. Bud^ at once applied to the king, and urged their release. He obtained his request, little thinking of the significance which future ages would perceive in the story of Bud^ the scholar, throwing his tegis over Eabelais, the satirist. The fellow-workers and immediate successors of Bud^ in the cultivation of the classical tongues were many. At the College de France we findVatable, Danes, Toussain, Turnfebe, Lambin ; the latter so notoriously circumspect in the work which he undertook, that he has enriched the vocabulary of his native tongue by the hardly-merited prostitution of his name.^ Better known even than these were Ilobert and Henri Estieune, father and son, the iirst a printer of the Holy Scriptures, who, his orthodoxy being suspected, thought it pruderit to end his days in Geneva ; the latter, author of perhaps the grandest monument of sixteenth century scholar- ship,^ and a pamphleteer in French of no mean order. Henri Estiennewas as ardent a politician as he was a laborious scho- lar, and, if a polished Latinist, yet before all things a French- man. Catherine de Medici had introduced the worst vices of Italy into France, and had led a fashion which Estienne and his friends could not but regard with disgust and alarm. He 1 Lwmbiner, to dawdle. * Thesaurus Oroecae lAnguas, published in 1572, the same year as the S Bartholomew massacres. 272 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book lit wrote then ])is Deux dialogues du %ouveau Frangais italianisi; a bitter, unstinting, terrible satire. It cost bim dear ; for the ecclesiastical consistory of Geneva, where it was issued, sum- moned the writer before them, censured him severely, and banished him from communion. The stiff-backed old scholar, fallen upon evil times, would neither bend nor break ; but the i-emainder of his life was a lonely and miserable exile. Harder still was the fate of Etienne Dolet, a student and a scholar, who became a printer at Lyons, and probably owed his license to print to the fact that he had written a Commentary on the Latin language, which he dedicated to Francis the First. Eepresentativeof that formidable revolt against tyranny which found in the printing-press its readiest engine of attack — member of that redoubtable school of irony which incessantly hurled its missiles against priests and wrongs from across the frontiers of Switzerland, his bitterest work was Le- Second Enfer, directed against the abuses of legal administration. He was several times accused of heresy, and became at last involved in a dispute about the merits of Cicero, in which he certainly showed great powers of sarcasm. Thirteen works, either printed or written by Dolet, were condemned to be burned by the Parliament of Paris on the 14th of February 1543. Our printer thereupon fled to Piedmont ; but after a short time came back to Lyons, and published a translation into French of two dialogues of Plato. The Faculty of Theology of Paris found that he had badly translated a certain passage of the Greek philosopher, declared him an athee relaps, and burned him on the Place Maubert in the capital, together with his books, after having tortured him with great cruelty. Tlnis -perished a young man of thirty-seven years of age, who suffered for that madness of learning, that enthusiasm for the light, which possessed so many of his contemporaries ; who paid with his life for having flayed with cutting satire the champions of ignorance and darkness ; for having doubts CHAP. I. THE RENAISSANCE. 273 raised as to his orthodoxy. Eead the death-song of this brave and noble soul, and say if the Eenaissance had not already set its seal upon the century ; — " When they shall have either burned or hanged me, Put upon the wheel or quartered ; What shall be the result % It will be a dead body 1 Alas ! however, shall, they have no remorse , For putting to death so cruelly One who has in nowise done ill? Is a man of so small a value % Is he a fly ? or a worm which deserves Without any regard to be destroyed so soon % Is a man so soon shaped and well-informed, So soon provided with science and virtue, To be thus like a blade of grass or a straw Annihilated ? Do they prize so little A noble mind ? " " . . . 