^/' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES A SHORT HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE (FROM THE EARLIEST TEXTS TO THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY) GEORGE SAINTSBURY M.A. AND HON. D.LIT. OXON. ; HON. LL.D. ABERDEEN; HON. D.LIT. DURHAM; FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY; HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE ; LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH SEVENTH EDITION 1917 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY HUMPHREY MILFORD PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY College Library ' -5 PREFACE TO NEW EDITION WHEN a book has reached its seventh edition, and has been care- fully revised at each of its reappearances (the revision extending in one case to considerable remodelling in part), not only its original Preface but even such intermediate additions as may have been made to it become more or less obsolete surplusage. One of these latter in the present case, the Preface to the remodelled [Fifth] . edition, may deserve salvage as containing some useful explana- tions and as an appendix to this, the last commendation of the book likely to be made by the author. This Short History was originally undertaken with whatever rashness considering the magnitude of the task under safeguard at least of a well-known distinction between books written because the writer had read a good deal concerning his subject and books in order to write which he had read something about that subject. French Literature had been a favourite study of mine for some twenty years before I undertook even ihe' Primer which served as a pilot boat to this : and, for very much the longer part of that time, I had had no idea of treating the subject at large, but had simply read in it ' overthwart and endlong ' as Sir Lancelot rode. When, about ten years before this book's first appearance, I began to write on the press, it was almost accident that attached my name to reviews of French books in one of the then rare periodicals which had signed , contributors. Other editors first accepted and then asked for con- tributions on this subject from me: and as I still continued to 1175700 iv Preface. read for my own pleasure, and as it is impossible properly to ' get up ' one author without diverging into others, my knowledge widened. I had luckily taken of my own accord very early to Old French at the same time that I was reading intermediate classics and contemporary novels and poems, and in this way escaped, I dare say more by luck than by merit, the one-sided view of the literature which I think I may say it without illiberality some French historians themselves have taken. At any rate my read- ing, if at first rather desultory, had been wide, and I had but little ' piecing ' to do when I was successively asked to undertake the survey of French Literature as a whole in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in the Primer already referred to, and in this History itself. I was able therefore from the first to write from reading in almost every case, and only in a few to read in order that I might write ; and the book, I think, deserved the claim I made for it as un livre de bonne foi. Good faith of course does not confer, except in some very extreme cases, infallibility : and I no doubt made a good many mistakes in fact. The utmost diligence has been used, in the successive revisions, to correct these. There remained the question to what extent there were sins of omission or incomplete- ness as well as of blunder. Not many omissions I think have been charged : and I only remember one (a note of which I made, but have unluckily mislaid) that deserved to be but is not made good. The problem of incompleteness, slightly touched upon in the Preface to the Fifth Edition, may raise its head again. Where is ' modern ' French Literature ? may be asked by those who judge modernity by decade, not to say annual, rules. It would be a feeble reply that the only English History of French Literature which can claim comparison with this, the late Professor Dowden's, though it was written many years later than this originally was, ceases at a period very much earlier. Itis more to the point to state that, the question of extension having been duly considered by myself and by the authorities of the Clarendon Press, the reasons for stopping the Preface. v story at the close of the nineteenth century with a brief postscript on the subsequent work and fates of M. Zola and of others of the more distinguished writers left alive at that date seemed very decidedly to preponderate. They are partly given in the Preface referred to ; and nothing that has happened since has weakened them. In France, even more than in England, it may be said, with- out any discourtesy to the living writers of either, that no group or school of marked genius and originality has as yet established itself. In making what, as has been said already, is likely to be a final revision, I have once more endeavoured not only to correct errors of fact but to remove expressions of what may be called an ephemeral kind, such as 'recently', 'in progress', and the like. I hope to leave the book as a definite estimate of the great subject concerned, made towards and at the close of one of its most brilliant periods, on the basis of personal knowledge and direct judgement, not unassisted by acquaintance with literatures other than itself. 1 GEORGE SAINTSBURY. Southampton, Michaelmas, 1916. 1 On one small point the present edition is, I think, decidedly improved. I have always felt that the account of the seventeenth-century romances was almost discreditably secondhand as compared with the rest of the book. I have at last been able to substitute a notice based strictly on direct reading. On the other hnnd, I have to acknowledge some valuable help from the staff of the Clarendon Press in regard to the notes on recent editions of texts. PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION THE fourth edition of this book (1892) was printed from the third, with corrections, not inconsiderable in number, if individu- ally of no great significance ; but in view of a possible further demand it seemed, for more reasons than one, desirable to recast the book materially for the next issue. In the first place, the appearance, also at the Clarendon Press, of Mr. Toynbee's Specimens of Old French, gave me an opportunity of omitting the illustrative extracts in the first part of the present volume, and so gaining a substantial amount of space. These extracts had originally been included by me not so much out of predilection for them, as because, in the absence of any book in which English readers were presented with anything of the kind, they seemed indispensable. But they were something of an anomaly ; and I took the first opportunity of suggesting to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press that, as the need was now elsewhere and better supplied, my own makeshift had better go. I am much obliged to them for the promptitude with which they at once met my wishes as to recasting the book. There could be little doubt on what part of it to bestow the space saved by the retrenchment. No material change in the way of expansion seemed to be required in the Second, Third, or Fourth Books. The subject-matter of these has long been a definite and settled quantity ; and though, as in the case of every previous edition, I hope that the present will shew marks of revision, it is not Preface. vii likely to shew much substantive change. Some expansion was called for in the same Book from which these extracts have dis- appeared, but not much. The enormous stores of mediaeval literature are no doubt far from being exhausted by research, and still farther from being all in a condition easily accessible to students who cannot spend their lives in libraries. But the ardour and the industry of the half-century from 1830 to 1880 had discovered most of the principal things, and, though Old French study is now carried on more widely and actively than ever, its ' age of discovery ' is mostly past. It therefore seemed that most of the space at disposal might be bestowed on the last Book that dealing with the nineteenth century ; and there were special reasons why this was desirable. It had been frequently objected (and I could not but admit some force in the objection) that the space allotted to this period than which certainly none has been more fertile, while it may be questioned whether any has produced work of greater value was in proportion rather niggard. Here again what had been done was done rather of force than of choice. It was very desirable that the book should not exceed certain limits : and it seemed impossible to curtail the space assigned to those epochs which were finished and judged, in favour of one which was still, though pretty certainly nearing its end, in progress, fluid, and unsettled. The fifteen years which have passed since the first drafting of the book have made a very great change in this state of things. The death of Victor Hugo in 1885 began, and the death of M. Renan in 1892 may be said to have completed, not merely the end of French nineteenth-century literature in a chronological sense, but the end of it as a school, as a phase, as a division in thought as well as in time. Without disrespect to M. Kenan's survivors it may be said that on the morrow of his death there was no one left in France like or second to him as a man of letters, while almost all his nearest companions in age or value M. Taine, M. Leconte de Lisle, M. Dumas, fits, M. de Goncourt have followed him since. viii Preface. At no time since the death of Diderot has France been left so much, to use school language, ' without a sixth form/ Nor was it merely a matter of individual talent. Not only had the old ways lost their best wayfarers, but they had ceased to be trodden, and men were wandering about in by-paths of uncertain experiment which had as yet led to no promised land. It was and is, of course, uncertain what the result of this may be. It may be that, as happened a hundred years ago in England, the period of pause will change at once and sharply into one of new and vigorous accomplishment. It may be that, as happened a hundred years ago in France itself, nearly a whole generation will pass with little of the first class in individual production and nothing of the first class as regards combined action and general form. But the past at least is certain. When M. Renan received a state funeral there was practically buried in his grave the French literature of the nineteenth century, the literature of which Chateaubriand was the herald, Lamartine the first pioneer. The history of Victor Hugo and the men of 1830, the conquistadores and the triumphant expeditionaries, could now be written, for it was now history. I therefore here endeavour, by adding the forty pages or so saved by the omission of the extracts (and also of former prefatory matter to the first, second, and third editions of 1882, 1884, and 1889, which, whether explanatory or controversial, seems now superfluous), to expand and recast the Fifth Book so as to make it a history of French nineteenth-century literature in all respects proportionate and parallel to the histories of former periods contained in the earlier books. I never revise this Short History without finding some mistakes, but I have at least the consolation that at every revision the mistakes grow fewer. And I have been encouraged to be thus lavish of labour on the book, instead of letting it be reprinted as it stood, whenever there was a demand, not merely by a sense of duty to my readers, but by one of gratitude to my critics. I was conscious from the first that an examination of French literature by an Preface. ix Englishman, conducted without any regard either to pet French orthodoxies or to pet French heresies, was in danger of seeming extremely presumptuous to French critics ; and I owe all the greater thanks to M. Gaston Paris, to M. Paul Bourget, to M. Beljame, and to others, for the generosity which they showed to my work, not merely when pointing out errors of fact, but (which is still more difficult for a critic) when intimating dissent of opinion. I am afraid I could write a severer criticism of the book than any that has yet appeared ; but I have at least spared no pains hitherto, and shall spare none so long as I have the opportunity, to make it as complete, as accurate, and as original a survey of the subject as is possible in the space and scheme 1 . GEORGE SAINTSBURY. EDINBURGH, Sept. i, 1897. 