J I is '■IVMIH^ ^ojiivdjo^ ;W/A I ^/■HHAINIUtf^ u? 1 lr >FCA1IF(% ^OFCAllFOfifc, AWE-UNrVfltt/A ^UDNVSOV^ %BAJM3lW MIF(% '#- i o THNV-SOV^ vvlOSANGEIfj> ^d05ANGElfo> %aMiMMV ^UIBRARY-0/ ^OF-CAllFORfe ^OFCAIIFO^ y 0Aavaai}# ^Aavaan fltf/A ■%3AINfl-3W^ JIWOJO^ JIIVOJO^ riJDNV-SQl^ -IVfltf/A & nS ^UIBRARYQr I'M ^/OJITVj tf-CAllFORfc \\tf 1 UNIVFJH , // i ^Aavaan^ ^ctOS-ANCFJ i , o IDNYSOV^ <\V\E-UNIVEM/a ^/HBAINIHW^ avIOS-ANCHFju \r .^OFCAIIF -vftUIBKAKY^r -^vtLIBKA! .^0FCALIF0% r0% -< WttUNIYtf .^.B.Cl-APKEco THE LITERATURE OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE Sontion: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. (glasgoto: 50, WELLINGTON STREET. M i i\ i. i' SS-, 1l£i0>ig: F. A. BROCKHAUS. #tfo Jfork: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 6ombag anb Calcutta: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. [All Rights reserved^ THE LITERATURE OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE BY ARTHUR TILLEY, M.A. FELLOW AND LECTURER OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE VOLUME II CAMBRIDGE: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1904 ©ambritige PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. College Library I9o4- CONTENTS CHAPTER XVII THE LESSER STARS i. Tyard, Belleau, Baif TyaRD and his poetry His sonnet on Sleep. BELLEAU His translation of " Anacreon"; his Bergerie; Avril His Pierres precieuses; UAmethyste J. -A. de Baif ; his education . His Amours; his collected works His Mimes .... His experiments in metre Founds the Academic depoesie et de musique His later years and death 2. Magny, Tahureau, Louise Lade, /amy ft La pierre aqueuse Magny ; compared to A. de Musset .... His Amours and Gayetes . His Souspirs; two sonnets quoted ..... His Odes .......... Two Odes quoted His general characteristics. TAHUREAU His sonnets ......... Stanzas from De la vanite des hommes .... His Dialogues. The literary circle of Poitiers Louise Labe Her life and poems ; three sonnets quoted Her Dedal de/olie et d'amour Inferior poets ; La Boetie One of his sonnets quoted. Scevole de Sainte-Marthe His sonnets ; his Pacdotrophia and Elogia JamyN; his translations of Homer ; his sonnets His servility towards his royal patrons .... PAGE I 2 3 4 5 6 9 io ib. 1 1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 1 1 1 9869 VI CONTENTS PAGE 3. The work of the Pleiad The poetical creed of the Pleiad 27 Reforms in vocabulary 28 Reforms in syntax ; theory of style 29 Defects ; the substitution of literature for life ; contempt for the multitude 30 Lack of self-criticism 31 Services of the Pleiad to poetry. Bibliography .... 32 CHAPTER XVIII THE SECOND GENERATION Change from Greek to Latin ideals ..... Ronsard's retirement from the Court ; new developements 1. Du Bartas Du Bartas; his Judith and Uranie Publication of his Semaines Decay of his fame; characteristics of his work Specimens of his style His use of compound epithets . His patriotism; quotation P. DE Brach and his poetry. PiBRAC His Quatrains; specimens quoted . His Les plaisirs de la vie rustique 2. Desportes DESPORTES; his sojourn in Italy His Premieres CEuvres published; his success at Court His latter days; his hospitality ; his plagiarisms His Italian models; his wit ....... His sonnet to Sleep; his songs ; Rozette ..... Another song Stanzas from his poem on country life ..... His spiritual sonnets ; his debt to the Diana of Montemor General characteristics of his poetry ..... PASSERAT ; his work as a Latin scholar; his epitaph Merits of his style; his villanelle His ode on May-day DURANT; his poetry Rapin ; his poetry Guy DE TOURS; his youthful poetry; one of his sonnets quoted 34 35 36 37 38 40 41 42 43 44 45 ib. 46 47 48 49 5° 5i 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 CONTENTS vii PAGE 3. Vauqueli?i de la Fresnaye Jean le Houx and his Vaux de Vire 60 Specimen quoted. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye .... 61 His Foresteries; his public career ; his collected poems ... 62 Character of his poetry 63 Specimens 64 His satires; his Art poetique ........ 65 The lyrics of Garnier and Montchrestien. Decreasing pro- duction of poetry during the last quarter of the sixteenth century ........... 67 Bibliography .68 CHAPTER XIX THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA Religious mysteries prohibited ; decline of mediaeval comedy . . 70 Influence of the classical drama ....... 71 Performance of Ronsard's translation of the Plutus of Aristophanes 72 1 . Tragedy Performances of Jodelle's Clcopatre lb. Analysis of Cleopdtre -73 Character of Cleopatra; versification. Influence of Seneca . . 74 Italian tragedy . . 75 Jodelle's treatment of the Chorus. The Medee of Bastier DE la Peruse. Jodelle's Didon 76 His later work; one of his sonnets quoted 77 Grevin ; his Cesar 78 His travels and death 79 RlVAUDEAU's A man; Scaliger's Poetice 80 Unity of time and place in Jodelle's and GreVin's plays . . .81 Jean de la Taille's De Vart de la Tragedie 82 His life and writings 83 One of his songs quoted 84 His Saiil and Les Gabeonites. JACQUES DE la Taille ... 85 Beza's Abraham sacrifiant. Des Masures's David ... 86 Irregular tragedy ; La Soltane 87 Philanire. Lack of stage experience ...... 88 viii CONTENTS PAGE Garnier; his Porcie 90 Hippolyte; Come lie 91 Marc-Antoine; La Troade; Antigone 92 Les Juives 93 Chorus from Les Juives 94 Montchrestien; his L Ecossaise 95 His other plays 97 Tragi-comedy ; earliest use of the name 98 Lucelle 99 Garnier's Bradamante . 101 2. Comedy Italian comedy ; Ariosto . Character of his comedies The Mandragola ; Gli Ingannati Jodelle's Eugene Grevin's Les Esbahis Belleau's La Reconnue; Jean de laTaille's Les Cor Baif's translations; performance of Le Brave; Italian actors at Paris Larivey ; general character of his comedies Les Esprits and his other comedies ..... O. de Turnebe's Les Contents Les Neapolitaines of F. d'Amboise; Perrin's Les Escoliers Godard's Les Desguisez ; Le Loyer's Le muet insettse Failure of Renaissance drama ; its caus*es 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 no 11 1 112 US 114 3. Pastoral drama Dramatic eclogues. Pastoral plays; Filleul'S Les Ombres . .115 Influence of the Diana and of Tasso's Aminta. N. de Montreux i 16 Other pastoral plays. Bibliography 117 CONTENTS PART III ( 1 580-1605) MONTAIGNE CHAPTER XX THE RETURN TO NATURE PAGE Condition of France from 1580 to 1594 123 Growth of French prose. Literature becomes more serious and more national . . 124 Pare and Palissy ; their lack of classical learning . . . .125 Pare; his career as a surgeon 126 His writings 127 His Apologie et voyages . .128 Palissy 129 His life to 1563; his Recepte veritable . . . . . .130 His style 131 Specimens of his style . . . . . . . . .132 His later life and his Discours admirables . . . . 133 Passage from De Vart de terre . 134 Bibliography 135 CHAPTER XXI MONTAIGNE Montaigne a favourite with Englishmen His father, Pierre Eyquem ; his mother a Protestant; his manner of education . At the College of Guyenne; becomes a magistrate. La Boetie His Contr'un ........... His influence on Montaigne ; his death. Montaigne's marriage. Death of his father Translates R. de Sebonde's Theologia naturalis; publishes La Boe'tie's writings. Resigns his magisterial office 136 137 138 139 140 141 His chateau; the library 142 CONTENTS His books. Greek and Latin Sentences Life in retirement from 1571 to 1580. Publication of his Essays His travels ........ Appointed Mayor of Bordeaux. Second term of office Henry of Navarre's visit to his chateau. The plague Publication of his Essays with the Third book Letters to Henry IV. Death . Questions raised by his Essays Growth of his Essays ; First book Second book ; self-portraiture . Envoi and preface ..... Third book; its bolder character. Quotations The posthumous edition of 1595 Additions to the Essays. Montaigne's design His portrait Comparison with his character as presented in his Journal Character of his self-revelations. His debt to Seneca and Plutarch Their influence on him His philosophy of life Distinction between his theories and his practice His views on education His religion His scepticism ..... The Apologie de Raymond de Sebonde Character of his scepticism His style; its impressionism His method; Essay On Coaches Imaginative character of his style Examples of his style Bibliography ..... PAGE M3 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 53 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 169 171 172 174 175 176 CHAPTER XXII THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS Rabelais's imitators .180 Yver and his Printemps .181 Tabourot 183 Du Fail; his Propos rustiques 184 His Baliverneries and Contes et discours d'Eutrapc/ . . .185 Cholieres 186 BOUCHET 187 Beroalde de Verville 188 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . .189 CONTENTS XI CHAPTER XXIII MEMOIRS AND LETTERS i. Brantome, Margaret of Valois, Henry IV, Monluc, La None BRANTOJME compared with Montaigne His career His character; his writings Character of his biographies His digressions; his style His view of the society of his day Margaret of Valois ; her memoirs and letters Henry IV; his letters Letter to la belle Corisande Letters to Crillon and others La Noue ; his Discours politiques et Specimens of his style Its character .... Moni.uc ; his character . His military career; his defence of Siena Comnlentaires ....... His wound ; another passage from his Cointnentaires His retirement and death ; his style militaires passage from his 2. UEstoile, Tava tines, Sully Memoirs of the period ......... P. de L'Estoile ; his Memoires-Journaux JEAN DE TAVANNES; compared with Saint-Simon . VIEILLEVILLE ; his memoirs more or less fictitious .... Choisnin. Boyvin du Villars. Rabutin. Salignac. Coligny Castelnau. Mergy. Mme. du Plessis-Mornay Sully; the form of his memoirs ....... An excellent story-teller; his character ...... Publication of his memoirs ........ Bibliography . . . PAGE 190 191 192 193 194 194 195 196 197 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 21 1 212 213 214 215 216 CHAPTER XXIV HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE Memoirs and contemporary history . Histories of La Place and La Planche Palma Cayet. La Popeliniere . 218 219 220 Xll CONTENTS J.-A. DETHOU; his Historiae sui temporis His choice of Latin a mistake . Du HAILLAN'S history of France. Beginnings of scientific history BODIN; his Methodus; his Six livres de la Republique . General estimate of ; special features Bodin's preference for hereditary monarchy . His advocacy of religious toleration ; his Colloquium Heptaplomeres Bibliography PAGE 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 id. CHAPTER XXV THE SATIRE MENIPP^E Minor pamphlets of the wars of religion ; Le Tigre Le Livre des Marchands. The Discours merveilleux The Franco-Gallia and the Vindiciae contra tyrannos The League and the legitimists; Dorleans and Belloy. The two Discours of HURAULT DU Fay ; the Anti-Espagnol of ARNAUD The Politiques ; Gillot and his friends .... Le Roy; Chrestien ; P. Pithou The genesis of the Satire Menippee; its contents Character of the Satire; the speeches .... Speech of Mayenne, the Cardinal Legate, and others Speech of D'Aubray Passages quoted General character of the speech. Verses Sainte-Aldegonde's Tableau des differens de la religion Bibliography ......... 229 230 231 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 CHAPTER XXVI D'AUBIGNE Satirical character of Les Tragiques. D'Aubigne's versatility His life; scene at Amboise His military career in the service of Henry of Navarre; his retire- ment to Maillezais .... His last years at Geneva ; his publications His character. His Histoire Universelle Its plan and character .... Dramatic scenes; portraits Political summaries. The Confession de Sancy 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 CONTENTS Xlll PAGE Les aventures de Fceneste . . . . . . . . .252 D'Aubigne"'s stories; his letters 253 His prose style ........... 254 Specimen passages .......... 255 His youthful poetry {Printemps) ....... 256 Its character .'......... 257 His epic La Creation; Les Tragiques 258 Its lack of composition 259 Passages from the Second book {Les Princes) ..... 260 Single lines and couplets 261 Bibliography 262 forerunner of CHAPTER XXVII THE YEARS OF TRANSITION The restoration of order Characteristics of the period of transition: (1) repose, (2) serious- ness, (3) decline of imagination. Bertaut His official poems His volume of love-poetry .... Passage from the first elegy .... His volume of graver poetry; its character; Malherbe Influence of Tasso. Du Perron . His prose. Du Plessis-Mornay . His De la verite de la religion chrestienne Charron's Les trois verites; his appearance and character Publication of La Sagesse; his death Plagiarisms of La Sagesse; analysis of its contents Second book ....... Third book Purpose of the book; its popularity . Du VAIR; his position as a writer; his political action His treatises; De la Constance es catamites publiques His De V "eloquence francoise ..... Chief forensic speakers of his day .... Pulpit oratory . Political oratory; Du Vair as a speaker ; his career from 1596 His style; specimen passage .... OSSAT and JEANNIN. O. DE SERRES His Theatre d' Agriculture ; its character . Specimen of his style Bibliography First book 264 265 266 267 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 =89 CONTENTS CHAPTER XXVIII REGNIER Regnier belongs to the Renaissance .... His life The beginnings of Satire in France ; Satire in Italy Ariosto. Burlesque ........ Satirical poems of Du Bellay and Ronsard Of Jean de la Taille. Satires of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye Regnier's first attempts Satires III-VI Satires Vli-ix. First edition of his Satires Satires X and XI ; imitations of Berni and Caporali Satire XIII {Macette) ; sources Character of Macette The religious revival. Regnier's last satires Regnier as an observer of life ; his lack of constructive power Individuality of his style ....... Examples .......... Regnier and Malherbe ....... Note on the date of Regnier's earliest satire Bibliography PAGE 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 303 304 305 306 307 308 CHAPTER XXIX CONCLUSION Contrast between the first and the second period Renaissance and Reform Third period; reaction against Italian influence Attitude of Montaigne towards the Renaissance; the developement of individualism and free inquiry ..... Characteristics of Renaissance literature ; individualism . Vividness; imagination ........ Weakness in artistic conception and execution Absence of a central standard ; provincial centres ; Bordeaux Poitiers ; Rouen ; Eastern France The growth of French prose ; Rabelais and Calvin ; disappearance of archaisms from the language ..... Amyot. Montaigne ......... French prose becomes more orderly and logical. Literatures of the English and the French Renaissance compared The French Renaissance excels in memoirs, conies, and satire; re semblance between the two literatures .... 310 3H 312 313 315 3i6 317 3i8 319 320 321 323 CONTENTS XV PAGE The qualities of the French race; the influence of the environment and the " moment " 324 Influence of humanism. Renaissance literature unclassical in form 325 This due to the lack of the critical spirit 326 Appendix E. The authorship of the Discours merveilleux . . 327 „ F. The genesis of the Satire Mctiippee 1. Bibliography of the more important early editions 329 2. The primitive text ...... 330 „ G. On some biographical and bibliographical works . 332 „ H. Chronological table 336 CORRIGENDA p. 68, 1. 24. For 1549 read 1594. p. 189, 1. 5. For 1513 read 1583. p. 217, 1. 12. For 1738 read 1638. CHAPTER XVII THE LESSER STARS I. Tyard, Belle ate, Ba'if. Of the remaining members of the Pleiad, Jodelle is chiefly known by his dramatic work and must therefore be reserved for a later chapter, while Dorat wrote little French poetry and that of no importance. Pontus de Tyard was a poet only in his younger days 1 . He was a man of property and exercised much hospitality at his chateau of Bissy in the Maconnais. In 1 578 he was made bishop of Chalons-sur-Saone. He lived till the very end of our period, dying in 1605, the year in which Malherbe came to Paris. His first volume of poetry, composed chiefly of sonnets, entitled Erreurs amou- reuses, appeared at the close of 1549 2 . Like Du Bellay's Olive, which had appeared, as we have seen, earlier in the year, it shews strong marks of the combined influence of Petrarchism and the doctrine of spiritual love, and thus furnishes additional evidence of how closely at first the Pleiad trod in the footsteps of the school of Lyons. As in the case of Sceve, Tyard's favourite models were the Italians who flourished at the close of the fifteenth century, especially Cariteo and Tebaldeo, whose sugared conceits he delights in reproducing. Two years later (1 55 1 ) he shewed his interest in the subject of spiritual love by translating the Dialoghi di amove of Leo Hebraeus 3 and in the same year he published Continuation 1 1521-1605. See Pasquier, Recherches, VII. c. x. ; Jeandet, Pontus de Tyard. 2 The printing was finished November 5 ; the date of the privilege is September 13, 1549. ;i It appeared without his name, but with his device; see ante, I. 137 — 8. T. II. I 2 THE LESSER STARS [CH. des Erreurs atnotireuses. A third book of Erreurs and a volume entitled Livre de vers lyriques, both of which appeared in 1555, shew more traces of the influence of Ronsard, but throughout his short poetical career Tyard remained more or less independent of the chief of the Pleiad 1 . His work is unoriginal, correct and dull, but one sonnet, which first appeared in the collected edition of his poems published in 1573, is worth quoting : Pere du doux repos, Sommeil, pere du Songe, Maintenant que la nuict, d'une grande ombre obscure, Faict a cest air serain humide couverture, Viens, Sommeil desire, et dans mes yeux te plonge. Ton absence, Sommeil, languissamment allonge Et me fait plus sentir la peine que j'endure. Viens, Sommeil, l'assoupir et la rendre moins dure, Viens abuser mon mal de quelque doux mensonge. Ja le muet Silence un esquadron conduit De fantosmes ballans dessous l'aveugle nuict ; Tu me dedaignes seul, qui te suis tant devot ! Viens, Sommeil desire", m'environner la teste, Car, d'un vceu non menteur, un bouquet je t'appreste De ta chere morelle et de ton cher pavot 2 . It may be added that Tyard, true to his strong Italian proclivities, not only used terza rima but was the first to introduce the sesiina into France. There are two examples of it in his Erreurs amoureuses 3 . There remain Remy Belleau and Jean-Antoine de Baifr- . of whom Belleau is decidedly the better poet. With little originality or vigour he reaches by dint of careful obser- vation, patient workmanship, good taste, and sincerity a high level of execution. He had a genuine love of country life and simple country ways, and his eclogues shew more of the spirit of Virgil than those of any other writer of his school. Of all the members of the Pleiad he was Ronsard's closest friend and most constant companion. Born, according to 1 See F. Flamini, in Rev. de la Ken. 1. 43 fF. 2 CEuvres, ed. Marty- Laveaux, p. 166; Saintsbury, Specimens of French I iterature, p. 68. s L. E. Kastner, History of French Versification, p. 284, prints three strophes and the envoi of a sestina. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 3 Colletet, in 1526 or 1 527 1 , he made his debut in 1556 with the translation of " Anacreon " to which reference has already been made. His renderings are neat and graceful enough, but Ronsard hit the mark when, punning on his name, he said he was too sober to translate Anacreon 2 . In the same year he became attached to the household of Rene de Lorraine, Marquis d'Elbeuf, a younger brother of the Due de Guise, and accompanied him on the ill-starred expedition to Naples in 1557. Some six years later he became tutor to his son and took up his residence at the chateau of Joinville. His principal works are a comedy, of which hereafter, a Bergerie, and Amours et nonveaux ec hauges de pierres precieuses . The Bergerie is divided into a premiere and seconde journee, the first 'day' being published separately in 1565 and the complete work in 1572. It consists of various poems, more or less relating to country life, strung together on a loose thread of prose after the fashion of Sannazaro's Arcadia. Among the more noteworthy are a Chant pastoral on the death of Joachim du Bellay 3 , an Epithalame for Charles de Lorraine and Claude, daughter of Henry II 4 , and a song beginning Douce et belle bouc/ielette 5 . But the best and the best known i s Avril 6 : Avril, l'honneur et des bois Et des mois, Avril, la douce esperance Des fruits qui sous le coton Du bouton Nourrissent leur jeune enfance ; Avril, l'honneur des prez verds, Jaunes, pers, Qui d'une humeur bigarree Emaillent de mille fleurs De couleurs Leur parure diaprde. 1 Colletet, whose Life is prefixed to Gouverneur's edition, says that he died March 7, 1577, aged fifty. The day of the month is wrongly given (see post). 2 Tu es un trop sec hiberon Pour un tourneur d'Anacreon. Odes, II. xxii. 3 CEuvres, ed. Marty-Laveaux, I. 293 (first published separately in 1560). 4 ib. 238. 5 id. 279. 6 id. 201; translated by A. Lang, Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, p. 19. 4 THE LESSER STARS [CH. There is nothing highly original in this poem, written as it was after Ronsard's Bel aabespin florissant, but it is exceed- ingly graceful and throughout the whole thirteen stanzas there is not a flaw in the workmanship. For such originality as Belleau possessed we must look to his Pier res precieuses or metamorphoses 1 . Here his talent for portraying the physical aspect of things, which is comparable to that of Theophile Gautier, shews to advantage. The best of the purely narrative pieces is UAiuet.li.ystp., which contains the following elaborate and glowing description of the car of Dionysus : D'un pied prompt et leger ces folles Bassarides Environnent le char ; l'une se pend aux brides Des onces mouchetez d'estoiles sur le dos, Onces a l'ceil subtil, au pied souple et dispos, Au mufie herisse de deux longues moustaches ; L'autre met dextrement les tigres aux attaches Tisonnez sur la peau, les couple deux a deux : lis ronflent de colere et vont rouillant les yeux. Un fin drap d'or frise, seme" de pedes fines, Les couvre jusqu'au flanc, les houpes a crespines Flottent sur le genou : plus humbles devenus, On agence leur queue en tortillons menus. D'or fin est le branquar, d'or la jante et la roue Et d'yvoire indien est la pouppe et la proue : L'une soustient le char, l'autre dans le moyeu Des rouleaux accouplez met les bouts de l'essieu, Puis tirant la surpente allegrement habile, Arreste les anneaux d'une longue cheville Dans les trous du branquar : le dessus est couvert De liene menu et de ce pampre verd Ou pendent a l'envy les grappes empourpre'es Sous les tapis rameux des fueillades pampre'es 2 . La Perle* is a fairly good lyric, though more descriptive than lyrical, but the gem of the whole series is the lyrical romance entitled La pierre aqueuse or Aquamarine — which begins as follows : C'estoit une belle brune Filant au clair de la lune, 1 Les amours et nouveaux eschanges de pierres precieuses : vertus et frcprictez d'icelles, 1576. 2 CEuvres, 11. 171. 3 ib. 186. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 5 Qui laissa choir son fuzeau Sur le bord d'une fontaine : Mais courant apres sa laine Plonge la teste dans l'eau, Et se noya la pauvrette : Car a sa voix trop foiblette Nul son desastre sentit, Puis assez loin ses compagnes Parmi les verdes campagnes Gardoyent leur troupeau petit. Ha ! trop cruelle adventure ! Ha ! mort trop fiere et trop dure ! Et trop cruel le flambeau, Sacre" pour son hymenee, Qui l'attendant l'a menee, Au lieu du lit, au tombeau 1 . The year after the publication of Les pierres precieuses, Belleau died, and Ronsard wrote for him the shortest and best of his epitaphs : Ne taillez, mains industrieuses, Des pierres pour couvrir Belleau : Luy-mesme a basty son tombeau Dedans ses pierres precieuses 2 . Jean-Antoine de Baif w as, as we have seen, the member of the Pleiad whose association with Ronsard was of longest date. The son of a man who was not only in high place but was of considerable distinction as a humanist, he had from his tenderest years the most distinguished scholars in France for his tutors, Charles Estienne, Jacques Toussain and Jean Dorat 3 . His father died in 1547 leaving him a house in Paris and a small property in Anjou. He was only twenty when he published a narrative poem, imitated from Moschus, 1 CEuvres, II. 248. 2 Ronsard, CEuvres, VII. 247. Belleau was buried on the 6th of March, 1577, so that Colletet is wrong in giving March 7 as the day of his death. 3 He was born at Venice in February 1532 : Oust (Aout) dans Paris vit le carnage (the massacre of St Bartholomew) ; Le fevrier davant, mon dge Van quarantieme accomplissoit. For an account of his early life see the poem Au roy, which was prefixed to the collected edition of his poems published in 1572-3. He died in 1589. 6 THE LESSER STARS [CH. entitled Le ravissement cT Europe (1552) 1 , and it is doubtful whether he ever wrote anything better. It has the merit of grace and elegance and a lively fancy, and to these qualities Bai'f added little in later life. At the close of the same year he published another small volume entitled A mouzs, addressed to a fictitious lady under the name of Meline 2 . It is noteworthy that little more than half the pieces are sonnets — in the second part there are only two — and that these are much inferior to the other poems, which are chiefly odes of a light character. The odes are at any rate natural, being alike in form and matter far better suited than the Petrarchian sonnet to Ba'rf's temperament. For he was neither a man of strong emotions nor a conscientious artist. Unfortunately in his next attempt, having meanwhile found a real mistress 3 who treated him with the orthodox Petrarchian cruelty, he reverted to the sonnet-form with increased energy, and the new volume, entitled Amours de Franci ne, and divided into four books, serves to shew that a real mistress can inspire just as cold and artificial poetry as a fictitious one. In the two latter books there are no sonnets, and one of the best pieces A pres les vents is written in t erza ri ma, but it is characteristic of Bai'f, who was nothing if not an improvisatore , that the execu- tion falls off considerably towards the close of the poem 4 . In 1 572—3 he published a collected edition of his works in four volumes. The fourth, entitled Les passetemps, contains his most celebrated poem Du_printeinps 5 , which is often compared with Belleau's ^^r/7. But the execution is more commonplace and by no means so uniformly careful. If we compare the poem with Meleager's original, we see how Bai'f shirks the little details and delicate touches of the Greek artist. The best stanza is the last : 1 CEuvres, ed. Marty-Laveaux, II. 421 ; Poesies choisies, ed. Becq de Fouquieres, p. 78. 2 Les amours de Jan Anloine de Baif, 1^52 ; the printing was finished on December 10. 3 She was sister to the lady whom Jacques Tahureau celebrated under the name of FAdmiree. * CEuvres, II. 97; Poisies choisies, p. 152. 5 CEuvres, IV. 210; Poesies choisies, p. 233. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 7 Et si le chanter m'agre'e, N'est-ce pas avec raison, Puisqu'ainsi tout se recree Avec la gaye saison. But if Bai'f was an indifferent poet, he was a man of an active and enterprising mind who delighted to experiment in various directions. He translated the Antigone of Sophocles and the Eunuchus of Terence and adapted the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus to French readers. But his most popular and at the same time his most original work is Mimes, enseignements et proverbes, of which two books were published in his lifetime and two after his death 1 . The term mimes was due to the fact that the chief source of the work was the Sententiae of Publilius Syrus, a mime-writer of the first century B.C., whose mimes or farces contained numerous wise and moral sayings, which were collected in the first century of our era and largely added to during the middle ages. They were edited by Henri Estienne, and were frequently translated into French in the course of the sixteenth century 2 . Besides this source Bai'f drew from Theognis and Phocylides, and from two modern collections of sayings, the Adages of Jean le Bon and a collec- tion of Italian proverbs with French equivalents which was published in 1548. Thus his Mimes consist of a variety of satirical and moral reflexions, with the occasional introduction of a short fable, strung together with little or no attempt at unity and written in a jerky octosyllabic metre. The one addressed to Villeroy may serve as a specimen. The opening lines give an account of the writer's various literary per- formances : Quand je pense au divers ouvrage Ou j'ai badine tout mon age, Tantost epigrammatisant, Tantost sonnant la tragedie, Puis me gossant en comedie, Puis des amours petrarquisant 3 . 1 Book I was published in 1576, I and II together in 1581 and the whole four books in 1597. 2 P. Syrus is often quoted by Montaigne, once by name. 3 CEuvres, V. 41; Poesies choisies, p. 2X7. 8 THE LESSER STARS [CH. There is more unity about the last mime of the fourth book, in which Bai'f, writing as a catholic and a loyalist, advocates as Ronsard had done in his earliest discours a reform of the church from within. As poetry the mimes are hardly superior to Marot's coq a Vanes, on which Du Bellay poured such contempt, but the style is well-suited to Bai'f's facile and slipshod method of production. Another novelty was a didactic poem on Meteorology, imitated from Aratus, Virgil and Manilius, but only one book appeared 1 . Bai'f's other experiments were in the direction of language and metre. In 1574 he published a volume entitled Etrenes de poezie fransoeze en vers mezitres 2 , in which he not only adhered with a few modifications to the system of spelling advocated by Ramus, but gave specimens of poems written in classical metres. It is obvious that such an attempt is far more difficult in French than in English, and that at any rate Bai'f was not the man to accomplish so great a revolution. Although some other poets, Marc-Claude de Buttet,D'Aubigne, Passerat, and especially Rapin, made similar experiments, the attempt to introduce ' measured ' verse met with little favour 3 . Bai'f however persevered for a time in his task, and among the poems unpublished at his death were a translation of the Psalms (completed in 1573) and three books of Chansonnettes in vers m esures*. In spite of his failure it is possible that if a stronger poet, Ronsard for instance, had gone to work on somewhat different lines there might have been introduced into French poetry at this critical stage of its developement a 1 Le premier des meteor es, 1567; CEuvres, II. 1; Poesies c/ioisies, pp. 7 ff. 2 i.e. verse scanned according to quantity. 3 See for these attempts Pasquier, Recherches, VII. c. xi; D'Aubigne, CEuvres, I. 453 ; Darmesteter and Hatzfeld, pp. 1 13 ff. ; Kastner, op. cit. 295 ff. (an excellent account). About the year 1562 Jacques de la Taille wrote a treatise entitled La maniere defaire des vers en francois comme en grec el en latin, but it was not published till after his death in 1573. 4 He also introduced a line of fifteen syllables, scanned in the ordinary way, which he called vers baifin : Je veux donner aux Francois un vers de phis libre accordance Pour le joindre au luth sonue d'une moins contraincte cadance. He also invented other rhythms, which shew however more ingenuity than taste. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 9 certain amount of quantitative measurement, and as a conse- sequence a larger musical element. For at the bottom of Bai'f's attempted reforms both in spelling and in versification was the belief which he shared with Ronsard 1 i n the clo se connexion between poetry and music. It was this belief which led him to found under the —patronage of Charles IX the Academie d e poesie et de musique 2 . Established at the close of 1570 3 it consisted of two classes of members, Musicians or poets and Listeners (Auditeurs), the former class being paid stipends provided by the sub- scriptions of the latter. At the weekly meetings which were held on Sundays, as a rule in Bai'f's house, the Musicians recited their poems, apparently to the accompaniment of music 4 . During the lifetime of Charl es IX, who accepted the title of Protector and First Listener of the society, the Academy flourished greatly, and numbered the chief poets of the day among its members. Its chief business was, as Sainte-Beuve says, the determination of the quantity of sounds 5 , a work with which, as we have seen, the phonetic reforms, proposed by Bai'f and others, were closely connected. And not only in the matter of quantity, but in everything connected with poetry, Bai'f endeavoured to revive classical practices. It was before the Academy that he recited his versions of 1 La musique, disoit-il, est la sceur puisnie de la poesie. . .sans la niusiqite la poesie est presqite sans grace. Binet, Vie de Ronsard. 2 See E. Fremy, V academie des dcrniers I'alois, 1887. 3 Date of letters-patent, November, 1570. 4 Les musiciens seront tenus tons les Jours de dimanche chanter et reciter leurs lettres et musique mesurees, selon fordre convenu par entr'eux, deux heures d'horloge durant en faveur des auditeurs escrits an livre de r academie ou enrigistreront les noms, sumo/us et qualitez de ceux qui se cottisent pour Pentretien de f academie, ensemble la somme en laquelle se seront de leur gre cottisez ; et pareillement les noms et sttrnoms des musiciens d'icelle et les convenances sous lesquelles ils seront entrez, receics et appointez. (Statute 2.) The twelfth statute is so admirable that I cannot forbear quoting it also : Les auditeurs, durant que I'on ckantera, ne parleront ny ne s'acousleront ny feront bruit, mat's se tiendront le plus coy qiiil leur sera possible, jusques a ce que la chanson qui se prononcera soil fuiie ; et durant que se dira tine chanson, ne fraperont h. I'huis de la sale qiion ouvrira a la fin de chaque chanson pour admettre les audi- teurs attendans. 3 Mesurer les sons elcmenlaires de la langue ( Tableau, p. 81). IO THE LESSER STARS [CH. Sophocles and Terence, and made suggestions for the intro- duction on the French stage of the rhythmical movements of the classical chorus 1 . After the death of Charles IX the Academy languished for a time till in the year 1576 it was reconstituted. Bai'f himself soon after the realisation of his project began to suffer from the complaint of which he eventually died, and the remainder of his life was clouded not only by the straitened circumstances in which the religious wars involved so many men of letters, but by ill-health. He survived however all the members of the Pleiad except Pontus de Tyard, and died on September 19, 1589, while the new king, Henry IV, was fighting against the League at Arques. Nature had not endowed Bai'f with more than a slender portion of poetic genius, and he did not sufficiently cultivate that portion. The faults more or less common to the whole school, the dependence on models, the pedantry, the artificiality, are more conspicuous in him than in any other member of it. But the classical Renaissance had no more enthusiastic or enter- prising champion, not even in Ronsard himself. 2. Magny, Tahureau, Louise Labe, Jamyn. Outside the actual Pleiad, the most productive and, with the exception of Louise Labe, the most interesting poet, at any rate of those who confined themselves to non-dramatic poetry, is Olivier de Magny. He has been compared to Alfred de Musset, and certainly he reminds us of Sainte-Beuve's remarks on that poet : " il entra dans le sanctnaire lyrique tout eperonne, et par la fenetre,je le crois bien," and again, " il osa avoir de lesprit, mime avec un brin de seandale." And Magny might have said of himself, as Musset did : 77 dta.it gai, jenne et hardi, Et se jetait en etourdi A Paventure; Librement il respirait Pair, Et pai'fois il se montrait Jier D'une blessure. 1 See Baif's An roy {Poesies choisies, p. 52). XVII] THE LESSER STARS II For Magny, like Musset, drank freely of the cup of pleasure, and he gives us his ' confessions ' with the same naive frankness. But his love-affairs, unlike Musset's, never passed from the domain of gallantry to that of passion, so that though he outlived the age at which Musset had written practically all his best things, he resembles rather the poet of the Andalouse and the Ballade a la lime than the poet of the Nuits and the Stances a la Malibran. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it must have been about 1530 1 . He was quite a young man when he came from Cahors, of which like Marot he was a native, to Paris, where he became secretary to his fellow-provincial Hugues Salel, abbot of Saint- Cheron 2 . His patron dying in 1553 he was left for a time without any regular employment. It was doubtless with a view to obtaining it that he published in that year a volume of poems entitled Amours. It consisted of 102 sonnets addressed to an ideal mistress, probably Marguerite de Gordon, a noble lady of the neighbourhood of Cahors, and of fifteen odes, of which some are addressed to various friends and others to a real mistress, whom he calls Castianire 3 . In the ease and fluency of its verse this volume is very similar to Bai'f's Amours and as in the case of Baif the odes of the real lover are superior to the sonnets of the ideal one. They have the grace and liveliness which come naturally to Magny when he is himself and not an imitator of others. The succeeding volume, Gayete's, published in 1554, shews the same qualities and deals with the same subjects, love and friendship. The longest piece, Les Matinales, is a clever imitation of Ronsard's Les Bacc/tanales*. Early in 1555 he went to Rome as secretary to Jean d'Avanson, who was charged with a special mission to the Pope 5 . He returned in 1556 and in the following year 1 For Magny see J. Favre, Olivier de Magny, 1885. 2 See ante, I. p. 93. 3 He also published in 1553 Hymne sur la naissance de Madame Marguerite de France., avec quelques autres vers liriques {Dernieres poesies). 4 Ed. E. Courbet, p. 62. 5 M. Favre, p. 53, assigns this mission to 1553; the correct date is given by 12 THE LESSER STARS [CH. published a new volume under the title of Souspirs. It was written at Rome at the same time as Du Bellay's Regrets, which it closely resembles in title, form and substance : Selon les passions ou j'ai este submis, Ou bien, ou mal, d'amour, ou de mes ennemys, J'ay descrit chacun jour la cause toute telle. Et c'est pourquoy, Duthier, on void dedans ces vers Par cy, par Ik meslez tant d'arguments divers Et que plains de soupirs, Soupirs je les appelle 1 . It is impossible to say which of the two men was the originator of the idea, but doubtless the execution was carried out in friendly rivalry 2 . Magny's journal intime is kept with far less discretion, so far as his own affairs are concerned, than Du Bellay's. In execution it shews a marked improve- ment on his preceding work ; the style is not merely fluent, but it is often distinguished. The variety of the themes, tatit d'arguments divers, and the poet's light touch make this volume more agreeable reading than any of the sonnet-sequences of the period, except Du Bellay's Regrets. As is usual with Magny there is a good deal of imitation, not to say literal translation, from the Latins and Italians, especially from Petrarch. The sonnet which most excited the admiration of Magny's contemporaries, and which was set to music by the celebrated composer Orlando di Lassus, is one made on the pattern of a strambotto by Serafino : M. Hola, Charon, Charon Nautonnier infernal. C. Qui est cest importun qui si presse m'appelle? M. C'est l'esprit dplore" d'un amoureux fidelle, Lequel pour bien aimer n'eust jamais que du mal. C. Que cherches tu de moy? M. Le passaige fatal. C. Qui est ton homicide? M. O demande cruelle ! Amour m'a fait mourir. C. Jamais dans ma nasselle Nul subget a l'amour je ne conduis a val. M. Et de grace, Charon, regois-moy dans ta barque. C. Cherche un autre nocher, car ny moy ny la Parque M. Chamard,_/. du Bellay, p. 315 n. 1. Magny clearly did not leave France till after the publication of the 1554 volume. 1 Concluding sonnet (ed. Courbet, p. 123). 2 Magny arrived in Rome at the end of March 1555, and Du Bellay did not begin the Regrets before the summer of that year. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 1 3 N'entreprenons jamais sur ce maistre des dieux. M. J'iray done maugre toy, car j'ay dedans mon ame Tant de traicts amoureux et de larmes aux yeux, Que je feray le fleuve, et la barque, et la rame 1 . But the gem of the series is the following, which in its simplicity and in its distinction, in its imaginative language and rich harmony, is worthy to stand beside the best sonnets of Ronsard and Du Bellay : Puisque le cler Soleil veult apparoistre aux cieux, Et que je voy desja la rougissante Aurore Qui de ses raiz vermeils le ciel d'lnde colore, Sus-sus chassons, Bellay, ce somme de noz yeux. Allons passer aux champs ce loisir ocieux, Pangeas avecques nous y viendra bien encore, Et qu'un chascun de nous a son reng rememore Ses antiques amours d'un chant soulacieux. Imitons les oiseaux qui par ces verds boucaiges Au gazouil des ruysseaux degoizent leurs ramaiges, Bienveignant de leurs voix l'Aurore a son retour. Voyla ja Gohory, qui de sa main apreste Un chapeau verdissant qui ne craint la tempeste, Pour cil qui ce jourd'huy chantera mieux l'amour 2 . The Odes published in 15 59 s were Magny's most ambitious work, the first two books consisting chiefly of long, too long, odes addressed to various friends and patrons. But it is in the shorter and lighter poems of the three latter books that he is at his best. In the third book are the Polypheme*, a fairly close imitation of the Cyclops of Theocritus, five Vceux* which should be compared with Du Bellay's, an Horatian ode entitled De la condition de la vie des homines*, and a charming ode of great vivacity on a dog named Peloton or Ploton, whom Du Bellay had already celebrated 7 . But I will quote in prefer- ence to these two from the fourth book. The first shews how gracefully and even originally Magny could treat the well-. worn subject of the gold and ivory, the coral and pearls of a mistress's face : 1 No. lxiv. ib. p. 47. 2 No. cxxxiii. ib. p. 94. 3 Ed. Courbet, 2 vols. 1876. 4 II. 14. 5 ib. 59 — 64. 6 ib. 74; Saintsbury, Specimens of French Literature, p. 68. 7 Ed. Courbet, II. 79. 14 THE LESSER STARS [CH. Elle est a vous, douce maistresse, Ceste belle et dore'e tresse, Qui feroit honte au mesmes or, Et ce front qui d'ivoire semble, Et ces yeux deux astres ensemble, Maistresse, sont a vous encor. A vous est ce beau teinct de rozes, Et ces deux belles levres closes, Qui semblent deux brins de coral : Et ces dentz par ou se repousse Le muse de vostre aleine douce, Qui semblent perles ou cristal. Bref a vous est la belle face, Le bon esprit, la bonne grace, Qu'on veoid en vous et l'entretien : Seulle est a moy la peine dure, Et tous les travaulx que j'endure Pour vous aymer et vouloir bien 1 . The other is a concise and beautiful expression of that Renaissance spirit of which Magny was so representative a type: Pour garder que le plaisir Qui nous vient ore saysir, De long temps ne nous eschappe, Du Buys, fais porter la nappe, Et dresser viste a manger. Tandis je vaiz arranger Dega et de la Catulle, Properce, Ovide, et Tibulle, Dessus la table espendus, Entre les lucz bien tendus, Et les lucz entre les rozes, Et les rozes my decloses Entre les ceilletz fleuriz, Les ceilletz entre les liz, Et les liz entre les tasses, Parmy les vaisselles grasses. La mort, peult estre, demain Viendra prendre par la main Le plus gay de ceste trouppe, Pour l'enlever sur sa croupe 1 Ed. Courbet, II. 156. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 15 Luy disant a l'impourveu, ' Sus gallant, c'est assez beu, II est temps de venir boire Aux enfers de l'onde noire 1 .' It will be noticed that Magny here makes use of a metrical resource which one rarely meets with in the poetry of the Pleiad school, but which, when used in moderation, often adds to the music of poetry — I mean repetition, or the principle of the refrain. It will be found in other poems of the Odes ; indeed in some it degenerates into a mechanical jingle 2 . On May 31, 1559, probably after the publication of the Odes, Magny was appointed one of the King's secretaries. Two years later 'death took by the hand the gayest of the troop 3 .' Magny has many of the defects of his school. He is too much given to imitation; he is often artificial and pedantic; he has even greater facility than Bai'f, and he has the same disinclination to blot. But he has more originality, and more real poetic feeling. His short pieces, in which he excels, have not only grace and delicacy, but precision. Of all the poets of the Pleiad he comes nearest to his friend Du Bellay. His poetry has an atmosphere of its own, and it is an atmosphere of life. Another poet who, like Magny, died young was Jacques Tahureau, of an Angevin family which had settled at Le Mans where he was born in 1527. He died towards the close of 1555, having published in the previous year two volumes of poetry entitled respectively Premieres Poesies, and Sonnets, odes, et mignardises amour enses de I'Admire'e*. His friend Vauquelin de la Fresnaye has spoken of his ' sugared ' art 5 , but this expression only applies to the mignardises amonrenses 1 ib. 88. 2 For instance in the last stanza of the Ode, A s'amye ett ltd disant adieu (ib. 143), and in the chanson on p. 173. 3 His place was filled up on July 31, 1561 {Dernieres poesies, ed. Courbet, p. xxx). 4 The privilege for both volumes is dated March 7, 154-J. The premieres poesies, which are of little merit, were therefore probably written before this date. The sonnets were not written before 1553. Lors Angers nous fit voir Tahureau, qui mignart Nous affrianda tous au sucre de cet art. A son livre. 1 6 THE LESSER STARS [CH. and the baisers, which form but a small proportion of his second volume. The sonnets and a few other grave poems, which belong to the last two or three years of his life, are more characteristic of the man. The sonnets are distinguished from the great majority of the sonnet-sequences of the period, first by a note of real passion, and secondly by the absence of the usual Petrarchian commonplaces. They have flashes of real imagination, and considerable originality of thought, together with a love of argument and antithesis which reminds one of Shakespeare's sonnets. But they are careless, rough and inharmonious, and though they contain some lines of first-rate quality 1 , they are seldom good throughout. It is doubtful whether so poor a workman would ever have developed into a great poet. The following is a favourable specimen of his work : Dames de Tours, si onq en vostre cueur Entra d'Amour la poignante estincelle, Voyez, helas ! la cruaute de celle Qui se repaist et baigne en ma langueur. Je suys certain que, voyant la rigueur Dont elle tant a sa moytie rebelle, La bannirez au nom de Tourangelle, Nom qui ne sent rien moins qu'une ranqueur. Mais, mais voyez, que dis-je! 6 grand blaspheme! Voudriez vous bien cette beaute extresme Desestimer digne de vostre nom, Celle sans qui l'honneur de vostre ville, Veuf de son loz, languiroit inutile Et orphelin de son plus haut renom 2 ? 1 Such as : Tu pourras bien choisir un serviteur Ayant en main de plus grandes richesses, Tout seme d'or, de gemmeuses largesses, Superbe et fier dun hazardeux bonheur. lxxxv. (ed. Blanchemain, II. 131). Traisnant ma vie amerement austere. xlvii. (id. 58). Soit qu'au milieu de la plaine muette, Compagne a tous mes plus segrez ennuiz. lviii. [id. 66). 2 There is a breath of rich imagination in one of the two sonnets (lxxx. id. 93) translated by A. Lang, op. cit. p. 36. XVI I] THE LESSER STARS 1 7 Tahureau had a sceptical and pessimistic vein in his nature, which going deeper than it did in some of his fellow-poets gives a sombre tone to several of his poems, such as the elegy to Charles Belot on the death of his sister and the two poems entitled De la vanite des homines and De V inconstance des e/ioses 1 . The following stanzas are from De la vanite des hommes : L'homme ne scaurait prendre en un jour tant d'e"bas, Que, devant la soiree, II ne die en son cceur, plus de cent fois : Helas ! Maugreant la journee ; Et le fol au rebours, qui tousjours se tourmente Pour peu d'occasion, De lui-mesme bourreau vainement se lamente Comble d'afliction. Maint pique vainement d'un desir trop extreme Veut tout voir icy bas : II veut connoistre tout ; mais le grand sot, lui-mesme II ne se connoist pas. Tout ce que l'homme fait, tout ce que l'homme pense En ce bas monde icy, N'est rien qu'un vent legier, qu'une vaine esperance Pleine d'un vain souci. Fuions doncques, fuions ces trop vaines erreurs, Dressons notre courage Vers ce grand Dieu qui seul nous peut rendre vainqueurs De ce mondain orage ; Recherchons saintement sa parole fidelle, Invoquons sa bonte, Car, certes, sans cela notre race rnortelle N'est rien que vanite. This 'conclusion of the whole matter' is noteworthy as being identical not only with that of Ecclesiastes, of which Tahureau left an unpublished translation in verse, but with his own conclusion in his prose dialogues 2 . These dialogues, which became exceedingly popular 3 , were published, ten years 1 ib. 170, 203, 221. 2 Heureux celui duquel Fesperance est au nom du Seigneur Dieu et qui ne s 'est point arreste aux vanites et fausses reveries du monde. 3 There were fifteen editions from 1565 to 1602. 1 8 THE LESSER STARS [CH. after his death, in 1565 under the title of Les dialogues de feu Jaques Tahureau non woiiis profitables que facetieuses on les vices d'uu ck&cun sont repris fort aprement, po?ir nous animer davan- tage a les fuir et suivre la vertu 1 . They have been generally classified among the Contes of the sixteenth century, but they contain few anecdotes, and, as Marty- La veaux has pointed out (though he adopts the usual classification), they are, as the title shews, moral studies, almost sermons 2 . They are written in the dialogue form which Pierre Viret had made popular among Protestant writers, and are of little interest except as throwing some light on sixteenth century manners and customs. The speakers are Democritic, the censor of the world — his name also denotes that he is a follower of the philosopher Democritus,- — and Cosmophile its apologist. But, as in most of these satirical dialogues, there is no attempt at fair play, and Cosmophile merely serves to feed Democritic with fresh fuel for his satire 3 . Tahureau, when he published his two volumes of poetry at Poitiers in 1554, was the recognised chief of a small band of young men of literary aspirations who for one reason or another were living in that city, which at this time seems to have been regarded as the literary capital not only of Poitou but of the neighbouring provinces. Guillaume Bouchet, the author of the Sere'es, was a bookseller of the town and of about the same age as Tahureau ; Scevole de Sainte-Marthe, Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Charles Toutain and Andre de Rivaudeau were students of the University and some ten 1 Ed. F. Conscience, 1870. 2 Petit de Julleville, in. 78. 3 For a full discussion of the identity of L 'Admiree, the lady of Tahureau's verse, see H. Chardon, La vie de Tahureau, 48 ff. and the references given in his pages. All that is certain is (1) that her real name was Marie, and that V Admire" t is an incomplete anagram of her name, (2) that she was the sister of Baif 's Francine, and a native of Tours, (3) that on September 28, 1555, Tahureau married Marie Grene who was living at La Charite, a town of the Nivernais on the right bank of the Loire. Blanchemain conjectured with a fair show of probability that the family name of the two sisters was De Gennes. It seems clear from Tahureau's poetry that some crisis took place in his life about 1553 which inspired him with a pessimistic view of life. My own belief is that Marie Grene consoled him for his long ill-treatment at the hands of U Admiree. XVIl] THE LESSER STARS 19 years younger. Here too Jean-Antoine de Bai'f, the close friend of Tahureau, resided for nine months and lost his heart to Francine. Here too Jean Bastier de la Peruse, a native of Angouleme, wrote his tragedy of Mede'e, and died like Tahureau in 1555. In the same year 1555 there appeared in another quarter of France a volume of poetry which resembled Tahureau's in being rough and unequal in execution and in being the sincere record of a true passion. Louise Labe 1 , la belle Cordiere, the only distinguished French poetess of the Renaissance, is usually classed by historians of literature under the school of Lyons. It is sometimes added that she was a pupil of Maurice Sceve, but there is no evidence of this, and her poetry is certainly very far removed from the cold metaphysical subtleties of Sceve and Heroet. Moreover her poems did not appear till the year 1555, and her use of the sonnet-form shews that they must almost certainly have been written after 1549. Thus though her work both in its merits and in its defects is very different from that of the ordinary followers of Ronsard, it is to the period of the Pleiad that she properly belongs. She has occupied the attention of many biographers-, but after all little is known of her life. According' to her own account, which there does not seem 1 b. 1525 or 26 — d. 1 566. 2 The best and most sober account of her life is that by C. Boy in vol. II. of his edition. He thinks that she was born before 1524 on the ground that she must have been the daughter of her father's second wife, who is said to have died not later than that year. But the evidence for this is not very clear, and I see no reason to doubt her own statement that she was twenty-nine at the time of writing her third Elegy, which is evidently intended as an envoi to her volume. This was published in 1555 by Jean de Tournes under the title of Euures de Lottize Labe Lionnoize; it contained besides her own productions twenty-four poems written by various poets, including Sceve, Ba'if, Tyard and Magny. In the following year it was republished twice by Tournes and once at Rouen. There was no further edition till 1762, in which an ode by Peletier was added to the Escriz de divers poetes. In the last century there were several editions, but only two of any merit, that of P. Blanchemain and that of Charles Boy. M. Boy has disposed of much of the romance which Turquety and Blanchemain hail woven round Louise, especially of the story that she fought in the siege of Perpignan. M. Favre in his Olivier de Magny takes the same view as M. Boy of her character. 2 — 2 20 THE LESSER STARS [CH. sufficient reason to doubt, she was born in 1525 or 1526. The daughter of a well-to-do ropemaker, she married a husband of the same trade, named Ennemond Perrin ; and being clever, beautiful and attractive, received men of letters at her house. Scandal naturally busied itself with her name, but there is nothing to shew that she was other than a virtuous woman 1 . Magny on his way to Rome in 1555 paid court to her and hoped he had made an impression. But on his return a year later he was undeceived, and his injured vanity led him to write a poem for which, according to modern notions, he should have been horsewhipped 2 . There had been one great passion in the life of Louise and this had left room for no other. It had been many years ago, before she was sixteen, but it had burnt itself into her imagination, and it still burns in her verse : Tout aussi tot que ie commence a prendre Dens le mol lit le repos desire", Mon triste esprit hors de moy retire S'en va vers toy incontinent se rendre. Lors m'est avis que dedens mon sein tendre Ie tiens le bien, ou i'ay tant aspire, Et pour lequel i'ay si haut souspire, Que de sanglots ay souvent cuide fendre. O dous sommeil, 6 nuit a moy heureuse ! Plaisant repos, plein de tranquility, Continuez toutes les nuiz mon songe : Et si iamais ma povre ame amoureuse Ne doit avoir de bien en verite, Faites au moins qu'elle en ait en mensonge. Baise m'encor, rebaise moy et baise : Donne nven un de tes plus savoureus, Donne m'en un de tes plus amoureus : Ie t'en rendray quatre plus chaus que braise. Las, te pleins tu ? qa que ce mal i'apaise, En t'en donnant dix autres doucereus. Ainsi meslans nos baisers tant heureus Iouissons nous Tun de l'autre a notre aise. 1 Ceste avoit la face phis angelique, qu'kumaine : t/tais ce n'estoit rien a la comparaison de son esprit tant chaste, tant vertueux, tant poetique, tant rare en scavoir. (Paradin, Memoires de Fhist. de Lyon, 1573, cited by Boy.) 3 A sire Ay mon, Odes, 11. 222 ff. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 21 Lors double vie a chacun en suivra. Chacun en soy et son ami vivra. Permets m' Amour penser quelque folie : Tousiours suis mal, vivant discrettement, Et ne me puis donner contentement, Si hors de moy ne fay quelque faillie. Ne reprenez, Dames, si i'ay ayme : Si i'ay senti mile torches ardantes, Mile travaus, mile douleurs mordantes : Si en pleurant, i'ay mon tems consume, Las que mon nom n'en soit par vous blame. Si i'ay failli, les peines sont presentes, N'aigrissez point leurs pointes violentes : Mais estimez qu'Amour, a point nomme, Sans votre ardeur d'un Vulcan excuser, Sans la beaute d'Adonis acuser, Pourra, s'il veut, plus vous rendre amoureuses : En ayant moins que moy d'ocasion, Et plus d'estrange & forte passion. Et gardez vous d'estre plus malheureuses 1 . The language is archaic and somewhat awkward, and there is little music in the verse, but these defects are redeemed by the sincerity of the passion and by the instinctive feeling for the true sonnet-cadence. The three elegies which accompany the twenty-four sonnets are in no way remarkable, but the volume also contains a little prose-fable, Debat de folie et d' amour, which is full of charm and delicate observation. To write a mythological tale without pedantry in the days of the Pleiad was in itself a noteworthy achievement, and it is superior to the sonnets in execution. But it is to her sonnets that Louise owes her coronet of gold. These are the chief poets who, born between 1520 and 1530, made their first appearance in the fifties. A few others of lesser merit have obtained the honour of a reprint in modern times. Such are Marc-Claude de Buttet, a native of Savoy, who had a fresh vein of fancy, which he expressed in somewhat provincial language 2 ; Jean Doublet, a Norman, 1 Sonnets ix, xviii, xxiv (printed from Boy's edition). 2 Epithalame, 1559; Avialthcc, 1560. He adopted phonetic spelling and wrote vers mesuris (Pasquier, Kecherches, VII. xi); his rhymed Sapphics are not bad. 22 THE LESSER STARS [CH. author of an indifferent volume of elegies ; and Nicolas Ellain, a Paris physician whom I have already mentioned as the author of sonnets after the pattern of Du Bellay's Regrets. They have no merit but that of simple and correct language 1 . To these may be added Jacques de Fouilloux, a native of Poitou, who published in 1562 a treatise on hunting in prose interspersed with verse, which is often cited by Buffon, and which contained a poem in octosyllabic metre of con- siderable charm and shewing a genuine love of country life., entitled L 'adolescence de Jacques de Fouilloux 2 . But these, as well as others who had a larger measure of contemporary fame, such as Guillaume des Autels, and Louis le Caron, who was a Platonist and a jurist of considerable distinction 3 , may be dismissed in the words of Estienne Pasquier, CJiacun d'eux avoit sa maistresse quit magnifioit, et chacun se promettoit une immortality de nom par ses vers ; toutefois quelques-uns se trouvent avoir survecu leurs livres i . Nor can Pasquier himself, so far as his poetry is concerned, be said to have escaped this fate. There is more merit in the verse of two other men who like himself obtained dis- tinction in other forms of literature as well as in public life. Estienne de la Boetie, who was born at Bordeaux in 1530, and was thus a year younger than Pasquier, is best known first as the friend of Montaigne and secondly as the author of the Conti'un, but his few sonnets are not without interest. Those which Montaigne gave to the world in 1572 were addressed to his future wife, Marguerite, the daughter of Lancelot de Carle. Montaigne speaks of them as sentant desja je ne scay quelle froideur man tale, and preferred to them those which La Boetie wrote in more ardent youth to a lady 1 If we may judge by the Elegies a la belle fille by Ferry Juliet of Besancon, published in 1557 and reprinted in 1883, the influence of the new school had not reached the birthplace of Victor Hugo. 2 Printed in Les poetes franc. IV. 326. Fouilloux died during the reign of Charles IX : his volume is entitled Venerie 0:1 Traite de la C/iasse. 3 b. 1536 — d. 1616. See L. Finvert in Rev. de la Ren. II. (1902). 4 Recherches, VII. v. Tasquier gives a list of poets which is far more trustworthy than that of D'Aubigne, who includes several very unimportant names and omits such poets as Magny and Tahureau {GLtivres, 1. 458). XVII] THE LESSER STARS 23 who did not become his wife 1 . Rough and inharmonious as these are, they have the merit of sincerity, and we can readily believe the writer when he says, Je dis ce que moil cceur, ce que mou mal me dil 2 . Moreover, he shews more originality of thought than the professional sonneteer of the period, and his conception of love is less material. In spite however of Montaigne's judg- ment the one sonnet of La Boetie's that seems worth quoting is from the later series : Ce iourd'huy, da Soleil la chaleur alteree A iauny le long poil de la belle Ceres : Ores il se retire ; et nous gaignons le frais, Ma Marguerite et moy, de la douce seree ; Nous tracons dans les bois quelque voye esgaree : Amour marche deuant, et nous marchons apres. Si le vert ne nous plaist des espesses forests, Nous descendons pour voir la couleur de la pree ; Xous viuons francs d'esmoy, et n'auons point soucy Des Roys, ny de la cour, ny des villes aussi. O Medoc, mon pais solitaire et sauvage, II n'est point de pais plus plaisant a. mes yeux : Tu es au bout du monde, et ie t'en ayme mieux, Nous scauons apres tous les malheurs de nostre aage 3 . I have already mentioned another distinguished public character, Scevole de Sainte-Marthe, as forming one of the Poitiers circle 4 . In 1569 he published a collected edition of his French poetry, and ten years later a new and augmented edition, the number of alterations in which shews that at any rate he took his art seriously 5 . One of the best of his sonnets is on the sonnet : 1 The twenty-five later sonnets will be found in the CEuvres Completes of La Boetie, ed. P. Bonnefons 1892. Six of them were printed by J. -A. de Bai'f among his own Amours with very considerable differences, due no doubt to the desire of Bai'f to give him a coat of Petrarchian varnish. See Bonnefons, pp. lxiii — lxx; he thinks that Montaigne also touched up his friend's work before publishing it. The earlier sonnets, twenty-nine in number, are those printed by Montaigne in his Essais, I. xxviii. They must have been written after 1550, for they refer to Ronsard's Amours de Cassandre. 2 No. xi. :i CEuvres, p. 283. 4 B. at Loudun i=.',6, — d. 1623. ■"■ See Picot, I. nos. 715. 716. 24 THE LESSER STARS [CH. Graves sonnets, que la docte Italie A pour les siens la premiere enfantes, Et que la France a depuis adoptes, Vous apprenant une grace accomplie ; Assez des-ja vostre gloire annoblie Par tant d'esprits, qui vous ont rechantez, Fait que de vous les haults cieux sont hantez, Fait que de vous ceste terre est remplie. Venez en rang aussi petits huitains, Venez dizains, vrais enfans de la France : Si au marcher vous n'estes si hautains, Vous avez bien dessous moindre apparence Autant de grace, et ne meritez pas Ou'un estranger vous face mettre en bas 1 . There is merit too in a sonnet in which he looks back with regret on the days spent with Vauquelin at Poitiers : La douce liberte nous servoit de nourrice, Nous ignorions les maux qu'enfante l'avarice, Aussi francs de soucy que purs de mauvaistie ; Et l'orage cruel des querelles civiles, Qui sur nous depuis lors s'est rue sans pitie, N'avoit gaste nos champs et saccage nos villes 2 . But he gave more time and attention to Latin verse than to French, and his didactic poem on the education of children, Paedotrophia, published in 1584, had from the moment of its first appearance an enormous success which can only be compared to that of Rousseau's Emile. There is only one work however of le grand Scevole which is consulted at the present day, and that is his Elogia, a collection of panegyrics on the illustrious Frenchmen who had died during his life- time. The first edition, published in 1598, begins with Lefevre d'Etaples who died in 1536, the year of Sainte-Marthe's birth, and ends with Florent Chrestien who died in 1596. Fresh names were added in subsequent editions, the last being that of Estienne Pasquier who died in 161 5 3 . Yet Sainte-Marthe survived him by eight years, dying in 1623, in his eighty- eighth year. 1 Qiiivres choisies des poetcs francais du xvi e siecle, ed. L. Becq de Fouquieres, p. 245. 2 ib. p. 246. s See Appendix G. XVI I] THE LESSER STARS 25 Finally there is a poet whom Pasquier places among the arriere-garde of the poetic army, and DAubigne in the seconde vole'e, but who should rather be classed with the contemporaries of Ronsard. This is Amadis Jamyn. It is true that he did not make his public debut till 1574, the close of the period of Ronsard's activity, but he had written much of his poetry before this date, being then thirty-six, or according to some authorities, thirty-eight 1 . He was closely attached to Ronsard, who had made him his page and given him a good classical education, on the strength of which he completed Salel's translation of the Iliad and translated three books of the Odyssey". It was partly perhaps from his study of Homer that he learnt the art of writing dignified French verse with ease and precision. Better almost than any of Ronsard's followers he has caught the tone of lofty concentration proper to the sonnet. The following except for two rather bad lines, the second and the third, is excellent in point of style: Le Nocher qui longtemps dessus les flots venteux Sur la mer ha souffert maint different orage, Est aise quand il voit la terre et le riuage, Eschape des hazards et des vents perilleux. II apelle, il salue, aueq vn coeur joyeux Le port bien asseure : puis loing de tout naufrage II passe doucement aupres de son mesnage Le reste de ses ans desia foibles et vieux. Ainsi apres auoir dedans la mer mondaine Passe mille perils en differente peine, Bonnet se resiouit a l'heure de sa mort ; Pour ne deuoir plus rien a quelqu'vn des celestes, II se mit volontiers souz les ombres funestes Et le trespas certain luy sembla comme vn port a . But there is little warmth or imagination in Jamyn's work and he is far too fond of those Petrarchian conceits, especially 1 Born in 1538 or 1540 at Chaource about 20 miles to the south of Troyes. He was thus only six or at the most eight years younger than Bai'f. He died in 1592 or 93. - Salel had translated twelve books and part of the thirteenth. Jamyn began his work at Book xii. which with the four following books was published in 1574. The whole Iliad, by Salel and Jamyn, appeared in [580, and again, with the addition of three books of the Odyssey, in 1584. 3 Ed. C. Brunet, 1. 127. 26 THE LESSER STARS [CH. the over-elaboration of a single metaphor, which his master and the majority of his followers had by this time almost entirely abandoned. This failing is fatal to his songs, and becomes tiresome in his sonnets. In the following it may perhaps be pardoned for the novelty of the metaphor, which possibly however is not of his own invention : Voyant les combatans de la Balle forcee Merquez de iaune et blanc l'vn l'autre terracer, Pesle-mesle courir, se battre, se pousser, Pour gaigner la victoire en la foule pressee : Ie pense que la Terre a l'egal balancee Dedans l'air toute ronde, ainsi fait amasser Les hommes anx combats, a fin de renverser Ses nourricons brulans d'vne gloire insensee. La Balle ha sa rondeur toute pleine de vent : Pour du vent les mortels font la guerre souuent, Ne rapportant du ieu que la Mort qui les domte, Car tout ce monde bas n'est qu'vn flus et reflus, Et n'apprennent iamais a toute fin de conte, Sinon que cette vie est vn songe et rien plus 1 . Another feature of Jamyn's work, which is not strictly a literary one, but which is worth noticing because he shares it in common with most of the members of his school, is the servility of his attitude towards his royal patrons. It is not that he could say of Catharine de' Medici, Ses vertus tout assise an rang des Immortels, for that was in accordance with a well- understood literary fiction, nor that he wrote love-sonnets for Charles IX {Amours d'Eurymedon et de Calliree), but his poems on the mignons of Henry III {Sonnets du deuil de CleopJwn, Complainte de Cleophon, etc.) 2 , which the worthy Colletet could not read without tears, surpass the limits of per- missible complaisance. They were an insult to the good taste and the good feeling of the nation. It was this subservience on the part of the Pleiad poets to the vices of the court which specially stirred the indignation of the Protestants, and led by the force of reaction to the more manly poetry of Du Bartas and D'Aubigne. But before proceeding to consider the new 1 Ed. Brunet, I. 51; translated by Cary, op. cit. p. 267. 2 Published in the volume of 1584. See P. de L'Estoile, Journal, 1. 295. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 2y developements which began to shape themselves after the year 1574, it will be well to pause and consider the value of the work done by Ronsard and his contemporaries. 3. The work of the Pleiad. The first great achievement of the Pleiad was the intro- duction of a higher conception of the functions of poetry than had prevailed in France for nearly three centuries. Of the higher possibilities of poetry Marot had only a glimmer, while Sceve and Margaret of Navarre, though their conception was sufficiently lofty, practically lacked the accomplishment of verse. The confidence therefore with which Du Bellay proclaimed his belief in the future of French poetry and in its capacity to deal with the highest themes was of the greatest importance. It was of equal importance that he pointed to the classical and the Italian languages as witnesses to what poetry might achieve, and as furnishing models for the study and emulation of Frenchmen. It is true that the Pleiad by no means learnt all the lessons that the great classical masterpieces have to teach. They learnt neither economy nor restraint ; nor did they learn that all great poetry springs from the direct observation of life. But they did learn this — that the language and the style of poetry are different from those of prose 1 . This was the capital theory of the Pleiad, the theory round which all their reforms centred, whether in vocabulary, in syntax, in style, or in versification '". 1 Le style prosa'ique est ennemi capital de V eloquence poetique (Ronsard in first preface to the Franciade). A. Rosenbauer, Die poetischen Theorien der Plejade, well points out that the reform of the Pleiad consisted in the sjjbstilulipn of poetic style for rhyme as the principal aim of poetry (p. 97). It will be re- membered how Wordsworth's theory that ' between the language of prose and that of metrical composition there neither is nor can be any essential difference' is demolished once for all by Coleridge in his Biographia litteraria (11. cc. 14 — 20), largely by help of Wordsworth's own poetry. 2 The theories of the Pleiad are to be found not only in Du Bellay's Def ence and preface to the 2nd ed. of Olive, but in Ronsard's Ahrege de Fart poetique, published in 1565 (CEuvres, VII. 317 ff.), and in his two prefaces to the Franciade (id. III.). See also Marty- Laveaux , La langue de la J'leiade, and L. Mellerio, Lexique de Ronsara 28 THE LESSER STARS [CH. As regards the reforms in vocabulary, so far is it from true that ' the muse of Ronsard spoke Greek and Latin ' that except in his earliest work one has to search diligently before finding a Greek or a Latin word. In reality the methods which Du Bellay and Ronsard indicated for the enrichment of the poetic vocabulary were twofold : (i) the adoption of existing words hitherto neglected, such as archaisms, provincialisms and the technical terms of various trades 1 ; (ii) the formation of new words whether from Greek or Latin, or from French sources. To the formation from disused French words Ronsard gave the picturesque name of provignement, the technical term for the layering of plants 2 . Now all these methods of adding to the vocabulary are perfectly legitimate, and it only depends upon whether they are used with discretion. This discretion Ronsard and Du Bellay not only preached, but on the whole practised. Whether they would have done so without the criticisms that were freely directed against their youthful essays is another matter ; and it is noteworthy that Ronsard in one of the last poems he ever wrote, the Caprice a Simon Nicolas 2 , says as boldly as Du Bellay in the Deffence: Promeine-toy dans les plaines Attiques, Fay nouveaux mots, r'appelle les antiques, Yoy les Romains, et destine du ciel, Desrobe, ainsi que les mouches a miel, Leurs belles fleurs par les Charites peintes. Lors sans viser aux jalouses attaintes Des mal-vueillans, formes-en les douceurs Que Melpomene inspire dans les cceurs ! J'ay fait ainsi : toutesfois ce vulgaire, A qui jamais je n'ay peu satisfaire, Ny n'ay voulu, me fascha tellement De son japper en mon adventment, 1 Tu n'oublieras les noms propres des outils de tons mestiers et prendras plaisir a fenquerir le phis que tu pourras, et principalement de la chasse. (Ronsard, Abrege, CEuvres, VII. 321.) 2 Si les vieux mots abolis par usage out laisse quelque rejetton,...tu le pourras provtgfier. {Preface sur la Franciade, ib. in. 33.) Cf. Abrege', vn. n?. For Du Bellay 's views on vocabulary see Deffence, II. c. vi. 3 CEuvres, VI. 326. The reference to Henry of Navarre as the heir to the throne shews that it must have been written after the death of Alencon in June 1584. It was not published in Ronsard's lifetime. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 20. Ouand je hantay les eaux de Castalie, Que nostre langue en est moins embellie ; Car elle est manque, et faut de Taction Pour la conduire a sa perfection. Indeed some of his followers, especially Bai'f, were not so ready to submit to the compromise which common sense dictated. But whatever were Ronsard's reasons the number of words of Greek or Latin formation which he invented and which have since dropped out of the vocabulary is relatively very small 1 . On the other hand he drew far more largely from the older French language, but the majority of his archaic introductions failed to keep their place. He is not however the only poet against whom this charge can be brought. The reforms of the Pleiad in the matter of syntax are less defensible. There is nothing to object to in the compound epithets formed with a verb and a substantive, such as porte- lance and rase-terre*, but the attempt to force French syntax into a classical mould by such methods as the use of the adjective as an adverb was doomed to failure. These however were not peculiar to the Pleiad ; Rabelais, for instance, practised them freely. Passing from vocabulary and syntax to the general question of style it must be noticed that the Pleiad in their endeavours to create a poetical style distinct from that of prose somewhat oversho t the mark. They were too fond of periphrasis, and they were too much afraid of using common words! Un- fortunately it was just" these exaggerations of their theory which commended themselves to the unpoetical minds of their 1 M. Mellerio reckons two or three hundred, including proper names and their derivates and compound adjectives formed in the Greek fashion, in over 80,000 lines, {op. cit. p. xlvi.) In Marty-Laveaux's glossary of the Pleiad, which, though it does not pretend to be exhaustive, may be taken as representative, Greek words occupy 40 pages, Latin 76, archaisms 142, and technical terms 61. 2 For these compounds see H. Estienne, Precellence, pp. 152 ff. 3 Excmple des ?nauvais vers : Madame, en bonne foy, je vous donne mon cceur; N'usez point envers moy, s'il vous plaist, de rigueur. Efface cceur et rigueur, /// in- trouveras un seul mot qui tie soil vulgaire on trivial. (Ronsard, Pre/, sur la Franciade, ill. 30.) 30 THE LESSER STARS [CH. successors. On the other hand the essential part of their reform, the cultivation of the imagination, was entirely over- looked. For thejvork of the Pleiad may be described even more accurately as the c reation of imaginati ve poet ry than_as the creation of noble poetry 1 . The defects of the school are tolerably obvious. In the first place the writers studied literature too much, and life t oo little. It was literature, an d not li fe, which inspired many of their happiest efforts 2 . They would probably have argued that so long as the style was their own it did not matter if the ideas were borrowed. Unfortunately even the style of many of the lesser writers is not so much their own as one common to the whole school. A second defect, which is closely allied to the first, is the contempt which they entertained and _e2cpjresseci_fox^th£..din- learned multitude. Bastier de la P eruse was only voicing the sentiments of the whole school when he wrote : J'ay cache dix mille vers rieins de graces nompareilles, Qui ne seront descouvers Que pour les doctes oreilles. Le vulgaire populace Ne merite telle grace, Et la grand' tourbe ignorante N'est digne qu'on les luy chante : Car Apollon ne veut pas Que celuy qu'il favorise Ses vers divins profanise Les chantant au peuple bas 3 . But the greatest poetry appeals alike to the learned and the unlearned. While Ronsard and his disciples success- fully vindicated the claims of the vernacular language to a 1 The services of the Pleiad to versification have already been pointed out in connexion with Ronsard, to whom they were chiefly due. 2 The theory of imitation, which Du Bellay preaches so imperiously in the Deffence, is stated in a more moderate form in his preface to U Olive ', and more moderately still by Peletier in his Art Poetique : Par settle imitation rien ne se fait grand: c'est le fait d'un homme paresseux et de peu de cosur, de marcher ious- jours apres tin autre. (Cited by Chamard, p. 24.) 3 GLuvres choisies des poetes francais du xvi e siecle, p. 150. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 3 1 hearing, they failed through a want of sympathy with the pulse of the nation to create a thoroughly national poetry. From one obvious blemish at any rate they would have been saved by a greater regard for the grand' tourbe igtiorante, and that is from the abuse of classical learning and classical mythology, in a word from the pedantry which is only another form of provincialism. Thirdly, in spite of their too exclusive devotion to form their execution is often careless. They are too easily satisfied with their work, they lack the habit of rigorous self-criticism. Claiming to be above all things artists, they forget that an essential quality of a true artist is perfect craftmanship. From this reproach, indeed, Belleau, and to a considerable extent Ronsard, must be excepted. And even with the majority of Ronsard's followers it is chiefly in their execution of longer pieces that they fail. They can take pains with a sonnet or a short lyric, but when it comes to a more pro- longed effort they lose patience, and scamp their work. They did not realise that that immortality for which they all thirsted, and to which the least among them looked forward with such confident expectation, is not to be had on so easy terms. Yet Du Bellay, though he did not always practise what he preached, had warned them that qui desire vivre en la memoire de la Posterite, doit, commc mart en soy mesme, siier et trembler maintesfois 1 . It is not merely that they allow themselves too much licence in language and versification. This is a comparatively venial fault. But they write too fluently and too easily, without having sufficiently refined their ideas in the crucible of imagination, without having transmuted the rough ore into the gold of poetry. They go on writing after their inspiration is exhausted, and as a rule inspiration comes to them only in short breaths. These then are the defects of the school as a whole, the substitution of literature for life as the source of inspira- tion, the want of sympathy with the thoughts and aims_oF the nation at large, and a lack of rigorous self-criticism. And 1 Deffcnce, II. c. iii. 32 THE LESSER STARS [CH. the very fact of its being a school helped to produce these defects, f or solidarity is a hindr a nce to originality, and .mutual admiratioiT_J J s fatal to self-criticism. On the other hand we must not forget that the repetition of the same defects in so many writers forces them upon our attention. It is by its best work and not by its failures that the Pleiad must in all fairness be judged. If it has produced no great national poem, if even its best work is neither deeply passionate nor daringly imaginative, it has enriched poetry with many examples jof rare be auty and excellence, models of grace and "Harmony. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. Pontus de Tyard, Erreurs amoureuses^ 1549. Continuation des Erreurs amoureuses, 1 5 5 1, and two other volumes. Les CEnvres poetiques, 1573. CEuvres, ed. Ch. Marty- Laveaux (in Pleiade franqaise, with Dorat), 1875. R.EMY BELLEAU, Bergerie, 1572 (Le Petit, p. 95). Les amours et nouveaux eschanges des pierres precieuses, 1576 (Picot, 1. no. 694). Les CEuvres poetiques, 1585 [ib. no. 690) ; ed. Gouverneur {Bib. elze'v.), 3 vols. 1867 ; ed. Ch. Marty-Laveaux (in Pleiade francaise), 2 vols. 1878. Jean-Antoine de Ba'if, Les Amours, 1552. Quatre livres de F Amour de Francine, 1555. Le p7-emier des mcte'ores, 1567. Le Brave, 1567. Euvres en rime, 4 vols. 1572-3 (Le Petit, p. 86; Picot, I. no. 684). Etrenes de poezie fratisoeze en vers mezure's, 1574 (Le Petit, p. 91). Les Mimes, enseignements et proverbes (book i.), 1576 (Picot, I. no. 687); Les Mimes (books i. and ii.), 1581 ; Mimes, ed. P. Blanchemain, 2 vols. 1880. CEuvres, ed. Ch. Marty-Laveaux (in Pleiade francaise), 5 vols. 1881-1890. Poesies choisies, ed. L. Becq de Fouquieres, 1874 (with a bibliography, pp. xxxiv ff.). Olivier de Magny, Les Amours, 1553. Les Gayetes, 1554. Les Souspirs, 1557. Les Odes, 1559. All these have been separately edited by E. Courbet, together with Dernieres Poesies, making altogether 6 vols, (two for the Odes), 1871-1880 ; and by P. Blanchemain, 1869-1876. Jacques Tahureau, Premieres poesies, 1554. Sonnets, odes et mi- gnardises amoureuses de VAdmiree, 1554. Poesies, ed. P. Blanchemain, 2 vols. 1870. Les dialogues, 1565 ; ed. F. Conscience, 1870. Louise Labe, Euvres, 1555 (Le Petit, p. 75); ed. P. Blanchemain, 1875; ed. Ch. Boy, 2 vols. 1887. Marc-Claude de Buttet, Amalthee, 1560. CEuvres poetiques, ed. A. P. Soupe, 1877; ed. P. Lacroix, 2 vols. 1880. XVII] THE LESSER STARS 33 Jean Doublet, Les Elegies, 1559; ed. P. Blanchemain, 1869; in Cab. du Bibliophile, 187 1. Nicolas Ellain, Sonnets, 1561. CEuvres poetiques, ed. A. Genty, 1861. Jacques de Fouilloux, Venerie ou Traite de la Chasse, 1562. Estienne DE LA Bo£tie, Vers francois, 1 57 1. CEuvres completes, ed. P. Bonnefons, 1892. SCEVOLE DE Sainte-Marthe, Les premieres ceuvres, 1569 (Picot, I. no. 715); Les oeuvres, 1579 (ib. no. 716). Amadis Jamyn, Les CEuvres poetiques, 1575 (Picot, 1. no. 738). Le Second Volume des CEuvres, 1584. Ed. C. Brunet, 2 vols. 1878 (a selection only). All the above, except Baif, Doublet, and Fouilloux, are represented in L. Becq de Fouquieres. CEuvres choisies des poetes francais du xvi e siecle contemporazns de Ronsard, 1879. The selection from each poet is pre- ceded by a brief notice of his life and writings. Biographies and Studies. C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, Tableau de la poe'sie francaise. H. F. Cary, Early French Poets. J. -P. Abel Jeandet, Pontus de Tyard, i860. F. Flamini, Du role de P. de Tyard dans le Petrarquisme francais in Rev. de la Ren. I. 43 ff. R. Besser, Ueber R. Belleaus Steingedicht in Zeitsch. fiir franz. Spr. VIII. 184 — 250, 1886. H. Wagner, R. Belleau und seine Werke^ Leipsic, 1890. H. Nagel, Das Leben J.-A. de Baif's in Archiv fiir neueren: Spr. und Litt. LX. 240 ff., 1878, and Die Werke J.-A. de Baif's, ib. LXK 52 ff., 201 ff., 439 ff., 1879. E. Fremy, EAcadcmie des derniers Valois., 1887. J. Favre, Olivier de Magny, 1885. H. Chardon, La vie de Tahureau, 1885. T. II. CHAPTER XVIII THE SECOND GENERATION We have seen that the founders of the Pleiad had sat at the feet of the Greek professor, Jean Dorat, and had imbibed from his stimulating lectures a boundless enthusiasm for the masterpieces of Greek literature. We have seen that Ronsard's most cherished models, at any rate in theory, were Homer and Pindar, and that in the original preface to the Fraiiciade he professed to have modelled his work rather on the naive spontaneity {facilite) of Homer than on the careful (curieuse) diligence of Virgil 1 . Yet in the _Fzanciade the imitation of Virgil is in reality more conspicuous than that of Homer, and in the posthumous preface which treats of the heroic poem in general Homer is barely mentioned, while Virgil and his 'divine Al?ieid' are praised to the skies 2 . What were the causes of this change in his ideals ? In the first place it was due to the simple fact that the French nation belongs to the Latin race. The affinities which Henri Estienne • pointed out between the French and the Greek language do no doubt exist, though they are scarcely those on which he insists ; but at bottom the character alike of language and literature is essentially Latin. Thus when after half-a-century of Hellenism that process of Latinisation, which had begun as far back as the fourteenth century, once more resumed its natural course, French literature returned as ;it were from its foster parent to its natural mother. Even from the first the poets of the Pleiad had drunk largely of 1 CEnvres, III. 9. - ib. 22 ff. CH. XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 35 _Latin inspiration. We have seen how important a part both the vernacular and the neo-Latin poetry of Italy had played in their developement, and that one among them at least, Joachi m du Bella}% not only turned by preference to Latin models, but in his warm feelings, his passionate eagerness, his observation of the outward aspect of things, was at heart a true Latin. Thus the phase of Hellenic influence, all important though it was while it lasted, was of short duration. Being an exotic it required artificial care, and this care, owing to the rapid decay of Greek scholarship in France, was now withdrawn. Partly as the result of the civil wars the study of Greek in France began rapidly to decline after the fatal year 1572, and to be confined more and more to a narrow circle of scholars. *' Frenchmen," says Ronsard in the posthumous preface referred to above, " have more knowledge of Virgil than of Homer and other Greek authors 1 ." Now this decline in^the prestige of Greek coincides more or less with the retirement of Ronsard from the Court in 1574, and so this event, which practically closed Ronsard's poetical career, may be taken to mark the close also of the first epoch of the Pleiad. From this time the uniformity of aim and the solidarity of purpose which had characterised the work of Ronsard and his more immediate contemporaries begins to disappear, and new developements arise. It was not that the younger poets consciously renounced any of the poetical doctrines of the school, or ceased to regard Ronsard as ' the prince of poets,' but by the natural process of time some practices" came to be exaggerated, and others to be modified, with the result that the stream of poetry which had hitherto flowed in one broad channel now diverged into separate currents. Of these currents the two principal ones are those which are associated with the names of Du B artas and Dgsportes. Both making their first public appearance as original poets in the year 1 573, both arde nt admirers and close disciples of Ro nsard, "both exaggerating some of the 1 See F. Brunetiere, V evolution des genres, 1890, pp. 51 — 53, but in my ■opinion he attributes too much weight to the influence of Scaliger's Poetice. 3—2 36 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. defects of the school while leading a reaction against others, they are at the same time alike in conception and execution the complete opposites of each other. i. Du Bartas. Guillaume de Salluste, s eigneur du^JBartas, was born at Montfort, near Auch, the old capital of Gascony, in the year 1544. While the poets with whom we have hitherto been concerned revolved round Paris and the Court and were warm partisans of the Catholic cause, Du Bartas was at once a provincial and a Protestant, two circumstances which in themselves tended to differentiate his work from that of his fellow poets. But so far as literary doctrines went he was an ardent disciple of the Pleiad, and his first serious production was a response to Du Bellay's appeal to his countrymen to write an epic poem. Though Judith, as Du Bartas' epic was called, was written in 1565, when its author was only about twenty-one, it did not appear till 1573, in a volume published at Bordeaux and entitled La Muse Chrestienne. Its subject, as well as the title of the volume in which it appeared, already indicates one element of opposition to the orthodox Ronsardists. It is true that the subject was imposed on Du Bartas by Jeanne d'Albret, the Queen of Navarre, but he was quite well aware of its novelty, and in the preface he speaks of himself as the first French writer to treat of a sacred subject in a long poem. In another poem of La Muse ~~C7irestieu)ie, entitled Uranic ox_J\Iusc celeste, he represents the Muse as inveighing against those who profane the divine use of poetry by applying it to frivolous and immoral purposes : Je ne puis d'un ceil sec voir que l'on mette en vente Nos divines chansons et que d'un flateur vers, Pour gagner la faveur des Princes plus pervers, Un Commode, un Neron, un Caligule on vante. She bids him devote himself to religious poetry, and accord- ingly in obedience to this call he produced in 1578 a long poem on the Creation entitled^Zc? Semaine. It was received with enormous enthusiasm. Twenty editions were published XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 37 in five years, and it was translated into several languages. The French Protestants were especially loud in its praise. They welcomed it as a counterpoise to the semi-pagan and frivolous Court poetry of Ronsard and his immediate followers, which had recently culminated in the apotheosis of the mignons b y D esportes and Jamyn. They proclaimed Du Bartas to be Ronsard's superior, and even whispered that Ronsard himself had acknowledged the fact. In a fine sonnet the elder poet indignantly denied both assertions : lis ont menty, D'Aurat, ceux qui le veulent dire, Que Ronsard, dont la Muse a contente les Rois, Soit moins que le Bartas, et qu'il ait par sa voix Rendu ce tesmoignage ennemy de sa lyre ! lis ont menti, D'Aurat! si bas je ne respire; Je sgay trop qui je suis, et mille et mille fois Mille et mille tourmens plustost je souffrirois, Ou'un adveu si contraire au nom que je desire. lis ont menty, D'Aurat ! c'est une invention Qui part, a mon advis, de trop d'ambition. J'auroy menty moy-mesme en le faisant paroistre ; Francus en rougiroit, et les neuf belles Sceurs Qui tremperent mes vers dans leurs graves douceurs, Pour un de leurs enfans ne me voudroient cognoistre 1 . In 1584 Du Bartas began the publication of La seconde Semaine. It was to be a vast poem representing the Biblical history of humanity down to the Last Judgment. The first instalment contained two Days, each Day being divided into four parts. But the poem was never finished. When it was published after Du Bartas's death, the fourth Day, which was to end with the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, was still incomplete. The work had been interrupted by more pressing occu- pations. From 1586 Du Bartas was employed by the King of Navarre on various missions, including one in 1587 to England and Scotland. In the latter country he received a warm welcome from the royal pedant, James VI, who had translated his Urania 1 , and who now wrote to congratulate his 1 Ronsard, (Euvres, v. 348. 2 Apparently about 1585, though it was not published till 1591 ; it is printed $8 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. brother of Navarre on having in his service so rare and virtuous a person 1 . On his return to France Du Bartas commanded a troop of horse and saw some fighting. His last poem was written to celebrate the victory of Ivry, in which, however, he did not take part. In the following July (1590) he died from over-fatigue and neglected wounds 2 . He was a sincere, modest and high-minded gentleman 3 . After his death his renown steadily decreased. The magnificent folio edition of his works published at Paris in 161 1 may, to use Sainte-Beuve's words, be regarded as their tomb. It is true that a later edition was published at Geneva in 1632 and that Joshua Sylvester's translation was very popular in England 4 down to the Restoration 5 , but this was in Protestant countries. In France Du Bartas was ignored by Boileau as he already had been ignored by Malherbe, and there has been no real reversal of this verdict. Notre Milton manque 6 is the most recent appreciation that has been passed on him, and it aptly expresses at once the grandeur and nobility of his aims and the failure of his accomplishment. There can be little question as to the actual merits and defects of Du Bartas's work, however critics may differ in striking the balance. It consists of fine passages interspersed among long wastes of dull and tiresome poetry. Even the best passages are generally blemished by serious errors in taste. But they are marked by elevation of thought, vigour in Arber's English Reprints. It was by order of James that T. Hudson translated Jtidith (1582). 1 Letter from James VI of Scotland to the King of Navarre (printed by T. de Larroque, Vies des poetes gaseous, p. 96). 2 De Thou, x. ix. 3 De Thou, XCIX. xvii, speaks of his modesty and candour. 4 "There be some French poets which afford excellent entertainment, especially Du Bartas," Howell's Foreign Travel, 1650. 5 Sylvester translated the Cantiqne d'lvry in 1590, and fragments of the Seconde Semaine in 1592. The first collected edition of his various translations of Du Bartas appeared in 1605-6. and a nearly complete edition in 1621 under the title of Du Bartas, his divine Weekes and Works with a Compleate Collection of all the other most delightful Workes translated and written by y e famous Philomusus, Joshua Sylvester, Gent, (printed by Humphray Lownes). There is a copy of this edition in the Cambridge University Library, but not in the Brit. Mus. 6 P. Morillot in Petit de Julleville, III. 225. XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 39 and movement, and above all by imagination of the highest ordejvthe imagination which is at once lofty a nd penetrative, which can soar to transcendental heights, or illumine with a touch the ordinary phenomena of nature. Such are the description of the winds and of the signs of God's power in the second Day of La Semaine, the praise of Gascony and of country life in the third Day. But imagination is not the quality which appeals most strongly to French critics. On the other hand they are more keenly alive than any foreign critic is likely to be to the defective execution, the signs of provincialism and bad taste which are too common in Du Bartas's work. Even supposing that his execution had been uniformly good he would still have failed to write a good epic poem. It is not surprising that his youthful production, Judith, should shew neither power of characterisation nor knowledge of mankind. But even in this first attempt it is significant that he is at his best in descriptive and rhetorical passages, and at his worst in narrative. So in the Semaine, the subject of which was better suited to him because it does not deal with human beings, the narrative is confused, and the general composition bad. There is too much learning, too much accumulation of detail ; the poem often degenerates into a scientific primer, or becomes a mere catalogue of names. La seconde Semaine, in which the author's faults are exaggerated, is a mere encyclopaedia 1 . No, Du Bartas could never have become an epic poet 2 . But he might have written a poem like the Georgics. He had the moral earnestness of Virgil, and he had the same passionate attachment to his native land, to the actual land itself. Moreover in his descriptions of nature he surpasses the other poets of the Pleiad school, even Ronsard and Belleau, not only in imaginative breadth, but in the accuracy 1 For the analogy between the Seconde Semaine and Sceve's Microcosme, see Pellissier, pp. 79 ff. 2 It should be pointed out that Du Bartas himself says that the Semaine is not a true epic poem, but is in part panegyrical, in part prophetic, in part didactic (Preface). 40 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. of his observation. It is characteristic that, while the other poets with wearisome iteration compare human life to the rose, he should have chosen the flax, a much shorter-lived flower, for his simile : La fleur du lin qui naist et tombe Tout en un meme jour. The following description of a 'bleeding' vine testifies to his knowledge of country pursuits : Comme le sarment Qu'on a taille* trop tard distille lentement Mainte larme emperle'e. As specimens of his style in longer passages we may take one from the well-known description of the rival nightingales, and one from the praise of country life : O Dieu ! combien de fois sous les feuilleus rameaus Et des chesnes ombreus et des ombreus ormeaus, J'ay tache" marier mes chansons immorteles Aux plus mignars refrains de leurs chansons plus beles. II me semble qu'encor j'oy dans un vert buisson D'un scavant rossignol la tremblante chanson : Qui tenant or la taille, ores la haute-contre, Or le mignard dessus, ore la basse-contre, Or toutes quatre ensemble, apele par le bois Au combat des neuf Sceurs les mieus disantes vois. A trente pas de la, sous les feuilles d'un charme Un autre rossignol redit le mesme carme, Puis volant avec luy pour l'honneur etriver Chante quelque motet pourpense" tout l'hiver. Le premier luy replique, et d'un divin ramage Ajoute a son dous chant passage sur passage, Fredon dessus fredon, et leurs gosiers plaintifs Dependent toute l'aube en vers alternatifs 1 . O trois et quatre fois heureus cil qui s'eloigne Des troubles citadins, qui, prudent, ne se soigne Des emprises des Rois : ains servant a Cere's, Remue de ses bceufs les paternels gueres. La venimeuse dent de la blafarde Envie, Ni l'avare Souci ne travaillent sa vie, 1 CEuvres, ed. i6ii, p. 153. XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 41 Des bornes de son champ son desir est borne"... Les trompeurs Chicaneurs (harpies des parquets Et sangsues du peuple) avecques leurs caquets, Bavardement facheus, la teste ne lui rompent : Ains les peints oiselets les plus durs ennuis trompent, Enseignant chasque jour aux dous-flairans buissons Les plus divins couplets de leurs douces chansons... Passant dans le repos tous les jours de son aage, II ne perd tant soit peu de veue son vilage, Ne connoit autre mer, ne scait autre torrent Que le riot cristalin du ruisseau murmurant Qui ses verts pres arrose : et cette mesme terre Qui naissant le receut, pitoyable l'enterre 1 . The second passage is inspired by three well-known loa dassici on the same subject, the Beatus Me qui procul negotiis of Horace, the O fortunatos nimiuvi of the second Georgic, and the speech of Hippolytus in Seneca's Phcedra*. The direct reminiscences of Horace and Seneca are more numerous than those of Virgil, but the genuine emotion which sustains the whole passage and prevents it from being a mere patchwork shews that Du Bartas is at one with the poet of the Georgic^ It will be noticed that both passages are unusually free from the bad taste which disfigures so much of Du Bartas's work. But the epithet dous-flairans reminds us that one of the reproaches most frequently and on the whole most justly brought against him was that he exaggerated the innovations of the Pleiad in the matter of vocabulary, and especially in the use of compound epithets. In the preface which he prefixed to the Seconde Semaine 3 he admits in answer to his critics that he had used these epithets somewhat freely in the first Semaine, but he defends himself on the ground that they often save a whole line, or even two 4 . No doubt that is what happens to all writers who use compound epithets and other neologisms ; they call it economy of 1 (Euvres, p. 240. 2 See for references to the parallel passages Pellissier, op. cit. 142 ff. 3 In the i6ro-n edition it is printed as a preface to the original Semaine. 4 See Pellissier, op. eit. 185 ff. 42 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. language, whereas more often it is economy of thought. But it is a practice which can only be justified by success, and to ensure this the epithet should be such as to impress itself vividly upon the imagination. Another innovation which Du Bartas claims as his own invention is the reduplication of words for the sake of increased effect, such as jlo-jlotter, ba-battre, soii-sonffler, bra-branler. Though he uses these very sparingly 1 , their existence at all is sufficient to shew that he was utterly wanting in one of the essentials of self-criticism, a sense of the ridiculous. It is from a lack of this sense that the fine panegyric on France at the close of Les colonies, the third part of the second Day of the Seconde Semaine, degenerates into an expression of gratitude at the absence of crocodiles, lions, and hippopotamuses. However, as Du Bartas's patriotism is a note which is a distinguishing feature not only of his own poetry but of much of the literature of the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, my final selection shall be the lines which immediately precede this lamentable conclusion : O mille et mille fois terre heureuse et feconde ! O perle de l'Europe ! 6 Paradis du monde ! France, je te salue, 6 mere des guerriers ! Qui jadis ont plante leurs triomphans lauriers Sur les rives d'Euphrate, et sanglant6 leur glaive Ou la torche du jour et se couche et se leve : Mere de tant d'ouvriers, qui d'un hardi bon-heur, Taschent comme obscurcir de Nature l'honneur : Mere de tant d'esprits, qui de scavoir espuisent Egypte, Grece, Rome, et sur les doctes luisent Comme un jaune esclattant sur les pasles couleurs, Sur les astres Phoebus, et sa fleur sur les fleurs. Another Gascon poet of some repute in his day was Pierre de Brach 2 , a native of Bordeaux. He was a common friend of Montaigne and Du Bartas. He made the latter's acquaintance at the University of Toulouse, and one of his most pleasing poems, an account of a tour in Gascony which the two young men made together, contains a description of 1 Pellissier, op. cit. 188 f. 2 b. 1547. The date of his death is not known, but he was alive in 1604. XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 43 the chateau of Bartas 1 . Brach's poetry is of the kind that a high-minded, well-educated, intelligent man, with some gift for versification, might be expected to write in a poetic age. It is well-expressed, easy, and fairly harmonious ; but it stops short of being real poetry, for the breath of inspiration is wanting. Yet to the author's friends he seemed a real poet, for Florimond de Raemond, the Catholic historian of Pro- testantism, after regretting that his own want of practice prevented him from paying a tribute of verse to Montaigne's memory, adds that " only the singer of Aimee could do justice to so rich a theme 2 ." De Brach indeed busied himself with Montaigne's fame, but in a more useful manner than that suggested by his friend. As the editor of the posthumous edition of the Essays, he has earned the gratitude of posterity, and this, rather than his poetry, is his chief title to remembrance. Besides his original work he translated Tasso's Ami/tta 3 and four cantos of Jerusalem Delivered*. Of greater importance is Guy du , .Faur^je Pibrac. whom Montaigne, after recording his recent death in 1584, describes as un esprit si gentil, les opinions si saines, les mceurs si donees^. He was born at Toulouse in 1529 in the same year as Estienne Pasquier, whose intimate friend he became. After a thorough education in the humanities and jurisprudence, under Bunel, Cujas, and Alciati, he entered the magistracy, when he was little more than twenty, as a councillor of the Parliament of Toulouse. In 1562 he represented Charles IX at the Council of Trent, and the rest of his life was spent in the service of the Crown. It was owing to his representations that Bai'f's Academy was revived by Henry III under the name of the Academie du Palais 6 . He was a man of brilliant parts 1 Ed. Dezeimeris, 11. 176 ff. 2 Goujet, xiii. 330. Aimee was the poetical name of the lady to whom Brach's love-sonnets were addressed, and who became his wife. Her real name was Anne. Colletet says in his life of Brach that " he made her name so famous that all France knew it." 3 Published in his Imitations, Bordeaux, 1 584. 4 Paris, 1596. 5 Essais, 111. ix. 6 See Fremy, op. cit. 83 ff. 44 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. and high character, but with a strain of weakness which led him to write an apology for the massacre of St Bartholomew 1 . He had a great reputation as an orator, but he is best known by his moral quatrains, first published in 1574, which enjoyed an enormous popularity down to nearly the middle of the eight- eenth century 2 . They were translated into various languages, including Persian, Arabic, and Turkish, and were committed to memory by several generations of schoolgirls and school- boys. Pjbrac had had the good sense or the good fortune to choose a form of poetry which did not require any higher poetic gift than tha^_of_y igorous and concen trated expression : Ce que tu vois de l'homme n'est pas l'homme, C'est la prison ou il est enserre", C'est le tombeau ou il est enterre, Le lict branlant ou il dort un court somme. Hausse les yeux : la voute suspendue, Ce beau lambris de la couleur des eaux, Ce rond parfaict de deux globes jumeaux, Ce firmament esloigne de la veue, Bref, ce qui est, qui fut, et qui peut estre, En terre, en mer, au plus cache des cieux, Si tost que Dieu l'a voulu pour le mieux, Tout aussi tost il a receu son estre. Le sage est libre enferre de cent chaines. II est seul riche, et jamais estranger : Seul assure au milieu du danger, Et le vray Roy des fortunes humaines 3 . 1 Ornatissimi cuiusdam Viri de Rebus Gallicis ad Stanislattm Elvidium Epistola, 1573. Pibrac adopted the official explanation that the original cause of the massacre was a plot against the Crown by Coligny and his friends, and that Charles IX ordered only the conspirators to be put to death, but could not restrain the fury of the populace. In a letter to Sir Philip Sidney, Hubert Languet partially defends Pibrac, saying that he wrote the apology to save his own life. {The Correspondence of Sidney and Languet, ed. S. A. Pears, 1845, p. 87.) 2 The first edition containing only 50 quatrains was published in 1574; the first complete edition, containing 126, in 15S3. Florent Chrestien translated them into Greek and Latin (1584), Martin Opitz into German, and Joshua Sylvester into English. 3 Nos. xi, xviii, xix, lix. XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 45 The following is quoted by Montaigne in support of his argument against constitutional changes : Ayme l'estat tel que tu le vois estre : S'il est royal, ayme la Royaute' : S'il est de peu, ou bien communaute, Ayme l'aussi, quand Dieu t'y a faict naistre 1 . Ejhxa£»> like Du Bartas, was connected with the Court of Nerac, having been for seventeen months (1579 — 1 58 1 ) chancellor to Margaret, the wife of Henry of Navarre. His unfinished poem, Les plaisirs de la vie rustique , also reminds one of Du Bartas, for, as we have seen, it is the sort of poem that the latter might successfully have attempted. It contains, as we might expect, many reminiscences of Virgil, and Horace, and other classical writers, but the general treatment shews considerable independence. Interesting pictures of country life, with references to the Court fashions by way of contrast, are interspersed with sketches of peasant character and various autobiographical details. The poem was written in 1573, the very year in which the new repre- sentative of the Court poetry, Desportes, published the first collected edition of his poems 2 . 2. Desportes. Born at Chartres in 1542 Philippe Desportes found a patron in Antoine de Sennetaire, the Bishop of Le Buy, who took him to Italy. The familiarity which he there acquired with Italian poetry had, as we shall see, a great influence upon his work. On his return to France he became intimate with Claude de l'Aubespine, the son of the well-known statesman, and himself in the employment of Charles IX. Through his good services Desportes became secretary to his brother- in-law, Nicolas de Neufville, Seigneur de Villeroy, who had 1 No. cix. Essais, III. ix. With Pibrac's quatrains were frequently united those of Antoine Favre (1557 — 1624), a native of Savoy and father of the grammarian Vaugelas, and of Pierre Matthieu (1563 — 1621). 2 It was published at Lyons in 1574. 46 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. succeeded the elder De l'Aubespine as Secretary of State 1 . In 1572 he presented to Charles IX a free version of part of the O r latidjLEiudns_o ; another poem derived from the same source, and entitled La Mart tie Rodomon t, procured him a present of eight hundred golcTcrowns from that ardent lover of poetry. In the following year, 1 573, he published his Premieres CEicvres in a sumptuous volume, which includes most of his works, and in which his style appears to be already fully developed. Soon after its publication he accompanied the Duke of Anjou, to whom he had recommended himself by his ready com- plaisance, to his new kingdom of Poland. But nine months of that barbarous country were as much as the pleasure- loving poet could endure, and he turned homeward just before the news arrived of the Duke's succession to the throne of France. With Henry III as king, Desportes's star was more than ever in the ascendant. On the death of the two mignons, Quelus and Maugiron, as the result of the famous duel of April 26, 1578, he celebrated their virtues, as we have seen, in lines of extravagant flattery 2 , and soon afterwards found a new patron in their more powerful successor, Anne de Joyeuse. He now began to receive more substantial marks of favour from his royal master, who conferred on him the abbey of Tiron, in the diocese of Chartres, and that of Bonport, near Rouen. These two benefices alone, and he had several others, brought him in an annual income of 30,000 /ivres 3 . On the death of his patron, Joyeuse, in the battle of Coutras (1587), he retired to Bonport, and when, after the death of Henry III, Normandy was invaded by the royalist army, he took refuge with Villars-Brancas, a relation of Joyeuse, who proceeded to seize Rouen and hold it for the League. Desportes as usual obtained the complete confidence of his 1 Claude de l'Aubespine the elder died in 1567, the son in 1570, to the great grief of Desportes. 2 See CEuvres, ed. Michiels, p. 315 {Elegies, book ii) and p. 477 (epitaph for Maugiron). 3 See Regnier, Sat. ix. 102, and cf. Sainte-Beuve, Quand on regarde le del par line belle nuif, on y decouvre etoiles stir etoiles ; plus on regarde dans la vie de Des Fortes, et plus on y decouvre dabbayes [Tableau, p. 428 n.). XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 47 new patron and helped him considerably with his advice'. In the final negotiations between Sully and Villars he proved himself an able diplomatist, and it was partly by his influence that his principal was brought to terms' 2 . His own share in the bargain was the restoration of his well-dowered abbeys, with a new one in addition 3 . The rest of his days were spent partly at Bonport, partly at his villa at Vanves in the neighbourhood of Paris. Having enjoyed this world with singular success he now turned his thoughts heavenwards and occupied himself with finishing his translation of the Psalms, of which he had already published sixty in 1591 4 . He was offered the archbishopric of Bordeaux, but declined it on the ground that he did not wish to take upon himself the charge of souls. " But, your monks ? " " My monks ! they have not any." He was better suited to the part which he preferred to play of a liberal Maecenas to less fortunate men of letters. His table and his library were always at their service, and he did them many acts of kindness. When he died in 1606 the numerous epitaphs and other panegyrics that were written in his honour were at any rate expressions of genuine regret. No one had envied the prosperity of a man who was as incapable of pride as he was of shame 5 . It is of a piece with Desportes's character, with his talent for utilising all the resources at his command, that he should have been a skilful plagiarist. He avowed it frankly. When at the close of his life some one published a book under the title of La rencontre des Muses de France et d'ltalie, in which his plagiarisms were set forth, he merely said that the author had better have consulted him, for he could have added to the list 6 . 1 Palma Cayet, Chronologie novenaire, 1608, i. 500 r°. 2 See Mhnoires de Sully ; book vi. It must have been as the protigi of Joyeuse that he is called the poete de VAmirauti in the Satire Menippee, for Villars had not been made admiral when it was published. 3 P. Cayet, op. cit. ii. 356 r°. 4 The complete translation was published at Rouen in 1594. 5 J' a y trente mil livres de rente et cependant je meurs is a remark attributed to him by P. de L'Estoile, who adds that he disbelieved in Purgatory (Journal, VIII. 246). 6 Niceron, xxv. 309 ; Michiels, p. Ixix. Forty-three sonnets were printed with the originals for comparison. 4$ THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. In his Amours he is chiefly indebted to the fifteenth- century poet, Antonio Tebaldeo, and to the contemporary Neapolitan writer, Angelo di Costanzo, who conformed in his sonnets rather to the manner of Tebaldeo and Serafino than to the Petrarchian pattern. Several sonnets are imitated or even literally translated from those of Panfilo Sasso, of Modena, another quattrocentista of the school of Serafino 1 . These being Desportes's models, we are not surprised to find his sonnets full of extravagant conceits and bristling with point and antithesis. Nor are they fortified by any sincerity of emotion, for Desportes was no better qualified than most of the poets of the Pleiad school to play the part of the spiritual lover. Like Bai'f and Magny he writes far better in his true character of a professed libertine. For he was capable of strong, if not durable, emotion, and friendship as well as love could lend warmth to his verse. But just as in practical affairs no emotion obscured for long his marvellous lucidity, so in his poetry the dominant note is esprit rather than passion. The following is a good specimen of his wit : Je l'aimay par dessein, la connoissant volage, Pour retirer mon cceur d'un lien fort dangereux : Aussi que je vouloy n'estre plus amoureux En lieu que le profit n'avan5ast le dommage. Je duray quatre inois avec grand avantage, Goustant tous les plaisirs d'un amant bien-heureux ; Mais en ces plus beaux jours, 6 destins rigoureux ! Le devoir me forca de faire un long voyage. Nous pleurasmes tous deux, puis, quand je fu parti, Son coeur n'agueres mien fut ailleurs diverti : Un revint, et soudain luy voila ralide. Amour je ne m'en veux ny meurtnr ny blesser ; Car, pour dire entre nous, je puis bien confesser Que plus d'un mois devant je l'avois oublie"e -. Sometimes however the wit is a little overdone, as in the song which begins : 1 Flamini, Studi, pp. 433 ff. , and Appendix, I plagi di Filippo Desportes. For his debt to Sasso see J. Vianey in Rev. d'hist. lift. X. (1903) 277 ff. His Amours consist di Diane, Premieres amours, 2 books ; Amours ment, et pour ce, mes Amis, En reverant la beaute qui m'a mis L'amour au cceur, beuvons sous sa rame'e : Sus que chacun tarisse jusqu'au fond Autant de fois ce goubelet profond Qu'y ay de fois baise ma bien-aymee 5 . and in an ode on the familiar subject of spring and love which begins : Maintenant que la belle Flore Fait tout partout les fleurs eclore 1 Printed in 1583. 2 He died after 161 1. 3 Edited by P. Blanchemain, 2 vols. 1878, with some omissions. 4 A poem on his dog Bistoquet (ed. Blanchemain, II. 79) is evidently inspired by the poems of Du Bellay and Magny on Peloton. 5 Ed. Blanchemain, 1. p. 5; from Sonnets en faveur de son Ente (book i of the original edition). 60 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. Et que le gay rossignolet Enfueille dans une rame'e Va courtisant sa bien-aymee D'un langage mignardelet l . 3. Vauque lin de la Fresnaye. From Touraine we pass to Normandy, where in the small town of Vire, the capital of Lower Normandy, we find another lawyer, Maitre Jean le Houx, writing drinking songs which he called Vanx de Vire. In this he was following the example of a worthy fuller of the same town, Olivier Basselin, who fell fighting against the English in the middle of the fifteenth century either at Fourmigny or in some minor skirmish. Indeed, till recently he was supposed merely to have touched up the work of his predecessor, but M. Armand Gaste has proved conclusively both by internal and external evidence that he was the real author of the songs 2 . It seems curious now that there should ever have been any doubt on the subject, for apart from allusions to sixteenth century events the writer of the Vanx de Vire evidently learnt his art in the school of the Pleiad. The variety of his metres is by itself enough to proclaim him a Ronsardist ; classical allusions are not wanting, and when but in the age of the Renaissance could the following stanza have been written ? Qui ayme bien le vin est de bpnne nature. Les mortz ne boyvent plus dedans la sepulture. He ! qui scait s'il vivra Peult estre encor demain ? Chassons melancholic le vay boire d'autant a ceste compaignie : Suyve qui m'aymera 3 ! Apart from the ingenuity which can treat a single theme in so many different fashions, the. merit of these songs is not 1 ib. II. 33 ; from book iv [en faveur de sa Neree). 2 A. Gaste, Etude stir Jean le Houx ; and see Muirhead's introduction to his edition of the Vaux de Vire. Among other things Gaste shewed that the MS of the Vaux de Vire in the Caen library is undoubtedly in the handwriting of Jean le Houx. 3 Ed. Muirhead, p. 4. XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 6l very great. They are especially wanting in the chief requisite of a drinking song, a good swinging melody. The following will serve as a specimen : I'avois charge mon navire De vins qui estoient tres bons, Telz comme il les faut a Vire, Pour boire aux bons compagnons. Donnez par charity, a boire a ce povre homme marinier, Qui par tourmente et fortune a tout perdu sur la mer. Nous estions bonne troupe, Aymons ce que menions, Qui ayans le vent en pouppe L'un a l'aultre en beuvions. Donnez, etc. Deia, proches du rivage, Ayans ben cinq ou six coups, Nous fismes triste nauffrage Et ne sauvasmes que nous. Donnez, etc. II fust mieux en nostre gorge Ce vin que estre en la mer : Quand chacun chez soy le loge, II est hors de tout danger. Donnez, etc. 1 The chief representative of the poetic art in Normandy during this period — for Bertaut and Du Perron, though both Normans by birth, had migrated to Paris and were essentially Court poets — is J^ajT__Vauquelinde_la_ Fresnaye, who fitly closes this chapter. For in a way he may be said to sum up the whole work of the Pleiad. Not because by far the greater part of his poetry was not published till the very year 1605 which has been chosen to mark the end of the Renaissance period, for it was mostly written before Ronsard's death; but because his Art poctiqiie is, to borrow Sainte- Beuve's phrase, the official code of the Pleiad, the epilogue to the movement of which the Deffence was the prologue 2 . 1 ib. p. 56. 2 //... conticnt... le bilan de la poesie francaise aux environs de 1583. P. Morillot in Petit de Julleville, ill. iy t . 62 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. Vauquelin was born at the chateau of Fresnaye, near Falaise, in 1536. After studying the humanities under Turnebe and Muret at Paris, he read law first at Angers, and then at Poitiers. There, as we have seen, he formed one of a group of young men who neglected law for poetry and looked up to Jacques Tahureau as their master 1 . In 1555, the year after his arrival, he published at Poitiers his Forestries, a very youthful production, inspired partly by a real love of nature, partly by classical literature, and to a large extent modelled on the least valuable portion of Tahureau's poetry, the mawkish baisers and viignardises. This, however, was his last appearance in print for half-a-century. His volume received encouragement neither from the public nor from his mother — his father had died when he was a boy — and he accordingly betook himself seriously to the study of law under Duaren at Bourges, and so qualified himself to fill the part of a patriotic citizen' 2 . From 1572 to 1595 he held the post of lieutenant-general of the bailiwick of Caen, and in 1588 he represented that district at the Estates of Blois. But the calls of an active public life did not lead him to abandon poetry altogether. In his own words : Et le temps qui me reste en mon peu de loisir, Aux lettres je le donne, aux vers je prens plaisir, J'imite, je traduits, j'invente, je compose, Apres les anciens, ore en vers, ore en prose 3 . But for a long time he resisted all temptations to publish these fruits of his leisure. At last, in 1604, when he was verging on his seventieth year, his resistance gave way, and he began the printing of a volume which was finished in the following year. If he had ever had any faculty of self- criticism, he had utterly lost it by this time. Five books of satires, two of idylls (including much that was grossly indecent), an art poe'tique of nearly 3,500 lines, innumerable 1 En ce temps, 6 quel heur ! sans haine et sans envie Nous passions dans Poitiers l'Avril de nostre vie Au lieu de demesler de nos Droits les debats. Art Poitique, II. 1067 — 9. 2 See his satire, A son livre, the last of book i, for details of his early life. 3 First satire of book iv {Diverses poesies, p. 311). XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 63 sonnets, epitaphs and epigrams, all went to swell the volume. He omitted nothing except the already published Foresteries, and a long pastoral elegy on his friend and fellow- magistrate, Jean Rouxel. Two years later (1607) he died, leaving the reputation of a singularly high-minded and amiable gentleman 1 . The lack of judgment which he shewed in the publication of his poems has its compensating side for the student of literature, for it makes him an admirable measure of the faults and virtues of his poetic school. His most glaring fault is over-production, production without any real inspira- tion. No event was too dull, no topic too trivial for his Muse. Akin to this is his diffuseness, his utter lack of economy in expression. Truly might he have said with Pascal, " I have made this poem so long, because I had not the leisure to make it shorter." Thirdly, in the Foresteries and the Idyllies, he exaggerates the unmanly side of the Pleiad poetry, its sugared sentiment, its baby prettinesses, its preoccupation with the material side of love. Lastly he carries to excess the tendency of his school to imitation and plagiarism. Yet with these grave faults he has some measure of the two most important poetic gifts, i maginati on, and the faculty of poet ic utterance. He was a true disciple of_the_Pleiad, and the Pleiad , with all its defects, was a school o f true poetry . Thus in the Idyllies, many of which were written before 1 560 when he was little over twenty, we come upon charming snatches of song, in which that mixture of simplicity and art which is the true idyllic flavour is perhaps better represented than in any other of the pastoral pro- ductions of the Pleiad. There are no better specimens than the two chosen by Professor Saintsbury. Here is one of them : Pasteurs, voici la fonteinette, Ou tousjours se venoit mirer, Et ses beautez, seule, admirer La pastourelle Philinette. 1 For the date of his death see J. T ravers, Essai, p. lxxxiii. It is correctly given by Moreri. 64 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. Voici le mont ou de la bande Je la vis la dance mener, Et les nymphes l'environner Comme celle qui leur commande. Pasteurs, voici la verte pree Oil les fleurs elle ravissoit, Dont, apres, elle embellissoit Sa perruque blonde et sacree. Ici, folastre et decrochee, Contre un chesne elle se cacha : Mais, par avant, elle tascha Que je la visse estre cached. Dans cet antre secret encore, Mile fois elle me baisa ; Mais, depuis, mon cceur n'apaisa De la flamme qui le devore. Done, a toutes ces belles places, A la fontaine, au mont, au pre, Au chesne, a l'antre tout sacre - , Pour ces dons, je rends mile graces l . But in place of the other 2 , which is also given by Sainte- Beuve, I will quote one which is not so well known : Toy qui peux bien me rendre heureux, Pourquoi te rends tu si hautaine, Philis di moy ? Car si tu veux Tu rendras heureuse ma peine. Ie scay que ie ne suis des beaux : Mais aussi ie ne suis sans grace, Aumoins si l'argent de ces eaux Me montre au vray quelle est ma face. Nul plus que moy n'a de troupeaux, Ni plus de fruicts ni de laitage : Chez moi ne manquent les chevreaux, Ni le said, ni le fourmage. Ie voudroy seulement ici Dedans ces bois tout franc d'envie, Sans des villes avoir souci, Vivre avec toy toute ma vie. 1 Idyll. 62 (Les diverses poesies, ed. Travers, p. 503). With 11. 15, 16 cf. Virg. Eel. III. 65, Et se cupit ante videri. 2 Idyll. 60 {ib. p. 502). XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 65 Las ! Philanon, qui le conduit En t'egarant en cette sorte? Vois-tu point ton troupeau, qui fuit Le Loup, qui ton mouton emporte 1 ? Of Vauquelin's satires, which he seems to have written at intervals between 1574 and 1595, I shall have something more to say in the chapter on Regnier. Since M. Joseph Vianey has completed the work of stripping them of their borrowed plumes they have lost whatever claim to merit they ever enjoyed ; not even the prefatory Discours sur la satyre is original. It is true that Vauquelin acknowledges his debt to Horace and Ariosto, but he borrows without acknowledgement long passages, even whole satires, from Alamanni and Sansovino and other Italians 2 . Nor can he be said to have adorned what he stole :' his language is too incorrect, and his style is too languid for satire. He had indeed no high opinion of his own verses, which he aptly describes as Pleins de paresse et non de doctes veillcs 3 . His Art poetique, which he began to write in 1575 at the command of Henry III, but which was not finished till near the close of his reign 4 , is composed on the same plan as the Satires. Horace's Ars Poetica provides about a thousand lines, or nearly a third of the whole poem, each line of the Latin being expanded into two or more of the French. The other two epistles of Horace's second book are also drawn upon, while several passages are taken from Vida and Minturno. To these writers indeed Vauquelin acknowledges his debt, and with them he joins Aristotle as one of his sources, but it is evident that he knew his Poetics chiefly 1 Idyll. 42 (id. 490), and cf. Virg. Eel. II. 19 — 26. 2 See J. Vianey, Maturin Regnier, 1896, pp. 69 — 77. He points out that the well-known passage in the satire of book iii addressed to Ph. de Nolent beginning Je ne sfanroy, comme a Dieux imtnorteh, is almost literally translated from Alamanni, and that the satire to Bertaut, the last of book v, is with the exception of sixteen lines translated word for word from Vinciguerra. For the debts to Ariosto, which are very large, see Lemercier, pp. 206, 7. 3 Cf. Je suis comme un grand lac ou beaucoup vont a l'eau, Qui tarissent ma source et troublent mon ruisseau. A. P. 1. 1 165. 4 A. P. ill. 1 145 ; ib. 1 165. T. II. 5 66 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. through Minturno 1 . He has also borrowed from Ronsard and Du Bellay, while for his knowledge of mediaeval French literature he is indebted to Claude Fauchet. The original part of his work is interesting partly for its references to the productions of the Pleiad school and its personal reminis- cences, partly as representing the poetical ideas of the school. In fact Vauquelin's treatise stands in much the same relation to the Pleiad poetry as Sibilet's does to that of the Marotic school. But unlike Sibilet Vauquelin looks altogether behind him ; his attitude is that of a faithful disciple tempered to some extent by his own mild and reasonable nature, and by the lesso ns of moderation wh ich the s econd generation of the Pleiad had learnt. For him Desportes was the supreme exponent of the school 2 . In one point alone does he shew independence — and even here he is but following Du Bartas — namely in his opposition to the literary paganism of the day and the exhortation to write on Christian subjects : Si les Grecs, comme vous, Chrestiens eussent escrit, lis eussent les hauts faits chante* de Iesus Christ. Nor does Vauquelin atone for his want of originality by any skill in the arrangement of his treatise, which is full of confusion and repetition. Its poetic merit lies solely in the digressions, of which the aspiration for peace at the close of the prelude to the Third book may be especially commended : Viendra jamais le temps que le harnois sera Tout couvert des nlets que laraigne fera? Que le rouil mangera les haches emoulues, Que les hantes seront des lances vermoulues? 1 Pour ce ensuivant les pas du fils de Nicotnaclie (Aristotle), Du harpeur de Calabre (Horace) et tout ce que remache Vide, et Mintume apres, fay cet ceuvre apreste. See Pellissier, xxxvii ff. ; Spingarn, Literary Criticism in the Renaissance, pp. i86ff. Minturno's De poeta was published in 1559, and his Arte Poetica in 1564. 2 Un Desportes qui fait, Composant nettement, cet Art quasi par/ait. A. P. III. 1 173- XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 6? Que le son des clairons ne rompra nuict ne jour Du pasteur en repos le paisible sejour 1 ? Some of the b est poetic work of th e second generation o f the Pleiad is to be found in the choruses of the two dramatists, Gamier an d Montchrestien. They keep to a somewhat narrow range of commonplace for their ideas, but their language is imaginative and stately, and Gamier, at least, is almost as great a master of rhythm as Ronsard himself. Among the numerous elegies which Ronsard's death called forth from his surviving disciples the finest undoubtedly is Garnier's 2 . It is addressed to Desportes, who, though he had ceased to write secular poetry, was generally recognised as Ronsard 's successor. But the true inhe ritor of the poe tic style which Ronsard had fashioned wa s Gamier him self. Finally it must be borne in mind that though all the writers discussed in this chapter, with the exception of two or at the most three, lived beyond the limits of the sixteenth century, comparatively little of their poetry was written during the last quarter of it, and very little indeed after Ronsard's death. The unfinished Seconde Sema ine of Du Barta s, the r contributions of Passerat, Durant and _Rapi n to the Satire Menippee, and part of Vauquelin's Art Poe'tiqiie. p ractically represent the sum total of all that was produced after the latter date. From that time until the arrival of Malherbe, though Despor tes was still reg ar ded as the leading F rench poet, French poetry was mainly represented by the two official laureates. Du Perron and Bertau t, and after Du Perron's retirement by Bertaut alone, who, if under one aspect he is a paler reflexion of Desportes, under another and historically a more important one is a forerunner of Malherbe. Jjertaut 's poetry, therefore, is intermediate between that of the true Pleiad__jchooJ and that of Ma lhe.rhp, and as such will be treated in a later chapter dealing especially with the years of transition from the Renaissance epoch to its successor. Meanwhile, even including not only Bertaut's work but the lyrical portions of Gamier and Montchrestien, and 1 in. 61 — 66. 2 Ronsard, CEiivres, VIII. 243 ff. 5-2 68 THE SECOND GENERATION [CH. D'Aubigne's Les Tragiques, the amount of poetry produced in France during the third and last period of this history is com- paratively small. On the other hand the prose literature of the period is abundant and important. But before pro- ceeding to consider it in its various developements we must first turn our attention to another product of the Pleiad, the Renaissance drama. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. GuiLLAUME SALUSTE DU Bartas, La Muse Chrestienne, Bordeaux, 1573. La Semaine ou Creation du Monde, 1578. La Secoude Semaine, premier et second jour, 1584. Les CEuvres, 2 vols. 1610 — 11. Pierre DE Brach, Les Poemes, Bordeaux, 1576. CEuvres poetiques^ ed. R. Dezeimeris, 2 vols. 1861 — 62. GUY DU Faur DE PlBRAC, Cinquante quatrains co?itenans preceptes et enseignemens utiles poitr la vie de I'homme, Paris, F. Morel, 1574. Editions were published in the same year at Lyons, Rouen, and Le Mans. Les quatrains, 1583. Les quatrains suivis de ses autres poesies y ed. J. Claretie and E. Courbet, 1874. Philippe Desportes, Les premieres ceuvres, 1573 (Le Petit, p. 97) ; 1600 (Picot, 1. no. 740, the edition used by Malherbe) ; 161 1 (a copy in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge ; the most complete edition, but without the Psalms). Soixante psaumes, 1591 ; Les psaumes de David, Rouen, 1549. CEuvres, ed. A. Michiels, 1858. Jean Passerat, Le premier livre des poemes, 1597 ; reveus et augmentez, 1602. Recueil des atuvres poetiques... augmente de plus de la moilie, 1606 (Picot, 1. no. 713). Les poe'sies francaises, ed. P. Blanchemain, 2 vols. 18S0. Gilles Durand de la Bergerie, Imitations du latin de Jean Bonnefons par Gilles Durand sieur de la Bergerie auec d'aulres gaietfc amoureuses de Vinvention de Fauteur, 1587 (second part of a volume of which the first part contains the Pauc/iaris of J. Bonnefons). CEuvres poetiques, 1594 (Picot, I. no. 757). NICOLAS Rapin, Les asuvres latines et francaises, 1610. Les plaisirs du gentilhomme champctre, 1583 ; ed. B. Fillon, with a biographical notice, 1853. Michel Guy de Tours, Les premieres o3uvres poetiques et souspirs amoureux, 1598 ; ed. P. Blanchemain, 2 vols. 1878. JEAN le Houx, Les Vaux de Vire, publics sur le MS. aulographe du poete, par A. Gastd, 1875 > edited and translated by J. P. Muirhead, 1885. XVIII] THE SECOND GENERATION 69 Jean Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Les deux premiers livres des Foresteries, Poitiers, 1555. Les diverses poesies, Caen, 1605 (Picot, I. no. 725) ; ed. J. Travers, 2 vols. Caen, 1869 — 70. CEuvres diverses en prose et en vers (including the Foresteries, published separately in 1869), pre'ecdees d'un Essai sur PAuteur, Caen, 1872. L'art poctique, ed. G. Pellissier, 1885. To BE CONSULTED. C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, Tableau de la poe'sie francaise. H. F. Cary, The early French Poets. G. Colletet, Vies des poctes gascons, ed. P. Tamizey de Larroque, pp. 71 ff., 1866 (Du Bartas). J. W. v. Goethe, Works (Cotta's edition, 1866 — 68), XXV. 260 ff. (remarks appended by Goethe to his translation of Le tieveu de Rameau). G. Pellissier, La vie et les aeuvres de Du Bartas, 1883. O. de Gourcuff and P. Be"netrix, Salluste Du Bartas, Choix de poesies, Auch, 1890 (they print Uranie and give a full list of authorities for Du Bartas's life). R. Dezeimeris, Notice sur Pierre de Brach, 1858 (incorporated in the above edition of his works). P. Stapfer, La famille de Montaigne, pp. 237—271, 1896. C. Paschal, Vidi Fabricii Pibrachii vita, 1584 ; La vie et moeurs de Messire Guy du F~aur, seigneur de Pybrac, 161 7 (a translation of the above by Guy du Faur d'Hermay). L. Feugere, Caracteres et portraits litteraires du xvi e siecle, II. 1849. M.-E. Cougny, Pibrac, sa vie et ses e'erits, 1869. F. Brunot, La doctrine de Malherbe, c. 1. 1891. E. Faguet in Rev. des cours et conf. 1893 (Dec. 28) and 1894. F. Flamini, Studii di storia letteraria italiana et straniera, 346 ff., 433 ff. Leghorn, 1895. E. Auble, Etude sur Nicolas Rapin in Mhnoires de la Societe des sciences morales etc. de Seine et Oise, XII. 1884. A. Caste", Etude sur Jean le Houx, 1874. A. P. Lemercier, Etude litteraire et morale stir les poesies de Jean Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, 1887. G. Saintsbury, A history oj criticism and literary taste in Europe, II. 128 — 134, 1902. CHAPTER XIX THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA THROUGHOUT the first half of the sixteenth century the mediaeval drama still reigned, but with a rapidly declining sway. Towards the close of the reign of Francis I objections began to be raised to the mystery-plays on the ground of irreverence, and finally by a decree of the Paris Parliament dated November 17, 1548, the Confreres de la Passion, who had just installed themselves in the Hotel de Bourgogne, were forbidden to represent mysteries taken from Holy Scripture. This, however, by no means put an end to the popularity of the Confreres, even at Paris, the only place affected by the prohibition 1 . They continued to play profane mysteries, moralities and farces, and even sometimes religious mysteries, cloaked under the name of tragedies or tragi-comedies 2 . Moreover the same decree had secured to them (saving the rights of the Bazoche and the Enfants sans sonci) the exclusive privilege of representing public plays of any sort at Paris. The decline of mediaeval comedy in its form of the sotie dates from the same period as that of the mystery-play. Its last spurt of activity had been made during the reign of Louis XII, who had employed Gringore as a political pamph- leteer to assist him in his struggle with Julius II. On the other hand the favour shewn by Francis I to this outspoken 1 For representations of mysteries in the provinces after 1548, see Petit de Julleville, Les mysteres (2 vols. 1880), I. 446. 2 E. Rigal, Le the&tre franfais, p. 129. Lecoq's mystery of Cain played in Normandy in 1580 is called a tragedy (Darmesteter and Hatzfeld, Morceaux choisis, p. 320). CH. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA Jl comedy was fitful and capricious. In the second year of his reign Jehan du Pontalais and two other members of the Bazoche - were imprisoned. We hear indeed of a Cry de la Bazoche being played in 1 548, but from this time the popularity of the Bazoche, as well as of the Eufauts sans souci, rapidly and definitely declined 1 . Meanwhile the influence of the c lassic al drama was begin- ning to make itself felt, partly through translations and partly through the medium of the Italian Renaissance drama. ^Lazare de Ba'i'f 's versions of th e Electro , of Sopho cles and the Hecuba of Euripides, poor though they were, could not fail to excite attention. Another play of Euripides, the Ipliigenia in A nils, was translated by Sibilet in 1549 2 , and Charles Estienne pro- duced in 1542 a prose version of Teren ce's Andria. About this time too we find professors writing Latin plays of a classical type for their pupils. At the age of twelve, says Montaigne, who was born in 1533, " I took the chief parts in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente, and Muret, which were played in great state in our College of Guienne 3 ." In fact, Buchanan's Jephthes , first played about 1542, and Muret's Julius Caesar (1544) were the two most notable productions of this N eo- Latin drama 4 . On September 28, 1548, the Court had an opportunity of judging of the merits of the Italian Renaissance drama, when Ippolito d' Este, the Cardinal of Ferrara, produced at Lyons before Henry II and Catharine de' Medici Cardinal Bibbiena's La Calandria 5 , founded on the Menaechmi of Plautus and formerly regarded as the first modern Italian comedy 6 . Five 1 No trace has been found of a representation by the Clercs de la Bazoche later than 1582 (Rigal, Le theatre francais, p. 116). 2 Salel translated the Helena, but it was never published. 3 Essais, I. xxv. 4 Buchanan also wrote Baptistes and Latin translations of the Medea and Alcestis. Jephthes is much superior as a drama to Muret's play. For an analysis of it see Faguet, La tragedie francaise an xvi e siecle, pp. 70 ff. 5 Brantome, CEuvres, II. 256. 6 Tiraboschi (VII. 1253) supposed it to have been represented at Urbino between 1504 and 1508, the date of AriostoJs_first_comedy, the Ca ssaria, being _ i 508. But it has been shewn that the first representation of the Calandria did not take place till Feb. 6, 1513 (F. Flamini, // Cinqnecenlo, p. 273). 72 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. months later appeared Du Bellay's Deffence in which he exhorts French poets to write comedies and tragedies instead of farces and moralities. In the same year (1549) Ronsard, with the help of his friends, performed his translation of the Pint us of Aristophanes at the Collegeof Coqueret. It was in one sense, as his biographer Claude Binet says, " the^first French comedy played in France." But it was only a trans- lation, and Ronsard would never have dreamt of disputing with Jodelle the honour of having produced the first French comedy as well as the first French tragedy. In fact, in the Ode to Jean Bastier de la Peruse he pays him his just due : Jodelle heureusement sonna, D'une voix humble et d'une voix hardie, La comedie avec la tragedie, Et d'un ton double, ore bas ore haut, Remplit premier le Francois eschauffaut 1 . I. Renaissance Tragedy. The production of Jodelle's first tragedy Cleopdtrc is related by Estienne Pasquier in a well-known passage. It was first played, together with a comedy entitled La Rencontre, before the King at the Hotel de Reims (doubtless the hotel of Charles de Guise, better known as the Cardinal de Lorraine, who was Archbishop of Reims), and afterwards at the College of Boncour, " where all the windows were filled with numbers of distinguished persons, and the court was thronged to over- flowing with students 2 ." The principal parts were taken by Remy Belleau and Jean Bastier de la Peruse, and P_asquier was present as a spectator in the company, as he is careful to tell us, of the great Turnebus 3 . 1 (Euvres, VI. 45. 2 Toutes les fenetres etaient tapissees d'une infinite" de personnages d'honneur, et la cour si pleine d'e'coliers, que les portes du college en regorgeaient. Recherches, VII. vi. 3 Pasquier does not give the date of these performances, but according to Charles de la Mothe Cleop&tre and Eugene (the first French comedy) were both produced in 1552, and we know from internal evidence that as regards Eugene this is correct, for there is a reference to the impending siege of Metz, which began in October, 1552. It is commonly supposed that La Rencontre is another name for Eugene, XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 73 It is then as the first French tragedy that Jodelle's Ctiopatre demands our careful attention. The play opens with a long monologue by Antony's ghost, in which he tells us ' C t - that he has appeared to Cleopatra in a dream and summoned her to join him. In the Second Scene Cleopatra relates her dream to her two attendants, Eros and Charmian, and announces her intention of killing herself. This gives rise to an animated discussion. In the Second Act, which has only one scene, Octavian expresses his regret for Antony's death, and his officers, Agrippa and Proculeius, advise him to pre- vent Cleopatra from committing suicide in order that she may grace his triumph. In the Third Act the two principal characters, Octavian and Cleopatra, are for the first and only time brought face to face. Cleopatra implores Octavian to spare her life and that of her children, and he grants her prayer. In the Fourth Act she explains to her attendants that the object of her entreaties was merely to preserve the life of her children, and then the three women go together to Antony's tomb. In the Fifth Act their death is related by Proculeius to the chorus of Alexandrine women. It will be noticed that, Antony being already dead, the action of the play is confined to the death of Cleopatra, and thus only covers the same ground as the last Act of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. As M. Rigal says, . "the unity of acti on is so perfec t that there i s alm ost no vj^^' actio n at all." Yet in the conflict between Cleopatra and Octavian, between her determination to kill herself and his I to prevent her, there is plenty of scope for dramatic action, i k^ y But Jodelle has missed his opportunity. It is, as we have \J^y^ seen only in the T hird Act that the two protagonists meet, and except in this Act, which has some dramatic merit, I the play is totally devoid of action. In the other Acts the f speeches are chiefly lyrical in tone, and the minor characters J hut this seems unlikely, for there is nothing in Engine to warrant either the title, or the explanation of it given by Pasquier. Nor can we suppose that Pasquier was mistaken in the play. The most satisfactory solution is that Cleop&tre was played at the Hotel de Reims towards the end of 1552 and at the College of Boncour early in 1553. See G. Lanson in Rev. cfhist. lift. x. 186 — \go. A 74 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. ^ do little more than play the part of an additional chorus to either Octavian or Cleopatra. Thus Cleopdtre may be more properly described as a series of dram atic ly rics than as a true dra ma. Moreover the part allowed to the actual chorus forms at least a quarter of the whole play. Yet there is something in the play which at once differ- entiates it from a mediaeval mystery. Cleopatra is no mere stage^puppet, but a w oman of energy and pu rpose. Moreover, as Ebert points out, there is rea l pathos in her situation, because there is truth and passion i n her u tterances 1 . More than this one can hardly expect from a youth of twenty. As regards the versification it is to be noted that the First and Fourth Acts 2 are written in Alexandrines, while for the other < Acts the old decasyllabic metre is used. It is obvious that Jodelle's principal model was Seneca. He could hardly have had a worse one. The merits of Seneca's plays are philosophical power, political wisdom, and above all psychological insight. But though he can analyse character, he has not the synthetic power to create it ; though he can portray passion, he cannot make men and women. Further, he exaggerates the loose structure of Euripides' plays, until his own are absolutely devoid of unity ; and in his desire to be more tragic than ' the most tragic ' of the Greek poets he bases his appeal to the emotions on bloodshed and other physical horrors. Thus his plays as dramas are worthless, and indeed it is fairly certain that they were written, not for the stage, but for the recitation room. The very language, with its glitter of point and antithesis, with its use and abuse of all the arts by which a skilled rhetorician bids for the applause of his audience, points to the same conclusion. Yet it was to the pattern pf_Seneca that the young play- wrights of the French Renaissance conformed with increasing slavishness. The long monologues, the rapid duologues of single or even half lines, the sententious maxims (which it was the fashion to print within inverted commas), the rhetorical 1 p. 107. 2 Ebert notes that these are the more pathetic Acts (p. in). XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 75 artifices of language, the more or less strict adherence to the unities, the separation of the chorus from the action of the play, all these are Senecan characteristics which become more or less stereotyped in French Renaissance tragedy. But the heritage of Seneca which was the most fatal in its conse- quences was the substitution of rhetorical declamation and lyrical emotion for true dramatic action. In Seneca's case this was due, not only to his ignorance of dramatic construc- tion, but to his philosophy of life. For him man is the puppet of a blind and capricious Destiny from which he can only escape by a voluntary death. Action, other than suicide, is impossible to him, for he is not a free agent ; he can only Beweep his outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with his bootless cries, And look upon himself and curse his fate. It is the same with the heroes and heroines of French Renaissance tragedy, with Cleopatra, and Dido, and Saul, and Porcia. But such a theory of life, whatever its philosophical value, is fatal to dramatic action. How far the French playwrights were influenced in this cult of Seneca by the Italians is in the want of positive evidence impossible to determine. The only Italian tragedy which was translated into French was Trissino's Sofo)iisba, written in 15 15 and generally regarded as the earliest regular tragedy of modern literature 1 . A French version of it, the work of Mellin de Saint-Gelais with the help of some colla- . borateur' 2 , was played before the Court at Blois in February, 1554 3 . But Giraldi Cintio complained that Sofonisba followed too much the inferior lines of Greek Tragedy, and chose as his own model the most revolting of Seneca's tragedies, Thyestes. His play, entitled Orbecchc, was the first classical tragedy represented in Italy — the date is 1541 — and it exercised a great influence. Of a similar type was Sperone Sperorn^s Can ace, written in 1542, while in 1543 another adaptation of Thyestes was published by Ludovico Dolce. 1 Rucellai's Rosmimda was written later in the same year. 2 There seems to be no authority for iilanchemain's statement that this was Habert. 3 Saint-Gelais, CEuvres, III. 159 ff. 76 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. Jodelle's tragedy shews no trace of the influence of either the Orbecche or the Canace 1 . On the other hand, in his treatment of the Chorus, which in the Third and Fourth Acts interrupts the dialogue with lyrical intermezzi (contrary to the express \,Jr precept of Aristotle), he is following the example of Sofonisba.-' In the three later Acts the Chorus also takes part in the ac tion^ T l/^of the jirama, a practice unknown to Seneca, but followed by Sophocles and commended by Aristotle. Before long, however, French Tragedy was to make an even closer approximation to the Senecan pattern. In 1554 Jean Bastier de la Peruse, who, as we have seen, had been one of the principal actors in Jodelle's Cleopdtre, died at the age of twenty-five, leaving behind him a tragedy, named Medee. His friends, Guillaume Bouchet and Scevole de Sainte-Marthe, put the finishing touches to it and saw it through the press in 15 56 s . It has distinct merits of style, but its chief interest lies in the fact that it is an adaptation, with some help from Euripides, of Seneca's play of the same name. In the same year another member of the Poitiers circle, Charles Toutain, published an imitation of Seneca's Aga- memnon 3 , and the same play was again imitated by Le Duchat in 1 56 1. We must now return to Jodelle, but unfortunately we have no evidence to enable us to fix the date either of the com- position or of the performance (if it was ever performed) of his next tragedy, Didon se sacrifiant. Except as regards style and versification — it is written in Alexandrines throughout — it shews no real advance on Cleopatir. If the lyrical element is less prominent there is more rhetoric, the speeches being of immense length ; and if possible there is less action. Even the improvement in style is due in part to the fact that Jodelle closely follows Virgil, sometimes translating him word 1 It may be noted, however, that Cintio wrote both a Cleopatra and a Didone, the subject of Jodelle's second play. 2 Ronsard, CEnvres, VII. 240 ; Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Art Poetiqne, II. 1039 — 1046. For a copy of an edition of this date (bound up with Toutain's Agamemnon, 1556, and Rouillet's Philanire, 1563), see Brunet, Supp. I. col. 77S, where the date of Philanire is given as 1553, which is clearly wrong. 3 Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, id. 1047. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA JJ for word. There are two Choruses, a practice apparently adopted from the Senecan tragedies, Agamemnon and Hercules Oetaeus 1 . Jodelle died in 1573, long enough after the composition of his first play to have had time to develop his dramatic talent ; but even without the difficulties which surrounded writers for the stage in those days it is doubtful whether he would have attained to any real success. A lofty and original thinker, he had not the perseverance to perfect himself in any one branch of literature. Puffed up with vanity and ambition he regarded himself as a universal genius, equally fitted for literature or practical life. It was his merit only, he firmly believed, which stood in the way of his advancement 2 . But the fiasco which befel a masquerade designed by him for the rejoicings at Paris on February 17, 1558, in celebration of the recovery of Calais, may also have contributed to his ill success. At any rate he languished for the rest of his days in com- parative obscurity. He made many bids for favour and received occasional presents from Charles IX, to whom he began a long unfinished poem, entitled Les discours de Jules Cesar, but he never again renewed the laurels of his youth, those laurels of which he sings in the following sonnet : J'aime le verd laurier, dont l'hyver ni la glace N'effacent la verdeur en tout victorieuse, Monstrant l'eternite a jamais bienheureuse Que le temps ny la mort ne change ny efface. J'aime du hous aussi la tousiours verte face, Les poignans eguillons de sa fueille espineuse : J'aime le lierre aussi, et sa branche amoureuse, Qui le chesne ou le mur estroitement embrasse. J'aime bien tous ces trois, qui tousiours verds ressemblent Aux pensers immortels, qui dedans moy s'assemblent, Ue toy que nuict et jour idolatre j'adore. Mais ma playe, et poincture, et le noeu qui me serre, Est plus verte, et poignante, et plus estroit encore Que n'est le verd laurier, ny le hous, ny le lierre 3 . 1 Seneca's authorship of both these has been questioned, but the Agamemnon is generally regarded as genuine. 2 See the poem A sa ?nuse. 3 Amours, xiv {(Euvres, II. 8) ; translated by Cary, p. 132. The story told y 7 S ! THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. In the same year (1558) in which Jodelle met with his fiasco, a new star appeared on the dramatic horizon in the person of 1. t oques Grevin , a native of Clermont in the Beau- vaisis 1 , and a student of medicine of the Paris University. Ik- was barely twenty when his first piece, a comedy, La Tresoriere, was produced. It was followed in 1560 by another comedy, Les Esbahis, and by a tragedy, Cesar, which were played on the same day at the College of Beauvais 2 . The tragedy is modelled on Muret's play, and owes much more to it than Grevin acknowledges in his preface to the printed edition'. For as a matter of fact he has bodily appropriated nearly half of it, sometimes translating word for word, some- times expanding or summarising 4 . But he has introduced certain changes which have the effect of making the play somewhat more dramatic than its model. Instead of con- fining himself, as Murethas done, to Plutarch's Life of Caesar, he has also drawn upon those of Antony and Brutus ; and while Muret's play is more or less a declamation in honour of republicanism, Grevin takes for his central idea the conflict between the republican and the monarchical principle. This in itself shews some dramatic promise, which however is only partially realised in the working out of the play. The only parts that can be called really dramatic are the scene between Calpurnia, Caesar, and Decimus Brutus in the Third Act, in which Caesar, after yielding to his wife's fears, is finally per- suaded by Brutus to go to the meeting of the Senate, and the last Act, in which the mob is harangued by the conspirators on one side and by Mark Antony on the other. But these scenes by Gentillet in the Anti-Machiavel, Pt II. c. i, that he died of hunger is doubtless an invention of the Protestants whom he attacked smartly in his poems. See for his lyrical work, 11. Fehse in Zeitsch. fur franz. Spr. n. 183 ff. 1 He was born in 1538. Clermont is about half-way between Beauvais and Compiegne. - Ronsard's Discours a Jat/ues Grevin (CEuvres, VI. 311) was written about this time. Je tie veux pourtant nier que s'il se trouve quelque traict digne cfestre hue, qitil ne soit de Muret. Grevin's friend Florent Chrestien adapted Buchanan's Jephthes. * Collischonn, pp. 15 ff". XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 79 together only occupy about 150 lines, or less than a sixth of the whole play, exclusive of the choruses. The rest is chiefly taken up with long monologues and duologues which have little or no effect on the action. A peculiar and interesting feature is the treatment of the Chorus, which is composed of Caesar's soldiers. The utterances generally take the form of a lyrical dialogue, but sometimes that of a mere conversation between individual soldiers. Grevin tells us in his preface that he introduced this innovation in the interests of truth, or, as we should say now-a-days, with a view to greater realism 1 . It was in fact a step towards the suppression of the Chorus altogether. We can hardly expect to find in the work of so young a man any adequate representation of character, but Calpurnia's nervous condition after her dream is not unsuccess- fully portrayed, and there is an attempt to contrast the more emotional and violent temperament of Cassius with that of the calmer and more moderate Brutus. Finally, the style, though it is marred by certain rhetorical tricks common to most Renaissance tragedies, not infrequently attains a certain dignity and energy, which reminds one that Grevin is a fore- runner, however humble, of Corneille. Unfortunately, after taking his doctor's degree, he aban- doned the drama for the practice and study of medicine. On the outbreak of the second civil war (end of September 1567) he left France, being a Protestant, and after short visits to London and Antwerp accepted an invitation from Margaret of France, the Duchess of Savoy, to go to Turin as her physician. Here he resided till his death, three years later, in November 1570. Besides his plays he wrote a certain amount of non-dramatic poetry, not in any way remarkable. Some sonnets written at Rome during a visit which he made to that city from Turin are too visibly inspired by Du Bellay's Antiquites de Rome' 1 , while some others written in London shew the influence of the same writer's Regrets*. Nor do the 1 Pinvert, p. 136. a ib. 358 ft. 3 id. 370 ff. Neither of these groups of sonnets was published 111 Grevin's lifetime. 8o THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. series of sonnets addressed to Nicole, daughter of Charles Estienne, under the name of Olimpe, rise above the level of the ordinary Petrarchian sonnet of the day 1 . His comedies will be considered later. In the year after the performance of Cesar, viz. in 1561, a sacred tragedy, entitled Amau, by Andre de Rivaudeau, a grandson of Rabelais's friend, Andre Tiraqueau, was played at Poitiers. Modelled closely on classical lines, it is not a whit more dramatic than its predecessors. But it is well written, with a sustained energy and dignity of style, superior to GreVin's even at its best 2 . It is partly in Alexandrines and partly in decasyllables. Thus when Julius Caesar Scaliger proclaimed in his post- humous Poetice, published at Lyons in 1561, that 'Seneca was inferior to none of the Greeks in majesty 3 ,' in France at any rate he was preaching to hearers who were already con- vinced. So, too, when he spoke of moral maxims as ' the pillars which support the whole fabric of tragedy 4 ,' he was in perfect accord with the general practice of the French playwrights, and with the preface to Saint-Gelais's trans- lation of Trissino's Sofonisba, published the year before, which commends that play as enricliie de sentences graves et morales. So with his views on the unities, which he bases, not on the supposed authority of Aristotle, but on that absurd theory of vraisemblance or verisimilitude which in the hands of Chapelain and D'Aubignac was to be so important a factor in the developement of French classical tragedy. T he play, savsHv l/ Scaliger, s hould b e_s<3 constructed as to co me a s nea r as possible to_lruth. Actions which would naturally occupy several days, such as battles and sieges, must not find a place in a spectacle of two hours' duration, nor will a wise play- wright move his characters from one town to another in the 1 V Olimpe de Jaques Grh/in, 1560. Nicole Estienne married Jean Liebault, a physician of Dijon. A good portrait of Grevin, ascribed to Francois Clouet, is prefixed to his Theatre. - A good example is Esther's speech in Act II. 3 Poetice, VI. 6. 4 ib. III. 97. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 8 1 space of a few minutes 1 . For these reasons the argument must be as brief as possible-. This was exactly the practice of both Jodelle and Grcvin. As we have seen the argument of their plays could hardly have been briefer, and in Cleopdtre Antony's ghost carefully calls attention to the fact that the action of the play falls between sunrise and sunset : Avant que ce soleil, qui vient ores de naitre, Ayant trace son jour chez sa tante se plonge, Cleopatre mourra. In both Jodelle's plays and in Grevin's Cesar the place is left undefined, and doubtless they were represented without any scenery. In all three plays, however, the convenient practice which prevailed in comedy might easily have been adopted, namely that of choosing for the scene some public place within easy distance from the houses of the principal characters. Thus a street in Alexandria would have sufficed for Cleopatre, a street in Rome for Cesar, and the sea-shore for Didon. Jt is not, h owever, till the year 1 572 that we find the unity of place distinctly prescribed by a French writer. 1 On the other hand the Italian critic, Minturno, who closely follows Aristotle, says that a play must occupy ' a day or, at the most, two days ' {De poeta libri sex, p. 174, Venice, 1559, and V arte poetica, p. 73, Venice, 1563), while he says nothing at all about unity of place. Similarly Mutio in his Arte poetica {Rime diverse. Tre libri di arte poetica, Venice, 1551) limits the time to two days. See Ebner, Beilrag, pp. 167 — 169, where the passages referred to are quoted in full. Comp. Sidney's Apologie (written in 1 58 r) : " For... the stage should always represent but one place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it should be, both by Aristi itle's precept and common reason, but one day. " 2 See for Scaliger's Poetice, G. Saintsbury, A history of Criticism, II. 69 — 80; F. Brunetiere, V Evolution des genres, pp. 46 ff . ; J. E. Spingarn, op. cit. pp. 94 ff, I agree with the latter that the influence of this work in France has been exaggerated. He points out that no edition of it was ever published at Paris, and he might have added that no edition after the first was published in France. The second edition was published at Geneva in 1581, the third at Heidelberg in 1594, the fourth at Antwerp in 1607, and the fifth at Antwerp in 1617. Even during th< to 1640, when the battle of the unities was renewed in France with increased ardour, with the result that victory was ultimately assured to the partisans of the classical drama, it is doubtful whether the Poetice, in spite of its great reputation, was as well known in France as the little treatise of Daniel I leinsius, De Tragoediae constitutione, 1 6 1 o . T. II. 6 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. ' // faut tousjours presenter Uhistoire ou le jeu en un mesme \ jour en un mesme temps, et en un mesme heu\ This passage occurs in the DeVartdela Tragedie prefixed by lean de la Taille to his play of Saul. He had possibly based it on a"pSsage in Castelvetro's Poetica d' Anstolele vulgarizsata e sposta, published two years previously (1570) 2 . The whole of La Taille's remarks should be read as shewing the views of a thorough-going partisan of classical tragedy. He recognises that the true province of tragedy is the pathetic : la vraye et seule intention est d'esmouvoir et de peindre merveillement les affections d'un chascun. The hero must not be very good or very bad, neither Abraham nor Goliath. Abstract characters should be avoided, as Death, Truth, Avarice, the World. There must be five Acts, and each act must end as soon as the stage is empty''. The dramatist must begin his subject towards the middle or the end. No blood must be shed on the stage, for every one would see that it was only pretence {feintise). Finally, he sweeps aside the moralities and mysteries, and the plays which still clung to the old practices, with the same con- temptuous term epiccries, which Du Bellay had applied to the poetry of the Marotic school 4 . 