1 " Quand on m aura ou brusle, ou pendu, Mis sur la roue et en cartiers fendu ; QuVn sera-t-il ? Ce sera ung corps mort ! Las ! toutes fois n'auroit-on nul remord De fiiyre ainsi nionrir cruellement Uiig qui en rien n'a forfait nuUcinent? Uiig liomme est-il de valeur si petite ? Est-ce une inouche ? ou un ver qui mdrite Sans nul esgard si tost estre destruict ? Ung homme est-il si tost faiet et iustruiot, Si tost muny de science et vertu, Pour estre ainsy qu'une paille ou festu An^anti ? Faict-on si peu de compte D'ung noble esprit?" . . . VOL. I. 274 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK ill. CHAPTER II. § 1. Satire in the Renaissance. With free thought comes, in England, stubborn dissent ; in France, light-hearted satire. The antithesis is partial and incomplete, but it is a significant one. Satire is at the root of the French character, an instinct amongst the descendants of the ancient Gauls, who loved to fight and to talk well ; and it requires no evidence to assure us that an overflowing manifesta- tion of Vesprit narquois was amongst the immediate and notable effects of the nation's intellectual revolt. The religious rebel- lion of the sixteenth century produced Protestantism ; the moral rebellion brought defiance of king, parliament, and col- lege. Both alike "were put down by fire and sword. With what result ? In England, again, the result was armed insur- rection, civil wai', an obstinate assertion and vindication of the right to think and worship in any one of a hundred different ways. In France there was bloodshed, it is true, but rather the bloodshed of massacre than of war ; and, in the end, the victory of obscurantism. But in France men had other weapons, and they used them, as we might anticipate, with even greater ultimate effect than sword and powder. They vindicated the rights of thought with the arms of thought ; they crushed the wielders of many legions with a word. Satire was the blade in which they trusted, and their trust was not mis- placed. Their judges send them to the stake and the wheel, hang them, draw and quarter them. They sing a song on CHAP. II. THE RENAISSANCE. 275 their way to the shamUes which makes their judges tremble ; for a nation which knows how to use satire knows also how to feel it. The Sorbonne condemns a book, the ecclesiastical tribunals excommunicate its author; straightway from Savoy, from Spain, from Holland, comes a pamphlet, or a poem, or a single couplet, and the victors become the victims. The anger of authority is visited upon a popular writer, who by some trifling act has overstepped tTe'narrow line prescribed for him. An allusion, a jest, an epithet, so delicately insi- nuated that it eludes the grasp of a lynx-eyed censorship, damns the reprover for all time. The Middle Ages had their satire, as we have already found, but it was as nothing to the torrent of raillery, invec- tive, trenchant irony, biting malice, of the sixteenth century. The sister of Francis the First led the way. Marguerite, the well-known Queen of Navarre,^ In the Heptam^ron she vents her contemptuous scorn upon husbands, though she was not unmarried ; against monks, though she was an ardent devotee of religion ; against lawyers and doctors, though she was a queen. And her shrewdest satire of all is unconsciously pointed against herself, for she stands revealed to us as a very woman, the rivals for wliose favour are God and the Devil, and who affords to neither of these more than a short and coquettish glance. Nevertheless she deserves better of literature than of her lovers, if she had any, for her little kingdom was the refuge of free thought against the persecutions of her brother and his friends. Her own gentleman-in-waiting, Bonaventure Desperriers,^ the intimate of Marot, was a free-lance after her own heart, light in love and faith, who began by playing soft nothings to his mistress on the lute, and ended by publishing his Cymhalum Mundi — a somewhat vague and incomprehensible prose work, and yet a firebrand amongst his enemies. Its 1 1492-1549. " Died about 1544. 276 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book lU printer was thrown into a dungeon, tlie impression was seized and burnt; a hundred and fifty years later Bayle could not discover a copy. Etienne Pasquier said that it ought to be cast into the fire with its author ; even Henri Estienne called it detestable ; but Marguerite of Navarre was delighted at the sensation which her favourite attendant had created. It is difficult for us, in the se da ys, to understand the rage excited by such works as the Cymhalum Mundi; but we must remember that to priests and the Sorbonne even the attempt at satire was a crime, and the slightest show of wit at their expense savoured of impious rebellion against heaven. Des- perriers was not exempt