1 I have to acknowledge in this edition some valuable suggestions on the first Book from Mr. Paget Toynbee, and on the Second from Mr. Arthur Tilley. CONTENTS PREFACB BOOK I. MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE. CHAP. I. THE ORIGINS r Relation of French to Latin. Influence of Latin Literature. Early Monuments. Dialects and Provincial Literatures. Beginning of Literature proper. Cantilenae. Trouveres and Jongleurs. IL CHANSONS DE GESTES 9 Origin of Chansons de Gestes. Definition. Period of Composition. Chanson de Roland. Amis et Amiles. Other principal Chansons. Social and Literary Charac- teristics. Authorship. Style and Language. Later History. IIL PROVEN9AL LITERATURE 22 Langue d'Oc. Range and characteristics. Periods of Proven9al Literature. First Period. Second Period. Forms of Troubadour Poetry. Third Period. Literary Relation of Proven9al and French. Defects of Proven9al Literature. IV. ROMANCES OF ARTHUR AND OF ANTIQUITY ... 30 The Tale of Arthur. Its Origin. Order of French Ar- thurian Cycle. Chrestien de Troyes. Spirit and Literary value of Arthurian Romances. Romances of Antiquity. Chanson d'Alixandre. Roman de Troie. Other Romances on Classical subjects. , V. FABLIAUX. THE ROMAN DU REN ART .... 39 Foreign Elements in Early French Literature. The Esprit Gaulois makes its appearance. Definition of Fabliaux. Subjects and character of Fabliaux. Sources of Fabliaux. The Roman du Renart. The Ancien Renart. Le Conron- nement Renart. Renart le NouveL Renart le Contrtfait. P'auvel. Contents. xi PACB CHAP. VI. EARLY LYRICS 51 Early and Later Lyrics. Origins of Lyric. Romances and Pastourelles. Thirteenth Century. Changes in Lyric. Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century. Quesnes de Bethune. Thibaut de Champagne. Minor Singers. Adam de la Halle. Rntebceuf. Lais. Marie de France. VII. SERIOUS AND ALLEGORICAL POETRY 61 Verse Chronicles. Miscellaneous Satirical Verse. Didactic verse. Philippe de Thaun. Moral and Theological verse. Allegorical verse. The Roman de la Rose. Popularity of the Roman de la Rose. Imitations. VIII. ROMANS D' A VENTURES 73 Distinguishing features of Romans d'Aventures. Looser application of the term. Classes of Romans d'Aventures. Adenes le Roi. Raoul de Houdenc. Chief Romans d'Aventures. General Character. Last Chansons. Bau- douin de Sebourc. IX. LATER SONGS AND POEMJ Sr The Artificial Forms of Northern France. General Cha- racter. Varieties. Jehannot de Lescurel. Guillaume de Machatilt. Eustache Deschamps. Froissart. Christine de Pisan. Alain Chartier. X. THE DRAMA 83 Origins of the Drama. Earliest Vernacular Dramatic Forms. Mysteries and Miracles. Miracles de la Vierge. Heterogeneous Character of Mysteries. Argument of a Miracle Play. Profane Drama. Adam de la Halle. Monologues. Farces. Moralities. Soties. Profane Mysteries. Societies of Actors. XI. PROSE CHRONICLES 103 Beginning of Prose Chronicles. Grandes Chroniqrtes de France. Villehardouin. Minor Chroniclers between Ville- hardouin and Joinville. Joinville. Froissart. Fifteenlhr century Chroniclers. XII. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE . . . . . . .113 General use of Prose. Prose Sermons. St. Bernard. Maurice de Sully. Later Preachers. Gcrson. Moral and Devotional Treatises. Translators. Political and Po- lemical Works. Codes and Legal Treatises. Miscellanies and Didactic Works. Fiction. Antoine de la Salle. L SUMMARY OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE . . 133 xii Contents. BOOK IL THE RENAISSANCE. FAGK CHAP. L VILLON, COMINES, AND THE LATER FIFTEENTH CENTURY . 127 The Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Characteristics of Fifteenth-century Literature. Villon. Comines. Co- quillart. Baude. Martial d'Auvergne. ^I'lie Rhetoriqueurs. Chansons du xv^ mo Siecle. Preachers. II. MAROT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 140 Hybrid School of Poetry. Jean le Maire. Jehan du Pontalais. Roger de Collerye. Minor Predecessors of Marot. Clement Marot. The School of Marot. Mellin de Saint- Gelais. Miscellaneous Verse. Anciennes Poesies Francaises. IIL RABELAIS AND HIS FOLLOWERS 155 Fiction at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century. Rabelais. Bonaventure des Periers. The Heptameron. Noel du Fail. G. Bouchet. Cholieres. Apologie pour Hercdote. Moyen de Parvenir. IV. THE PLEIADE . 168 Character and Effects of the Pleiade Movement. Ronsard. The Defense et Illustration de la Langue Fran9aise. Du Bellay. Belleau. Ba'if. Daurat, Jodelle, Pontns de Tyard. Magny. Tahurenu. Minor Ronsardists. Du Bnrtas. D'Aubigne. Desportes. Bertaut. V. THE THEATRE FROM GRINGORE TO GARNIER . . . 188 Gringore. The last Age of the Mediaeval Theatre. Begin- nings of the Classical Drama. Jodelle. Minor Pleiade Dramatists. Gamier. Defects of the Pleiade Tragedy. Pleiade Comedy. Larivey. VI. CALVIN AND AMYOT 200 Prose Writers of the Renaissance. Calvin. Minor Re- formers and Controversialists. Preachers of the League. Amyot. Minor Translators. Dolet. Fauchet. Pasquier. Henri Estienne. Herberay. Palissy. Pare. Olivier de Series. VIL MONTAIGNE AND BRANTSME 213 Disenchantment of the late Renaissance. Montaigne. Charron. Du Vair. Boclin and other Political Writers. Brantome. Montluc. La Noue. Agrippa d'Aubigne. Marguerite de Valois. Vieilleville. Palma-Cayet. Pierre de 1'Estoile. D'Ossat. Sully. Jeaunin. Minor Memoir- writers. General Historians. VIII. THE SATYRE MENIPPEE. REGNIER 231 Satyre Menippee. Regnier. INTERCHAPTER II. SUMMARY OF RENAISSANCE LITERATURE . . 2^1 Contents. x ;j{ BOOK III. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. PACK CHAP. I. POETS 246 Malherbe. The School of Malherbe. Vers de Societe. Voiture. Epic School. Chapelain. Bacchanalian School. Saint- Amant. La Fontaine. Boileau. Minor Poets of the Seventeenth Century. II. DRAMATISTS 262 Montchrestien. Hardy. Minor predecessors of Corneille. Rotrou. Corneille. Racine. Minor Tragedians. De- velopment of Comedy. Moliere. Contemporaries of Moliere. The School of Moliere. Regnard. Characteristics of Molieresque Comedy. III. NOVELISTS 291 New Beginnings. Amours and Bergeries. The Astrle. The Heroic Romances. Scarron. Cyrano de Bergerac. Fnretiere. Madame de la Fayette. Fairy Tales. Perrault. IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS . . 304 General Historians. Mezeray. Historical Essayists. Saint -Real. Memoir -writeis. Rohan. Bassompierre. Madame de Motteville. Cardinal de Retz. Mademoiselle. La Rochefoucauld. Saint-Simon. Madame de Sevigne. Tallemant des Reaux. Historical Antiquaries. Du Cange. V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS .... 326 Balzac. Pascal. Saint-Evremond. La Rochefoucauld. La Bruyere. VI. PHILOSOPHERS 340 Descartes. Port Royal. Bayle. Malebranche. VII. THEOLOGIANS AND PREACHERS 351 St. Fran9ois de Sales. Bossuet. Fenelon. Massillon. Bourdaloue. Minor Preachers. INTERCHAPTER III. SUMMARY OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LITERA- TURE 363 BOOK IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CHAP. I. POETS . . 367 Literary Degeneracy of the Eighteenth Century, especially manifest in Poetry. J. B. Rousseau. Voltaire. Descrip- tive Poets. Delille. Lebrun. Parny. Che"nier. Minor Poets. Light Verse. Piron. Desaugiers. xiv Contents. PACE CHAP. II. DRAMATISTS 378 Divisions of Drama. La Motte. Crebillon the Elder. Voltaire and his followers. Lesage. Comedie Larmoyante. La Chaussee. Diderot. Marivaux. Beaumarchais. Char- acteristics of Eighteenth-century Drama. III. NOVELISTS 388 Lesage. Marivaux. Prevost. Voltaire. Diderot. Rousseau. Crebillon the Younger. Bernardinde Saint -Pierre. Restif de la Bretonne. Chateaubriand. Madame de Stael. Xavier de Maistre. Benjamin Constant. IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR-WRITERS, LETTER-WRITERS . . 408 Characteristics and Divisions of Eighteenth-century His- tory. Rollin. Dubos. Boulainvilliers. Voltaire. Mably. Rulhiere. Memoirs. Mme. de Staal-Delaunay. Duclos. Besenval. Madame d'Epinay. Minor Memoirs. Memoirs of the Revolutionary Period. A bun dance of Letter-writers. Mademoiselle A'isse. Madame du Deffand. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Voltaire. Diderot. . Galiani. V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS .... 424 Occasional writing in the Eighteenth Century. Periodicals. Fontenelle. La Motte. Vauvcnargues. D'Aguesseau. Duclos. Marmontel. La Harpe. Thomas. Orthodox Apologists. Freron. Philosophe Criticism. D'Alembert, Diderot. Les Feuilles de Gi imm. Diderot's Salons. His General Criticism. Newspapers of the Revolution. The Influence of Journalism. Chamfort. Rivarol. Joubert. Courier. Senancour. VI. PHILOSOPHERS 445 The philosophe movement. Montesquieu. Lettres Per- sanes. Grandeur et Decadence des Remains. Esprit des Lois. Voltaire. The Encyclopcedia. Diderot. D'Alem- bert. Rousseau. Political Economists. Vauban, Quesnay, etc. Turgot. Condorcet. Volney. La Mettrie. Hel- vetius. Systeme de la Nature. Condillac. Joseph de Maistre. Bonald. VII. SCIENTIFIC WRITERS 471 Buffon. Lesser Scientific Writers. Voyages and Travels. Linguistic and Literary Study. INTERCHAPTER IV. SUMMARY OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERA- TURE 476 Contents. BOOK V. THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY. PAGB CHAP. I. THE WRITERS OF THE LATER TRANSITION . . .481 The Romantic Movement. Writers of the Later Transition. Be"ranger. Lamartine. Lamennais. Victor Cousin. Beyle. Nodier. Delavigne. Soumet. Minor Poets of the Transi- tion and the Early Romantic Movement. II. 1830 496 The Romantic Propaganda in Periodicals. Victor Hugo. Sainte-Beuve. His Method. Dangers of the Method. Dumas the Elder. Honore de Balzac. George Sand. Merimee. Theophile Gautier. Alfred de Musset. In- fluence of the Romantic Leaders. Alfred de Vigny. Auguste Barbier. Gerard de Nerval. Curiositts Roman- tiques. Petrus Borel. Louis Bertrand. ill. POETS OF THE LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY . . 531 The Second Group of Romantic Poet-. Baudelaire. Theodore de Banville. Leconte de Lisle. Minor Poets of the Second Romantic Group. Dupont. The Pamasst and the Romantic Dispersion. Sully Pnidhomme. Fran- cois Coppee. Paul Verlaine. His Methods. His Im- portance. Symbolists, etc. IV. THE MODERN DRAMA 546 1830 in Drama. Minor and Later Dramatists. Scribe. Ponsard. Emile Augier. Eugene Labiche. Dumas the Younger. Victorien Sardou. Other Dramatists. V. THE MODERN NOVEL 556 Classes of Nineteenth-century Fiction. Minor Novelists of Incident in the First Period. Jules Janin. Charles de Bernard. Jules Sandeau. Octave Feuillet. Murger. Edmond About. Feydeau. Gustave Droz. Flaubert. His Literary Position. The Naturalists. ' Les Deux Goncourt.' Their Claims. Their Position. Emile Zola. Criticism of him. Alphonse Daudet. Guy de Maupassant. ' Pierre Loti.' Paul BourgeU Anatole France. Younger Novelists. xvi Contents* PAGS CHAP. VI. THE CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS OF SAINTE-BEUVE 575 Journalists and Critics. Paul de Saint- Victor. Hippolyte Taine. Estimates of him. His true position. Edmond Scherer. His solid value. Emile Montegut. Academic Critics. Ferdinand Brunetiere. Anatole France. Emile Faguet. Jules Lemaitre. Other Critics. Eugene Fro- mentin. Linguistic and literary study of French. VII. PHILOSOPHY, THEOLOGY, AND HISTORY .... 588 Philosophical Writers. Comte. Theological Writers. Montalembert. Ozanam. Lacordaire. Ernest Kenan. Historians. Thierry. Thiers. Guizot. Mignet. Michelet. Quinet. Tocqueville. Minor Historians. POSTSCRIPT 601 INTERCHAPTER V. SUMMARY OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERA- TURE .... 604 CONCLUSION 609 INDEX . . 