1 The words un mesme jour, as M. Rigal was the first to point out, do not refer to the unity of time, but are a hit at the mystery plays in general, which often lasted over several days, and at Des Masures's trilogy of David in particular. M. Rigal further notices that La Taille uses the vague phrase en un mesme temps for the unity of time without further defining it. 2 Castelvetro takes the same view of the unities as Scaliger, basing them on the theory of verisimilitude. Cos) come il luogo slretto e il palco, cos) il tempo slrctto e quello che i veditori possono a sua agio dimorare sedendo in theatre. Poetica, Co v". His book was popular in France. It may be convenient to note here that the first complete Latin translation of Aristotle's Poetics, by Alexander Faccius, was published at Venice in 1536 and at Paris in 1538. A revision of this with a commentary, by Francesco Robortello, appeared at Florence in 1548. The first ( ireek edition of the Poetics published in France was that of G. Morel, 1555- The only unity insisted on by Aristotle is that of action. With regard to time he .•-ays that tragedy endeavours if possible to keep within one revolution of the sun, or only to go a little beyond ; he says nothing at all about unity of place. a Faire de sorte que la scene estant vide de Joueurs un Acte soit fini cl le sens aucunement pai-fait. 4 Saul lefurieux, 1572, pp. 2 v° — 5 r°. The principal passages are printed by XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 83 Jean de la Taille, the author of this manifesto on behalf of the classical drama, was an interesting and somewhat remark- able person. Born in 1533 of one of the oldest families in the Orleanais he was educated first at Paris and then at Orleans. In the Third war of religion ( 1568-1570 ) he fought on the Protestant side under Conde, but it is not clear that he was ever a Protestant. After the peace of 1570, disgusted with the civil war, he retired to his estates at Bondaroy, and like Montaigne combined the pursuit of literature with the manage- ment of his estate. Hitherto he had only published a didactic poem, entitled Remonstrance pour le Roy a tons ses subjects qui out prins les armes ( 1563). It was an eloquent exhortation to peace in the manner of Ronsard's Discours, and had met with great success, having reached a seventh edition. In 1572 he republished it in a volume containing the tragedy of Saul le Furieux^ written ten years earlier, and other poems. This was followed in 1573 by another volume, which comprised a second tragedy, two comedies, a satirical poem entitled Le Courtisan retire, and some miscellaneous pieces. In 1595 he published another satirical piece, Les Siugeries de la Ligue, a short imitation of the Satire Menippee, and finally in 1607 a Discours notable des Duels in which, again like Montaigne, he protested against that pernicious fashion which in thirty years had cost France the lives of over six thousand gentlemen. He died in 1630, having reached the ripe age o£nine±yrsevun .jreara, 1 . Jean de la Taille, if not a great poet, attained a fair measure of success in various forms of poetry. His Reyimistraiici pour le R oy, his Courtisan retire, and a long didactic poem, Le Prince necessaire, which, though completed in 1572, was not published till quite recently, all shew a considerable faculty for eloquent and energetic expression in verse. His songs too are not without beauty, and one at any rate is worth)' of quotation : P. Robert in La poitique de Racine, [890, p. 250- See also Spingarn, p. 200, vt ho thinks La Taille borrowed his statement of the unities from Castelvi 1 See G. Baguenault de Puchesse. Mis researches have confirmed th( merit of the Dictiotmaire de la Noblesse, cited, but not followed, by Haa^, that he died at the age of 97. 84 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. C'est trop pleure, c'est trop suyvi tristesse, Je veux en joye ebattre ma jeunesse, I. ..quelle encor comme un printemps verdoye : Faut-il tousjours qu'a l'estude on me voye? C'est trop pleure. Mais que me sert d'entendre par science Le cours des cieux, des astres l'influence, De mesurer le ciel, la terre et l'onde, Et de voir mesme en un papier le monde ? C'est trop pleure. Que sert pour faire une ryme immortelle De me ronger et l'ongle et la cervelle, Pousser souvent une table innocente Et de ternir ma face pallissante? C'est trop pleure. Mais que me sert d'ensuyvre en vers la gloire Du grand Ronsard, de scavoir mainte histoire, Faire en un jour mille vers, mille et mille, Et cependant mon cerveau se distille? C'est trop pleure. Cependant l'age en beaute fleurissante Chet comme un lys, en terre languissante, II faut parler de chasse et non de larmes, Parler d'oyseaux, et de chevaux et d'armes : C'est trop pleure. II faut parler d'amour et de liesse, Ayant choisy une belle maistresse ; J'ayme et j'honore et sa race et sa grace, C'est mon Phcebus, ma Muse et mon Parnasse : C'est trop pleure. Digne qu'un seul l'ayme et soit ayme d'elle, Luy soit espoux, amy et serf fidele, Autant qu'elle est sage, belle et honneste, Qui daigne bien de mes vers faire feste : C'est trop pleure. Va-t'en, chanson, au sein d'elle te mettre, A qui l'honneur (qui ne me doit permettre Telle faveur) est plus cher que la vie. Ha ! que ma main porte a ton heur d'envie ! C'est trop pleure 1 . 1 CEtivres, II. p. clx ; Becq de Fouquieres, p. 256. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 85 But it is chiefly as a dramatic writer that he is important. As might be expected from the Art_ _de la Tra^edie, Saul le Furieux 1 is closely modelled on the Senecan pattern, and one could not wish for a better illustration of its defects. The subject, Saul's madness and downfall, is sufficiently dramatic, and the play is laid on dramatic lines. The Third Act, in which Samuel's ghost appears, is especially good in intention. But the whole dramatic effect of the play _ig_.s_ pni1r hy rh ^ dialogue, which hinders instead of helping the action. Thus in the Fourth Act, in which Saul declares his intention to commit suicide, there is far too much argument and discussion, while the Fifth, the scene between David and the Amalekite soldier, which has great dramatic possibilities, loses all its force from the drawn out tedium of the dialogue. The subject of his other tragedy, La famine oil les Gabeo- jiites, is that tragic story which has immortalised the name of Rizpah. The scene between Joab and Rezefe (the French form of Rizpah) in the Third Act, in which she pretends that her children are dead, is an imitation of the famous scene between Ulysses and Andromache in Seneca's Troades, and together with that in the Fourth Act between Rezefe and her two sons, has much beauty and pathos' 2 . But in neither scene has the author really availed himself of the dramatic possibi- lities of the situation. In both alike he is lyrical and oratorical rather than dramatic. The fact that both Jean de la Taille's tragedies are taken from the Bible is noteworthy, for it was contrary to the general practice of the Pleiad, who had an almost exclusive preference for classical subjects. The Old Testament, however, furnished Gamier, as we shall see, with the best of his pure tragedies, Lcs Juives, and Christian subjects are warmly advocated by Vauquelin de la Fresnaye in his Art poetique\ On the other hand Jacques de la Taille, the younger brother of Jean, who died in 1562 at the age of twenty, left behind him in manuscript, besides a comedy, five tragedies, all 1 Played at the Jesuit college of Pont-a-Mousson in Lorraine in 1599. 2 Portions of both scenes are given in Darmesteter and Hatzfeld. s iii. 845—904. ' I 86 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. founded on classical history or legend. Two of these, Daire and Alexandre, were published by his brother Jean. Though not badly written, with a certain dignity of style, they are neither in any way remarkable and shew no knowledge of the stage. Daire, it may be noticed, is written partly in Alexandrines and partly in decasyllables. The references to Abraham and Goliath in the Art de la Tragidie are no random shafts. They are evidently aimed at certain plays of Jean de la Taille's contemporaries, which in opposition to the classical school of the Pleiad were written more or less in the manner of mysteries. One of these was the Abraham sacrifiant of Theodore^Beza, written in 15 50, when he was a professor at Lausanne, for the scholars of that University. His play follows with considerable closeness a mystery of the same name 1 , and according to the usual practice of the mysteries Satan is one of the characters. Wearing the habit of a monk he serves to point a shaft or two at the Catholic Church, and his soliloquies furnish more or less of a comic element. There is nothing remark- able about the execution of the play except in the scene of the actual sacrifice, which is portrayed with extraordinary pathos, due mainly to that simplicity which is the consum- mation of art 2 . Of about the same date as Abraham sacrifiant and of the same character are the Tragedie dc la descomfititrc dn geant Goliath, also published at Lausanne, with a dedication to the young English king, Edward VI : \ and the David combattant of Louis des Masures, a native of Tournai. He was secretary to the Cardinal Jean de Lorraine, then became a Protestant, and served as pastor at Metz and Strasburg 4 . His David com- battant is the first play of a trilogy of which the other two 1 This mystery was played at Paris in 1539 {Cronique duroy Francois /, p. 268). See J. de Rothschild, Le mistere du viel testament {Soc. des. anc. textes franc.), II. iff., 1879. - Beza's play became very popular. There is an English translation by A. Golding, 1577. '■'■ J. de Rothschild, op. n't. iv. lxiv. ; He was born about 1515 and died in i 574 . His translation of the AZtUid was published in a complete form in 1560. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 87 are entitled David triumphant and David fugit if. It is a pure mystery in form ; there are no Acts, and the numerous scenes are separated either by a cantiqiie or a pause, and are adapted to the mansiones or simultaneous system of scenery of the mediaeval play. The fight between David and Goliath takes place on the stage, and, as in Beza's play, Satan is one of the characters. Each play ends with an epilogue of a moral character, and there is a considerable variety of metre, octo- syllables being employed as well as decasyllabics and Alexan- drines. Almost the only specimen of a tragedy of this period which, without being in the nature of a mystery, is written on non-classical lines is La Soitane, a grotesque and ill-written play by Gabriel Bounin, a lawyer of Chateauroux in Berry. It was played in 1560 at the latest 1 , and was printed in the following year. In violation of the recognised rule of the Pleiad that modern subjects should be avoided-, Bounin founded his play on the recent execution of his son Mustapha _by the Sultan Soliman the Magnificent (1553). The conduct of the play is as irregular as the subject. -■' Ju^~ Mustapha's death takes place on the stage, an d the u nitips of time and place are entirely disregarded. On the other hand there are five acts divided by choruses, and the dialogue is written mainly in Alexandrines though decasyllabics are also employed and, for four lines only, a line of fourteen syllables. The character of Mustapha is absolutely without interest, while the chief interest in that of his stepmother, Roxolana (here called Rose), is that she suggests a comparison with Seneca's Medea. On the whole this specimen of irregular drama shews rather an in ability to compr ehend the Senecan pattern than an attempt to strike out new lines. At any rate it was little calculated to encourage a departure from the recognised model. Of about the same date as La Soitane is another i nsula r tragedy, also based on a modern subject. Such being its 1 La Croix du Maine and Du Verdier, tv. 2. 2 Mais prendre il ue faitt t>as les nouveaux arguments. Vauquelin dc la Fresnaye, A. P. iii. 1113- 88 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. character it is somewhat surprising that its author, Claude Rouillet, should have been the Principal of one of the Paris colleges, that of Burgundy 1 , and that in its original form it should have been written in Latin, doubtless for representation by the students of the college. It was entitled Philani ra. and was published in 1556 2 . The French translation, by Rouillet himself, appeared in 1563-. The subject is one of the many versions of the familiar and possibly true story, which furnished Shakespeare with the sombre plot of Measure for Measure. In Rouillet's play Philanire is represented as a lady of Piedmont whose husband has been sentenced to death by the Provost of the district. He promises to give him back to her on condition that she will satisfy his passion. To this she finally consents, and on the following day he sends her his corpse. She thereupon appeals to the Viceroy who com- pels the Provost to marry her, and then, in spite of her inter- cession, has him beheaded. The play is constructed with some skill, shewing at any rate more feeling for dramatic action than the ordinary classical tragedy of the period. Though the greater part is written in octosyllables, metres of seven and fewer syllables are also employed to correspond to the various metres of the Latin original. There was another reason besides the overwhelming in- fluence of Seneca for the und rama tic character of French Renaissance tragedy, and this was the jack_ of stage experience on the part of the writers. There was only one place in Paris where their plays could have been performed on a real stage by actors who, though not professionals, had at any rate some experience, and that was the Hotel de Bourgogue, the home of the Confreres de la Passion. But there were various reasons which made it impossible for the young playwrights to look to this quarter for the interpretation of their pieces. 1 He died in 1576, being then an old man ; he had been Principal of his college since 1536 (La Croix du Maine). 2 In C. Koilleti Belnensis varia poemata, 1556. See Creizenach, II. 434—437. 3 See ante, p. 76, n. 2 ; also Bib. du thi&tre francais, p. 174 ; Bib. dram, de M. de Soleinm; no. 756 ; Cat. de la Bib. dram, de feu le Baron Taylor, 1893, no. 327. I only know the edition of 1577, of which there is a copy in the Bib. Nat. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 89 Even if the actors of the Hotel de Bourgogne had had sufficient education to enable them to interpret classical drama, their system of scenery was quite unsuited to it. Further, the public for which they catered, the good people of Paris, accustomed as they were to the liv ely bustle o f jnyste rv- plays, would never have endured the tedio us speeches a nd - the w ant of action wh ich marked the new classical trag edy. Moreover the antagonis m between the two dramas, medieva l and classi cal, was so pronounced, the a ttitude of the_ classical champions to the Confrer es so arrogant, that any combina- tion between them was out of the question 1 . It is true that M. Lanson has been able to compile from various records an imposing list of performances, either in colleges or in noble houses, of plays written during the latter half of the sixteenth century 2 . But though the whole list is a fairly long one, and though we must bear in mind that doubt- less the records are very far from being complete, the number of times that the representation of any individual play is recorded is exceedingly small. Moreover, not only were these the performances of amateurs who could have had very little experience, but they were played before audiences who were anything but critical. The professors and fellow-students who witnessed the performances in the college halls were only too ready to admire anything that was modelled on a classical pattern, while such plays as were produced in some princely chateau for the entertainment of a royal guest were often set off by elaborate scenery and music. Thus, though M. Lanson is justified by the evidence he has collected in maintaining that the writers of Renaissance tragedy during the last thirty years of the sixteenth century still wrote with a view to stage representation, they could have had little expectation of seeing their hopes realised. M. Rigal well points out that while Jean de la Taille wrote his earlier play, Saul in the hope of its being performed, in his later play, Les Gabcotiites, he makes no attempt to provide for the requirements <>f the 1 See on this .subject E. Rigal, l.c thMtre Jranfais, 117 It'., and in Petil de Julleville, III. 264 fif. - See G. Lanson in Rev. cThist. litt. X (1903), 1 77 ff-, 4 ' 3 "• 90 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. stage 1 . So when at last a writer appeared who was equipped with a high poetical endowment, he continued for several years to produce tragedies which were even less suited to the stage than those of his predecessors. Ro bert Gamie r was born at L a Ferte-Bernar cLi n Maj_ne tbout the year 1545'. He followed the law as a profession, practised at the Paris bar, till he became judge of the criminal court {lieutenant general criminel) for his native province, and finally returned to Paris as a member of the Great Council. From the dramatic-point of view h is first tragedy, PorcjjL which appeared in 1568, could hardly be worse. The First Act consists of one long rhetorical monologue by Megaera, one of the Furies, followed by a chorus. In the Second Act we have a monologue by Porcia, a chorus, a monologue by Porcia's nurse, a dialogue between Porcia and the nurse obviously imitated from Octavia, which in Garnier's day was supposed to be by Seneca, and another chorus. The Third Act, which is very long, and in which five new characters 1 Rigal, op. cit. p. 128. 2 De Thou says Gamier died in 1590, aged 56, and Sainte-Marthe gives him the same age, and from the place in which his elogium appears in his book evidently supposes him to have died about 1590. But Vauquelin de la Fresnaye has an epitaph on Gamier which begins as follows : Neuf lustres sout passez que ma Muse Lyrique Lamenla stir le Clain La Peruse tragique, Et mai?i tenant -e plain Gamier. {Diver ses poesies, p. 679. ) Now La Peruse died in 1554, and Vauquelin's epitaph on him appeared in his Foresteries in 1555, so that according to this Gamier must have died in 1599 or 1600. Again Vauquelin in the last satire of his second book (Dtv. poes. pp. 243 ff.) addressing Gamier says : Je suis plus vieil que toy de quelque dix ans, Vauquelin himself being born in 1536. From these two statements we may infer that Gamier was born about 1545 and died about 1600. This date for his birth agrees much better than the earlier one with that of the publication of his first play, namely 1568. Desportes in Bibliographic du Mans, 1844, p. 306, gives the date of his death as Aug. 15, J590; the Biographie universelle gives 1545-1601. See also W . Forster's introduction to vol. IV. of Garnier's plays, pp. xxi— xxiii, where nearly all the evidence is set forth. He concludes for 1534-1590, but he had not seen Vauquelin's lines. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 91 appear, has nothing to do with Porcia. In the Fourth she hears the news of Brutus's death, and in the Fifth her own death is related by the nurse. In his next play, Hiflfio/vte * published in _JJ£3> Gamier had the advantage of a nn interesting subject and of a direct model in Seneca's Pluedra, which itself is based on the Hippolytus of Euripides and a lost play on the same subject by the same writer. The scene between Ph aedra and her nurse, which forms the Second Act, is really i nteresting ; there is genuine feeling in some of the speeches, and there is some success in portraying, if not a complete character, at any rate a mental condition. The later Acts are inferior, and quite unsuited to the stage. Cornelie (1.574), another Roman play, is no improvement on Porcie, except in the matter of style. The action is confused, disconnected, and leads to nothing, not even to the death of Cornelia ; for the play ends with the announcement of her intention not to put herself to death until she has buried Pompey. It is possible, however, that in a vague sort of way Gamier may have intended the fall of the Republic to be the real subject of the tragedy. As in all his plays many of the __ speeches are of_conjid^rabie_beauty, and she w real poetical merit. Perhaps the finest is Caesar's address to Rome, the opening lines of which may be quoted as a specimen : O superbe Cite\ qui vas leuant le front Sur toutes les citez de ce grand monde rond : Et dont Phonneur gaigne par victoires fameuses Espouuante du ciel les voutes lumineuses ! O sourcilleuses tours! 6 coustaux decorez \ O palais orgueilleux ! 6 temples honorez ! O vous murs que les dieux ont ma^onnez eux-mesmes, Eux-mesmes etoffez de mille diademes, Ne ressentez-vous point de plaisir en vos cueurs, De voir vostre Cesar le vaincueur des vaincueurs, Accroistre vostre Empire, avecques vos louanges, Par tant de gloire acquise aux nations estranges ? O beau Tybre, et tes flots de grand'aise ronflans, Ne doublent-ils leur crespe a tes verdureux flancs, 1 A play entitled Hipfolyte, probably Carnier's, was played at the College ol Saint-Maixent in Poitou in 1576 (Lanson, loc. cit.). THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. Joycux de ma venue? et dune voix vagueuse Ne vont-ils annoncer a la mer escumeuse L'honneur de mes combats ? ne vont ne vont tes flots Aux Tritons mariniers faire bruire mon los, Et au pere Ocean se vanter que le Tybre Roulera plus fameux que l'Eufrate et le Tigre 1 ? , L One has only to compare this with Je an de la Taille's trag edies to realise th e m arked advance in style wh ich Gamier had made. During the four years which elapsed between the publica- tion of Cornclic and that of his next play Garnier's ideas seem to have undergone some modification. He appears to have felt the need of introducing more vari ety a nd life i nto hi s pla ys^ Hence in Marc-Autoine ( 1 5/8) 2 the number of characters is considerably increased, and there is a double source of interest, the death of Antony and the death of Cleopatra. But the play is chiefly taken up with discussions between Cleopatra and her maidens as to whether she shall commit suicide (Act II), between Antony and his friend as to whether he shall commit suicide (Act III), and between Octavius Caesar and Agrippa as to whether Antony shall be put to death (Act IV). The nearest approach to any action is Cleopatra's final speech before her death, and it distinctly increases the effect that her death is left to our imagination, instead of being narrated by a messenger. In La Troade(i^yg) and Antigone (1580), which followed closely on Marc-Autoine, Gamier adopted another method of increasing the interest of his plays, that of blendin g the plot s of tw o or jiore plays. Thus La Troadeis taken from Seneca's Troades and Euripides's Troades and Hecuba, the play of Seneca being based partly on Euripides's play of the same name and partly on two lost plays of Sophocles. The result is that the first four Acts of Garnier's tragedy deal with two subjects, the death of Astyanax and the death of Polyxena, which are somewhat loosely knit together, while in the Fifth Act we pass to a third subject, quite distinct from the other 1 U- '303 ff. Cornelie was well translated by Thomas Kyd. - Translated by the Countess of Pembroke. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 93 two, namely the vengeance of Hecuba on Polymestor. The finest scene is naturally the reproduction of the famous scene between Andromache and Ulysses, which Jean de la Taille had already borrowed from Seneca. In 1 ^82 Gamier made an interesting and successful experi- ment with a r omantic dram a, and then in the following year returned to the' field of trage dy, de serting his classica^mod els inj the choice of subject , and s tanding f or_ lhe first time on his jownJef t. Like Jean de la Taille he went to the Bible and took for his subject the punishment of Zedekiah by Nebuchad- nezzar. The play was entitled Lesjuives 1 . There is nothing in it the least dramatic till we come to the Second Scene of the Third Act, in which Amital (Hamutal) intercedes with Nebuchadnezzar for her son Zedekiah. In the rest of the play, if there is no real action in the true sense of the word (for Nebuchadnezzar's mind is made up from the beginning), there is at any rate a str ong element of pity and terr or. These are alleviated by the final speech of the Prophet, who foretells the downfall of Babylon and the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. It is this appearance of the Prophet at the begin ning and end of the play as prologue and epilogue whic h gives a unity and grandeur to the whole . He is the voice of God declaring His judgments to His chosen people. The character of Amital, too, is singularly noble, and the submission of Sedecie (Zedekiah) to the divine will in the closing scene is extremely touching. The choruses are of considerable beauty, especially the one at the end of the Third Act, inspired by Psalm 137 : Comme veut-on que maintenant Si desolees Nous allions la flute entonnant Dans ces valees? Que le luth touche de nos dois Et la cithare Facent resonner de leur voix Un ciel barbare ? 1 Played circ. 1600 in the Angoumois by a Confririe (Balzac, Entretiens, VI. cited by Lanson, loc. cil. p. 217). qa THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. Que la harpe, de qui le son Tousjours lamente, Assemble avec nostre chanson Sa voix dolente ? Trop nous donnent d'affliction Nos maux publiques, Pour vous reciter de Sion Les saints cantiques. Car helas qui se contiendra Ue faire plainte Lors que de toy nous souviendra Montagne sainte ! Or tandis qu'en son corps sera Nostre ame enclose, Israel jamais n'oublira Si chere chose. • Nos enfans nous soyent desormais En oubliance Si de toy nous perdons jamais La souvenance. Nostre langue tienne au gosier, Et nostre dextre Pour les instrumens manier Ne soit adextre. Que tousjours nostre nation Serve captiue, Si jamais j'oublie Sion Tant que je vive. Moreover in this play with its national import the Chorus, composed of Jewish women, is far more in place than in the ordinary Renaissance tragedy, in which it merely serves to separate the scenes and acts. Finally, the religious basis of the play gives it a breadth of interest which is often lacking in French tragedy. It is no mere accident that the three plays which the majority of critics regard as the masterpieces of Corneille, Racine and Voltaire all turn on religion. In 1585 Gamier published a collected edition of his plays. Whatever their dramatic merits their popularity with the reading public was unbounded. From 1592, when the original privilege had expired, to 16 19 there appeared over forty XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 95 editions, some at Paris, some at Lyons, the majority at Rouen. It was at Rouen that the son of an apothecary at Falaise, Antoine Montchrestien . published in 1601 a volume of five tragedies, one of which had already appeared separately at Caen under the name of Sophonisbe 1 . The author was a young man of ambitious and turbulent spirit 2 , who afterwards distinguished himself by writing the first modern treatise which bore the title of ' Political Economy 3 .' He took part in the Huguenot insurrection of 1621, and was shot in a village inn in a scuffle between his followers and some royalist soldiers 4 . Of the five tragedies published in 1601 the most promising in subject and the best in style is L Ecossaise . Dealing- with the tragic and comparatively recent fate of a princess who had once been Queen of France, it was well calculated to stir the emotions of Frenchm en. But even worse than Jodelle's Clcopdtre and Gamier s Porcie it sms against all the natural laws of dramatic art 5 . Throughout the first two Acts Elizabeth deliberates first with a single councillor and then with a Chorus of Members of Parliament (Chcettr des Estats) as to whether she shall sign the warrant for the Queen of Scots' execution. In the Third Act Mary receives the sentence from Davison, the English Queen's secretary. In the Fourth, which consists of a single monologue, she prepares for death, and in the Fifth her death is narrated by a messenger. Thus the play consists of dramatic lyric s, followed by a dramatic_eleg y. There are practically only two characters, Elizabeth and Mary, and these never meet. There are three Choruses, the Parliamentary Chorus, that of the Queen of Scots' maidens, 1 It was now entitled La Cartaginoise. 2 He was born in 1575 0TT570. 3 Traite de Vaxonomie politique [Rouen, [615]; ed. M. Funck-Brentano, [889. The style has a certain eloquence, but is marred by an abuse of rhetorical comnv m place. According to Professor Ashley it is of no value as a scientific treatise (Hist. Rev. vi. 779 fF.). 4 See a letter of Malherbe, dated Oct. 14, 1021 (CEuvres, ed. Lalanne, III. 554 ff.). 5 It was, however, performed at Orleans in 160.; (Rigal, The'&tre fran fats, P- '33)- 96 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. both of which take part in the dialogue, and the regular Chorus, which divides the Acts with familiar commonplaces on the insecurity of life, the unenviable lot of princes, and so forth. There are some very long monologues relieved by the usual antithetic duologue, and both monologue and duologue abound in moral saws : Reine. Le souci du renom se perd es passions. Ckasur. Qui n'a la vertu mesme au moins l'ombre desire. Reine. Qui n'a la vertu mesme a tout forfait aspire. Chain: D'un specieux pretexte il tasche le voiler. Reine. Tel est si deplore qu'il ne le veut celer. Ckceur. Un courage modeste a crainte de la honte. Reine. Un courage impudent n'en fait jamais grand conte. Chivur. II nous faut done prier, e'est le dernier recours. Reine. Les esprits furieux aux prieres sont sours 1 - M. Rigal is not unjust when he compares this to a game of battledore and shuttlecock, which, as he points out, can even be played by a single actor, as when Elizabeth says : Qui croit trop de leger aisement se degoit : Aussi qui ne croit rien mainte perte en recoit. Qui s'esmeut a tous vents, montre trop d'inconstance : Aussi la seurete naist de la meffiance. Celuy qui vit ainsi, meurt cent fois sans mourir ; II vaut mieux craindre un pen que la mort encourir-'. In fact throughout the first two Acts Elizabeth might almost as well have been on the stage by herself. At the end of her deliberations she is hardly more advanced than at the beginning, and though at last she gives the order for her rival's execution, she immediately declares her intention of S> revoking it. The one meri^of L'Ecossaise is the general excellence of its style, which is nearly always noble and di VnirleH, and often of considerable beaut y. This is especially the case with the choruses, of which perhaps the most beautiful is that on the golden age at the end of the First Act. In all Montchrestien's plays the choruses a re a conspicuous feature. Those in La Cartaginoise, especially the first one, Oyez nos tristes voix 3 , the 1 Act in. 2 Act L 3 Printed by Prof. Saintsbury in his French Lyrics. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA gj one at the end of the Fourth Act of David, and that at the end of the Third Act of Les Lacaies 1 , are among the most remarkable. It may be noticed that while those of La Cartaginoise, his earliest play, are short lyrical pieces, those in the later plays are more of an elegiac character. To suit this change of tone there is a corresponding change in the rhythm ; the Alexandri ne line is jreely employed, and not unfrequently used throughout. Both tone and rhythm re- mind us that Montchrestien is a contemporary not only of Bertaut but of Malherbe-. Of his plays, other than UEcossaise, there is little to be said from the dramatic point of view. If they shew rather more life and movement they a re eq ually devoid of real action . Perhaps the most promising in subject is A man 5 , but this, advantage is thrown away by bad construction. Much the same may be said of Hector, the latest play in point of date, which was first published in 1604 in a new edition of tin collected plays 4 . We must now go back to Gamier and consider the one experiment which he made in the field of irregular drama , the Vsg ' tr&gi-comedy ' of Bradaman te. According to the theory ' See the lines quoted by Petit cle Julleville from the text of 1601. • He was in fact twenty years younger than Malherbe. ' ! Aman was also the title of a play by Pierre Matthieu which he published togi ther with one called Vasthi in 1587. They were refashioned out of a single play, Esther, which he had published in 1583. Matthieu also wrote some tragedies of apolitical character, for which see F. Holl, Das politische nnd religiose Tendeni - drama des 16. Jahrhwiderts in Frankreich {Munch. Beitrtige 26), pp. 48 — 57, 1903, and E. Faguet, La tragedie an xvi e siecle, pp. 309 ff. ; see also the latter for other inferior writers of tragedy of this time. 4 M. Lanson in his Corneille (pp. 39-44), after pointing out quite rightly thai French tragedy of the 16th cent, is different not only in degree but in kind from that of the 17th cent., goes on to say that both are copies of the same original, viz. Greek tragedy, and that the earlier type, the tragedy of 'passion,' perished partly because there was no poet strong enough to give it life, and partly because h in its essense lyrical it suffered from the general decline of lyricism in f 1 which took place at the beginning of the 17th cent. Put can a type of tragedj 1: which, as he says, " there is no study of the play and conflict of wills." in which "everything is decided before the curtain rises and there is nothing lefi bul t' note the palpitations of the victims, the lamentations of the vanquish* d, 1 a copy of Greek tragedy ? Can it be called drama at all ? T. II. oS THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. c which Renaissance critics built up, partly on the practice of the ancients, and partly on a misunderstanding or at least a careless reading of certain precepts in Aristotle's Poetics, tragedy and comedy were two perfectly distinct species of drama. Tragedy deals with princes, ends unhap pily, a ™i-L s w ritten in a lofty style. Comedy on the other hand draws its characters, fromjthe middle or lower clas ses, employs a familiar style, a nd ends h a ppily 1 . In the case therefore of a play which did not preserve these distinctions, but combined the characteristics of comedy and tragedy, it seemed logical to call it by the hybrid name of ' tragi-comedy.' So far as I know, the earliest play to which this title was given is the famous Celestina or Tragi- comedies de Calista y Melibea, written at the close of the fifteenth century. The author, Fernando de Rojas, thus justifies the name in his prologue. " Some have said," he remarks, " that this play ought to be called a tragedy, because it ends unhappily, while its first author wanted to call it • comedy because it begins pleasantly. I therefore prefer choose a middle term and call it a tragi-comedy 2 ." 1 We first meet in France with this hard and fast division in Peletier's L Podique (1555). Au lieu des personnes comiques qui sont de basse condition a Tragedie s'inlroduisent Rois, Princes et grattds Seigneurs. lit au lieu qu'en Comedie les choses ont joyeuse issue, en la Tragedie la fin est tousjours luctucus t lamentable, ou horrible a voir. ...La comedie parte faci/ement, et comme nous az » dit, populairement. La tragedie est sublime, capable de grander matures (p. . Scaliger (1561) says of tragedy: Reges principes, Exitus horribiles, Oratio grm (1. vi.) ; of comedy : Exitu laelum, stilo populari (1. v.). So Vauquelin : I tout ainsi qu'eu Vune ne sont introduits que Roys et Princes Hen nourris et bicn apris, aussi en Vautre ne se voient que des personnages vulgaires et de moyenne condition, qui pour avoir debauche et suborne" une fille ne font cas de Vepouser pour couvrir leurfaitte et eviler la punition du peche : et tousjours fi rent en noces ou autre conteniemenl cette comedie. Discours sur la Satyr e in Diverses poesies, i. 125. Aristotle merely says, 'H oe Kcofxt^Sia earl fj.i/x7]av\oTepuu (an imitation of persons of a lower type). 2 Compare with this the prologue to Plautus's Amphitryo in which Mercurius says : Faciam ut commixta sit haec tragicomoedia : Nam me perpetuo facere ul sit comoedia, Reges quo ueniant et di, non par arbitror. Quid igitur ? quoniam hie seruos quoque partes habel, Faciam sit, proinde ut dixi, tragicomoedia. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 99 In France the name first occurs in the title of a play published in 1554, Tragique-comedie de Vhomtne justifit par Foi, by Henri de Barran 1 , but neither this play nor a tragi- comedie by Antoine de la Croix on the subject of the Three Children and the fiery furnace (1561)' 2 , both the work of Protestants, is anything more than an old-fashioned morality and mystery under a new name. T he first use of the term in France to denote an i rregular dram a, that is to say a play that ^y^ jsjieither ^a classical tra gedy no r a classical c omedy, belongs to the year 1564, when according to Brantome and Castelnau a tragi-comedie on the subject of "La belle Genievr e" of Ariosto was played at Fontainebleau on Shrove Tuesday by the princesses 3 . All trace of this play, if it was ever published. has been lost, but the same source furnished Gamier with the subject for his tragi-comedie of nearly twenty years later. Earlier in date than Garnier's play is a tragi-comedie of a Very different type, the Lucelle of Louis le Jars, written in Ct irose and published in 1576 4 . The subject is briefly as Mows. Lucelle, who is wooed by a wealthy suitor, secretly ex irries her father's clerk. The father, on discovering them ' tether, makes them both drink poison, which, in violation of \ classical tradition, they do on the stage. The clerk then Tis out to be the son of a Polish prince and the poison to . merely a sleeping-draught. The construction of the play tog. plpjc Jert (p- r 3 [ ) gives also as instances of tragi-comedies a Latin play, Fernandas f "■="=*/«.?, written by Verardi in Italy at the end of the 15th cent., some of the plays r -.'J!ie Portuguese dramatist, Gil Vicente (fl. 15 14-1 557) and the ' tragical comedy ' rAppius and Virginia (said to have been acted as early as 1563). <- Vauquelin says : Quand il y a die meurtre et qtfon voit toutefois, Qu'd la fin sont contens les plus grands et les A'oi's, Quand du grave et du das le parler en mendie, On abuse du nom de Tragecomedie. A. P. iii. 165-8. Sir P. Sidney in his Apologie speaks of the ' mungrell Tragy-comedic ' which results from the mingling of Kings and Clowns. 1 See E. Picot in Bull, du prot. franc. 1892, pp. 626 ff. 2 Bib. Nat. (bound up in the same volume with Philaniri). 3 See J. Madeleine in Rev. de la Renaissance, 190,',, .',o ff. 4 I have only seen the edition published at Rouen in 1600. 7—2 100 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. is extremely crude, and the language often stilted and pedantic. The comic element is furnished by a tiresome valet who aspires to be a wit 1 . The author in his dedicatory preface defends the use of prose on the ground that it is more natural, especially in the mouths of valets and chambermaids. Moreover, he naively adds, writers who have no aptitude for verse find it easier. If Lucelle is a drame bourgeois Garnier'sjragbgumedy of Bradamante. li ke Corneille's Don Sanche and Moliere's Don 77".- ;v/.- ,/V Wivarre, is a comedic hcroiquc. The subject is taken from the last three cantos of the Orlando Furioso. Brada- mante, the daughter of Aymon and Beatrix, has two suitors, Leon the eldest son of the Greek Emperor and Roger the converted Saracen, whose love she reciprocates. Her paren ; want her to marry Leon, but before the Emperor Charlemag aS will give his consent he insists that Leon, in accordance v n e a condition previously agreed upon, must first vanq^se Bradamante in single combat. Leon knows that thjt . beyond his powers. He therefore asks Roger, whose li r had saved by helping him to escape from prison whe was under sentence of death, and of whose love for B mante he is ignorant, to take his place and fight unck , ; name and arms. Roger, bound by his sense of oblig „ consents. He fights with Bradamante, and without pht acting on the offensive is proclaimed the victor. ' ie Roger's sister Marphire declares that Bradamante had g '*t him a promise of marriage, and that Leon must fight .'^r him for her hand. This leads to Leon's discovery of f" friend's passion and to his renunciation of Bradamante in /'* favour. Ambassadors from Bulgaria now arrive to off* Roger the crown of that country ; Bradamante's parents are satisfied ; and Leon is consoled with the hand of Charle- magne's daughter. It will be seen that there is here plenty of material for a romantic drama, and on the whole Gamier has acquitted 1 The play is said to be imitated from the Amor costante of Alessandro Piccolomini, bishop in partibus of Patras (see F. Flamini, // Cinqtucento, p. 559)- XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 101 himself fairly well in its construction. Though there are some obscurities in the developement of the action, and though the Fifth Act— as in many good plays — is decidedly inferior to the rest, there is not only life anrl rnov^'^Tnt but real dramatic action 1 . It was a great advantage to Gamier to have chosen a modem subje ct, for it enabled him to a considerable extent to shake himse lf free from the baleful influence of Seneca. There are still long monologues and still a goodly crop of sententious maxims, and it is in accordance with the practice of Renaissance tragedy that Roger and Bradamante should not meet till the last Scene, and that then they should not speak to each other. But, .apart from these survivals, there is great improvemen ts The ^i°?H9 i s natu ral and expressiv e ; above all it does not su.nsist merely of rhetorical or lyrical outbursts, but it really iduces to the developement of the act ion. The first two Xver 'mes of the Second Act, that between Aymon and Beatrix, euros' that between Aymon and his son Renaud, are really 'orient. The different dispositions of Aymon and his wife ex i rrvell brought out, and the dialogue is spirited with a vein J^etlue comedy in it. Sometimes indeed there is an uninten- - c il comic element, for Gamier does not always hit off the n s tone of heroic comedy, the mean between that of tragedy : rr that of burlesque. tog. This play then with its subject taken from modern romanc e, P l p ts hap p y endi ng, and its somewhat familiar style, anticipate s . . n_a _ considerable measure the, tragi-comedies of_ Alexan dre Hardy^, which took possession of the stage rather more than a quarter of a century later. 1 Gamier contemplates the possibility of its being acted, and it was in fact acted early in the next century. See Rigal in Petit de Julleville, ill. 269 n. 1. 102 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. 2. Comedy. The developement of French Renaissance comedy pro- ceeded on somewhat different lines from that of French Renaissance tragedy. In the first place it never broke so entirely as tragedy did with its mediaeval predecessor. This was an advantage, for the farce had at any rate this in its favour, that, unlike the mystery play, it was founded on the observation of real life. Secondly, Renaissance comedy had in Plautus and Terence far superior classical models to Senec -., This was especially the case with Terence, whose carefViada- unexaggerated study of life, conscientious workmansj'suitors, unfailing urbanity of style make, as is generally the.oger the man of talent and culture a better master than thjr paren e original genius. Thirdly, French comedy was infArlemagjs a far greater extent than tragedy by its Italian dance v he fact, before long this last influence, like that oft vanqiise' tragedy, entirely overshadowed the two others. lat thi,t . Italian comedy, like Italian tragedy, was maimose li, r in its origin. Ariosto's first play, the Cassaria, ^ whe 1498, and first performed in 1508, is merely an f or B of the Casina of Plautus. In the Suppositi, producundt. ; following year, though the scene is laid in Fer blig ,» though there are references to contemporary evout ''- (lt the social life of the day, the classical influence is still . ' r ie and there are liberal borrowings from the Eunuc. g ^t Terence and the Captivi of Plautus. It was A riost tt 1 mainly determined the direction of Italian comedy :>f v " who had the chief influence on that of France, n 1. Suppositi was, as we have seen, translated twice, in ,off< and in 1552, and a translation of his Negromante was m;are by Jean de la Taille about 1560 1 . His comedies are p^c- comedies of intrigue ; that is to say, the plot is the first con- sideration, and such attempt as there is in them to portray character is only of secondary account. The heroines are invariably kept in the background ; indeed in some plays the female character upon whom the whole plot turns never 1 Published in 1573; (Eitvres, IV. XIX] THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA 10- appears on the stage 1 . On the other hand important parts are assigned to the servants, especially to the valet in his various forms, more or less stereotyped, under the influence of the Arlecchino, Pedrolino and other types of the popular covwicdia delV arte. This love of stock characters, which had been inherent in Italy ever since the days of the Oscan fabulae Atellanae, and of which there are ample traces in the comedy of Plautus and Terence, is a remarkable feature of Italian Renaissance acr'iedy. Besides the various types of valet, we have the Rogern in love ; the parasite, modelled on Gnatho in the and tha'-r, whose business it is to assist the lover in his .apart froi th e leno and lena ; the soldier of fortune, or miles h. ialogue ?-t once a swaggerer and a coward; and lastly, the su -nsist me:- only type which owes nothing to the classical iduces t Xver 'mes of tl'duct of the play also shews certain persistent ci>ros that b'he scene invariably represents a public street in 'lo-llent. situated the houses of the principal characters, a ex i.rri /e ll Dr , arrangement which enables the dialogue to be ' tr ^ e tlue co c in the street without any change of scene being -c.lcofi The plot is largely developed by the help of •ns tone or asides, which are overheard by some person to : n" 1 thai iey are not addressed. As in Renaissance tragedy tog. Thin often takes the place of action, some of it being P 1 ? Ls hap re unrepresentable than murder'or suicide. There is °! n~, a c liberal use of soliloquy 3 . Briefly, the merits of this Hard y are its ingenious working out of the plot, and its °L Uar his is no doubt partly due to the fact that female parts in Ariosto's time . always played by men. See P. Toldo, Rev. dliist. Hit. v. 246 ff.; E. Rigal, ib. IV. 161 ff. Les person- w conventionnels de la comedie au xvi e sikle; and for the characters of the commedia delP arte, Arlecchino and the other types of valet, Pantalone, // capitano, and // dottore, see M. Sand, Masques el Botiffbns, 2 vols, i860, and K. Mantzius, A History of Theatrical Art (translated by Louise von Cossel), 11. 211 — 268, 1903. 3 See for Italian comedy Gaspary, II. 577 ff.; V. de Amicis, V imitanone classica nella commedia Italiatia del xvi secolo in Annali della regia scuola wrmali superiore di Pisa, II. 1— 151, Pisa, 1873; and for the general characteristics ol Ariosto's comedies Gaspary, ib. 419 ff. [04 THE RENAISSANCE DRAMA [CH. lively and natural dialogue, while its defects are a general conventionality and the substitution of mechanical artifice for natural developement. Under the former defect may be included an indifference to morality too complete even for the Italian society of that day. These characteristics apply not only to Ariosto, but to the mass oi' Italian comedies which followed his pattern. The one great production of the period, Machiavelli's Mandragola, seems to have been little known in France ; moreover, it is only by the writer's superior genius, by his masterly dissection of character, his close observation of manners, and his crisp incisive dialogue that his comedy rises superior to those of his contemporaries. There is, however, one other Italian comedy of this period which calls for special notice, namely Gli Ingannati, written by an anonymous member of the Sienese Academy called Gli Intronati, and first performed in 1 53 1. A translation of it by Charles Estienne appeared in 1543, entitled Lc Sacrifice, and this was republished in 1 549 and 1556 under the proper title of Les Abitsez 1 . In a long letter addressed to the Dauphin, Estienne declares it to be the best imitation of the ancients that has yet been made in prose. It has the usual stock characters, an old man in love, a pedant, and several valets ; but the dialogue is lively and natural, there are some excellent scenes, and the complicated plot is worked out with great ingenuity. It also has a special interest for Englishmen as being the source from which Shakespeare, either directly or indirectly, derived that part of Twelfth Night which turns on Viola's disguise in male attire and her extraordinary resemblance to her brother. Butjthe ^ fij;st _comedy__qf_ the French Renaissance, J odelle 's Ungate, owes nothing to Italian comedy, and little to classical 1 The 1549 edition is in the Brit. Mus. ; for those of 1543 and 1556 see Cat. La Valli'ere, II. nos. 3766-7. The name Sacrifice is derived from a poem prefixed to the Italian edition entitled II sacrifizio degli Intronati (to Minerva). (See L. Allacci, Dramaturgia, 1755.) It was translated in part by T. L. Peacock, 1862, whose translation with a connecting outline to supply the gaps is printed in the Variorum edition of Shakespeare ed. H. H. Furness, xm. 341 ff., Philadelphia, I where he draws an interesting portrait of his father). It i- possible thai he may have taken part in the campaigns of 151 5 and 15 16. - Malvezin, pp. 99 ff. s ib. p. 124. 4 R. Dezeimeris, Renaissance de letters a Bordeaux, p. y~. 5 See a colloquy of Corderius (Cambridge, 1630, book ii coll. 50) in winch one of the speakers is called Montanus. !38 MONTAIGNE [CH. custom, and sent him, when he was six, to the newly established and flourishing College of Guyenne at Bordeaux. Here Michel spent seven years (1539— 1546), the staple of his education being Latin. After leaving the college he seems to have followed for two years the philosophy course of the University, the lectures for which were given within the walls of the college 1 . At this point our information fails us, but it may be regarded as almost certain that it was at Toulouse that Montaigne pursued the legal studies which were indispensable to a career as a magistrate 2 . He began this career in 1555 or 1556, when his father, now Mayor of Bordeaux, resigned in his favour his seat in the Cour des Aides at Perigueux : . At the close of 1557 this court was incorporated with the Parliament of Bordeaux. The chief importance of this step for Montaigne was that it brought him into relations with Estienne de la Boetie, though it was not on the bench that he first made his ac- quaintance. Nearly all his biographers have dwelt on the influence which this friendship with a man two years older than himself, and his superior in learning, energy and character, had upon his future developement. Born at Sarlat in Perigord on November 1, 1530, La Boetie had taken his degree of 1 This explanation, which is due to M. Bonnefon (pp. 41-3), seems the true one. Montaigne's father was one of the jurats of Bordeaux for 1546-7 and doubtless had to reside there. For the account of Montaigne's education see Essais, 1. xxv. The term flre'eepteurs domestic] ues which he applies to Buchanan, Guerente, Grouchy, and Muret doubtless means that they acted as ' tutors ' in the sense common in English public-schools, as distinguished from class-teachers. Buchanan left Bordeaux in 1541, Guerente and Grouchy in the spring of 1547. Muret did not come there till the end of 1547. Grouchy lectured to the second - year students in philosophy. (See E. Gaullieur, Hist, du college de Guynnie, pp. 89, 90 ; P. Hume Brown, George Buclianan, pp. 102 — 125.) It may be added that Muret's name was added in the ed. of 1582 and the word domcstiijucs in that of 1588. 2 Henri de Mesmes does not mention Montaigne among his fellow-students, but as he left Toulouse in 1548 this may be accounted for by Montaigne not having yet gone there. The law-school at Bordeaux was in a defective state. 3 Pierre Eyquem was Mayor from Aug. 1, 1554, to Aug. f, 1556; he may have resigned his judgeship at once, but certain forms must have been gone through before his son could take his place. The legal age for admission to the magistracy was twenty-five, but a dispensation was easily obtained. XXI] MONTAIGNE 1 39 licentiate of civil law at Orleans in 1553, and a month later had been appointed a councillor of the Bordeaux Parliament. He was a man of sound scholarship, and had translated Plutarch's treatise on Marriage and Xenophon's treatise on Domestic Economy, and, as we have seen, he was something of a poet. But his chief title to fame on his own account is the famous Contr'un or Discours de la Servitude volontaire 1 . Written when he was little more than a schoolboy, though doubtless revised when he was a law student at Orleans, it is to be regarded as a schoolboy's declamation rather than as a serious contribution to political theory 2 . But as a declamation it is exceedingly fine, and shews great promise of literary excellence. It was this work which was the immediate oc- casion of the celebrated essay on Friendship which Montaigne dedicated to his friend's memory 3 . It had been his intention to publish it among his Essays, but, having learnt that it had already appeared in a collection of revolutionary writings (Goulart's Memoires de Vetat), he changed his mind before the publication of his volume. Happily he allowed his own introductory essay to stand just as he had written it. 1 The Contr'un was first published in entirety in vol. Ill of the Memoires de Pestat de France sous Charles IX, edited by Simon Goulart, 1576, but two years previously a long extract had appeared in the second part of the Reveille-matin. There is also in the Bib. Nat. a MS copy made for Henri de Mesmes, upon which M. Bonnefon has based his text. 2 De Thou's statement, that it was inspired by Montmorency's suppression of the sedition at Bordeaux in 1549, may be dismissed, as there is not a word of allusion to this event in the treatise. In the first edition of the Essais Montaigne said that La Boetie wrote it in his eighteenth year, i.e. in 1548, but later he corrected this to sixteen. Probably he had not any precise information on the s.ibject. In any case the treatise must have undergone revision later, probably at thi- hands of La Boetie himself, for the words notre poesie francoise...faite toutt a neuf par nostre Ronsard, nostre Ba'if, nostre du Bellay could not possibly have been vritten before 1550, and hardly before 1552, when Baif, then only twenty, published his first volume of poems. M. Bonnefon indeed conjectures that the whole treatise was written at this later date, when La Boetie was at Orleans, and that it bears 1 races of the influence of Anne du Bourg, at that time a Law-professoi at the University. {Montaigne et ses amis, 1. 143— 16 3-) This vi( -' w " f course involves throwing over Montaigne, and it is safer to assign the original composition to the earlier date, and to suppose that the work was revised later, which would account for the comparative maturity of the style. 3 Essais, I. xxv. .: 140 MONTAIGNE [CH. Par ce que e'estoit luy, par ce que cestoit moy\ These are the simple and immortal words in which he gives the reason for his friendship. If La Boetie recognised Montaigne's greater genius, in his turn he exercised a salutary influence on his friend's pleasure-loving and somewhat indolent nature, leading him by precept and example to a higher conception o\ duty and a more rigorous practice of self-control 2 . But the friendship was destined to be short-lived, or rather its earthly term was cut short in order that it might become eternal 3 . On August 18, 1563, La Boetie died, having be- queathed to his friend his books and his papers. A full and touching account of his last illness and death is given by Montaigne in a letter to his father 4 . On September 23, 1565, Montaigne married Francoise de la Chassaigne, the daughter of a fellow councillor. Though he had not married to please himself — " I would not have married Wisdom herself had she wanted me " — M me de Montaigne made him an excellent wife, looking after his household and property (a task for which he himself shewed singular incapacity), respecting his humours, admiring his genius, and after his death cherishing his fame with loyal affection 3 . He in his turn seems to have been a kind and considerate husband. The next event in his life was the death of his father on June 18, 1568, by which he became master of a considerable fortune including the chateau and estate of Montaigne. His first care was to complete a task which he had undertaken at his father's request, the translation of a Latin work entitled Thcologia naturalis, by Raymond de Sebonde, the purport of" 1 These words were added in the edition of 1588. - See the satyre Mine excellente, addressed to Montaigne by La Boetie (CE uvres, zi- ff.). :; Montaigne says the friendship lasted four years ('four or five' in t .«; original edition). 4 (Eitvres, edd. Courbet and Royer, iv. 307. ■"' She was born in 1544 and was therefore 21 at the time of h er marriage; she died in 1627. Montaigne hardly ever refers to her in the Essays, out an affectionate letter to her, written in 1570, has survived ((Euvres, iv. 305). Some of her letters, written after his death, have been published (E. Richou, Invei it aire, pp. 275 ff.). XXI] MONTAIGNE t^t which was to establish the truth of the Christian religion by nature and reason. The translation was indeed finished at the time of the elder Montaigne's death, but it had not been printed. It was now sent to the press, and it appeared early in 1569 1 , but without the translator's name. Having paid this debt to his father's memory Montaigne proceeded to honour that of his friend, La Boetie, by publishing his trans- lations from Xenophon and Plutarch, together with his French and Latin poems. They appeared early in the year 1571. It is noteworthy that the Latin poems are dedicated to Michel de l'Hospital in a letter which ends with a warm tribute to the ex-Chancellor's capacity and singular qualities 2 . Eighteen months before L'Hospital had resigned the seals, his policy of toleration having failed. This tribute from Montaigne to the fallen statesman, paid while civil war was still raging, testifies to his belief in that policy. Soon after writing this dedication Montaigne resigned his seat in the Parliament of Bordeaux in favour of Florimond de Raemond, the future Catholic historian of Protestantism, and went to live in retirement on his estates. An inscription in his cabinet or study, dated on his thirty-eighth birthday (February 28, 1 57 1), proclaims that weary of public life {servitii aulici et munerum publicorum iamdudum pertaesus) he had retired to the bosom of the learned virgins to spend there the rest of his days in repose and freedom from all care {ubi quietus et omnium securus \ijuan\tillum id tandem superabit. . . exigat)*. The inscription is characteristic, for after all there was nothing very remarkable in this retirement of Montaigne's from public life. His judicial duties were distasteful to him and he had his property to look after. And though he found by experience that the management of an estate was no more congenial to him than the work of a magistrate-, In- had always taken seriously his position as a landed proprietor. 1 The printing was finished on Dec. 30, 156s. - The letter of dedication is dated April 30, 1570. 3 For the whole inscription see Galy and Lapeyre, p. 36 I exigat with istas sedes in the sense of ' to complete,' and in this th by M. Bonnefon. IA2 MONTAIGNE [CH. He might indeed have exchanged the gown for the sword, for a soldier's life sometimes appealed strongly to him, but in the present unhappy state of his country he was debarred by his principles from taking a side. He would fight neither for nor against the Protestants, so like Jean de la Taille 1 he retired to his estates and his books, and tried to put in practice those sentiments of Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis, Ut prisca gens mortalium, Paterna rura bobus exercet suis, which so many of his contemporaries were expressing in verse. The main building of Montaigne's cJiatean after frequent transformations was burnt down in 1885, but the famous tower, in which he had his library and his study, is still standing, and save for the gradual decay of the paintings and the increasing defacement of the inscriptions, is practically unchanged-. The library with the adjoining cabinet, assez poly, is on the second story, and here in summer Montaigne spent the greater part of the day. It is nearly circular in shape, the longer diameter being nearly twenty-seven feet and the shorter rather more than twenty-two feet 3 . From three windows it commands a wide view of the adjacent country in three different directions 4 . The books, which in 1588 numbered about a thousand, the greater part bound in white vellum, were ranged in bookcases round the room, each case containing five shelves. As we have seen, some of them had been bequeathed to Montaigne by La Boetie, and it was to La Boetie's memory that the whole collection was dedicated in an inscription which formerly adorned the frieze 5 . The 1 See ante, p. 83. 2 The chateau, which was rebuilt after the fire, is a mile and a half from the station of La Mothe-Montravel (36 miles from Bordeaux by rail and abont 20 from Bergerac). The present owner, the Marquise de Reverseau, inherited it from her father M. Magne, the Finance Minister of Napoleon III. 3 See Galy and Lapeyre's plan ; also Payen n°. 4 for illustrations and plans of the whole tower. * Essais, in. 3. 8 It was transcribed in the 18th century; see Bonnefon, 1. 245. XXI] MONTAIGNE H3 presence of Montaigne's signature in from seventy to eighty volumes which still exist enables us with the help of various remarks in the Essais in some measure to reconstruct his library 1 . Les historiens sont le way gibier de mon estnde-, and in conformity with this remark we find that thirty-one out of the surviving works relate to history. By far the most in- teresting is a copy of Caesar's Commentaries, covered with annotations in Montaigne's handwriting 3 . Among the modern historians the Italians are naturally the best represented. Montaigne also had a special liking for the Italian letter- writers, of whom he tells us that he had a hundred volumes. The best, he considered, was Annibale Caro, translator of the JEneid, and secretary to Pierluigi Farnese, Duke of Parma 4 . Thirteen of Montaigne's Italian books have survived, among them being two which deal with the subject of spiritual love, the Dialogld di aviore of Leo Hebraeus 3 and a translation of the Spanish romance // carcel de amor 6 . There are thirty- five Latin books and eight Greek ones, but a copy of the Odyssey, covered with marginal notes, has unfortunately dis- appeared 7 . Montaigne was not much of a Greek scholar, and doubtless read his Greek authors, Plato and Aristotle, Herodotus and Xenophon, in translations, as we know he read his favourite Plutarch. But he had a copy of Froben's Greek and Latin edition (1560) of the Lives. The most remarkable feature in the library was the Greek and Latin sentences painted on the beams of the ceiling 3 . Ecclesiastes supplies twelve, the majority of these being painted over earlier ones taken from other sources, the Florilegium of Stobaeus (chiefly the discourse De superbia) 1 See P. Bonnefon, La Bibliotheque de Montaigne in Rev. iVliist. litt. 11. (1895) 313 ff. ; Montaigne et ses amis, I. 248 ff. 2 In the later editions sont ma droicte balle. s Printed by Plantin, Antwerp, 1570; it was bought on the quais for 90 centimes, and is now at Chantilly. See Payen, n°. 3, -29 fT. ; Bonnefon, I. -•''.; ff. 4 Essais, 1. 39. 5 Venice, 1549. This and two other volumes have the motto Mentrt pi 6 Venice, 1546; see ante, 1. 51. 7 It belonged to the elder Mirabeau (Bonnefon, 1. 25?). 8 See Galy and Lapeyre. , 44 MONTAIGNE [CH. eight, of which all except one are quotations from the Greek dramatists, St Paul's Epistles five, the Old Testament three, and Lucretius three. Only one modern writer has the honour of furnishing a text, and that is Michel de l'Hospital from whose epistle to Margaret, Duchesse de Berry, is taken Nostra vagatur In tenebris, nee caeca potest mens cernere verum 1 . With hardly an exception— Terence's Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto is one— all the texts repeat the same burden, the vanity and ignorance of man. Finally in long scrolls on the two main beams, as well as on four of the shorter joists, are inscribed twelve Sceptic formulae, chiefly taken from Sextus Empiricus. During the years from 1571 to 1580 Montaigne lived for the most part quietly at his chateau, reading his books and writing his essays. He was occasionally absent from home for some months at a time'-, and on one occasion at least played a part in public affairs. In the spring of 1574 the commander of the royalist army of Poitou, the Due de Montpensier, had established his camp at Sainte-Hermine, and Montaigne came there apparently for the purpose of offering his services. At any rate Montpensier sent him on a mission to Bordeaux to urge on the authorities the pressing necessity of taking vigilant precautions against a possible Huguenot attack 3 . Towards the close of 1579 the writing of the First and Second books of the Essays was completed and they were sent to Bordeaux to be printed by Simon Millanges, a former professor of the College of Guyenne. They appeared in the spring of 1580 in two volumes of unequal thickness and printed in different type 4 . Each book occupied a volume. 1 Epistolarum libri sex, 1585, p. 84 (lib. ii). Though the collected edition of his poems was not published till 1585 several had appeared separately in his lifetime. 2 Les occasions we tiennent ailleurs parfoisplusieurs mois [Essais, III. 37). ;i Montaigne refers to the mission, without mentioning its import, in his copy of Beuther's Ephemerides, which he used as a diary. The Bordeaux Parliament gave him audience on May 11 (Payen, n°. 2, p. 20). See also Bonnefon, I. 275 ff. 4 The avis an lecteur is dated in the original edition March 1 . XXI] MONTAIGNE 1 45 For the last two years Montaigne had suffered from attacks of the stone and gravel, and it was chiefly from a desire to try the effects of various foreign waters, though partly also from his innate restlessness and love of travel, that he left home on June 22, 1580, for a long absence. He was present at the siege of La Fere in Picardy by the royalist troops, when his friend Philibert de Gramont, the husband of la belle Corisande, was struck by a cannon-ball and died four days afterwards (August 6) 1 . After attending his friend's funeral at Soissons he started on his tour in company with his youngest brother, M. de Mattecoulon, then a lad of twenty, M. de Cazalis (probably his brother-in-law), M. du Hautoy, and a youth named Charles d'Estissac, doubtless the son of the lady to whom one of the Essays is dedicated-, who was especially intrusted to his care. The first halt of any length was at Plombieres in the Vosges, where Montaigne drank the waters for eleven days. From there the travellers passed through Switzerland to Augsburg, and so by way of Munich, Innsbruck, and the Brenner to Venice, which they reached on November 5. Travelling by way of Bologna, Florence, and Siena they arrived at Rome on November 30, and settled there for the winter. They left Rome on April 19, 1581, and after paying a visit to the famous Casa Santa at Loreto reached the Baths of Lucca on May 8. Here, except for a seven weeks' visit to Florence, Pisa and Lucca (June 21 — August 14). Montaigne resided till September 12, taking the baths and drinking the waters. On the 1st of October he was back at Rome, where he found an official letter from the jurats of Bordeaux informing him that he had been elected to the office of Mayor on August 1, a piece of news of which he had already heard in a letter from a friend. He at first declined the honour, but he left Rome after only a short stay, and returned to France by the Mont Cenis, reaching Ins home on the 30th of November. Pressed to reconsider his decision, and receiving a letter from the King which amounted 1 l'ayen n". 3 p. 15 ; Essais, III. 4. - 11. 8. De F affection de* peres aux enfant*. T. II. , 4 6 MONTAIGNE [CH. to a command, he changed his mind and accepted the office 1 . In quiet times it was a responsible rather than a laborious post, and did not necessitate continual residence in the town. For the ordinary municipal duties were performed by the jurats, and it was only on special occasions that the inter- vention of the Mayor in person was required. The outgoing Mayor, the well-known Marechal de Biron, who had also held the post of Lieutenant-general of Guyenne, had shewn more zeal than discretion, and had been generally un- popular. Montaigne's election was no doubt as much due to his known good sense and moderation as to the fact that his father had been Mayor before him. The new Lieutenant-general of the province was the Marechal de Matignon, a man of conciliatory measures, whose capacity was equal to his tact 2 . France, as we have seen, had had a respite from civil war since the close of the year 1580, and the two years' term of Montaigne's office passed uneventful ly, but with such satisfaction to the citizens of Bordeaux that on August 1, 1583, he was re-elected for a second term of office. One of his first duties after re-election was to approve the statutes of his old college of Guyenne, which had recently been printed. But more troubled times were impending. The death of the Due d'Alencon, the King's only brother, in June, 1584, left a heretic next in the succession to the crown, and at the close of the year the League was revived with a new and more efficient organisation for the express purpose of excluding that heretic from the throne. Even before this there had been some infractions of the peace. In December, 1583, the 1 ye trCen excusay. Mais on vCapprint que j'avois tort ; le commemdemeni du Roy s , y interposant aussi. Essais, III. to. It is not quite clear when Montaigne changed his mind. It would appear from the yournal die Voyage (ill. 370) that he left Rome sooner than he had intended. But the King's letter is only dated November 25, and was addressed to Rome under the impression that Montaigne was still there (Bonnefon, II. 45). It is quite likely however that at Lyons the bearer of the letter, having heard of Montaigne's presence there on Nov. 15, sent it direct to his home, in which case he would have got it very soon after his arrival. 2 Brantome describes him as tin tres-fin et trinquat normand, et qui battoit froid d aidant que t autre (Biron) battoit cliaud (CEuvres, v. 159). XXI] MONTAIGNE 147 King of Navarre had seized the town of Mont-de-Marsan in Gascony, which formed part of the government of Guyenne, and Du Plessis-Mornay had written several letters to Montaigne on the subject, assuring him of his master's peaceful intentions 1 . A year later, on the 19th of December, 1584, the King of Navarre paid a memorable visit to Montaigne's chateau ac- companied by some of the leading Protestant nobles, including Conde, Rohan, Turenne (the future Due de Bouillon), Sully and Lesdiguieres. It was a special mark of the King's con- fidence that he slept in his host's bed and ate his food without allowing the usual precautions against poison to be taken. The next morning they hunted in Montaigne's forest. The stag, Montaigne records with pride, was a good one'-. On March 31, 1585, the Cardinal of Bourbon and other Catholic princes and nobles issued their manifesto, which was a prelude to war. About the same time the supporters of the League at Bordeaux began to conspire under the leadership of M. de Vaillac, but thanks to the energy of Matignon, ably seconded by Montaigne, the town remained unshaken in its loyalty". The last two months of Montaigne's term of office were signalised by a terrible outbreak of the plague at Bordeaux and elsewhere in Guyenne 4 . There was a panic at Bordeaux, and some modern critics of Montaigne have de- clared that he should have set an example of devotion and courage by taking up his residence in the town. But he had his own family to look after, for the contagion had spread to the neighbourhood of his chateau, and it was necessary to establish them in a place of safety, which he found apparently at Libourne 5 . On the 31st of July his term of office expired. 1 Bonnefon, II. 79 — 90. - // n'y sonffrait ny essai ny convert, et dormit dans won lit hi partir de ceans je luifis eslamer un cerfen maforetquilepromena 2 jours. Payen 11 '. 3 |>. 16. :i See two letters of Montaigne to Matignon written in May, 1585 ■' ' iv. 349 ft'. ; Bonnefon, 11. 119 ff.). And cf. J. Dussieux, Lettres intimes de Ilairi IV, pp. 56—66. 4 40,000 persons died at Bordeaux from June to December. Sec Montaigne's touching description of the plague in his neighbourhood, Essais, ill. 1 :. 5 His letter to the jurats of July 30 is dated from Libourne. [CEttvt Courbet and Royer, iv. 354.) 10—2 [ 4 8 MONTAIGNE [CH. It was not till the close of the year that the cessation of the plague allowed Montaigne to return to his home. Here for the next two years he seems to have occupied himself chiefly with his books and his Essays, the only noteworthy incident being that Henry of Navarre dined with him on October 24, 1587, on his way to Sainte-Foy 1 , four days after his victory at Coutras, the first victory gained by the Pro- testants since the outbreak of the civil war. By February, 158s, he had completed the Third book of his Essays and had made considerable additions to the First and Second books. Accordingly he set out for Paris to see about the publication of a new edition 2 . It appeared about the middle of June 3 . In the following month, Paris being now completely in the hands of the League, he made acquaintance with the inside of the Bastille, but was released before nightfall through the intervention of Catharine de' Medici 4 . Soon after this incident he paid a visit of some duration to Gournay-sur- Aronde in Picardy, the home of Marie de Gournay, a young lady whose enthusiastic admiration for the Essays, which she had read two or three years before, had led her to make the author's acquaintance at Paris*. Montaigne was at Blois when the Estates-General opened on October 15, having followed the Court there, as he had already followed it to Chartres and Rouen. Pasquier and De Thou have both left a record of conversations which they had with him at this time 6 . J Henri IV, Lettres missives, II. 602. - It was on this journey that he was attacked by a band of Leaguers and stripped of his money and papers, but speedily changing their minds they let him go free and gave him back all his possessions. Sec his letter to Matignorj [CEuvres, IV. 357) and Essais, III. 12. 3 The privilege is dated June 4, and the preface June 1 2. 4 Payen n°. 3 p. 17. She was the daughter of Guillaume de Jars and was born in October, 1565. See Essais, 11. 17. Montaigne paid two or three visits to Gournay, spending in all three months there (Pasquier, Lettres, xviii. 1) ; M lle de Gournay recorded her reminiscences of the visit in a romance entitled Le Pronmenoir de M. de Montaigne which she sent to him in manuscript at the end of November, 15S8. and which was published in 1594. For an account of her see Bonnefon, II. 315 ff. ,; Pasquier, loc. (it.; De Thou, Meinoires, in Michaud and Poujoulat, xi. 330. x -^l] MONTAIGNE I49 Montaigne returned home in October or November and tried to forget in reading and writing the frequent pain which his malady now caused him. Though he wrote no fresh Essays he was constantly adding to the old ones. From the numerous citations from Plato which appear for the first time in the posthumous edition 1 we may conclude that he read some of his dialogues at this period. In 1589 he carried on a correspondence with Lipsius, in whose praise he had introduced a passage in the last edition of the Essays-. A greater interest attaches to his correspondence with Henry IV, whose succession to the throne (Aug. 2, 1589) must have been medicine to his pains. Two of his letters to the King have been preserved. Both are models of manly frankness. The first, dated January 8, 1590, is of some length, and shews a statesmanlike appreciation of the political condition". The second, dated September, 1590, is much shorter, being evi- dently an answer to an offer from the King of some post or other pecuniary reward 4 . His proud refusal reminds one of the famous passage in the King's letter to M. De Launay, (i Argent 11 est pas pdture pour des gentilshotinnes commc vans et moi" " Quand fauray e'puisc ma bourse aupres de Votre Majeste\je prendray la hardiesse de le luy dire" says Montaigne, and the words ring truer from one who is refusing money than from one who is asking for it. Unfortunately Montaigne did not live to see the complete triumph of that royalist cause to which he had adhered with such singleness of heart and purpose. He died of quinsy on the 13th of September, 1592, in his sixtieth year'. Montaigne and his Essays have been judged with remark- 1 Especially in I. xxiv and xxv. '-' Lc pins scavant homme qui nans reste, d'un esprit trcs-poiy et Judidcux, vrayment germain & mon Turnebus, 11. 12. 3 CEuvres, IV. 356. 4 ib- 363- 5 Pasquier loc. cit. gives an account of his last moments, how, while mass was being said in his room, at the elevation of the Host ce pauvre gentilliotm an mains mat quHl pent, commc it cops perdu, sur son lit, les mail ce dernier acte rendit son esprit ii Dicit. But he was not an eyewitness "f the - See also P. de Brach's letter to Lipsius (Bonnefon, n. [83). i«;o MONTAIGNE [CH. U able diversity of opinion, a result which would have given peculiar satisfaction to Montaigne himself. The chief questions which have been raised are the following. What was the main object of his book? Was it the study of himself as an epitome of mankind, or was it the teaching of a certain philosophy? What was this philosophy? To what extent was it sceptical ? Was it a complete system, or was it merely the unformulated scepticism of a layman? Was it Montaigne's final attitude towards life, or was it a phase through which he passed to a more positive philosophy ? What was his position with regard to the Christian religion ? Was he a believer or a disbeliever, or was he simply indifferent? To answer all these questions with any certainty is possible to no one but Montaigne himself; but the most hopeful method of arriving at the truth that suggests itself is to trace the developement of the Essays from their first beginnings to their final stage. It is important however to bear in mind at the outset that Montaigne, like Rabelais, is in the first place a poet and an artist, and not a philosopher or a moral teacher. As Ruel has well said, " his philosophy is the servant of his imagina- tion, or rather of his sensibility." He regards alike the great world without him and the little world within him in an imaginative spirit. Like Shakespeare and Rembrandt he is at once a realist and an idealist ; he looks on the phenomena of life curiously and dispassionately, but he interprets them by the penetrating light of his own imagination 1 . As we have seen, Montaigne began to write his Essays either in 1571 or quite at the beginning of 1572. His first 'attempts' — such was the modest name he gave to them 2 — 1 The artistic side of Montaigne is admirably brought out in Ruel"s book, Du sentiment artistique dans la morale de Montaigne. - Cest icy purement Tessai de mes facultes naturelles (ll. 10 beginning). This seems to justify De Thou's and Saint-Marthe's rendering of £ssai by Conatus. G. Guizot (p. 69) thinks that Lipsius's Gustus expresses Montaigne's real meaning, and some support is given to this view by the passage Le jugement est nn util a tons subjects, et se mesle par tout. A cette cause aux Essais que fen fay ici j'y employe toute sorle d'occasion. Si e'est un subject que je nentende point, a cela mesmeje Vessaye, sondant le gut de Men loing (i. 50 beg.). A similar explanation is given in the dictionary of Hatzfeld, Darmesteter, and Thomas. XXI] MONTAIGNE jr, were extremely short ; an anecdote or two, chiefly taken from his favourite study, history, with a few remarks by way of moral. Out of the first eighteen Essays, as they now stand. the only one in which there is no anecdote is the eighth, On Idleness 1 . All the anecdotes deal with the same subject. and that subject is man. In the very first Essay we meet with that estimate of him which Montaigne was never weary of proclaiming : Cest un subject merveilleusement vain, divers et ondoyant, que Fhomme. In the eighth Essay he refers for the first time to himself, giving the reason for his retirement from public life, and saying that idleness had bred such queer fancies in his mind that in order to put it to shame he had begun to keep a register of them. In another place he tells us that he would have chosen the epistolary form for his fancies {verves) had he found a suitable correspondent, but that he could not write imaginary letters 2 . In the nineteenth Essay, Que philosopher cest apprendrc a mourir, which we learn he was writing on the 15th of March, 1572 3 , he attempts for the first time a higher flight. The inevitability of death was, as we have seen, a favourite subject with the poets of the Pleiad school, but their treatment of it is at once less realistic and less imaginative than Montaigne's. His description of the death chamber, which forms the conclusion of the Essay, is one of the most striking passages of his book, and the whole Essay shews the hand of a master. Here too he gives us one or two personal details. He tells us the day and hour of his birth, and that he was non melan- cholique, mats songecreux. Of the other Essays in the First book, which were already of considerable length on their first appearance, some, such as 1 We may fairly assume that with some exceptions the Essays were written more or less in the order in which they were printed. The few thai can be dated support this view, but it would be unlike Montaigne never to have departed from the chronological order. For instance the famous Es>ay on Education, which now stands twenty-fifth in the First book, cannot have been written befon 1579, the year in which M me de Gurson was married. Again the present 1. 40 was numbered fourteen in the editions before 1595. - I. 39 (added in 1588). :i // ny a justement "I the first he inserted a few additional passages-'. It appeared in 1582. During the intervals of leisure which his office "i Mayor allowed him he doubtless continued his design, but it can only have been after the expiration of his second term ol 1 In the preceding Essay (11. 