from the fate of so many of his con- temporaries who were made martyrs to tlie emancipation of human thought. He was hunted to death ; and, it is said, took his own life in a fit of despair and despondency. Clement Marot,^ valet de chamhre of Francis the First, is another Frenchman of this century whose name must appear on more than one page of his country's literary history. He, too, was a satirist of a trenchant character ; he, too, paid with his life the penalty of his liberty, dying a miserable and perse- cuted exile. In his life, his character, his genius, he is a type of the age in which he lived. At once a pedant and a vaga- bond, a scholar and a merry-andrew, a man of letters and an enfant sans souci, ennobled by education and degraded by the very intoxication of knowledge, unable to preserve his balance under the burden of a thousand new ideas, now adding lustre to learning, now trailing the dignitj'' of authorship in the mire, C16ment Marot was one of those en/ants terribles of his day, who it may be confessed, did much to justify the restric- tions imposed upon the cultivators of literature. His poems are as varied as were his personal moods. He edited Villon, and modernised Jean de Meung ; he versified two CoUoquia of Erasmus and the parable of the Good Shepherd ; he trans- 1 1195-1544. CHAP. II. THE RENAISSANCE. 277 lated the. Penitential Psalms and Ovid's Metamorphoses; he wrote the praises of Saint Christina and sang the triumphs of Cupid ; he composed innumerable rondeaux, ballads, songs, epigrams, epistles in verse. His translated psalms, which he dedicated to Francis the First and to the ladies of France, " soon eclipsed the brilliancy of his madrigals and sonnets. Wot suspecting how prejudicial the predominant rage of psalm- singing might prove to the ancient religion of Europe, the Catholics themselves adopted these sacred songs as serious ballads, and as a more rational specimen of domestic merri- ment. They were the common accompaniments of the fiddle. They were sold so rapidly that the printers could not supply the public with copies- In the festive and splendid court of Francis the First, of a sudden nothing was heard but the psalms of Clement Marot. By each of the royal family and the principal Jiobility of the court a psalm was chosen and fitted to the ballad tune which each liked best. The Dauphin, Prince Henry, who delighted in hunting, was fond of Ainsi qu'on ait le cerf bruire, or Like as the hart desireth the water- hrooks, which he constantly sang in going out to the chase. Madame de Valentinois . . . took Du fond de ma pens^e, or. From the depth of my heart, Lord. The queen's favourite was, Ne veuilles pas, Sire, that is, Lord, rebuke me not in thine indignation, which she sang to a fashionable jig (tune). Antony, King of Navarre, sang, Eemnge moy, prens la guerelle, or Stand up, Lord, to revenge my quarrel, to the air of a dance of Poitou. It was on very different principles that psalmody flourished in the gloomy court of Cromwell. This fashion does not seem in the least to have diminished the gaiety and good humour of the court of Francis." ^ Clement Marot, like Thibaut of Champagne, to whom indeed he bore a certain literary resemblance, aspired suffi- ciently high in his rhymes and in his acts, for it is rumoured ' Warton, Sistory of English Poetry, vol. iv. § 45, pp. 125, 126. 278 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book in. that Diana of Poitiers was his Blanche of Castile. If this be true she proved by far the most perilous object of devotion, and if the foolhardy poet met her scorn by satire, the king's mistress found a weapon more powerful still. Marot was accused of a terrible crime — the eating of bacon in Lent ; and imprisonment — not the first — followed as a matter of course. Straightway he poured forth a flood of rhyme. He wrote to Bouchart, the inquisitor, protesting his orthodoxy : "I am neither a Lutheran, a Zwinglian, ngr even an Anabaptist . . . but, in short, I am one who believes, honours, and values the holy, true, and Catholic Church." He addressed the fable of Th& Lion and the Bat to his friend Lyon Jamet, entreating him to use his influence to get him out of prison ; and, at the same time he could not refrain from the very crime of satire which caused all his troubles. He wrote an offensive ballad concerning Diana of Poitiers,^ — at least so it was said — and even went so far as to lampoon his judges. When the king returned to Paris he was liberated ; but he had made too many enemies