621 BOOK I. MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE. CHAPTER I. THE ORIGINS. OF all European literatures the French is, by general consent, that which possesses the most uniformly fertile, brilliant, and un- broken history. In actual age it may possibly yield to others, but the connection between the language of the oldest and the lan- guage of the newest French literature is far closer than in these other cases, and the fecundity of mediaeval writers in France far exceeds that of their rivals elsewhere. For something like three centuries England, Germany, Italy, and more doubtfully and to a smaller extent, Spain, were content for the most part to borrow the matter and the manner of their literary work from France. This brilliant literature was however long before it assumed a regularly organized form, and in order that it might do so a pre- vious literature and a previous language had to be dissolved and precipitated anew. With a few exceptions, to be presently noticed, French literature is not to be found till after the year 1000, that is to say until a greater lapse of time had passed since Caesar's cam- paigns than has passed from the later date to the present day. Taking the earliest of all monuments, the Strasburg Oaths, as start- ing-point, we may say that French language and French literature were nine hundred years in process of formation. The result was a remarkable one in linguistic history. French Relation is unquestionably a daughter of Latin, yet it is not of French such a daughter as Italian or Spanish. A knowledge to Latin - of the older language would enable a reader who knew no other B 2 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. to spell out, more or less painfully, the meaning of most pages of the two Peninsular languages ; it would hardly enable him to do more than guess at the meaning of a page of French. The long process of gestation transformed the appearance of the new tongue completely, though its grammatical forms and the bulk of its vocabulary are beyond all question Latin. The history of this process belongs to the head of language, not of literature, and must be sought elsewhere. It is sufficient to say that the first mention of a lingua romana rusiica is found in the seventh cen- tury, while allusions in Latin documents show us its gradual use in pulpit and market-place, and even as a vehicle for the rude songs of the minstrel, long before any trace of written French can be found. Meanwhile, however, Latin was doing more than merely fur- Influence Ashing the materials of the new language. The lite- of Latin rary faculty of the Gauls was early noticed, and before Literature. t h e j r subjection had long been completed they were adepts at using the language of the conquerors. It does not fall within our plan to notice in detail the Latin literature of Gaul and early France, but the later varieties of that literature deserve some little attention, because of the influence which they un- doubtedly exercised on the literary forms of the new language. In early French there is little trace of the influence of the Latin forms which we call classical. It was the forms of the language which has been said to have ' dived under ground with Naevius and come up again with Prudentius' that really influenced the youthful tongue. Ecclesiastical Latin, and especially the wonder- ful melody of the early Latin hymn-writers, had by far the greatest effect upon it. Ingenious and not wholly groundless efforts have been made to trace the principal forms of early French writing to the services and service-books of the church, the chronicle to the sacred histories, the lyric to the psalm and the hymn, the mystery to the elaborate and dramatic ritual of the church. The Chanson de Ges/e, indeed, displays in its matter and style many traces of Germanic origin, but the metre with its regular iambic cadence and its rigid caesura testifies to Latin influence. The service thus performed to the literature was not unlike the service Ch. I.] The Origins. 3 performed to the language. In the one case the scaffolding, or rather the skeleton, was furnished in the shape of grammar; in the other a similar skeleton, in the shape of prosody, was supplied. Important additions were indeed made by the fresh elements in- troduced. Rhyme Latin had itself acquired. But of the musical refrains which are among the most charming features of early French lyric poetry we find no vestige in the older tongue. The history of the French language, as far as concerns literature, from the seventh to the eleventh century, can be rapidly given. The earliest mention of the Romance tongue a& dis- Early Monu- tinguished from Latin and from German dialect refers ments. to 659, and occurs in the life of St. Mummolinus or Momolenus, bishop of Noyon, who was chosen for that office because of his knowledge of the two languages, Teutonic and Romanic 1 . We may therefore assume that Mummolinus preached in the lingua Romana. To the same century is referred the song of St. Faron, bishop of Meaux 2 , but this only exists in Latin, and a Romance original is inferred rather than proved. In the eighth century the Romance eloquence of St. Adalbert is commended 3 , and to the same period are referred the glossaries of Reichenau and Cassel, lists contain- ing in the first case Latin and Romance equivalents, in the second Teutonic and Romance*. By the beginning of the ninth century it was compulsory for bishops to preach in Romance, and to translate such Latin homilies as they read 5 ; and to this same era has been referred a fragmentary commentary on the Book of 1 ' Fama bonorum opernm, quia praevalebat non tantum in Teutonica sed in Romana lingua. Lotharii regis ad aures usque perveniente,' says his life. The chronicler Sigebert confirms the statement that he was made bishop 'quod Komanam non minus quam Teutonicam calleret linguam..' Lingua Latino, and Lingua Romana are from this time distinguished. 2 The Latin form of the song is given by Helgaire, Bishop of Menux, who wrote a life of St. Faron, his predecessor, towards the end of the ninth century. Helgaire uses the words 'juxta rusticitatem,' 'carmen rusticum;' and Lingua Kustica is usually if not universally synonymous ^ith Lingua Romana. 3 ' Si vulgari id est romana lingua loqueretur omnium aliarum putares inscium.' * The Reichenau Glossary is at Carlsruhe. It was published in 1863 by Holtzmann. The Cassel Glossary, which came from Fulda, was published in the last century (1729). * Ordeied by the Councils of Tours, Rheims, and Aries (812-851). B 2 4 Mediaeval Literature. (Bk. I Jonah *, included in the latest collection of ' Monuments V In 842 we have the Strasburg Oaths, celebrated alike in French history and French literature. The text of the MS. of Nithard which contains them is of the tenth century. We now come to documents less shapeless. The tenth* century itself gives us the song of St. Eulalie, a poem on the Passion, a life of St. Leger, and perhaps a poem on Boethius. These four documents are of the highest interest. Not merely has the lan- guage assumed a tolerably regular form, but its great division into Langue d'Oc and Langue d'Oil is already made, and grammar, prosody, and other necessities or ornaments of bookwriting, are present. Moreover, it is to be observed that the interval between the first and the others is of very considerable width. This interval probably represents a century of active change, and of this, unfor- tunately, we have no monuments to mark progress with accuracy. LES SERMENTS DE STRASBOURG DE 842. Pro deo atirar et pro Christian poblo et nostro commun salvament, d*ist di in avant, in quant deus savir et podir me dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Karlo et in aiudha et in cadhuna cosa, si cum om per dreit son fradra salvar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul plaid nunqua prindrai, qui meon vol cist meon fradre Karle in damno sit. Si Lodhnvigs sagrament, qnse son fradre Karlo jurat, conservat, et Karlus meos sendra de sua part nun los tanit, si io returnar nun Tint pois, ne io ne ne'uls, cui eo returuar int pois, in nulla aiudha contra Lodhuwig nun li iv er. CANTILENE DE SAINTE EULALIE. Buona pulcella fut Eulalia, bel auret corps, bellezour anima. Voldrent la veintre li deo inimi, Toldrent la faire diaule servir. Elle non eskoltet les mals conselliers, qu'elle deo raneiet, chi maent sus en ciel, Ne por or ned argent ne paramenz, por manatee regiel ne preiement. 1 In the Library at Valenciennes. * Let plus anciens Monuments de la Lnngue Frattfaiit. Paris, 1875. s The Oaths and the Eulalia poem (which some date from the end of the ninth century), as the first extant specimens of French prose and verse respec- tively, must be saved from the exclusion here pronounced on the extracts which appeared in the earlier editions of this book. Ch. I.] The Origins. Nlule cose non la pouret omque pleier, la polle sempre non amast lo deo menestier. E poro fat presentede Maximiien, chi rex eret a eels dis sovre pagiens. El li enortet, dont lei nonque chielt. qued elle fuiet lo nom christiien. Ell' ent ad u net lo suon element, melz sostendreiet les empedementz, Qu'elle perclesse sa virginitet : poros furet morte a grand honestet. Enz enl fou la getterent, com arde tost. elle colpes non auret, poro nos coist. A ezo nos voldret concreidre li rex pagiens ; ad une spede li roveret tolii lo chief. La doranizelle celle kose non contredist, volt lo seule lazsier, si ruovet Krist. In figure de colomb volat a ciel. tuit orem, que por nos degnet preier, Qued auuisset de nos Christus mercit post la mort et a lui nos laist venir Par souue dementia. Considering the great extent and the political divisions of the country called France, it is not surprising that the language which was so slowly formed should have shown considerable dialectic varia- tions. The characteristics of these dialects, Norman, Dialects and Picard, Walloon, Champenois, Angevin, and so forth, Provincial have been much debated by philologists. But it so Literatures, happens that the different provinces displayed considerable literary idiosyncrasy, which it is scarcely possible to dispute. Hardly a district of France but contributed something special to her wide and varied literature. The South, though its direct influence was not great, undoubtedly set the example of attention to lyrical form and cadence. Britanny contributed the wonderfully suggestive Arthurian legends, and the peculiar music and style of the lai. The border districts of Flanders seem to deserve the credit of originating the great beast- epic of Reynard the Fox ; Picardy, Eastern Normandy, and the Isle of France were peculiarly rich in the fabliau ; Champagne was the special home of the lighter lyric poetry, while almost all northern France had a share in the Chansons de Gestes, many districts, such as Lorraine and the Cambre'sis, having a special geste of their own. It is however with the eleventh century that the history of- 6 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. French literature properly so called begins. We have indeed few Romance manuscripts so early as this, the date of most of them Beginning of not being earlier than the twelfth. But by the eleventh Literature century not merely were laws written in French proper. (charters and other formal documents were somewhat later), not merely were sermons constantly composed and preached in that tongue, but also works of definite literature were produced in it. The Chanson de Roland is our only instance of its epic literature, but is not likely to have stood alone : the mystery of The Ten Virgins, a medley of French and Latin, has been (but perhaps falsely) ascribed to the same date ; and lyric poetry, even putting aside the obscure and doubtful Cdntilenes, was certainly indulged in to a considerable extent. From this date it is therefore possible to abandon generalities, and taking the successive forms and de- velopments of literature, to deal with them in detail. Before however we attempt a systematic account of French literature as it has been actually handed down to us, it is neces- sary to deal very briefly with two questions, one of which concerns the antecedence of possible ballad literature to the existing Chan- sons de Gestes, the other the machinery of diffusion to which this and all the early historical developments of the written French language owed much. It has been held by many scholars, whose opinions deserve respect, that an extensive literature of Cantilenae 1 . uantilenae. . . . . , , , . , , , , or short historical ballads, preceded the lengthy epics which we now possess, and was to a certain extent worked up in these compositions. It is hardly necessary to say that this depends in part upon a much larger question the question, namely, of the general origins of epic poetry. There are indeed certain references 4 to these Cantilenae upon which the theories alluded to have been built. But the Cantilenae themselves have, as one of the best of French literary historians, the late M. Paulin Paris, remarks of another debated product, the Provenfal epic, only one defect, ' le 1 The subject of the Cantilenae is discussed at great length by M. Le"on Gautier, Les Epopees Francises, Ed. 2, vol. i. caps. 8-13. Paris, 1878. a These, which are for the most part very vague and not very early, will be found fully quoted and discussed in Gautier, 1. c. Ch. I.] The Origins. 