17), which must have been written immediately before this one, Montaigne speaks of himself a '•'"• ' * l <> vielksse aiant franchi les quarante aits. M. Bonnefon takes this t<> imply that the essay was written about 1573, when lie was forty, but it may surely imply any date up to 1576 or even later. - The chief additions are the orthodox declaration at the beginning <.f the Essay On Prayers (1. 56), an addition u, the Essay < hi Presumption (11. 17). and .1 short account of the Baths he had visited on hi. journey, added to II. .',7- 154 MONTAIGNE [CH. office and the cessation of the plague that he was able once more to work at it without interruption 1 . As we have seen, he sent the new edition to the press early in 1588, and it appeared in June of that year, "augmented by a Third Book, and by six hundred additions to the first two books." The Third Book differs considerably in character from the two earlier ones. Montaigne writes now like a man who is sure not only of himself but of his public. The individual Essays are much longer and he now boldly proclaims his competence to deal with his subject. " No man ever treated a subject which he understood better than I do mine ; in this I am the most learned man alive 2 ." The ninth Essay, On Vanity, and the thirteenth, On Experience, are rich in details of his life and character. " I tell the truth, not to my heart's content, but as much as I dare ; and as I grow older, I grow rather more daring 3 ." But it is not only in the new Book, but in the additions to the earlier Books that his greater boldness appears. A good deal of the new matter, it is true, consists of quotations, of which he made only sparing use in the earlier editions, but a very considerable number of the additions relate to himself. It has been sometimes said that because many of Montaigne's quotations are incorrect he must have quoted from memory. But M lle de Gournay expressly tells us in her preface to the edition of 1635 that he inserted them book in hand, and he himself says much the same thing. " I am for ever rifling passages in books which please me, not in order to remember them, for I have no memory, but to transfer them to my book 4 ." But as he used these passages merely to fortify opinions already formed he made no scruple in altering them a little if it suited him. His debts are by no means confined to quotations. He often pillages without 1 He only wrote, he tells us, when he was at home, and cf. III. 5 Pour ct mien dessein, il me vient aussi h propos, d'escrire ehez may, etc. ni. 2 (Du repentir). The beginning of this chapter is important for the understanding of Montaigne's design. 3 ib. 4 1. 24 (added in ed. of 1588) and cf. a passage in III. 1 2. XX I] MONTAIGNE DJ acknowledgement, taking, as he quaintly says, here a wing and there a leg, and in one place he speaks of his book as completely built up with the spoils of Plutarch and Seneca 1 . Yet for all this the book is one of the most original that was ever written. As Malebranche says, tout copiste qiiil est il ne sent point son copiste. The practice of adding fresh matter to his old Essays was continued by Montaigne down to his death, so that when he died a new edition of his book was required in order to present to the world his final thoughts. To this pious task M me de Montaigne, with the assistance of Pierre de Brach, devoted herself with loving care, with the result that in the early months of 1594, a year and a half after her husband's death, she was able to send to M lle de Gournay at Paris the ' copy ' of the new edition for publication'-'. It appeared in the course of the following year, 1595 3 , and it is described on the title- page as " a new edition found after the author's death, revised by him, with additions amounting to a third more than the preceding editions." Now the public library of Bordeaux possesses a copy of the 1588 edition evidently prepared for the press by Montaigne himself. There are minute typographical directions to the printer, and the margins are filled with additions in his beautiful writing, which though sometimes very minute is quite easy to read 4 . It is clear that this is the copy which Montaigne destined for the press. It is however equal ly clear that by itself it does not constitute the whole of his text as he left it. On some of the pages he has completely filled the margins, and here and there he has added a number which evidently refers to a separate sheet, either loose or, more probably, affixed to the printed page by some adhesive substance. 1 I. 32 (opening sentence). 2 R. Dezeimeris in his Recherches sur la recension du /< xte postlimn Bordeaux, 1866, has elucidated the matter satisfactorily ; Bonnefon in. iv° "• and 373 ff.) practically agrees with him. A somewhat different view is taken l>y L. Manchon. :! Probably quite early in the year; the privilege is dated Oct. 15, 1594- 4 The volume has unfortunately been badly ' ploughed ' by the binder. 1 ;m MONTAIGNE [CH. Comparing this Bordeaux copy with M lle de Gournay's edition of 1595 we find a good man}- differences, but these chiefly occur in the new passages derived from the manuscript. The comparatively few alterations which Montaigne made in the actual text of 1 588 have been adhered to by the 1595 editors with almost complete fidelity 1 . For instance, in the twenty- eighth Essay of the First book Montaigne has drawn his pen through all La Boetie's sonnets, and in the 1595 edition the dedication appears without the sonnets, a manifest absurdity, but a testimony to the editors' respect for their author. On the whole from what we know of Pierre de Brach and M 11 ' de Gournay we have good reason for believing that they performed their task faithfully and well. Xo doubt in some cases they may have missed Montaigne's last intention, which must occasionally have been very difficult to trace through a scries of erasures- : sometimes too perhaps, as M. Bonnefon conjectures, M lle de Gournay may have permitted herself to tone down a word or phrase 3 ; but on the whole we may be reasonably confident that variants in the text of 1595 from that of the Bordeaux copy correspond to subsequent alterations made by Montaigne himself on separate sheets, which no longer exist to give their testimony 4 . The practice of adding to his Essays, of inserting a passage here and a passage there, sometimes to the great detriment of the clear sequence of thought, is a peculiar feature in 1 Comp. the page of which there is a facsimile in Petit de Julleville, ill. 466 (11. end of c. 15 and beginning of c. 16). - For instance, they have dated the Jt'is au lecteur June 12, 1580. instead of March 1, 1580, the manuscript correction for June 12, 1588, of the printed text. This was corrected by M Ue de Gournay in her edition of 1598. - :i The passages cited by M. Bonnefon in Rev. cThist. Hit. III. (1896) 85 ff. hardly support his view. 4 This view is practically the same as that of M. Bonnefon. It is, however, quite possible, as M. Dezeimeris supposes, that Montaigne had begun to annotate another copy. In any case I imagine P. de Brach, unless he was a very unpractical person, began to work on a clean copy. M lle de Gournay says, "/e pourrai appekr a temom une autre copie qui rate en la ma/sou de Montaigne? which is evKlentiy the Bordeaux copy. It should be added that M. Dezeimeris has noticed that some of the corrections in that copy are in the hand of M 11 * de Gournav, writing no doubt at Montaigne's dictation. XXI MONTAIGNE i.- Montaigne's peculiar book. " I add but I do not correct," he says in the Essay On Vanity (ill. 9), and this is true of the ideas, if not of the language. It was even true to a great extent of the language at the time the words were written, for it was not till after the publication of the 1588 edition that Montaigne began to concern himself with minute details of style, even with orthography and punctuation 1 . This practice adds considerably to the reader's difficulty in getting to close quarters with the chameleon-like nature of the writer, and necessitates for those who want to judge him fairly a constant comparison of the different editions of his book. Even Montaigne himself complained in the 1588 edition that his readers did not always understand him aright. Yet he went on adding to the difficulty by fresh interpolations, or as he calls them, emblemes supemumeraires, which had eventually to be published without his final revision'-. From the foregoing account of the growth of Montaigne's book it will have appeared that the design of making himself the subject of it arose gradually in his mind, and that although by the time he had finished his First and Second books it was fully matured, it cannot be said to have borne much fruit until the appearance of the Third book and the additions made to the earlier ones. Whether this design was, as Montaigne himself suggests, farouche et extravagant, or, as Pascal says, un sot projet, it was at any rate a highly original one : \ And the form which he gave to his design was equally original. He did not, as so many of his contemporaries did, write an autobiographical history. He had, as he tells us, a poor memory, and his object was truth. Moreover he could not "keep a register of his life by his actions, for fortune 1 Je ne me mesh, ny d ' orthographe, et ordonnt settlement qtCih suivtnt ran ny de la ponctuation: je nth pen expert en run et en /'autre (ill. 9). Bui in the Bordeaux copy he gives minute directions about spelling and punctuation to printer. - See Champion, pp. 276 If. 3 Pasquier's suggestion that Montaigne's book would have been impro> leaving out all that relates to himself is like saying that Shakespeare's h would be better without Hamlet. ,;S MONTAIGNE [CH. placed them too low; he therefore kept it by his fancies 1 "; he recorded his fancies and his impressions, just as they presented themselves to his mind, not only with regard to external events, but with regard to his own character. If any circum- stances in his past life had made a lasting impression upon him he noted them in his book, not as fragments of past history, but as permanent acquisitions to his store of mental or spiritual experience, and not in any chronological or other order by sequence, but just as they occurred to his ' vagabond ' fancy 2 . The value of an autobiographical portrait depends largely upon the good faith and the skill of the painter. Cest mi livre de bonne foi, lecteur. Even those who have taken the most unfavourable view of Montaigne's character have no doubt as to his honesty and sincerity^. Most students of his book will echo Emerson's remark that "the opinion of an invincible probity grows into every reader's mind." This is the character that he bore with his contemporaries. Moreover the very fact that he does not attempt to give us a finished portrait makes us all the more ready to believe in its sub- stantial truth. " Though the features of my portrait change and alter, they go not altogether astray.... I do not paint the whole being, but a passing state ; not merely a passing from one age to another... but from day to day, from minute to minute.... Whether it be that I am another man, or that I take hold of the subjects in other circumstances, and from other points of view, the fact is, that though I contradict myself at 1 At the beginning of the essay On Vanity (in. 9), the most autobiographical of all the Essays - M. Champion in objecting that if Montaigne had really wanted to paint himself he would have written a complete history of his life {Introduction aux Essais, pp. 56 ff.) seems to lose sight of his peculiar method. 3 Montaigne n' a rien ecrit qui fit t vrai ni qui lui fit plus dlionneur que la premiere ligne de ses Essais : " Cest ici un livre de bonne foi." G. Guizot, p. 42. Rousseau however in the first draft of the opening of his Confessions took a different view, saying, " Je tnets Montaigne a la tete de ces faux sinceres qui veulent tromper en disant vrai. II se montre. avec des defauts, mais ilne s'en donne que d'aimablcs: il ny a point dliomme qui n'en ait odieux. Montaigne se peitit ressemblant. mais de profir (quoted by Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, in. 80). As Desjardins says, On traite quelquefois avec bien de la durete ceux qu'on imite. XXI] .MONTAIGNE r rg random, I do not contradict the Truth 1 ." And in another place he says, " I give my mind sometimes one face, and sometimes another, according to the side on which I turn it. If I speak of myself in different terms, it is that I am looking at myself in a different light 2 ." Fortunately we can place beside the portrait of the Essays a sketch which is not open to the charge of having been drawn for the world's inspection. The journal of Montaigne's travels was evidently written only for his own eyes and those of his family, and is therefore subject to no deductions either on the score of personal or of literary vanity. One third of it is written by a servant, another third in bad Italian, and only the remaining third by Montaigne himself in French. The general impression that we get from it is that he was a man of keen and active intelligence, always on the look-out for information, especially interested in comparing the social phenomena of different countries, unprejudiced and tolerant to a remarkable degree, quick in temper, kindly, not a little vain, somewhat egotistic, and possibly a little too fond of having his own way. Surely this character does not differ in its broad outlines from that presented to us in the Essays. But while we accept Montaigne's statements that ' his book is one of good faith ' and that ' he has brought to it the most sincere and complete accuracy 3 ,' it does not follow that we should take everything he says quite au pied de la lettre*. Some allowance must be made for the element of vanity in his character, some for the fact that, partly from irony, partly from what M. Faguet happily calls gasconnade a reborns, he has a tendency to exaggerate his defects; some for his propensity to indulge in boutades, or humorous and almost paradoxical sallies; and perhaps most of all for his strong artistic temperament. Had those critics who have judged him most hardly, Pascal and Guillaume Guizot, and in a far less degree Dean Church, united to their close familiarity with the Essays a better knowledge of his life and times, i in. 2 . " ii. i (added in 1588). 3 La fidclite . . .la plus sincere el pure qui se troiirc, ill. 1. 4 See Bayle St John, 11. 322. l6o MONTAIGNE [CH. they might have formed a more favourable estimate of his character. On the whole then, though the portrait which Montaigne has drawn with such deliberation cannot be accepted as absolutely as the unconscious testimony of a Cellini or a Pepys, a Cicero or a M me de Sevigne, it is true in its main features. And it has the great advantage over all those famous self-revelations, even over that of Pepys, that being deliberate it goes far more into detail. It is the literal truth that no document of equal importance for the study of human nature had ever before been given to the world. It may even compare with the series of documents on the same subject which the great English dramatist was on the eve of producing, and in the production of some of which he was certainly stimulated by the Essays 1 . For Montaigne's por- trayal of himself was not the result of mere egotism, or of an uncontrollable yearning for the sympathy of his fellow- creatures ; it was a deliberately planned contribution to the study of man. Chasque hotnme parte la forme entiere de Vhutnaine condition' 1 . Living, as he did, chiefly in the retire- ment of his chateau, he had no wide experience of mankind at first hand ; he knew men chiefly from books, from Plutarch and his favourite historians. One man alone he knew well, and that was himself. Moreover he believed himself to be an ordinary typical man, not, as most egotists do, a unique specimen of humanity"'. His interest in human nature was too deeply implanted not to be innate, but it had been stimulated and cultivated by intercourse with two authors, Seneca and Plutarch. " I have had no intercourse with any serious author, except Plutarch and Seneca, from whom I draw like the daughters 1 The influence of Montaigne on Shakespeare is admirably treated by J. M. Robertson in his Montaigne and Shakespeare, 1897. He shews that traces of Shakespeare's reading of Florio's translation (published 1603) first appear in the Second Quarto of Hamlet (1604) and are especially noticeable in that play and in Measure for Measure. See also G. Brandes, William Shakespeare (London, 1896) 11. 226—235. 2 ill. 2. :J See Doumic, Etudes, p. 70. XXI ] MONTAIGNE I ^ I of Danaus, filling and pouring out incessantly 1 ." Of their writings he preferred Plutarch's Moralia and Seneca's Moral Letters. There can be little doubt that in Seneca's case his choice was a wise one. For the Moral Letters give a better idea than the formal treatises of his subtle insight into human nature, and of his skill in discussing ethical questions, while the informality of their method made them all the more attractive to Montaigne. La science que fy cherche y est traictee a pieces disconsues 2 . Moreover Seneca's ethics were just of the kind to find favour with Montaigne. They may be described indeed in the very phrase which M. Faguet applies to Montaigne's ethical creed, as nn stoicisme un pat attcndri. Not only Seneca's position as a powerful minister, but his natural sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men, led him to soften considerably the severity of the Stoic doctrine. But on the whole Montaigne preferred Plutarch. Plutarqu e est admirable partout, mais principalement oil iljuge des actions humaines are the opening words of his Essay On Anger (II. 31), a subject which both Seneca and Plutarch had treated, and which therefore suggested the following Essay, A defence of Seneca and Plutarch. As we have seen, it was in the year 1572, just after Montaigne had begun to write his Essays, that Amyot's translation of Plutarch's Moralia appeared. We have seen too how warmly Montaigne acknowledged his debt to the work, a debt greater indeed than appears at first sight, for he sometimes incorporated Amyot's translation with hardly the change of a word into his own essays, the styles of the two authors blending so harmoniously that it is impossible to distin- guish them 3 . Plutarch's ethical teaching is as little systematic and as little rigid as Seneca's; if he nominally belonged to tin- Academy, he was by no means a strict disciple of that school, for he revised its precepts in the light of his own common sense and geniality. For two reasons he must have appealed to Montaigne more persuasively than Seneca. First there is no 1 I. 25 (added in the 1588 ed.). 2 11. 10. Montaigne also borrowed from Senega's other writings ; I. almost bodily from his De beneficiis. 3 See A. Delboulle in Rev. cThist. lit/. II. (1895) 004 ff. T. II. I l l62 MONTAIGNE [CH. question of his sincerity ; he lived as he taught. Secondly his teaching is for the ordinary individual ; he deals with the everyday ailments of the human heart, rather than with great crises and hidden diseases; he is the family doctor, while Seneca is the consulting physician \ " Seneca," says Montaigne, « moves and inflames you more ; Plutarch satisfies you more, and repays you better ; Seneca is stimulating, Plutarch is a guide." It was doubtless partly owing to Plutarch's guidance that Montaigne was led to the study of himself; from the same teacher he may have learnt to identify virtue with happiness, and happiness with tranquillity 2 . But whatever stimulus and guidance Montaigne may have derived from Seneca and Plutarch he was too independent to be the disciple of either. To the softened Stoicism of the one and the modified Platonism of the other he added a third element in the shape of Epicureanism. Yet he was no Eclectic. His philosophy of life was primarily for his own use, and not for that of the world. It had therefore to be moulded to meet his own needs and his own character. He and his book grew together. But regarding himself as an average man he believed that what was good for him would be good also for other men. Religion had apparently failed as an ethical guide ; it had made men superstitious without making them moral. He would endeavour, not indeed to construct a complete system of ethical doctrine, but to con- tribute a few suggestions based on his own experience and on the special needs of the age. For instance two conspicuous vices of the age were cruelty and perfidy, and against these he raises his voice in unusual accents of stern and uncom- promising severity 3 . 1 See O. Greard, De la 7?i07-ale de Plutarque, 2nd ed. 1874. 2 Desjardins Les 77ioralistes francais du xvi e sieele, pp. 83 — 102 points out that the great jurists of Montaigne's day, Cujas, Doneau, Dumoulin, were greatly influenced by the Stoic element in Roman jurisprudence. 3 See II. 11, De la cruante (as essay which is of great importance for Montaigne's ethical doctrines) ; II. 17, Quant a cette nouvelle vertu de faint isc et dissimulation, qui est a cett ' heure si fort en credit, je la hay capitalement, et de tons les vices, je n'en trouve aucun qui tcsmoigne tant de laschete et bassesse de caur; II. 18 (Du desmentir), Le premier traict de la corruption des mceurs, c'est le bannissement de la verite. See also Desjardins, op. cit., p. 259. XXI] MONTAIGNE 163 But in considering Montaigne's moral philosophy it is important to distinguish, and to remember that he himself distinguished, between the promptings of his imagination and the dictates of his reason, between his theories and his practice. His imagination for instance approves of the lofty idealism of martyrs and ascetics, or runs riot in depicting the pleasures of the senses ; but in practice he obeys his reason, and his reason j teaches him moderation and self-control 1 . "For my part, I love life and cultivate it as it hath pleased God to grant it to me.... I accept cheerfully and gratefully what nature has done for me, and am pleased with it and proud of it.... Of philosophical opinions I more willingly embrace those which are the most solid, that is to say the most human and the most our own.... Nature is a gentle guide, yet not more gentle than she is prudent and just. I hunt everywhere for her trail ; we have confounded it with artificial traces, and for this reason the sovereign good of the Academics and the Peripatetics, which is ' To live according to Nature,' becomes difficult to define and explain. So with that of the Stoics, which is akin to it, and which is ' To conform to Nature.' Is it not an error to esteem certain actions less worthy, because they are not necessary? Yet they will never convince me that the marriage of pleasure with necessity is not a most suitable one, with which, saith an ancient writer, the gods ever conspire.... These tran- scendent humours terrify me, like lofty and inaccessible places, and nothing I find so hard to digest in the life of Socrates as his ecstasies and his intercourse with daemons It is an absolute perfection, and as it were divine, for a man to know how to enjoy his being loyally. We seek for other conditions, because we understand not the use of our own ; and we out of ourselves from not knowing what is passing within.... The fairest lives to my mind are those which are regulatepl after the ordinary human pattern, without miracle, without extravagance." This is the conclusion 01' the Essays. It is characteristic of Montaigne's idea of treating man in 1 Cf. Ruel, op. cit. p. 412, Montaigne a un double ideal, un idial praHqtb du moins qu'il vondrait mettre en pratique, et un autre, artistique, que le plus souvent son admiration pour Vantiquiti fait apparaitre a son imagination. j64 MONTAIGNE [CH. general through a single individual that his views on education refer chiefly to a particular case. The Essay On Pedantry (I. 24) is indeed of general application, but the longer and more important one On the Education of Children (I. 25) was written for the benefit of the expected child of M me de Gurson, who like the rest of his class — Montaigne assumed that it would be a boy — would probably take up the profession of arms at the age of fifteen or sixteen. This limitation to the requirements of a small and privileged class necessarily narrows the scope of Montaigne's educational views ; but many of his precepts are of general import, and his central thought that the object of education is character and not learning is the true basis of all sound education 1 . For he maintains that its object is to make a man better 2 , "to teach him self-knowledge, how to die well and to live well." The body should be exercised as well as the mind 3 and the principal lessons of the mind should be in moral philosophy. The teacher should not merely burden his pupil's memory but should stimulate his originality and inspire him with an " honest curiosity for information about everything." Educa- tion should be largely practical and not merely from books 4 . Foreign travel and intercourse with men are therefore recommended, and intercourse with men should consist chiefly of an acquaintance with the great men of history, for which purpose there can be no better introduction than Plutarch's Lives 5 . This crusade against mere book-learning and this insistence on the practical side of education lead Montaigne sometimes to lose his balance, as when in the latter part 1 See F. A. Arnst'adt, F. Rabelais und sein Traite a" Education, pp. 16S — 242 ; G. Schmid in K. A. Schmid, Geschichte der Erziehung, III. i. 208- — 255, Stuttgart, 1892. 2 Le gain de notre estude, c'est en estre devenu meilleur et plus sage (I. 25). 3 Ce n'est pas une ame, ce n'est pas u?i corps, qiion dresse ; e'est un homme (id.). So Locke, who owed a good deal to Montaigne, heads his Thoughts con- cerning education with Mens sana in corpore sano. 4 // ne dira pas tant sa lecon com we il la /era (id.). 5 It is interesting to compare with Montaigne's views those expressed by Du Plessis-Mornay in a letter to Louise de Coligny, widow of the Prince of Orange, for the benefit of her son, Frederick Henry. (In E. Reaume, Morceaux choisis des prosateurs et poetes francais du xvi e siecle, pp. 223 ff.) / / XXI] MONTAIGNE I6 5 of the Essay On Pedantry he praises Spartan education at the expense of Athenian, and even goes so far as to eulogise the Turks and Tartars and other unlettered races. A youth, even of the class with which Montaigne is specially concerned, who was brought up in strict accord with his principles would become narrow and unimaginative; his practical understanding would be developed at the expense of his higher powers 1 . It has been remarked that there is no question in this Essay of religious teaching 2 . The same omission is equally noticeable in Montaigne's whole ethical system. Whatever his debt to pagan teachers, he owes nothing, at least directly, to the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed one Essay at least, and one which in its profound knowledge of human nature and its frank sincerity is one of the most remarkable of the whole book, that On Repentance (ill. 2), is almost anti-Christian in spirit. Montaigne believes that a man is born with certain qualities which may be developed or kept in check by education and self-discipline, but which cannot be wholly changed. We may repent of sins foreign to our nature which we commit under the influence of sudden passion, but he finds it difficult to believe in repentance for those sins which being the result of temperament we commit frequently and deliberately. If he had to live his own life over again he would live as he had lived. All this is very true of the natural man, but it leaves Christianity out of account. And that briefly represents Montaigne's attitude towards the Christian religion. " He admits it as a belief, but he puts it aside as a moral codeV In all ages this attitude is not an unusual one with ordinary men of the world, but in Montaigne's day it may be said to have been the normal attitude with all classes 4 . We have seen instances of it in the lives of Ronsard and Desportes ; it colours the whole 1 According to Coleridge a child's memory and imagination should !><■ fire) cultivated, because they are first awakened by nature, but the judgment, <>i com- paring power, ought not to be excited. 2 Collins, Montaigne, p. 114. 3 L. Joubert in Nouv. Biog. Gin. 4 Une epoque ou croire et vivre iiaient deux choses distinctes ct indiptn A. Vinet, Moralistes, p. 18. ,66 MONTAIGNE [CH. poetry of the Pleiad ; and it reaches its culminating height in the mixture of bloodthirstiness, debauchery, and grotesque superstition which made hideous the court of Henry III. Naturally a man so clear-sighted and sincere as Mon- taigne was not wholly blind to this inconsistency, and in the Essay On Prayers (I. 56), to which in the edition of 1582 he prefixed a formal profession of adherence to the Catholic Church, he refers to the well-known story of the Heptameron in which the Queen of Navarre relates how a young prince (Francis I) who had a liaison with an advocate's wife used on his return from visiting her to pray at length in a certain church 1 . But though Montaigne's eyes were open to the glaring inconsistency of cases like this he never applied his common sense to the examination of his own attitude. It was this breach between morality and religion which the religious revival in France set itself to heal, and which led the Jesuits to accommodate religion to the morality of the man of the world, and the Jansenists to raise ordinary morality to the higher standard of religion. We are now in a better position for attempting an answer to the question as to the extent and nature of Montaigne's scepticism. But it may first be noted that those writers who have insisted most emphatically on the thorough-going character of his scepticism cannot be said to have approached the subject with an unbiassed mind. Some have been over- anxious to claim him as a champion of free thought, while others have shewn a similar anxiety to repudiate him as an enemy to the Christian religion 2 . As M. Faguet aptly remarks, On est toujours le sceptiqne de qnelqiinn. The true starting-point for the consideration of Mon- taigne's scepticism is the recognition of the fact that like most intellectual phenomena of the Renaissance it has its origin 1 Nouv. xxv. The conversation after the story is an excellent commentary on Montaigne's Essay On Repentance. ' Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance, speaks of him as ' a genuine untiring inquirer' ; Emerson takes him as the type of a sceptic; for Pascal he is 'a pure Pyrrhonist' ; for G. Guizot ' scepticism is the heart and centre of the Essays.' XXI] MONTAIGNE 1 67 in classical literature. In the year 1562 Henri Estienne published a Latin translation of Sextus Empiricus, practically the only Sceptic writer of antiquity whose works have come down to us. It was from Sextus that Montaigne derived the Sceptic formulas with which he adorned the joists and rafters of his library, and it was from the same writer that he borrowed freely in the famous Essay, the Apologie de Raymond de Sebonde (I. 12), in which his sceptical views are stated with the greatest completeness. Montaigne tells us that two classes of objectors had found fault with Sebonde's book, the orthodox because it was useless, for Christianity can only be apprehended by faith, the un- believers because its arguments were feeble and inadequate. Both objections Montaigne meets in his usual original fashion. The first, he admits, would hold good if we had a real living faith in Christianity ; but " we are Christians only by the same title as we are Germans or inhabitants of Perigord 1 ." The second class of objectors are " more dangerous and more malicious" ; they must be handled a little more roughly. As they presume to attack a divine religion with purely human weapons the best way of meeting them is to convince them of the " emptiness, the vanity, the miserable condition of Man." This of course, as Montaigne sees quite well, is to abandon the defence of Sebonde, for the object of his book was to prove Christianity by ' reason and argument.' Hut Montaigne is evidently not at all concerned about Sebonde ; so leaving him to take care of himself he embarks on a long discourse on the vanity of natural man "deprived of grace and divine knowledge 2 ." After comparing him, not to his advantage, with beasts, he declares that his greatest mis- fortune is his so-called knowledge. It is better to be ignoranl than to pretend to know ; even philosophers have arrived at no result. Man's conception of God is a purely anthropo- morphic one, based on the idea that man is the centre (-1 the 1 This sentence was added in 1588 ; the whole chapter is about a third longH in this edition f han it was in that of 1580. 2 On the other hand Montaigne's ethical views arc based on a high estimate of human nature. Vir'"e, he says, is easy and pleasant. (1. 19, 25.) l6$ MONTAIGNE [CH. universe. Our knowledge of human affairs is no greater than our knowledge of God, and we are equally ignorant of our own souls. Not only philosophers differ, but individual opinion is always changing. Public opinion is equally un- stable. Man does not even know what he wants. Our ver y senses are untrustworthy. The conclusion is that human nature of itself is abject and vile, and that Man's only chance of elevation above his vile nature lies in the Christian faith. The second part of this proposition is stated very briefly, and it has already been invalidated by Montaigne's previous declaration that true Christian faith does not exist. Those writers who take Montaigne's scepticism most seriously point out that this Essay is by far the longest in his book, and therefore, they add, the most important. I doubt the correctness of this inference. There is much in the Essay that is paradoxical and not a little that is puerile. A good deal is borrowed from Sextus Empiricus and Diogenes Laertius, from Cicero and Plutarch. Its unusual length may be accounted for partly by the fact that it is addressed to some great person 1 , partly by the literary vanity natural to an author who having mounted his favourite hobby-horse is anxious to shew off its paces to the best advantage. The Apology, in fact, is best described in the words of M. Stapfer as a pendant to the Essay On some lives of Virgil (ill. 5 ) 2 , that other debauch of Montaigne's reason. For in its sweeping scepticism it goes far beyond any modern philosopher, not excepting Hume. Yet the man who heaped paradox on paradox to prove the vileness of man, who declared that the best man deserved hanging ten times in his life 3 , was an ardent admirer of Socrates and Epaminondas and Scipio. Even in his own, as it seemed to him, degenerate age, he 1 Vous, pour qui fay pris la peine destendre un si long corps, contre ma cousin me, and Vous, qui par fauthorite que vostre grandeur vous apporle . . .pouvez dun din d'wil commander d qui il vous plaist. There is an old tradition that the pe>. ,n addressed was Margaret of Valois, wife of Henry IV. (See note by J. V Leclerc in his edition.) 2 Montaigne, p. 8r. • J 111. 9. Cf. Shakespeare's "Use every man after his desert, ' tn d who should 'scape whipping?" XXI] MONTAIGNE 169 could admire L'Hospital and La Noue and his friend La Boetie, of whom and of friendship generally he writes in terms that are almost transcendental. So far from conforming to custom, like a true sceptic, as the only possible moral law, he hated every kind of cruelty, and protested against duelling as a barbarous and irrational practice. He also believed firmly in the existence of a beneficent and all-directing God. But we must not push this line of argument too far. That Montaigne had a good share of what Hume calls ' mitigated scepticism ' there can be no doubt. New discoveries, a new world, a new solar system, had impressed upon him the instability of human knowledge. The condition of his unhappy country, torn with civil war, bankrupt in money and credit, contemptible in the eyes of other nations, had led him to take a low estimate of human virtue. If his scepticism was "corrected by common sense and reflection 1 ,'' if it was warmed by the impulses of a rich and imaginative nature, it was still there, indolent, unsystematic, paradoxical, but coming to his contemporaries with the charm of novelty, and charming them all the more by its very defects. For it was not so much the rhetorical fireworks of a set piece like the Apology which appealed to them as the general tone and character of Montaigne's mind, his hatred of dogmatism, his habit of bringing all questions, even scepticism itself, before the bar of common sense and daily experience 2 . The Latin treatise of Cornelius Agrippa On the incertitude and vanity of learning had only appealed to a small audience 3 . But now while men still more or less believed in that theme upon which Pico della Mirandola had nearly a century ago discoursed so eloquently, the dignity of Man, there came one who told them in language which they could all understand that Man was vile and that 1 "There is indeed a mitigated scepticism... which may be both durable and useful and which may in part be the result of this Pyrrhonism ores | ititism, when its undistinguished doubts are, in some measure, corrected by common Bense and reflection." Hume, Works, IV. 187. 2 See W. E. H. Lecky, Rationalism in Enrop,- (ed. of [88a), t. 03 ff. I here is a just and sensible account of Montaigne's scepticism in Lanusse, pp. i.;i E 3 It was translated by Louis Turquet in 1582. I/O MONTAIGNE [CH. much of his pretended knowledge was a sham. It was like the pleasant shock of a cold douche. This altered estimate of Man and his works may possibly have had its origin in the Copernican theory of the solar system. If our planet is not the centre of the Universe, what becomes of the microcosm, Man ? Other planets may be inhabited by beings infinitely greater in knowledge and virtue. Further it may be noticed with less of conjecture that Montaigne's scepticism is a natural developement of that spirit of free inquiry which was the motive power of the Renaissance. While in Rabelais this spirit inspired a hopeful desire to make the world better and wiser, in Montaigne it tended to drapa^ua, to a resigned conservatism alike in ethics, politics, and religion. Le sceptiqite est celui qui tie croit pas a la science et qui croit a lui-mime Le douteur est le vrai savant : il ne doute que de lui-meme et de ses interpretations, mats il croit a la science. So said one of the greatest of modern men of science 1 . In Montaigne's day science was in its infancy, and for science in the strict sense he had no aptitude. He was neither a Pare nor a Palissy. But in his own field, the study of human nature, his method was almost scientific. He doubted that he might know, and he based his knowledge on investigation and experiment. His laboratory was his own mind ; he entered it as free from bias as is humanly possible, and he stated his results with an astonishing candour and sincerity. And it is this better side of his scepticism which bore the fairest fruit in the immediate future. The free-thinkers of the first half of the seventeenth century, Des Barreaux and Theophile de Viau, La Mothe le Vayer and Saint-Evremond, who found in Montaigne an incentive to self-indulgence and intellectual dilettanteism, are of far less importance than Pascal, who borrowed from his sceptical armoury weapons for the defence of revealed religion, or than Descartes, who built upon the basis of doubt a complete metaphysical system 2 . 1 Claude Bernard, Introduction a F etude de la niMecine expert men tale. There is a good and sensible account of Montaigne's philosophy by L. E. Kastner in the Modern Language Quarterly for April, 1902. XXI] MONTAIGNE 171 There is one point on which censors and admirers of Montaigne are alike agreed, and that is the splendour of his style. On this subject it is perhaps his severest critics who have expressed themselves with the most unqualified approval, as if their severity was partly due to a determination not to allow their reason to be led captive by his genius. It is Pascal who speaks of" the incomparable author of The Art of Conversation" : it is Guillaume Guizot who says that "he is the most complete " of French writers, and that " his resources of style are infinite." In the translation of Sebonde's Natural Theology Montaigne had sh§wn that he could handle a difficult subject in a style remarkable for simplicity and extreme clearness. But the style is quite unadorned and has no individuality. For the true Montaigne we must go to the dedicatory letter to his father which stands at the head of his translation, or to the long letter in which he gives him an account of La Boetie's illness and death, or to the dedications which he prefixed to each group of La Boetie's works. Thus when he began to write the Essays he was already in possession of an admirable style, subtle and supple, fitting the thought as a glove fits the hand. If in the earliest essays it is still somewhat cold and colourless, this fault is soon mended, and before long Montaigne handles his instrument with perfect ease and assurance. The passage in which he describes his favourite style will serve as a specimen of his own : Le parler que i'ayme, e'est vn parler simple et naif, tel sur le papier qu'a. la bouche : vn parler succulent et nerueux, court et serrc, plutost difficile qu'ennuieux, esloigne d'affectation et d'artifice : desregle*, cousu et hardy : chaque lopin y face son corps : non pedantesque, non fratresque, non pleideresque, mais plutost soldatesque, comme Suetone appelle celuy de Julius Caesar 1 . Tel sur le papier qua la bouche. That is not an inapt description of Montaigne's own style, of which Emerson says, "I know not anywhere the book that seems less written. It is the language of conversation transferred to a b"<>k." Montaigne would have relished that remark, for as we have 1 1. 25 (text of 1580). The passage was somewhat altered in the ed. "t [588. i;- MONTAIGNE [CH. seen he says of himself, "Je stiis moins faiseur de livres que de nulle autre besogne." But he deceived himself. If his book seems to be spoken rather than written, this is the result of a deliberate intention, of an elaborate art. The favourite style of the day, formed as it was on Latin models, had something artificial in it. Montaigne determined to be sincere even in his style. His style should be a reflexion of his own downright, brusque and impulsive nature. It should imitate the natural eloquence of a good talker who never hesitates for the right word. That is the reason why it is sometimes difficult to follow his meaning. As he admits himself, he passes from one subject to another, as in conversation, without any con- necting words, sans I'entrelasser de parolles, de liaison, et de cousture, introduictes pour le service des oreilles foibles, ou nonchallantes 1 . Another cause of his obscurity, at least to the inattentive readers of whom he complains, is his love of digressions. O Dieu ! que ces gaillardes escapades-, he says of Plutarch, and it is equally true of himself. He wrote in much the same way as he travelled, having indeed a fixed goal, but reaching it only after many deviations from the straight course. The Essay On Coaches (ill. 6) will furnish a good example of his method. It is not long, especially in the edition of 1588. It is obvious, he begins, that great writers are wont to give several reasons for things besides the one which they believe to be the true one. For instance, what is the reason for blessing people when they sneeze ? What is the cause of sea- sickness ? He believes he has read in Plutarch that it is due to fear. This he doubts from his own experience, for though he is often sea-sick he is never in any fear at sea. Here follows a digression on the nature of fear. Riding in a coach or litter, especially a coach, affects him in the same way as being on board ship. Mark Antony was the first Roman to drive lions in a coach, and Elagabalus drove even stranger teams. The mention of these inventions suggests another observation, namely that excessive expenditure shews weak- ness in a monarch. This leads to a somewhat long discussion 1 in- 9- 2 ib. XXI] MONTAIGNE 173 on the difference between extravagance and true liberality in princes, followed by an account of the Roman Amphitheatre, chiefly taken from the Seventh Eclogue of Calpurnius. Compared with the ancient world, our modern world shows signs of decrepitude and exhaustion. But a new and infant world, in no way inferior to ours in magnificence, has been recently discovered. This leads to a most eloquent description of the conquest of Peru and Mexico, full of sympathy for the conquered, and of indignation at the cruelty of the conquerors. Retombons a nos coches. In Peru they do not use coaches, but litters. The last king of Peru was being carried in a litter when he was captured in battle. The central thought of this Essay is apparently the reprobation of extravagant pomp and magnificence, which suggests a comparison between the ancient world and the new world of Mexico and Peru in the matter of magnificence. But it looks as if the whole train of thought had been set in motion by the stories of the strange teams which Mark Antony and Elagabalus harnessed to their coaches. Hence the title of the Essay, and hence Montaigne, with true artistic instinct, returns before its close to the motive from which he had set out 1 . The above is a summary of the Essay as it appeared in 1588 ; in the text of 1595 there are several additions. In this case they do not interfere with the thread of the argument ; but in many of the Essays the later additions, which of course formed no part of the original plan, give them a more discon- nected and desultory air than they have in the text of 1 588, or than they would probably have had if Montaigne had definitely revised his text. In one respect as his work progressed he introduced .1 decided improvement in its literary form ; he made his sentences shorter. We have seen that the besetting sin ol sixteenth century prose is the unwieldy length of the senten< e, 1 M. Stapfer and M. Ruel have also selected this Essay as an example of Montaigne's method, and Ruel gives an admirable analysis of it. (See Stapfer, Montaigne, p. 127 ; Ruel, op. cit. 374 ff.) My balder summary originally app in Macmillan's Magazine, 1890. i; 4 MONTAIGNE [CH. and in the ordinary text of the Essays there are plenty of long sentences, some indeed of quite remarkable length. But this is in a large measure due to the system of punctuation adopted by Naigeon in his edition of 1802, which is not Montaigne's any more than the orthography, but which sub- sequent editors blindly followed. In the reformed text of MM. Courbet and Royer the numerous colons and semi-colons are replaced by full-stops 1 . This is in accordance with a direction given by Montaigne to his printer. Cest un langage coupe" > qu'il ny espargne les poinds et lettres majuscules 2 . But it is not merely a question of punctuation. Though from the first Montaigne, with his true artistic instinct, often relieved his long sentences by short ones, his tendency as his style developed was to make all his sentences shorter. It is remarkable that Estienne Pasquier notes as a special feature of the Essays that it is un vrai seminaire de belles et notables sentences. He then proceeds to quote eighteen which La Rochefoucauld might have envied. Yet he omits many of the most striking, such as : Tout abrege sur un bon livre est un sot abrege ; Touts jugemens e7i gros sont lasches et im- parfaicts ; La plus grande chose du monde cest de savoir estre a soy ; En nostre langage je trouve assez destoffe, mats un pen fan lie de /aeon 3 . Next to the realism or impressionism — whichever you like to call it — of Montaigne's style its most remarkable feature is its imaginative character. Metaphor succeeds metaphor in careless profusion. The following passage is a good illus- tration of this quality : A qui n'a dresse en gros sa vie a une certaine fin, il est impossible de disposer les actions particulieres. II est impossible de renger ses pieces, a. qui n'a une forme du total en sa teste. A quoy faire la provision des couleurs, a qui ne scait ce qu'il a a peindre? Aucun ne fait certain dessein de sa vie, et n'en deliberons qu'a parcelles. L'archer doit premierement scavoir oil il vise, et puis y accomoder la main, l'arc, la 1 A good instance will be found in the Essay On Coaches in the passage beginning, La liberality mesme n'est pas Men. - Bordeaux MS (Courbet and Royer, V. 4). ■' -Montaigne's apophthegms are noticed by Villemain, Eloge, p. 25. XXI] MONTAIGNE 175 corde, la flesche, et les mouvemens. Nos conseils fourvoyent, par ce qu'ils n'ont pas d'adresse et de but. Nul vent fait pour celuy qui n'a point de port destine* 1 . Nor is it merely in the use of metaphor that Montaigne's imagination reveals itself; he is fond of picturesque words, words which call up a sensuous image, and in which the French language of the sixteenth century was particularly rich. It is with justice that the chapter in which Malebranche criticises Montaigne is entitled ' On the Imagination' and one can understand Montesquieu's meaning when he speaks of him as ' one of the four great poets 2 .' Sainte-Beuve rightly compares him with Ovid and Ariosto, for it is in liveliness and rapidity rather than in concentrated power that his imagi- nation excels. Occasionally, however, as in the well-known description of the death-chamber, to which I have already referred, he can paint in a few words a complete and striking picture : Je croy a la verite que ce sont ces mines et appareils effroyables, dequoy nous l'entournons, qui nous font plus de peur qu'elle : une toute nouvelle forme de vivre : les cris des meres, des femmes, et des enfans : la visitation des personnes estonnees, et transies : l'assistance d'un nombre de valets pasles et eplores : une chambre sans jour : des cierges allumez : nostre chevet assiege de medecins et de pescheurs : somme tout horreur et tout effroy autour de nous. Nous voyla des-ja ensevelis et enterrez 3 . Montaigne belongs to that somewhat small class of writers who write for the eye rather than for the ear. His style as a rule is wanting in the rich harmony which is so distinguishing a feature of Rabelais. Yet occasionally this feature is also present, as in the magnificent description of philosophy in the Essay On the Education of Children, or in the following description of Paris : Je ne veux pas oublier cecy, que je ne me mutine jamais tant contre la France, que je ne regarde Paris de bon ceil. Elle a mon cceur des mon enfance. Et m'en est advenu comme des choses excellentes : plus j'ay veu depuis d'autres villes belles, plus la beaute - de cette cy, peut, et gaigne sur mon affection. Je L'ayme par elle mesme, et, plus en son 1 II. 1 (De rinconstance de nos actions). - His other three are Plain, Malebranche, and Shaftesbury. 3 1. 19. I7 6 MONTAIGNE [CH. estre scul, que rechargee de pompe estrangere. Je l'ayme tendrement, jusques a ses vermes et a ses tasches. Je ne suis Francois que par cette grande cite : grande en peuples, grande en felicite de son assiette : mais sur tout grande, et incomparable en variete, et diversity de commoditez : la "loire de la France, et l'un des plus nobles ornements du monde. Dieu en chasse loing nos divisions : entiere et unie, je la trouve defifendue de tout autre violence. Je l'advise, que de tous les partis, le pire sera celuy qui la metra en discorde 1 . But his ordinary style is a style comique et prive,. . .trop scrn\ desordonne, coicpe 2 . Add to this its rich imagery and you have a style as unlike as possible to that which made French prose so illustrious in the days of Louis XIV. Yet the man of genius to whom the triumph of this new prose was due was evidently a close student not only of Montaigne's thought but of his style. For he learnt from Montaigne that there can be no really great prose unless it is touched with emotion, and unless it is the sincere expression of the writer's thought. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. Essais... Liure premier &■ second, 2 vols. Bordeaux, 1580; edition seconde, reueu'e & augmente'e, Bordeaux, 1582 ; cinquiesme edition, augmentie d'vn troisiesme liure &" de six cens additions aux deux premiers, Paris, 1588; edition nouvelle, trovvee apres le deceds de t'Autheur, reueue &> augmente'e par luy d'vn tiers plus qit aux precedences Impressions, Paris, 1 595 (with a preface by M Ue de Gournay). The third edition (Paris, 1587) is merely a reproduction of the second, and the fourth edition is unknown. Of these original editions the text of 1580 has been reproduced by Dezeimeris and Barckhausen, 2 vols. Bordeaux, 1870; that of 1588 by Motheau and Jouaust, 7 vols. 1886; that of 1595 by E. Courbet and Ch. Royer, 5 vols. 187 2- 1900. The last edition has a critical apparatus giving the various readings of the original editions and of the MS additions inserted by Montaigne in a copy of the 1588 text which is preserved in the municipal library at Bordeaux. In 1802 an edition was published in 4 vols, by Naigeon, based on this copy, but as the readings were not faithfully reproduced, it is 1 in. 9 (De la vanite). 2 !■ 39- Comique means 'familiar,' the style of comedy as opposed to that of tragedy. XXI] MONTAIGNE 177 of no value. Some of the more interesting readings are given by Gustave Brunet in his Les Essais de Michel de Montaigne, Lecons inedites, 1844. An edition shewing in a convenient form the successive stages of the Essays and furnished with a sufficient commentary is still much needed. See R. Dezeimeris, Recherches sur la recension du texte posthume des Essais, Bordeaux, 1866; L. Manchon, De la constitution du texte des Essais in Leon Manchon, Laval, 1886. M lle de Gournay published at least ten editions subsequent to that of 1595 ; of these the most interesting are that of 1598, in which the long preface of 1595 is replaced by a much shorter one ; that of 161 1, the first edition with the names of the authors of the quotations ; and that of 1635, dedicated to Richelieu, with some changes in the text and with the original preface restored in a modified and improved form. Of the later editions the most important besides those named above are the following : ed. P. Coste, 3 vols. London, 1724 ; ed. J. V. Le Clerc 5 vols. 1826, with an introduction and with notes which form the basis of later commentaries (the text of this edition was the valgate for many years ; the orthography and punctuation were supposed to be Montaigne's, but are really Naigeon's); ed. C. Louandre, 4 vols. Charpentier, 1854 (a variorum edition, frequently reprinted) ; 4 vols. Gamier, 1865 (with Le Clerc's notes and a study by Prevost-Paradol) ; 2 vols. 1874 (a convenient reprint of the last edition). La theologie naturelle de Raymond Sebon, 1 569 ; Journal du 7'oyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie par la Suisse et VAllemagne en 1 580 et 1 581, ed. Meusnier de Ouerlon, 3 vols, (or 1 vol. 4to.), Rome and Paris, 1774 ; ed. A. d'Ancona, with notes, Citta di Castello, 1889. Translations. John Florio's famous translation was published in 1603, and has been republished several times in recent years, viz. in 1886, with an introduc- tion by H. Morley ; in the Tudor Translations, 3 vols. 1892, with an introduction by G. Saintsbury ; and in the Temple Classics, 6 vols. [897. Charles Cotton's translation appeared in 3 vols. 1685. It was repub- lished by W. Hazlitt in 1842, and by \V. C. Hazlitt, 3 vols. 1877, and, after revision, 4 vols. 1902. Both Florio and Cotton often miss Montaigne's meaning, especially Florio, but Florio is more akin to Montaigne in spirit, writing in the rich and imaginative style of tin- Elizabethan age. Mr Hazlitt's revision is often less accurate- than Cotton's original translation. An Italian translation of sonic oi tin- Essays by G. Naselli was published at Fcrrara in 1590. The Journal du Voyage has recently been translated with an introduction and notes by W. G. Waters, 3 vols. 1903. T. II. I- 17 8 MONTAIGNE [CH. Life. Dr J. F. Payen, an ardent admirer of Montaigne, formed a large and important collection of documents relating to his life and writings. These are now preserved in the Bibliotheque nationale, and a catalogue has been published by G. Richou, Inventaire de la collection des ouvrages et documents reunis par J. F. Payen et J. B. B as tide sur M. de Montaigne, suivi de lettres inedites de Francoise de la Chassagne (M me de Montaigne), 1878. Payen published in his life-time four series of Documents inedits in 1847, 1850, 1855 and 1856 respectively. Another important contribution to the biography of Montaigne is T. Malvezin, Michel de Montaigne, son origine, sa famille, Bordeaux, 1875. A ^ these materials have been utilised in the excellent life by P. Bonnefon, Montaigne, I'homme et Voenvre, 4to. 1893, with numerous illustrations and facsimiles; reprinted in Montaigne et ses amis, 2 vols. 1897. See also the Notice by E. Courbet in vol. v. of Courbet and Royer's edition, 1900. The older English life by Bayle St John, 2 vols. 1858, is sensible and appreciative. TO BE CONSULTED. E. Pasquier, Lettres, xvi 1 1. 1, 1592. Pascal, Entrelien avec M. de Saci sur Epictete et Montaigne. Malebranche, Recherche de la verite, 11. 3, 5, 1675. A. Villemain, Eloge de Montaigne, 1812. H. Hallam, Literature of Europe, 1837-39 (4th ed. 1854, II. 26 ff.). C. A. Sainte- Beuve, Port-Royal, bk III. cc. 1 — 3, 1842 ; Causeries du Lundi, IV. 76 ff., 185 1 (also two unimportant articles in Nouveaux Lundis, II. and vi.). R. W. Emerson in Representative Men, 1850 ("The Montaigne of Mr E. is Mr E. himself,'' Bayle St John). A. Griin, La vie publique de Michel Montaigne, 1855 (uncritical). R. W. Church (Dean of St Paul's) in Oxford Essays, 1857, reprinted in Miscellaneous Essays, 1888. A. Vinet, Moralistes des seizieme et dix-septihne siecles, 1859. E. Galy and L. Lapeyre, Montaigne chez lid, Perigueux, 1861. Prevost-Paradol, Etude, prefixed to Garnier's edition of 1865, reprinted in Etudes sur les moralistes franqais, 8th ed. 1895. A. Desjardins, Les moralistes francais du seizieme siecle, 1870. H. Thiinme, Der Skepticisnius Montaignes, Gottingen, 1875. W. L. Collins, Montaigne, 1879 (in Foreign Classics for English Readers, an excellent little book). F. Combes, Essai sur les ide'es politiques de Montaigne et la Boetie, Bordeaux, 1882. W. H. Pater, cc. IV. and V. of an unfinished romance, Gaston de Latour, first printed in Macmillarts Magazine, 1889, republished in vol. IV. of Works ^a most charming and sympathetic appreciation). John Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance, 1893. E. Faguet, Seizieme siecle, 1894. M. Lanusse, Montaigne (in Classiques populaires), 1895. P. Stapfer, Montaigne (in XXI] MONTAIGNE 1 79 Les grands ecrivains francais), 1895 ; La famille et les amis de Montaigne, 1896 (both well-balanced and sensible). R. Doumic, Etudes stir la litterature francaise, \ re se'rie, Legoisme de Montaigne, 1896. M. E. Lowndes (Miss), Michel de Montaigne, Cambridge, 1898 (based on M. Bonnefon's book, but shewing independent research). G. Guizot, Montaigne, 1899 (posthumous fragments with a preface by E. Faguet, the work of a close student of Montaigne, who, like Pascal, combined with a strong admiration for his style an equally strong dislike of his doctrines). E. Ruel, Du sentiment artistiqne dans la morale de Montaigne, 1901 (another posthumous work, also introduced by E. Faguet ; the writer was a professor of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts ; no warmer appreciation of Montaigne has ever appeared, and the central idea that he observed life as an artist, if sometimes pressed too far, is undoubtedly true). E. Champion, Introduction aux Essais de Montaigne, 1900. La Boetie. CEuvres completes, ed. P. Bonnefon, 1892. Life, by G. Colletet in Vies des poetes bordelais et pe'rigourdins ed. P. Tamizey de Larroque, 1873. L. Feugere, E. de la Boetie, 1845, reprinted in Caracteres et portraits litteraires du xvi e siecle, 1859. J. F. Payen, Notice bio-bibliographique sur La Boetie, 1853. C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, IX. 1853. For a fuller bibliography of Montaigne and La Boetie see P. Bonnefon in Petit de Julleville, ill. 483 — 5. \i z CHAPTER XXII THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS It was inevitable that a writer of such marked individuality of style as Rabelais should produce a crop of imitators, and that these imitators, failing to catch any reflexion of his real genius, should attach themselves to his peculiarities, or even to his defects. The grosser imitations, such as Le disciple de Pantagruel under its various titles or the Mythistoire Barragouyne de Fanfreluche et Gondichon, may be left out of account 1 . But there were writers who, while the form and style of their works mark them as true disciples of Rabelais, yet retain enough of independence to give them a place in literature. For the one lesson that they learnt in common from their master was of sufficiently wide interpretation to cover much difference of treatment. This lesson was the possibility of obtaining a hearing for the discussion of grave topics under the cloak of broad laughter. Lacking however for the most part Rabelais's deep vein of humour, which enlivens the most ordinary matters by a sympathetic touch, they were left to the short story or conte as their chief resource for raising laughter. Hence these writers are generally classed in histories of French literature under the heading of conteurs, though this title by no means expresses the real aim and character of their 1 See F. A. Arnstadt, F. Rabelais und sein Traite d Education, Leipsic, 1S7:, pp. 68 ff. CH. XXII] THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS iSl work. It is in fact hardly better suited to them than it is to Rabelais himself 1 . They are really essayists in form, and observers, for the most part satirical observers, of society in substance. Indeed all of them are inferior in the art of telling a story to two men who figure elsewhere in this history, Henri Estienne and Agrippa d'Aubigne. Before, however, coming to these followers of Rabelais mention must be made of a writer whose book does consist exclusively of stories, and of stories told, not in the off-hand manner of the essayists, but with the amplitude and detail of the Heptameron — in a word nouvelles rather than contes. In the year 1 571, when the peace of Saint-Germain (August 1570) had given a respite to the horrors of civil war, Jacques Iver or Yver, a gentleman of Poitou, was moved by the success of the French translation of Bandello to write some original stories of a similar character 2 . Bandello had published the first three parts of his Novelle in 1554 3 , and his work, as the production of a French bishop (for he had been appointed to the see of Agen in 1550), had immediately attracted attention in his adopted country 4 . In 1559 Pierre Boaisteau, who had just edited the Heptameron, and Francois de Belleforest pro- duced translations of some of the stories, Boaisteau translating six and Belleforest twelve. These were republished together in 1568, and the work was continued by Belleforest alone, a second volume appearing in 1569 and a third in 1570 s . Yver now set to work to rival Bandello, adopting a similar framework for his stories to that of the Heptameron. The tellers of the stories are three gentlemen and two ladies who meet at the chateau of Printemps, the ladies being the daughter and niece of the diatclaine. By Printemps is evidently meant 1 Marty-Laveaux says very truly, Les bibliograpkes et les critiques ont Jadis enferme Rabelais dans la categorie des conteurs, nuxis V importance de wt brise Tctroitesse de ce compartiment, Petit de Julleville, in. 72. 2 See Yver's preface. 3 At Lucca. 4 Bandello took refuge in France about the year [530. 5 The fourth part of Bandello's Novelle was published at Lyons in 15;. his death, and in 1582 and 1583 the sixth and seventh volumes "I the French translation were published. [82 THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS [CH. the celebrated chateau of Lusignan 1 , distant sixteen miles from Poitiers, which on Shrove-Tuesday 1574 was surprised by the Huguenots, and after a siege of nearly four months' duration capitulated in January 1575 and was razed to the ground 2 . Yver's stories are all of considerable length, each being supposed to occupy a day in the telling. As in the Heptameron they are preceded and followed by a discussion. As might be expected from a rival of Bandello they are all of a thoroughly romantic and tragic character. The manner of telling them is somewhat diffuse and artificial, and the style is wanting in ease and directness, but a certain air of distinction saves it from being wearisome. The most noteworthy of the five stories is the first, which relates to the loves of Eraste and Perside, the scene being laid in Rhodes. It furnished the theme for an English tragedy, Solyman and Perseda\ at the close of the sixteenth century, and for several French plays and a novel by M lle de Scudery in the next century 4 . The scene of the second story is laid at Mainz, of the third at Mantua, of the fifth at Padua, while the fourth relates to William the Conqueror. The author did not live to enjoy the popularity of his Printemps, for he died in 1572 before its publication. In the same year it went through three editions, which had increased to eleven by the end of the century 5 . It also produced some imitations, such as L'Ete by Benigne Passenot (1583) and Le Printemps d'Ete by Nicolas de Montreux. An English translation by Henry Wotton was published in 1578 under the title of A Courtlie Controversie of Cupid's Caute/s 6 . 1 It was said to have been built by the Fairy Melusine. 2 D'Aubigne, Hist. Univ. bk vii. c. 13 (iv. 311); Brantome, (Ettvres, v. 16—20. :i Printed in 1599 and ascribed to Kyd by both Dr Ward and Mr Boas. It is the ' play within the play ' of The Spanish Tragedy. 4 See E. Sieper in Zeitschrift fur vergleich. Lift. IX. 33 ff. 5 The first edition was published at Paris by L'Angelier, the second at Antwerp, the third at Paris (copy in the Brit. Mus.), the fourth at Antwerp, 1573, the fifth and sixth at Paris, 1575 and 1576. 6 Only two copies are known to exist, one in the British Museum and the other in the Bodleian ; both are imperfect. The translator must not be confused with Sir Henry Wotton. It may be noted here that a French translation of the first XXII] THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS 183 While Le Printemps d Yver is modelled on the Hep tamer on and consists wholly of tragic stories told at some length, Les escraignes dijonnoises is a collection of short tales of the popular gaidois type like those of the Joyettx Devis. But they have none of the merits of that remarkable work, or indeed any other merit. They appeared in 1588, the author being Estienne Tabourot, who was born at Dijon in 1547, became prociireur du roi in 1582 and died in 1590. Previous to the Escraignes dijonnoises he had published a far more interesting work which he whimsically entitled Les Bigarrures du Seigneur des Accords^. It consists almost entirely of essays on various artificial forms of verse, such as rebuses, vers rapportes, equivoques or puns, and leonine verses. There are also chapters on anagrams and epitaphs, so that the whole book throws a good deal of light on the literary fashions of Tabourot's day. It had considerable success, editions appearing in each year from 1583 to 1586. A copy of the second edition was sent by the author to Estienne Pasquier, who acknowledged it in an interesting letter 2 . In 1585 a second part was added, consisting only of three chapters, of which one, like the first book, deals with the subject of French verse 3 . This new edition included the first instalment of the Apophtegmes du Seigneur de Goulard, an imaginary person whose 'pleasant, witlesse and simple speeches' are meant to be humorous. Tabourot also wrote five books part of Straparola's Piacevoli notte by Louveau appeared in 1 560 and one of the second part by Pierre Larivey in 1573, and that in 1584 that indefatigable translator from the Italian and Spanish, Gabriel Chappuys of Tours, published his Lei facetieuses journees. 1 The first known edition, that of 1583, is not the first ; this must havi published in 1581 or 1582 and was probably only a small volume. The publisher, writing in 1581, says the book was first put into his hands ' about four j and in the edition of 1584 fotir is altered to eight. a Lettres, vm. 14. I have already had occasion to refer to this lettei in discussing the authorship of fla&Joyeux Devis (ante, 1. : 3 Tabourot calls this new book the fourth, car ce volume entier ne teroit /! < Ihristianity. lS6 THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS [CH. a considerable sense of humour, as for example the fable of the clay pot and the iron pot (c. ii), the story of Eutrapel and the Fiddler (c. xviii), that of the bishop who could not bear any mention of death, and the well-known one from Plutarch of the senator whose wife could. not keep a secret (both in c. xxxiii). Many of the stories are extremely coarse both in thought and language, but however much we may regret this, it serves to remind us that in Du Fail's day such licence was compatible with grave and enlightened views of society, and with genuine religious feeling. Though on the title-page of the book the author is described as the late Seigneur de la Herissaye, this seems to have been merely a whimsical allusion to his contemplated retirement, for as a matter of fact he lived nearly six years longer, dying in 1 591. The publication of Du Fail's last volume was perhaps due to the success of Montaigne's Essais and it is noteworthy that about this time several works were published, which, while in many features they bear traces of Rabelais's influence, yet by their miscellaneous and desultDry character shew a decided affinity to Montaigne. Thus in the year 1585, the year of the publication of the Contes d' Eutrapel, a certain Seigneur de Cholieres, about whom very little is known, but who was apparently a native of Maine 1 , published a volume entitled Les neuf matinees, which was followed in 1587 by Les Apresdisnces. He was a follower of Rabelais and a man of some erudition, of which he makes a considerable display in his books. They are in the form of conversations, which turn on law, medicine, philosophy, astrology, and other less important subjects. There are few stories, and these are told very briefly ; in spite of the attempt at gaiety the general tone is heavy and commonplace. The writer was evidently a lover of style and 1 In another work the dramatist Robert Gamier is described as his compatriot (P. Lacroix, (Envres, I. iv.), and in the Apresdisnies one of the speakers says ' Notre voisin de Touraine ' (n. 41 ). Lacroix points out that the statements that he was an advocate of the Parliament of Grenoble and that his Christian name was Nicolas are both devoid of authority. xxn ] THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS iS" language, and though Rabelais is his obvious model he cannot be reproached with following him slavishly. But his power of playing with words is a long way inferior to his master's, and he is never able to shake off the appearance of effort. His favourite poet seems to have been Du Bartas, whom he not unfrequently quotes. Similar in title to Les Apresdisnces are the Series of Guillaume Bouchet, the worthy bookseller whom we have met before as forming one of the literary group of Poitiers. He was older than his friends, having been born in 15 13. The first book of the Serees appeared in 1584, but the complete work in three books, with considerable additions to the first book, was not published till 1608, fourteen or fifteen years after his death 1 . He makes no attempt to imitate Rabelais, writing in an unaffected familiar style. But he frequently refers to him as well as to Montaigne, Bodin, Ronsard, and Pibrac. The stories are very numerous — there must be some- thing like eight hundred altogether — and they are told with great brevity and no attempt at artistic presentation. The Series are in short a kind of commonplace book, the result of the author's discursive reading, arranged in thirty-six chapters or serees, the titles of which correspond very fairly well to their contents. For unlike Rabelais and Montaigne, Bouchet had an orderly mind. His book attained considerable popularity, fresh editions being published down to 1635. It is a book to read in, rather than to read continuously, and that not for its artistic merit, but for the light that it throws on sixteenth- century thought and society. The Serees and the Apresdisnees are mild Symposia, but Le Moyen de parvenir is rather of the nature of a debauch. Alike in form and in substance it is a caricature of the- Liceru e which characterises so much of the writing of the French Renaissance. The men and women who take part in these unbridled conversations are drawn from all ranks and all ages, but their remarks make no pretence at being characteristic of the distinguished persons who are supposed to utter them. The book is a satire on the human race, but such wit and 1 He died, aj,'ed So, in 1593 or 1594. [88 THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS [CH. wisdom as it contains lie so deeply buried in rubbish and filth that few people at the present day are likely to be at the pains of searching for them. Moreover, to use Rabelais's metaphor in the famous prologue to Gargantua, the marrow in this case is hardly worth the trouble of sucking the bones. The author, Francois Beroalde de Verville, as he pleased to style himself, was the son of Matthieu Beroald 1 , a native of Picardy and a zealous Protestant, who at one time kept a school at Paris, Agrippa d'Aubigne being one of his pupils. The son, stimulated by his father, acquired a mass of ill- digested learning on many subjects, including alchemy. Already in 1584, when he was only twenty-eight, he figures in La Croix du Maine's bibliography as the author of many works 2 . These he continued to produce in abundance, but only Le Moyen de parveiiir, which was published between 161 2 and 1620, has attained any celebrity. The excessive licence of thought and language which disfigures the book was now fast becoming an anachronism. By 1620 M me de Rambouillet had rebuilt her hotel, and was conducting in her famous blue chamber her campaign against grossness. Though the old practices lingered on in baccha- nalian songs and burlesque plays it ceased to be possible for a man of genius to roll in filth. Woman avenged herself on Rabelais. He had almost banished her from his book. She almost banished him from polite society. 1 He had been educated at the expense of his mother's relative, Francois Vatable, the great Hebrew scholar. His real name was Brouart, but he called himself Beroald to please Vatable ; his son added an e to the name. 2 I n !5 8 3 ne published a poem entitled L'idee de la rSpublique. XXII] THE FOLLOWERS OF RABELAIS 189 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. Jacques Yver, Le Printemps d' Yver, 1572; in the Pantheon litte'raire {Les vieux couteurs francais), 1841. ESTIENNE TABOUROT, Les Bigarrures die Seigneur des Accords, 1 5 13 (Brit. Mus. ; Picot, II. no. 1777). Les escraignes dijonnoises, 1588 (Arsenal library) ; 3 vols. Brussels, 1866 (this includes the Escraignes and the Apophtegmes du Seigneur de Gaulard and Colletet's Life of Tabourot). Les Touches du Seigneur des Accords, 1585 (in three books); reprinted in Raretes bibliographiques, Brussels, 1863 ; the fourth and fifth books were published in 1588. An English translation of the Apophtegmes by J. B. of Charterhouse was printed for private circulation at Glasgow in 1884 from a manuscript in the possession of F. W. Cosens of about the date of 1660. It was entitled Bigarrures or the pleasant, witlesse and simple speeches of the Lord Gaulard of Burgundy. Noel du Fail, Propos rustiques, Lyons, 1547 (Picot, II. no. 1776; only three copies known) ; ed. A. de la Borderie, 1878. Balivemeries ou contes nouveaux d'Eutrapel, 1548 (only two or three copies are known ; one is in the possession of M. Alfred Dupre, and another which was formerly in the possession of Ch. Nodier was sold at the Ruble sale (no. 490) ; there is a charming reprint by the Chiswick Press, 1S15, made possibly from a third copy). Les contes et discours d'Eutrapel, Rennes, 1585 ; ed. C. Hippeau, 2 vols., 1875. Les balivemeries et les contes d'Eutrapel, ed. E. Courbet, 2 vols., 1894. N. DE CHOLIERES, Les Neuf Matinees, 1585. Les Aprks disnees, 1587. QLuvres, ed. E. Tricotel with a preface by P. Lacroix, 2 vols., 1879. Guillaume Bouchet, Les screes, i re livre, Poitiers, 1584; en trots livres, 1608 ; ed. C. E. Roybet (Ch. Royer and E. Courbet), 6 vols., 1873— 1882. Francois Beroalde de Verville, Le Moyen de parvenir [between 1612 and 1620]; ed. Ch. Royer, 2 vols., 1896. See Viollct le Due, Bibliotheque politique, 2nd part, 1847, pp. 169 — 172. TO BE CONS! I.'l l D. F. Frank, Noel du Fail in L amateur d' autograph, s, 1876; E. and E. Haag, La France Protestauie, 2nd ed. s.v. Beroalde. I •'.. Cougny, /■' de Verville in Mem. de la SOciCte 1 tics sciences morales, des 1, tires et a de Seine et Oise, XII. 1880 (pub. separately as £tudes tuf For the relations of Du Fail, Tabourot, and B. de Verville to Rabelais see Schneegans, Geschichte der grotesken Satire, pp. 282 -289, Strasburg, 1894. CHAPTER XXIII MEMOIRS AND LETTERS I. Brantome, Margaret of Valois, Henry IV, Monluc, La None. I HAVE suggested that some of the books discussed in the last chapter, published as they were in the years 1584 and 1585, and written for the most part by country gentlemen who were also lawyers, were prompted not only by frequent reading of Rabelais but by the signal success which attended Montaigne's Essays. It is also possible that the same success may have prompted another gentleman of Perigord, M. de Brantome, to engage in a similar undertaking 1 . It is at any rate pretty evident from the only two passages in which Brantome mentions Montaigne that he regarded him and his Essays with a certain dislike and jealousy. It especially vexed him that the order of St Michael should have been conferred on one who had worn the lawyer's gown 2 . Yet the two gentlemen of Perigord had a good deal in common. Like Montaigne, Brantome pretended to be careless of literary fame, but in reality took every pains to secure it ; like Montaigne he loved digressions, gaillardes escapades, from his main theme ; like Montaigne he has drawn for us, though in his case unconsciously, a portrait of himself ; like Montaigne he was curious of information, fond of travel and books. But these points of similarity are after all superficial ; the difference is fundamental. While Montaigne tested the world and 1 This idea has occurred to Prof. Saintsbury, from whom I may have un- consciously borrowed it. 2 CEuvres, ed. Lalanne, v. 92 : see also vi. 497. CH. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 191 society by the light of his shrewd common sense, Brantome accepted them without question or reflexion. Montaigne was essentially a thinker, Brantome was merely a reporter ; Montaigne was a moralist, for Brantome the word morality had no meaning. Montaigne criticised his age, Brantome reflected it. That indeed is Brantome's chief value, that he reflects his age like a mirror, but it must be added that he reflects chiefly its more trivial, not to say its more scandalous side. He is the Suetonius of the French Renaissance. Pierre de Bourdeille, " reverend father in God, abbe de Brantome," belonged to a noble and ancient family of Perigord 1 . The precise date of his birth is uncertain, but it must be placed somewhere between 1539 and 1542. He spent his childhood with his grandmother, Louise de Vivonne, wife of the seneschal of Poitou, at the court of Margaret of Navarre, and after studying first at Paris and then at Poitiers, travelled for more than a year in Italy, returning to France at the beginning of 1560, when he made his first appearance at the Court. Though he already held other benefices besides the abbey from which he took his title, he was not in orders. The next fourteen years were spent by him either in fighting on the Catholic side in the religious wars, or in attendance at the Court, or in travel. In 1574 his military career came to an end, for his duties as gentleman of the chamber, to which post he had been appointed in 1568, kept him at Court, frivolous, idle, and discontented. At last the refusal of Henry III to bestow on him the promised post of governor of Perigord filled him with such fury that he determined t<> enter the service of Spain. But a fall from his horse, which kept him in bed for four years (i 583—1 587), saved him from being a renegade to his country and turned him into ;i man <>t letters 2 . For it was during this forced inactivity, apparently in 1 584, that he began his literary labours, which he continued for the 1 Brantome is 9 miles north of P^rigueux and Bourdeille is 4 oailti l '""" Brantome. 2 See his preface I. 4 and v. 211. Brantdme wrote an autobiography which was still in existence at the beginning of the 17th century. [Rev. cThist.lUl. IV. :*;.) [Q2 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. next thirty years, most of which he spent on his estate. He died in 1 614, leaving a will of portentous length, in which, among other things, he charged his heirs to have his works printed en belle et grand lettre et grand volume. The charge was neglected, and it was not till 1665- 1666 that an incomplete and defective edition was published at Leyden, in the Elzevir form. Previous to this, however, several copies had been made of his manuscripts, and Le Laboureur in his edition of Castelnau's Memoirs, published in 1659, had printed long extracts. Brantome was a disappointed man when he wrote his memoirs. He had been an assiduous courtier for a quarter of a century and had gained nothing by it, while he had seen men whose merits he believed to be inferior to his rise to wealth and honour 1 . But though he had the love of frivolity and the moral indifference of a true courtier, he had not his pliability. " He was violent," says Le Laboureur, "difficult to live with and of a too unforgiving spirit 2 ." Perhaps the best thing that can be said in his favour is that among his most intimate friends were two of the most virtuous characters of their time, Teligny, the son-in-law of Coligny, whom he calls his frere d'alliance, and Teligny' s brother-in-law, Francois de la Noue. Among his other friends were Louis de Berenger, seigneur du Guast, who was assassinated by order of Marguerite de Valois, and above all Filippo Strozzi, the son of Piero Strozzi, who was his friend for over twenty years 3 , and who exercised over him considerable influence. The names by which Brantome's writings are generally known are not those which he himself gave them. Thus the titles Dames illustres and Dames galantes are an inven- tion of the Leyden publisher for the Premier et Second livre des Dames. The other main division of his writings, Homines, consisted in Brantome's manuscript of two volumes, 1 (Envres, v. 306. 