to be comfortable in France. All whom he had ever railed at were bent on his destruction ; and a great many per- sons of influence were included in the number. At all events an anonymous copy of verses, Adieux atuc Barnes de Paris, was laid to his charge,^ and it was said that none could hold herself safe from the author's bitter jests. Marot declared that he had ^ One stanza follows : — ' ' Uu jouT j'^crivis k ma mie Son injustice seulement, Mais elle ne fut endormie A. me le rendre oliaudement. Car dfes I'heure tint parlement A je ne sais quel papelard, Et hii dit tout bellement : ' Prenez-le, il a mang4 le lard.' " ' " Adieu Paris, la bonne villa, Adieu de Meaux la Jeanneton, Adieu Lientenante Civile, Adieu la Grive et Caqueton." CHAP. It. THE RENAISSANCE. 279 no hand in the production ; and in order to acquit himself of blame, wrote a new satire,^ hardly less daring than the first, and with one candid line in which he might be held almost to havu belied his denial : "A worm, when he is trod upon, bites." Once more the king protected him, but our poet thought it most prudent to flee to Navarre ; and, not allowed to rest even there, crossed the Alps and took refuge in Ferrara. It was during his exile that he wrote to Lyon Jamet his Trois Efitns du Cng-a I'Jne ; nonsense verses of a peculiar light and pliable kind — vers de sociiU, in which Marot excelled, and which were specially adapted for the conveyance of satirical allusions. But he soon tired of his banishment ; and, it is said, abjuring Calvinism as he had previously abjured Eomanism, he made friends with the Dauphin, patched up a truce with his enemies, and returned to Paris. There he lived quiet for some years, but his petty rivals would not leave him in peace, and Marot found it impossible to be silent under their reproaches. Another outburst of satire followed, in which he contrived to overwhelm the poetasters Sagon, la Hufeterie, and the "whole heap of new scrib- blers." Moreover the Sorbonne declared his translation of the Psalms, which he had only lately brought out — and of which we have already spoken — heretical, and remonstrated with the king for having allowed them to be dedicated to him. Calvin — to his praise be it said — offered the poet an asylum at Geneva ; but Marot preferred to settle in Pied- mont, and there he ended his adventurous career. Marot has perhaps hardly received the attention which he deserves from his own countrymen, although Boileau recom- mended him as a model of elegant hadinage. " Much talked of, but seldom read," a French critic^ says of him. " We do not read with pleasure that which has need of a dictionary to explain it ;" — an unfortunate confession of unfamiliarity with 1 Epltre 46. ' Dussault, Annates litt&raires, vol. i. p. 198. a8o HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book iii. half of what is sweetest and freshest in literature. " Villon and Marot," says another critic,^ " and some others are satirical poets; their epigrams may be said to be the only titles they have to celebrity in the present day.'' And yet Marot has received greater honour out of his own country. Spenser knew and loved his works, and is indeed largely indebted to him in his eclogue of Paw a%d Robin in the " Shepheard's Calendar." It is possible that Marot may have read Chaucer. His Temple Gupidique reminds us more than once of the English poet, and its first lines would seem to be a close copy of the opening of the " Canterbur)' Tales " — " Sur le priutemps que la belle Flora Les champs couverts de diverse fleur a, E son amy Zephyrus les esvente Quand doucement en I'air souspire e vente." In this allegory Marot represents himself as setting forth on a journey in search of the goddess Ferme-amour ; and coming at last to the temple of Cupid he is graciously admitted by Bel-accueil, and approaches the altar of the god. Let one specimen of the simple and flowing verse sufi&ce : — " The diadem of Cupid Is a chaplet of roses, Which Venus herself gathered In her verdant garden, And in the early spring Sent it to her dear child Who gladly put it on ; Then, for these lovely roses, gave To his mother a triumphal car Dragged by a dozen doves. Before the altar two singular cypresses I saw flourishing, breathing forth sweet odours ; And they told me those were the pillars * Avenel, in the Lycie fran^ais, vol. ii. p. 106, — a literary miscellany puUished early in the present century. CHAP. II. THE RENAISSANCE. 