7 defaut d'etre perdu/ and investigation on the subject is therefore more curious than profitable. No remnant of them survives save the already-mentioned Latin prose canticle of St. Faron, in which vestiges of a French and versified original are thought to be visible, and the ballad of Saucourt, a rough song in a Teutonic dialect *. In default of direct evidence it has been sought to found an argument on the constant transitions, repetitions, and other peculiarities of the Chansons, some of which (and especially Roland, the most famous of all) present traces of repeated hand- lings of the same subject, such as might be expected in work which was merely that of a diaskeuast* of existing lays. It is however probable that the explanation of this phenomenon need not be sought further than in the circumstances of the composition and publication of these poems, circumstances which also had a very considerable influence on the whole course and character of early French literature. We know nothing of the rise or origin of the two classes of Trouveurs and Jongleurs. T rou vSres The former (which it is needless to say is the same and word as Troubadour, and Trobador, and Trovalore] Jongleurs, is the term for the composing class, the latter for the performing one. But the separation was not sharp or absolute, and there are abundant instances of Trouveres * who performed their own works, and of Jongleurs who aspired to the glories if not of original authorship, at any rate of alteration and revision of the legends they sang or recited. The natural consequence of this irregular form of publication was a good deal of repetition in the works published. Different versions of the legends easily enough got mixed together by the copyist, who it must be remembered was frequently a mere mechanical reproducer, and neither Trouvere nor Jongleur; nor should it be forgotten that, so long as recitation was general, repetitions of this kind were almost inevitable as a rest 1 Published by Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1837). * This word ( = arranger or putter- in-order) is familiar in Homeric discussion, and therefore seems appropriate. M. Gaston Paris speaks with apparent con- fidence of the pre-existing chants, and, in matter of authority, no one speaks with more than he : but it can hardly be said that there is pioof of the fact. * The older and in this case more usual form. 8 Mediaeval Literature. to the reciter's memory, and were scarcely likely to attract unfavour- able remark or criticism from the audience. We may therefore conclude, without entering further into the details of a debate unsuitable to the plan of this history, that, while but scanty evi- dence has been shown of the existence previous to the Chansons de Gestes of a ballad literature identical in subject with those com- positions, at the same time the existence of such a literature is neither impossible nor improbable. It is otherwise with the hypo- thesis of the existence of prose chronicles, from which the early epics (and Roland in particular) are also held to have derived their origin. But this subject will be better handled when we come to treat of the beginnings of French prose. For the present it is sufficient to say that, with the exception of the scattered fragments already commented upon, there is no department of French literature before the eleventh century and the Chansons de Gestes, which possesses historical existence proved by actual monu- ments, and thus demands or deserves treatment here 1 . 1 In some recent writing, as for instance in the collection of monographs which appeared under the general editorship of M. Petit de Julleville under the title of Histoire de la Langne et de la Litterature Frat'faise (8 vols., Paris : Colin, 1896-1897), great importance is attached to the Vie de Saint Alexis. This is a poem, apparently of the second half of the eleventh century, in 625 assonanced decasyllabics, which are arranged, not like the Chansons in irregular laisses, but in five-lined stnnzas (ed. G. Paris and L. Pannier, 1872-1887). It is interesting from its combination of apparently certain earliness with an at least relative accomplishment of form, and has some striking phrases. But to use a phrase of its own ferdude at son color, ' it has lost its colour,' in comparison with Roland its elder probably in reality, and but a very few years its junior in actual form. CHAPTER II. THE CHANSONS DE GESTES. THE earliest form which finished literature took in France was that of epic or narrative poetry. Towards the middle of the eleventh century certainly, and probably some half-century earlier, poems of regular construction and considerable length began to be written. These are the Chansons de Gestes, so called from their dealing with the Gestes l , or heroic families of legendary or his- torical France. It is remarkable that this class of composition, notwithstanding its age, its merits, and the abundant examples of it which have been preserved, was one of the latest to receive recogni- tion in modern times. The matter of many of the Chansons, under their later form of verse or prose romances of chivalry, was indeed more or less known in the eighteenth century. But an appre- ciation of their real age, value, and interest has been the reward of the literary investigations of our own time. It was not till 1837 that the oldest and the most remarkable of them was first edited from the manuscript found in the Bodleian Library 2 . Since that time investigation has been constant and fruitful, and 1 Cesta or Geste has three senses : (a) the deeds of a hero ; () the chronicle of those deeds ; and (c} the family which that chronicle illustrates. The three chief geslts are those of the Kin^, of Doonde Mayence, and of Garin de Mool- glane.. Each of these is composed of manypoenTSTThe ' petites gestes ' include only a few Chansons. Most writers now use the form ' Chansons de Geste.' 1 La Chanson de Roland, ed. Fr. Michel, Paris, 1837. The MS. is in the Kodleian Library (Digby 23). Another, of much later date in point of writing but representing the same text, exists at Venice. Of later versions there are six manuscripts extant. The Chanson de Roland has since its editio -princeps been repeatedly re-edited, translated, and commented. The most exact edition is that of Prof. Stengel, Heilbronn, 1878, who has given the Bodleian Manuscript both in print and in photographic facsimile. The best for general use is that of Leon Gautier (seventh edition), 1877. io Mediaeval Liter ahire. [Bk. i there are now more than one hundred of these interesting poems known. The origin and sources of the Chansons de Gestes have been Origin of ma de a matter of much controversy. We have Chansons de already seen how, from the testimony of historians Gestes. an( j the existence of a few fragments, it appears that rude lays or ballads in the different vernacular tongues of the country were composed and sung, if not written down, at very early dates. According to one theory, we are to look for the origin of the long and regular epics of the eleventh and subse- quent centuries in these rude compositions, first produced inde- pendently, then strung together, and lastly subjected to some process of editing and uniorul It has been sought to find proof of this in the frequent repetitions which take place in the Chansons, and which sometimes amount to the telling of the same incident over and over again in slightly varying words. Others have seen in this peculiarity only a result of improvisation in the first place, and unskilful or at least uncritical copying in the second. This, however, is a question rather interesting than important. What is certain is that no literary source of the Chansons is now actually in existence, and that we have no authentic information as to any such originals. At a certain period approximately given above the fashion of narrative poems on the great scale seems to have arisen in France. It spread rapidly, and was eagerly copied by other nations. The definition of a Chanson df Geste is as follows. It is a narrative poem, dealing with a subject connected Definition. J with French history, written in verses of ten or twelve syllables, which verses are arranged in stanzas of arbitrary length, each stanza possessing a distinguishing assonance or rhyme in the last syllable of each line. The assonance, which is characteristic of the earlier Chansons, is an imperfect rhyme, in which identity of vowel sound is all that is necessary.*- Thus traitor, felon, com- paingnons, manons, noz, the first, fourth, and fifth of which have no character of rhyme whatever in modern poetry, are sufficient terminations for an assonanced poem, because the last vowel sound, o, is identical. There is^moreoveMn-thiS-Tersification a regular caesaraj sometimes after the fourth, sometimes after the sixth Ch. n.J 77te Chansons de Gcstes. 1 1 syllable; and in a few of the.olde^ examples ihe-_stanzas^-Oi as they-.are_some times called laisses, terminate jn a shorter line than usual, which is not jtsspnanced. This metrical system, it will be observed, is of a fairly elaborate character, a character which has been used as an argument by those who insist on the existence of a bo ly of ballad literature anterior to the Chansons. We shall see in the following chapters how this double definition of a Chanson de Gesle, by matter and by form, serves to exclude from the title other important and interesting classes of compositions slightly later in date. The period of composition of these poems extended, speaking roughly, over three centuries. 7Jn_the_e]eventh they Period of began, but the beginnings are represented only by Composition. Roland, the Voyage de Charlemagne, and perhaps Le Roi Louis. Most and nearly all the best date from the twelfth. The thirteenth century also produces them in great numbers, but by this time a sensible change has come over their manner, and after the beginning of the fourteenth only a few pieces deserving the title are written^/ They then undergo transfor- mation rather than neglect, and we shall meet them at a later period in other forms. Before dealing with other general cha- racteristics of the early epics of France it will be well to give some notion of them by actual selection and narrative. For this purpose we shall take two Chansons, typical of two out of the three stages through which they passed. Roland will serve as a sample of the earliest, Amis et Amiles of the second. Of the third, as less characteristic in itself and less marked by uniform features, it will be sufficient to give some account when we come to the compositions which chiefly influenced it, namely the romances of Arthur and of antiquity. The Chanson de Roland, the most ancient and characteristic of these poems, though extremely popular in the middle Chanson de ages ', passed with them into obscurity. The earliest Boland. allusion to the Oxford MS., which alone represents its earliest form, 1 Wace (Roman de Rou, iii. 8038 Andresen) speaks of the Norman Taillefer as singing at Hastings ' De Karlemaigne et de Reliant.' It has been sought, bat perhaps fancifully, to identify this song with the existing chanson. 