2 Quoted by Lalanne, Brantome, p. 331. 3 Je fay pratique" fort familierement I'espace de trente ans ou plus. But Strozzi was killed in 1582, and it is very doubtful whether Brantome made his ac- quaintance before 1560. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 193 the first containing the Grands capitaines, French and Spanish, and the second Les couronnels, Discours sur les duels, Rodo- montades espagnoles, and a separate account of La Noue. His original manuscript was completed while Margaret was still the wife of Henry IV, that is to say before November 1599, but some time after her divorce he made a carefully revised copy. It is upon this copy that the text of M. Lalanne's edition is based for the first five volumes (Hommes) 1 . Regarded strictly as biographies Brantome's lives have slender merit, for the majority give one little or no idea of the character of the persons treated. He is least successful with those who had in them elements of real greatness, such as Coligny and Conde 2 . Even the long life of Francois de Guise 3 , though it contains some interesting and valuable information, throws little light on Guise himself. But he drives us good superficial portraits of Charles IX 4 , Catharine de' Medici 5 , and the Constable de Montmorency 6 , while several of the minor lives, such as Brissac and his brother Cossd 7 , Matignon 8 , and Mary of Hungary 9 , are not only amusing but hit off the characters with considerable success. One of the most entertaining is the unfinished account of his father". On the other hand the account of Margaret of Valois, though it contains some interesting details, is too ecstatic in its open- mouthed admiration to have any value as a biography. The conclusion of the account of Monluc may be quoted not only for its reference to Monluc's conversational powers, but as throwing light on Brantome's own character: Or, pour fin de ce discours, M. de Montluc a estd un tres-grand, brave et bon capitaine de son temps: et il le faisoit beau ouyr pari 1 et discourir des armes et de la guerre, ainsi que j'en ay faict l'expe'rien moy ayant este sur la fin de ses jours un de ses grandz gouverm et mesmes au siege de La Rochelle et a Lyon, Iorsqu'il fut fai< 1 Mareschal de France, j'estois fort souvent avec luy et m'aymoit fort, et prenoit grand plaisir quand je le mettois en propos en entrain, et 1 This edition is divided as follows: Grands capitaines, [—IV. v. i 196; Couromieh, rest of v.; Discours sur lcs duels. VI.; Rodomon treatises, vn. 1—303 ; Dames, rest of VII. VIII. IX.; Opuscules, I vol. also contains a glossary, and vol. XI. a full index. 2 (Euvres, I v. 3 ib. 4 v. 6 VII. •ill. 7 IV. 8 V. 9 VIII. '" X. T. II. ' I 194 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. luy faisois quelques demandes de guerre ou autres choses ; car je ne suis jamais este" si jeune que je n'aye tousjours este fort curieux d'apprendre ; et luy, me voyant en ceste voulonte, il me respondent de bon coeur et en beaux termes, car il avoit une fort belle eloquance militaire et m'en estimoit davantage. Dieu ayt son ame 1 . Much of the interest of Brantome's book is to be found in his numerous digressions, for which he is constantly apologising-. Thus in the middle of the account of Mont- morency we have a laudatory sketch of Michel de l'Hospital, in that of Tavannes a digression on the order of St Michael, in that of Bellegarde an account of his own treatment by Henry III 3 . The digressions are frequently made occasions for amusing stories, which, like Montaigne's, are distinguished from such as Bouchet and Beroalde de Verville collected, in that they generally illustrate some trait of human character. Like Montaigne again, Brantome copies freely and without acknowledgement from books. Whole pages are taken from Le loyal serviteur, stories are borrowed from Rabelais, Des Periers, and the Heptameron, as well as from most of the writers dealt with in the last chapter. But Brantome, unlike Montaigne, tries to conceal his thefts by judicious alterations, or by pretending that he heard the story himself, or even that he was a witness of the event related. J'ai any confer and J'ai vu are frequently in his mouth 4 . He was doubtless chiefly influenced in these endeavours to conceal his borrow- ings by the same form of vanity as Montaigne, the desire to be regarded, not as a man of letters, but as a gentleman who amused himself by putting down his reminiscences on paper. It is for this reason that he tries to give a negligent and conversational air to his style. The result is that he is often ungrammatical and sometimes obscure. Yet his style, at any rate in the eyes of a foreigner, has considerable merit, and chiefly from its power of vivid presentment. For Brantome, like other Gascons, like Montaigne and Monluc and Henry IV, saw things vividly and can make his readers 1 CEuvres, iv. 59. 2 See for a defence of his method, v. 337 and 347. s All in v. 4 See Lalanne, Brantome, p. 353 ff. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 195 see them. He has a store of expressive words and phrases such as un pen hommasse (of Mary of Hungary), arrondis comme potirons (of stout men), une vraie pancarte des choses mcmorables de la court (of his aunt), toujours trottant, traversant et vagabondant le monde. A noticeable feature of his style is his love of Italian and Spanish words, reflecting in this, as in other features, the prevailing fashion of the Court 1 . Brantome's keen enjoyment of the world's pageantry was seldom disturbed by inconvenient reflexion. His only quarrel with society was that the ruling powers were blind to his own merits. He thought the duel, even in the treacherous and bloodthirsty fashion in which it was then carried on, an excellent institution, and at the end of his account of Coligny he inserts an elaborate disquisition on the material benefits which the religious wars had conferred on France. All classes had profited, nobles, clergy, magistrates, merchants, artisans. Et la ville de Perigueux, quoy qui a este pillee des huguenotz l'espace de cinq a six ans, aujourd'huy on n'y trouve rien a redire qu'elle ne soit aussi riche, voire plus que jamais. Tant d'autres villes en conte- rois-je ; mais j'en laisse la curiosite a plus entendus que moy. Href, il faut dire de la France ce que disoit le grand capitaine Prospero Colomne de la duche de Milan, qui ressembloit un' oie bien grasse, que tant plus on la plumoit tant plus la plume luy revenoit. La cause done en est deue a ceste bonne guerre civile, tant bien invantee et introduicte de ce grand M. l'admiral. Ce n'est pas tout : les gens d'eglise, lesquelz cryoient le plus apres les huguenotz et leur guerre, y ont gaigne autant que les autres ; tesmoings les tresors et riches relicques qu'ilz ont vendu soubz main, en faisant accroyre que les huguenotz les avoient prises par force, aucuns autres fouillez en terre, qu'ilz avoient cachez ; et donnoient a entendre qu'ilz avoient tant desrobe ; et non tant certes qu'eux-mesmes s'en estoient secrettement accommodez. Que dira-1'on d'un tiers estat, qui avec les autres en disoit sa rast( 11' c et desbagouloit pis que pendre apres M. l'admiral et sa guerre? Y ont- ilz beaucoup perdu? Non certes, mais beaucoup gaigne" et enrichys ; car marchans, artizans, gens de mestier et autres de ce tiers ebt.u, SC 1 Brantome est le prince des espagnolisanls du xvi e siide, A. Morel Atudes sur V Espagne, i re serie, p. 28, 1888. •3-2 I9 6 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. sont si bien accreuz, que ce qui se vendoit paradvant un teston, aujourd'huy se vend l'escu pour le moins 1 . And all this is said in sober earnest, without a suspicion of irony. One might at any rate give Brantome credit for originality had he not told us at the outset that this was the substance of a conversation which he overheard at Court between two great persons, one a soldier and the other a statesman, and both excellent Catholics. Brantome was the echo as well as the mirror of the Court. Dieu ayt son time! Brantome's glowing panegyric on Margaret of Valois 2 induced that virtuous princess to write her memoirs, partly in order to supplement his account of her, partly to correct a few errors into which he had fallen. It is to Brantome accordingly that her memoirs are addressed. They were written about the year 1 597 in the cJidteau of Usson in Auvergne, where she had resided, nominally as a prisoner, since 1587. She insists at the outset on their veracity, but it is just their lack of veracity which detracts from their interest. For there runs through them a vein of insincerity, a constant endeavour to pose as a virtuous and religious woman. It is curious how this is reflected in the style. While the more apologetic parts of her narrative shew traces of the various affectations of her age, of classical pedantry, of the abuse of metaphor, of long and involved sentences, on the other hand when she is not thinking of her reputation she writes not only with elegance and distinction — for these qualities never desert her — but with ease, correctness, and simplicity. The best-known passage in her memoirs is the account of her experiences during the massacre of St Bartholomew. Of greater length and equally well-written is the description of her journey to Spa, one incident of which, the tragic love-affair of one of her waiting-women, M Ue de Tournon, is told with a delicate pathos which recalls one of the best inspired tales of the earlier Queen of Navarre. Naturally there is much in Margaret's life that is omitted — self-revelation was not her purpose — but her admiration for Bussy d'Amboise and her 1 (Euvres, iv. 332 ff. - 1553—1615. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 197 hatred of Du Guast are made sufficiently plain. The memoirs stop abruptly in 1582, the last record being an account of her behaviour to her husband and his mistress La Fosseuse, an incident which throws a curious light on the relations of this oddly-assorted couple, and which was no doubt written for the purpose of prejudicing her readers in her favour on the question of her divorce. In autobiographies les absents out toujours tort. Margaret's letters, with the exception of those addressed to one of her lovers, Harlay de Champvallon, which are stilted and affected, are written with the same correctness, ease and elegance as her memoirs. But there is nothing re- markable about them. On the other hand her husband, Henry IV, has deservedly, and without in the least seeking it, the reputation of being the best letter-writer of the period. In an age in which the besetting sin of prose writers was long-winded ness and obscurity, he was remarkable for short and simple sentences. No doubt this was partly due to force of circumstance. A man who has to dash off his letters between saddle and supper must say what he has to say in the fewest terms, plainly and to the point. But Henry's rapid and direct way of writing is also a mirror of his character; it reflects his rapidity of movement and thought, and his power of going straight to the heart of things. Moreover, his imagination if of no great depth was easily moved. Hence the frequent use of picturesque words and expressions which give a racy but untranslatable flavour to his more intimate letters. The same lively imagination, united with the supple- ness of mind and character which was partly natural to him, but which had been greatly developed by the difficulties (-1 his career, made him at once a consummate judge ot other nun S characters, and a master in one of the rarest arts "I letter- writing, that of varying his tone with his correspondent. 1 hus to his companions-in-arms he is brusque ami soldier-like, at once their comrade and their commander; to his mi he is the ardent and devoted lover, with a halo of romance round his head; to Henry III he is the loyal and respe. tful subject even when he is fighting against him. And to all 198 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. alike he writes with a warmth of feeling that must have roused a corresponding glow in their hearts, even if they felt some- times that behind the Gascon's frank and affectionate bonhomie lay a clear perception of his own needs and of the means by which they could best be satisfied. Finally, he has the indispensable quality of a successful letter-writer, that of writing to his friends as if he were talking to them. His fullest letters are those to the Comtesse de Gramont, la belle Corisande, the lady to whom Montaigne dedicated La Boetie's sonnets, and of all Henry's mistresses the most nearly his equal in force of mind and character. It is to her that he wrote the celebrated description of the island of Marans near La Rochelle, which Sainte-Beuve declares to be the pearl of his love-letters. A worthy pendant to it, though in an entirely different strain, is the letter to Madame de la Roche- Guyon (a lady who had declined his offers of undying affection), written on the eve of an expected battle with the Duke of Parma. It is short enough to be quoted in full : Ma maistresse, je vous escris ce mot le jour de la veille d'une bataille. L'yssue en est en la main de Dieu, qui en a desja ordonne ce qui en doibt advenir et ce qu'il congnoist estre expedient pour sa gloire et pour le salut de mon peuple. Si je la perds, vous ne me verre^s jamais, car je ne suis pas homme qui fuye ou qui reculle. Bien vous puis-je asseurer que, si j'y meurs, ma penultiesme pensee sera a vous, et ma derniere sera a Dieu, auquel je vous recommande et moy aussy. Ce dernier aoust 1590; de la main de celuy qui baise les vostres et qui est vostre serviteur 1 . His letters to his comrades-in-arms are models of good fellowship and tact. He generally subscribes himself Votre meillenr maitre et pins affectionne ami or in some similar phrase, and this aptly expresses the relation in which he stood to them. Many of them owed him no allegiance except that due to an elected leader : many were fighting for their own hand far more than for the Huguenot cause ; and nearly all were jealous of one another. It was Henry's task at once to coax, to encourage, and to command. A letter 1 Lettres missives, ill. 244; Dussieux, p. 157. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 199 to Crillon, or, as he always spelt the name, Grillon, may be taken as a specimen: Brave Grillon, pendes-vous de n'avoir este icy pres de moi lundy dernier a la plus belle occasion qui se soit jamais veue et qui peut-estre se verra jamais. Croyes que je vous y ay bien desire. Le cardinal nous vint voir fort furieusement, mais il s'en est retourne fort honteusement. J'espere jeudy prochain estre dans Amiens, ou je ne sesjourneray gueres, pour aller entreprendre quelque chose, car j'ay maintenant une des belles armees que Ton scauroit imaginer. II n'y manque rien que le brave Grillon, qui sera tousjours le bien venu et veu de moy. A Dieu. Ce xx e septembre [1597], au camp devant Amiens 1 . Or the following to Fervaques, written just before the battle of Ivry : Fervaques, a cheval, car je veux voir a ce coup-cy de quel poil sont les oysons de Normandie. Yenes droict a Alencon 2 . Or this masterpiece of persuasive eloquence : Mons 1 ' de Launay d'Entraigues, Dieu aydant, j'espere que vous estes a l'heure qu'il est restably de la blessure que vous receutes a Coutias, combattant si vaillamment a mon coste ; et si ce est, comme je le espere, ne faites faulte (car Dieu aydant, dans peu nous aurons a decoudre, et ainsy grand besoin de vos services) de partir aussitost pour me venir joindre. Sans doubte vous n'aures manque, ainsy que vous l'avez annonce a Mornay, de vendre vos bois de Mezilac et Cuze, et ils auront produit quelques mille pistoles. Si ce est, ne faites faulte de m'en apporter tout ce que vous pourres ; car de ma vie je ne fus en pareille disconvenue, et je ne sc,ais quand, ni d'ou, si jamais, je pourray vous les rendre ; mais je vous promets force honneur et gloire : et argent n'est pas pasture pour des gentilshommes comme vous et moy. La Rochelle, ce xxv e octobre 1588. Vostre affectionnr, Henry 8 . Among Henry's followers there is no nobler figure than 1 Lettrcs missives, IV. 848 (with a facsimile 1; Dussieux, p. 26c;. 2 Lett res missives, in. 161; Dussieux, p. 141. 3 Lettres missives, 11. 398; Dussieux, p. 106. Henry's sister Catharine, who became Duchesse de Bar, had an easy and graceful epistolary style. \ 1 lei tion from her letters is printed in the Bibl. de V Ecole des CAaries, 4 seY. iii. (18 127 ff. ; 325 ff. ; and a charming letier of condolence to her brothei on the death of Gabrielle d'Estrees is given, with a facsimile, in the Lettrei missives, V. 40. 200 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. that of Francois de la Noue\ His Discours politiques et militaires, written during his imprisonment in the Spanish fortress of Limburg, near Verviers (i 580-1 585), though not, except the last, in any sense memoirs, are generally classed under that head. Even in the last discours, entitled Obser- vations sur plusieurs choses advenues anx trois premiers troubles, though he is dealing with matters more or less within his own experience, he keeps his own personality completely in the background. Some of the discours treat of purely moral questions, so that, as has been pointed out, to make the title of the work complete, the word moraux should be added. But it is chiefly as a political reformer that La Noue comes before us in his Discours. The first is a noble and able statement of the condition of France, remarkable for its impartiality and absence of party-spirit. The same tolerance is shewn in the third, in which he protests against the common practice of designating those of the opposite religion to the speaker as heretics. He himself had become a Protestant in 1558 under the influence of D'Andelot, who in that year had carried on an active propa- ganda in distant Brittany, La Noue's native province. He had fought at Dreux in the first civil war, had seized Orleans by a bold stroke in the second, and had been taken prisoner both at Jarnac and Moncontour. It was in the third civil war, at the siege of Fontenay, that he lost an arm, the substitute for which gave him his nickname of Bras-dc-Fcr. His comments therefore on the first three wars are made with full knowledge of his subject, and are highly instructive both from the political and the military point of view. Had he shewn less modesty in concealing his own important share in the various operations he would have been read more and honoured less. The moral discourses, including several which deal more particularly with social questions, throw considerable light on the society of La Noue's day, especially the eighth, which 1 See Montaigne's estimate of him, Essais, u. 17, a passage added in the edition of 1588. He was born in 1531 and died in 1591 from a wound received at the siege of Lamballe. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 20 1 investigates the causes of the poverty of the French nobility, and finds them in their increasing extravagance, especially in building, furniture, and dress. The twelfth treats of duelling, and may be profitably compared with the views of Montaigne and Tavannes on the one hand, and those of Brantome on the other. The twenty-third is a sermon against Alchemy, and the twenty-fourth, Contre ceux qui pensent que la Piete prive V homme de tons plaisirs, is directed against the Epicureans or Libertins 1 , as La Noue thinks they should be called, "who finding their chief good in pleasure, try to bring the Christian life into contempt." Lastly there is the exceedingly interesting essay, to which reference has already been made in the preceding volume, on the proposi- tion ' That the reading of the Amadis romances is no less harmful to the young than that of Machiavelli to the old-.' A couple of passages from this will give a sufficient idea of La Noue's style : Sous le regne du Roy Henri second, ils ont eu leur principle vogue : et croy que si quelqu'vn les eust voulu alors blasmer, on lui eust crache au visage, dautant qu'ils seruoyent de pedagogues, de iouet, et d'entretien a beaucoup de personnes : dont aucunes apres auoir apris a Amadiser de paroles, l'eau leur venoit a la bouche, tant elles desiroyent de taster seulement vn petit morceau des friandises, qui y sont si naiuement et naturellement representees. Ouand vn gentil-homme auroit toute sa vie leu les liures d'Amadis, il ne seroit bon soldat ne bon gendarme. Car pour estrel'vn et 1'autre, il ne faut rien faire de ce qui est la dedans. Ie ne specifieray point autrement ces grans coups, qui fendent vn homme iusques a la ceinture, et coupcnt vn brassal et vn bras tout net : ces entre-choquemens et cheutes, oil Ion ne se fait point de mal,et puis qu'on ressaute incontinent a cheual, comme si on estoit deuenu Leopard : ni ces combats continuez l'espace de deux heures acompagnez de sots entreparlemens, ni des vaillantises imaginaires, <|in font qu'vn homme en tue deux cens. Car la chose monstre que ce n'est que pour faire peur aux femmes, ct aux pct'3 enfans : et qui voudra 1 Libertin implies a free-liver as well as a free-thinker, [n the libertit ville M. Hauser sees a reference to Montaigne. He 1 right, Imt I do not feel quite sure about it. 2 Discours, VI. 202 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. perdre le temps a lire au long ce qui en est, pourra conoistre si e'est a tort ou a droit, que ie reprouue tous ces braues et magnifiques badinages l . This style, without any special charm or brilliancy, has solid merits. It is singularly equal, it is clear, well-balanced, and weighty. Its habitual gravity is occasionally relieved by familiar and expressive phrases, such as Veau leur venoit a la douche, la conscience pins large que la manche d'un cordelier, arguer la desponille d'un gras benefice. And it is La Noue who invented Mademoiselle la Picoree, qui depuis est si bicn accrue en dignite qu'on Vappelle maintenant Madame. Et si la guerre civile continue encor je ne donte point qiielle ne deviene Princessc-. Lively touches like these save his style from the reproach which Bossuet brought against Calvin's, that it was triste. For La Noue is clearly of the school of Calvin, as well in the logical firmness of his sentences as in the orderly arrangement of his thoughts, remarkable in that age of disorderly writing. Though his early education had been neglected he had acquired in later life a considerable knowledge of classical literature, though, so far as Greek was concerned, through translations. But his writing is singularly free from classical pedantry. His most frequent references are to Plutarch, whose Lives he re-read in Amyot's translation during his captivity. It is pleasant, too, to find that he was familiar with Rabelais, quoting the opinions of Frere Jean des Entommeures as if he were a historical character 3 . And on occasion he can tell a story in a lively and dramatic fashion, witness that of the poor apprentice who had found the secret of true Alchemy 4 . In strong contrast to the humane and tolerant La Noue stands the ferocious Catholic leader, Monluc, whose Com- ment aires by general consent stand at the head of the Memoirs and other similar works of this period. It may 1 The text is that of an edition published in 1588 without mention of the place of printing, but probably printed at Geneva. 2 Discours, XXVI. Le qtiel a este vn des plus braves Moynes moynans de son temps, VIII. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 203 be objected that a book which treats of nothing but minor military operations is likely to prove monotonous to the general reader, especially if, as in Monluc's case, these are dealt with in a somewhat technical fashion. On the other hand fighting played so important a part in those days, was indeed the only serious occupation of the French nobility, that a book of this sort helps us to under- stand the age. In any case the Commentaires are true memoirs, personal reminiscences of the writer's own actions, the record of which by his own pen he justifies by the example of " the greatest captain who ever lived," Julius Caesar. For Monluc, born near Condom in the heart of Gascony, was as typical a Gascon as the incomparable M. d'Artagnan. Vain, egotistical, quarrelsome, hot-tempered, yet bearing no rancour; brave almost to ostentation, yet when occasion required, prudent and crafty ; prompt, resourceful, vigilant, untiring, ever ready for a hasardous enterprise and sparing no pains to secure its success ; not a great general, but a born leader — such is the idea we get of Monluc at the close of his Fourth book. But as we read further the portrait assumes a more unpleasant aspect. Monluc was not cruel by nature, he was no fiend to gloat over the suffering of his victims. But he was hard and pitiless to the core, carrying out remorselessly what he conceived to be the only effective method of stamping out Protestantism. It had succeeded in Spain, why not in France? He was no religious fanatic, no more than Charles V, or Catharine de' Medici, or the Cardinal de Guise, but the Huguenots were rebels and must be put down with a high hand. So he gave no quarter, and only made prisoners to hang them. Towards the close of his Memoirs he looks back with satisfaction on his work : Les autres querelles se pacifient aisement, mais celle de la religion .1 longue suite, et, encore que les gens de guerre ne soient pas fort religieux, ils prennent party, et estant engaige"s ils suivent puis apres. A.ux t< 1 1 que je voy les affaires, je ne croy pas que nous soyons an boul : poui !<• moins ay-je ce contentement en moy-mesme de m'y estre oppose' autant que jay peu, et fait mon debvoir. Pleust a Dieu que tous ceux qui onl eu les forces en main, n'eussent non plus connive" que moy. II faul laisser 204 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. faire Dieu : apr£s qu'il nous aura prou fouettes, il mettra les verges au feu 1 . But his life would have been fairer and more after the ordinal'}- human pattern had it ended before the outbreak of the Civil Wars. He was then in his sixtieth year and had served with honour in the Italian wars off and on for nearly thirty years. It was mainly owing to his advice and partly to his conduct in the field, if we may trust a Gascon on such points, that the victory of Cerisoles was won by the French (1544), and his account of it is admirable. But his great feat of arms was the defence of Siena against the troops of Cosmo de' Medici and his imperial allies. He had to capitulate in the end (April 1555), but he held out for nearly eight months. The critics said that if he had capitulated sooner he might have made better terms 2 , but he was a soldier, not a politician, and when he returned to France the king, Henry II, who was also a soldier, " embraced him with both arms and held his head against his breast almost as long as you would take to say a Pater noster." So he went to his lodgings as contented as if the king had given him a rich present ; car fay este tousjours glorienx : aussi suis-je Gascon. His relation of this siege, which occupies the whole of his Third book, is on the whole the most striking part of his Memoirs. The following passage relates how Piero Strozzi, after his defeat at the battle of Marciano and after an unsuccessful attempt to throw himself into the town, was finally brought in by Monluc's nephew : Sur ces entrefaictes le jour commencea a venir ; Serillac se trouve n'ayant perdu que trois ou quatre de sa compaignie qui s'en estoient fuys avec les gens de pied ; et croy que de l'autre compaignie n'en demeura pas beaucoup, car il n'y avoit qu'ung lieutenant qui la com- manclast. Monsieur le mareschal, qui se vist sans ouyr aucung bruit, remonte a cheval asses malaysement, et commensa a recognoistre nostre cavalerie qui avoit faict haltou, et regardoict Serillac s'il le trouveroict parmy les mortz ; et comme il le vist venir a luy, je vous laisse a penser quelle joye eurent et lung et l'autre : et ainsi s ; ache- minarent droict a la ville. Or, veux je dire que monsieur le mareschal 1 Ed. Ruble, in. 513. - Brantdme, iv. ;; ff. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 205 fist la une des plus grandz folies que jamais homme de son estat aye faicte, comme je luy ay diet cent fois despuis : car il s ? avoict bien que s'il estoict prins, tout le monde ne l'eust sceu sauver, que le due de Florence ne l'eust fait mourir honteuzement, pour l'inimitie juree qu'il luy portoict. Et encores que Serillac feusse mon nepveu, si luy donrray-je ceste louange et reputation avec la ve'ritte, qu'il feust cause du salut de monsieur le mareschal. Je le puis bien escripre, puis que monsieur le mareschal mesme le disoit 1 . I have cited this as a good specimen of Monluc's ordinary style. The first thing that strikes one is its conversational character. It is the style of a man who is relating his ex- periences to his friends, and this, as we know from the passage of Brantome quoted above, Monluc was in the habit of doing. II le faisoit beau ouyr parley et discourir des armes et de la guerre... car il avoit line fort belle eloquence militaire. And in fact Monluc, who hated writing or any sort of clerk's work, dictated the whole of his Commcntaires. At the siege of Rabastens (July 1570), he was horribly disfigured by a musket-wound in the face 2 , and as he was now nearly seventy he was relieved of his government of Guyenne, much to his chagrin, which he expressed in a long letter to the King. However, as in the similar case of his friend Brantome, his wound led to his writing his Memoirs : Or e'est icy la fin de mon livre et de ma vie : que si Dieu me la continue plus longuement, quelqu'autre escripra le reste, si je me trouve en lieu ou je face quelque chose digne de moy, ce que je n'espere pas, me sentant si incommode que je ne pense meshuy pouvoir jamais plus pointer les armes. J'ay ceste obligation a ceste meschante arquebusade qui m'a perce" etfroisse le visage, d'avoir este" cause que j'ay dicte"ces Commentaires, lesquels, comme je pense, dureront apres moy. Je prie ceux qui les liront de ne les prendre point comme escripts de la main d'ung escrivain, mais d'ung vieux soldat, et encore gascon, qui a escript sa vie a la verite", el en guerrier ; tous ceux qui pourteront les armes y prendront exempli recognoistront que de Dieu seul procede l'heur et le malheur des hommes. Et pour-ce que nous debvons avoir recours a luy seul, supplions-le nous ayder et conseiller en nos tribulations, car ce monde n'est autre chose, et dont les grands ont aussi bien leur part que les petits : en nani- feste sa grandeur, veu qu'il n'y a roy ny prince qui en soit exempt, el qui n'aye ordinairement besoing de luy et de son secours. 1 Ed. Ruble, 11. 3. 2 See Brantome's story of Lou ttaz Jc Rabastain, IV. 36. 20 6 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. Ne desdaignds, vous qui desires suivre le train des armes, au lieu de lire des Amadis ou Lancellots, d'employer quelqu'heure a me cognoistre dedans ce livre : vous apprendres a vous cognoistre vous mesmes, et a vous former pour estre soldats et cappitaines, car il faut s^avoir obeir pour sgavoir apres bien commander. Cecy n'est pas pour les courtisans ou -ens qui ont les mains polies, ny pour ceux qui ayment le repos ; c'est pour ceux qui par lechemin de la vertu, aux despens de leur vie, veulent eterniser leur nom, comme, en despit de l'envie, j'espere que j'auray faict celuy de Montluc 1 . This was the original conclusion of the Commentaires when Monluc laid down his pen in 1572, but in 1576 he took it up again to relate how he was made a marshal of France by the new king, Henry III, and how at the age of seventy-four he was present at the siege of Gensac. This was his last fight and the occasion of his last harangue. There was no part of his body except his right arm which had not received a wound in the course of his long career. It was time to hang up his sword. He even thought of ending his days in a priory on the Spanish frontier. The exact date of his death is unknown, but he made a codicil to his will in August, 1577, and he probably died soon afterwards. The Commentaires were published with some alteration and suppressions by Florimond de Raemond in 1592. As might be expected from an old man trusting entirely to his memory and restrained by no considerations of literary form the Commentaires are full of digressions and repetitions and tedious relations of unimportant incidents. But they are instinct with life and movement, and the style is remarkable. It is the style of a man who has had little or no intercourse with books, but who has a natural gift for clear and expressive speech. His thoughts shape themselves in language without any effort. Those who hold the view that the language of literature should be widely differentiated from that of speech had better read Monluc, and then reconsider their position. 1 Ed. Ruble, III. 518, 9. XXII I] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 207 2. L'Estoile, Tavaiuies, Sully. We have seen that Monluc, the only one of the five writers hitherto discussed in this chapter who wrote true memoirs for Margaret of Valois confined herself to certain carefully arranged passages in her life— began his task in the year 1570. In 1575 the diplomatist, Michel de Castelnau, followed in his footsteps, while the memoirs of the parish priest, Claude Haton, date from about the same year. There are indeed earlier writings of the kind, which are included in the various collections of French memoirs, such as the Commentaires of Francois de Rabutin, the first books of which were published in 1555, and the accounts of the sieges of Metz and St Quentin by Salignac and Coligny respectively. But these, like the Du Bellay memoirs, of which mention was made in the first volume, are of the nature of contemporary history rather than true memoirs. It is therefore from about the beginning of the last quarter of the sixteenth century that the fashion of memoir-writing, which has contributed to French literature so many important and delightful works, may be said to date. From that time down to the middle of the seventeenth century it flourished with unabated vigour. Naturally all the memoirs of our period do not belong to literature. Some are so entirely devoid of charm or indi- viduality that, whatever their importance for the political historian, they can find no place in a history of literature. But there are others which, while they lack the genius for expression which marks the style of the five writers noticed in the first section of this chapter, or exhibit it only at spasmodic intervals, yet succeed in interesting the reader by the talisman of a distinct personality. For provided a writer can stamp his work with the seal of his own individuality, provided he can give it, so to speak, an atmosphere of its own, he has assured for it a place, however modest, on the roll "I literature. 208 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. Such a place we may certainly grant to the Memoires- Joumaux of Pierre de L'Estoile. Grandson of the distin- guished jurist of the same name, and son of a president of the Court of Enquctes in the Paris Parliament, he himself purchased a post in the Paris Chancery. But his real business in life was the collection of engravings, medals, and books, and especially of pamphlets and broadsides. He also made a practice of noting down every interesting event, whether trivial or important, and the Journal which he thus kept for thirty-seven years, from 1574 to 1611 1 , is of singular importance for the student of the social and political life of his day. If he was too ready to accept unauthorised gossip, he was at least an honest and fair-minded man, with no strong political bias except a sincere hatred of the League. Though he has no pretentions to style, writing, as he said, mihi non aliis, he often puts things in a humorous way, so that the book is an amusing one to read in, if not one to read continuously. He can tell a story with spirit, as for instance that of the death of Bussy d'Amboise 2 , which, like other passages in his Journal, has furnished Dumas with hints for his Homeric narrative. The cream of the Journal is the portion which covers the period of the League from the death of Henry III to the entry of Henry IV into Paris 3 . Happily both for himself and for us L'Estoile was able during these years of gloom and terror to see the humorous side of things. His Journal is a perpetual illustration of the Satire Menippee. He made it his particular business to attend or get reports of the various sermons which the League preachers thundered forth every Sunday, and they furnish a good deal of amusement. He does not tell us much about himself and his own affairs, and the statement which he makes at the beginning of one of his manuscripts that we shall see him {com me dit le s" de Montaigne en ses Essais, parlant de soy) tout nud et tel que je suis is a disappointing one. But the character he gives himself — mon 1 The last entry is on Sept. 27, 161 1, a week before his death. He was born in 1546. 2 I- 321. 3 Vol. v. and part of VI. XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 209 ante litre et tonte mienne, accoiistume'e a se conduire a sa mode, non toittesfois mescliante ne maligne, mats tvop portce a une vaine curiosite et liberte—xs, faithfully borne out in his Journal. From this time, however (July 1606), it becomes rather less interesting, being chiefly an account of his purchases of books, or in his own words, le Magazin de mes curiosites. But there is an interesting entry on July 16 10, in which he tells us that he is a lover and constant reader of Montaigne. He died in the following year, the close of his life having been clouded by ill-health and poverty. Jean de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes, is a sixteenth century Saint-Simon 1 . His memoirs are nominally a history of France during the life-time (1 509-1573) of his father, Gaspard de Saulx, who distinguished himself at the battle of Renty (1554), was created a marshal ( 1571), and was one of the four — the only Frenchman among the number — who with Charles IX and his mother formed the fatal council which decided on the massacre of St Bartholomew. The memoirs, for which Jean de Tavannes used his father's papers and therefore called by his father's name, were written to correct for the benefit of his family the view taken by historians of his father's services, but they are interspersed with numerous long digressions consisting partly of his own reminiscences and partly of moral reflexions 2 . Begun in 1601, but written for the most part between 16 16 and 1621, they carry us far beyond the limits of our period ; but just as Saint-Simon, in spite of his date, belongs to the seventeenth century, so his prototype, Jean de Tavannes, is of the sixteenth. Like Saint-Simon he is a frondeur and a pessimist, and like Saint-Simon he is a champion of the privileges and purity of the French nobility. His style too, though without the genius of Saint-Simon's, recalls it both in its disregard of ordinary rule and usage and in its brusque and dogmatic tone. The moral reflexions which he sows so plentifully are 1 Born 1555, made his will in 1629. 2 Ce sujet remarqiiable m'a portc a des considerations <■! conceptions ■//"■ fay trouve a propos cf escrire ; et y ay entremesli atuunesfois n ■ occasion lie had eight) among the servants at Villebon, Sully's favourit il 'de. without noticing anything amLs with the service. a 3 vols. London (Paris!, 1745 ; 8 vols. ib. 1747. 2i6 MEMOIRS AND LETTERS [CH. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. Pierre de Bourdeilles, Abbe de Brantome, Memoires^ 8 vols. Leyden, chez Jean Sambix le Jeune, 1665-66 (a defective and incomplete edition, published at the Hague by Jean and Daniel Steucker, without the Discours sur les duels, first published in 1722, and the Rodomontades, first published in the 15 vol. edition of 1740. See Willems, Les Elzevier, no. 1369). (Euvres completes [ed. Monmerque"], 8 vols. 1822-24 ; 13 vols. 1858-95 {Bib. Elze'v.) ; ed. L. Lalanne for the Societe de Fhistoire de France^ 11 vol. 1864-82. Baroness James de Rothschild has recently presented to the Bib. Nat. 13 vols, of the MS of Brantome's first draft. Marguerite de Valois, Memoires, ed. Auger de Mauleon, 1628. Mimoires et lettres, ed. F. Guessard for the Soc. de Phist. de France, 1842. Henri IV, Recneil de lettres missives {Documents ine'dits), ed. Berger de Xivrey, 9 vols. 1843-76 ; Lettres intimes, ed. L. Dussieux, 1876. Blaise de Monluc, Commentaire, ed. Florimond de Raemond, Bordeaux, 1592 ; Commentaires et Lettres, ed. A. de Ruble for Soc. de I' hist, de France, 5 vols. 1864-76. FRANCOIS DE LA NOUE, Discours politiqites et militaires, Basle, 1587. Discours xxvi has often been published separately under the title of Memoires de La None. Pierre de l'Estoile, Me'moires-Journaux, edd. G. Brunet, A. Champollion, E. Halphen, P. Lacroix, Ch. Read, Tamizey de Larroque, and Ed. Tricotel, 12 vols. 1875-96 (the first complete edition;. .See XII. xvii-xxix for a full bibliography of the manuscripts and editions. The journal first appeared in the form of an extract made by L'Estoile's friend, Pierre Dupuy, under the title of Journal des choses aduenues durant le regne de Henri IIL, 1621. In the Memoires pour servir a Vhistoire de France, 1515-1611, 2 vols., Cologne, 1719 [ed. Denis Godefroy], the Journal de Henri /F was added, but with a lacuna for the years 1594- 1606. This was partially supplied in subsequent editions —Journal du regne de Henri IV, 2 vols. 1732 [ed. L'abbe d'Olivet] ; Supplement au journal du regne de Henri IV, 1736 [1735] > Journal du regne de Henri IV, ed. C. B. A. [C. Bouges, an Augustiman father], 4 vols., The Hague, 1 74 1 ; Journal de Henri III, 5 vols., The Hague, 1744 [ed. Lenglet du Fresnoy] ; Journal inedit du regne de Henri IV, ed. E. Halphen, 1862. Finally in 1899 the Bibliotheque Nationale acquired a new manuscript of the Journal du regne de Henri IV, which contains several additional passages, added by the hand of Pierre de l'Estoile himself. These have been printed by H. Omont, Registre-Journal de Pierre de l'Estoile (1 574- 89) in the Memoires de la Soc. de I Hist, de Paris et de I ' Ile-de-France, XXVii. (1900), pp. 1-38. Memoires de tres noble et Ires illustre Gaspard de Saulx-Tavannes [at the chateau of Lugny, 1653] ; there is an earlier edition privately printed at the chateau of Sully in 1617. Memoires de la vie de FRANCOIS DE SCEPEAUX, SIRE DE VlEILLE- XXIII] MEMOIRS AND LETTERS 21J ville... composes par Vincent Carloix son secretaire, ed. Le Pere Griffet, 5 vols. 1757. Francois de Rabutin, Commentaires des dernieres guerres de la Gaule Belgique, 1554 (6 books); 1558; 1574 (11 books). Michel de Castelnau, Les Me'moires, 1621 ; ed. J. Le Laboureur, 2 vols. 1659, and 3 vols., Brussels, 173 1 (best edition). Jean de Mergey, Mimoires, ed. Nicolas Camuzat in Meslanges historiques, Troves, 1619. M vl DE MORNAY, Mimoires, ed. M me de Witt for the Soc. de /'/list, de France, 2 vols. 1868-69. Maximilien de Bethune, Due de Sully, Mimoires des sages et roya/es (Economies d Estat, domestiques, po/itiques et militaires de Henry le Grand, I. 11. [at the chateau of Sully, 1738] ; III. IV. Paris, 1662. Most of the memoirs of the latter half of the sixteenth century will be found in the principal collections of French memoirs, viz. Petitot and Monmerque, i re se'rie, XX-LII, 2 me se'rie, I-IX (Sully) ; Michaud and Poujoulat, Vll-XVIIl ; Buchon, Choix de Chroniques et Me'moires sur Vhistoire de France, 9 vols. Translations. Spanish Rhodomontades by Mr Ozell, 1741. The Memorials of Margaret de Va/oys... translated by R. Codrington (the translator of the Heptameron), 1641. There are two recent trans- lations, one by "Violet Fane" (Lady Currey), 1892, and the other by an anonymous translator, 1895. The Commentaries of Messire Blaise de Monluc, 1674 [by Charles Cotton]. The Politicke and militarie discourses of the Lord de la Noue.... Translated by E. A. [Edward Aggas], 1587 [1588]. TO BE CONSULTED. L. Pingaud, Brantome historien in Rev. des quest, hist. xix. 1 S6 ff. , 1876. L. Lalanne, Brantome, sa vie et ses e'erits, 1896. Brantome, CEuvres, IV. (Monluc), VII. (La Noue), VIII. (Marguerite de Valois). Sainte-Beuve, Causeries dit Lundi, VI. (Marguerite), 1852 ; XI. Monluc, Henry IV), 1855. The latter article is a review of E. Jung, Henri 1 '/', e'erivain, 1855. H. Hauser, Francois de la None, 1892 (an admirable piece of work), and Sur T authenticity des Discou is de la Noue in \ hist. Liu. 301 ff. (1893) (disposes of D'Aussy's hypothesis that the literarj merit of the Discours is chiefly due to their editor, Philippe du Fresne Canaye); A. Sayous, Etudes litte'raires sur les icrivains franqau de la reformation, II. (La Noue), 1841. L. Pingaud, Les Saulx-Tavannes, 1876. Ch. Marchand (L'abbe), Vieilleville et ses mimoires^ 1893 Ch. Pfister, Les (Economies royales de Sully in Rev. hist. 1.1 v. 300 ff., 1 Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, vm. 134 ff, 1853 Sull) . A. Roil Histoiredu regne de Henri IV, 1857 ; 3rd ed. 1866, IV. -'7- ff. esp t-i P. de l'Estoile and Sully). CHAPTER XXIV HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE It would be difficult, if not impossible, to draw a hard and fast line between memoirs and contemporary history, and to frame a concise definition of the one which should completely exclude the other. As a rule, no doubt, the writer of memoirs confines himself to a record of events in which he has personally taken part, whether as actor or as spectator ; but if he happen to be a great statesman or a great captain his record becomes, like that of Julius Caesar, the most valuable of contemporary histories. Moreover the rule is no absolute one. Saint-Simon, for instance, the prince of memoir-writers, by no means confines himself to that Court life which lay within his own experience, but introduces accounts of campaigns and political events in which he played no part. Generally speaking, however, it may be said that the personal element is the making of memoirs. But must we hold with the modern historian that it is the marring of history ? Can history, which deals with men and human actions, entirely exclude the personal element ? And if it cannot, is it " a science, no less and no more" ? At any rate, whatever it may become in the future, it has not been so in the past. Even if the historian has been able to suppress his own personality his work has reflected the thought and passions of the age in which he wrote. It is this indeed which, quite apart from all questions of style, justifies us in treating history as a branch of literature. CH. XXIV] HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 219 For it resembles literature at any rate in being a document for the age in which it was written 1 . This is especially the case with the contemporary histories written in France during the stormy period of her Religious Wars. The writers may use their best endeavours to be not only truthful but impartial, but they cannot escape from the bias of their religion, and it is just this bias which gives their work an abiding interest and value. The Protestant bias, for instance, is well represented in the narratives of Pierre de la Place, President of the Cour des Aides, who perished in the massacre of St Bartholomew, and of Louis Regnier de la Planche, a follower of the house of Montmorency. La Place's work, which deals with the period from the death of Henry II (July 1559) to the end of 1 561, was published in 1565 ; that of La Planche, which is confined to the short reign of Francis II (July 1559 to December 1560), appeared in 1576. La Place's work is more impartial, more concise, more accurate, in a word superior from the historical point of view. But La Planche's book is better reading. His lively and forcible style, his strong Protestant bias, his hatred of the Guises, his readiness to accept mere rumour, and his love of detail, are all qualities which make for literature. Moreover he is generally well informed, he has considerable political insight, and his conception of the functions of a historian is just and enlightened : Car a vray dire, le fruict de l'histoire ne gist pas au simple recit de ce qui s'est dit ou fait : mais a bien savoir considerer les causes et k-s issues de ce qui y est recite - pour en faire son prourit, apprenant par les fautes d'autruy, et se faconnant par l'exemple des choses bien vert ueu semen t entreprinses et executes, en quoi celuy qui escrit l'histoire nous peut principalement aider, pourveu que la raison jointe a la verite' gouverne son entendement vuide de toute passion 2 . 1 The same idea, better expressed, will be found in Professor Bury's Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge, 1903). He says that the histories of each age "belong to th<- documents which mirror the form and features of th< instances Tacitus's Annals and Treitschke's Histot imy. 2 Ed. Mennechet, I. xv. The Advertisement au lecteur, from which th( passage is taken, was doubtless written by La Planche himself. Prof. 1 doubts his authorship of the whole work (History of the Huguenots, 1. 410. n but his argument seems to me unsound. 220 HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE [CH. On the other hand the absence of any such philosophical conception of history forbids us to assign a higher rank than that of a chronicle to the Chronologie novenaire (1589 — 1597) 1 and the Chronologie septenaire (1598— 1604) 2 of Pierre Victor Palma Cayet, and though his patient collection of facts and his general trustworthiness make him a valuable source of information he has no charm of style to atone for his other defects. The first attempt in France to extend the philosophical treatment of contemporary history beyond her own borders was made by another Protestant, Henri Lancelot Voisin de La Popeliniere, a gentleman of Guyenne, who in 1575 played an important part in the recapture from the Catholics of the He de Re, opposite to La Rochelle. His work, which appeared first in 1 57 1 and then in a complete form in 1581, comprises the history of events in France and the neighbouring countries from 1550 to 1577. His somewhat pretentious preface shews that he had a high conception of the duties of a historian, and certainly he spared neither pains nor money in the execution of his task 3 . But unfortunately his language is neither picturesque nor clear, nor, in spite of D'Aubigne's praise, particularly correct 4 . Moreover the pecuniary help which he received from Catharine de' Medici made it im- possible for him to be perfectly truthful in matters which concerned the royal family. One would not, for instance, suppose from his account of the massacre that either Catharine or Charles IX was in any way responsible for it 5 . He died in 1608 in great poverty 6 , having lived to see the first instal- ment of a new history of the period which he had treated. 1 3 vols. 1608. 2 1606. 3 D'Aubigne says he spent the whole of his patrimony on it. (Preface to Histoire Universelle. ) 4 Son langage bien fratifois qui sent ensemble Vhomme de let/res et Vhomme de guerre, (ibid.) ' It is characteristic of the views of his age with regard to literary property that though he mentions in his preface his indebtedness to Belleforest and the Histoire ecclisiastique he says nothing about La Place, whose work he has in- corporated almost bodily and with very few additions. 8 Mourust d'une maladie asses ordinaire aux hommes de lettres et vertueux comme il estoit,a scavoir : de misere et de necessity. P. de l'Estoile, Journal, IX. 189. XXIV] HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE -> -> J The author, Jacques Auguste de Thou, was the son of Christophe de Thou, first president of the Paris Parliament, and was himself first a councillor and then a president a mortier of the same Parliament. Born in 1553 he was still quite young when his friend Pierre Pithou inspired him with the idea of writing a history of his own times, and before long he set to work to collect materials and otherwise prepare himself, especially by travel, for his great task. In 1593 he began the actual writing, and the first part, consisting of eighteen books and treating of events from 1546 to 1560, was published in 1604 1 . It was his intention to carry the work down to the death of Henry IV, but his own death, which took place in 161 7, prevented the completion of his design. The fifth and last part, published in 1620, stops at the year 1607. The fact that De Thou wrote in Latin is noteworthy. It shews that in spite of the great progress which French prose had made during the sixteenth century, in spite of Rabelais and Calvin and Amyot and Montaigne, it was not yet regarded as a fitting language for a work of learning. Yet from Villehardouin downwards works of a historical character had been written in French, and, as we have seen, it was a historian, Claude de Seyssel, who at the very beginning of the sixteenth century had urged the necessity of providing in- struction for those who were ignorant of Latin, and who in the prosecution of his design had spent many years oi his life in the translation of Greek historians 2 . Doubtless also De Thou had in view the satisfaction of submitting the result of his labours to a competent court, and preferred the applause of learned Europe to that of unlearned France. If so he had his reward. His work was received with respect and ad- miration by the whole learned world, and at once achieved an European reputation which lasted for nearly two centuries. The only exception to the general chorus of approval 1 See a Latin letter (printed in Buckley's edition and translated in Collii Life) written by De Thou to President Jeannin in 1611, in which b< account of the origin and growth of his work. The account in his Memoirs i materially the same. 2 See 1. 35, 36. HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE [CH. the Congregation of the Index, which after the appearance of the fourth part formally condemned the work 1 . Their action was an honourable testimony to De Thou's honesty and impartiality, but it caused him much trouble and annoy- ance, for it had been his especial care to write his book in a conciliatory spirit 2 . Indeed his endeavour to avoid giving offence either to Catholic or Protestant, or in any way to endanger the peace created by the Edict of Nantes, has caused modern critics to accuse him of timidity. In writing in Latin he missed a great opportunity. Had he written in French, though modern criticism would still have found his work inadequate as a scientific history, he might at any rate have enriched French literature, as his contemporary, Mariana, enriched Spanish 3 , with an enduring monument. Time has avenged the French language. De Thou's choice of Latin has not only deprived him of an honourable place on the roll of French men of letters, but has injured his reputation as a historian. The annalistic arrange- ment of events, the absence of dates and the rhetorical language which he adopted in imitation of Livy, are fatal to the scientific method which the modern view of history demands. On the other hand, his successor and admiring rival, Agrippa d'Aubigne, writing in French, at least pro- duced a considerable literary work. Even from the historical point of view it is a question whether the contemporary atmosphere which his narrative breathes does not compensate for the greater accuracy of De Thou's. But I must leave the Histoire Universelle for a later chapter, in which I shall treat of D'Aubigne's multifarious work as a whole. The humanistic spirit manifested itself also in the field of non-contemporary history. I have already mentioned that the first attempt to write a history of France after classical models was that of the Italian Paolo Emilio, and that his 1 See A. de Ruble's edition of D'Aubigne's Histoire universelle, I. 376 ff. ; F. H. Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen BiicAer, II. 192 ff. Bonn, 1885. 2 For the eirenical character of his history see A. Rebelliau, Bossuet. kistorien de Protestantisme, 268 n. 1 , 189 1. '■'• Mariana's History of Spain (down to 1 516) was published in Latin in 159a, and in Spanish, translated and revised by the author himself, in i6or. XXIV] HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 223 work, which was written in Latin, appeared in a French translation in 1556 1 . Meanwhile the Grandes chroniques of Gaguin and Gilles retained a certain popularity and found continuators in Denis Sauvage (1553), Francois de Belleforest (1 573), Gabriel Chappuis (1585), and Jean Savaron (1621). Three years after the appearance of Belleforest's work Bernard de Girard, seigneur du Haillan 2 , a gentleman of Bordeaux and a converted Protestant, produced the first modern French history. He had been encouraged in his task by Charles IX, who in 1571 appointed him historiographe de France and commissioned him to write a complete history of his predecessors. Du Haillan in his preface takes considerable credit to himself for the labour he had spent on his work and for the superiority of his treatment to that of his contemporary, Belleforest. But he uses the same material, that of the Grandes chroniques, with little or no attempt at independent research, and his rhetorical additions are not only modelled on those of Paolo Emilio but are often translated from him. The style, however, and form of his work made it immediately popular and definitely brought French history into the domain of literature 3 . A far larger measure of the true historical spirit was possessed by Jean du Tillet and Nicolas Vignier, who, like Claude Fauchet, produced historical works within three years of Du Haillan's. But these, as well as the Franco-Gallia <>f the celebrated jurist, Francois Hotman, were written, not for the general public, but for the select circle of the learned. In spite of their labours, and in spite of the publication of texts relating to the early history of France by Pierre Pithou, Jacques Bongars, Jacques Simon, Andre Duchesne, and Andre de Valois, French history continued to be a depart- ment of rhetoric until the beginning of the third decade "i the nineteenth century. 1 See 1. 239. 2 B. circ. 1536, d. 1610. 3 The Protestant, Jean de Serres, author of Latin commentaries on the Religious Wars, claims for his Inventaire general de Vhistoirt il> France (1 that it is based on original authorities. The style i- clear and fairly graphic, bul jerky. Both matter and style are severely criticised l>y Lelong, /•'; >. Hist. 111 224 HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE [CH. In the sixteenth century it was rather in the contiguous domain of political science than in that of pure history that the historical spirit bore solid fruit. Jean Bodin, the author of the first modern systematic treatise on political science, was born at Angers in 1530, and after studying law at Toulouse was for some time a professor at that University. In 1 561 he came to Paris to practise as an advocate, but after a short experience gave up the bar for the more congenial pursuit of learning. In 1566 he published his Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem, which shews wide reading and an enlightened conception of the function of an historian. The bent of his mind is revealed by the remark that the chief utility of history is to serve as a guide to politics. Ten years later (1576) he was appointed King's advocate at Laon, which henceforth became his home, and at the close of the same year he was chosen to represent the Vermandois as one of the deputies for the Third Estate at the Estates of Blois. He wrote an account of the proceedings, in which he played a courageous and important part. A few months before this his great work, Six livres de la Rcpidilique, had made its appearance 1 . It achieved an immediate success. A fresh authorised edition was published every succeeding year down to 1580, besides various pirated ones from the presses of Lyons and Geneva and Lausanne. When Bodin went to England in the train of the Due d'Alencon in 1579, he found a Cambridge professor lecturing on a Latin trans- lation of his work. It was so bad that he made a new one himself. This was published in 1586, and owing to the amount of revision which it received is the one generally cited by writers on political science. Bodin, says Sir William Hamilton, stands out with Aristotle and Montesquieu as one of " the great political triumvirate 2 ." But this is an exaggerated or, at any rate, a misleading estimate. Aristotle and Montesquieu are great classics ; Bodin is not ; and that not so much from his want of form and style, for the same may be said of the Politics in 1 The privilege is dated Aug. 12, 1576. 2 Discussions, p. 529. XXIV] HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 225 the shape it has come down to us, as from the absence in his writings of those great thoughts, simple in statement but profound and universal in application, which have made Aristotle and Montesquieu great educators of mankind. Bodin's most important contribution to political science, the doctrine of Sovereignty, however serviceable to the political student, cannot be said to concern the world at large. Thus not being a classic, he is practically unknown, except to students. Even professed political thinkers like Austin and Maine attribute the doctrine of Sovereignty to Hobbes, and never mention Bodin, from whom Hobbes certainly borrowed it. But Bodin, without being an Aristotle or a Montesquieu, has great merits — vast learning, an enlightened mind (in spite of his belief in witchcraft 1 ), bold independence of thought, and sound judgment. He naturally took Aristotle as his model, but he shews remarkable independence of thought, often following the same lines only to differ from and correct his predecessor's conclusions. For instance, on the question of slavery, to which the conquest of Peru by the Spaniards had given special interest 2 , he is very far from accepting Aristotle's declaration that some men are slaves by nature, but denounces the whole practice with great eloquence. He gives telling instances of the cruelty which it engenders, and of its danger to the stability of states 3 . Another well-known chapter is that in which he discusses the effect of climate and situation on national character and government 4 . Though the germ of this inquiry is to be found in Aristotle and other Greek writers, Bodin was the first to work it out in detail. Montesquieu's treatment is on narrower lines and shews considerable differences. It is not till near the close of his work that Bodin addresses himself to the question which is the best form of government, and after a fair show of discussion decides in favour of royal or lawful monarchy 5 . This he distinguishes alike from 1 His Demonomanie des Sorciers was published in [581. 2 La Gasca, the pacificator of Peru, who abolished slavery there in its more aggravated form, had died as recently as [567. 3 1. c. v. 4 v. c. i. ' vi. c. iv. T. II. '5 22 6 HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE [CH. despotism {monarchie seigneurialc) and from tyranny as the form in which the subjects obey the laws of the monarch, and the monarch obeys the laws of nature 1 . He further goes on to express his preference for the hereditary form of succession through males only 2 . Leaving out of question the futility of pronouncing in favour of any form of government as the absolute best, and the vagueness of Bodin's distinction between the different forms of monarchy, it may be noticed that in spite of his attempt to discuss the question fairly he has approached it with a firm conviction in favour of the government which had prevailed in France for nearly six centuries. However unphilosophical this may be, it is for the general reader one of the interesting features of his book. For Bodin was the philosophical representative of that important central party in France of which Michel de l'Hospital was the founder, and Montaigne and De Thou were among the chief ornaments, of that party which had for its two leading principles loyalty to the crown and re- ligious tolerance, and which its opponents nicknamed the Politiques because its members were said to prefer the salvation of their country to that of their souls. It was patriotic feeling which had led Bodin to write his book. " Now that the force of the storm has struck the vessel of our State with such violence that even the master and the pilots are weary of their continual labour, it must needs be that the passengers lend a hand 3 ." It was to further this object that, with a truer instinct than De Thou, he wrote it in French, thus addressing himself not merely to a limited class of learned men but to all Frenchmen " who desire to see this kingdom restored to its former splendour, and once more flourishing in arms and government." Bodin's defence of monarchy was no doubt intended to be a corrective of the anti-monarchical ideas of the Protestants, and especially of the Franco- Gallia, which was published some time before he wrote his concluding book. His attitude towards religion is equally characteristic of the politique party, 1 »■ c ii. 2 vi. c. v. 3 Preface addressed to Guy du Faur de Pibrac. XXIV] HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 2 2J and closely resembles that of Montaigne. A prince, he says, should not allow the established religion of his state to be made the subject of controversy, but if religious factions spring up he must not resort to force to put them down. For the more you do violence to the inclination of men, the more obstinate they become. Bodin instances in favour of this policy of toleration the treatment of the Arians by the Emperor Theodosius, the practice of the Sultan in his own day, and the saying of Theodoric the Goth that we cannot impose a religion, because no one can be compelled to believe against his will 1 . At the Estates of Blois Bodin put these ideas into action, and it was largely owing to his in- fluence and energy that a petition was presented to the King by the Third Estate in favour of peace and toleration. In private he held views even more tolerant, for when he died at Laon in 1596 he left behind him an unpublished Latin treatise entitled Colloquium Heptaplomeres' 1 , in which the subject of religion is discussed by a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, a Mahommedan, a Jew, a Pagan, and a believer in Natural Religion with such complete impartiality that Bodin was variously declared by his readers to be a Protestant, a Jew, and a Deist. Whatever his real belief was he lived and died in communion with the Catholic Church. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. [Pierre de la Place], Commentaires de FEstat de Ft Religion et Republique soubs les Rois Henry et Francois seconds, et Charles neufieme, 1565. [Louis Regnier de la Planche], Histoire de FEstat d,- France, tant de la Republique que de la Religion, sous /<■ Regne de Francois IF 1576; ed. E. Mennechet, 2 vols. 1836. [Henri Lancelot Voisin de la Popeliniere], Lhistoire de France depuis Fin 1550 jusques a ces temps, 2 vols. [La R01 helle] 15X1. 1 Religionem i/nperare nonpossumus, quia in- mo a \gitur ut < redat invitu r,I V.c. vn. - Edited partly in German and partly in Latin by G. E. Guhrauer, Berlin 1841, and in Latin by L. Noack, Schwerin 1857. 228 HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE [CH. XXIV JACQUES AUGUSTE DE THOU, Historiarum sui temporis pars prima [books i-xviii] fo. 1604 ; 2 vols. 8vo. 1604. Ab A.D. 1543 usque ad annum 1607 libri cxxxviii, 5 vols., Geneva, 1620-21 ; ed. S. Buckley, 7 vols., fo. London, 1733. (This sumptuous edition, which includes De Thou's Latin memoirs, first published in 1620, was published at the expense of Dr Richard Mead, the materials for it having been collected by the Jacobite historian, Thomas Carte.) A French translation with some suppressions and corrections was published in 16 vols, in 1734. A trans- lation of the memoirs had previously appeared at Rotterdam in 17 11. Bernard de Girard du Haillan, Histoire generate des Rots de Fratice... depuis Pharamond jusqu'd Charles VII inclusivement, 1576. Jean Bodin, Les Six livres de la republique, 1576. De republica libri sex, Latine ab autore redditi, multo quam ante locupletiores, 1586. The six books of a Commonweale. ..done into English by R. Knolles (the historian of the Turks), 1606. An Italian translation appeared in 1588, and a Spanish one in 1590. TO BE CONSULTED. Lelong (Le pere), Memoires historiques sur plusieurs liistoriens de France at the end of his Bibliotheque historique, III. 1 771. Lenglet du Fresnoy (L'abbe), Methode pour etudier P histoire, avec un catalogue des principaux histoires, XII. 1772. Augustin A. Thierry, Notes sur quatorzc historiens anterieurs a. Mezerai in CEuvres, II. 515-557, 185 1. A. Poirson, Histoire du regne de Henri IV, IV. 31S-341, 3rd ed. 1866. J. Collinson, Life of Thuanus, 1807 ; Niceron, IX. 341 ff. P. Jannet, Histoire de la science politique, II. 30-46, 1 14-127, 3rd ed. 1887. H. Baudrillart, Jean Bodin et son temps, 1853. H. Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Eicrope, II. 51-69, 4th ed. 1854. G. von Polenz, Geschichte des politischen franzosischen Calvinismus, III. 340-398, i860. R. Frint, The Philosophy of History in Europe, I. 68-76, 1874. CHAPTER XXV THE SATIRE MENIPPEE THE French Wars of Religion, besides inspiring and colouring grave philosophical treatises like Bodin's Six livres de la Republique, gave rise to an enormous mass of pamphlet literature. Varying in form and character according to the idiosyncrasy of the writer, it is sometimes oratorical, some- times narrative, sometimes philosophical, and often satirical. The great majority of the pieces, written as they were to meet the controversy of the hour, have only an historical interest, but the Satire Menippee has achieved a permanent place in French literature, and there are others which call for a passing notice, if only as manifestations of the growing strength of French prose. The first in point of date is the Epistrc cnvoicc an Tigre de la France, or as it was called for short the Tigre. It appeared in 1560 and was attributed on fairly conclusive evidence to the jurist Francois Hotman. Modelled on Cicero's Catiline orations it reads like a succession of pistol-shots fired point- blank at the object of its attack, the Cardinal of Lorraine. Rarely before had the French language been used with such nervous and concise energy as in this tin}- pamphlet <>l ten pages 1 . The next notable attack on the Cardinal, commonly known as Le Livre des Marchaads 1 , is very different in 1 See for a full account of the pamphlet II. M. Baird, History of the Hugu 1. 445 ff. 2 See the bibliography at the end of the chapter for (he proper tit!.-. 230 THE SATIRE M^NIPP^E [CH. character to the Tigre. It is in the form of a conversation held between the writer (who is undoubtedly Regnier de la Planche 1 ) and sundry Paris shop-keepers just after the Cardinal of Lorraine had been stopped by order of Francois de Montmorency from entering Paris with an armed escort on January 8, 1565. The pamphlet is at once an exceedingly skilful and damaging attack on the Guises and a plea for moderation and tolerance, for that policy which Michel de l'Hospital as Chancellor was vainly endeavouring to carry out. The style is strongly Latinised, but is distinguished by admirable management of both clause and sentence, at that date a rare quality in French prose, and by a lively and vigorous use of metaphor. After the massacre of St Bartholomew a change comes over the character of the pamphlets. They are all more or less inspired by the massacre, and the chief object of attack is no longer the Cardinal of Lorraine but Catharine de' Medici. The only one however that possesses any literary interest is the anonymous Discours merveilleux de la vie et actions et deportemens de Catherine de Jlfedicis, or the Vie Sainte Catherine, as it was popularly called 2 , which was first pub- lished in the autumn of 1574, though the earliest known edition is of 1575. It became immediately popular ; several editions, as well as a Latin and an English translation, appeared in 1575, and a revised edition in the following year. It is of course grossly unfair to Catharine, but it is well- arranged and well-written, clear and logical, though without any marked individuality of style. Who was the author ? The attribution to the Protestant Jean de Serres may at once be dismissed, for he aspired to be a grave and impartial historian and he was in favour of a conciliatory policy. But a greater name has been associated with the pamphlet, that of Henri Estienne. His authorship however has been ab- solutely disproved by Mark Pattison, who points out, first that he expressly denied it adding that he was in Hungary at the 1 See Reveille-matin. 1574, dialogue i. p. 104. 2 The original title seems to have been Deportemens de Catherine de MeJicis. See P. de l'Estoile, Memoircs iournaux, 1.27. XXV] THE SATIRE MEXIPPEE 23 I time, secondly that he had not the intimate knowledge of French politics which the pamphlet displays, and thirdly that the style is quite unlike his 1 . The style, indeed, though of considerable merit, is only at rare intervals enlivened by touches of the racy picturesqueness which is habitual to Henri Estienne. The pamphlets inspired by the massacre were by no means all personal attacks on the Queen-mother. Several were chiefly concerned with the discussion of the grave political question whether it is lawful to resist an unjust magistrate, or in other words whether revolution is ever justifiable. This was the main object of inquiry in the Franco-Gallia of Francois Hotman, published in 1573, and in the Vindiciae contra tyrannos, written almost certainly in 1574 (and almost as certainly by Philippe Du Plessis-Mornay), though not published till 1 579 2 . But these two famous treatises being written in Latin need only a bare mention in these pages. The death of the Due d'Alencon in 1584 and the con- sequent devolution of the succession on the Protestant King of Navarre gave a new turn to the political wheel. The League was revived with a more effective organisation, of which Paris was the centre, and one of its principles was declared to be 1 Essays, 1. i2off. Estienne's denial will be found in the preface to the Precellenct du languge franfois, 1579. He was at Geneva on May 16 (letter- to < Irato n°. xiii.), and soon afterwards went to Austria and Hungary. Eor a further discussion of the authorship of the Discours merveilleux see Appendix E. - Vindiciae contra tyrannos, sive dc Principis in Populum Populique in Principem legitima potestate, Stephano Junio Bruto Celta autore, Edinburgi [Basle, printed by Thomas Guerin], 1579. Since the time of Bayle the authorship <>l the Vindiciae has usually been attributed to Hubert Languet, the friend ;md CO spondent of Sir Philip Sidney. But Max Lossen in the Silzungsberiehti koniglichen bayerischen Academic tier IVisser, u Milnchen (philos.-philol. und hist. Classe), 1887, pp. 215, has made out what seem- to me an unanswerable case for Du Plessis-Mornay. Bayle ha- nothing definite to set againsl M"" de Mornay's express statement that her husband wrote a book in Latin in 1 entitled De la puissance legitime du prince, which is the exact title of the Ii.ui-I.uimh made by Francois Estienne and published in 1581 {Mhnoires, 1. 81). Furl confirmation of this view has been found by A. Waddington in .1 passage the Memoires of Conrart {Rev. hist. u. 65 ((., 1893). See E. \xm tror Hist. Review, iv. 13 ff., for an excellent analysis ol both the l> and the Vindiciae. 232 THE SATIRE MtfNIPP^E [CH. that no one but a Catholic should succeed to the throne of France. The same arguments which had been used by the Protestants to justify rebellion against a Catholic king were now turned to account by the pamphleteers of the League to justify the exclusion from the throne of a Protestant prince. Montaigne did not fail to note this in a passage which he added to the Apology for Raimond Sebonde in the second edition of his Essays. Cette proposition si solenne : S'il est permis an subject de se rebeller et armer contre son Prince poitr la defense de la religion : souvienne vous en quelles bouckes cette annee passee r affirmation d'icelle estoit l 'arc-boutant dun parti : la negative, de quel autre parti c estoit V arc-boutant. Et oyez a present de quel quartier vient la voix et instruction de F line et P autre. The chief pamphleteer on the side of the League was Louis Dorleans, a Paris lawyer, while the legitimist view was represented by Pierre de Belloy, advocate-general of the Parliament of Toulouse and a Catholic, whose best known production is the Apologie Catholique. He has a vigorous and lively style united to considerable learning and con- troversial acumen. His opponent, Louis Dorleans, the author of the Catholique auglois, is also a good writer, when he is not carried away by violence. Another good writer on the royalist side was the Huguenot Michel Hurault, seigneur du Fay, a grandson of Michel de 1' Hospital, and secretary to the King of Navarre. His two Discours sur Vestal present de la France are temperate and well-reasoned reviews of the situation. The first appeared towards the close of 1588, and was read by Guise while he was in attendance on the King at vespers forty hours before his assassination. The second was provoked by the bull of Gregory XIV (March 1, 1 591 ), which declared Henry IV excommunicate. In 1593 these two Discours were reprinted with two others entitled the A nti-Espagnol and La Fleurde Lys, both written by Antoine Arnaud, a Paris lawyer who soon afterwards became famous by his speech against the Jesuits 1 . The A nti-Espagnol, 1 See D'Aubigne, Hist. Universelle liv. XIII. c. xxiii. for the effect of these pamphlets. XXV] THE SATIRE MENIPPEK *35 which had appeared in 1 590, is a good specimen of combative prose declamation, expressed in well-balanced, musical periods. La Fleur de Lys, first published at the beginning of 1593, though inferior to its companion from a literary point of view, is even more effective as a pamphlet. One of the chief marks for the writer's invective is the ' old tyrant of Spain.' For by this time it had become perfectly clear that there were only two alternatives before the French people, acceptance of Henry IV or submission to Spain. In the Dialogue d'entre le Maheustre et le Mauant, published early in December 1593, a Paris leaguer expressed his choice without anycircumlocution. " I would rather be the subject of a foreigner who is a Catholic than of a Frenchman who is a heretic 1 ." Yet this was more than four months after the King had taken le saut pirilleux and had returned to the Catholic fold. There was however one party at Paris which had not thrown aside the national qualities of good sense and moderation. This was the party of the Politiques. During the terrorism of the League they had shewn some timidity, but after Mayenne's summary chastisement of the Sixteen (December 1591) for their murder of President Brisson they began to take courage and to hold meetings at the house of their leader, the Sieur Daubray, with a view to a more regular organisation. Among the members of this party was a councillor of Parliament, named Jacques Gillot, who lived on the Quai des Orfevres, a few steps from the Sainte Chapelle of which he was a canon. He was a man of considerable learning, the friend and correspondent of Scaliger and other scholars, and the possessor of a fine library. Easy circumstances enabled him to entertain his friends, who consoled themselves at his house by freedom and gaiety of conversation for the terrorism and gloom which prevailed without. Among them were Pierre Le Roy, Pierre Pithou, Florent Chrestien, Nicolas Rapin, and Jean Passerat, all men between fifty and sixty 1 To understand this dialogue in its true light as the apology of ihe U should be read in the original edition of 1593. The revised edition -I' [594 was, I feel sure, printed by the royalist party. '■54 THE SATIRE M^NIPP^E [CH. wars of age, and for the most part scholars of considerable distinction. Rapin and Passerat we know already as poets 1 . Of Le Roy nothing is known save that he was a canon of Rouen and almoner to the Cardinal of Bourbon, and that De Thou describes him as vir bonus et a factione snmmc a ii en its. Florent Chrestien had been tutor to Henry IV, being at that time a Protestant. He was now a Catholic. A pupil of Henri Estienne, his reputation as a Greek scholar was considerable, his favourite author being Aristophanes, three of whose plays he had translated into Latin verse with a commentary. We have seen that Passerat had made a special study of Plautus and Rabelais, and that Rapin had translated Horace. Thus the studies of these scholars had been no bad preparation for the writing of comedy. Pierre Pithou 2 like Chrestien had been brought up as a Protestant, narrowly escaping death in the massacre of St Bartholomew, but in the following year he became a Catholic. Of all the band he was the man of the most solid learning. He had a fine library which included a large collection of manuscripts. From these he edited various important texts including an editio princeps of Phaedrus 3 , the Edict of Theodoric (also an editio princeps), the Lex Visigothorum, and several mediaeval historical works. His most important original treatise was Les liberies de I ' Eglise gallicanc*. Such were the men who jointly produced the Satire Menippee. But in the form in which it first appeared in the summer of 1593 5 , while the Estates of which it is a burlesque account were still sitting, it was the work of a single individual, Pierre Le Roy. This primitive form is probably 1 For Rapin see ante, p. 58, and for Passerat, ante, p. =14. - B. at Troyes, 1539, d. l i>9^- '■'■ Published at Autun in 1596, the year of Pithou's death. 4 See Vie de Pierre Pithou [by T. Grosley], 2 vols. 1756; also a letter on his death from De Thou to Casaubon (printed in De Thou's Memoirs) and De Thou's eloquent testimony in his history (bk CXVII. c. ix) to the merits of his friend, amico arcta mecum necessitudine coniuncto. 5 The beginning of D'Aubray's speech in the primitive text, // tie failloit ja que nos Prescheurs nous preschassent tant quil nous failloit debourber, is an allusion to Boucher's sermon on May 12, 1593 (VEstoilc, /ouma/ y VI. 71. XXV] THE SATIRE MtfNIPPgE ^35 represented by a manuscript of the Bibliotheque Nationale 1 , which contains besides what may be called the setting a brief sketch of all the speeches. It is possible that part of this may have been printed in 1593, but it was chiefly cir- culated in manuscript under the title of LAbbregi et L'Ame des Estatz*. It was not till the close of April 1594 that the satire was printed at Tours in a greatly enlarged form under the title of La Vertu du Catholicoii dEspagne: avec un Abrege de la tenue des Estats de Paris*. The first edition of this work consisted of only seven or eight hundred copies, and the demand was so great that the printer, who had returned to Paris with his press, had to print off four fresh editions in three weeks. In the sixth edition the title was changed to Satyre Menippee de la Vertu du Catholicon, etc. and this title was afterwards retained 4 . The first few pages of the satire, which form a sort of introduction entitled La vertu du Catholicon, and which represent two charlatans, one a Spaniard (the Cardinal of Plaisance) 5 and the other a Lorrainer (the Cardinal de I VI lew ), selling a wonderful drug called the catholicon, have no artistic connexion with the rest. But the three short pieces which follow, Procession de la Ligue, Les Pieces de tapisserie dont la salle des Estats fut t endue, and De Vordre teuu pour les seances, form an admirable mise en scene for the second part, and help to make the Me'nippee, what it has been justly called, 1 N". 