381 Of the high altar of lofty Fame. Then a thousand birds from a distant grove Came flying upon this green canopy, Ready to sing divine songs. So I asked why they had come there : But they said to me, Friend, these are the matins Which they have come to sing in honour of Venus." ' § 2. Eabelais. We have now come to Eahelais,^ the greatest satirist of the age, perhaps the greatest satirist of Prance, whose death occurred midway in the sixteenth century, and around whom all the lesser satirists revolve in ever-widening orbits. A monk to begin with, a voracious scholar and indefatigable thinker, who, probably about 1523, had been rescued by Budd from the punishment attending his persistent and illicit study of Greek, his fame rests not upon ecclesiastical labours or ^ " De Oupidon le diademe Est de roses un chapelet, Que Vemis ciiellit elle niSme Dedans son jardin verdelet, Et sur le printemps nouvelet Le transmit h, son clier enfant Qui de bou coeur le va coiffant ; Puis donna pour ces roses belles A sa mfere un char triomphant Conduit par douze colombelles. Devant I'autel deux cypres singulieiB Je vey fleurir sous odeur embasmde : Et me dit-on que c'etoient les pilliers Du grand autel de haulte renomm^e. . Lors mille oiseaiix d'une longue ram^e Viendront voler sur ces vertes coiirtines, Prestz de chanter chansonettes divines. Si demanday pourquoi la sont venus : Mais on me dit, amy, ce sont matines, Qu'ilz viennent dire en I'honneur de Venns. » 1483-1S53. i82 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK in. dassical scliolarship, but upon the rough coarse humour and unmerciful satire of a couple of works in which he lashed his age and his profession. He lived scarcely long enough after the appearance of the last part of Fanfaffmel to experience the persecutions ■which had fallen so heavily upon the heads of his contemporaries ; and, moreover, he was not a man to court reproof and repression, like Marot Let it be well understood, Eabelais was in his writings a buffoon, a licen- tious jester, despising and outraging the proprieties, railing at religion and mocking at decency, coarse though never prurient; but in his private life he was — there is at least nothing to the contrary — a respectable and outwardly moral man, a consistent Catholic, who preserved the i-espect of his superiors. Entering the monastic life as a Franciscan, he transferred his allegiance under a bull of Pope Clement VII. to the Benedictines. Dissatisfied with his vocation, he took a degree in medicine, and apparently practised for some time as a physician ; then, reverting to his first choice, he was restored by Paul III. to the order of St. Benedict. Once more wearying of the cowl, he obtained the vicai-age of Meudon, near Paris, and occupied it until his death. This is no doubt the career of a restless man, but not of an open or imprudent railer ; and it is the career of one who had influence in the highest quarters, and who was careful not to throw it away. His Garganhia and the three first parts of Fantagruel were issued under an as- sumed name,' so that there was at all events no personal scandal beyond the ranks of the learned. And yet all this put together is not sufficient to account for the comparative leniency with which the most monstrous attack on Church, schools, and civil authority was treated, and even regarded, by so intolerant a censoi"ship. There was, in fact, a saving clause. Eabelais is intensely, ' Not, however, concealed by more than an anagram. His ;iom de plum* waa Alcofribas Nasier. CHAP. iL THE REXAISSASCE. 283 villainoa^ly, ol/tmsiTely coaise. Strange feet, but none the less true, tliat tliis veiy coaiseness of humoar and illustration obtained for Lim his immunity from persecution, and secured for his bitter flagellation? a currency which the most refined and decorous wit, the most polished scholarship, would never have g.ined for them. It was, indeed, the polish and the scholarship of llarot, Estienne, and Dolet, which made their invectives go formidable to the Church, which attracted the attention and drew down the anger of the Soiljonne. Their pamphlets and poems were addressed directly to men of culture and keen percex>uons, and glanced off at once towards those whose culture and perception made them specially vulnerable to such modes of attack. Babelais, on the other hand, addressed himself ostensibly to the vulgar, or say rather to such as preferred coarseness to polish and a laugh to a stab. His were essentially funny stories, not bitter poeins or scathing pamphlets. So at least the ecclesiastics must have