12 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. was made by Tyrwhitt of Chaucerian fame. Conybeare afterwards dealt with it in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1817, and by degrees the reviving interest of France in her older literature attracted French scholars to this most important monument of the oldest French. It. was first published as a whole by M. F. Michel in 1837, and since that time it has been the subject of a very great amount of study. Its and it concludes with an obscure assertion of_ authprship > ___rjub- lication or transcription by_a. certain ^Tjjfe'krtts l . The date of the Oxford MS. is probably the middle of the twelfth century, but its text is attributed by the best authorities to the end of the eleventh. There are other MSS., but they are all either mutilated or of much later date. The argument of the poem is as follows : Charlemagne has warred seven years in Spain, but king Marsile of Saragossa still resists the Christian conqueror. Unable however to meet Charlemagne in the field, he sends an embassy with presents and a feigned submission, requesting that prince tc return to France, whither he will follow him and do homage. Roland opposes the reception of these offers, Ganelon speaks in their favour, and so does Duke Naimes. Then the question is who shall go to Saragossa to settle the terms. Roland offers to go himself, but being rejected as too impetuous, suggests Ganelon a suggestion which bitterly annoys that knight, and by irritating him against Roland sows the seeds of his future treachery. Ganelon goes to Marsile, and at first bears himself truthfully and gallantly. The heathen king however undermines his faith, and a treacherous assault on the French rearguard when Charlemagne shall be too far off to succour it is resolved on and planned. Then the traitor returns to Charles with hostages and mighty gifts. The return to France begins; Roland is stationed, to his great wrath, in the fatal place, the rest of the army marches through the Pyrenees, and meanwhile Marsile gathers an enormous host to fall upon the isolated rearguard. There is a long catalogue of the felon and miscreant knights and princes that follow the Spanish king. The 1 ' Ci fait la geste que Turoldus cleclinet.' The sense of the word declinet is quite uncertain, and the-attempts made to identify Turoldus are futile. Ch. II.] The Chansons de Gestes. 13 pagan host, travelling by cross paths of the mountains, soon reaches and surrounds Roland and the peers. Oliver entreats Roland to sound his horn that Charles may hear it and come to the rescue, but the eager and inflexible hero refuses. Archbishop Turpin blesses the doomed host, and bids them as the price of his absolution strike hard. The battle begins and all its incidents are told. The French kill thousands, but thousands more succeed. Peer after peer falls, and when at last Roland blows the horn it is too late. Charlemagne hears it and turns back in an agony of sorrow and haste. But long before he reaches Roncevaux Roland has died last of his host, and alone, for all the Pagans have fallen or fled before him. The arrival of Charlemagne, his grief, and his vengeance on the Pagans, should perhaps conclude the poem. There is, however, a sort of afterpiece, in which the traitor Ganelon is tried, his fate being decided by a single combat between his kinsman Pinabel and a cham- pion named Thierry, and is ruthlessly put to death with all his clans- men who have stood surety for him. /Episodes properly so called the poem has none, though the character of Oliver is finely brought out as contrasted with Roland's somewhat unreasoning valour, and ihere is one touching incident when the poet tells how the Lady Aude, Oliver's sister and Roland's betrothed, falls dead without a word when the king tells her of the fatal fight at Roncevaux.^ It may be noticed that there occurs at irregular intervals throughout the poem a curious refrain, Aoi. This has puzzled all commentators, though in calling it a refrain we have given the most probable explanation. As Roland is by far the most interesting of those Chansons which describe the wars with the Saracens, so Amis et Amiks 1 may be taken as representing those where the interest is mainly Amis et domestic. A mis etA miles is the earliest vernacular form Amiles. of a story which attained extraordinary popularity in the middle ages, being found in every language and in most literary forms, prose and verse, narrative and dramatic. This popularity may partly be assigned to the religious and marvellous elements which it contains, but is due also to the intrinsic merits of the story. The Chanson contains 3500 lines, dates probably from the twelfth century, and is written, like Roland, in decasyllabic verse, but, unlike Roland, has 1 Amis et Amiles, ed. Hoffmann. Eilangen, 1853. T4 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. a shorter line of six syllables and not assonanced at the end of each stanza. Its story is as follows : Amis and Amiles were two noble knights, born and baptized on the same day, who had the Pope for sponsor, and whose comradeship was specially sanctioned by a divine message, and by the miraculous like- ness which existed between them. They were however brought up, the one in Berri, the other in Auvergne, and did not meet till boih had received knighthood. As soon as they had joined company, they resolved to offer their services to Charles, and did him great service against rebels. Here the action proper begins. The friends arouse the jealousy of Hardre", a felon knight, ofGanelon's lineage and like- ness. Hardr6 engages Gombaud of Lorraine, an enemy of the Emperor, to attack the two friends; but the treason does not succeed, and the traitor, to escape unpleasant enquiries, recommends Charles to bestow his own niece Lubias on Amiles. The latter declares that Amis deserves her better, and to Amis she is married, bearing however no good-will to Amiles for his resignation of her and for his firm hold on her husband's affection. Meanwhile, the daughter of Charles, Bellicent, conceives a violent passion for Amiles, and the traitor Hardre* unfortunately becomes aware of the matter. He at once accuses Amiles of treason, and the knight is too con- scious of the dubiousness of his cause to be very willing to accept the wager of battle. From this difficulty he is saved by Amis, who comes to Paris from his distant seignory of Blaivies (Blaye), and fights the battle in the name and armour of his friend, while the latter goes to Blaye and plays the part of his preserver. Both ventures are made easier by the extraordinary resemblance of the pair. Amis is successful ; he slays Hardre*, and then has no little difficulty in saving himself from a forced marriage with Bellicent. This embroglio is smoothed out, and Amiles and Bellicent are happily united. The generous Amis however has not been able to avoid forswearing him- self while playing the part of Amiles; and this sin is punished, accord- ing to a divine warning, by an attack of leprosy. His wife Lubias seizes the opportunity, procures a separation from him, and almost starves him, or would do so but for two faithful servants and his little son. At last a means of cure is revealed to him. If Amiles and Bellicent will allow their two sons to be slain the blood will recover Ch. ii.] The Chansons de Gestcs. 15 Amis of his leprosy. Amiles, learning the hard condition, does not hesitate. No sooner has the blood touched Amis than he is cured, and the knights solemnly visit the church where Bellicent and the people are assembled. The story is told and the mother, in despair, rushes to the chamber where her dead children are lying. But she finds them living and in full health, for a miracle has been wrought to reward the faith- fulness of the friends now that suffering has purged them of their sin. This story, touching in itself, is most touchingly told in the Chan- son. No poem of the kind is more vivid in description, or fuller of details of the manners of the time, than Amis et Amiles. Bellicent and Lubias, the former passionate and impulsive but loving and faith- ful, the latter treacherous, revengeful, and cold-hearted, give perhaps the earliest finished portraits of feminine character to be found in French literature. Amis and Amiles themselves are presented to us under so many more aspects than Roland and Oliver that they dwell better in the memory. The undercurrent of savagery which dis- tinguished mediaeval times, and the rapid changes of fortune which were possible therein, are also well brought out. Not even the immolation of Ganelon's hostages is so striking as the calm ferocity with which Charlemagne dooms "his wife and son as well as his daughter to pay with their lives the penalty of Bellicent's fault; while the sudden lapse of Amis from his position of feudal lordship at Blaye to that of a miserable outcast, smitten and marked out for public scorn and ill-treatment by the visitation of God, is unusually dramatic. Amis et Amiles bears to Roland something not at all unlike the relation of the Odyssey to the Iliad. Its continuation, Jourdains de Blaivies, adds the element of foreign travel and adventure ; but that element is perhaps more characteristically represented, and the representation has certainly been more generally popular, in Huon de Bordeaux. Of the remaining Chansons, the following are the most remark- able. A liscans (twelfth century) deals with the contest other between William of Orange, the great Christian hero principal of the south of France, and the Saracens. This poem Chansons, forms, according to custom, the centre of a whole group of Chan- sons dealing with the earlier and later adventures of the hero, his ancestors, and descendants. Such are Le CotironnemenLLoys, La Prise cTOrjwge, Le Charroi de Niwe^J^e Moniage Qutilaume. 16 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. The series formed by these and others 1 is among the most in- teresting of these groups. Le Chevalier au Cygne is a title applied directly, to a somewhat late version of an old folk-tale, and more generally to a series of poems connected with the House of Bouillon and the Crusades. The members of this bear the separate headings Antioche*, Les Che'tifs, Les Enfances Godefroy, etc. Antioche, the first of these, which describes the exploits of the Christian host, first in attacking and then in de- fending that city, is one of the finest of the Chansons, and is probably in its original form not much later than the events it describes, being written by an eye-witness. The variety of its personages, the vivid picture of the alternations of fortune, the vigour of the verse, are all remarkable. This group is terminated by Baudouin de Sebourc 3 , a very late but very important Chanson, which falls in with the poetry of the fourteenth century, and the Bastart de Bouillon 4 . La Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche 6 is the oldest form in which the adventures of one of the. most popular and romantic of Charlemagne's heroes are related. Fierabras had also a very wide popularity, and contains some of the liveliest pictures of manners to be found 'in these poems, in its description of the rough horse-play of the knights and the unfilial behaviour of the converted Saracen princess. This poem is also of much interest philologically 6 . \Garin le Loheram 1 is the centre of a re- markable group dealing not directly with Charlemagne, but with the provincial disputes and feuds of the nobility of Lorraine. Raoul de Cambrai* is another of the Chansons which deal with ' minor houses/ as they are called, in contradistinction to the main Carlovingian cycle. Gerard de Roussillon * ranks as a poem with 1 This series is given, sometimes in whole, sometimes in extracts, by Dr. Jonckbloet, Guillaume cT Orange (The Hague, 1854). Le CouronnetiienC de Louis was edited by E. Langlois in 1888; and Le Montage Guillaume by W. Cloetta in iqo6 and 1911. a Ed. P. Paris. Paris, 1848. Ed. Boca. Valenciennes, 1841. * Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1877. Ed. Barrois. Paris, 1842. * There exists a Proven9al version of it, evidently translated from the French. The most convenient edition is-that of Kroeber and Servois, Paris, 1860. There is an English fourteenth-century version published by Mr. Herrtage for the Early English Text Society, 1879. 7 Published partially by MM. P. Paris and E. du Meril and by Herr Stengel. 8 Ed. Le Glay. Paris, 1840. There is a later edition by Paul Meyer and Aoguste Longnon, 1882. Ed. Michel. Paris, 1856. Ch. n.J TJi Chansons de Gestes. 