4001 (ponds Bithune). 2 Ed. Read, p. 11 (Deuxieme advis de Vimprimeur). Pat Us meilleures maisons trottoit le Catholicon (D'Aubigne, Hist. Univ. IX. c. i). 3 Je ne I'avois pett achever tjirau temps qu il palli/t flirt- bagage pour '< % en cesle ville apres que les Parisiens /'//rent retournez a lenr bon sens et reduicts en Fobeissance du Roy (ed. Read, p. 6). The latest event to which there is an allusion in the Menippee is the murder of Saint-Paul by the Due de Guise on April 15, 1594. It must have been completed in its enlarged I before the King's abjuration on July 25, 1594, for this is referred to throughout as .1 possible and not as an accomplished event. For a discussion of the relations ol the primitive and the enlarged versions to each other see Appendix F. 4 The title Satyre Menippe'e is borrowed from the Saturat Menir; 1 written partly in prose and partly in verse in imitation "I a work by th philosopher, Menippus of Gadara. Only fragments of Varro's work bavi down to us: that of his model is entirely lost. 5 Felipe de Sega, Bishop of Plasencia in Spain and Papal 1 1 236 THE SATIRE ME'NIPPfi'E [CH. a comedy as well as a pamphlet. But it is the second part, the speeches of the principal actors in the drama of the Estates, which has conferred on it immortality. It must be borne in mind that the object of the writers was twofold — to expose the purely selfish aims of the speakers, and to hold them up to ridicule. Had they contented them- selves with burlesquing the speeches which were actually made or were likely to have been made in the Estates they would have missed their first object. For a speaker in a public assembly who has selfish aims naturally wears a mask. While therefore the speakers in the satire are represented with their individual characteristics of style and manner, they are impelled by an irresistible impulse to speak the truth. Each speaker throws down his mask and shews his true face. Mayenne wants to be king himself, the Archbishop of Lyons looks for a Cardinal's hat, the Cardinal de Pelleve is in the pay of Spain, Rieux seeks in the general disorder an opportunity for plundering his neighbours. This is the idea which gives artistic unity to the satire, and of which Le Roy is apparently entitled to all the credit. The speeches are seven in number. According to Pierre Dupuy 1 , who besides being a man of sound learning was a great collector of curious books, Gillot wrote that of the Cardinal Legate, Florent Chrestien that of the Cardinal de Pelleve, Rapin those of the Archbishop of Lyons and the Rector of the University, and Pierre Pithou that of D' Aubray 2 . For the remaining two speeches, those of Mayenne and the Sieur de Rieux, he gives no author 3 . Yet of the first six speeches Mayenne's, which opens the ball, is the best. In a tone of jovial good-humour, which was probably habitual to him, he is made to expose his motives and intentions with blunt sincerity : 1 B. 158-2, d. 1651. His edition of the Minippfe was published after his death, in 1664. He was a friend of Pierre de l'Estoile, and the two used to lend each other their treasures. 2 Cest mon frere Pierre qui Va fait is written according to Goujet, XV. xxvi. in a copy of the Satire Mhiippee belonging to Francois Pithou. :; Girart in the Rev. hist. xxix. 340 ff. shows that Passerat wrote the Discours de Vimprimeur, and possibly also that of the Sieur de Rieux. XXV] THE SATIRE MENIPPEE 237 Car, encore que j'aye faict semblant, par ma derniere Declaration et par ma Response subsequente, de desirer la conversion du Roy do Navarre, je vous prie croire que je ne desire rien moins ; et aimeroy mieux veoir ma femme, mon nepveu et tous mes cousins et parents morts que veoir ce Biarnois a la messe. Ce n'est pas la ou il me demange. Aussi ne me conseilleriez-vous pas que, pour une messe que le Roy de Navarre pourroit faire chanter (ce qu'a Dieu ne plaise), je me demisse du pouvoir que j'ay, et que, de demy Roy que je suis, je devinsse valet, et pour faire tomber Forage de ceste guerre sur la teste de ces bons Catho- liques Espagnols, nos amis qui nous veulent apprendre a croire en Dieu. Bien est vray que, si ladite conversion advenoit a bon escient, je seroy en grande peine et tiendroy le loup par les oreilles. The Cardinal Legate speaks partly in Italian and partly in Latin, and the other Cardinal partly in dog Latin and partly in French. The latter's speech is a model of inconsequence. while the legate expounds the policy of the Pope in terms as delightfully plain as those used by Mayenne : It is far better for the peace of Italy and the security of the Holy Apostolic See that the French and Spaniards should fight in France or indeed in Flanders for religion or the crown than in Italy for Naples or Milan 1 . Therefore, to tell you the truth, the Holy Father does not t.uc what you do except so far as it concerns him not to be deprived of the annates and commendams and other subsidies which are paid at 1< with your gold and silver. To the Archbishop of Lyons, Pierre dEspinac, is assigned the role of a distinguished orator skilfully working upon the feelings of his hearers and appealing to their several interests : Or, ce qui importe, pour le present, le plus a nos affaires, e'est de bastir une loy fondamentale par laquelle les peuples Francois seront tenuz de se laisser coiffer, embeguiner, enchevestrer, et mener .1 1'appetit de Messieurs les Cathedrants ; voire se laisseront escorcher jusques aux os, et curer leurs bourses jusques au fond, sans dire mot ny s'enquerir pourquoy. Car vous s^avez, Messieurs, que nous avons affaire de nos pensions 2 . His own ambition is to be a Cardinal. 1 [e is followed by GuillaumeRoze, Rector of the University and Bishop ol Senlis, 1 This is in the primitive text. - Improved from the primitive text, more especially the la I which replaces pour continuer les pensions a nos espiom ■ 238 THE SATIRE MENIPP^E [CH. and one of the most violent preachers on the side of the League. His actions and speeches had been latterly so strange that he was believed to be out of his mind, and this is the character assigned to him in the satire. He makes a furious attack on Mayenne, exposing his selfish aims with the licensed frankness of a madman. Then comes the Sieur de Rieux as the representative of the nobles in the Estates. His speech is that of a ruffian and bandit, a character which he does not seem in real life to have deserved, though he had the misfortune to be tried and hanged shortly before the Satire Maiippce was printed 1 . This speech concludes the satirical part of the work, and one cannot speak too highly of the quality of the satire. While the writers leave no doubt as to their meaning they never become wearisome by iteration and are often content to let their readers draw an inference for themselves. Appealing to a fairly popular audience they do not write above their heads, nor do they write down to them. They are neither too subtle nor too obvious. The last speech, that of Monsieur d'Aubray for the Third Estate, which is longer than all the others put together, is of a wholly different character. It is a model of serious eloquence. D'Aubray, we have seen, was at this time the leader of the politique party in Paris, but how far the speech put in his mouth by Pierre Pithou corresponds to the speech actually made by him at the meeting of the Estates it is impossible to say. Nor can we say whether the popular tone and phraseology of the speech in the Menippee represents his real manner of speaking 2 . Par nostre Dame, Messieurs, vous nous favez bailie belle*. It is on this popular note that the speech begins. It is soon raised to one of lofty eloquence : Paris, qui n'es plus Paris, mais une spelonque de bestes farouches, 1 See S. Prioux, Communication sur le Sieur de Rieux, 1864. He was hanged on March 11. 2 Palma Cayet's short summaries of speeches by him on other occasions do not enable us to judge. '■' In the primitive text. XXV] THE SATIRE MENIPPEE 239 une citadelle d'Espagnols, Wallons et Neapolitans, un asyle et seure retraite de voleurs, meurtriers et assassinateurs, ne veux-tu jamais te ressentir de ta dignite, et te souvenir qui tu as este, au prix de ce que tu es ? Ne veux-tu jamais te guarir de ceste frenesie qui, pour un legitime et gratieux Roy, t'a engendre cinquante Roytelets et cinquante tyrans? Te voila aux fers ! Te voila en Flnquisition d'Espagne, plus intolerable mille fois et plus dure a supporter aux esprits nez libres et francs, comme sont les Francois, que les plus cruelles morts dont les Espagnols se scauroient adviser! Then after a while it drops again to the level of a historical retrospect of affairs from " that miserable peace (Cateau- Cambresis), sealed by the death of our good king Henry II." This is skilfully turned into a direct attack on Mayenne, whose policy and action from the day of the Barricades is carefully investigated. His double-dealing, his ambition, and above all his incapacity when opposed to Henry IV, are exposed. The situation of Paris is then compared to that of Jerusalem when besieged by Titus 1 . The same ruin and desolation awaits the people of Paris, unless by a miracle they recover their good sense : Car il est impossible que puissions longuement durer ainsy, estant desja si abattus et alangouris de longue maladie que les souspirs que nous tirons ne sont plus que les sanglots de la mort. Nous sommes serrez, pressez, envahis, bouclez de toutes parts, et ne prenons air que Fair puant d'entre nos murailles, de nos boues et egouts ; car tout autre air de la liberte des champs nous est deffendu. Apprenez done, villes libres, apprenez, par nostre dommage, a vous gouverner d'ores en avant d'autre facon, et ne vouslaissez plus enchevestrer, comme avons faict, par les charmes et enchantements des prescheurs, corrompus de l'argent et de l'esperance que leur donnent les princes, qui n'aspirent qu'a. vous engager et rendresi foibles et si soupks qu'ils puissent jouir de vous, et de vos biens, et de vostre liberte, a leur plaisir ce qu'ils vous font entendre de la religion n'est qu'un masque dont ils amusent les simples, comme les renards amusent les pics de leurs tongues queues, pour les attraper et manger a leur ayse. Then the speaker turns on the Cardinal Legate and exp first the designs of Spain and next those of the Holy See, Ha ! Monsieur le Legat, vous cstes descouvert, le voile est II riy a plus de charmes qui nous empeschent de veoir clatri 1 This comparison is in the primitive text. -4° THE SATIRE MENIPPEE [CH. nostre necessity nous a ostela taye desyeux, comme vostre ambition la met aux vostres. Finally comes the question of the choice of king. Nous deviandons un Roy et chef naturel, 11011 artificiel; mi Roy desja faict, et 11011 a /aire En un mot nous voulons que Monsieur le Lieutenant scache que nous reconnoissons pour nostre vray Roy legitime, naturel, et souverain seigneur, Henry de Bourbon, cy-devant Roy de Navarre. The speech is designedly popular in tone, and does not shrink from familiar phrases. Compared with the other specimens of eloquence noticed in this chapter, such as the Tigre of Hotman and the Anti-Espagnol of Arnaud, or with the speeches of Du Vair, which will be noticed in a later chapter, it is much less closely modelled on classical examples. Pithou has learnt from Demosthenes and Cicero the spirit of true eloquence, but he expresses it in a thoroughly French fashion. In this true reading of the lesson of classical literature, in this penetration of its spirit without a touch of slavish imitation, he is the forerunner of Boileau and Moliere. The historical part of the speech is admirably done, being remarkable for the accuracy with which the facts are stated and the impartiality with which they are judged. The whole summary of events is as able as that of Hurault in his two Discours, and is presented in a more popular fashion. It is perhaps easy to fall into exaggeration in speaking of Pithou's performance. It is by no means all on the same high plane, but if the emotion of the reader may be taken as a test of his eloquence, there are certain passages in it which are worth)- to rank with Demosthenes or Cicero, with Burke or Bossuet. The first known edition of the Menippee concludes with seventeen pieces of verse attributed to Passerat and Rapin 1 of which the following is a specimen : Mon Dieu, qu'ils sont beaux et blonds Vos doublons ! Faictes-en chercher encores, Demy-mores, Parmy vos jaunes sablons. 1 A manuscript note to a copy of the Menippee in the Arsenal library says that Rapin wrote the Latin verses and Passerat the French ones (Read, p. 310). XXV ] THE SATIRE MENIPPEE 24I Ou bien vous en retournez, Bazannez : Paris, qui n'est votre proye, Vous renvoye Avecques cent pieds de nez ! The number of pieces was afterwards increased to forty and in a later edition they were followed by Gilles Durant's A sue ligueur 1 . It was a worthy conclusion to a work compact of humour. If the Satire Menippee is essentially artistic both in conception and execution the same cannot be said of the only remaining pamphlet which it is necessary to notice, the Tableau des differens de la religion of Philippe de Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde 2 , the well-known friend of William the Silent, whose surrender of Antwerp was so severely critu // a mis la religion en rabelaiserie, ce qui est trcs vial fait, is De Thou's apposite description and just censure of the book. In none of the followers of Rabelais whom I have discussed in a previous chapter do we find so close a reproduction of the master's language*, though it is noticeable that the disciple is especially attracted by that part of the Fifth Book of which Rabelais's authorship is most doubtful. But his kinship to Rabelais is purely on the surface. If like Rabelais he treats of grave subjects in a tone of buffoonery, he does not like- Rabelais respect the more solemn mysteries. If he mas- querades in his master's clothes, he has caught nothing of his spirit. We may allow him the merit of clear, forcible and picturesque language, and the curious student may reap from his book a harvest of popular expressions, but the work as a whole is thoroughly bad art. It is in short a first-rate example of a common defect of French Renaissance writers, their inability to grasp the fact that each kind of literature has its appropriate form and tone. Thus while Sainte Aldegonde's book is in conception, arrangement, and extent a grave theo 1 Ante, p. 58. - Horn at Brussels in 1538, died in 1598. 3 See A. Delboulle, M. Jc Sainte Aldegondt . litt., in. (1896) 440 ff. T. II. "' 242 THE SATIRE M^NIPEE [CH. logical treatise, the tone, though sometimes correspondingly grave, perpetually drops into that of a satirical pamphlet. Moreover the satire is too coarse and the polemic too bitter to be really effective. It must be admitted however that it suited the taste of the day, for the book for a time was highly popular. But though it may be true, as Bayle says 1 , that " a great number of persons were more strongly confirmed in their belief by it than by Calvin's masterpiece," it can hardly have converted a single individual. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. Francois Hotman, Epistre envoiee au Tigre de la France, 1560; ed. C. Read, 1875. [Louis Regnier de la Planche,] Du grand et loyal devoir, fidelite et obeissance de Messieurs de Paris envers ie Roy et Couronne de France, 1565; ed. J. Buchon in Choir de Chroniques et Me moires, 1836; ed. E. Mennechet with Histoire de V Estat de France sous Francois II, 11. 211 ff., 1836. Discours merveilleux de la vie et actions et deportemens de Catherine de Mcdicis, 1575 (earliest known edition, 164 pp., Brit. Mus.) ; Seconde edition plus correcte, 1576. [Michel Hurault du Fay,] Libre discours sur I' estat present de la France, 1588; Discours sur V estat de la France (second), Chartres, 1 591. ANTOINE Arnaud, Coppie dc VAnti-Espagnol faict a Paris, 1590 {Bib. Staid., no. 4807) ; La Fleur de Lys, 1593 {Bib. Sund., no. 4730); Quaire Excellent Discours, 1593 (first collected edition of the four last pamphlets). Dialogue d'entre le Maheustre et le Afanant, 1593 {Bib. Xat. ; Cat. Ruble, no. 624; the only two known copies); 1594 (A — T 8 V C ; 158 11. numbered ; this revised version is printed in the 1726 ed. of the Satire Marippee, III. 367 ff.). La vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne: Auec un Abrege' de la tenue des Estats de Paris, 1594; Satyre Menippee de la vertu du Catholicon dEspagne, with notes by Pierre Dupuy, Ratisbon, 1664 (printed at Brussels by Foppens) ; ed. Le Duchat, 3 vols., Ratisbon, 1709 ; ed. P. Marchand, 3 vols. ib. 1726 ; ed. Ch. Read, 1876 ; ed. J. Frank, Oppeln, 1 See Lenient, I. 262 — 266. XXV] THE SATIRE MENIP^E ^43 1884. Le texte primitif de la Satyre Menippe'e, ed. Ch. Read (from a MS. in the Bib. Nat., no. 8933, fonds Bethune), 1878 ; F. Giroux, Le premier texte manuscrit de la Satyre Menippe'e (no. 20153, fonds Saint-Martin\ an inferior text to that printed by Read), Laon [1897]. A pleasant Satyre or Poesie, wherein is discovered the Catholicon of Spayne and the chief leaders of the League, 1595 (a copy in the Brit Mus. with the autograph of Sir \V. Temple). Philippe de Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde, Tableau des differens de la religion, Leyden, 1599 ; 4 vols., Brussels, 1857 (with an introduction by Edgar Quinet, a historical notice by A. Lacroix, and a very full bibliography). TO BE CONSULTED. Ch. Labitte, La democratic chez les predicateurs de la Ligue, 1841. Sainte-Beuve, Portraits litteraircs, III. 376 ff. (part of an article on Labitte), 1846. C. Lenient, La satire en France, 2 vols. E. Armstrong, The Political Theory of the Huguenots, in the English Hist. Review, IV. [3 ff., 1889. A. Tilley, Some pamphlets of the French wars of religion, ib. xiv. 451 ff., 1899. R. Dareste, Essai sur Francois Hot man, 1850. A. Poirson, Histoire du regtie de Henri IV, 444 ff. (for Hurault du Fay). T. Froment, Essai sur I' histoire judiciaire avant le dix-septieme siecle, pp. 147-218, 1874 (for Arnaud). Girard, Passerat et la Satire Menippee in Rev. Hist., xxix. 340 ff., 1885. Zeitsch.fiir franz. Spr., III. 454 ff, iv. 199 ff, v. 81 ff. and 206 ff., 1882-3 ( a controversy between J. Frank and F. Zverina). J. Frank, ib. xx. 1898 (a review of Giroux — see above). A. Poirson, op. cit. iv . 460 ff. (an excellent account). CHAPTER XXVI D'AUBIGNE IF, leaving Rabelais out of account, the Satire Menippee is the chief example of prose satire in the literature of the French Renaissance, verse satire, or at any rate the classical form of it, is best represented by DAubigne and Regnier. It is true that Les Tragiqa.es is an epic rather than a satire in intention, but the natural bent of DAubigne's genius was in the direction of satire, and it is the satirical passages of Les Tragiques which constitute its chief merit. It is also true that this poem, like Regnier's satires, was not published till after the close of the Renaissance period, not indeed till 1616, three years after Regnier's death, when the older school of literature was fast falling into discredit under the growing influence of Malherbe. But Les Tragiques, though not pub- lished till this late season, was circulated in manuscript as early as 1593 1 . Moreover DAubigne in his versatility, his imaginative fervour, and his careless workmanship is a typical representative of the Renaissance. His versatility is amazing; a lyric as well as an epic poet ; a contcur as well as a satirist ; a memoir writer, a pamphleteer, and a historian, he might have found a place in several chapters of this history. But everything he wrote bears the impress of his remarkable personality, and to deal with his writings piecemeal is to miss the man himself. Rather let us take as the starting-point for the consideration of his work the autobiography which he wrote for his children towards the close of his long life. In the preface he forbade its publication, and the injunction was kept for a hundred 1 D'Aubigne, Hist. Univ., ed. Ruble, vm. 327. CH. XXVI] D'AUBIGNE 245 years. But in 1729, after being modernised to suit the taste of the eighteenth century, it was published at Brussels under the title of Histoire Secrete. Then in 1851 M. Lalanne, having found in the library of the Louvre a manuscript of the text which had belonged to M me de Maintenon, D'Aubigne s granddaughter, printed from it the first authentic edition 1 . Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, generally known as Agrippa d'Aubigne, was born near Pons in Saintonge in February, 1552. His father, who belonged to the lesser nobility, and was an active leader of the Huguenot party, solemnly initiated him, when still a boy, into the service of the cause. They were riding together through the town of Amboise soon after the 'Tumult,' in which the father had taken part, when they suddenly came upon the suspended heads of some of the conspirators. Placing his hand on the boy's head the elder D'Aubigne said in solemn accents, " My child, to avenge th< >se honourable men you must not spare your life, as I shall not spare mine ; spare it and you will earn my curse." Agrippa was then eight ; at eleven his father died from the effects of a wound, and his mother having died in giving him birth he was left alone in the world with only a slender fortune. There was enough however to pay for his education, which according to his own account had been going on ever since he was four years old, when he began to learn Greek, Latin and Hebrew concurrently. At six he could read in all those languages as well as in French, and at seven with some assistance from his tutor he had translated the Crito of Plato. At his father's death he was at the University of Orleans, having for his private tutor Matthieu Beroald, the father o\ the author of the Moyen de parvenir-. At the age of thirteen he went to the University of Geneva and studied there for two years. At sixteen he entered on his military career, and in the following year (1569) shared in the Huguenol defeat at Jarnac. Fighting was his element, and when he entered 1 The text in MM. Reaume and Caussade's edition of the Q nplitts is printed from the original text in the Tronchin collection in thi Ateau de Bessinges, near Geneva. The Louvre MS. was burnt during the « ommune. 2 See ante, p. [88. 246 d'aubign£ [ch. the service of the King of Navarre in 1573 it was with the recommendation that he was a man " who found nothing too warm." He spent the next three years at the French Court, throwing himself into its dissipations with characteristic energy and love of emulation. But in 1576 the King of Navarre made his escape from Paris, and during the next seventeen years of his adventurous life he had no more loyal or devoted servant than D'Aubigne. The relations between the two men were sometimes severely strained, partly from Henry's innate levity of heart, partly from D'Aubigne's jealous and sensitive temperament. But whenever there was any dangerous work to do D'Aubigne was there to do it. In 1587 he took part in the Protestant victory of Coutras. In the following year, having captured the fortified town of Maillezais, he remained there as governor, being, as he says, trop las de courir. It was his first rest, he adds, for twenty years. Henry's conversion was a great blow to him, and he ever afterwards looked on him as a renegade to his party. For though not wanting in political insight D'Aubigne was no statesman ; the state in his eyes was of less importance than the party. Thus though from time to time Henry shewed his old adherent some mark of favour, D'Aubigne retired more and more into the background. It was indeed almost impossible to keep up friendly relations with so inveterate ^frondenr. who had so high an estimate of his own merits and services and so bitter a contempt for men more supple and less honest than himself. He lived chiefly at Maillezais, then a place of some importance, not only as one of the Protestant places of surety but as commanding Lower Poitou and covering La Rochelle. He may have reflected with pleasure that Rabelais had been a nominal inmate of the Benedictine Abbey at Maillezais and a close friend of the Bishop's. But he little dreamt that the neighbouring bishop of Lucon, "the dirtiest and most dis- agreeable see in France 1 ," would before long rule France with almost absolute sway. 1 " Jay le plus vilain evesche de France, le plus crotti et le plus desagr cable." Richelieu to M me de Bourges, April, 1609. {Lettres, ed. Avenel, I. 24.) xxvi] d'aubigne 247 The King's death severed his last tie with the Court. During the troubles of the regency he was in close com- munication with the discontented nobles, with Bouillon and Conde and Rohan. But it was not till 1620 that on a summons from Rohan, the recognised chief of the Huguenot party, he reluctantly joined the standard of revolt. On the "Queen's peace" being made in the same year he fled to Geneva, where he spent the last ten years of his life as an honoured citizen, finding employment for his ceaseless energy in constructing a new system of fortifications both for Geneva and Berne. In 1623, being over seventy, he married as his second wife a widow named Renee Burlamachi. Shortly before this event he had heard of his condemnation to death in France — it was for the fourth time — for having used for his own house some stones of a ruined church. In 1626 he published a new edition of his Histoire uni- verselle, the first edition of which had been printed at his own press at Maille, close to Maillezais, appearing in three parts, from 1616 to 1620. At Maille too he had printed his long poem Les Tragiques (1616), and the first three parts of a satirical pamphlet entitled Les aventurcs du baron de Faneste. It was a belated appearance in the field of authorship. For not only was he between sixty and seventy years of age, but the literary school in which he had been brought up and to which he adhered as loyally as he did to his religious party was passing rapidly out of fashion. His last literary labour was the addition in 1630 of a fourth part to Fceinstc. causing thereby great scandal to the grave city of Geneva. The Council suppressed the book and ordered the author to be reprimanded, but within a month he was beyond the reach of earthly censure. He died on May 9, Ascension Day, 1630. at th of seventy-eight 1 . His autobiography, which is the main source for the of his life, and which he began to write in 1623, is of all his 1 The date in the public records of Geneva is April 19 < >.S. 1 1>- widow in .1 letter printed in Bull. Prot. xlii. 32 f. (1893) gives the April 21. But the 21st was a Wednesday, and D'Aubign "ill on April 24. 248 d'aubign£ [ch. writings the most free from defects. It is a well-told record, and, making due allowance for the natural lapses in memory of an old man and for a certain tendency to self-glorification, it is on the whole a trustworthy record of a singularly active and romantic life. It is also the revelation of an interesting and noble character, though that character is somewhat complex, and is chequered with many crossing lights and shadows. If D'Aubigne was self-confident, vain-glorious, obstinate, quarrelsome, rough in speech and manner, he was also chivalrous, loyal, honourable, full of warm and tender feeling. Finally, the Vie a ses enfant & has a merit which is somewhat rare in sixteenth century literature ; it is short and concise. This is partly due to D'Aubigne's compressed style, to which I shall recur, but also to the fact that he had already related in his History a good many incidents of his career which can hardly be said to be of historical importance, and which would more naturally have found a place in his auto- biography. In fact the critics of his day declared that the Histoire Universelle was nothing but his personal memoirs 1 . There is considerable truth in this, and from the historical point of view it is no doubt a grave defect. But the chief literary merit of his book lies in the vivid description of scenes of which he was an eye-witness. If you look for the ordinary qualities of a historian, for accuracy, a sense of proportion, or the critical examination of conflicting reports, you will look in vain, but you may see with D'Aubigne's eyes the stirring scenes of a great drama, and you may breathe the very atmosphere of the Huguenot camp. It was Henry of Navarre who as far back as 1577 invited D'Aubigne to become his historian. " Begin, sire, to act,"' was his reply, "and I will begin to write." But though it was not till thirty-five years afterwards that the work was finally accomplished- he adhered to his intention. Henry IV 1 See D'Aubigne's answer to his critics in the letter from the printer to the reader, Hist. Universelle, ed. Ruble, I. 19. - In a letter undated, but evidently written in 161S, he says it had been finished for six years (CEiivres, 1. 471). xxvi] d'aubign£ 249 is the central figure of the Histoire Universelle, as he is of Sully's memoirs ; the book opens with his birth, giving a summary of events down to the outbreak of the Religious Wars, and though it ends with the century his death is related in an appendix 1 . The plan of the work is a singular one. Each of the three volumes is divided into five books, and each book concludes with a treaty of peace, while the last four chapters but one of each book deal respectively with the countries of the East, the South, the West, and the North. It is needless to point out that this regularity of plan is fatal to historical proportion. Nor can it be said that the author's attempt to embrace the history of other countries adds any real value to his work, or justifies the title of Universal History. A more appropriate title would be The Huguenot Apology for the Religious Wars of France. But though D'Aubigne cannot help writing as a Huguenot, he has a high sense of the historian's duty of impartiality-. His work is in no sense a piece of special pleading ; he lets the facts speak for themselves, and hardly ever criticises or moralises ; he is scrupulously fair to his opponents ; he has an evident liking and respect for the Guises, while of Henry III he speaks in the following terms : Prince d'agreable conversation avec les siens, amateur des lettres, liberal par-dela tous les rois, courageux en jeunesse et lors dc'sird de tous ; en vieillesse aime de peu, qui avoit de grandes parties de roi, souhaite" pour l'estre, avant qu'il le fust, et digne du royaume s'il n'eust point rdgnd : c'est ce qu'en peut dire un bon Francois 3 . His work is professedly a military history, and ho therefore devotes a good deal of space to the account of battles and sieges, some of them indeed petty skirmishes which derive all their importance from his share in them. It is true that he hardly ever refers directly to himself, but the veil under 1 The account of Biron's conspiracy an Sin kjularl < ' 1. 472 ff.). 3 lid. XII. c. xxii (ed. Ruble, VIII. 78). 250 d'aubigne [ch. which he conceals his presence 1 is not too thick to hide his identity. From a literary point of view one could spare the battles better than the skirmishes, for D'Aubigne is far from successful in his descriptions of a pitched battle. This is partly because he is too fond of technical terms, many of which are unintelligible to the modern reader, but also because he has himself no clear vision of the battle as a whole 2 . We may perhaps except from this general condemnation the accounts of Dreux and St Denis, though of the latter battle we have a clearer narrative both from La Noue and Tavannes. Military history though it is, the remarkable passages in D'Aubigne's book are not the accounts of battles but the dramatic scenes and other events which lend themselves to stirring and vivid narrative, such as the scene between Coligny and his wife at the outbreak of the war 3 , the escape of Henry of Navarre from Paris 4 , the death-chamber of Henry III when Navarre was hesitating as to his future action 5 , the siege of Paris 6 , and the famous comparison between Navarre and Mayenne 7 . D'Aubigne is fond of drawing portraits shewing himself in this as in some other matters a close student of Tacitus. Take this of the Constable de Montmo- rency; grand capitaine, bon serviteur, mauvais ami, profitant des inventions, labeurs et pertcs d'autrui, agissant par ruses; mais a lenr defaut, us ant de sa valeur*. No doubt this portrait leaves out a good many features and the term grand capitaine seems unsuited to so unsuccessful a commander as Montmorency, but it is a clever and artistic sketch, and it is probably as true to life as most literary portraits. This love of portraiture is a sign of D'Aubigne's interest in human 1 He generally refers to himself as //;/ icuyer du roi de Navarre, sometime.- as nn capitaine or un maitre de camp. - A it taut vaudrait donner dans tine fori t de piques que de nous Jeter dans ses recits d'Arques 011 de Coutras, si on 11 avail pas d' autre narration plus distinct pour en prendre idCe. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi. X. 329. 3 III. ii. 4 VII. xx. Littre, Litterature et /u'sloire, 1875, pp. 193 ff., thinks that Schiller was indebted to this scene for the idea of his dialogue between Gertrud and Stauffacher in the First Act of Wilhelm Tell, but the resemblance is only slight. 5 xii. xxiii. 8 xiii. vii. " xm. xxiii. B iv. \. xx vi] d'aubigxk 251 nature, and it is mainly the same psychological interest which gives a value to his admirable summaries of the political situation. The remarkable chapter on the decline of the League, which opens with the comparison between the King of Navarre and Mayenne, may be described as a psycho- logical study of the two parties, and it is interesting to find in it a reference to a conversation with Montaigne, the very man whose Essays gave so much stimulus to the study of human nature 1 . Considering D'Aubigne's temperament it is greatly to his credit that there is so little trace in it of party passion. If this is due in part to his lofty conception of the historian's functions, it must also be remembered that when the work- was completed, not only had his master's death two years before revived all his old feelings of loyalty and admiration, but he himself had mellowed and softened. It was otherwise in the interval between the King's con- version and the Edict of Nantes, when D'Aubigne, filled with bitterness at what seemed to him the desertion of his party by King and courtiers, wrote the savage satire of the Confession catJiolique da sieur de Saucy. Nicolas Harlay de Sancy had faithfully followed his royal master's changes in religion. Born a Protestant he had become a Catholic at the massacre of St Bartholomew, had returned to Protestantism, and in the year 1 597 was once more received into the arms of the Catholic Church' 2 . "There is nothing left for him," said Henry I V, forgetful of his own changes, " but to turn Turk 1 ." But S was an able man and had done good service and had been well rewarded for it. In D'Aubigne's eyes therefore he was the typical apostate who barters his religion for place and pelf. The pamphlet purports to be Sancy's explanation of hi-- con- version addressed to Jacques Du Perron, the Bishop of Evreux 1 " Suivant ce que me dit tin jour Michel Montagne, assavoir que 1, a la Coitronne trouvent tons les eschelons jusques an marchepied du thro 1 aisez, mats que le dernier ne se pouvoit franc Jiir pour sa hauteur." - The Confession de Sancy was begun and possibly the main porti written at this time, but it contain- many 1 3 II ne fallait plus que turban. P. de L'Estoile, Journal t VII. 95. 252 d'aubigne" [ch. and future Cardinal, to whose religious instruction he professed that it was due. This framework serves D'Aubigne for a bitter attack on Sancy and other men, such as Sponde and Palma Cayet, who had yielded to Du Perron's persuasive arguments, on Du Perron himself, who is always referred to as M. le Convertisseur, on Protestants like Michel Hurault and Jean de Serres whom he regarded as lukewarm in the cause, on the Roman Church in general, and on the Court of Henry III. The Apologie pour Herodote, which is referred to in one place, has evidently served D'Aubigne as a model, and after the fashion of that work he has introduced a plentiful supply of scandalous and coarse stories. The satire is not without power, but it is far too savage, and the irony, which is its chief weapon, is somewhat clumsy and deficient in humour. But, as in everything D'Aubigne wrote, there are flashes of genius, such as : Cc nest pas changer que de suivre tonsjours mime but. J'ay eu pour but, sans changer, le profit, I'houneur, False et la seurte 1 , and Mais quel aise peuvent sentir les Huguenots cousns en leurs cuirasses, comnie tortucs en leurs coquilles ? Pour leur seurte Us n'out que Dieu pour tout potagc, oil un homme de vion humeur ne sc fie qu'd raisou'-. Les aventures du baron de Fceneste* is written with a much lighter hand. The characters of the two chief interlocutors, though slightly drawn, are sufficiently indicated, and shew considerable humour. Feeneste is a young Gascon swash- buckler and courtier, who, as his name implies, cares only for appearances, while his friend Enay, an elderly gentleman of Poitou with long experience of the Court and war, stands for reality 4 . On this framework is built up what D'Aubigne describes as ' a picture of the age w r ith some true and amusing 1 CEitvres, II. 335. ' *&•> P- 338- Some French writers have a much higher opinion of the work. Poirson, for instance, says: Sous tons les rapports la Confession de Sancy est mi chef ' d 'wtivre parmi les essais de notre literature naissante : Paseal et Saint-Simon Font etudie ponr le surpasser et ne I'onl pas efface enlierement. [Hist, de Henri 77", Iv - 348.) M. Faguet calls it la premiere des Provinciates. 3 (Euvres, II. 375 — 651. 4 Fseneste from the Greek <>1<1 images, picturesque and felicitous words, and a sense <>l" harmony. But he has not the patience to polish or blot ; thoughts, images, and words come tumbling over <>nc another, 1 Ode vii {CEnvres III. 131), and see also Odes xvi {i/>. 15:) and w 168). Ode ix is a variation on Desportes's Rozette, pour un feu - ib. 205. T. II. '7 2 i»8 D'AUBIGNE [CH. Worse than this, when inspiration fails him he does not wait for its return. Thus while we get lines like, Devorant vos beautez de la faim de mon ame 1 , and Void moins de plaisirs, mais void moins de peines : Le rossignol se tait, se taisent les Syrenes ; and from the same poem, L'Hiver du sieur UAubigne, Qui a jamais este si friande de voyage, Que la longueur en soit plus douce que la port - ? on the other hand it is only the very shortest pieces that are equally good throughout, such as the following epitaph on an infant : Cette grand' beaute si exquise, En bref temps esclose et reprise, Ne fut a nous que par depost : Le Ciel la monstra par merveille Comme une perle sans pareille Qu'on descouvre, et serre aussi tost 3 . In about the year 1575 D'Aubigne was introduced by Pierre de Brach to Du Bartas, who shewed him the beginning of his Semaine\ Fired by the spirit of emulation he wrote a long epic in fifteen cantos, entitled La Creation, which is a complete failure 5 . Then in 1577, being confined to his bed by the wounds he had received at the Homeric combat of Castel-Jaloux, he dictated the first part of a new epic, entitled Les Tragiques*. The constant fighting in which he was engaged for the next sixteen years left him little leisure for writing poetry, but the poem seems to have been practically completed before the death of Henry III and to have circulated 1 Sonnet xxiii (CEuvres, in. 26). 2 id. 298. 3 id. 313. Of D'Aubigne's minor poems the only ones printed in his lifetime were Vers funedres sur Jodelle, Ballet de Circe (1582), and those contained in Petitcs (ruvres mesties (1630). 4 I- 459- 5 III. 325 ff- 6 Vie a ses enfants (CEuvres, 1. 33) ; Hist. Univ. lib. VIII. c. 14; Preface to Les T ragiques (CEuvres, IV. 4). XXVI] D'AUBIGNE 2 rg in manuscript soon afterwards 1 . It was not, however, till 1616 that D'Aubigne printed it at his private press at Maille. I have spoken of Les Tragiqucs as an epic, and it may roughly be described as a Huguenot epic, but it is so little of an epic that perhaps it is fairer to describe it in the author's own words as a poem in seven tableaux, of which two are in a lofty tragic style (the fifth and seventh), two are in the style of narrative (the first and sixth), and the remainder are in a medium style, the second and third being more or less satirical in character. But whatever we call the poem, it is badly planned as a whole, without any semblance of unity. Nor can much more be said for the individual tableaux of which it is composed. Miseres is too general. Les Feux is merely a versification of Crespin's book of martyrs. Les Fers is confused ; even the account of the St Bartholomew is poor. Vengeances opens well but degenerates into the worst part of the poem. Jugement begins badly but improves somewhat, though it canm >t be said that the Vision of the Last Judgment which concludes the whole poem is really effective. D'Aubigne can see visions, but only in a confused fashion, as through the smoke of a battle. He is neither a Dante nor a Milton. Thus all tin- supernatural part of his poem fails to make a clear impression on the reader. Moreover his execution surfers from manj the faults of the ordinary pamphleteer of his day, especially from the love of piling up illustrations from classical and biblical history. By far the best book of the poem is the second, entitled Princes, for it is here that D'Aubigne indulges most freely in satire. The whole of the last quarter of the book, which describes the arrival at Court of a young man and his father, is admirable, and has all the realistic force of personal ob- servation. It is here that we find the famous description of the mignons : Ce courtisan grison s'esmerveillant de quoy Quelqu'un mesconnoissoit les mignons de son Roy, 1 The preface {il>. IV. 10) speaks of Henry IV having read plusieurs fois when he was King of Navarre, ami see Hist. Univ. lib. XIII. (ed. Ruble, VIII. 327). / 2 <5o d'aubigne [ch. Raconte leurs grandeurs, comment la France entiere, Escabeau de leurs pieds, leur estoit tributaire. A l'enfant qui disoit : " Sont-ils grands terriens, Que leur nom est sans nom par les historiens?" II respond: "Rien du tout, il sont mignons du Prince." Ont-ils sur l'Espagnol conquis quelque province? Ont-ils par leur conseil releve un mal heur, Delivre leur pais par extreme valeur? Ont-ils sauve - le Roy, command^ quelque armee Et par elle gaigne quelq' heureuse journee ? A tout fut respondu : " Mon jeune homme, je croy Que vous estes bien neuf, ce sont mignons du Roy 1 ." lis en content autant qu'il faut pour se vanter ; Lisants ils ont pille" les pointes pour escrire, lis sgavent en jugeant admirer ou sousrire, Loiier tout froidement, si ce n'est pour du pain, Renier son salut quand il y va du gain, Barbets des favoris, premiers a les connoistre, Singes des estimez, bons eschos de leur maistre : Voila a quel scavoir il te faut limiter, Que ton esprit ne puisse un Juppin irriter 2 . Earlier in the book is the equally famous portrait of Henry III : Avoir raz le menton, garder la face pasle, Le geste effemine, l'ceil d'un Sardanapale : Si bien qu'un jour des Rois ce douteux animal, Sans cervelle, sans front, parut tel en son bal : De cordons emperlez sa chevelure pleine, Sous un bonnet sans bord, faict a l'ltalienne, Faisoit deux arcs voutez ; son menton pincete, Son visage de blanc et de rouge empaste, Son chef tout empoudre, nous monstrerent ridee, En la place d'un Roy, une putain fardee 3 . The next book, La Chambre doree, which is also mainly satirical, has some fine passages, but the allegory in it is overdone. A few other good passages will be found scattered up and down the poem. They are chiefly satirical in character, 1 CEuvres, IV. 114. 2 ib. 118. 3 ib. 101. It is interesting to compare this with the portrait of the Histoire Universelle quoted above {ante, p. 249). xxv i] d'aubign£ ?6i such as the account of how Charles IX on the day of the St Bartholomew giboyait aux passans trop tardif a noyer. The close of Les Fers is a fine piece of rhetoric, there is true pathos in the account of the martyrdom of Philippe de Luns, Mme de Graveron in Les Feux\ and there is exquisite beauty in the following lines from La Chambrc dorie: Les cendres des bruslez sont precieuses graines, Qui apres les hyvers noirs d'orage et de pleurs, Ouvrent au doux printemps d'un million de fleurs Le baume salutaire, et sont nouvelles plantes Au millieu des parvis de Sion fleurissantes. D'Aubigne excels also in single lines and couplets such as : Chasque goutte de sang que le feu fict voller Porta le nom de Dieu et aux coeurs vint parler. Comme un nageur venant du profond de son plonge, Tous sortent de la mort comme Ton sort d'un songe 2 . Une rose d'automne est plus d'une autre exquise. Rompu et corrompu au trictrac des affaires, and the magnificent Et Dieu seul, au desert pauvrement heberge", A basti tout le monde et n'y est pas loge. Of lines such as these D'Aubigne might well say, l'acier de mes vers Burinoit vostre histoire aux yeux de 1'univers. In fact, had D'Aubigne written social satires, in the manner of Juvenal, he might have equalled or surpassed his model, for to the concentrated energy, the lofty declamation, the descriptive power of the Roman poet he would have added a greater sincerity and a more intimate knowledge "| the world. But he never found his true literary vocation ; he tried many kinds of writing but he did not give himself up to any ; he has left some splendid fragments, but no masterpii The best part of his life was given to the service of his party ; his noblest monument is the History in which th.it part} enshrined. 1 (Euvres, IV. p. 147. 2 Cf. La Fontaine's Sortons ce ces rich Comme Ton sortiroit d'un son| {FadUt, x. 10.) 262 d'aubign£ [ch. bibliography. Editions. Les Tragiques, donnez au public par le larcin de Promethee, Au Dezert [MaiUe"] par L.B.D.D. {Le boitc du Desert), 4 to , 1616 (see Le Petit, p. 112) ; Les Tragiques, ci-devant donnez au public par le larcin de Pwnethee, et depuis avouez et enriches par le sieur d'Aubigne, 8 V0 (without place or date, but probably printed at the same press as the preceding and there- fore before D'Aubigne left France for Geneva, which he did in the autumn of 1602 ; there is a copy in the Arsenal Library) 1 ; ed. L. Lalanne {Bib. elze'v.), 1857 ; ed. Ch. Read, 1872. Lalanne's edition is printed from that of 1616; Read's and the text in the (Euvres completes (see below) from the Tronchin MS. But M. Bedier, Etudes critiques, 1903, points out that none of the editors have taken for their basis the best text, namely that of the second edition, which was prepared for the press by D'Aubigne" himself, and which represents his latest improvements. He argues that a future editor of the Tragiques should base his text upon this edition, correcting its mistakes with the help of the MS. This has been done for the first book {Miseres) in a critical edition by H. Bourgin and other pupils of the Ecole normale (1896). There is another MS. in the British Museum, but it is only a careless and unintelligent copy of the Tron- chin MS. Histoire Universelle, 3 vols. fo. MaiUe, 1 616- 1620; Seconde edition, augmentee, &c, Amsterdam [Geneva], fo. 1626 ; ed. A. de Ruble for the Soc. de Phist. de Prance, 9 vols. 1886- 1897. Les A ventures du Baron de Fames te {premiere et seconde par tie), MaiUe - , 1617 ; troisieme parlie, ib. 1619 ; en quatre parties, Au Dezert [Geneva], 1630 ; with notes by Le Duchat, 2 vols. Cologne [Brussels], 1729 ; The Hague and Amsterdam [Paris], 1731 ; ed. Prosper Merimee, 1855. Confession Catholique du Sieur de Sancy in the Recueil de cUverses pieces servant a P histoire de Henry III, Cologne [Brussels], 1660 ; avec les remarques de Le Duchat, 2 vols. Cologne [Amsterdam], 1693 ; ib. 1699. Histoire secrete, in the same volume with the Avenlures de Pcrueste, Cologne [Brussels], 1729, and Amsterdam [Paris], 1731 ; under the title of Memoires, Amsterdam [Paris], 173 1, and ed. L. Lalanne, 1854. 1 I have not seen either of these editions ; M. Muller, one of the conservateurs of the Arsenal Library, informs me that they are printed in different type, that of the 4'° edition being considerably larger. There were copies of both in M. de Ruble's library (Cat. Ruble, Xos. 219, 220). XXVI] D'AUBIGNtf 263 Le Printemps, ed. Ch. Read, from a MS. of the 16th cent., 1874. (Euvres completes, edd. E. Reaume, F. de Caussade and A. Legouez, 6 vols. 1873-1892 (in spite of the title, without the Histoirc Universelle). Vol. v. contains a biographical and literary notice, and an excellent bibliography, including an account of the MSS. in the Tronchin collection at the chateau de Bessinges, near Geneva. Some writers (Ch. Read, H. Bordier and others) attribute to DAubigne Le divorce satyrique on les amours de la reyne Marguerite on the strength of four commonplace lines which occur in it and also in his Printemps. But the lines might easily have come to the knowledge of the writer of the pamphlet, the style of which with its long, cumbrous sentences seems to me decisive against DAubigne's authority. MM. Reaume and Ca print it under protest (II. 653 ff.) ; see the former's Etude, p. 100. TO BE CONSULTED. E. Geruzez, Essais a? histoirc litteraire, 1839. A. Sayous, Etudes litte- raires sur les ecrivains francais de la Reformation, II. 1841; 2nd ed., 1 88 1 (good). L. Feugere, Caracteres et portraits liltcraircs, 11 new ed. 1875. C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, x. 1854 masterly, but deals only with the Histoire universelle). A. Poirson, Histoirc du regne de Henri IV, IV. 290 ff., 333 ff., 382 ff., 3rd ed. 1866. Paul de Saint-Victor, Homines et dieux, 423 ff., 1867. E. and E. Haag, La France Protestante, 2nd ed. 1877. H. Pergameni, La satire au XVI* Steele et les Tragiques, Brussels, 1882. E. Reaume, Etude historic/ lie et littiraire sur A. d Aubigne, 1883. P. Morillot, Discours sur la vie et les ceuvr d'Audigne, 1884. E. Faguet, Scizicme siecle, 1894. H. C. Macdowall, Henry of Guise and other portraits, 1898 (a well-written and study). CHAPTER XXVII THE YEARS OF TRANSITION The entry of Henry IV into his capital on March 22, 1594, followed by his conversion, and by his absolution in the follow- ing year, led to the rapid submission of the rebellious nobles and the final pacification of the kingdom. When the Edict of Nantes (April 15, 1598) had secured for the Protestants as much toleration as it was possible to grant them, and the Peace of Vervins (May 2, 1598) had raised France once more to a footing of equality with Spain, it became possible for Henry and Sully to take in hand one of the most arduous tasks that had ever fallen to a king and his minister — the restoration of order and prosperity to a kingdom impoverished by nearly forty years of civil war and misgovernment. The new social and political conditions of the country naturally reacted upon its literature. As a consequence the eleven years from the publication of the Satire Me'nippee (1594) to the arrival of Malherbe at Paris (1605) may be regarded as a period of transition during which French literature, without consciously breaking from the traditions of the Renaissance, acquires certain well-defined characteristics which herald the approach of a new era. The first characteristic is best expressed in the words of M. Lanson 1 , La litterature, comme la France, se repose. There 1 I had determined to devote a separate chapter to this period of transition before reading M. Lanson's book, but I must acknowledge my debt to his admirable treatment of it, especially on pp. 343-345. Of the writers dealt with by M. Lanson under this period I have already discussed Vauquelin de la Fresnaye and Mont- chrestien, while I prefer to leave Regnier for another chapter. There remains Francois de Sales, whose style has certain sixteenth-century characteristics ; but it CH. XXVII] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION 265 is an end to the lofty ambitions of the early days of the Pleiad ; writers are now content with lesser aims and more tranquil emotions. Order and peace in literature reflect the restoration of order and peace in the state. Bertaut's poetry shines with a mild and equable radiance: even in his young days he seemed to Ronsard to be too sage for a poet 1 . Charron systematises Montaigne, the most unsystematic of philosophers 2 . A second characteristic is a further increase of that seriousness of purpose which I have already noticed. Charron and Du Vair are professed moralists ; the official poems of Bertaut and Du Perron are written in a grave moralising spirit, far removed from the fantastic tone of Ronsard's court eclogues and masquerades, or from the gay frivolity of Desportes's songs. On the other hand both poetry and prose are marked by a colder sensibility and a 1 fertile imagination. These qualities are giving place to reason, to that reason which was to reign paramount in French literature for two centuries. Throughout this period of transition Desportes was still acknowledged as Ronsard's successor on the throne of Parnassus, but he had ceased to write. The working head, the official laureate, pending the appearance on the scene of Francois Malherbe, was Jean Bertaut, the son of a professor at the University of Caen :{ . After serving as tutor in the family of the Marechal de Matignon he was appointed in 1575, chiefly on the recommendation of Desportes. tutor t>> the Comte d'Auvergne (afterwards the Due d'AngoulSme), tin- natural son of Charles IX and Marie Touchet. This brought him to the Court, and soon afterwards he also received the appointment of reader to the king and secretary t<> his would be difficult to treat him satisfactorily without going into tin- whole question of the religious revival. Moreover his Introduction <) la not published till the year 1608. I shall therefore omit him altogethei Iron survey. 1 Regnier, Sat. v. 2 " Qua/id Charron ecrit, une autre esprits tend a tout mettre en ordre, Henri // une discipline.'' (i. Guizot, Montaigne, |>- 175- 3 b. at Donnay, 1552— d. 1611. Hi- father went to livi al Caen, when he was in his second year (Grente, p. 2). 266 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. chamber. In 1576 he was joined by his friend and fellow- Norman, Jacques Davy du Perron 1 . The two Normans became in their different ways as complete courtiers as Desportes himself, though the energetic and pushing Du Perron soon outstripped his more cautious and retiring companion. When Ronsard died in 1585 Du Perron delivered a funeral oration and Bertaut wrote a long panegyrical poem. During the next ten years every notable death at the French court was the occasion for a poem from the friendly rivals. Joyeuse, Catharine de' Medici, and Henry III all received in turn their tribute of song, the last being mourned with the sincerity of placemen who have lost their benefactor. Both rallied to Henry IV and both, according to the measure of their talents, helped to smooth the path for his conversion. They were duly rewarded for these services, Du Perron with the bishopric of Evreux, and Bertaut with the Abbey of Aunay in the diocese of Bayeux 2 . But while Du Perron was henceforth too much occupied with public affairs to have leisure for poetry 3 , Bertaut, who was not yet in orders, continued to follow his original calling. His poem on the death of Gabrielle d'Estrees was one of his most famous productions, and it is indeed impossible to admire too highly the skill with which the poet has found means to conciliate every conflicting interest and emotion. Par nos feux qui brusloient d'vne flame si pure, Et par ta propre foy, ie te prie et coniure De ne plus engager la saincte liberte Que ma mort t'a rendue, a nulle autre beaute, Ou'a celle que les dieux t'ont desja destinee Pour attacher ton coeur des chaisnes d'Hymenee. Accorde moy ce bien pour comble de mes voeux Que ie sois la derniere, apres tant d'autres nosuds, Qui t'aye estreint des laqs dont la beaute" nous presse Au volontaire joug d'vne simple maistresse 4 . 1 b. at Saint-L6, 1556 — d. r6i8. 2 Da Perron was appointed in 1593, and Bertaut in 1594. 3 He however translated after this date a portion of the ALneid and wrote a few sacred poems. 4 QLuvres, p. 177. XXVII] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION 26/ The King's marriage with Marie de' Medici naturally demanded another official poem, and on this occasion Bertaut had a new rival in his fellow-townsman Malherbe 1 . In 1601 he published a collected edition of his graver poems, and this was followed a year later by a volume of love-poetrv written in his youth and published without his name. The pervading tone of this latter volume is a gentle melancholy, which finds expression in the following stanzas, the best- known of all Bertaut's work : Felicite passee Qui ne peut revenir: Tourment de ma pensee, Que n'ay-je en te perdant perdu le souvenir! Helas ! il ne me reste De mes contentements Ou'un souvenir funeste, Qui me les conuertit a toute heure en tourments-. If these lines remind one of Dante, the following recall a well-known passage in Shakespeare : On ne se souvient que du mal, L'ingratitude regne au monde : L'injure se grave en metal, Et le bien-fait s'escrit en l'onde. The rest of the poem, however 3 , and indeed the greater part of Bertaut's work, does not shew the same power of natural and concise expression. If his conceits are less fantastic than Desportes's, they are even more laboured and artificial. If he is a more careful writer than his contemporary, J A good commentary on Bertaut's two poems is furnished by the following extracts from the letters of Henry IV :— April 15, 1599. to his sister, La mon amour est tnorte, elle ne rejettera plus. — Oct, 5, 1599, to the Marquise de Verneuil, Mon caur, jevous aime si fort queje ne puis pltu vivrt abi Nov. 27, 1599, to Marie de' Medici, Tenez vous saine et gaillarde, vous aime extr'emement. Sitr cette veriti, je vou /• ,, nt m 1 . r6oi, to the Marquise de Verneuil, Aimez-moi ckirement, et croyet ma /. pour vous, que je baise un million defois. 2 (Euvres, p. 357. Cary, op. fit. p. \- T tion. 4 b. 1549, d. 1623. 5 See Feret, 2nd ed., pp. 150 ff. and, on the opposite side, M. Pa Casaubon, 2nd ed. 1S92, pp. 1376"., [875 ; also P. de I'Estoile, > u 1 — 227 ; 364 — 376. The conference look place on May 4, i'ioo. 272 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. contra tyrannos which, as we have seen, is almost certainly to be regarded as his work, one of his treatises, De la verite de la religion chrestiennc, deserves at least a passing mention 1 . Begun, though not completed, before the publication of the first edition of Montaigne's Essais, it is, like the work of Raymond Sebond, an attempt to establish the truth of Christianity on the basis of reason. An examination of its arguments belongs to the history of Christian Apologetic, but two general features may be noticed here. First, the learning, which ranges over a wide extent of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin literature, is remarkable in an author who was only thirty-two when his work was published and who for the last five years had been actively employed in the service of the King of Navarre. But we are told that from the age of fourteen to that of eighteen he worked fourteen hours a day, and his learning, though multifarious, was doubtless uncritical. Secondly, the style is essentially that of the Protestant school. Built on a solid framework of dialectic, it is clear, concise, and somewhat austere. Like D'Aubigne, Mornay seems to have been a student of Tacitus, for in the interesting letter to Louise de Coligny, to which I called attention in a former chapter, he advises that her son should learn from Tacitus to compress (serrer) his words and sentences 2 . But the writer of 1 Contre les Athees, Epicuriens, Payens, /uifs, Mahumedistcs, et autres Infideles: par Philippes de Mornay, Sieur du Plessis Marly. Antwerp, 1581; 2nd ed. id. 1582 and two other editions of the same year; 1583 ; 1585. Mornay's friend, Sir Philip Sidney, began an English translation, which was completed by Arthur Golding and published in 1587, and a Latin translation by the author himself appeared in the same year. There are some good remarks on the work in Sayous II. 192 ff. (2nd ed. 1881). 2 Ante, p. 164, n. 5. Mornay's letters, state-papers, and other short writings are collected in Memoires de P. de Mornay, I. and II., La Forest (his own chateau) 1624-5, in. and IV., Amsterdam, 1651-2, and in Memoires el cor- respondance, 12 vols., edd. Vaudore and Auguis, 1824-5 (full of mistakes and incomplete). The Histoire de la vie de P. de Mornay, Leyden, 1647, was written by David de Licques, a gentleman of his household. It was based, down to 1606, on M me de Mornay's manuscript. Licques himself died in 1616 and the work was completed by another hand (Haag, La France Pro- testante). There is a modern French life by Joachim Ambert, a cavalry officer, 1847, and an English one by the Rev. R. B. Hone, 1834. Some of XXVII] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION 2 ;$ state-papers for the King of Navarre must also have had an excellent practical training in the art of writing clearly and in the fewest possible terms. But neither by the style nor by the substance of his writings, and still less bv the'date of their publication, can Mornay be said to be a representative of the period of transition. He comes in here rather as a link- between Du Perron and Charron, whose first work was in part a somewhat belated answer to Mornay 's Traiti de VEglise published in 1578. It appeared in 1593, when the writer 1 was over fifty, under the title of Les trois vcrith. Only the third Truth or Book is an answer to Du Plessis-Mornay, but it is considerably the longest, forming two-thirds of the whole treatise. It appeared at an opportune moment and may well have had its share in persuading the subjects of Henry IV to follow his example in abjuring Protestantism. For Charron puts the case for Roman Catholicism clearly and effectively, dwelling on its advantages in point of antiquity, continuity, and unit}-, and on the superiority of the Church to the Scriptures as a final court of appeal. The first and second Truths treat respectivelv of religion and Christianity, but only in an abridged and summary fashion, and it is difficult to imagine anything less convincing;. Religion, according to Charron, is a safe, comfortable, and useful thing, a line of argument which might commend itself to canons and other church dignitaries, but which was hardly calculated to bring conviction to honest doubters-'. The whole treatise is a close reflexion of its author, of his love of system and order, his oratorical training, his clear but shallow intellect, his impressionable and impulsive tempi ment, his lack of humour and imagination, his blundering rashness. Blue-eyed, red-faced, with white hair and beard, short and stout, one can easily picture the man. The son "t Mornay's letters are given in Crepet's Le trisor tpistolairt dc la France ; l>< well and forcibly, but he has neither the natural gift for expression which mal good letter writer nor the acquired art which serves a- its substitute. 1 Pierre Charron, b. 1 541 — d. 1603. - For a fuller and more appreciative account of Les Skeptics of the French Renaissance, pp. = 7 i — 5 7 .= - T TT 2/4 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. a Paris bookseller, one of twenty-five brothers and sisters, he had first adopted the law as a profession. But changing his mind he took orders, and acquired an enormous reputation as a preacher. About the year 1 585 he made the acquaintance of Montaigne, and before long became an enthusiastic admirer of both the man and the Essays. At the close of 1588 he was suddenly seized with a desire to become a monk, but being refused admittance first by the Carthusians and then by the Celestines he fell back on the society of Montaigne and the delights of authorship. The only one of his books which retained its popularity for any length of time was La Sagesse. It was written at Cahors, where he held the post of theological lecturer to the chapter, during the years 1597 and 1598, and was published in the summer of 1601 by Simon Millanges, the well-known Bordeaux printer. Charron had by this time moved to Condom, that obscure Gascon see which is associated with the name of Bossuet. He had for some time held the post of precentor, and the chapter now conferred on him the theological lectureship with a canonry attached. He bought a house, rebuilt it and furnished it handsomely, intending to live phis joyeusement et gaillardement. The sceptical character of La Sagesse aroused a good deal of opposition. Thereupon Charron, wishing to procure the formal approbation of the Sorbonne for his book, made certain corrections and additions, and wrote a new preface explaining his position. In the autumn of 1603 he went to Paris, where, on the 1 6th of November, he was seized with an apoplectic fit in the street, and died on the spot. He died, as Montaigne is said to have done, in an attitude of prayer. The revised edition of La Sagesse appeared in the following year (1604) with the permission of the Privy Council 1 . Though certain objectionable passages were removed or modified the general character of the book remained the same. In his preface to the original edition Charron makes a statement which it is well to bear in mind at the outset. " I here add two or three words of good faith, one that I have 1 The third edition (1607) returned to the original text, as also did the four Elzevir editions, and a Paris edition of 1663. XXVI I] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION -75 gone begging in all directions {que jay queste par cy par Id) and have taken the greater part of the materials for this work from the best authors who have treated this subject of morals and politics, which is the true science of man, as well ancient, especially the great doctors Seneca and Plutarch, as modern. I have collected here part of my studies : the form and the order are my own. ...What I have borrowed from others I have put in their own words, not being able to express it better." These words are literally true. Charron has taken his political philosophy from Bodin and Lipsius, his psychology and his moral philosophy from Seneca and Du Vair, and above all his scepticism from Montaigne ; and in the case of the French writers he often copies them almost word for word 1 . It must be remembered that the posthumous edition of the Essays had been published only two years before he began to write his book, and that doubtless, as a close friend of Montaigne, he had re-read the Essays in their amplified form with renewed admiration. This would account in a man of his impulsive and uncritical temperament for the deep impression which Montaigne's views appear to have now made on him compared with the comparatively few traces of their influence that we find in Les trois Verites. The object of La Sagesse is to teach man to se bien connaitre, bien vivre et bien mourir, which according to Montaigne is the aim of all education and instruction-'. The First book 3 accordingly begins with what is meant to be a complete physiological and psychological account of man, of which the most important part, the psychology, is mainly borrowed, often word for word, from Du Vair's La philosophic morale des Stoiques*. This is followed by a more general consideration of man, firstly in comparison with other animals, secondly in his life, and thirdly in his morals, the whole ol this 1 See A. Delboulle, Charron plagiaire de Montaigne in Rev. (Thist. litt. VII. (1900), pp. 184 ff. - Essais, I. xxv. 3 Le premier livre enseigne a se cognoistre et Vhumain fondement de Sagesse. 4 cc. 18—33 : CC. 15 and 16 are from Du Vair's Trait, 2 -6 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. part being a rechauffe of Montaigne's tirades on the vanity of human nature in a highly dogmatic and exaggerated form 1 . Man emerges from Charron's hands lower than the beasts ; vain, inconstant, incapable of attaining either to virtue or to truth, steeped in misery, and, worst of all, with a presumptuous belief in himself as the centre of the universe. Never was the vanity of human nature proclaimed in such tones of arrogant and uncompromising assertion as by this professor of scepti- cism. The rest of the First book is occupied with an account of man as a social and political being, for which Charron is largely indebted to Bodin. It will thus be seen that the words of the preface, quoted above, are in strict accordance with the facts. The only original feature of the first book is " the form and the order," and for this Charron is entitled to some credit. If M. Bonnefon's remark that " he has an instinct for psychology " is too favourable, since his psychology is mostly borrowed, it may be said with perfect truth that he has an instinct for classification. He revels in divisions and subdivisions and tabulated statements-, which is all the more remarkable in an ardent admirer of Montaigne, and in one who grew up to manhood in an age when method and order were the last things with which writers concerned themselves. The Second book of La Sagesse is at once the shortest and the most interesting. Having shewn what man is, Charron now proceeds to guide him on the path to Wisdom. He must first free himself from all vices and passions, from all popular errors and prejudices, and thus acquire complete liberty both of judgment and will. He will then be ready, like a clean sheet of paper, to receive the impressions of Wisdom. Now the principal and essential part of Wisdom is prucThomie or probity, and true flnid'/tomie consists in following nature, which is the first and fundamental law of God. " Men are naturally good." But Charron has already told us at great length that men are naturally bad, and that they are incapable of virtue or knowledge. How does he reconcile this glaring 1 cc. 34—40. 2 Des divisions de Cliarron qui attristent et ennuient. Pascal. Pen XXVII] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION contradiction ? As we have seen, the same contradiction is practically to be found in Montaigne, who writes with equal eloquence on the vanity of man and on the excellence of nature and reason. But Montaigne never dreamt of giving to the world a complete system of philosophy and did not in the least mind being inconsistent. He wrote as his fancy prompted him, now as a sceptic, now as an admirer of Stoic morality. But when his " vagabond : ' thoughts are arranged and classified, when they are repeated with the exaggeration of a rhetorician and the dogmatism of a preacher, then the inconsistencies assume a different aspect. Had Charron contented himself with constructing on lines a system of positive morality independent of revealed religion he might have deserved all the praise which some writers bestow on him. But before proceeding to build he carefully undermined his foundations, and the result is an edifice, of fair proportions indeed, but tottering to its fall. The Third book treats of the four cardinal virtues, and a good deal of it is mere repetition of what has gone befi ire. One of the chapters deals with education but is little more than an orderly arrangement of Montaigne's fruitful but somewhat disconnected ideas. It is characteristic of the distorted and exaggerated form that Charron gives to his master's utterances that he says, that learning and wisdom are as a rule incompatible, and that with very few exceptions a learned man is never wise and a wise man never learned 1 . Charron's style is clear, logical, and fairly expressive. Hut it is emphatically the style of a trained rhetorician, verbose and diffuse, somewhat monotonous, and with little or no charm. It has been not unnaturally asked whether this dignitary of the Church and successful preacher, who published in the same year as De la Sagessc a volume of sermons entitled Discoitrs chrestiens, was a traitor within the Christian camp or a blunderer who did not comprehend the drift of hi- own 1 III. c. xiv. § 14. Another characteristic of the differ """< and his master is the inscription which he put Condom— Je ne scay, instead of Que scay-jc? 278 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. book. I believe the latter to be the true explanation. In spite of the reckless and all-embracing scepticism of De la Sagesse, there are passages in it which shew that Charron was at heart an orthodox Christian 1 . Though in writing his book he was partly prompted by a foolish ambition to pose as an esprit fort, he had also another motive, which in itself was most praiseworthy. This was to provide a system of moral conduct for those persons who either disbelieved in revealed religion altogether, or regarded it as having no concern with conduct and morality. For the divorce between religion and morality was, as Charron saw, the crying evil of the day, the very root of the rottenness and moral decay which were eating out the heart of France. Probity without religion, and religion without probity, are, he declared, alike insufficient. But his proposed remedy is characteristic of his want of real insight. Instead of pointing out that the Christian religion is concerned with conduct, and that the true Christian must necessarily be an honest man and a good citizen, he maintains that piety and probity, religion and prudlwmie belong to wholly different spheres, and that, though these must be united, they must not be confused 2 . First acquire probity and then add to this the grace of piety. First become a honest man and then become a Christian. Moreover this attempt to construct a moral code on Stoic lines independently of revealed religion and of the rewards and punishments of a future life was, however praiseworthy, not original, for it had been already made by Du Vair. It was the sceptical side of Charron's book which gave it popularity, and made it as great a favourite as the Essays with the sceptics of the next generation, with La Mothe le Vayer and Gassendi, with Saint-Evremond and Ninon de Lenclos. But the era of orthodoxy which began with the personal government of Louis XIV was fatal to Charron's reputation, and no edition of De la Sagesse was published between 1663 and 1769 2 . In England his fame was of longer 1 As for instance liv. n. c. iii. §§ 21, 22, where he treats of repentance in a much more Christian spirit than Montaigne. - II. c. v. §§ 25—28. XXVII] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION 279 duration, and he found favour alike with orthodox and sceptic. A future Dean of Canterbury, George Stanhope, translated De la Sagesse 1 ; Bolingbroke often refers to him ; while Pope, doubtless on the authority of Bolingbroke, couples in his verse Montaigne with " more sage Charron." It was however left to Buckle in the nineteenth century to proclaim in sober prose that " on the most important subjects Charron was a bolder and deeper thinker than Montaigne-.'" Guillaume du Vair 3 , to whom Charron was indebted for some of his borrowed plumes, is, at any rate from the historical point of view, the most important writer of this period of transition. On the one hand he touches Pasquier, La Noue, and the Satire Menippee, on the other Malherbe, St Francois de Sales, Balzac, and Descartes. On Malherbe indeed, with whom he was intimate when the)- were both living at Aix in Provence, he exercised, as M. Brunot has shewn, an appreciable influence. He was born in 1556. aiul having adopted, first an ecclesiastical, and then a legal career, was appointed in 1584 a councillor of the Paris Parliament. On the death of Henry III he was compelled to stay in Paris by the paralytic condition of his father. Siding at first with the moderate or national section of the Leaguers he before long joined the party of the Politiques. As one of the deputies for Paris at the Estates of 1593 he protested against the proposal of the Spanish Leaguers to violate the Salic law by conferring the crown on the Spanish Infanta, ami a few days later the Parliament of Paris passed, <>n his initiative, a resolution in favour of maintaining that law. It was on this occasion that he delivered his most famous speech. His principal writings all belong to this dark period of 1 3 vols. 1697. Stanhope was a Fellow of Kir , Cambridg like Charron a successful preacher. There is an older translation by - Lennard, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, who was with In... at the battle of Zutphen. - History of Civilisation in England, l. 475 '•'■ M ■ Stopfer d before the conversion of Henry IV (July 1593), and was published, without name, by Abel L'Angelier, before March 1.= , 1594 (Pasquier, 10). The earliest known edition is of 1595' 282 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. speeches, that of Demosthenes On the Crown, that of ^Eschines Against Ctesipfion, and that of Cicero On behalf of Milo. Among the forensic speakers of Du Vair's own day the highest place was generally assigned to Guy du Faur de Pibrac 1 . But Du Vair says that his eloquence was marred by the common fault of making a display of erudition by long quotations from ancient authors. We learn from Estienne Pasquier in an interesting chapter of the RecJier- cJics de la France' 1 that the originator of this practice was Christophe de Thou. There was no greater offender than his successor as First President, the great Achille de Harlay, and another offender, according to Du Vair, was Barnabe Brisson, the unfortunate President who was hung by the Sixteen. The reputation of the above-mentioned speakers was chiefly gained on the Bench. Among those who adorned the Bar Du Vair mentions Pierre Versoris, who was celebrated for his speech on behalf of the Jesuits in their famous lawsuit with the University (1565 ) :! , Jacques Faye, seigneur d'Espesse, Claude Mangot, and his son Jacques 4 . But he says nothing either of Versoris's more famous opponent, Estienne Pasquier 5 , or of Pasquier's friend, Antoine Loisel 6 , who wrote an account of the contemporary Bar under the title of Pasquier on Dialogue des Advocats du Parlemcnt de Paris'. Nor does he mention Simon Marion, whose reputation stood perhaps highest of all. Cardinal du Perron declared that he believed him to be the greatest advocate since Cicero 8 . Another 1 See ante, pp. 43 — 45. '-' IV. c. 27 and cf. Lettrcs, VII. 12. :1 His real name was Le Tourneur. 4 Cf. Pasquier, Recherches, loc. at. 5 See A. Demarche, L 1 University de Paris et les Jesuites, 1888, pp. 77—88. Pasquier's speech is printed in his Recherches, book III. c. 44 ; and that of Versoris, though apparently only in a summary form, in the Amsterdam edition of Pasquier's (Euvres, I. 1102 ff. 8 b. 1536— d. 161 7. 7 1652; ed. Dupin aine in Loisel's Opuscules, 1844. 8 Depuis Ciceron je crois qiCil ny a pas eu cfavocat tel qtte lui, cited by Sainte-Beuve, Port-Royal, 6th ed. I. 61. XXVII] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION advocate of high repute as a speaker was Marion's son- in-law, Antoine Arnaud, who made his reputation after the publication of Du Vair's treatise as counsel for the University of Paris in their second action against the Jesuits. His speech, which someone wittily called the original sin of the Arnaud family, is, like his pamphlet, the Anti-Espagnol\ a passionate invective 2 . It contains several passages of bad taste, but this is a fault which Arnaud shares with nearly every writer of his age, and with the greatest speakers of all ages, with Demosthenes, Cicero, and Burke. Of the two other branches of his subject, political and pulpit oratory, Du Vair practically says nothing. The latter, when he wrote his treatise, had sunk very low in the hands of the League preachers, who had made it a school of vulgar abuse and buffoonery. The only preacher at this time who had a reputation for serious eloquence was Pierre Charron, but none of his sermons have come down to us. After the final defeat of the League, pulpit oratory, which for nearly two centuries had been almost entirely neglected by the Catholic Church in France, began to be carefully cultivated. It was one of the signs of the approaching Catholic revival, and Du Perron, whose controversial powers we have seen exercised so actively on behalf of his Church, was also conspicuous as a preacher. Only two specimens of his actual sermons have survived 3 , but the funeral panegyric on Ronsard already mentioned and a Spiritual discourse delivered before tin- King 4 may be classed under the same head. Though Du Perron's rhetorical merit is considerable his lack <>f genuine moral fervour prevents him from being really eloquent 3 . But this was the dawn of the greatest school of pulpit < oratory that France, or even modern Europe, has ever seen. I m the 1 See ante, p. 232. 2 Plaidoye de M. Antoine Arnanld, 1594. See Douan he, op. 'it. \. 1 47 : 1 >> : >. nV. I. 64 ff. 3 CEuvres, 1633, 681 ff., and 694 II. 4 ib. 651 ff. and 553 ff. 5 Bertaut was also of >oine repute 284 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. other hand political oratory in France was declining to a long night. In this branch of the art the two most distinguished names of the century were Michel de l'Hospital and Du Vair himself. The best speech of L'Hospital, so far as one can judge from somewhat imperfect reports, was his opening address as Chancellor at the Estates of St Germain in August, 1561, which contains the celebrated utterance that a man may be a citizen without being a Christian 1 . That with which he opened the Estates at Orleans in December, 1560, is longer and more ambitious, but on the whole inferior 2 . His faults are much the same as those of the forensic speakers of his day, display of classical learning, and a tendency to wander off into vague generalities instead of sticking to the argument. Du Vair is certainly a more effective speaker. If the speech which he delivered after the barricades of 1588 has the same fault of vagueness, and suffers also from over-elaboration, especially in the use of metaphor, his later speeches shew a marked improvement. The short one in which he protested against the admission of a Spanish garrison into Paris is excellent, and so is the longer and more famous one in defence of the Salic law. Du Vair has something of the breadth of tone, the largeness of utterance, and the fervent glow of his model Demosthenes, qualities which spring in both cases from a lofty and whole-hearted patriotism 3 . Henry IV recognised Du Vair's services by appointing him a Master of Requests and sending him, in the spring of 1 596, on a mission to England, while later in the same year he entrusted him with the difficult task of pacifying Provence. Having done this successfully Du Vair was appointed in 1598 First President of the Parliament of Aix, where he resided till 1616, when Marie de' Medici, the Queen-mother, recalled him to Paris as Keeper of the Seals. He only held them on this occasion for five months, but after the murder of Concini in 1617 he was re-appointed by Louis XIII, who also 1 (Euvres, ed. Dufey, 1. 