th-^mght, and so, no doubt, Eabelais intended them to think. In addition, he chose an archaic style of writing, and not im- probably circulated his works with discretion- He certainly maintained his incognito as long as he could, and he no less certainly relied on the staunchness of his powerful friends ; yet, multiply as we may the explanations of his remarkable immunity, we come back io tlie one strong reason after alL His bitterness was concealed and made palatable by his coarseness, and that coarseness was his best protector. Of course our satirist bad his enemies and his persecutors. In the monastery, above all, he had to run the gauntlet of the hatred and petty persecutions always reserved for a monk who dared to divest himself of the detestable monkish jargon which they called Latin. He and his friend Pierre Lamy were more than once subjected to annoyance, and even to personal discipline of no trifling sort, for the per.^iitence of their attachment to the newfangled studies. The learned 284 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK in. Budd conceived a gi'eat friendship for the ingenuous young monks who thus bravely followed his exhortations, and it is said that a regular correspondence was kept up between them. The troubles of Eabelais amongst his fellow-monastics no doubt influenced him in passing from one order to another, and in finally quitting the cloister altogether. It would have been utterly impossible that he should have wholly escaped persecution, but he did escape it in its worst forms, owing to more than one powerful patron his deliverance from more than one imminent danger. Amongst his friends was Geoffroy d'Estissac, bishop of Maillezais, who made him a canon of his abbey, and Andr^ Tiraqueau, one of the earliest " teetotallers," "that good, learned^ wise, humane, and just civilian," as Rabe- lais styles him.^ But even these protectors, coupled with his own discretion, were not sufficient to hold him safe against the fury of the eccles^iastics of the Sorbonne. Gargantua was published in 1533, but only an outline of what it afterwards became. Two years later, Francis the First, then at the height of his reactionary folly, and completely (for the time) under the thumb of the Church, is said to have signed a decree for the suppression of printing.^ It was a terrible and irre- sistable storm for all who, like Eabelais, had espoused the vocation of letters and literature, and he fled before it. He went to Eome, where he had been before, and where he had also an influential friend in the person of the Cardinal, Jean du Bellay, whose cousin Joachim was a person of considerable merit — so much so, indeed, that he has earned the title of " the French Ovid." An improved edition of Gargantua and the two first books of Pantagruel had already been published, when the third book of the last work made its appearance in the year 1545, but with a privilege of the king. The Sor- ^ Pantagniel, Book iv., prologue. ' No administrative record contains a mention of this piece of almost in- credible infatuation, and it is probable that it was never attempted to be fully carried into effect, for the insuppressible cannot be suppressed. CHAP. 11. THE RENAISSANCE. 285 bonuists and the whole clique of zealots were enraged against the author, and, it must be admitted, not without excuse, for Eaminagrobis, one of the characters in this third book, speaks thus of the priests : — " I have this same very day, which is the last both of May and of me, with a great deal of labour, toil, and difficulty, chased out of my house a rabble of filthy, unclean, . and pestilential black beasts, dusk, dun, white, ash-coloured, speckled, whose ob- trusive importunity would not permit me to die at my own ease ; for by fraudulent pricklings, harpy-like graspings, waspish sting- ings, all forged in the shops of I know not what kind of insati- abilities, they called me out of those sweet thoughts wherein I was acquiescing." ' Panurge says— " I dare pawn my credit on it that no Jacobin, Cordelier, Carmelite, Capuchin, Theatin, or Minim will bestow his personal presence at his interment. The wiser they, because he has or- dained nothing for them in his last will and testament. The devil take me if I go thither. If he be damned, to his own loss and hindrance be it. Why did he abuse the good religious fathers ? Why did he drive them out of his chamber at the very time when he stood in the greatest need of their aid, of their devout prayers, of their holy admonitions ? Why