17 the best of all the Chansons. Hugues Capel 1 , though very late, is attractive by reason pf the glimpses it gives us of a new spirit supplanting that of chivalry proper. In it the heroic distinctly gives place to the burlesque. Macaire*. besides being written in a singular dialect, in which French is mingled with Italian, sup- plies the original of the well-known dog of Montargis. Huon de Bordeaux*, already mentioned, was not only more than usually popular at the time of its appearance, but has supplied Shake- speare with some of the dramatis personae of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Wieland and Weber with the plot of a well- known poem and opera. Jourdains de Blaivies, the sequel to Amis et Amiles, contains, besides much other interesting matter, the incident which forms the centre of the plot of Pericles. Les Qua/re Fils Aymon or Renaut de Montauban * is the foundation of one of the most popular French chap-books. Les Saisnes* deals with Charlemagne's wars with Witekind. Berte aus grans Pie's* is a very graceful story of womanly innocence. Doon de Mayence' 1 , though not early, includes a charming love-episode. Ge'rard de Viane * contains the famous battle of Roland and Oliver. The Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantinople 9 is semi-burlesque in tone and one of the earliest in which that tone is perceptible. In these numerous poems there is recognisable in the first place a distinct family likeness which is common to Social and the earliest and latest, and in the second, the natural Literary difference of manners which the lapse of three hun- Character- dred years might be expected to occasion. There is a sameness which almostamounts to monotony in the plot of most Chansons de GesTes : the hero is almost always either falsely accused of some'cnt^^~e1s^~trcachcroujly^ejepogedTo the attacks of Saraceng^_or of his^Qwn countrymen. Ihe__ageats_ of this treachery are.^cominonly_of the bloodofjhe arch-traitoji-Ganelon. and are almos^_jriiaxiai>ly.--discoinfited by the 'good knight or his 1 Ed. La Grange. Paris, 1864. * Ed. Guessard. Paris, 1866. 8 Ed. Guessard et Grandmaison. Paris, 1860. Ed. Michelant. Stuttgart, i86a. * Ed. Michel. Paris, 1839. * Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1874. T Ed. Pey. Paris, 1859. Ed. Tarbe. Rheims, 1850. Ed. Michel London, 1836. C 1 8 Mediaeval L iterature. [Bk. I. friends and avengers. The part 1 which Charlemagne plays in these poems is not usually dignified : he is -represented as easily gulled, capricious, and almost ferocious in temper, ungrateful, and ready to accept bribes and gifts. His good angel is always Duke Naimes of Bavaria, the Nestor of the Carlovingian epic. In the earliest Chansons the part played by women is not so conspicuous as in the later, but in all except Roland it has considerable pro- minence. Sometimes the heroine is the wife, daughter, or niece of Charlemagne, sometimes a Saracen princess. But in either case she is apt to respond without much delay to the hero's ad- vances, which, indeed, she sometimes anticipates. The conduct of knights to their ladies is also far from being what we now con- sider chivalrous. Blows are very common, and seem to be taken by the weaker sex as matters of course. The prevailing legal forms are simple and rather sanguinary. The judgment of God, as shown by ordeal of battle, settles all disputes ; but battle is not permitted unless several nobles of weight and substance come forward as sponsors for each champion ; and sponsors as well as principal risk their lives in case of the principal's defeat, unless they can tempt the king's cupidity. These common features are necessarily in the case of so large a number of poems mixed with much individual difference, nor are the Chansons by any means monotonous reading. Their versification is pleasing to the ear, and their language, considering its age, is of surprising strength, expressiveness, and even wealth. Though they lack the variety, the pathos, the romantic chivalry, and the mystical attractions of the Arthurian romances, there is little doubt that they paint, far more accurately than their successors, an actually existing state of society, that which prevailed in the palmy time of the feudal system, when war and religion were deemed the sole subjects worthy to occupy seriously men of station and birth. In giving utterance to this warlike and religious sentiment, few periods and classes of literature have been more strikingly successful. Nowhere 1 It is very commonly said that this feature is confined to the later Chansons. This is scarcely the fact, unless by 'later' we are to understand all except Roland. In Rolaiui itself the presentment is by no means wholly compli- mentary. ch. ii.] The Chansons de Gestes. ig is the mere fury of battle better rendered than in Roland and Fier- abras. Nowhere is the valiant indignation of the beaten warrior, and, at the same time, his humble submission to providence, better given than in Aliscans. Nowhere do we find the mediaeval spirit of feudal enmity and private war more strikingly depicted than in the cycle of the Lorrainers, and in Raoul de Cambrai. Nowhere is the devout sentiment and belief of the same time more fully drawn than in Amis el Amiles. The method of composition and publication of these poems was peculiar. Ordinarily, though not always, they were com- j u u -r ' % r A L .u T i Authorship, posed by the Trouvere, and performed by the Jongleur. Sometimes the Trouvere condescended to performance, and some- times the Jongleur aspired to composition, but not usually. The poet was commonly a man of priestly or knightly rank, the per- former (who might be of either sex) was probably of no particular station. The Jongleur, or Jongleresse, wandered from castle to cattle, reciting the poems, and interpolating in them recommenda- tions of the quality of the wares, requests to the audience to be silent, and often appeals to their generosity? Some of the manuscripts which we now possess were originally used by Jon- gleurs, and it was only in this way that the early Chanson de Geste was intended to be read. The process of hawking about naturally interfered with the preservation of the poems in their original purity, and even with the preservation of the author's name. In very few cases 1 is the latter known to us. ^Phe question whether the Chansons de Gestes were originally written in northern or southern French has often been hotly de- bated. The facts are these. Only three Chansons exist in Proven9al. Two of these 'are admitted translations or imitations of Northern originalslj The third, Girartz de Rossilho, is undoubtedly original, 1 The Turoldus of J?o/a>iifhzs been already noticed. Of certain or tolerably certain authors, Graindor de Douai (revisions of the early crusading Chansons of 'Richard the Pilgrim,' Antiochc, &c.), Jean de Flagy (Garin), Bodel (Les Saisnes), and Adenes le Roi, a fertile author or adapter of the thirteenth century, are the most noted. 9 Fcrabras and Betonnet d' ironstone. This latter poem was edited carefully by Paul M. Meyer under the title olDanrel ct Beton (Paris, 1880). To these should be added a frngn-.ent, Aigar et Manrtn, which seems to rank with Girartz* c a ao Mediaeval L iterature. [Bk. I. but is written in the northernmost dialect of the Southern tongue. C.Che inference appears to be clear that the Chanson de Geste is properly a product of northern France?^ Thfi_jQfipQsite_Onclusion nessitatcs^Jhe_ supposition Jhat either in^the Albigensian war, or by some inexplicable concatenation of accidents, a body of originaTTraTenyal Chansons' ha^'beefnotally" destroyed^with^all allusions to, and tfatntrojis___Qf^J;hese poems." Such a hypothesis is evidently unreasonable, and would probably never have been started had not some of the earliest students of Old French been committed by local feeling to the championship of the language of the Troubadours. On the other hand, almost all the dialects of Northern French are represented, Norman and Picard being perhaps the commonest J . The language of these poems is neither poor in vocabulary nor lacking in harmony of sound. It is, indeed, more | sonorous and stately than classical French language was from the seventeenth century to the days of Victor Hugo, and abounds in picturesque terms which have since dropped out of use. The massive castles of the baronage, with their ranges of marble steps leading up to the hall, where feasting is held by day and where the knights sleep at night, are often described. Dress is mentioned with peculiar lavishness. Pelisses of ermine, ornaments of gold and silver, silken underclothing, seem to give the poets special pleasure in recording them, (in no language are what have been called 'perpetual' epithets more usual, though the abundance of the recurring phrases prevents monotony. The ' clear counten- ances' of the ladies, the 'steely brands' of the knights, their 'marble palaces/ the ' flowing beard ' of Charlemagne, the ' guileful tongue ' of the traitors, are constant features of the verbal landscapeT^Prom so great a mass of poetry it would be vain in any space hewf avail- able to attempt to arrange specimen ' jewels five words long.' But those who actually read the Chansons will be surprised at the abundance of fresh and striking and poetic phrase. * There has been some reaction of late years against the scepticism wliich questioned the ' Provencal Epic.' I cannot however say, though I admit a certain disqualification for judgment (see note at beginning of next chapter), that 1 see any valid reason for this reaction. Ch. II.] The Chansons de Gestes. 21 Before quitting the subject of the Chansons de Gestes, it may be \vell to give briefly their subsequent literary history. Later They were at first frequently re-edited, the tendency History. always being to increase their length, so that in some cases the latest versions extant run to thirty or forty thousand lines. As soon as this limit was reached, they began to be turned into prose, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries being the special period of this change. The art of printing came in time to assist the spread of these prose versions, and for some centuries they were almost the only form in which the Chansons de Gestes, under the general title of romances of chivalry, were known. The verse originals remained for the most part in manuscript, but the prose romances gained an enduring circulation among the peasantry in France. From the seventeenth century their vogue was mainly restricted to this class. But in the middle of the eighteenth the Comte de Tressan was induced to attempt their revival for the Bibliotheque des Romans. His versions were executed entirely in the spirit of the day, and did not render any of the characteristic features of the old Epics. But they drew attention to them, and by the end of the century, University Professors began to lecture on old French poetry. The exertions of M. Paulin Paris, of M. Francisque Michel, and of some German scholars first brought about the re- editing of the Chansons in their original form before the mid- nineteenth century ; and since that time they have received steady attention, and a large number have been published a number to which additions are yearly being made \ 1 Among new additions may be mentioned Les Enfances Vivien, ed. Wahlund and von Feilitzen, Paris, 1886; Aimeri de Narbonne, ed. Demaison, Paris, 1887; Anseis de Carthage, ed. Alton, Tubingen, 1892; and La Chancun de Willaume, privately printed, Chiswick Press, 1903. Important assistance to the study has been given by the completion of M. Leon Gautier's Les Epopees francaises (4 vols., wilh a 5th of bibliography, 1897), perhaps the most thorough as well as the most enthusiastic book of its kind in existence, while the most important book that the twentieth century has yet produced on that subject is M. J. Me'dier's Les L/'gendes Epiques : recherches sur la formation des chansons de gestes (4 vols., Paris, 1908, i. 3). But, as its title will show, this book is not primarily occupied with the literary qualities of the poems; and it does not therefore seriously affect estimates of those qualities derived from the perusal of the chansons themselves. CHAPTER III. PROVENCAL LITERATURE. THE Romance language, spoken in the country now called France, has two great divisions, the Langue d'Oc and the Langue d'Oc. Langue d'Oil *, which stand to one another in hardly more intimate relationship than the first of them does to Spanish or Italian. In strictness, the Langue d'Oc ought not to be called French at all, inasmuch as those who spoke it applied that term exclusively to Northern speech, calling their own Limousin, or Provencal, or Auvergnat. 