441 — 453. 2 ib - 375—407- 3 Du Vair's speeches were first published by L'Angelier in 1606 under the title of Actions et traictez Oratoires. XXVII] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION 285 conferred on him the bishopric of Lisieux. He died in 1 62 1. Eloquence is at once Du Yair's chief merit as a writer and his stumbling-block. His finest passages are all eloquent in character ; on the other hand he too often degenerates into declamation and commonplace. From the historical point of view his style is worth attention, for though he is neither a highly original thinker nor a writer of genius, he has something to say and can say it well, and he may therefore be taken as a good representative of this transitional period. While his language retains the vigour and picturesque- ness of the sixteenth century, he writes clearly and lucidly, avoiding as a rule the long sentences which lead his pre- decessors astray. But compare him with Jean Guez de Balzac and one sees at once how far he falls short of the finished art of seventeenth-century prose. Of those qualitie- for which Balzac was especially admired, the careful choice of his words and phrases and the equilibrium and harmony <>f his periods, qualities which he was the first to introduce systematically into French prose, and which have ever since been its chief glory, there is hardly a trace in Du Yair. In the following passage we see him at his best : Mais pource que les loix sans jugemens sont inutiles, et comme paroles mortes, il faut en tirer profit, clone toutes nos iournees par une censure et examen de nos actions, les espluchans tous les soils, pour voir ce qui en est conforme aux reigles que je vous ay proposce-^ Si nous trouvons que tout aille comme il doit, et que tout y soil conforme a ces sainctes loix la, nous recevrons une secrette rejouyssance ame, que nous cueillirons comme le doux fruict de nostre innocenci I C sera la, a mon advis, un cantique nocturne le plus melodieux, et le plus agreable que nous puissions chanter a Dieu.... Mais pource qui- la nature des choses crees porte par son infirmite - que le bien don: les doue en leur naissance se define et consomme de soy mesme jour nellement, sinon qu'il soit continuellement reparc et soustenu pat 1«- flux ordinaire de sa bonte', et que nos forces ne sefont pas suffisanti mesmes a nous conserver en cette perfection, adjoustons a ce premiei cantique un Epode et sacre enchantement, pour invoquer la divine faveur...luy disant : O Dieu tout bon, tout sage, et tout puissant ' 1 Printed from a Paris edition, 1 :"■".. 1618. 2 86 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. Two contemporaries of Du Vair who like him served Henry IV with diligence and distinction deserve honourable mention as having furthered the developement of French prose in the direction of lucidity and precision. " Cardinal d'Ossat 1 and President Jeannin 2 ," wrote Lord Chesterfield to his son, " will not only inform your mind but form your style." But their writings consist solely of dispatches and state-papers, and, however much they may deserve the praise of having introduced into the language of diplomacy a grammatical correctness and logical precision hitherto unknown to it, they cannot be said — and it is no blame to them — to have imparted to their reports any special charm or individuality. Cardinal d'Ossat who played an important part in the negotiations with the Holy See consequent on the conversion of Henry IV was for some ten years the representative of France at the Vatican. His letters addressed to Villeroy, the Secretary of State, were published in 1624. The Negotiations of President Jeannin written in the two years, 1607- 1609, during which he was employed in negotiating the truce — it was a peace in all but name — between the Netherlands and Spain, were not published till 1656, the year which saw the appearance of the first great monument of modern French prose, Les lettres provinciates. Even as writers of dispatches D'Ossat and Jeannin are hardly the equal of Du Vair, whose letters to Henry IV 3 are characterised by a straightforward brevity, not always present in his more ambitious efforts. Of all the works which saw the light during this period of the reign of Henry IV none is more thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the monarch himself than the Theatre d'Agricult?tre et Mesnage des Champs of Olivier de Serres 4 . The statement in Scaliger's Table-talk that Henry had the book read to him for half an hour after dinner every day for three or four months may or may not be true, but he certainly gave it a hearty welcome ; for it treated of an industry upon 1 b. 1536— d. 1604. - b. 1540 — d. 1622. ; M. Sapey prints thirty-one of these, together with eight addressed to other persons, including an admirable one to Villeroy on the subject of the Satire Menippk. * b. 1539— d. i6ro. XXVIl] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION which the regeneration of his kingdom largely depended and which the restoration of peace and order had made possible to take in hand with hope and energy. The writer was an elder brother of the historian, Jean de Serres, and like him a Protestant. During the greater part of the civil wars he had resided on his estate, which was a considerable one, at Le Pradel in the Vivarais 1 , spending his time in its cultivation and in the study of books. He thus realised the project which Montaigne announced with such pomp, but which he carried out with only partial success. Like Montaigne he was a student of ancient literature, especially of Latin writers on agriculture and kindred subjects, Virgil, Pliny, Cato, Columella, and Palladius. Plutarch's Lives were also familiar to him, and he is fond of citing instances of Roman statesmen who, after the turmoil of war or politics, retired to the cultivation of their estates. His book, to which he had given thirty years, was first published in 1600, and there were other editions in 1603, 1605, 1608 and 1623 2 . Its scope is much wider than that of an ordinary treatise on agriculture ; it is in fact a complete manual of the management of a landed estate. It might fitly have been called The country gentleman, a pendant to Castiglione's Courtier. It not only embraces agriculture in its widest sense, including horticulture in all its forms, water- supply, and forestry, but it considers such questions as the management of servants and the duties of the mistress of the house. For an estate in those days was a self-contained kingdom and its ruler had to know something of everything. Thus one chapter contains recipes for every imaginable kind of preserve, while others are devoted to remedies, not only for all human diseases from the plague to corns, but for those of every animal on the estate. Thus if De Serres's book i-> chiefly of a technical character, it embraces at any rate a considerable variety of topics, some of which are of fairly general interest. For the student of social life it ofl most instructive picture of rural France at that period, while 1 It is near Villeneuve de Berg. 2 The chapter on silkworms (book v. c. xx) was publi I 2 88 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. underlying the whole there is a substratum of human emotion, which occasionally finds its way to the surface, especially in the first and last books. The orderly arrangement of the topics reminds one of De la Sagesse, and each book is preceded by a classification of the chapters worthy of Charron himself. The style is unaffected and exceedingly lucid, but without any of the aridity which one associates with the writers of Calvin's school. De Serres, in fact, though a Protestant, belongs rather to the school of Rabelais ; his syntax is somewhat archaic, his language rich and coloured by poetical feeling. The following passage will give a good idea, not only of his style, but of the nature of his book, and of the character of the man who, in the words of Arthur Young, was ' the great parent of French agriculture ' : A corriger la solitude de la campaigne est de grande efncace la lecture des bons livres, vous tenant tous-jours compagnie. Scipion l'Africain en rend tesmoignage, disant a ses amis (qui s'esbahissoient de sa vie privee et retiree) liestre jamais moi?is sail, que quand il estoit sail. Si que le Gentil-homme aimant les livres, ne pourra estre que bien a son aise, avec un livre au poing se promenant par ses jardins, ses prairies, ses bois, tenant l'ceil sur ses gens et affaires. En mauvais temps de froidureset de pluies, estans dans la maison, se promenera sous la guide de ses livres, par la terre, par la mer, par les Royaumes et provinces plus loingtaines, aiant les cartes devant ses yeux, lui monstrant a l'ceil leurs situations. Dans l'histoire, contemplera les choses passees, les guerres, les batailles, la vie et les mceurs des Rois et Princes, pour imiter les bons et fuir les mauvais. Remarquera les gouvernemens des peuples, leurs loix, leurs polices, leurs coustumes, tant pour entendre comme le monde segouverne, que pour faire profit des salutaires avis qu'il en pourra tirer, les appropriant a ses usages. Des bons livres, il apprendra a sagement conduire sa famille, a se comporter avec ses voisins : sur tout a craindre et servir Dieu, a bien vivre, a fuir le vice, suivre la vertu, qui est le chemin du ciel. nostre seure demeure. Moiennant ces belles et nobles qualites, nostre vertueux pere de famille se maintiendra gaiement en son mesnage, y vivra accomodement, fera bonne chere a ses amis. Et despartant a propos ses heures, pourvoira a ses affaires, si bien que mariant le profit avec le plaisir, chose aucune n'en demeurera en arriere, ains, comme en se jouant, toutes s'avanceront a son contentement et honneur, Dieu benissant son labeur et industrie 1 . 1 CEuvres, 1605, pp. 9S9 f. XXVII] THE YEARS OF TRANSITION 289 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. Jean Bertaut, Recueil des ceuvres poetiques, 1601. Recueil de quelques vers amoureux, 1602 (Picot, 1, no. 820). Les ceuvres poetiques, 1620 ; ed. A. Cheneviere, 1891 {Bibl. elze'v. ; with an introduction and good bibliography). Jacques Davy du Perron, CEuvres diverses. 1622. PIERRE Charron, Les trois veritez, Bordeaux, 1593 ('published with- out his name) ; seconde edition, reueiie, corrigee, et de beaucoup augment t'e, Bordeaux, 1595. De la Sagesse, livres trois, ib. 1601 ; seconde edition reueiie et augmentee, Paris, 1604; derniere edition, ib. 1607 ; ed. Amaury- Duval, 3 vols. 1820-24. There is an English translation of Z>< by Samson Lennard [1612], and another by George Stanhope (Dean of Canterbury), 3 vols. 1697. GUILLAUME DU Vair. The first editions of Du Yair's separate treatises have all disappeared, but it may be inferred that La saincte philosophie was published before 1589, Le Manuel d'Epiclcte soon wards, La philosophic 7norale des Stoiques a few years later, Le Traicte" de la Constance et consolation es calamitez publiques in 1594 (first known edition 1595), and I^e Traicte de V Eloquence francoise in 1594 is earlier (first known edition 1595). In 1606 L'Angelier published at Paris under the general title of Recueil des harangues et traictez de S* du Voir the following five volumes ; viz. 1 Actions et traictez Oratoires, 2 Arrestspro- noncez en robbe rouge, 3 De P Eloquence francoise, 4 Traictez Philosophies, 5 Traictez de piete et sainctes meditations (I have copies of 1 and 2). These were re-issued in 1607 (copies of 2 to 5 in the Brit. Mus.). are several later and more complete editions, viz. Rouen, t6l2, [622; Cologne, 161 7 ; Paris, 1619, 8vo. 1621, fo. 1625 (Brit. Mus.), and I". 1641. The two latter are the most complete, but the la; that of 1641 is somewhat rejuvenated. See Rene Radouant in A' V. d'hist. lilt., 1899, pp. 72 ff., 253 ff., 408 ff. ; 1900, pp. 603 ff. There is an English translation o{ La philosophic morale des Stoiques by Thos. James, first Bodley's Librarian, 1598, and another by Chas. Cotton, [I Pierre J EAwmN, Negotiations, 1656 ; Coll. Petitot, 2"" , senr. \i xvi. Arnaud d'Ossat (Cardinal), Lettres,fo. 1624; ed. Amelot de la Hou 2 vols. 4*° 1697-8. Olivier de Serres, Le Theatre aV Agriculture et M Champs, 1600; 2 vols. 4'° 1804-5 (with an doge by Franco Neufchateau at whose instigation it was publish) There are good portraits of Du Perron, Du Vair, Jeannin, and D I in Ch. Perrault's Les homines illustres, 2 vols. [796, 1800. T. II. 19 2Q0 THE YEARS OF TRANSITION [CH. XXVII TO BE CONSULTED. A. Poirson, Histoire du regne de Henri IV, IV. F. Robiou, Essai sur Vhistoire de la litterature et des mceurs pendant la premiere moitie du xvii? siecle, 1858. T. Demogeot, Tableau de la litterature francaise au xvii e siecle avant Corneille et Descartes, 1859. G- Lanson, Histoire de la litterature francaise, 5th ed., pp. 333—346, 1898. G. Allais, Malherbe et la poe'sie francaise a la fin du xvi" siecle (1585— 1600), 1891 (deals at length with Bertaut and Du Perron). E. Faguet, Rev. des cours et conf, 1894 (Bertaut).. Georges Grente (L'abbe - ), fean Bertaut, 1903. F. Vianey, in Rev. d'hist. litt., XI. 156 ff., 1904 (a review of the preceding work). P. Feret (L'abbe), Le Cardinal Du Perron, 1877 ; 2nd ed. 1879. A. Desjardins, Les moral istes francais du seiziime siecle, 1870 (Du Vair and Charron). La Rochemaillet, Eloge de Charron, prefaced to the 1607 ed. of La Sagesse and most subsequent editions. Bayle, Diction- naire historique et critique. Sainte-Beuve, Catiseries du Lundi, XL 1854-5. A. Vinet, Moralistes des seizieme et dix-scpticme siecles, 1859. John Owen, Skeptics of the French Renaissance. 1893. P. Stapfer, La famille et les amis de Montaigne, 1896. P. Bonnefon, Montaigne et ses amis, II. 1897. Niceron, xill. (DuVair). E. Cougny, Guillaume du Vair, 1857. C. A. Sapey, Etudes biographiques pour servir a Vhistoire de Vancienne magistrature francaise (G. du Vair), 1858 (developed from an essay on Du Vair published in 1847). F. Brunot, La doctrine de Malherbe, 1 89 1, pp. 59-72. T. Froment, Essai sur Vhistoire de Veloquence judiciair'e en France avant le dixseptihne siecle, 1874. C. Aubertin, L eloquence politique et parlcmentaire en France avant 1789, pp. 135 — 153, 1882. A. Chabrier, Les orateurs politiques de la France, 1S88 (gives extracts from speeches). P. Jacquinet, Les Predicateurs du xvii e siecle avant Bossuet, 1863. A. Lezat (l'Abb<£), De la predication sous Henri IV, 1871. C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, x. (Le President Jeannin), 1854. A. Degert (L'abbe), Le Cardinal d'Ossat, 1894. E. Melchior de Vogue, Histoire et poe'sie (Card. d'Ossat), 1898. H. Vaschalde, Olivier de Serres, sa vie et ses travaux, 1886. H. Baudrillart in Rev. des deux mondes for Oct. 15, 1900. CHAPTER XXVIII REGNIER There remains MathurinRegnier, who, though he published nothing until after the close of the limits assigned to this history, belongs, like D'Aubigne, emphatically to the six- teenth century. M. Vianey, indeed, speaks of him as " the most important of our poets of transition " ; but in all those characteristics which depend on training and influence rather than on individual temperament Regnier belongs not so much to the transitional period as to the Renaissance itself 1 . It was not merely because he happened to be Desportes's nephew that he opposed the reforms of Malherbe, it was because his poetical education, his many visits to Italy, his natural dislike of all change, En toute opinion je fuy la nouveauu', made him a thorough-going disciple of the Pleiad. Like his masters, he pillages the Italians, like them he is indifferenl to the virtues of order and artistic construction, like them he is without the faculty of self-criticism, like them he writes in a language which is habitually metaphorical and picturesque, and like them he is firmly convinced that poetry is an affair not of the reason but of the imagination. It is true that In- is a popular instead of a courtly poet, and that he has for realistic description shared by no other follower ol tin- Pleiad, except possibly Remy Pelican; bul the e A\r tin- fruits of his individual genius, and they have no connexion 1 While differing from M. Vianey on this point, I must acknow debt to his book. 292 REGNIER [CH. with the prosaic and positive view of life upon which Malherbe prided himself 1 . Little is known of Regnier's life, and that little is not greatly to his credit. Born at Chartres in 1573 he was younger by seventeen years than the youngest of the writers noticed in the last chapter. His father, Jacques Regnier, was an alderman of his native town-', and his mother, Simone Desportes, was a sister of the poet. At the age of nine he received the tonsure, and when he was quite young — the date is uncertain 3 — he was attached to the suite of the Cardinal de Joyeuse, who had succeeded the Cardinal of Ferrara as Protector of France at the Court of Rome, and whose restless activity and strict life were far from acceptable to his indolent and pleasure-loving follower. Regnier accompanied him to Rome and led a more or less wandering life in his service, of which a considerable period was spent in Italy. He also passed some time at Toulouse, of which see Joyeuse was archbishop. But in the year 1605 he returned from his last journey to Italy 4 and definitely settled in Paris, where with many other men of letters he enjoyed the patronage and hospitality of his uncle, Desportes. He looked forward to succeeding him in one of his four fat abbeys, but in this he was disappointed, for on his death in 1606 they were given, with one exception, to the King's son by Henriette d'Entragues, then in his sixth year. The poet's sole recom- pense for his tonsure and his long servitude was a pension of 2000 livres and a canonry at Chartres, which was conferred on him in 1609. He died at Rouen in October, 161 3, two months before his fortieth birthday. 1 Petit de Julleville's view of the relations of Regnier and Malherbe seems to me far juster than that of M. Vianey. Comp. Petit de J. IV. p. 32 with Vianey, pp. 169 ff. Between the realism of a grammarian and the realism of an observer of life there is all the difference in the world. 2 The fact that he built a tennis-court {tripot) in his garden led to the story that he was a tripotier or keeper of a public tennis-court. A good deal of scandal soon accumulated round the poet's name. 3 See the note at the end of this chapter. 4 Joyeuse returned from Rome in May, 1605, and Regnier doubtless accompanied him. It is a mistake to suppose that he was ever secretary to Sully's brother, M. de Bethune, to whom Satire vi is dedicated. XXVIII] REGNIER 2 g 3 It is by his Satires that Regnier lives. His other poetry is small in amount and comparatively unimportant. Vet the first half of the Stanzas, beginning Quand sur moy je jettt Us yeux\ though visibly inspired by Desportes, an Ode, Jamais ne pourray-je bannir, and a Plaintc-, with its original and elaborate arrangement of metre, suggest that had he fallen on days more favourable to lyric poetry, he might have written lyrics distinguished by strength and sincerity of emotion, and by a note of plaintive melancholy. But it is Regnier the satirist, the creator of French satire, who demands our attention. In French mediaeval literature there is plenty of satirical writing, but no formal satire, nothing which calls itself by that name. In Marot's hands, as we have seen, it took the curious unliterary, almost doggerel, form of the du coqal'asne, which Sibilet regarded as pure French satire, and which 1 hi Bellay treated with not unmerited contempt. If poets must be satirical, says Du Bellay, let them take the Satires of Horace for their model. Yet he himself, as so often happened to him, did not practise what he preached. His first models in satire were the Italians. Now Italian satire of the time of the Renaissance took two forms, one of which, being of purely classical origin, arrogated to itself the name of Satire, while the other was generally called Burlesque. Both alike were written in terza riina,b\xt for Burlesque the sonnet form, either with or without a coda, was also employed. The creator of the Satire proper is said to have been Vincigucrra, but by far its greatest exponent was Ariosto 3 . After him, at a con- siderable distance, come Alamanni, Bentivoglio, Nelli, and Francesco Sansovino. The last, a son of the great Venetian architect, published in 1560 the collected satires of all these writers, as well as of some others, which proved ol greal 1 CEnvres, ed. Courbet, p. 2ii, first printed in the Elzevir edition ol Cf. Desportes, CEuvres, p. 493. 2 (Euvres, p. 173 and p. 167, both first printed in 1611 in a volume entitled Temple ePApollon, and first assigned to Regnier in the Elzevir edition ol 3 Vinciguerra's satires were first published in 15:7, Alamanni'l in Ariosto's in 1534. Alamanni's satires are chiefly political and shew the influi of Dante and Juvenal. 294 REGNIER [CH. service to French imitators. Ariosto's model was Horace, but Horace as represented by a single satire, the sixth of the First book, the only one which is at once an epistle in form and autobiographical in character 1 . In fact Ariosto's satires, as well in spirit as in form, are familiar epistles rather than true satires. In the first place they lack the dramatic form which Horace, mindful of the origin of Roman satire, has given to the whole of his Second book, except the opening of the Sixth satire, and has largely introduced even in his First book 2 . Secondly Ariosto's satirical intention, which, like Horace's in his Second book, never exceeds the measure of good-natured irony, is always subservient to his charming faculty of self-revelation. As De Sanctis says, his aim is neither ridicule nor censure, but the relief of his own mind. On the other hand Burlesque gives us that side of Horace's work which is represented by the Dinner of Xasidienus (II. 8) and the Journey to Brundisium (I. 5). Not that Burlesque is classical in its origin, for it is derived partly from the popular sonnets of the Florentine barber, Burchiello, and partly from Lorenzo de' Medici's Simposio or Beoui, a parody of the Divina Commedia, written in terza timet and divided into capitoli. It is from this latter fact that the name of capitolo was specially given to a burlesque poem. The past master of this kind of poetry was Berni, and Bernesque was used as an equivalent to Burlesqued Next to him ranks Mauro, and there were many others, chiefly men who had 1 Mr Mackail's remark in his Latin Literature that "the Satires are full from end to end of himself and his own affairs " is an exaggeration. 2 In the mss. of Horace the satires and epistles are alike entitled scrmones, but he uses the word satura in two places. Sermo merely denotes a familiar style, more akin to prose than to poetry. The oldest meaning of satura, so far as the evidence goes, is that of a medley of metres, or of prose and verse. But Nettleship conjectured that its original meaning, before it was applied to a literary composition, was "a dramatic performance or story which was a medley of scenes or incidents" (H. Nettleship, The original form of Roman satura, 1878). The earliest literary form which satura took is probably best represented by the work of Petronius. '■' II Lasca published in 1548 a collected edition of opere burlesche of Berni and others. Both forms of Italian satire are included in vol. XXVII. of Parnaso Italiano, Venice, 1787. XXVIII] REGNIER 2 g$ distinguished themselves in other branches of literature, such as the novelists Firenzuola and II Lasca, Annibale Caro, the translator of the JEneid, and Delia Casa, the letter-writer. As we have seen, it was Ariosto and Berni who inspired Joachim du Bellay with the idea of his Regrets, Ariosto suggesting the autobiographical character and Berni the use of the sonnet-form. Then in 1559, the year after the publica- tion of the Regrets, he produced in Le poete courtisan a poem which may fairly claim to be the first French satire. But in its elaborate irony, its studied art of saying one thing and meaning another, it still reminds one, not of Horace, but of a capitolo 1 . We have seen that Ronsard's Discours des mi seres de ce temps contain some satirical passages, and a certain amount of autobiography. This latter characteristic is made the special feature of another discours, Contrc fortune, and of two poems addressed to Pierre Lescot and to Catharine de' Medici 2 . But they are epistles and not satires, and so Ronsard regarded them. In a poem which he addressed to Henry III soon after his accession to the throne, he announces his intention of writing satires after the manner of Horace, and the poem itself would have served admirably as an intro- ductory satire 3 . M. Vianey, however, is doubtless right in pointing out that it was Ronsard's example which definitely determined the form of French satire, that of a familiar epistle written in the alexandrine metre. Shortly before Ronsard wrote the poem addressed to 1 M. Chamard, p. 429, points out that the immediate source >>f the inspiration is a Latin letter by Turnebe, a translation of which, evidently by I »u Bell published with his Le poete courtisan under the title of h son profit des letlres. He further points out that a sort of imitation of Du I satire appeared in the same year under the title of Le Medecin Court: an. It i^ printed in the Kecueil de poesies francoiscs, X. ff. 2 (Euvres, vi. 156 ff., 18S ff . ; in. 369. The two formei poem published in r.160; the third was written in 1560 or [561. 3 sans vostre faveur, --ire, Je n'ose envenimer ma langue ;i la Batyre. je seray satyrique, Disoy-je a vostre frere, a Charles mon seigneur. 296 REGNIER [CH. Henry III Jean de la Taille published in the same volume with his play the Gabeonites (1573) a poem entitled Le courtisan retire, which has a long satirical passage on the court, and which is noteworthy as being in form not an epistle but a narrative with a slight element of dialogue 1 . The satire however is of no great force, and the best part of the poem is the elegiac passage in which the old courtier paints the charms of country life. La Taille also wrote some satirical sonnets 2 . There was also, as we have seen, a satirical vein in Passerat, Rapin, and Durant, which bore fruit in the verses of the Satire Menippee, but none of them wrote regular satires 3 . The first French satires, definitely so-called, were those of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye published in 1605 in his volume of Diverses poesies. They are thirty-four in number, divided into five books, but of this respectable total M. Vianey has shewn that twenty-one are direct translations of Horace and the Italian satirists, while the rest are mosaics put together from the same sources. Vauquelin evidently used Sansovino's collection, even borrowing his preface. In this preface it is worth noting that the distinction in form between the satire and the epistle to which Horace has rigidly adhered in all his satires except two 4 is completely missed 5 , a mistake which is natural enough in Sansovino, whose model was Ariosto. Thus when Regnier began to write satires there was little or nothing in his native language to serve as a direct model. His earliest satire, the Second, shews him at the outset wavering between Juvenal and Horace. Mais c'est trop sermone de vice, et de vertu : II faut suiure un sentier qui soit moins rebatu, Et conduit d'Apollon recognoistie la trace Du libre Juvenal, trop discret est Horace 1 Ed. R. de Maulde, m. xxii. ff. 2 Sonnets Satyriques dit camp de Poitoii, 1568, ib. III. ff. 3 There is a historical sketch of French satire prefixed to Viollet le Due's edition of Regnier, but it does not give much information. 4 The first and sixth satires of the First book. 5 // riy a pas grande difference entre les Epistres et les Sat y res a" Horace, fors que volontiers il escrit les Epistres a gens absents et d personnes elonguces. Les diverses poesies, ed. Travers, p. 131. XXVIII] REGNIER 297 Pour un homme pique, joint que la passion Comme sans jugement, est sans discretion : Cependant il vaut mieux sucrer nostre moutarde : L'homme pour un caprice est sot qui se hazarde 1 . But in fact this is the only one of Regnier's satires which shews any traces of that tone of personal irritation and disappointment which is so marked in Juvenal. Regnier soon came round to the more genial and tolerant mood of Horace. A few lines further on we come upon a translation of Ariosto : Et que, la grace a Dieu Phoebus et son troupeau, Nous n'eusmes sur le dos jamais vn bon manteau 2 , and the autobiographical character points to the same influence. Lastly the eloquent appeal to Ronsard, et vous autres esprits Oue pour estre viuans en mes vers ie n'escris, (referring especially to Desportes) marks Regnier as a loyal follower of the Pleiad, while the famous line Meditant vn sonnet, medite vne Evesche is surely a reminiscence of Du Bellay's Poete courtisan and his Car vn petit sonnet qui n'a rien que le son, ecc. Generally this first attempt of Regnier's shews a prentice hand. It is ill-composed and disconnected, and its chief merit lies in the concentrated energy of some of the lines, as for instance the following description of vice : Le vice qui pompeux tout merite repousse, Et va comme vn banquier en carrosse et en housse. The Third satire, which probably comes next in date of composition, is much better' 5 . It still shews the same in- 1 Ed. Courbet, p. 14. This satire was written ten years (ib. p. 16) after Regnier entered the service of Joyeuse, and therefore according to my view in 1601. 2 Apollo tua merce, tua merce, saute > Collegio delle Muse, io non possedo Tanto per voi, ch' io possa farmi un manto. Sat. II. 3 M. Vianey assigns it conjecturally to the autumn of 1598; I slum]. I put it in the late summer of 1603. 298 REGNIER [CH. fluences ; it is modelled to some extent on the first part of Juvenal's Third satire, it has a passage of eight lines translated from Ariosto 1 , and it has in the manner of Ariosto a version of a well-known fable. We now come to two satires, the Fourth and the Sixth, both apparently written between 1603 and 1605 2 , in which a new influence appears, that of Italian Burlesque. In the Fourth, a palpable reminiscence of Ronsard's epistle to Pierre Lescot is followed by an arrangement of various passages from a capitolo of Dolce. The Sixth is little more than a translation of two capitoli of Mauro, In disJwnore delf honor, which had already been translated in part by Amadis Jamyn 3 . Neither satire however has much merit. Regnier, as we have seen, probably returned to France from his last journey to Italy in May, 1605, and for the rest of his life lived chiefly if not entirely at Paris. The Fifth satire which is addressed to the poet Bertaut, apparently before he was made Bishop of Seez (1606), has been acutely and convincingly assigned by M. Vianey to the latter half of 1605 4 . Except the Thirteenth, which is quite different in character, it is the finest of all the satires, the one in which Regnier is most successful in catching the true spirit and tone of Horace, that is to say in making himself the text for a commentary on human nature. For this indeed he had a model nearer home, and much of the satire is in fact strongly reminiscent of Montaigne. Thus the first forty-six lines which are summed up in the single line : Et le bien et le mal despend du goust des homines recall the Apology for Raimond Sebond, while the striking 1 Compare the passage beginning Que me serf de irfasseoir le premier a la table (ed. Courbet, p. 27) with Ariosto, II. Che giova a me sedere, &rc. 2 The reference to the publisher Mamert Patisson shews, says M. Vianey, that the Fourth cannot be much later than 1604. He goes on to identify Dame Fredegonde with Marguerite de Valois and to date the satire by her return to Paris in August, 1605, but this seems very doubtful. The Sixth, addressed to M. Bethune, Sully's brother, was written at Rome, and therefore either between August, 1603, and May, 1604, or between November, 1604, and May, 1605. 3 Vianey, pp. 119— 123; Jamyn, CEuvres poitiques, ed. Ch. Brunet, ii. 203 ff. 4 Vianey, p. 19. XXVIII] REGNIER 299 passage on the different ages of man shews a close study of the great Essay on Repentance. But though Regnier owes much in this satire to Horace and Montaigne, it is no paradox to say that in no satire is he more himself. For his debt is to his own spiritual ancestors. Montaigne has been called the French Horace, and Regnier the Montaigne of French poetry 1 . The three men are of one spiritual kin. The Seventh satire has nothing in it to determine its date, but from its general character I should assign it to the same period as the Fifth. It is the most personal of all, being an apology for the author's readiness to fall in love. The Eighth and Ninth satires must both have been written before Desportes's death in October, 1606, and probably both belong to that year. The Ninth contains the celebrated answer to Malherbe's attack on the Pleiad 2 , and the Eighth is an imitation of Horace's Ibatn forte via sacra': These eight satires together with the First, a dedicatory epistle to the King, and the Twelfth, an apology for satire suggested by the Fourth satire of Horace's First book, were published in 1608. The second edition, which appeared in 1609, contained two new satires, the Tenth and its continuation the Eleventh. They are very different in character to any of the preceding ones. In the first place they are much longer, in the second they are not epistles but narratives of personal adventure, like the Journey to Brundisium and the Supper of Xasidienus. But the immediate model is not Horace, but Berni, in whose capitolo addressed to Fracastoro will be found the outline as well as many episodes of the story. Besides this part of the long and famous description of the pedant is taken almost word for word from a capitolo of Cesare Caporali 4 , who had revived the art of Bernesque satire in the second half of the sixteenth century, and who, since he lived till the year 1601, 1 By Sainte-Beuve, who belongs to the same spiritual family. - Malherbe arrived in Paris in August, [605. 3 It contains a reference to the approaching completion of the Pont-Neuj (Vianey, p. 28). 4 Rime piacevoli, 2 vols. Florence, 1820, II. 171 ff. See Vianey, pp. 124 (L 300 REGNIER [CH. may have been personally known to Regnier. Thus for the first time we find in Regnier's work a specimen of that elaborately descriptive vein which is one of the marked features of Berni's satires. If in some parts, especially where he is influenced by Caporali's heavier touch, he keeps up the character of comic exaggeration which is inherent in Bernesque, he shews elsewhere a realistic fidelity, which Balzac might have envied. The third edition of the Satires, published in 1612 and the last which appeared in Regnier's lifetime contained only one new satire, the most famous of all, Macette. Though like the two which preceded it, it is a narrative in form and not an epistle, it is in other respects a complete contrast to them. Instead of a story of adventure it is a simple portrait with only just enough action to give it life. In the place of elaborate descriptions of material things we have a pure study of character, in which nothing external is noticed except gestures and movement. The sources of this celebrated portrait have been ex- amined with great care, but with some tendency to multiply them unnecessarily. Keeping to what seems fairly certain, the idea was doubtless suggested to Regnier by a poetical Discours which appeared in 1609 in a collection entitled Nouveau Recueil des plus beaux vers de ce temps, and which was written by a friend of Regnier's named Charles de Lespine 1 . The poem in question is based entirely on an elegy in Ovid's Amoves, which fifty years before had inspired Du Bellay, Jean Doublet, and possibly Ronsard. Regnier evidently knew Doublet's elegy as is shewn by a comparison between the close of the two poems. But in the hands of Ovid and his imitators the prototype of Macette is merely an ordinary lena ; in Regnier's she is also a religious hypocrite. Whence did he derive this idea ? On this point there is a considerable divergence of opinion between M. Vianey and some pupils of M. Brunot who with his 1 It has been reprinted with an introduction by E. Courbet as La Macette du sieur de Lespine, 1875. M. Vianey has identified Lespine with a secretary of Cardinal du l'erron who was at Rome in 160^. XXVIII] REGNIER 301 assistance have published an excellent commentary on Regnier's satire 1 . While M. Vianey finds the chief source of inspiration in Aretino, they point to the Roman de la Rose, of which the traces are undoubted, to the famous Celestina with its numerous French translations, and to characters like Francoise in Odet de Turnebe's Les Contents. I have already said that the influence of the Celestina on this comedy in particular and on French comedy in general seems to me doubtful 2 , and I doubt still more whether it influenced Regnier. Celestina is not a hypocrite. Her character, it must be admitted, has defects, but hypocrisy is not one of them. Her religion is that of a true Spaniard, none the less genuine, because inconsistent with her calling. It is an inherent part of her character and not merely a mask. On the other hand her Italian sisters having taken to religion in their declining years as a sign of respectability may fairly be called hypocrites. I agree therefore with M. Vianey that it was from Italian rather than from Spanish or French comedy that Regnier took the idea of Macette, and possibly his special model may have been the Alvigia of Aretino' s play Cortigiana*. But whatever her ancestry Macette is of her time and country. She does not practice sorcery like Ovid's Dipsas and most of her prototypes in Italian comedy, nor has religious hypocrisy become with her, as with Alvigia, a second nature. Her religion is purely a mask which she soon lays aside to appear in her true character. Her advice is thoroughly worldly in tone, and she does not like Tartuffe suggest that 'evil actions may be rectified by pure intentions.' It has been said that religious hypocrisy did not exist in Regnier's day. Possibly not, but at any rate a religious revival, the result of the Counter-reformation, was in full activity at Paris. In 1604 the Jesuits had been recalled. In 1602 St Francois 1 Macette publiee et commentee par F. Brunot et P. Bloume, L. Fourniols, G. Peyre et A. Weil, 1900. 2 See ante, p. 112. 3 Venice, 1552. In the 3rd Giomata of the second part of the Ragionamenti La Comare says Hippocrasie e consciejitie sono apellammti de le nostre cattivita, but the resemblance between her and Macette is not at all close. \02 REGNIER [CH. de Sales had spent some months there and had doubtless made an impression on the Parisian ladies by his skill as a director of conscience, an impression which was deepened bv the publication in 1609 of his Introduction to the devout life. But the devotional works which were the most widely read in France at this time were the writings of St Teresa ; so that in reading her Meditations Macette was only following the fashion. Now this outburst of religious fervour is spoken of in the Journal of Pierre de l'Estoile, an honest man and a sincere Christian, as a sign of bigotry and hypocrisy. What then must it have seemed to Regnier, who ' shunned all novelty ' and was a libertine to boot? In making his Macette a representative of religious hypocrisy, he probably intended to increase the pungency of his satire. If he confused true religion with hypocrisy he is not the only man of pleasure nor the only satirist who has done so. Macette then is in some respects an imaginary portrait, but she is none the less magnificently alive. That she seemed so to the creator of Tartuffe we may feel assured. There are many signs that he had given careful study to her, but I will only notice one here. Just as Macette's appearance on the scene is heralded by a description of her character, so throughout the first two acts of Moliere's play Tartuffe dominates the interest without actually appearing on the stage. Macette was the last satire which Regnier lived to see published, but he left behind him three others — or four if you count the Seventeenth — of which two at least, the Fourteenth and the Sixteenth, were probably written before Macette 1 . These, with some other pieces, were published after his death, before the close of the year 161 3. They are mainly ethical in character, and apart from the excellence of the versification of no great merit as a whole. But the opening lines of the Fourteenth, which is addressed to Sully, are admirable, and so is the first half of the Fifteenth. A satirist is presumably a moralist, but this can hardly be said of Regnier. His ethical standard is that of Montaigne 1 XIV. must have been written before Sully's retirement in January, 161 1 ; and xvi. before Fourquevaux's death in March of that year (Vianey, p. 3a). XXVIII] REGNIER 303 in his easiest mood and he borrows from him a few of his most comfortable doctrines. But if he is no moralist, he is a marvellous observer and painter of life and manners. The Paris of his day — its streets, its buildings, and above all, its inhabitants — lives again in his verse. For if in parts of the Tenth and Eleventh Satires he resembles a Dutch painter of still life this is not his most characteristic note. His genre- painting with its lively action reminds one rather of Jan Steen. But the painter to whom he is most akin is his younger con- temporary, Frans Hals. He has the same mastery over physiognomy and gesture, the same gay audacity, the same brilliant and varied palette. Here is the portrait of the 'bore' : Un ieune frise, releue de moustache, De galoche, de botte, et d'vn ample pennache. Laissons le discourir, Dire cent, et cent fois, il en faudroit mourir, Sa Barbe pingoter, cageoller la science, Releuer ses cheueux, dire en ma conscience, Faire la belle main, mordre vn bout de ses guents, Rire hors de propos, monstrer ses belles dents, Se carrer sur vn pied, faire arser son espee, Et s'adoucir les yeux ainsi qu'vne poup^e 1 . More elaborate and more fantastic in its imaginative audacity is the portrait of the pedant in the Tenth Satire, and the same may be said of the trois vieilles in the Eleventh, but they are less true to nature. Besides these more finished portraits there are plenty of sketches sparkling with life and colour. But Regnier's satire is never personal. Tout le monde s'y voit et ne s'y sent nommer- is his just boast, and it earned him the name of le bon Regnier. His chief artistic defect is his inability to construct a complete poem. He was too indolent to think out his subject beforehand, and he was content to borrow the setting for his pictures from Horace or Juvenal, or the Italian satirists. As 1 Sat. viii. M. Vianey points out the resemblance between this portrait and D'Aubigne's Faeneste. M. Rostand's Cyrano is a heroic representative of the same type. 2 Sat. XII. 304 REGNIER [CH. long as he keeps closely to the lines of his model he is safe; Macette, for instance, which is based on Ovid's simple frame- work, is the one satire which is well constructed. But when, as in the Eighth satire, he tries to improve upon his model, failure awaits him. The narrative in this satire is as inferior to Horace's in clearness and artistic construction as the portrait is superior in brilliance and actuality. It is worse when Regnier trusts entirely to his own invention. The Second satire is remarkable for incoherence, and the Ninth satire which opens so admirably with the famous attack on Malherbe, degenerates into a string of more or less dis- connected passages. We have seen that Regnier was indebted to other writers for more than the mere framework of his satires. He helped himself with quite as free a hand to their thoughts and even to their language. In borrowing from the Italians he was only following the footsteps of his predecessors, especially of his uncle, Desportes, but he improved on their example by treating them in a similar fashion. The first part of his Fourth satire is so closely modelled on the Epistle to Pierre Lescot that it echoes Ronsard's words and even his rhymes 1 . His debt to Desportes in Macette is considerable ; he appro- priates his language as if it were family property' 2 . Yet with all this no writer has a more thoroughly individual style or one which is less an imitation of the writers from whom he borrows. The general style of the poets of the Pleiad school, except when they are confined within the fourteen lines of a sonnet, is flowing, redundant, and somewhat nerve- less. The epithet doux-coulant, which was specially applied to Du Bellay, is equally well-suited to most of Ronsard's disciples 1 '. Regnier, on the other hand, is concise, vigorous, pregnant. He attains this result partly by an expressive vocabulary, which if it is limited in extent is exceedingly well- 1 Parquet — caquet ; terre — guerre. 2 See for Regnier's debt to Ronsard and his disciples Vianey pp. 95 — 105. He however exaggerates the debt to Ronsard in the Ninth satire. M. Vianey also notes the influence of Rabelais (p. 138), but one of the instances he gives is from the Fifth book and therefore in a sense doubtful. 3 Ronsard's style is much stronger than that of any of his followers. XXVIII] REGNIER 305 chosen, and partly by a somewhat arbitrary treatment of the strict rules of syntax. His defects are those of his qualities. He is sometimes obscure, even unintelligible, and he cannot construct a poetical period of more than four lines. Thus it is a fair representation of his artistic merits and shortcomings to say that he is more impressive in isolated passages than in a whole poem, more impressive in short passages than in long ones, and most impressive of all in single lines. Here is a quatrain which rises above the ordinary familiar style of satire : Peres des siecles vieux, exemple de la vie, Dignes d'estre admirez d'vne honorable enuie, (Si quelque beau desir viuoit encor' en nous) Nous voyant de la haut Peres qu'en dittes vous? 1 And here is a longer passage of considerable eloquence : Iuste poste'rite a tesmoing ie t'apelle, Toy qui sans passion, maintiens l'ceuure immortelle, Et qui selon l'esprit, la grace et le sqauoir, De race en race au peuple vn ouurage fais voir, Vange ceste querelle, et iustement separe Du Cigne d'Apollon la corneille barbare Qui croassant par tout d'vn orgueil effronte" Ne couche de rien moins que l'immortalite 2 . Many of his single lines are more or less borrowed from various collections of proverbs, but they are all stamped with the mark of his own personality. Such are Les fous sont aux echets les plus proches des Rois, and, Le peche que Ton cache est demi pardonne. The latter is one of Macette's numerous adages, and is the translation of an Italian original, Peccato celato c mezzo perdonato 1 \ But it is Regnier's rendering of a Spanish proverb which best illustrates the most striking feature in his style- its imaginative quality. Thus the original Muda se el pelo como el zelo, " Our hair changes like our passions," is repre- 1 Sat. v. CEuvres, p. 42. 2 Sat. 11. ib. p. 19. 3 In a collection published by John Florio, London, 1591 (Vianey, p. 166). T. II. 20 3o6 REGNIER [CH. sented by the splendid line, in which the influence of Horace may be also traced, Et comme notre poil blanchissent noz desirs 1 . I have already quoted the line in which vice is compared to a banker driving in a carriage or riding on a horse. Another good instance is the line in the Fourth satire : Dire, en serrant la main, Dame, il men falloit point, in which the idea and the last half of the line are taken from the scene between Panurge and Rondibilis-. But it is the first half which at once calls up a picture of the doctor closing his hand on his fee. M. Vianey adds to these some striking instances of the manner in which Regnier gives imaginative life to inanimate objects, such as, of two bottles : Qui disoient sans goulet : Nous avons trop vescu, and of Macette : Son ceil tout penitent ne pleure qu'eau beniste 3 . It is this divine faculty of imagination which separates Regnier from Malherbe and marks him definitely as belonging to the Pleiad camp. The difference between the two schools is admirably stated in the celebrated Ninth satire : Cependant leur scauoir ne s'estend seulement, Qu'a regrater vn mot douteux au iugement, Prendre garde qu'vn qui ne heurte vne diphtongue, Epier si des vers la rime est breue ou longue, Ou bien si la voyelle a l'autre s'vnissant. Ne rend point a Poreille vn vers trop languissant, Et laissent sur le verd le noble de l'ouurage : Nul eguillon diuin n'esleue leur courage, lis rampent bassement foibles d'inuentions, Et n'osent peu hardis tanter les fictions, Froids a l'imaginer, car s'ils font quelque chose, C'est proser de la rime, et rimer de la prose Que l'art lime et relime et polit de facon Qu'elle rend a l'oreille vn agreable son 4 . 1 Lenit albescens animos capillos, Odes, III. xv. 24. See E. Roy in Rev. cthist. lift. in. 619 and Vianey, p. 164. 2 Pantagruel, III. 33, He, he, he, monsieur il ne falloit rien. Grand mercy toutesfois. s Vianey, p. 232. * CEuvres, p. 68. XXVIII] REGNIER 307 Poetry differs from prose by its use of the imaginative faculty — this was the doctrine of Ronsard and his disciples, and in this they were right and Malherbe was utterly wrong. They were also right in holding that poetry is the offspring of genius and inspiration, but when they went on to despise labour and polish and other signs of careful workmanship, they were wrong and Malherbe was right. Had Malherbe con- descended to give an articulate expression to his views he would have said, as Boileau said later, Soyez-vous a vous-meme un severe critique 1 . The great fault of the Pleiad school from Ronsard to Regnier was, as we have seen, its lack of self-criticism. The one claim of Malherbe — and it is a large one — to the gratitude of his countrymen is that he was the first French critic. Note on the date of Regnier" s earliest satire. The Second satire, which is almost certainly the first in point of date, was written after Regnier had spent ten years in the service of the Cardinal de Joyeuse. Now Brossette in his commentary says that he entered that service in 1583, when he was twenty years old. This is clearly wrong, for he was born in 1573, and later writers have supposed that Brossette meant 1593. But Brossette's statement is un- supported by any evidence, and consequently M. Courbet conjectures that Regnier really entered the Cardinal's service in 1587, just after the Cardinal was appointed to the dignity of Protector of France at Rome. Regnier himself says : C'est done pourquoy si ieune abandonnant la France Tallay vif de courage, et tout chaud d'esperance En la cour d'vn Prelat, qu'auecq' mille dangers I'ay suiuy courtisan aux pais estrangers. Sat. 11. (CEin'res, p. 16). 1- Uart poi-tiqtte, I. The whole of the latter part of this first chant is practically a criticism of the workmanship of Ronsard's school. 1 308 REGNIER [CH. Now though sijeune is a somewhat vague term and may fairly apply to any age under eighteen, that of thirteen is certainly very young for an appointment of this sort. But a stronger objection to M. Courbet's date is that it puts the Second satire as early as 1597, while none of the other satires, except possibly the Third and the Seventh, were written before 1603. There are two possible dates for the Third, 1598 and 1603, and of these the latter is preferable because it is too mature to be the work of a young man of five and twenty. There is nothing to help us to the date of the Seventh except its similarity in tone to the Third. Supposing then the Second satire to have been written in 1597, it means that Regnier wrote only two satires, or at the most three, in a period of six years, and that he began to write at the age of twenty-four, an early age for a kind of writing which psquinjs considerable knowledge of human nature. I should therefore conjecture that Regnier entered the service of Joyeuse in the first half of 1591 and accompanied him first to Spain and then to Italy. The Second satire would then have been written in 1601. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Editions. Les premieres (Euvres de M. Regnier, 1608 (contains satires i — ix and xii : see Cat. Ruble No. 216 ; there are also copies in the Bib. Nat. and the Arsenal library) ; Les Satyres du Sieur Regnier, Reueues iS~= augmenties de nouueau, 1609 (x and xi added, Brit. Mus.) ; same title, 1612 (xiii, Macette added) ; same title, 161 3 (contains satires i — xvii and other pieces, see Le Petit p. 1 10) ; Les Satyres et autres asuvres [Leyden, Elsevier] 1642; same title, Leyden, J. &. D. Elsevier, 1652 ; Les Satyres de Regnier avec des remarques (ed. C. Brossette), London, 4to. 1729. The 4to edition, published by Tonson in 1733 under the title of Satyres et autres eeuvres de Regnier, accompagnces de remarques historiques, is an impudent counter- feit of the preceding by the Abbe" Lenglet du Fresnoy. (Euvres completes, ed. Viollet le Due, 1822 ; ed. E. Courbet, 1869 ; 2nd ed. 1875 (with a life and a full history of the text) ; ed. L. Lacour, 1876. All the above editions, except the last, represent successive stages of the text. In that of 1609 satires x and xi are very incorrectly printed, as XXVIII] REGNIER 309 is satire xv. in the edition of 1613. Certain improvements in the text, supplementing those introduced by M. Courbet, have been suggested by R. Dezeimeris, Lemons nouvelles et remarqiies sur le texte de divers auteurs, Bordeaux, 1876, and Corrections et remarques sur le texte de divers auteurs, ib. 1880 ; by A. Benoist, Notes sur le texte de Regnier in Annates de la Faculte dcs Lettres de Bordeaux, pp. 240 — 249, 1879; ar) d by J. Yianey, Mathurin Regnier, pp. 272 — 287, 1896. TO BE CONSULTED. M. Vianey's book, just mentioned, is by far the most important. See also C.-A. Sainte-Beuve, Tableau, pp. i3off. (the 1842 edition has a separate chapter on Regnier and Andre Che"nier, previously published in vol. I. of Portraits Litteraires and written in 1829). F. Robiou, Essai sur Phistoire de la litterature et des itioeurs penda7it la preiniere moitie du xvii e siecle, pp. 189 — 204, 1858. C. Lenient, La Satire en Fra?ice au xvi e siecle, I. 120 — h^j 1859. H. Cherrier, Bibliog7'aphie de M. Regnier, 1884. E. Faguet in Rev. des cours et con/. 1895. CHAPTER XXIX CONCLUSION WE have seen how in the reign of Henry II Italian in- fluences starting from the encouragement given by Francis I to Italian artists and men of letters thoroughly permeated French art and literature. As a consequence some writers, who regard the Renaissance as a peculiarly Italian product, speak of the reign of Henry II as the period in which the French Renaissance reached its zenith. To some extent this is true. Under some aspects the reign of Francis I, especially from the point of view of literature, may be considered as the preparation for the Renaissance rather than as the Renais- sance itself, or at any rate as the dawn of the Renaissance rather than as its full noontide. For we find that none of the writers of that reign, neither Marot nor Rabelais nor Margaret of Navarre, have altogether shaken themselves free from mediaeval traditions. But when we come to compare the two periods, the national period and the Italian period, we see that the advantage is not altogether on the side of the latter. If the later literature is more artistic, it is also more conscious of its art. It is less robust, less spontaneous. Elegance takes the place of energy, culture of vitality. Further if Ronsard and Du Bellay have a more serious conception of art, Rabelais and Margaret of Navarre have a more serious conception of life. This is due in a measure to the influence of that religious movement which was itself a product of the Renaissance spirit. With that XXIX] CONCLUSION 311 movement no one at the outset shewed greater sympathy than Margaret of Navarre, and though she never separated herself from the Church of her ancestors, the strong impression which the new doctrines made upon her quickened the spiritual side of her deeply religious nature. The same sympathy with the new doctrines finds a cautious expression in Rabelais's Gargantua, and though the Utopian dream with which the book concludes warns us how little its author was likely to accept the form in which French Protestantism was on the eve of being dogmatised by Calvin, the influence of the religious controversy may be traced in the more philosophic character of the Third book. Marot who became a Pro- testant was a less serious thinker than either Margaret or Rabelais who remained Catholics, but though his pleasure- loving nature found its most complete expression in rondeaitx and familiar epistles and other lighter forms of verse, some of his less-known and less successful poems manifest a serious and religious spirit. During the last ten years of his reign Francis I shewed increasing hostility to the new religious doctrines. The attitude of his successor was even more uncompromising ; on that point alone his three advisers, Diane de Poitiers, the Constable de Montmorency, and the Cardinal de Lorraine were of the same mind. It followed that the poets of the Pleiad, who depended largely on Court favour, shared none of the Protestant sympathies of the older generation. Du Bellay might satirise the Roman curia, Ronsard might call attention to the shortcomings of the French clergy, but they could not be other than loyal supporters of a Church of which they were beneficiaries. At heart their religion, as of most of their fellow-poets, was a strange compound of Christianity and paganism, a Christianity which was mainly formal and ceremonial, a paganism shorn of its nobler ideals and more spiritual aspirations. To enjoy life in its most beautiful forms, whether of art or of nature, was the whole sum of their philosophy. Such being the difference in character between these two phases of the French Renaissance, the literature of the one 312 CONCLUSION [CH. being hardy and native, of the other beautiful and exotic, it was of the greatest advantage to the successful developement of French literature that the Italian phase was preceded by the national one. When the Pleiad issued their manifesto, the foundations of a great national literature had already been laid, and it was upon these foundations, however much they might ignore them, that they themselves built. There was no such break of continuity as they pretended in French literature. They only carried out with a bolder hand and in a more conscious spirit what their prede- cessors had begun. Indeed when their day was over and their successor Malherbe treated them with the same con- tumely with which they had treated Marot, their whole work might have perished had it not rested upon the foundations which Marot and Rabelais and Margaret of Navarre had laid. Happily it did not, and the lesson which they taught to their countrymen was never unlearnt. This lesson was the value of style. But, as we have seen, even before the advent of Malherbe a reaction began to set in not merely against the poetry of the Pleiad but against the whole Italian influence. After the death of Charles IX and the retirement of Ronsard from the Court (1574) the Pleiad divided into two streams, the one represented by the Protestant provincial, Du Bartas, whose poetry is a protest against the paganism and frivolity of the court poets, and the other by the Catholic courtier, Desportes, who, while he pillages the Italians even more sedulously than his predecessors, returns in his less imitative productions to the lighter and more realistic vein of Marot. In his con- temporaries Passerat and Durant this tendency is even more strongly marked. The attack upon Italian influences was further enforced by the two treatises which Henri Estienne published in 1579 and 1580 in defence of the national language. Lastly the nameless abominations and grotesque superstitions of the court of Henry III intensified the dislike of all Italian ideas and fashions. This reaction against Italian influence affected also the whole attitude of thought towards the Renaissance. The XXIX] CONCLUSION 313 unhappy condition of the country, the long religious warfare, the impotent government, inspired all thoughtful men with a sense of disillusion. The promise of the Renaissance had apparently died away in bloodshed and anarchy. The golden age of learning which Gargantua had hailed with such eloquent enthusiasm had made the world neither better nor wiser. Montaigne is too original a thinker to be really typical of the thought of his time, but seeing that he is the greatest name of this third and last phase of the French Renaissance it is pertinent to consider his attitude towards the Renaissance generally. Like his whole view of life it was complex, and even inconsistent. He was an enthusiastic admirer and constant reader of classical literature, but unlike the ardent humanists of the first half of the century he knew Greek imperfectly and preferred to read Greek authors in Latin or French translations. He is not altogether in favour of the humanistic education of his day. " Greek and Latin," he says, "are fine accomplishments, but we pay too dearly for them." He accepts unquestioned any statement of fact by a classical writer, but he is by no means a slave to their opinions. Similarly with regard to Italian literature. His library was full of Italian books, and he was a great admirer of the Italian epistolary writers, and a reader of Guicciardini and the other Italian historians. But he accuses those of barbarous stupidity who compare Ariosto with Virgil, and he has a higher opinion of the French poets of his own day, especially of Ronsard and Du Bellay, whom he finds in certain respects " not far short of the ancient perfection." Montaigne, as we know, did not mind being inconsistent, but we may find a certain consistency in his attitude towards the Renaissance by describing it as the developement to their logical results of its two fundamental principles, individualism and the right of free inquiry. If the individual is to have free play for his actions and aspirations, if he is to be a law unto himself, it becomes of the highest importance that he should know himself. If he is to enjoy life he must know how to live, and if this enjoyment is not to be overshadowed by the 3H CONCLUSION [CH. constant fear of death he must know how to die 1 . But this study of man and human nature which Montaigne advocated as the basis of all education and all philosophy implies a seriousness of purpose and a constancy of aim quite contrary to the restless craving after pleasure and excitement which is so characteristic of the Renaissance. Thus this very principle of the Renaissance became in Montaigne's hands a corrective of the excess to which it had been carried. So with regard to the right of free inquiry. The earlier French humanists were dazzled by the vision of a world in which this right was fully recognised, and were too much engrossed in the exploration of its treasures to think of criti- cising it. They paid almost the same reverence to classical antiquity as their forefathers had paid to the Church. The first Frenchman who seriously questioned its authority was Pierre Ramus. Montaigne, though his criticism of the ancient writers was less bold than that of Ramus, was far more comprehensive in his application of the right of free inquiry. He not only questioned by the light of common sense most existing institutions and opinions, but he attacked the very basis of all knowledge. However incomplete and inconsistent his scepticism may have been, it at any rate inspired him, even in his most hopeful moments, with an exceedingly modest estimate of human virtue and wisdom. The Essays, it is true, end on a note of tranquil serenity, which reminds one of Shakespeare's Tempest, but it is far removed from the buoyant optimism of the Abbey of Thelema and the oracle of the Bottle. It tells us that the Renaissance day is drawing to its close. Thus the three periods into which this history has been divided roughly represent three distinct phases not only of French Renaissance literature but of the Renaissance itself. But these phases share in common certain characteristics which impress upon the whole literature a persistent and well- defined character. In the first place it is strongly individual- 1 It will be recollected that the title of Montaigne's first important essay (i. 19) is, To be a philosopher is to learn how to die. XXIX] CONCLUSION 3 1 5 istic. The definition of literature as the expression of society is obviously an incomplete one, but of no body of literature is it more incomplete than of that which we are now considering. There is hardly a work of the sixteenth century, however im- personal in form, which is not full of information as to the life and character of the writer. Pantagruel abounds in personal reminiscences ; the tales of the Heptameron profess to be all within the experience of the royal authoress or her immediate circle ; Marot is a delightful egoist ; Du Bellay's poetry charms us by its intimate note; many of Ronsard's poems contain long autobiographical passages ; autobiography has invaded D'Aubigne's History and inspired him with the finest episode in Les Tragiqucs ; in no period of French literature has the harvest of personal memoirs been more abundant or more remarkable. Thus Montaigne in making himself the centre of his book was only carrying out in a more thorough and more conscious fashion the practice of nearly every writer of the sixteenth century. Le sot projet de se peindre says Pascal ; but the world is not of his opinion. The world likes self-portraiture, provided only that it is sincere and without pose. Now this is em- phatically the case with the writers of our period; with the single exception of Margaret of Valois they are absolutely sincere and unaffected. Their books are livres dc bonne foi, and they talk about themselves, not because they think they are interesting to others, but because they are supremely interested in themselves. The result is that whatever they write has at least the merit of freshness and enthusiasm. Even the most imitative work of the Pleiad catches from the enthusiasm of the writers a breath of life and originality often wanting to their models. Now this keen enjoyment of life on the part of the Renaissance writers arises in part from the strength of their sensuous impressions. Hence gusto, which is the recognised name in literature and art for the expression of strong sensuous impressions, is a quality of frequent occurrence in Renaissance literature. The most notable example is Rabelais, who, according to Hazlitt in his well-known essay on Gusto, 316 CONCLUSION [CH. has, with Boccaccio, more of it than any other prose writer. But it is to be found also, if in a less degree, in Margaret of Navarre and Montaigne, in Brantome and Monluc, in Henri Estienne and D'Aubigne. In all of these it often takes the form of extraordinary vividness of presentment so that scenes and events stand out on their canvas in brilliant colour and relief. Gusto implies strong rather than deep emotion. Hence it is associated, as a rule, with a lively rather than with a penetrative imagination. This is the case with the writers of the French Renaissance. Their imagination plays with the surface of things and does not penetrate to the depths. It is illustrative rather than creative. The creative writers of the first half of the sixteenth century, Rabelais, Margaret of Navarre, and Des Periers, have no more im- agination than is absolutely necessary for all artistic creation. Rabelais is the least imaginative of the great creative writers of the world. On the other hand, it was the great achievement of the Pleiad that they introduced imagination into poetic style, that they recognised it to be an indispens- able quality of the language of poetry. And their influence affected also the language of prose. The style of Amyot and of Montaigne is essentially an imaginative style. Thus down to the advent of Malherbe imagination becomes an unfailing characteristic of prose and verse alike. These then are the great qualities of French Renaissance literature, individuality, vividness, imagination. But if it is great on the human side, it is weak on the artistic side. If the writers have in full measure the energy, the sincerity, and the strong feeling which are necessary for the genesis of a work of art, they lack the sense of form which is required to perfect the artistic conception. It is not too much to say that no work of any considerable length by any writer of the French Renaissance is constructed on a preconceived plan. They write as their mood prompts them, they give rein to their inspiration and become its servant instead of its master. It is needless to multiply instances. Mon- taigne alone will suffice. For Montaigne had the artistic XXIX] CONCLUSION 317 temperament in a strong degree, and in his later essays at any rate he shews true artistic care and affection for his work. Yet his essays are formless, and this very formlessness is one of their charms. It is true that we may detect a central idea in even the most rambling of his vagabondages and that some of his admirers have maintained that the apparent disorder of his writing veils without wholly concealing a higher order 1 . But this theory does not explain the additions which Montaigne was in the habit of making to his essays after their publication. For though an accomplished artist may go on putting fresh touches to his work long after it is practically finished, he will not make changes in detail which obviously interfere with its unity. The artistic execution of the Renaissance writers is superior to their artistic conception, but it is the execution of gifted amateurs rather than of trained artists. For all their admiration for Greek poetry, the Pleiad failed to learn from their masters the lessons of self-restraint and moderation, of patient and accurate workmanship. Vingt fois sur le metier remettez votre ouvrage, Polissez-le sans cesse, et le repolissez, Ajoutez quelquefois, et souvent effacez. This advice of Boileau's was wholly alien to the spirit and practice of most of the writers of the sixteenth century. Hence, except in quite short pieces, their work is seldom, if ever, perfect in execution throughout, and it may be said of all of them, even of Rabelais and Montaigne, that they are better to read in than to read continuously. This lack of the critical habit in literature was in conformity with the general spirit of the age, but it was partly due to the absence of a central standard either in language or in taste. We have seen that during the reigns of Francis I and Henry II such a standard was in a measure furnished by the Court and that we can trace its influence, not only in the 1 See especially E. Ruel, op. cit. c. iii {Les "essais" sont une auvre (far/), and pp. 374 ff. where he gives an analysis of the essay entitled Des caches; see also ante, pp. 172 f. 3D CONCLUSION [CH. poetry of Marot and Saint-Gelais and the Pleiad school, but in the French versions of Amadis and the Decameron, and even in the more famous translations made by Amyot. But a Court standard is not the same thing as a national standard, for like that of every small coterie it is liable to be debased by the alloys of passing fashion. Thus under Henry II Italian influences began, as we have seen, to invade alike taste and language, increasing in force under the rule of Catharine de' Medici till exaggeration brought the in- evitable reaction. Moreover the unity of the kingdom, which had been steadily growing during the reigns of Francis I and his son, received a severe check from the wars of religion. For the next thirty years not only was France divided into two camps, but the great nobles, who had been gradually coming to recognise the central authority of the Crown, began once more to assert their independence and to make the public troubles a pretext for personal insubordi- nation. These centrifugal forces acted inevitably on literature. By far the most important of the literary work that was produced in France during the last twenty years of the six- teenth century was written far away from the Court or the capital. The most productive quarter was Gascon}-, where Montaigne, Monluc, and Brantome, each in the retreat of his own chateau, wrote ostensibly to beguile their leisure and at any rate with no idea of conformity to a central standard. To the same province belonged Pierre de Brach and his better-known friend Du Bartas, whose poetry is a notable instance of the evil effects of provincialism on literature. The works of most of these Gascon writers were published at Bordeaux, which with its flourishing College of Guyenne served as the intellectual centre of the whole South-western district of France. Another such centre was Poitiers, where between the years 1550 and 1560 an offshoot of the Pleiad was formed under the leadership of Jacques Tahureau. Further to the x\orth we find Noel du Fail publishing at the Breton capital, Rennes, work of which the chief interest lies in its strong local flavour. XXIX] CONCLUSION 319 Of Normandy, with its two centres, Rouen and the university- town of Caen, the chief representative during our period is Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, who resided at Caen, but Rouen also served as a literary capital for the neighbouring province of Maine, and it was at Rouen that the majority of the editions of Garnier's plays were published. But even during this period Norman aspirants to literary fame began to turn their steps to Paris ; Bertaut and Du Perron were heralds of Malherbe, the sworn enemy of provincialism. Nothing like the same literary activity was shewn in the Eastern half of France. Neither Reims, the capital of Champagne, nor Dijon, the capital of Burgundy, were of any importance in the literary world, and if Larivey, as it is possible, wrote his comedies at Troyes, they were published at Paris. Even Lyons, which during the reign of Francis I had been second only to Paris as a literary and intellectual centre, was throughout the second half of the sixteenth century illustrated by no name except that of Louise Labe, whose tiny volume was printed there at the very beginning of that period. Half-way between Lyons and the sea, among the hills to the west of the Rhone valley, Olivier de Serres wrote his great treatise on Agriculture. A notable exception to the general lack of self-criticism is furnished by Amyot, who in every line reveals the conscien- tious and critical artist. He was in consequence the one prose author of the sixteenth century who was accepted unchallenged by the seventeenth, a fact which suggests a brief retrospect of the developement of French prose during our period. At the close of the first half of the century the two great masters of French prose were Rabelais and Calvin, but they were masters in very different styles. Rabelais is picturesque and imaginative, Calvin abstract and logical. Calvin writes as a thinker, Rabelais as an artist. Rabelais therefore uses freely all the constructions of the older language which make for picturesqueness or harmony, such as the omission of the article and the pronoun, the use of the infinitive as a substantive, ellipse, and inversion. His use of the last for the sake of a harmonious cadence, even at the expense of 320 CONCLUSION [CH. lucidity, is very noticeable, and becomes more daring with advancing years. It must be remembered that these con- structions were the heritage of mediaeval French from Latin, and that the revived study of Latin would naturally tend to continue them in favour with scholars like Rabelais. Still more marked was the influence of Latin upon syntax, and Rabelais's sentences are often purely Latin in construction. Calvin, starting from the same point as Rabelais, was led by different aims to a different goal. His chief object being to convince, he gradually freed himself from archaisms and Latinisms, which, however much they might contribute to the picturesqueness and harmony of the sentence, were hindrances to its lucidity. In so doing he was following partly the natural bent of his logical mind, partly the prevailing trend of the language. Even before Rabelais's death we find Joachim du Bellay, in the Deffoice, warning the young poet not to fall into the common vice of omitting the article, a vice by the way from which he himself is not altogether free. Fifteen years later Ronsard, in the Abrege de I'art poetiquc (1565), repeats the injunction, coupling with it another, not to omit the personal pronoun. In the second preface to the Franciade, written after 1572, he pronounces strongly against inversion, even in poetry. The other archaisms noticed above lingered somewhat longer. The use of the infinitive as a substantive is practised even by Protestant writers, such as La Noue and Du Plessis-Mornay. Another Protestant, Henri Estienne, though, like his co-religionists, he belongs on the whole to the progressive school, still clings in some matters to the older ways. But La Noue and Estienne, as well as another Protestant, D'Aubigne, happened to be close students of Rabelais, whose influence, there can be little doubt, did something to stay the decay of the old picturesque forms. It is Amyot who best marks the change that was coming over French prose. Though his style retains to the last the picturesque and imaginative character of the older school, he gradually abandons such archaisms as inversion and the omission of the article and the pronoun. But the great service that he rendered to French prose was the improve- XXIX] CONCLUSION 321 ment of the period. In the later-written of his Lives, which were completed in 1559, his periods, though still somewhat long, are constructed with considerable art. They are well- balanced, harmonious, and above all thoroughly French in construction. Finally, as we have seen, in his treatise on rhetoric, written after the accession of Henry III, he declares himself in favour of a shorter period, and his practice corre- sponds to his precept. His greatest pupil was Montaigne, who wrote his first considerable and really characteristic essay, the nineteenth of the first book, That philosophy is to know how to die, in the year of the publication of the (Euvres morales. Like his master he belongs to the picturesque and imaginative school, but like him he has moved with the times, and even in the earliest specimen that we have of his writing, the letter to his father on the death of La Boetie (1563), there is hardly an inversion or an omission of an article or a pronoun. His trans- lation of Raymond de Sebonde is written in a clear though undistinguished style. But the " incomparable " Essays, however superior to Amyot's work in brilliancy and genius, are inferior as models of French prose. The language is less pure and less precise than Amyot's, the construction of his periods less orderly and harmonious. For Montaigne's aim was to write "as a man and not as an author," to fit his style to the ever-changing facets of his thought. He is therefore careless of form and harmony. He sacrifices everything, even lucidity, to the truth of the impression. But meanwhile the general trend of French prose was in the direction of restraint and logic. With the better writers sentences became shorter and less involved, their use of words more precise, and their sense of harmony more sure. There was still, however, much to learn, how much may be judged from the comparison already made between the prose of Du Vair and Du Perron and that of Jean Guez de Balzac thirty years later. But the lessons of Rabelais and Montaigne were not lost ; when after another thirty years Pascal created modern French prose, he united the variety of Rabelais with the sincerity of Montaigne. t. 11. 