did he not by testament leave them at least some crumbs, something to eat . . . to these poor folks, who have nothing but their life in this world ? " ' ' Pantagruel, iii. ch. xxi. "J'ai ce jourd'hui, qui est le dernier de mai fit de raoi, liors de ma maison, k grande fatigue et difficult^, chass^ un tas de villaines, immundes, et pestilentes bestes noires, guarres, faulves, blanohes, cendrees, grivolees, lesquelles laisser ne nie voulaient i mon aise monrir, et par fraudulentes poiuctures, gruppements liarpyaques, importunites freslo- niques, toutes forgees ea I'officine de ne sjai quelle insatiabilite. " ^ Pantngruel, iii. ch. xxiii. " Je gage que par mesme doubte h, sou «nteiTement n'assistera jacobin, cordelier, ca^me, capucin,.ne minime. Et eulx sages. Aussi bien ne leur a il rien ordonne par testament. Le diable ra'emporte si j'y vai. S'il est damn» '- son dam. Pourquoi niesdisoit-il des bons pferes de religion ? Pourquoi les avoit-il chassis hors sa chambre sns, I'heure qu'il avoit plus besoin de leur aide, de leurs devotes priferes, de leurs Bainctes admonitions ? Pourquoi par testament ne leur ordonnoit-il au nioins quelques bribes, quelque bouffage . . . aux pauvres gents, qui n'ont que ieur vie en ce monde." ^ 286 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE. BOOK III. Such unstinting applications of the lash were not likely to be borne with equanimity ; and if the wavering king had not stepped forward in defence of the author, his enemies would most likely have burned him: The characteristic virtues and vices of the Eenaissance are conspicuous throughout the works of Eabelais. The intoxica- tion of the newly-revived classical learning, the moral revolu- tion in the Church, the outburst of free thought, free speech, free action, the overcrowding of new ideas, and the dazzling splen- dour of new facts, all are present in the writings of this genial monk. Hear his paean of triumph as he casts his mind over the luxuriant richness of the century in which it has pleased God to cast his lot : — " Now it is that the learned languages are to their pristine purity restored, viz. Greek, without which a man may be ashamed to account himself a scholar, Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldsean, and Latin. Printing likewise is now in use, so elegant and so correct, which has been found out in my time by divine inspiration, as, by a diabolical suggestion on the other side, was the invention ol ordnance. All the world is full of learned men, of most learned schoolmasters, and vast libraries ; and it appears to me, that neither in Plato's time, nor Cicero's, nor Papinian's, was there ever such conveniency for studying, as we see at this day there is. Nor must any adventurer henceforward come in public, or pre- sent himself in company, that has not been pretty well poUshed in the shop of Minerva. I see robbers, hangmen, adventurers, ostlers, more learned now than the doctors and preachers were in my time. What shall I say ? The very women and maidens have aspired to this praise and celestial manna of good learning. Yet so it is, that at the age I am now of, I have been constrained to learn the Greek tongue, which I contemned not like Cato, but had not the leisure in my younger years to attend the study of it. And I take much delight in the reading of Plutarch's Morals, the pleasant Dialogues of Plato, the Monuments of Pausanias, and the Antiquities of Athenseus."' ^ Va'Bixi^rud, hook ii. ch, viii. CHAP. II. THE RENAISSANCE. 287 No woDcler if, in the face of such achievements and such a promise, he raged against the backward-looking ecclesiastics who obstinately remained in their grooves of medisevalism and scholasticism. The brief examples we have given will suffice to illustrate the style of Eabelais— a style which, as an eminent French critic 1 has remarked,- is worthy of a profound study. There can be no doubt that our author prided himself on it ; although we incline to the belief that he clung to his archaisms in part for the purpose of concealment, and in order to give his work the appearance of being written for a popular or ignorant audience. At the same time he seems to have designed that his very peculiarities of manner should be a protest against, and a satire of, the pedantic jargon so common in his day, and which he so cordially hated. He has admirably expressed this feeling by the mouth of a priggish young scholar at the "alme inclyte and celebrate academy, which is vocitated Lutetia," and who in answer to Pantagruel's