4E5 16 tmie > moreover, when Provencal literature flourished, the districts which contributed to it were in very loose relationship with the kingdom of France ; and when that relationship was drawn tighter, Provencal literature began to wither and diey Yet it is not possible to avoid giving some sketch of the literary developments of Southern France in any history of French literature, as well because of the connection which subsisted be- tween the two branches, as because of the altogether mistaken views which have been not unfrequently held as to that con- nection. Lord Macaulay 2 speaks of Provencal in the twelfth century as ' the only one of the vernacular languages of Europe which had yet been extensively employed for literary purposes;' and the ignorance of their older literature which, until a very recent period, distinguished Frenchmen has made it common for writers in France to speak of the Troubadours as their own "~* Oi-anfl oil (hoc and hoe illuch. the rcspctute_terms indicating affirmation, In this chapter the information given is based on a smaller acquaintance at first hand with the subject than is the case in the chapters on French proper. Herr Karl Bartsch has been the guide chiefly followed. ' Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes. Provencal Literature, 23 literary ancestors. We have already seen that this supposition as applied to Epic poetry is entirely false ; we shall see hereafter that, except as regards some lyrical developments, and those not the most characteristic, it is equally ill-grounded as to other kinds of composition. But the literature of the South is quite interest- ing enough in itself without borrowing what does not belong to it, and it exhibits not a few characteristics which were afterwards blended with those of the literature of the kingdom at large*) The domain of the Langue d'Oc is included between two lines, the northernmost of which starts from the Atlantic Range and coast at or about the Charente, follows the northern character- boundaries of the old provinces of Perigord, Limousin, Auvergne, and Dauphine, and overlaps Savoy and a small portion of Switzerland. The southern limit is formed by the Pyrenees, the Gulf of Lyons, and. the Alps, while Catalonia is overlapped to the south-west just as Savoy is taken in on the north-east. This wide district gives room for not a few dialectic varieties with which we need not here busy ourselves. The general language is distin- guished from northern French by the survival to a greater degree of the vowel character of Latin. The vocabulary is less dissolved and corroded by foreign influence, and the inflections remain more distinct. The result, as in Spanish and Italian, is a language more harmonious, softer, and more cunningly cadenced than northern French, but endowed with far less vigour, variety, and freshness. The separate development of the two tongues must have begun at a very early period. A few early monuments, such as the Passion of Christ * and the Mystery of the Ten Virgins 2 , contain mixed dialects. But the earliest piece of literature in pure Provensal is assigned in its original form to the tenth century, and is entirely different from northern French 3 . It is arranged in laisses and assonanced. The uniformity, however, of the terminations of Pro- ven9al makes the assonances more closely approach rhyme than is the case in northern poetry. Of the eleventh century the principal monuments are a few charters, a translation of part of St. John's Gospel, and several religious pieces in prose and verse. Not till 1 See chap. L * See chap. x. 8 The poem on Boethius. See chap. i. 24 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. the extreme end of this century does the Troubadour begin to make himself heard. The earliest of these minstrels whose songs we possess is William IX, Count of Poitiers. With him Provencal literature, properly so called, begins. /The admirable historian of Provenfal literature, Karl Bartsch, Periods of divides its products into three periods ; the first reach- ProveD9al ing to the end of the eleventh century, and corn- Literature. p r i s j n g t h e beginnings and experiments of the lan- guage as a literary medium; the second covering the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the most flourishing time of the Trou- badour poetry, and possessing also specimens of many other forms of literary composition ; the third, the period of decadence, in- cluding the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and remarkable chiefly for some religious literature, and for the contests of the Toulouse school of poets^y In a complete history of Proven9al literature notice would "also have to be taken of the fitful and spasmodic attempts of the last four centuries to restore the dialect to the rank of a literary language, attempts which have never been made with greater energy and success than in our own time J , but which hardly call for notice here. The most remarkable works of the first period have been already alluded to. This period may possibly have produced ' original epics of the Chanson form, though, as has been pointed out, no indications of any such exist, except in the solitary instance of G*f&l%de Rossilho. The important poem of Albericof Besan^on on AJexanderis lost, except the first hundred verses. It is thought to be the oldest vernacular poem on the subject, and is in a mixed dialect partaking of the forms both of north and south. Hymns, sometimes in mixed Latin and Pro- ven9al, sometimes entirely in the latter, are found early. A single prose monument remains in the shape of a fragmentary translation of the Gospel of St. John. But by far the most important example of this period is the Boethius. The poem, as we have it, ex- tends to 258 decasyllabic verses arranged on the fashion of a Chanson de Geste, and dates from the eleventh century, or at 1 By the school of the so-called JFMibres, of whom Mistral and Aubanel were the chief. Ch. in.] Provencal Literature. 25 latest from the beginning of the twelfth, but is thought to be a rehandling of another poem which may have been written nearly two centuries earlier. The narrative part of the work is a mere introduction, the bulk of it consisting of moral reflections taken from the De Consolatione. It is only in the second period that Provencal literature becomes of real importance. The stimulus which brought it to Second perfection has been generally taken to be that of the Period. crusades, aided by the great development of peaceful civilisation at home which Provence and Languedoc then saw. f*~T he spirit of chivalry rose and was diffused all over Europe at tnTs time, and in some of its aspects it received a greater welcome in Provence than anywhere else. For the mystical, the adventurous, and other sides of the chivalrous character, we must look to the North, and especially to the Arthurian legends, and the Romans d'Aven- tures which they influenced. But, for what has been well called ' la passion souveraine, aveugle, idolatre, qui e'clipse tous les autres sentiments, qui dddaigne tous les devoirs, qui se moque de 1'enfer et du ciel, qui absorbe et possbde 1'ame entiere V w e must come to the literature of the south of France. Passion is indeed not the only motive of the Troubadours, but it is their favourite motive, and their most successfuQ The connection of this pre- dominant instinct with the elaborate and unmatched attention to form which characterises them is a psychological question very interesting to discuss, but hardly suitable to these pages. It is sufficient here to say that these various motives and influences produced the Troubadours and their literature. This literature was chiefly lyrical in form, but also included many other kinds, of which a short account may be given. Girartz de Rossilho belongs in all probability to the earliest years of the period, though the only Provengal manuscript in ex- istence dates from the end of the thirteenth century. In the third decade of the twelfth Guillem Bechada had written a poem on the conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, which, however, has perished, though the northern cycle of the Chevalier au Cygne 1 Moland and Ilevicault's Introduction to Aucassin et NicolttU. Paris, 1856. 26 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. may represent it in part. Guillem of Poitiers also wrote a his- torical poem on the Crusades with similar ill fate. But the most famous of historical poems in Provenfal has fortunately been preserved to us. This is the chronicle of the Albigensian War, written in Alexandrines by William of Tudela and an anonymous writer. >rfh_ ag jaomeAYJiat later thajx- the of the Troubadou.rs J _and_ no great Jyjical variety or elegafice_is reached jintiLthe Troubadours' work had, by means of Thibaut de Champagne and others, had an opportunity of pene- trating into northern France. On the other hand, the forms which finished lyric adopted in the North are by no means identical with those of the Troubadours. The scientific and melodious figures of the Bfrtiader--l]3gR.ondeft, the^Chant-royal, the Rondel, and the v^fonAii^ pormnf by any Jngenuitv be deduced from Canso or Balada, Retroensa or Breu-Doble. The Alba and the Pastorekr" agree in subject with rhg"Sub'ade and the_Pastpurelle, but have no necessary or-tjbvious connection of form. It would7 however, be almost as greaTaTmTstake to deny the influence of the spirit of Provencal literature over French, as to regard the two as standing Ch. in.] Provencal Literature. 29 in the position of mother and daughter. ( The Troubadours un- doubtedly preceded their Northern brethren in scrupu- -Defects of lous attention to poetical form, and in elaborate devices Provencal for ensuring such attention. They preceded them too Literature, in recognising that quality in poetry for which there is perhaps no other word than elegance. There can be little doubt that they sacrificed to these two divinities, elegance and the formal limita- tion of verse, matters almost equally if not more important. The motives of their poems are few, and the treatment of those mo- tives monotonous. Love, war, and personal enmity, with a certain amount of more or less frigid didactics, almost complete the lis^In dealing with the first and the most fruitful, they fell into the deadly error of stereotyping their manner of expression. Objection has sometimes been taken to the ' eternal hawthorn and nightingale ' of Proven9al poetry. The objection would hardly be fatal, if this eternity did not extend to a great many things besides hawthorn and nightingales. In the later Troubadours especially, the fault which has been urged against French dramatic literature just before the Romantic movement was conspicuously anticipated. Every mood, every situation of passion, was catalogued and analysed, and the proper method of treatment, with similes and metaphors com- plete, was assigned. There was no freshness and no variety, and in the absence of variety and freshness, that of vigour was necessarily implied. It may even be doubted whether the influence of this hot-house verse on the more natural literature of the North was not injurious rather than beneficial. Certain it is that the artificial poetry of the Trouveres went (in the persons of the Rondeau and Ballade-writing Rhe'toriqueurs of the fifteenth century) the same way and came to the same end, that its elder sister had already trodden and reached with the competitors for the Violet, the Eglantine, and the Marigold of Toulouse. CHAPTER IV. ROMANCES OF ARTHUR AND OF ANTIQUITY. passion for narrative poetry, which at first contented itself \viih stories drawn from the history or tradition of France, took be- The Tale of ^ ore Ver 7 l n a wider range, The origin of the Legend Arthur. Its of King Arthur, of the Round Table, of the Holy Origins. Graal, and of all the adventures and traditions con- nected with these centres, is one of the most intricate questions in the history of mediaeval literature. It would be beyond the scope of this book to attempt to deal with it at length. It is sufficient for our purpose, in the first place, to point out that [the question of the actual existence and acts of Arthur has very little to do with the question of the origin of the Arthurian cycle. The history of mediaeval literature, as distinguished from the history of the Middle Ages, need not concern itself with any conflict between the invaders and the older inhabitants of England. (The question which is of historical literary interest is, whether the traditions which Geoffrey of Monmouth, Walter Map, Chrestien de Troyes, and their followers, wrought into a fabric of such astounding extent and complexity, are due to Breton originals, or whether their authority is nothing but the ingenuity of Geoffrey working upon the meagre data of Nen- nius V^ These alternatives, or rather some variations and sub- divisions of them, have