21 322 CONCLUSION [CH. This change in the character of French prose from disorder to order, from the long period to the short one, from the sway of imagination to the sway of reason, is exactly paralleled in our own literature, though with us it took place somewhat later, chiefly between the years 1660 and 1680. In fact the literature of the English Renaissance followed more or less the same course as that of the French. The publication of Tottel's Miscellany in 1557 corresponds to that of Marot's poems in 1532, The SJiepheards Calendar of 1579 to Ronsard's Odes of 1550, and though there is no landmark in the history of English poetry so sharply defined as the arrival of Malherbe at Paris in 1605, the beginning of our age of reason is roughly indicated by the appearance of Denham's Cooper's Hill in 1642, and of Waller's poems in 1645. English prose was slower of developement than English poetry, for it produced nothing comparable to the work of Rabelais until the appearance of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity in 1594, more than forty years after the great French- man's death. After that came Bacon, Ben Jonson, Burton, and the splendid but unequal writers of the Caroline age. But none of them, unless it be Bacon, can be named with Rabelais and Montaigne. For these two are not only great artists in prose but they are, like Shakespeare, among the greatest names of literature ; their message is for all time and to all the world. To them we must add not only Calvin and Amyot, but a number of lesser prose-writers whose work, if less mature than the best poetry of the Pleiad, is superior to it in energy and intellectual power. Thus while the English Renaissance is strongest on the poetic side, while there is nothing in France to match the high poetic achieve- ment of the Fairy Queen, the melody and passion of our songs and lyrics, the splendour of our drama, the French Renaissance is strongest on the side of prose, and in three departments of it, memoir-writing, the short story, and prose- satire, shews a decided superiority. The number and excellence of the memoirs which were produced in France during the last quarter of the sixteenth century has already been sufficiently pointed out. Although XXIX] CONCLUSION 323 the second half of the century produced no collection of tales equal to those of Margaret of Navarre and Desperiers, several writers of this period possessed considerable skill in telling a story, such as Noel du Fail, Henri Estienne and D'Aubigne, and not a few works owed their popularity to the numerous short stories which they contained. In nearly all of them the spirit of satire was strong, but satire took many other forms. Its highest achievement in prose was the Satire Menippee, and in verse it produced some of the finest examples of French Renaissance literature, Regnier's Macette with portions of his other satires, the finest passages in D'Aubigne's Les Tragiques, and the satirical sonnets of Du Bellay's Regrets. Between these and the rough and artificial work of Donne, Hall, and Marston there is no comparison. But underlying these differences, due to national tempera- ment, between the Renaissance literatures of France and England there is a very considerable likeness. In both we find the same energy and freshness, the same enjoyment of life, the same imaginative glow, the same carelessness with regard to execution and form. On the other hand we note with something of surprise a great dissimilarity between the Renaissance literature of France and that of her classical age. At first sight they seem to have hardly a single characteristic in common. Where in the sixteenth century, except in Calvin, is the love of order, the lucidity, and the almost superstitious regard for logic that we have come to regard as innate qualities of the French nation ? What becomes of Taine's theory of fixed racial characteristics ? It is Taine himself who furnishes the clue to the answer. In his remarkable essay on M. Troplong et M. de MontaUm- bert 1 , in which he attributes the difference that has always existed between the government of England and that of France partly to political circumstances and partly to natural moral conditions, he describes his own countrymen as une race ligere et sociable, which in all ages has possessed " the gift of being clear and agreeable, the art of making itself understood, and 1 Essais de critique et cThistoire (7th ed. 1896), pp. ifxj IT. 21 — 2 324 CONCLUSION [CH. of being listened to." It has also, he says, the analytical faculty 1 . The talent for agreeable talk and the talent for analysis — these then may be regarded as qualities more or less innate in the French race, and to one or the other of them may be traced those features of French Renaissance literature which distinguish it from that of this country, namely, its success in the conte, in satire, and in memoirs. But the French people are a product of many races, Iberians, Ligurians, Celts, Romans, Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, and these races have been moulded by a con- siderable diversity of climates. We must therefore be prepared to find much diversity of characteristics alike in the people and in the literature. Moreover the literature of a nation is always more or less liable to be influenced by the second of Taine's factors, the environment. Thus we have seen that the poetry alike of Marot and of the Pleiad was influenced by the courtly atmosphere in which it was nourished, that the close connexion of France with Italy, begun by war and kept alive by marriage ties and intellectual intercourse, ended by Italianising French poetry, and that the long civil war which divided and desolated the kingdom and finally almost brought it under the yoke of Spain in the end awakened a renewed sense of national existence and national honour, and so implanted a stouter fibre in the literature. But after all the strongest collective influence was that of the " moment." It was the mighty irresistible impulse of the Renaissance which gave the literature its vigour, its freshness, its spontaneity ; it was the feeling of emancipation from mediaeval swaddling-clothes which led men to give free utterance to whatever stirred their emotions or stimulated their intellect ; it was the thirst for personal glory and posthumous fame which urged them to immortalise themselves in undying verse or at least to leave for posterity a record of their own lives. It is this influence of a great spiritual and intellectual movement predominating over racial charac- teristics and political environment which justifies the claim 1 Essais de critique et d'histoire (7th ed. 1896), pp. 315, 317 and 321. XXIX] CONCLUSION 325 of this literature to the distinctive name of the literature of the French Renaissance. One of the chief forces in which this movement found expression was humanism. Of its influence on the literature we have had abundant evidence in these pages. Many of the works noticed are saturated to pedantry with classical quota- tions and classical allusions. There is hardly a writer who has not at least a tincture of classical learning. Even Pare and Palissy, who knew neither Greek nor Latin, had a second- hand acquaintance with some classical authors. Even the rough soldier, Monluc, called his memoirs Commentaries, after the example of Julius Caesar. But on the other hand, in spite of this cult of antiquity, in spite of the superstitious regard that was paid to the classical ideal in thought and art, and even in morals, the greater part of the literature is wholly unclassical in form. And this is not only the case with the writings of the early Renaissance, with Pantagruel and the Heptameron ; but even after the lesson had been learnt in Dorat's lecture-room that the great classical writers were deserving of study not only for their learning and wisdom and for the stimulus they gave to liberty of thought, but for their art, their devotion to form and style, their patient workmanship, even then the lesson was learnt imperfectly. Ronsard, indeed, and Du Bellay in many of their sonnets and shorter lyrics have caught something of classical restraint and classical felicity of phrase, and the Satire Mc'nippee, thoroughly national though it is in sentiment, is classical in its adherence to a carefully planned design. But what can be more unclassical in form than Montaigne's Essays, or the memoirs of Brantome or Monluc, or Du Bartas's Semaine, or D'Aubigne's Les Tragiques and Histoire Uni- verselle ? Even Regnier, writing satires more or less after the pattern of Horace, has learnt from his model no lessons of artistic conception or artistic construction. This failure to realise the classical ideal of literary art was due to the lack of the critical spirit. To create this spirit was the work of Malherbe. And when Malhcrbe's 326 CONCLUSION [CH. XXIX work had been perfected by Pascal and Boileau French litera- ture became at once national in spirit and classical in form. But to trace the history of this developement, to investigate the various causes which made French literature national instead of provincial, social instead of individualistic, rational instead of imaginative, lies beyond the scope of the present narrative. APPENDIX E. The authorship of the Discours merveilleux. The latest event mentioned in the Discours merveilleux is the confirmation of Catharine as regent by the new king Henry III. The letters-patent containing this confirmation are dated from Cracow June 15, 1574, and cannot well have reached Paris before July 1, for Catharine's messenger announcing the death of Charles IX, which took place on May 30, reached Cracow on June 15. The writing of the pamphlet must, therefore, have been completed early in July, and it was probably printed and circulated soon afterwards. Pierre de l'Estoile notes in his journal between September 20 and October 1 : En ce temps la Vie de la Reine-Mere imprimke court partoat. Les cours de Lyon en sont pleines (1. 27). But the earliest known edition bears the date of 1575. It has 164 pp. (sig. a 8 — k 8 1 2 ) and is carelessly printed on fairly good paper. There is no printer's name or place of printing, but L'Estoile's remark suggests either Lyons or Geneva. The British Museum has also a copy of another edition dated 1575. It is printed in much smaller type than the preceding and has 96 pages (sig. A 8 — F"). In 1576 appeared a true second edition, plus correcte, mieux dis- posee que la premiere, et augmentee de quelques partictilaritez. Collation : a 8 — g 8 i 4 k 2 ; one leaf not numbered + 121 pp. numbered in to cxxin + one page blank. Without printer's name or place of printing (a copy in my possession). Among the additions are a number of couplets of a sententious character, many of which are translated from Greek authors. An instance of its greater correctness is that the names of La Mole and Coconnas are now spelt correctly, whereas in the 1575 edition of 164 pp. we find La Maule, and variously Couconnax, Coconnace, or Coconnaz. A third edition. published in 1578, reproduced the text of 1576. (See Lelong, 2nd ed. 11. 649.) But in an edition published in 1643 many of the 328 APPENDIX E couplets are omitted, and this text was reproduced in 1663 in an edition which is generally to be found bound up with the Recueil de diverses pieces servans d Vhistoire de Henry III, published at Cologne [Brussels] in 1660. The latest suggestion as to the authorship is that of M. Clement in his Henri Estienne et son ceuvre franfaise, 1899. He thinks that the joint authors were Innocent Gentillet, the author of the Anti- Machiavel, and Estienne, the latter's special contribution being the prologue and the more satirical parts. I have already stated the fatal objections to Estienne's authorship, and they are hardly lessened by supposing that he had a partner. In supporting Gentillet's claim M. Cle'ment lays stress on the sententious couplets, pointing out that similar ones occur in the Anti-Machiavel, but this argument will not avail against the fact that whereas Gentillet in the Anli-MacAiavel correctly speaks of the favourite of Brunhild as Protadius, the author of the Discours merveilleux calls him Proclaide 1 . M. Weiss, in reviewing Clement's book {Bull. Prot. fran$ais xlix.), while rejecting his view as to the authorship, suggests La Planche or Hotman. But the style of La Planche is more distinctly archaic than that of the Discours, while the mistake as to the name of Brunhild's favourite precludes a competent historian like Hotman, who, in fact, gives the name correctly in the Franco-gallia. More- over, in 1574 he was engaged in writing the De furoribics gallicis. 1 The name Proclaide is doubtless derived from the Grandes chroniques or Annates de France in some form or other. It appears in Belleforest, whose arrangement of the Grandes chroniques appeared in 1573, and to whom the author of the Discours merveilleux refers as Un certain brouillou nomme Belle- forest. Du Haillan, who relied on Paulus Aemilius more than on the Grandes chroniques, gives the name as Protade or Proclade. APPENDIX F. The genesis of the Satire M£nipp£e. I. BibliograpJiy of the more important early editions. i. La vertv dv Catholicon d'Espagne: Auec vn Abrege de la tenue des Estats de Paris convoquez au X de Febvrier 1593 par les chefs de la Ligue, tire des memoires de Mademoiselle de la Lande, alias la Bayonnoise, et des secrettes confabulations d'elle et du pere Commelaid. m.d. xciiii. Collation, A 4 — Y 4 ; 88 11., all numbered except the title-page; on 1. 2 v°. is a woodcut of a charlatan playing on a lute. Contains at the end seventeen pieces of verse. Bib. Nat. This is the only edition numbered by leaves instead of pages, and the only one which contains no more than seventeen pieces of verse. Read's text follows this edition. 2. Satyre Menippee de la vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne et de la tenue des Estatz de Paris, 1594. Collation, A — P 8 ; 240 pp. (numbering cut away). Contains forty pieces of verse, but not the As tie ligueur nor the Deuxieme advis. The passage relating to Villeroy is unaltered. Brit. Mus. 3. Satyre Menippee de la vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne et de la tenue des Estatz de Paris. A laquelle est adiouste un Discours sur l'interpretation du mot de Higuiero d'Infierno, &c. qui en est l'Autheur. Plus le regret sur la mort de l'Asne Ligueur d'une Damoyselle qui mourut durant le siege de Paris, m.d. xciiii. Collation, a 8 ; 8 11. not numbered: A— R s ; 272 pp. numbered 1—256, 259—274. Badly printed. Brit. Mus. (Grenville Library) ; Bib. Nat. 330 APPENDIX F Contains forty pieces of verse besides the Asne ligueur, and at the end the Deuxibne advis. The passage relating to Villeroy is altered. The text of Tricotei's edition, 2 vols. 1877— 1884, is printed from this. Frank's text follows an edition of which there is a copy in the Imperial Library at Vienna. It is dated 1594, and has 196 pp. ; it contains forty pieces of verse, but is without the Deuxieme advis. The editions bearing the date of 1593, such as that in the Bib. Mazarine of 255 pp., and that in the Brit. Mus. of 414 pp., really belong to 1594- 2. The primitive text. Constant Leber, a competent and distinguished bibliophil who died in 1807, declared that he had seen a thin pamphlet of fifteen leaves with the title of La Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne, and that it was printed at Tours by Iamet Mettayer. Its existence, however, is otherwise unknown. (See Read, Le texte primiiif, p. xxv.) Similarly Dom d'Argonne (1634 — 1704). a Carthusian, says in his A/elanges dhistoire et de litterature, which he published in 1702 under the pseudonym of Vigneul de Marville, that Le Roy wrote and had printed in 1593 La Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne, that Gillot, Pithou, &c. added to it a second piece entitled Abrege des Etats, &c, and that the whole was printed in 1594 under the title of Satyre Menippee. (Read, op. at. p. 89.) But this testimony is late, and, in the absence of the printed text of 1593, which Dom d'Argonne does not say that he had seen, carries little weight. The only form in which the primitive text has come down to us is that of a manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale, entitled Abbrege et L'Ame des Estatz convoquez a Paris en fan 1593, which contains the whole satire in a greatly abridged form. This has been printed by Read {Le texte primitif de la Satyre Menippee, 1878). De Thou, who was an intimate friend of Pierre Pithou, gives the following account of the satire : — Ln ea post aulaea in Usque depictas ad rem accommodatas imagines et tabu/as, orationes iocosae seriae pari festivitate referuntur. Scripti primus auctor creditur sacrificus quidam e Neustria terra, vir bonus et a factione summe alietius, qui coram Borbonio cardinali juniore quotidie sacrum celebrabat. Sed cum is tantum prima theatri vestigia delineasset, succedens alius scenam perfecte struxit {Hist, sui temp. lib. cv. c. 18). D'Aubigne's account runs as follows : — Mais ce qui les (les Estals) rendit du tout meprisables furent divers escrits semez cotitre et entre eux, la plus excellente satyre qui ait APPENDIX F 331 parti de nostre temps, portant pour titre le Catholicon d'Espagne ; ce livre compose par un ausmonier du Cardinal de Bourbon, homme de peu d'apparcnce et de nom ; Rapin, a qui on I'avoit attribue, y contribua quelques vers seulement (Hist. Univ., liv. xm. c. xiii. ed. Ruble vm. 244). The reference to the Estates shews that D'Aubigne must be referring to the primitive version of the satire, which appeared in March or April, 1593, but though he calls it le Catholicon, he does not necessarily mean that this was the original title. It has been objected with regard to his last remark that there are no verses in the existing manuscript, but we do not know that all the manuscript copies were identical, and there may have been others which contained verses. Both De Thou's and D'Aubigne's remarks alike point to the fact that the satire in its original form was the work of Le Roy. But there is nothing in either of their statements to contradict the testimony of Pierre Dupuy and the generally accepted tradition that the satire in its final shape was due to several hands. De Thou's use of the singular (succedens alius) is a familiar Latin idiom which does not exclude a plurality of persons. On the evidence before us, and having regard to the weight of De Thou's testimony as the intimate friend of Pierre Pithou, I believe that Le Roy's work is represented substantially, if not literally, by the manuscript printed by Read. To suppose that Le Roy only wrote the first part, La vertu du Catholicon, is to lay a wrong stress on D'Aubigne's words. They do not imply that the original title was Le Catholicon d'Espagne, nor was this a title which, so far as we know, the satire ever bore, except perhaps in popular speech. With regard to the printed pamphlet which Leber says that he saw, his attainments and bibliographical experience entitle him to belief, but his statement that it was printed at Tours by Iamet Mettayer is doubtless only an inference. It is of course possible that Mettayer may have begun by printing separately the first part of the satire, La vertu du Catholicon, though, as Read points out, it is somewhat strange that he should have said nothing about it either in his Premier or his Deuxieme advis. It is much more likely that whatever the original pamphlet was it was printed by some other printer. But whatever may be the truth about the primitive text of the Mmippee, the important fact remains that it began to circulate, at any rate in manuscript, as early as April, 1593. M. Unmet 1 statements that "it appeared in 1594," and that it was published " nine months after the conversion and three months after the entry of Henry IV into Paris," are based on the erroneous idea that "appearance" and "publication" necessarily imply printing. APPENDIX G. On some biographical and bibliographical works. i. Andre Thevet, Portraits et vies des hommes illustres, 2 vols, fo., Paris, 1584. Andre Thevet (1502 — 1590) was a Franciscan, who devoted several years of his life to travelling. He accompanied Villegagnon on his celebrated expedition to Brazil, but fell ill immediately after getting there, and as soon as he was well enough to travel returned to France. After his return he became almoner to Catharine de' Medici, and historiographer and cosmographer to Charles IX. His work is of little value except for the lives of those with whom he was personally acquainted. Some of the woodcuts are excellent. Pierre de l'Estoile, in recording Thevet's death, speaks of him as insigne i?ienteur et fort ignorant (Journal, v. 61). See Niceron, Memoires xxxm. 2. La Bibliotheque d'Antoine du Verdier. Lyons, 1585 (printing finished December 15, 1584). Premier volume de la Bibliotheque du sieur de la Croix du Maine. Paris, 1584. Antoine du Verdier (1544 — i6co), a rich man with a fine library, who had houses at Lyons and elsewhere in that part of France, and Francois Crude, sieur de la Croix du Maine (1552 — 1592), conceived independently the design of making a catalogue raisonne of French writers, but they had evidently commu- nicated with each other before their works appeared. In 1772-3 Rigoley de Juvigny published an edition of the two bibliographies, with notes by La Monnoye and others : Les Bibliotheques franfoises de La Croix du Maine et de Du Verdier, 6 vols., of which the first two volumes contain La Croix du Maine's bibliography, and the remaining four that of Du Verdier. For the more obscure writers of the sixteenth century the notices are of great value, but the biographical dates are not always to be relied on. See Niceron, Memoires xxiv. APPENDIX G 333 3. Virorum doctrina illustrium, qui hoc seculo in Gallia floruerunt elogia, Poitiers, 1598; Gallorum doctrina illustrium qui nostra patrumque memoria floruerunt elogia. Recens aucta et in duos divisa libros, ib. 1602 ; aucta denuo et recognita, Paris, 1630. The author of this work, Scevole de Sainte-Marthe (Sammar- thanus), has already been noticed in these pages. (See ante, pp. 23, 24.) He was born in 1536, and died in 1623. His elogia, as their name implies, are panegyrics and not biographies, and give very little information. The first edition, in one book, contains sixty-six elogia, the last being that of Florent Chrestien, who died in 1596. The final edition, in five books, contains about one hundred and fifty elogia, the last being that of Estienne Pasquier, who died in 16 15. A life of Sainte-Marthe is prefixed to a translation of the Pazdotrophia into English verse by H. W. Tytler, M.D., 1757. 4. Guillaume Colletet (1598 — 1659), Vies des poetes franfais. The author, an indifferent poet who was patronised by Richelieu, left this work in manuscript, comprising about four hundred lives. In the conflagration of the Louvre library by the Commune in May, 187 1, it was destroyed, but about half the lives (193), together with portions of others (^^) had either been printed or copied in manu- script. Moreover the Bibliothcque Nationale has recently acquired a copy, more or less imperfect, of 147 lives, which was probably made for Aime-Martin. I subjoin a list of those lives which belong to our period, and have been printed. It must be confessed that they contain very little information. R. Belleau. (Euvres, ed. Gouverneur, 3 vols., 1867. E. de Beaulieu. ed. P. Tamizey de Larroque in Plaquettes Gontaudaises. P. de Brach. (Euvres, ed. R. Dezeimeris, 11. 1861. L. de Carle. Vies des poetes bordelais, ed. T. de Larroque, ,1873. J. Doublet. Elegies, ed. P. Blanchemain, 1869. G. Salluste du Bartas. Vies des poetes gascons, ed. T. de Larroque, 1866. G. du Faur de Pibrac. ed. T. de Larroque, 187 1. Pernette du Guillet. (Euvres, ed. Breghot du Lut, 1830. A. Jamyn. (Euvres, ed. C. Bonnet, 1. 1878. E. de la Boe'tie. Vies des poetes bordelais. J. Bastier de la Peruse. Poetes angoumoisins, ed. E. Gellibert des Seguins and E. Castaigne, 1863. O. de Magny. Demieres poesies, ed. E. Courbet, 1880. 334 APPENDIX G C. Marot. CEuvres, ed. G. Guiffrey, 187 1. Marguerite de Navarre. Poetes angou?noisins. F. Perrin. ed. A. de Charmasse, 1887. F. Rabelais. ed. Philomneste, Jun. (G. Brunei), 1867. N. Rapin. Le Cabinet historique for 187 1, pp. 235 — 257. M. Re^nier. CEuvres, ed. E. de Barthelemy, 1862. P. Ronsard. CEuvres in e'diles, ed. P. Blanchemain, 1855. M. de Saint-Gelais. Poetes angoumoisins. E. Tabourot. Rochambeau, La famille de Ronsart, p. 251, 1868. J. Tahureau. Mignardises amoureuses, ed. P. Blanche- main, 1868. Extracts from the lives of J. du Bellay and J. -A. de Baif will be found in Rochambeau, id. p. 192, and from that of Baif in Sainte- Beuve's chapter on Desportes in the Tableau de la poe'sie francaise. See T. de Larroque, introduction to Vies des poetes gaseous; L. Pannier, Essai de restitution du tnanuscrit de G. Colletet, Rev. critique, 1870 (2) 324 — 338; P. Bonnefon in Rev. d'hist. litt. 11. 5. Me moires pour servir a I'histoire des hommes illustres dans la republique des lettres, avec le catalogue raisonne de leurs ouvrages, 43 vols., 1729— 1745. Jean-Pierre Niceron, a Barnabite father, was born in 1685, and died in 1738. After serving as professor of rhetoric and philo- sophy, first at Loches and then at Montargis, he was recalled in 17 1 6 to Paris, where he spent the rest of his life in literary researches. At his death he had published thirty-nine volumes of his great work, and left materials for a fortieth, which was published in 1740 under the editorial care of the abbe Goujet and others, who afterwards added three more volumes. The names are not arranged on any plan, but volumes x. XX. and xxx. each contain an index to the previous nine volumes, while from volume xxxi. onwards there is a general index to all the volumes published. The account of each writer is followed by a full bibliography of his works. Niceron has performed his task with, on the whole, great accuracy and competence. 6. Bibliotheqtte Francoise ou Histoire de la Literature Fratifoise, par M. l'abbe Goujet, 18 vols., 1740 — 1756. Claude-Pierre Goujet (1697 — 1767) was a Jesuit student, who resisted all attempts to make him a Jesuit. His work is arranged APPENDIX G 335 on the following plan : i. deals with Language, n. with Rhetoric, in. with Artes poeticae, iv. — viii. with Translations, ix. to xvm. with Poetry, sixteenth century poets being contained in x. — xiv. For the biography of those poets who find a place in Niceron's work, Goujet copies his predecessor almost literally, though with some additions of his own, but he replaces Niceron's bare list of works by citation and some not very valuable criticism. The whole canon, as it may be called, of the Dictionnaire Historique from the first edition of Louis Moreri's Grand Dictiormaire Historiqae in 1674 (1 vol. fo.) to its last in 1760 (10 vols.) is admirably dealt with by R. C. Christie in his Selected Essays and Papers, pp. n — 16. The canon comprises besides Moreri Bayle's Dictionary, first published as a supplement to Moreri, in 2 vols., fo. 1697, that of Chaufepie, 4 vols., 1750 — 1756, and that of Prosper Marchand, 2 vols., fo. 1758-9, the two latter being published as supplements to Bayle. APPENDIX H. Chronological Table. 152 1 Le Violier des histoires romaines. 1527 Histoire de Bayard (by Le loyal serviteurf. 1529 Bude's Commentarii linguae graecae. Foundation of the royal professorships. Translation of the Celestina. Tory's Champ fleury. 1530 First royal professors appointed. Lefevre's Bible. Palsgrave's L'esclarcissement de la langue francoyse. 1 53 1 Le Parangon des nouvelles honnestes et delectables. 1532 Marot's Adolescence Cle??ientine. Pantagruel 2 . Alamanni's Opere Toscane, published at Lyons (completed in 1533); 1533 New edition of Pantagruel. 1534 Marot's Suite de P Adolescence. Gargantua ; new edition of Pantagruel. 1535 The Bible of P.-R. Olivetan (Protestant Bible). New edition of Gargantua. I 53^ Quarrel between Marot and Sagon. Calvin's Institutio. 1537 Translation of the Cortegiano. 1538 New edition of Marot's poems. Des Periers's Cymbalum Mundi. 1539 Edict of Villers-Cotterets. 1540 Death of Bude. First Book of Amadis de Gaule. 1 There was possibly an earlier edition in 1524. 2 Probably published at the end of this year. APPENDIX H 337 1541 Calvin's Institution de la religion Chrestienne (first French edition). 1542 Dolet's translation of Cicero's Letters. Heroet's La par/aide amye. New edition of Pantagruel and Gargantua. 1543 Prose translation of the Orlando Furioso (by Jean Martin?). Ch. Estienne's translation of Gli higannati. 1544 Deaths of Marot and Des Periers. A new edition of Marot's poems. Des Periers's Recueil. Sceve's Delie. 1545 Calvin's Institution (second French edition). Le Macon's translation of the Decameron. A translation of Ariosto's Snppositi. Pare's Me'thode de traicter les playes /aides par hacqucbutes. 1546 Estienne Dolet burnt. Third book of Pantagruel. 1547 Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des princesses. Peletier's CEuvres Poetiques. Saint-Gelais's CEuvres. Amyot's LJ Histoire sEthiopique. Du Fail's Propos rustiques. 1548 Sibilet's Art poetique. Fourth book of Pantagruel (in 1 1 chapters). Du Fail's Baliverneries. 1 549 Death of Margaret of Navarre. Du Bellay's La deffence et illustration de la langue Francoyse, Olive and Recueil. 1550 Ronsard's Odes. T. de Beze's Abraham Sacrifiant. 1551 1552 New edition of the Third book of Pantagruel. Fourth book of Pantagruel (complete). Ronsard's Amours. Baif's Amours. Performance of Jodelle's Cleopatre (?) and Eugene. J 553 Death of Rabelais (or 1554). Magny's Les Amours. J 554 Magny's Les Gayeth. Tahureau's Poems. Rabutin's Commentaires. 1555 Death of Tahureau. T. II. -- $$8 APPENDIX H Ronsard's Hy nines and " Amours de Marie.'" Louise Labe's (Euvres. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye's Forestries (books i., ii.). Ramus's Dialectique. 1556 1557 Magny's Les Soupirs. La Peruse's Medee. 1558 Death of Saint-Gelais. Les nouvelles recreations et joyeux devis. Du Bellay's Les Regrets. 1559 Amyot's translation of Plutarch's Lives and of Longus's Pastoral of Daphnis and Chloe. Du Bellay's Le poete courtisan. Magny's Les Odes. 1560 Death of Joachim du Bellay. Ronsard's (Euvres, 4 vols, (first collected edition). Pasquier's Recherches de la France, book i. The '' Tigre" (attributed to Hotman). 1561 Death of Magny. Grevin's Theatre. Scaliger's Poetice. 1562 L'is/e sonnante. Ronsard's Discours des miseres de ce temps. 1563 Death of La Boetie. Palissy's Recepte veritable. 1564 Death of Calvin. Fifth book of Fantagruel. 1565 Ronsard's Abrege de Part poctique franfois and Elegies. La Place's Commentaires. Pasquier's Recherches, books i., ii. " Le Livre des MarchanJs." 1566 Death of Louise Labe. Henri Estienne's Apologie pour Herodote. Performance of Filleul's Les Ombres. 1567 Ronsard's (Euvres, 6 vols. Performance of Baif's Le Brave. 1568 Garnier's Porcie. 1569 Du Bellay's (Euvres. Scevole de Sainte-Marthe's Premieres ceuvres. 1570 Death of Gre'vin. 1571 La Boetie's Vers francais. Visit of / Gelosi to Paris. APPENDIX H 339 1572 Death of Ramus. Amyot's translation of Plutarch's Moralia. Ronsard's Franciade. Belleau's Bergerie. Baif's collected poems (completed 1573). Jean de la Taille's Saul le furieux. 1573 Death of Jodelle. Yver's Le Printemps d' Yver. Du Bartas's La Muse Chrestientie. Desportes's Les premieres oeuvres. Jean de la Taille's La Famine and Les Corrivaux. Gamier 's Hippolyte. Belleau's La Reconnue. Hotman's Franco- Gallia. 1574 Pibrac's Cinquante quatrains. Jodelle's CEuvres. Garnier's Cor?ielie. Ronsard retires from the Court. 1575 Jamyn's CEuvres poetiques. 1576 P. de Brach's Poemes. Belleau's Pier res precieuses. Baif's Mimes (book i.). La Planche's Histoire de V Estat de France. Bodin's Les Six livres de la republique. Du Haillan's Histoire de France. 1577 Death of Belleau. Second visit of / Gelosi to Paris. 1578 Du Bartas's La Semaine. Ronsard's CEuvres, 5 vols. Henri Estienne's Deux dialogues du nouveau francois Italianize. Garnier's Marc Antoine. Translation of Montemor's Diana. New translation of the Celestina. 1579 Larivey's Six premieres comedies. Garnier's La Troade. Fauchet's Recueil des antiquiiez Gauloises. Vindicice contra tyrannos 1 . 1580 Palissy's Discours admirables. Montaigne's Essays (two books). Garnier's Antigone. 1581 Fauchet's Recueil de I'origine de la langue et poesie franfoise. 1 'Written almost certainly in 1574. 340 APPENDIX H La Popeliniere's Histoire de France. Mornay's De la verite de la religion chrestienne. 1582 Death of Odet de Turnebe. Second edition of Montaigne's Essays. Garni er's Bradamante. 1583 Rapin's Les plaisirs du gentilhomme chamfietre. Pibrac's Les quatrains (complete). Gamier' s Les Juives. 1584 Death of Pibrac. Du Bartas's La Seconde Semaine. Odet de Turnebe's Les Contents. Bouchet's Les Sere'es (first book). Ronsard's CEuvres, 1 vol. fo. Translation of Tasso's Aminta. 1585 Death of Ronsard (December 27). Garnier's Tragedies. Du Fail's Les contes et discours d'Eutrapel. Cholieres's Les Neuf Matinees. 1586 Pasquier's Letters (ten books). 1587 Cholieres's Les Apres disnees. La Noue's Discours politiques et militaires. 1588 Fifth edition of Montaigne's Essays (first edition in three books). N. de Montreux's Les bergeries de Juliette (first French pastoral novel). 1589 Death of Baif. 1590 Deaths of Montaigne, Pare, Palissy, and Du Bartas. 1591 Deaths of La Noue and Noel du Fail. 1592 Monluc's Co??unentaire. 1593 Translation of Guarini's LI Pastor Jido. Charron's Les trois veritis. 1594 Durand's CEuvres poetiques. La Satire Minippie. 1595 Posthumous edition of Montaigne's Essays. Du Vair's De r eloquence francoise. 1596 Deaths of Bodin and P. Pithou. Pasquier's Eec/ierches, books i. — vi. Performance of N. de Montreux's L 'Arimcne. 1597 Passerat's Le pret?iier livre des poemes. 1598 Death of Henri Estienne. Guy de Tours's Premieres aiuvres poetiques. 1599 APPENDIX H 34I 1600 Death of Gamier. 0. de Serres's Theatre d 'Agriculture. 1601 Montchrestien's Tragedies. Bertaut's CEuvres poetiques. Charron's De la sagesse. 1602 Death of Passerat. Bertaut's Vers amoureux. 1603 Death of Charron. 1604 First part of De Thou's History. Second edition of Charron's De la sagesse. 1605 Vauquelin de la Fresnaye's Diverses poesies. 1606 Death of Desportes. 1607 Death of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye. 1608 Regnier's Satires (i — ix, xii). 1609 „ „ (i— xii). A few of the works noticed in this history were not published till after the death of HenrylV (1610), notably D'Aubigne's Les Tragiques, Histoire Universelle, and Aventures de Fceneste, which appeared from 1616 to 1630; his Confession de Sancy, published in 1660; and his Vie a ses enfants, which did not see the light till the next century. Regnier's Macette appeared in 161 2, and Satires xiv — xvii in 161 3. Very few of the memoirs of our period were printed before that period was over. Thus Margaret de Valois's memoirs appeared in 1628, Sully's in 1638, Brantome's in 1665-66, and L'Estoile'sy7/. 14; his education, ib. 15; publication of his letters, ib. ; his Commentarii linguae graecae, ib.; urges the King to establish a royal college for the study of ancient languages, ib. ; appointed master of the King's library, iS; his death. [9; little practised in writing French, 30; corresponds with P. Amy and Ra- belais, 167 Bullant, Jean, architect, i 276, :;o Burchiello, II, Saint-Gelais's imitation of, i 148; in part the originator of Burlesque, ii 2^4 Burye, de, a devisant of the Hepta- meron, i ion . Buttet, Marc-Claude de, his experiments in vers mesuris, ii 8; his poetry, 21 Caen, ii 319; University of, i 2.!, ii r, tiansl.itii.n~ of, Cahors, i 57 Callimachus, Ron ; ". i 31 1 Calvin, |ean i 22; remonstrates with Margarel oi Navarre on her relations with the "Spiritual libertines," io,;, 1:4 and 346 INDEX n. 3 ; his view of human nature op- posed to Rabelais's, 210; his birth, 224; his education at Paris, 225; studies law at Orleans and Bourges, id.; returns to Paris and publishes a commentary on Seneca's De dementia, 226 ; becomes a Protestant, ib. ; writes the Latin oration for Nicolas Cop, ib. ; flight from Paris and from France, ib. ; publishes the Institution ib. ; at Geneva, 227 ; Latin and French editions of the Institution Chrestienne, ib. ; its plan, character and style, 228; citations from, 228-230; influence of Latin on his style, 230 ; his polemi- cal writings, 231-2; defects of his style, 233; and see ii 323 Camillo, Giulio, Italian poet, i 271 Canappe, Jean de, a physician at Lyons, i 24 Caporali, Cesare, writer of Burlesque, imitated by Regnier, ii 300 Cariteo, imitated by Tyard, ii 1 Carle, Lancelot de, Bishop of Rieux, a writer of blazons, i 89; his poetry, 319; his importance in the literary world, ib. Caroli,de',orCharles,Geoffroy, President of Grenoble, story relating to in the Heptameron, i 112 and note Castelnau, Michel de, his memoirs, ii 212 Castelvetro, Lodovico, his view of the unities, ii 82 Castiglione, Baltassare, influence of his Cortegiano, i 48, 49; translations of, 48, 147; Rabelais's debt to, 198 Catharine de Bourbon, Duchesse de Bar, sister of Henry IV, her letters, ii 199 n- 3 Catharine de' Medici, see Medici Caturce, Jean de, professor of law at Toulouse, burnt for heresy, i 22 Cavalli, Marino, Venetian ambassador, his report of Francis I's conversation, i 5 and note Caviceo, Jacopo, his Libro del peregrino translated, i 46; its woodcuts, 48 Caxton, William, his version of the Chevalier de la Tour Landry's book, i 98 n. 3 Celestina, the ( Calistoy Melibea), French translation of, i 51 ; borrowings from in the Grand Parangon, 100; its influence on les Contents and on Regnier's Macette doubtful, ii 112, ,3 QI . Cellini, Benvenuto, his relations with Francis I, i 4, 5 Cento novelle antiche, the, i 97 Cent nouvelles nouvelles, the, i 96, 97, 99, 100, 132 Chambre ardente, the, i 179, 194 Champier, Symphorien, a physician of Lyons, i 24; helps to found Trinity College at Lyons, ib. ; his life of Bayard, 241 Chansons de geste, i 155-157 Chappuys, Claude, Discours de la Court, i 48, 90 ; his blazons, 89 Gabriel, translates books xvi-xxi of A madis de Gaule, i 160; continues the Grandes Ckroniques, ii 223 Charles IX, his relations with Ronsard, i 278, 320; becomes protector of Baifs Academy, ii 9 ; gives Desportes 800 gold crowns, 46; Brantome's account of, 193 Charron, Pierre, his les trois verites, ii 273; his appearance and character, ib. ; friendship with Montaigne, 274; publication of la Sagesse, ib . ; his sud- den death, ib. ; La Sagesse examined, 275; First book, ib. ; Second book, 276; Third book, 277; character of the book, ib. ; its influence, 278; his reputation as a preacher, 283 Chartier, Alain, his services to French prose, i 224 Chastel, Pierre du, chief adviser to Francis I in literary matters, i 20; his education and travels, ib. ; becomes the King's reader, 2 1 ; appointed Archdeacon of Avignon, and Bishop of Macon, Tulle, Orleans, ib. ; his support of scholars and men of letters, ib. ; his learning, ib. Chatillon, Odet de, Cardinal, i 180-1; his patronage of literature, 276 Chinon, i 165, 166, 178 Choisnin, Jean, his memoirs, ii 211 Cholieres, N. de, his Les naif matinees and Apres disnees, ii 186 Choul, Guillaume du, archaeologist, i 24 Chrestien, Florent, scholar, one of the writers of the Satire Mcnippce, ii 234, 236; his attack on Ronsard, i 321 Cintio, Giraldi Giambattista, his Or- becche, ii 75 Clement VII, Pope, i 167, 177 Clouet, Francois, painter, i 276, 279 Coligny, Gaspard de, his account of the defence of St Quentin, ii 2 1 1 Colin, Jacques, reader to Francis I, his translation of part of Ovid, i 38; of the Cortegiano, 48 Jean, his translation of Herodian, i 36 ; of certain works of Cicero, 39 Collerye, Roger de, his poetry, i 55; his Blason des dames, 9 INDEX 347 Colletet, GuilLiume, his lives of French poets, ii 333 Colonna, Francesco, his Hypneroto- machia Poliphili translated, i 46; Rabelais's debt to, 192-193, 198 Comines, Philippe de, date of" publica- tion of Memoirs, i 31 n. ; his prose style, 224 Commcdia dell' arte, ii 103 Confreres de la Passion, the, ii 70 Cop, Nicolas, i 226 Coquillart, Guillaume, his poetry, i 55; his Blasons des amies et des dames, i 89; and see 64, 76, 198 Corbinelli, Jacopo, i 278 Cordier, Maturin, his devotion to the reform of education at the Paris University, i 17; his treatise, De corrupti sermonis apud Gallos el loquendi latine ratione, ib. ; goes to Nevers, it. ; joins the staff of the college of Guienne, ib. ; a Protestant, ib. n. 2 ; goes to Geneva, ib. ; to Neuchatel, 18; returns to Geneva, ib. ; death, ib.; his Colloquies, ib.; Calvin attends his classes, 225 Corneille de Lyon, painter, i 276 Corrozet, Gilles, his verse translation of " /Esop," i 40 ; oiAurelio e Isabelle, 51; his poetry, 91; his guide-book to Paris, ib. ; his Conte du rossignol, 138; his prose version of Richard sans peur, 157 Costanzo, Angelo di, imitated by Desportes, ii 48 Court, influence of the on literature, i 12, 277, ii 318 Court, Benoist, i 24 Crespin, Jean, i 225 Cretin, Guillaume, his poetry, i 53, 60, 79 ; the original of Rabelais's Raminagrobis, 187 Cronique du roi Francois 1, i 241 Cujas, Jacques, jurist, i 280-1, 294, 299 Dampierre, Jean (Dampetrus), Latin poet, i 26 Danes, Pierre, royal professor of Greek, i 16; an ultra-Catholic, 26; his lectures attended by Calvin, 226; tutor to the Dauphin, 275 ; and to Henri Estienne, 291 Dangu, Nicolas, Bishop of Seez and of Mende, a devisant of the Heptameron, i 109 Daniel, Samuel, his debt to Desportes, !i 49 , . Dante, French translations of, 1 45-46 Daurat, see Dorat Delaulne, Estienne, engraver, i 276 Delbene, Baccio, i 278 Demosthenes, translation of his Olynthiacs and Philippics by Le Roy, i 290; the model of Du Yair, ii 184 Denisot, Nicolas, poet and painter, i i45 Des Autels, Guillaume, writes an imitation of Rabelais, i 190; his answer to the Deffence, i 316 Des Masures, Louis, his verse-trans- lation of the sEneid, i 38; his trilogy of David, ii 86 Des Periers, his translation of the I.vsis of Plato, i 37, 138; supports Marot against Sagon, 68, 94. 101; author- ship of the Heptanieron ascribed to him, 114; birth and early life, 133; his Protestant leanings, ib.; helps Dolet at Lyons, ib.; enters the service of Margaret of Navarre, ii. ; becomes a sceptic, 1 24 : his Cymbalum Mundi, 124-128; his suicide, i:S; his collected works, ib.; his poems, 129-130; his Joyeux Devis, 130 134, 191; his literary characteristics, [34; authorship of the Joyeux Devis dis- cussed, 259-261 ; his Queste (famitie, 138; his rank as a writer, 254; his prose style, ib. ; and see ii 323 Desportes, Philippe, translates Ariosto, i 48; his resemblance to Saint-Gelais, 151 ; the favourite poet of Henry 111, 278; his early life, ii 45; his Premieres (Euvres, 46: favoured by Henry III, ib. ; finds a patron in Joyeuse, ib. ; takes refuge with Villars- Brancas, ib. ; negotiates with Sully, 47; translates the 1'salms, ib.\ exer- cises hospitality, it.', his plagiarisms, ib.; his poetry, 48 ; his sonnets, 4S 4.9; his songs, 50-51 ; his spiritual sonnets, 52; his debt to Montem&r's Plana, ib. ; general characteristics ol his poetry, ?2-?>,; his resemblance to Saint-Gelais, 53; bis popularity in England, 53-54; Regnier's debts to, 293, 304; and see .; 1 1 Desrey, Pierre, his translation of Gaguin's Compendium, i Desrosiers, Claude, his translation of Dio Cassius, i 36 Devices of printers on their title-pi i l 1 Dialogue (Tentre le Mahtustrt et It Manant, ii 233 Diane de Poitiers, her patronage ol art, i 275 ; refuses to accept dedications from Ron ard, 1 319 Dinteville, Francoi de. Bishop of Auxerre, diplomatist, i 7; is accom- 348 INDEX panied to Rome and Venice by Pierre du Chaste], 20 Dio Cassius, translation of, i 36 Diodorus, translation of, i 36 Discours merveilleux, the, or Vie Sainte Catharine, publication of, ii 230 ; authorship discussed, 230-231, 327-8 Dolet, Estienne, corrector to Gryphius's press, i 24 ; sets up a press of his own, 25; his Commentaries on the Latin tongue, id. ; banquet in his honour, id.; burnt, 26; his religious opinions, id. ; his treatises on trans- lating, punctuation and accents, i 33; his translations of Plato, 36; of Cicero's Letters, 39; revises J. Colin's translation of the Cortegiano, 48, 70; his poetry, 92-3 ; his quarrel with Rabelais, 177; his Gestes de Francoys de Valois, 240; its style, 254; and see 126 Doneau, Hugues (Donellus), jurist, i 280. 294 Dorat, Jean, his name, i 309 n. 3 ; his work on ^Eschylus, 310; his teaching, id. Dorleans, Louis, pamphleteer, ii 232 Doublet, Jean, his elegies, ii 21 ; a source of Regnier's Alacette, 300 Du Bartas, Guillaume de Salluste, his Judith, ii 36 ; his Uranie, id. ; La Semaine, 36-37; La seconde Semaine, 37 ; his employment by Henry of Navarre, id. ; his death, 38 ; charac- teristics of his poetry, 38-42 ; and see 326 Du Bellay, Eustache, Bishop of Paris, i 351 — - Guillaume, Seigneur de Langey, his patronage of Rabelais, i 7 ; his view of religious reform, 28 ; Rabelais in his service, 177; his death, 178; his Ogdoades, 240 Jean, Bishop and Cardinal, his patronage of Rabelais, i 7 ; and of art and letters, id. ; favours the evangelical preaching, 27; takes Rabelais to Rome, 172, 173, 174, 179; appoints him to a canonry in abbey of Saint-Maur des Fosses, 176; letters from Rabelais and from Jean Sturm to, 179; holds festivities at Rome, 180; is out of favour, id. ; appoints Rabelais to the cure of Meudon, id.; takes his cousin Joachim to Rome, 342 ; his anger at the Regrets, 350; his death. 351 Joachim, passages from his Def fence cited, i 85, 87, 139, 141; his sonnet to Maurice Sceve, 139; his birth, 310; his education, 311; his meeting with Peletier, id. ; publishes the Deffence, id. ; summary of the Deffence, 311-313; its style, 314; its critics, 315-316; his reply, 316; his early poetry, 339-42; his Olive, 340; his popularisation of the sonnet, 34 1 ; his Recueil, id. ; goes to Rome with Cardinal du Bellay, 342; his An- tiquites de Rome, 342-3 ; his Regrets, 343-6; his Latin poems and Divers jeux rusiiques, 346-8 ; his satirical poems, 348-50, ii 293, 295; his con- cluding years and death, i 350— r ; characteristics of his poetry, 351-3; Belleau's Chant pastoral on his death, ii 3 ; a true Latin, 35 ; see 311, 315, 3 2 °. 323 Du Bellay, Martin, his memoirs, i 240 Rene, Bishop of Le Mans, his garden, i 7; a patron of letters, id. Rene, Baron de la Lande, edits the Du Bellay memoirs, i 240 Dubois, Jacques (Sylvius), his French grammar, i 34; his views on ortho- graphy, id. ; his lectures on anatomy, 176 Du tail, Noel, his Propos rastiques and his Balivemeries, ii 184-185; his Les contes et discours cT Eulrapel, ii 185- 186 ; a spurious edition of his Propos rustiques, i 194 ; and see 323 Du Haillan, Bernard de Girard, his history of France, ii 223 Du Maine, Guillaume, reader to Mar- garet of Navarre and tutor to her children, i 101 Du Moulin, Antoine, revises existing translations of Caesar, i 39, 101 ; becomes reader to Jean de Tournes, 1 2* and n. 3 ; edits the works of Des Periers, id. ; and some poems of Saint- Gelais and others, 150 Du Perron, Jacques Davy (Cardinal), attacked by D'Aubigne in the Con- fession de Saucy, ii 251-252 ; his arrival at the Court, 266; his poetry, 270; his prose, 271; his pulpit oratory, 283; and see 322 Du Plessis-Mornay, Philippe, his letter to Louise de Coligny, ii 164 n. 5; author of the Vindiciae contra tyran- nos, 231 ; his controversy with Du Perron, 271 ; his De la vhitide la re- ligion chrestienne, 272; his style, id. M me , her memoirs, ii 212 Du Pont, Gracien, Seigneur de Drusac, his "art of poetry,"' i 69; his Contro- verses des sexes, id. ; his feud with Dolet, 70 INDEX 349 Du Prat, Guillaume, Chancellor of France, i 46 Du Premierfait, Laurent, his translation of the Decameron, i 44, 97 Durant, Gilles, his poetry, ii 57-58, 3« Du Tillet, Jean, historian, ii 223 Du Yair, Guillaume, Charron's debt to, ii 275, 278: his early career, 279; La sainte philosophic. 2. So; La philo- sophic morale des Sto'iques, id. ; De la Constance es calaniitez publiques, id.; De P eloquence francaise, 281- 283 ; his own oratory, 284 ; his later career, id.; made Bishop of Lisieux, 2S5; his death, ib. ; his style, id.; and see 322 Duval, Pierre, Bishop of Seez, his trans- lation of the Crito, i 36 Du Val, Pierre, editor of Le Puy du souverain Amour, i 139 Du Verdier, Antoine, his statement as to the authorship of the Isle Sonnante, i 189—190; his Bibliotheque, ii 332 Duvet, Jean, engraver, i 276, 7 Ellain, Nicolas, his sonnets, i 346, ii 22 Emblems, i 1 1 Emilio, Paolo, his De rebus gestis Fran- co rum, i 239 Epictetus, Enchiridion of, translated by Du Yair, ii 280 Erasmus, Desiderius, letter to Cop from, i 8 ; letter from Bude to, ib. ; Rabelais's letter to, 171; Rabelais's debt to, 198 Este, Ercole d', Duke of Ferrara, i 67 Estienne, Charles, tutor to J. -A. de Baif, ii 5; translates Terence's An- dria, 71 ; his translation of Gli l7tgannati, 104 Estienne, Henri, i 181; his birth and education, 291 ; his travels and re- searches,/^.; his edition of "Anacreon," ib., 330-2 ; his Apologie pour Herodote, 2g2~4; his Thesaurus, 294; his works relating to the French language, 294- 296; his last years, and death, 296; his style, 296-298 ; edits the Senten- tiae of P. Syrus, ii 7 ; his Latin translation of Sextus Empiricus, 167; his authorship of the Discours tner- veilleux disproved, 230-1 ; and see 323- 3 2 7-8 Robert, father of the preceding, King's printer, i 19; his answer to the censure of the Sorbonne, 298 Estissac, Geoffroy d'. Bishop of Mail- lezais, i 23, 166; his friendship with Rabelais, 167, 182 ; his correspon- dence with, 174 Euripides, translations of, i 37 Eusebius. translation of. i 36 Eyquem, Pierre, father of Montaigne, " '36-137; mayor of Bordeaux, 138; death, 140 Fabri, Pierre, his Art de rhetorique, i 69, 152 Farel, Guillaume, constrains Calvin to remain at Geneva, i 2:7. 133 ; Calvin's dedication to, 233 ; his eloquence, 234 ; his writings, ib. Fauchet, Claude, his translation of Tacitus, i 39 ; his Recueil des auti- quitez Gauloises et Franchises, 504 ; his Recueil de I'origine de la langue et poesie francoise, 305 Ficino, Marsilio, his Latin commentary on the Symposium, i 137; translated into French, 138 Fierabras, i 157 and n. 1 Filleul, Nicolas, his Les Ombres, ii 115 Fine, Oronce, royal professor of Mathe- matics, i 16 Flaminio, Marcantonio, neo-Latin poet, i '47 Fleuranges, Robert de la Marck, Seigneur de, a companion of Francis I in his boyhood ; his memoirs, i 240 Flores, Juan de, translations of his writings, i 51, 137 Flores y Blancaflor, i 162 Folengo, Girolamo (Theophile), other- wise Merlin Coccaye, Rabelais's debt to, i 19S-9, 200 Fondulo. Girolamo, buys Greek mss. for Francis I, i is Fontaine, Charles, a disciple of Marot, i S4 ; lines <>r. his son Jean, 85; titles of his volumes of poems, ib. ; his Coutr' A wye de Court, 86 : l.e Quintil- Horatian wrongly ascribed to, 315; and see 6f law and bad poet, i 88 Fouilloux, Jacques de, his Venerie, ii 2: Francis 1, his character, i 4; bis education, ib. ; his 1 in, 5 ; his patronage of artists and men ol letters, 6; Ins war with Charles V, 8; his attitude towards reform, ib.; three benefits conferred by him on Humanism, 9; his love ol chivalry, 10; his places of residence, 12; forms 350 INDEX a collection of Greek mss., 18; moves the library at Blois to Fontainebleau, ib. ; Alamanni reads Dante to him, 45 ; story relating to him in the Heptameron, 1 1 1 Fregoso, Battista, Doge of Genoa, i 198 Froment, Antoine, his writings, i 243- 244 Gaguin, Robert, his Compendium super Francorum gestis, i 239 GaKen rhitore", i 157 Galland, Jean, principal of the college of Boncour, a friend of Ronsard, i 322 Galliot du Pre, Paris publisher, i 50, 5i. 64 Garcilaso de la Vega, i 52 Gargantua, analysis of, i 183-5 Gamier, Robert, his elegy on Ronsard's death, ii 67 ; the inheritor of Ronsard's style, ib. ; date of his birth, 90 n. 2; his Porcie, 90; his Hippolyte and his Comelie, 91; his Marc Antoine and his La Troade, 92 ; his Les Juives, 93- 94; popularity of his plays, 94; his tragi-comedy of Bradamante, 100- 101 Gascony, its writers, ii 319 Gentillet, Innocent, not the author of the Discours merveilleux, ii 328 Geoffroy a la gran dent, i 157 Gerard d' Euphrate, i 163 Gesta Romanorum, the, i 98, 99, 109 Gilles, Nicolas, his Chronicles, i 239 Gillot, Jacques, one of the writers of the Satire Menippee, ii 233 Giovanni, Ser, his Fecorone, i 97 Gli Ingannati, translated by Charles Estienne, ii 104 Godard, Jean, his Les Desguisez, ii 113 Godefroy de Bouillon, i 157 Gohorry, Jacques, begins a new trans- lation of Livy, i 39; his translation of Machiavelli's Discourses on the first decade of Livy, 48 ; of three books of A Hindis, 160; his poems, 91 Gouffiei, Artus, Seigneur de Boisy, governor to Francis I, i 5 Goujet, Claude-Pierre (1'Abbe), his Bibliotheque francaise, ii 334 Goujon, Jean, sculptor, i 276, 279 Gournay, Marie de, her admiration for Montaigne's Essays, ii 148; edits a posthumous edition of them, 155-6 Gouvea, Andre de, principal of the college of Sainte-Barbe, i 17; of the college of Guienne at Bordeaux, 21 - — — Jacques de, uncle of the preceding, principal of the college of Sainte- Barbe, i 17 Gramont,Contessede(Az&'//£Corisande), death of her husband, ii 145 ; letters of Henry IV to, 198 Grandes ckroniques, the, continuators of, ii 223 Granjon, Jean, Lyons publisher, i 130 Grazzini, Antonio Francesco, called II Lasca, writer of comedy, ii no; and of Burlesque, 295; publishes a col- lected edition of Opere burlesche, 294 Grevin, Jacques, attacks Ronsard, i 321 ; his tragedy of Cesar, ii 78-79, 81; his non-dramatic poetry, 79; his comedies, 106-107; his pastorale, H5 Gringore, Pierre, i 56, 64 ; his Blason des heretiques, 89 Grolier, Jean, bibliophil, i 24 Grosnet, Pierre, his paraphrase of portions of Seneca's tragedies, i 39 Groulard, Claude, his memoirs, ii 214 n. 2 Gruget, Claude, translates Mexia's Silva de varia leccion, i 50; his edition of the Heptameron, 106 Gryphius, Sebastien, Lyons, printer and publisher, i 24, 169, 172, 180 Guarini, Battista, translation of his II Pastor fido, ii 117 Guevara, Antonio de, French trans- lations of his works, i 49-50 and note Gunther, Jean, of Andernach, his lectures at Paris, i 176 Guidacerio, Agatho, royal professor of Hebrew, i 16 Guidi, Guido, anatomist, patronised by Francis I, i 6 Guienne. college of, at Bordeaux, i 21; Montaigne at, ii 138 Guise, Charles de, Cardinal of Guise and afterwards of Lorraine, letters of Rabelais to, i 180; his patronage of learning and literature, 274, 275, 276; Ronsard's epistle to, 322 Guy de Tours, Michel, his poetry, ii 59-60 Guy on, Louis, his statement as to the authorship of the Isle Sonnante, i 189-190 Habert, Francois, his poetry, i 87; a specimen of, 88 ; and see 1 1 Harlay, Achille de, first President of the Paris Parliament, a friend of Pasquier, i 303 ; his oratory, ii 282 Haton, Claude, his memoirs, ii 212 n. 2 Haudent, Guillaume, his verse rendering of /Esop, i 40 INDEX 351 Heliodorus, his Hisloria aethiopica, i 282, 287 Henry II, his character, i 274; condition of art and letters during his reign, 275—277 ; his death, 277 Henry III, his relations to literature, i 278; his criticism of the later Pleiad school, ib. ; advocates Italian fashions, 295; his relations with Henri Estienne, 296; his weakness and unpopularity, ii 123; D'Aubigne's portrait of, 249; his Court, 312 Henry IV, his visits to Montaigne's ch&teau, ii 147, 148; his corre- spondence with Montaigne, 149; his letters, 197-199; the hero of Sully's memoirs, 214; welcomes O. de Serres's Theatre d' Agriculture, ii 286; and see ib. n. 2 Heraldry, popular in France, i 1 1 Herberay, Nicolas de, Seigneur des Essarts, his motto, i 11; translates El relax de ptincipes, 50 ; A r unite y Lncenda, 51; and Amadis, 159; his death, 160; character of his trans- lation of Amadis, 160-162; his prose style, 254 Herodian, translation of, i 36 Heroet, Antoine, Bishop of Digne, his verse translation of part of the Symposium, i 36; an avant-coureur of the Pleiad, 136; his Androgyne, 138; his La parfaite amye, 86 n. 4, 138, 141-142, 144; in the service of Margaret of Navarre, 141 ; al- luded to in the Deffence, 312; and see 152 Herolt, Johann, his Promptuariutn and Sermones Discipuli, i 98, 99 Holcot, Robert, his collection of ex- empla, i 96 n. Homer, Iliad of, translated by Salel, and Odyssey (two books) by Peletier, i 37 ; Ronsard's debt to, 323 Horace, translations of, i 38; his influence on French poetical theory, ib. ; imi- tated by Du Bartas, ii 41 ; his Ars Poetica plagiarised by Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, 65; his Satires, 294; Regnier's debt to, 298, 299 Horapollo, Hieroglyphica of, i 1 2 Hotman, Francois, jurist, i 280, 294, 299; his Tigre, ii 229; his Franeo- Gallia, 231 ; not the author of the Discours merveilleux, 328 Huet, Charles, surnamed La Hueterie, joins Sagon in his quarrel with Marot, i 68 Huon de Bordeaux, i 156, 7 Hurault, Michel, Seigneur du Fay, his two Discours stir I Estat de la France, ii 232 I Confidenti, visit of to Paris in 157:, and in 1584-5, ii 108 / Gelosi, visit of to Paris in 157 1-2, ii 108 Iver or Vver, Jacques, his Printemps iCYver, ii 181-182 James VI of Scotland (James I of England), translates the Urania of Du Bartas, ii 37 Jamet, Lyon, i 60, 63, 75 Jamyn, Amadis, his poetry, ii 25-26 Jeannin, Pierre, his Negotiations, ii 286 Jodelle, Estienne. his Cleopdtre, ii 72-74, 76,81; his Did,>n, 76-77; his non- dramatic poetry, 77 ; his Eugene, 104- 106 Journal ; his sonnets, ii ^art-his Contr'un, 139; his friendship with Montaigne, 140 La Borderie, Jean Boiceau, Seigneur de, i 84 ; his poems, 86 La Croix du Maine, Francois Grade de, his Bibliothique, i 302, ii 332 La Fontaine, i 63. 73, [32, 217, 24S La Halle, Adam de, i 7^ La Haye, Jacques Symon de, also called Symon Silvias, i 101 ; edits the poems of Margaret of Navarre, 115; prefixes to them a poem of his own, 122 ; his translation of Ficino's Latin commentary on the Symposium, [38 Lambin, Denys (Lambinus), his know- ledge of Latin, i 2S1 ; his death, 2^4 ■. and see 1 8 1 Lamy, sec Amy Lancelot, i 156, 157 n. 1 La None, Francois de, hi- opinion of the Amadii ro politiques et milt (aires, ii 200-202 La Perriere, Guillaume de, emblem- writer, i 1 1 La Peruse, Jean I ! member of the Poitiers circle, ii 19; quoted, 30; ai is in Jodelle's playsj 7 2 ; his Afea e, j6 352 INDEX La Place, Pierre de, his history of France (1559-1561), ii 219, 220 n. 5; not the author of the Discours merveilleux, 328 La Planche, Estienne de, his translation of books I— V of Tacitus's A finals, i 39 Louis Regnier de, his history of the reign of Francis II, ii 219; his Le livre des marchands, 229- 230 La Popeliniere, Henri Lancelot Voisin de, his history, ii 220 Larivey, Pierre, his comedies, ii 109- 1 1 1 ; Moliere's debt to, 1 1 1 n. [ La Roche-Chandieu, Antoine de, attacks Ronsard, i 321 Lascaris, Janus, patronised by Francis I, i6 La Taille, Jacques de, his tragedies, Daire and Alexandre, ii 85-86 Jean de, his De Part de la Tra- gedie, ii 82 ; his life and writings, 83-84; his Saul le furieux, 85; his Les Gabeonites, ii. ; his translation of Ariosto's Negromante, 102 ; his Les Corrivaux, 107; his Le courlisan retiri, 296 Latin, use of, in France, i 30-31 La Tour Landry, Chevalier de, his book, i 98, 107, 109 Le Blanc, Estienne, his translation of Cicero's Philippics, i 39 Richard, his translation of the Lofi, i 36 Le Caron, Louis, ii 22 Le disciple de Patitagruel, i 195 Le Ferron, Arnoul, scholar and jurist, his continuation of the Latin history of Paolo Emilio, i 239 Lefevre d'Etaples, Jacques (Jacobus Faber Stapulei^is), his translations of the Bible iorbidden to be sold by the Parlement of Paris, i 30 ; at Nerac, 102 ; visited there by Calvin, 226 Le Houx, Jean, his Faux de Vire, ii 60, 61 Le Jars, Louis, his Lucelle, ii 99-100 Le Loyal Serviteur, i 24 1 Le Loyer, Pierre, his Le inuet insense and La Nephilococugie, ii 113 Le Macon, Antoine. his translation of the Decameron, i 44-45. 105, 217; his poems, 122; his prose style, 254 Le Maire, Jean, i 59, 60. 224 Leo Hebrseus (Judah Abarbanel), his Dialoghi di amove, i 137, 138 and n. 1 ; translated by P. de Tyard, ii 1 Le petit Artus, i 157 and n. 1 Le Roy, Louis, his education, i 289 ; his translations of Greek proseauthors, 290 ; his lectures in the vernacular, id. Le Roy, Pierre, author of the first sketch of the Satire Menippee, ii 233-234 Lescot, Pierre, architect, i 276, 279 Lespine, Charles de, a poem by suggests to Regnier the idea of Macette, ii 300 Les quatre Jils Aymon, i 157 and n. 1 L'Estoile, Pierre de (Petrus Stella), professor of law at Orleans, i 22 Pierre de (grandson of the pre- ceding), his Memoires-Journaux, ii 208-9 > n * s reference to the religious revival, 302 L'Hospital, Michel de, his advice to Ronsard, i 318-319; Ronsard's Ode to, 323; Montaigne's dedicatory letter to, ii 141 ; Brant6me's portrait of, 194; his speeches, 284 Limosin, Leonard, worker in enamel, i 276 Lodge, Thomas, his debt to Desportes, ii 53 Loisel, Antoine, his Pasquier on Dia- logue des Advocats du Parlement de Paris, ii 282 ; and see i 303 Longus, his Daphnis and Chloe, i 282, 287 L'Orme, Philibert de, architect, i 24, 176. 275, 276, 279 Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I, her attention to the education of her children, i 10; Marot's Eclogue on her death, 62, 80; represented in the Heptameron by Osile, 107 ; entry in her diary, 1 10 Louppes, Antoinette de, mother of Montaigne, ii 137 Lucian, translations of, i 36; Rabelais's debt to, 197 Lyons, important centre of learning and literature, i 23 ; its distinguished in- habitants, 24 ; Trinity college at, ib. ; and see ii 219 Mabrian, i 157 Macault, Antoine, his translation of Diodorus i-m, i 36; of the Pro Mi lone, and other speeches of Cicero, 39 . Machiavelli, translations of, i 48; Rabelais's debt to, 198; his Man- dragola, ii 104 Macho, Julien, his translation of ^Esop, i 40 Macrin, Jean Salmon, called, Latin poet, i 26, 182 Madrid, chateau of, i 13 Magny, Olivier de, compared to A. de INDEX > C "3 Musset, ii 10; his Amours and Gayetes, 1 1 ; his journey to Rome, ib. ; his Souspirs, 12, 13; his Odes, I 3~ I 5; his death, 15 Mairet, jean, his Sylvie, his Silvanire, and his Sophonisbe, ii 117 Malherbe, Francois, resemblance be- tween Bertaut and, ii 268-9; nis intimacy with Du Vair, 279; his controversy with Regnier, ii 306-7 ; and see i 119, ii 264, 265, 267, 270, 291, 292 n. 1, 326 Malingre, Matthieu, his poems, i 90 Mantuanus, Baptista Spagnuoli, known as, his Eclogues, i 79 Margaret of Angouleme, Queen of Navarre, her encouragement of letters and learning, i 10; her knowledge of the ancient languages, 14; her patronageofthe University of Bourges, 22; her support of the evangelical preachers at Paris, 27 ; her knowledge of Italian, 44; a student of Dante, 45; accused of heresy by Beda, 65 ; spiritual element in her poetry, 94; her girlhood, 101 ; her first marriage, ib. ; her second marriage, with the King of Navarre, ib. ; her care for the kingdom of Navarre, ib. ; her relations to Protestantism, 102; her religion generally, 103; her study of Neo- Platonism, ib. ; her death, ib.; her intellectual qualities,//-'. ; her character, 104; her influence on the French Renaissance,/^. ; Michelet's phrase, ib. The Heptameron, its origin and growth, 105 ; its publication, ib. ; principal editions, ic6; its historical character, 106-108; its devisants, 108, 109; its epilogues, 109; its Protestantism, no; its treatment of social questions, ib., and social life, in; noteworthy stories, 1 1 1 - 1 1 2 ; its style, 112; specimens of style, 113-114; note on its authorship, 114; Margaret's interest in the N en- Platonic theory of spiritual love, 137, 139 ; her position among the writers of the reign of Francis I, 253; her prose style, 254; and see ii 310, 311, 3' 2 > 3i5, 3 2 3 Duchesse de Berry, daughter of Francis I, her learning and patronage of letters, i 276; her championship of Ronsard's Odes, 319; Ronsard's lines on, 326 ; Du Bellay's Recncil dedicated to, 341 ; her mar- riage with the Duke of Savoy, 350-I of Valois, daughter of Henry II, T. II. Brantome's account of, ii 193; her memoirs and letters, 196-197 Marion, Simon, his reputation as a forensic speaker, ii :S: Marot. Clement, his motto, i 11 ; present at dinner in honour of Dolet, 25; translates books 1, 11 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, 38 ; and six sonnets of Petrarch, 4; ; birth, 57 ; education, ib. ; his early poetical writing-. 58 59 ; taken prisoner at Pavia, 59 : appointed valet de chambre to the King, 60 ; arrested, ib. ; converted to Protestantism, 61 ; Ids Epistles, 62- 63 ; edits Villon, 64 ; his Adolescence Clementine, 65 ; Suite de F Adolescence, 66; at Ferrara, ib., 173; at Venice, 67; returns to France, ib. ; his recantation, ib. ; quarrel with Sagon, 68; new edition of his poems, 70; his translation of the Psalms, ib. ; his flight to Geneva, 71 ; his Psalms, ib. ; his death, 72 ; general charac- teristics of his poetry, ib.; his debt to classical models; his chansons and rondeaitx, 73-74 ; epigrams, 74 ; epistles, 75; Cotj a Mine, 76 ; elegies. 77; Eclogues, 78-79; his metres, 80 ; Psalms, 80-82 ; his services to French poetry, 82 ; his school, 84 ; his blazons, 89, 101, 119, 152, r8a; quoted by Rabelais, 198 ; by Bonivard, 249; his rank among the writers oi the reign of Francis 1, 253; allusion to in the Deffence, 312; referred to, ii 3'°. 3". 3™> 3*5 Jean, father of the preceding, i 54> ?7> 58) 60 Martin, Jean, his translation of Vitruvius and of works on architecture by Serlio and Alherti, i 39 ; revises translations of the Hypnerotomachia and t'.n Libro del peregrine, 46; a pn translation of the Orlando Ft possibly by him, 48; his translation of Gli Asolani, 1 38 Jean, Lyons publisher, i [89 Marullo, Michele, neo-Latin po 1 4 7 ; Ronsard's delit !>>, 334, 330 Mary Stuart, sends Ronsard a ide board, i 322 Masuccio, his Novellino, i 97, 107, 100 Matignon, Marlchal de', lieutenant general of Guyenne, ii 1 (.6, 1 \- Maugis, i 157 Mauro, Giovanni, writer oi Burli ii 294 ; imitated by Regnier, Medici, < !a1 hai ine de', hei mai 1 i 4 ; ; hei love "I building, 175 6 : her library, ib.\ hei patronagi "i 354 INDEX Palissy, ii 133; Brantome's account of, 193 ; attacked in pamphlets, 230; and see 148 Medici, Lorenzo de\ his Siviposio or Beoni, ii 294 Meigret, Louis, his phonetic system, i 34 ; his grammar, ib. ; his translation of Polybius, 36; of the Deofficiis, 39 ; of three books of Pliny's Natural History, ib. ; of Sallust's Jugurtha and Catiline, ib. Meliadus, i 10 Melusine, i 157 Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de, Spanish ambassador in Italy, collects manu- scripts, i 6 Mergy, Jean de, his memoirs, ii 212 Merlin, i 157 n. 1 Mesmes, Henri de, his account of his education, i 272, 273 Jean Pierre de, his translation of Ariosto's Suppositi, i 48 Mexia, Pedro, translation of his Silva de varia leccion, i 50 Meynier, Jean, Baron d'Oppede, his translation of Petrarch's Trionfi, i 45 Michel, Guillaume, his translation of the Eclogues and Georgics, i 38 Millanges, Simon, printer of Montaigne's Essays, i 144; and see ii 274 Minturno, Antonio Sebastiano, debt of Vauquelin de la Fresnaye to, ii 65 Moliere, his debt to Larivey, ii 1 n n. I Molinet, Jean, i 53 Molza, Francesco Maria, neo-Latin poet, i 147 Monluc, Blaise de, Brantome's account of his conversational powers, ii 193; his Continent aires, 202, 203, 205, 206; his character, 203 ; his defence of Siena, 204; and see i 302, ii 316, 325. 326 Jean de, Bishop of Valence, brother of the preceding, an Italian scholar, i 44 Montaigne, Michel de, his remarks on Amyot's Plutarch, i 283, 284, 288 ; Pasquier's remarks on, 303 ; his opinion of La Boetie's sonnets, ii 22 ; his favour with English men of letters, 136 ; his training and education, 137- 138 ; his career as a magistrate, 138 ; his friendship with La Boetie, 138- 1 40 ; his marriage, 140 ; his succession to his father's estate, ib. ; his trans- lation of R. de Sebonde's Theologia naturalis, ib. ; edits La Boetie's works, 141 ; resigns his seat in the Bordeaux Parliament, and lives on his estates, ib. ; his chdteau ami library, 142 ; his books, ib. ; the sentences painted on the beams of the library ceiling, 143 ; his life from 1571 to 1580, 144 ; his Essays (First and Second books) published, ib. ; his travels, 145 ; accepts the office of Mayor of Bordeaux, 146 ; is re-elected for a second term, ib. ; visit of Henry of Navarre to his chateau, 147 ; his energy as Mayor, ib. ; outbreak of the plague, ib. ; publishes a new edition of the Essays in three books, 148 ; visits Paris and Blois, ib. ; his last years and death, 149 ; questions raised by his Essays, 150; gradual development of his design, 150-152 ; portraiture of himself, 152-153; the Third book, 154; his quotations, ib. ; posthumous edition of the Essays, 155-156 ; nature and value of his self-portraiture, 157-160 ; his Journal du voyage, 159 ; his debt to Seneca and Plutarch, 160-162 ; his ethical philosophy, 162-163; his views on education, 164-165 ; his religious belief, 165-166 ; his scepticism, 166- 170; his style, 171-176; Brantome's dislike of, 190; his conversation with D'Aubigne, 251 ; Charron's friend- ship with, 274; Charron's plagiarism of, 275, 276, 277; O. de Serres compared with, 287 ; his spiritual kinship with Regnier and Horace, 298-9 ; his attitude towards the Renaissance, ii 313-4; his lack of plan, 317 ; and see 315, 316, 321, 322 Montaigne, M me de, her marriage, ii 1 40 ; helps to prepare a posthumous edition of the Essays, 155 Montalvo, Garci-Ordonez de, author of Atnadis de Gaula, i 158-9 Montchrestien, Antoine, his L'Ecossaise, ii 95-97 ; his other plays, 97 Montemur, Jorge de, influence of his Diana on Desportes and on French literature generally, ii 52 ; and especially on pastoral drama, 116 Montmorency, Anne de, Constable of France, his patronage of art and letters, i 275 ; of Palissy, ii 133; Brantome's account of, 193; D'Aubigne's portrait of, 250 Montpellier, University of, its medical school, i 22; Rabelais a student of, 169, 175 Montpezat, Jean de, and his wife, dez'isants of the Heptamcron, i 109 Montreux, Nicolas de, his pastoral dramas, ii 116; his /.<■ Printemps d'Et:-, 18: INDEX 355 Morin, lean, publisher of the Cymbalum A fundi, i 1 24 Mornay, M me de, seeDu Plessis-Mornay Mottoes, used by poets, i 1 1 Muret, Marc-Antoine, his play of Julius Caesar, ii 71, 78 ; professor at the College of Guienne, 138 n. t Mussel, Alfred de, i 74 Navagero, Andrea, neo- Latin poet, i 147 ; imitated by Du Bellay, 347 Neobar, Conrad, King's printer for Greek, i 19 Neo-Platonic theory of spiritual love, J !37-i39> Mi Nerac, i 101 Neufville, Nicholas de, Seigneur de Villeroy, Marot page to, i 58 Niceron, Jean-Pierre, his Memoires, » 334 Nicolas of Troyes, his Grand Paraiigon, i 99-100 Nisnies, University of, i 21 Nourry, Claude, Lyons printer and publisher, i 169, 170 Novellino, the, i 97 Ogier le Danois, i 157 Olivetan, Pierre Robert, his view of the French language, i 30 ; of orthography, 34 ; his translation of the Bible, 40-43, 123 Oresme, Nicolas, his translations of Aristotle, i 37 Orleans, University of, i 22 Orleans, Charles d', i 54, 57 Orthography, condition of, i 34 Ossat, Arnaud d', Cardinal, his letters, ii 286 Ovid, his popularity in France, i 37 ; translations of, 38 ; his A mores a source of Regnier's Macette, ii 300 Pagnini, Sanctes, Hebrew scholar, i 24 Palissy, Bernard, his early life, ii 130; his Kecepte veritable, 130-132; his later life and death, 133 ; his Discours admi rabies, 133-135; and see i 276, 7. ii 325 Palma-Cayet, Pierre- Victor, his Chro- nologie novenaire and Chronologic septenaire, ii 220 ; and see 252 Palmer in de Oliva, i 162 Paltnerin of England, i 162 Palsgrave, John, his French grammar, i 33 Pantagruel, analysis of, i 1X4 1 88 Papillon, Almanaque, i 84 ; his poem, Le nouvel amour, 87 Pare, Ambroisc, his life, ii 1 26 127; his writing, [37-129; his religion, 129 n. 2; attends Palissy's lectures, 133; and see 325 Paris, University of, its attitude towards Humanism, i 16-17; Rabelais a student of, 168 ; its colleges of Boncour, 332, ii 72 ; Coqueret, i 310; La Marche, 225; Lemoine, 2S1 ; Lisieux, 17 ; Montaigu, 16, 22^ ; Navarre, 273, 309; Presles, 273, 274; Sainte-Barbe, 17 Paris et Vienne, i 1 57 Pasquier, Estienne, citations from his Recherches de la France, i 136, 150, 160, 162 ; his education, 299 ; his early writings, ib. ; his defence of the University of Paris against the Jesuits, ib. ; appointed advocate-general in the Chambre des Comptes, ib. ; his loyalist principles, 300 ; his retire- ment and death, ib. ; his Recherches de la France, 300-301 ; his letters, 301-303 ; his character, 303 ; his remarks on Montaigne, ib. ; his style, 304 ; his account of the production of Jodelle's Cleop&lre, ii 72 ; of a con- versation with Montaigne, ii [48; of Montaigne's last moments, 149 n. 5 ; calls Du Fail a singe de Rabelais, 184; his account of the forensic speakers of his day, 282 Estienne, rector of the schools of Louhans, his translation of certain treatises of Plutarch, i 36 Passerat, Jean, his experiment in vers mesures, ii 8; his contributions to Latin scholarship, 54; his poetry, 54-56, and sec 31 2 Pastoral drama, i 11: 117 Paul III, Pope, i 167, 177 Peletier, Jacques, bis motto, in; In- phonetic system, 34; his translation of two books of the Odyssey, 37 ; of book 1 of the Georgics, 38; of the Ars Poetica and a few odes of II ib. ; of twelve sonnets of 1'etrarch, 45; his relation to Des Peril Joyeux Devis, 131; his birth and education, 142; dedication prefixed to his translation of the.//: Poetica, 143; his relations with Ronsard, ib. ; his poetry, 143-144; his Art poltiffue, 144; pay- court to Louise Lalic, 145 ; resides at Pari \nnecy, ib. ; returns to Paris, where he dies, ib. J his meeting with Joachim Rely, Jean de, his French Bible, i 41- 42 ' Renee of France, Duchess of Ferrara, i 66 Reymond, Pierre, worker in enamel. 1 276 Rhodiginus, Cselius (Lodovico Ricchieri of Rovigo), i 198 Rivaudeau, Andre de, a member of the Poitiers circle, ii 18 ; his tragedy of Avian, 80 Robert le Diable, i 157 and n. 1 Robertet, Florimond, i 61 Rochefort, Francois de, Bishop of Condom, tutor to Francis I and hi> sister Margaret, i 5 Roffet, Estienne, Paris publisher, i 71 Pierre, Paris publisher, i 65 Rojas, Fernando de, author of the Celestina, i 51 n. 1 ; and see C el est ina Romans d'avetttures, i 155 7 Ronsard, Pierre tie, i 119; his first printed poem, 143; his interchange of verses with Charles IX, :7s; bis birth and early education, 30s ;ow ; appointed page to the Dauphin, and to the Duke of Orleans, 309; at the Scottish court, ib. ; in England, ib. ; attached to Lazare de BalFs mission to Hagenau, ib.; at the French court, ib.; his illness and deafness,//'.; takes orders, ib. ; becomes Dorat's pupil, ib. ; joins the College of Coqueret, 310; meets Joachim du Bellay, ib. ; publishes his Odes, 314; and his Amours, 318; his reconciliation with Saint-Gelais, 319; solicits patron ib.; publishes the Amours de Marie, 320; his position definitely established , ib. ; receives numerous benefices, ib. ; probably did not take priest's ordei -, 321 ; Protestant attack on him, ib. ; his reply, ib.; publication ol the Francia.de, 322; retires from Court, ib.; his declining years and death, 322-323; criticism of his poetry, 323 ff. ; t he Pindaric Odca t _-^23 ; {ttfr -Fraii aaite. Eclogues 7 ," 326; Discours, 3:7; Amours de Cassandre, 32S t) ; Amours de Marie, 3:9 330 ; non-Pindari( Odes, 330 3 ; Elegie , 3.;.; 5 ; In. love of the country, 335; his imagination, ib. ; his sonnet to I Iclcne 'I 336; his style generally, ib.\ his ni> 1 rical experiment ■, and his ervices to metre, 336 sonnet on I >u 358 INDEX Bartas's poetry, ii 37 ; his translation of Aristophanes's Plutus, 72 ; and see 311, 315, 320, 325 Rosso, Giambattista, painter, employed at Fontainebleau, i 6, 271 Rouen, its local school of poets, i 23; a literary centre, i 69, ii 319 Rouillet, Claude, his Philanire, ii 88 Roussel, Gerard, preaches in the Louvre, i 65 ; Margaret of Navarre's spiritual adviser, i 102 ; and see 225 Rus, Jean, his poetry, i 88 Sabbadino degli Arienti, his Navelle Porrelane, i 97 Sacchetti, Francesco, his Novelle, i 97, 107 Sagon, Francois, his quarrel with Marot, i 68 Sainte-Aldegonde, Philippe de Marnix de, his Tableau des differens de la religion, ii 241 Sainte-Marthe, Charles de, professor at the College of Guyenne and a Protestant, i 26, 92 ; his writings, 92 ; in the service of Margaret of Navarre, 101 Scevole de, a student at Poitiers, a friend of Pasquier, i 303, ii 18; his poetry, 23-24 ; his Pacdoiiophia, 24 ; his Elogia, 24, 333 Saint-Gelais, Mellin de, a typical court- poet, i 12 ; his verses on Budr's funeral, 19; translates Ariosto, 48; helps to revise a translation of the Cortegiano, ib., 93; his Italian leanings, 94, 1 36 ; birth and education, 146; in Italy, ib. ; his interest in Italian poetry, 147 ; introduces the sonnet into France, 147, 152-3; his sonnets, 147-8 ; in favour at Court, 149 ; characteristics of his poetry, 149-15 1 ; publication of his poems, 150; his position as a poet, 255 ; alluded to in the Defence, 312; ridicules Ronsard's Odes, 318; his quarrel and reconciliation with him, 318-319; the original of Du Bel- lay's Le poele courtisan, 350 ; his version of Trissino's Sofouisba, ii 75, 80 ; and see i 152 Octovien de, Bishop of Angou- leme, reputed father of the pre- ceding, his translation of Ovid's Epistles, i 38 ; of the Aineid, ib. ; a translation of Ovid's Remedium Amoris attributed to him, ib., 54; and see 146 Saint-Germain, chdteau of, i 13 Saint-Maur des Fosses, i 176 Saint-Porchaire, faience of (Henri Deux ware), i 276 Salel, Hugues, his translation of the Iliad, i 37 ; his poetry, 93 ; patron of O. de Magny, ii 11 ; and see i 152 Saliat, Pierre, his translation of Herodotus, i 36, 289 Salignac, Bertrand de, his account of the siege of Metz, ii 2 1 1 Salviati, Cassandre, Ronsard's Cas- sandre, i 328 n. 2 Sancy, Nicolas Harlay de, ii 25 1 Sannazaro, Jacopo, his Arcadia, i 47. 79, 80 n. i ; translated by J. Martin, 49 ; a writer of Latin verse, 147 ; his Latin eclogues, 1 16 San Pedro, Diego de, French transla- tions of, i 5 1 Sansovino, Francesco, satirist, publishes a collection of satires, ii 293 ; plagiarised by Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, 296 Sarto, Andrea del, at the French court, i6 Sasso, Panfilo, imitated by Desportes, ii 48 Satire, the beginnings of in France, ii 293-296 Satire, Italian, ii 293-4 Satire Menippee, the, its origin, ii 234- 235, 329-331; its contents, 235 ff. ; speech <>f Mayenne, 236—237; of the Cardinal Legate, 237 ; of the Archbishop of Lyons, ib. ; of Roze, 238 ; of Rieux, ib. ; of Aubray, 238- 240 ; its verse, 240-241; and see Saulx, Gaspard de, Seigneur de Ta- vannes, ii 209 Guillaume de, Seigneur de Ta- vannes, his memoirs, ii 210 Jean de, Seigneur de Tavannes, his memoirs, ii 209 Scaliger, Joseph Justus, i 294 — — Julius Caesar, his Poetice, ii !So, 81 Sceve, Guillaume, i 24 Maurice, his motto, i 11; his translation of Grimatiey Gradissa, 5 1 ; an avant-coureur of the Pleiad, 136; his early writings, 1 37 ; his Dclic. 1 ,s, 139-140; opinions of Du Bellay and Pasquier on his poetry, 139, 312; in- fluenced by Serafino of Aquila, 140; his other poetry, ib. ; mentioned, 152; his probable influence on Du Bellay, 340 Sebonde, Raymond de, his Theologia naturalis translated by Montaigne, ii 141; Montaigne's Apology for, 167-168 INDEX 359 Selve, Georges de, Bishop of Lavaur and diplomatist, i 7 ; sells his collec- tion of Greek MSS. to Francis I, 18 ; his translation of some of Plutarch's lives, 36 Semblancay, see Beaune Seneca, Grosnet's paraphrase of his tragedies, i 39 ; imitated by Du Bartas, ii 41 ; characteristics of his plays, 74 ; his influence on French tragedy, 74-75, 76, 85, 87, 90, 91, 92, 93 Seralino of Aquila, Italian poet, i 140 Series, Jean de, letter from Pasquier to, i 302 ; his history of France, ii 223, n. 3 ; not the author of the Discours merveilleux, 230 Olivier de, his Theatre d'Agri- culture, ii 287-8 Servin, Louis, a friend of Pasquier, i 303 Sevin, Adrien, his translation of Boc- caccio's Filocopo, i 45 Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne's debt to, ii 167 Seyssel, Claude de, his translations of Greek historians, i 36 Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, ii 104 ; influence of Montaigne on, 160 n. 1 ; Hamlet and Measure for Measure, id. ; Tempest, 314 Shirley, James, his Love's cruelty, i 1 12 Sibilet, Thomas, his definition of a blazon, i 89; his Artpoetique Francois, 152 ; his answer to the Deffence, 316 Silly, M me de, a devisante of the Hepta- meron, i 108 Silvius, Symon, see I.a Have Simeoni, Gabriele, i 271 Sophocles, translation of his Electra by L. de Baif, i 37; and of his Antigone by J. -A. de Baif, ii 7 Speroni, Sperone, his Canace, ii 75 Strozzi, Ercole, neo- Latin poet, i 147 Filippo, a friend of BrantSme, ii 192 Piero, father of Filippo, his library, » 275 Tito-Vespasiano, father of Ercole, neo-Latin poet, i 147 Sturm, John, letter to Jean du Bellay about Rabelais, i 179; and see i 22 Sully, Maximilien de Bethune, Due de, his visit to Montaigne's chateau, ii 147; his memoirs, 212 215 Susanneau, Hubert, i 182 Sylvester, Joshua, his translation of Du Bartas, ii 38 Sylvius, see Dubois Syrus, Publilius, his Sentential, ii 7 Tabourot, Estienne, his writings, ii 183 ; reference to his Bigarrures, i 190, 259- 3°2 Tacitus, influence of, on D'Aubigne, translation of his Annals, i 39, ii 254 Tahureau, Jacques, his poetry, ii 15-16 ; his pessimistic vein. 1 7; his Dialogues, i.S; his epigram on Rabelais, i [8? Tardif, Guillaume, his version of Valla's Facetiae morales, i 40; of Poggio's Facetiae, 98 Tartas, Jean de, principal of the College of Lisieux at Paris, i 17; of the College of Guienne at Bordeaux, i/>., 21 Tasso, Bernardo, his residence in France. i 43 Tasso, Torquato, translations of his Aminta, anil his influence on French pastoral drama, ii 116; his influence on Bertaut, 270 Tavannes, see Saulx Tebaldeo, Antonio, imitated by Tyard, ii 1 ; by Desportes, 48 Terence, translation of his Andria by Ch. Estienne, i 39; of his Eunuchus and Heautontimoroumenos by J. -A. de Baif, ii 7, 10S ; his influence on Renaissance comedy, 102 Teresa, St, her writings popular in France, ii 302 Thevet, Andre, i 149, ii 332 Thomas, Hubert, of Liege (Leodius), his report of Francis ['s conversation, i 5 Thou, Christophe de, ii 281-282 Jacques Auguste de, his Latin history, ii 221-222 Thucydides, translation of, i 36 Tiraqueau, Andre, jurist, i 165, 167, 169, 1S2 Tolet, Pierre, a physician at Lyons, i 24 Tory, GeofFroy, studies in Italy, 1 32 ; a professor at Paris, ib.\ becomes a bookseller and a woodcutter, //'. ; his Champ Jtcury, il>. ; his reforms in orthography, 33; his translations o( (Ireek writings, 36; and see [85 Toulouse, ils poetical school, i 69; University of, 22, 272 Toumon, Francoisde, < lardinal, mir of Francis I, Governor of Lyons, i 24: his patronage ol men ol letters, ib.; an Italian scholar, 44; compels Marot to make a public recantation of heresy, 67 Toms, Pierre de, Lyon, printei and publisher, i 177 Toussain, Jacques, royal profes "i "l 360 INDEX Greek, i 16 ; his death and the character of his learning, 280 ; tutor to J. -A. de Baif, ii 5 Toutain, Charles, a member of the Poitiers circle, ii 18; his imitation of Seneca's Agamemnon, 76 Tragi -comedy, ii 97-99 Trepperel, Jean, Paris printer, i 98 n. 2 ; his widow, ib. Trissino, Giangiorgio, his Sofonisba, ii 75 ; a translation by Saint-Gelais performed at Blois, ib. Tristan, i 156, 157 n. 1 Trivulce, Pompone de, Governor of Lyons, i 24 Turnebe, Adrien (Turnebus), his repu- tation as a lecturer, i 274; his rank as a classical scholar, 281 ; his editions of /Eschylus and Sophocles and his Adversaria, ib. Odet de, his Les Contents, ii 1 1 r Turpi 11, i 158 Turquet, Jean, i 188 Turrin, Claude, his poems in imitation of Du Bellay's Regrets, i 346 Tyard, Pontus de, his claim to have popularised the sonnet in France, i 341 ; his poetry, ii 1, 1 Ulenspiegel, i 99, 200 Valentin el Orson, i 157 n. 1 Valla, his Facetiae morales, i 40 Vatable, Francois, royal professor of Hebrew, i 16; his death, 280; and see 225 Vaugelas, his praise of Amyot, i 288 Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Jean, a member of the Poitiers circle, ii 18; his Forcsteries, 62 ; his public life, ib. ; characteristics of his poetry, 63-64; his satires, 65, 296; his Art poe/ique, 65-66; and see i 190 Vauzelles, George de, i 24 Jean de, ib. Matthieu de, ib. Vergecio, Angelo, copyist of Greek mss., enters the service of Francis I, i 18; makes a list of the Greek mss. at Fontainebleau, ib. Vers mesures, experiments in, ii 8 Versoris, Pierre, his speech on behalf of the Jesuits, ii 282 Vesalius, Andreas, begins his studies at Montpellier, i 22; his account of the study of anatomy at Paris, 176 Vieilleville, Francois de Scepeaux, Marshal de, his memoirs, ii 210- 211 Vienne, Philibert de, i 48 Vigneulles, Philippe de, his unpublished collection of stories, i 100 Vignier, Nicolas, historian, ii 223 Yignola, Giacomo Barozzoda, architect, invited to France by Francis I, i 6 Villers-Cotterets, chateau of, i 13; edict of, 30 Villon, Francois, i 55, 64, 72, 78, 198 Vincent, Jacques, his translation of Boiardo, i 46 ; of Palmerin de Ingla- terra and Flores y Blancajior, 162 Vinci, Leonardo da, at the French court, i 6 Yinciguerra, Marcantonio, the creator of satire, proper in Italy, ii 293 Yinet, Elie, joint-author of the Discours non plus melancoliques que divers, i 261 Vintimille, Jacques de, translator of the Cyropaedia, i 24, 36 Violier des histoires romaines, the, i 99, 100 Viret, Pierre, Calvin's dedication to, i 233; his writings, 235; his use of the dialogue form, /'/'.; and see 254 Virgil, translations of, i 38; Ronsard and, 324 ; imitation of by Uu Bartas, ii 41 Vitry, Jacques de, Bishop of Acre, i 96 Philippe de, Bishop of Meaux, Vivonne, Anne de, mother of Brantome, a devisante of the Heptameron, i 108 Voiture, Vincent, i 151 Voulte, Jean, or Visagier, called Vulteius, Latin poet, i 26, 182 Wechel, Chrestien, Paris printer and publisher, i 1 78 YYingle, Pierre, printer of the Protestant Bible, i 41 YVolmar, Melchior, teaches Calvin Greek, i 225 Xenophon, translations of, i 36 Yver, see Iver CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. FS ' I i*n| tin :M-W i? 4 i i""^ :x IBRARYQ^ ^HITCHO* %oami^ "fr/mMNflw* >..x ^OFCAllFOfc^ ^AHVK: ^OFCALIFOfc^ A-OFCAlJFt; ^OFCAIIF ^•IHVNflllV^ & ^WE-UNIVfl% ^lOSANGEt£j> mo/. ^umm^ tymmm %0: lVDJO^ } -P-* If ? v *rni UCLA-College Library PQ 231 T461 1904 v.2 L 005 763 817 3 m UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY ^ AOIUTY AA 000 949 602 7