question how they spend their time, replies : " We transfretate the Se- quane at the dilucul and crepuscul : we deambulate by the compites and quadrives of the urb ; we despumate the Latin verboci nation ; and, like verysimilary amorabons, we captat the benevolence of the omnijiigal, omniform, and omuigenal fceminine sex. . . . Then do we cauposinate in the meritory taberns of the Pineapple, the Castle, the Magdalene, and the Mule, goodly vervecine spatules perforaminated with petro- cile." 2 Eabelais' learning, his sound judgment on all questions of education, his zeal for the methods and theories which had commended themselves to his mind, are, next to his wit and raillery, the most prominent features of his work. In the training of the young Gargantua he has the same opportunity which J. J. Eousseau made for himself in Emile; and he uses it ' Sainte Beuve. ^ Pantagmel, book ii. ch. vi. 288 HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE, book in. effectively. In his admirable chapters on the education of Gargantua, he unfolds to us his own simple and rational plans for the development of a human being from the uncorrupted elements of humanity. The mind and the body are cultivated side by side, without preference, check, or forcing ; the facul- ties and instincts of tlic child and the youth are allowed free play ; the moral and physical qualities are expanded by a healthy and well-directed exercise. No hour of the day was sacrificed to idleness ; for no hour of the day was without its due provision of recreation, of relaxation, or of appointed study. The weakness of Eousseau's system — for it is im- possible to give to the whole of his well-considered plan of education the assent and commendation due to the greater portion of it — is that he would leave too much to the chapter of accidents during the earlier years of childhood, forbidding any attempt to mould or train the mind until a certain age has been attained. Rabelais has not thus de- layed the application of his rules and methods. Read the account which he gives of one day's occupations, and say whether this liberal-minded monk of the sixteenth century had not worthily and wisely addressed himself to the elabora- tion of his system. Gargantua' awaked then about four o'clock in the morning. Whilst they were rubbing of him, there was read unto him some chapter of the Holy Scripture aloud and clearly. . . . Ac- cording to the purpose and argument of that lesson, he oftentimes set himself to worship, adore, pray, and send up his supplicar tions .to that good God, whose word did show his majesty and marvellous judgment. . . . This done he was apparelled, combed, curled, trimmed, and perfumed, during which time they repeated to him the lessons of the day before. He himself said them by heart, and upon this would ground some practical cases concern- A ing the estate of man. . . . Then for three good hours he had a lecture read unto him. This done they went forth, still confer- ' Oargantua, book i. ch. sxm. CHAP. II. THE RENAISSANCE. 289 ring of the substance of the lecture, either to a tennis-court, or thereabout, where they played at the ball, the long-tennis, and at the pile trigone, most gallantly exercising their bodies, as for- merly they had done their minds. . . . Then . . . walking soberly, went to see if dinner was ready. ... At the beginning of the meal, there was read some pleasant history of the warlike actions of former times, until he had taken a glass of wine. Then, if they thought good, they continued reading, or began to discourse merrily together ... of all that was served at that table. . . . Afterwards they conferred of the lessons read in the morning . . . He washed his hands and eyes with fair fresh water, and gave thanks unto God in some fine canticks, made in praise of the divine bounty and munificence. This done, they brought in cards, not to play, but to learn a thousand pretty tricks, and new in- ventions, which were all grounded upon arithmetic. . . . After this they recreated themselves with singing musically . . . then betooE: himself to his principal study for three hours together, or more, as well as repeat his matutinal lectures, as to proceed in the book wherein he was, as also to write handsomely, to draw and form the antique and Eoman letters. This being done, they went out of their house, and with them a young gentleman of Touraine, named the Esquire Gymnast, who taught him the art of riding. Changing then his clothes, he rode a Naples courser, Dutch roussin,