been debated by a succession of champions for many years past. In no case have the Celticists been able 1 Nennius, a Breton monk of the ninth century, has left a brief Latin Chronicle in which is the earliest authentic account of the Legend of Arthur. Geoffrey of Monmouth, circa 1140, produced a Historia Britonum, avowedly based on a book brought from Britanny by Walter. Archdeacon of Oxford. No trace of this book, unless it be Nennius, can be found. See note at end of chapter. Romances of Arthur and of Antiquity, 31 to produce undoubted Celtic texts of early date. On the other h^nH^jt S'jqrpfi t" fiM" tror^nmiufr-ifl-- sufficient to arrn..uMf for Geoffrey, and that Geoffre^is^strffiieot^.aCOUjiL. for_the purely Arthw-kin puil of LLibseqTteTTtTDmaftees-aud. chronicles. ^The re- ligious element of the cycle has a different origin, and may possibly not be Celtic at all. Lastly, we musttake into account a large body of Breton .ajid_JWelsh poetry Jrom which, especially in the parts of__the legend _ which deal, with Tristram, with King Mark, &c., amplifications have beeiL de_YJsed. It must, however, still be admitted that the extraordinary rapidity with which so vast a growth of literature was produced, apparently from the slenderest stock, is one of the most surprising things in literary history. Before the middle of the twelfth century little or nothing is heard of Arthur. Before that century closed at least a dozen poems and romances in prose, many of them of great length, had elaborated the whole legend as it was thenceforward received, and as we have it condensed and Englished in Malory's well-known book two centuries and a half later. The probable genesis of the Arthurian legend, in so far as it con- cerns French literature, appears to be as follows. First in order of composition, and also in order of thought, Order of comes the Legend of Joseph of Arimathea. sometimes *' J Arthurian called the ' Little St. Graal.' This we have both in Cycle, verse and prose, and one or both of these versions is the work of Robert de Borron, a knight and Irouvlre possessed of lands in the Gatinais *. There is nothing in this work which is directly connected with Arthur. By some it has been attributed to a Latin, but not now producible, ' Book of the Graal,' by others to Byzantine originals. Anyhow it fell into the hands of the well- known Walter Map 2 , and his exhaustless energy and invention at once seized upon it. He produced the ' Great St. Graal/ a very much extended version of the early history of the sacred vase, still keeping clear of definite connection with Arthur, though tending in that direction. From this, in its turn, sprang x the original form 1 Department of Seine et-Mame, near Fontainebleau. 1 Map as a person belongs rather to English than to French history. He lived in the last three quarters of the twelfth century. {See note at end, p. 38.) 32 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. 1. of Percevale, which represents a quest for the vessel by a knight who has not originally anything to do with the Round Table. The link of connection between the two stories is to be found in the Merlin, attributed also to Robert de Borron, wherein the Welsh legends begin to have more definite influence. This, in its turn, leads to Arlus, which also bears the name of Suite de Merlin. TJiencojpesjhfeangsn^mc^s^m^^extensiy^-aftd finest eC^alllhe romancS 1 _that .jot Lancelot du Zaf,_whjb is-pretty certainly in par_L_and p_ejhaps jn^greai_paFt r 4he-jEDJ'kj2f J^Iap ; as is also the mystical and melancholy but highly poetical Quest of the Saint Graal, a quest of which Galahad and Lancelot, not, as in the earlier legends, Percival, are the heroes. To this succeeds the Mori Ar/us, which forms the conclusion of the whole, properly speaking. This, however, does not entirely complete the cycle. Later than Borron, Map, and their unknown fellow-workers (if such they had), arose one or more trouveres, who worked up the ancient Celtic legends and lays of Tristram into the Romance of Tristan, connecting this, more or less clumsily, with the main legend of the Round Table. Other legends were worked up into the omnium gatherum of Giron le Courtois, and with this the cycle proper ceases. The later poems are attributed to two persons, called Luce de Cast and Helie de Borron. But not the slightest testimony can be adduced to show that any such persons ever had existence 1 . 1 These various Romances are not by any means equally open to study in *atisfactory critical editions. To take them chronologically, M. Hucher has published Robert de Borron's Little Saint Graal in prose, his Percevale, and the Great Saint Graal, with full and valuable if not incontestable notes, 3 vols. ; Le Mans, 1875-1878. The verse form of the Little Saint Graal was published by M. F. Michel in 1841. An edition of Artus was promised by M. Paulin Paris, but interrupted or prevented by his death. The great works of Map. Lancelot and the Quest, as well as the Mori Artus, exist in very numerous manuscripts ; and the sixteenth-cenuiry editions being rare and exceedingly costly, as well as uncritical, they were long not easily accessible, except in M. PnrU' Abstract and Commentary, Lei Romans de li Table Rondt, 5 vols., 1869-1877. Tristan was published partially forty years ago by M. F. Michel. A version of Tristan by Thomas was edited by Joseph Bedier in 1902-1905 and a version by Beroul edited by Ernest Muret in 1903. Merlin was edited in 1886 by M. G. I'.,ris and M. Ulrich; in 1894 (another text) by Dr. Sommer. Dr. Former's complete Chrestien de Ch. iv.] Romances of Arthur and of Antiquity. 33 prose romances form for the most part the original litera- ture of the Arthurian story. But the vogue of this story was very largely increased by a trouvtre who used not prose but octosyllabic verse for his medium. As is the case with most of these early writers, little or nothing is known of Chrestien de Troyes but his name. He lived chrestien de in the last half of the twelfth century, he was attached Troyes. to the courts of Flanders, Hainault, and Champagne, and he wrote most of his works for the lords of these fiefsT-'' Besides his Arthurian work he translated Ovid, and wr6t^ some short poems. Chrestien de Troyes deserves a higher place in litera- ture than has sometimes been given to him. His versification is so exceedingly easy and fluent as to appear almost pedestrian at times ; and his Chevalier a la Charrette, by which he is perhaps most generally known, contrasts unfavourably in its prolixity with the nervous and picturesque prose to which it corresponds. But Percevah and the Chevalier au Lyon are very charming poems, deeply imbued with the peculiar characteristics of the cycle religious mysticism, passionate gallantry, and refined courtesy of manners. Chrestien de Troyes undoubtedly con- tributed not a little to the popularity of the Arthurian legends. Whatever may be the actual truth in the much-debated ques- tion whether the originals of these legends were in verse or Troyes was begun by Ertc and Yvain, while this latter under its second title of Le Chevalier au Lyon has also been edited by Dr. Holland (third edition 1886). Besides this there is the great Romance of Perccvale (continued by others, especially a certain Manessier), of which M. Potvin has given an excellent edition, 6 vols., Mons, 1867-1872, including in it a previously un- known prose veision of the Romance of very early date; Le Chevalier a la Charrctte, continued by Godefroy de Lagny, and edited, with the original prose from Lancelot du Lac, by Dr. Jonckbloet (The Hague, 1850) ; and Erec et Enide. by M. Haupt ; Berlin, 1860). It is not till 1908 that Dr. Sommer, with the aid of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, U.S.A., began a complete edition of The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, including the Saint Graal, Merlin, Lancelot, the Quest, the Mart, and supplementary editions of Artus in prose. The gain of this is immense (see note at end of chapter) ; but there is still wanting a book on the plan of M. Le"on Gautier's Epopfes Francoises to ' boil down ' the whole matter. Something of the kind was done in Histoire Litteraire, vol. xxx, but not enough, and from quite another standpoint. 34 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. prose, the times were by no means ripe for the general enjoyment of work in such a form. The reciter was still the general if not the only publisher, and recitation almost of necessity implied poetical form. Chrestien did not throw the whole of the work of his contemporaries into verse, but he did so throw a considerable portion of it. ^frs, Arthurian works consist of Le Chevalier a la Charrette, a very close rendering of an episode of Map's Lancelot ; Le Chevalier au Lyon, resting probably upon some previous work not now in existence ; Erec el finide, the legend which every English reader knows in Lord Tennyson's Enid, and which seems to be purely Welsh ; Cligh, which may be. called the first Roman d'Aventures ; and lastly, Percevale, a work of vast extent, continued by successive versifiers to the extent of some fifty thousand lines, and probably representing in part a work of Robert de Borron, which has only recently been printed by M. Hucher. Percevale is, perhaps, the best example of Chrestien's fashion of composition. The work of Borron is very short, amounting in all to some ninety pages in the reprint. The Percevale le Gallois of Chrestien and his continuators, on the other hand, contains, as has been said, more than forty-five thousand verses. This am- plification is produced partly by the importation of incidents and episodes from other works, but still more by indulging in constant diffuseness and what we must perhaps call common- places. ^rojn a literary point of view the prose romances rank far higher, especially those in which Map is traditionally said Literary l nav e had a hand. The peculiarity of what may be value of called their atmosphere is marked. An elaborate and Arthurian romant i c S y S t e m of mystical religious sentiment, find- Bomances. ing vent in imaginative and allegorical narrative, a remarkable refinement of manners, and a combination of delight in battle with devotion to ladies, distinguish them. This is, in short, the romantic spirit, or, as it is sometimes called, the spirit of chivalry ; and it cannot be too positively asserted that the Arthurian romances communicate it to literature for the first time, and that nothing like it is found in the classics^ In the work of Map and his contemporaries it is clearly perceivable. The most important Ch. IV.] Romances of Arthur and of Antiquity. 35 element in this ouiiifisy is,^as^y^have already noticed, almost entirejy_abset-from thg~6hansoiis_de_Ge^tes, and where it is present at all it is between persons who are connected by some natural or artificial relation of comradeship or kin. Nor are there many traces of it in such fragments and indications as we possess of the Celtic originals, which may have helped in the production of the Arthurian romances. No Carlovingian knight would have felt the horror of Sir Bors when the Lady of Hungerford exercises her un- doubted right by flinging the body of her captive enemy on the camp of his uncle. Even the chiefs who are presented in the Chanson d'Antioche as joking over the cannibal banquet of the Roi des Tafurs, and permitting the dead bodies of Saracens to be torn from the cemeteries and flung into the beleaguered city, would have very much applauded the deed, gallantry, again, is as much absent from the Chansons as clemency and courtesy. The scene in Lancelot, where Galahault first introduces the Queen and Lancelot to one another, contrasts in the strongest manner with the down- right courtship by whicl^the Bellicents and Nicolettes of the Carlovingian cycle are won. No doubt Map represents to a great extent the sentiments of the polished court of England. But he deserves the credit of having been the first, or almost the first, to express such manners and sentiments, perhaps also of having being among the first to conceive them. These originals are not all equally represented in Malory's English compilation. Of Robert de Borron's work little survives except by allusion. Lancelot du Lac itself, the most popular of all the romances, is very disproportionately drawn upon. Of the youth of Lancelot, of the winning of Dolorous Gard, of the war with the Saxons, and of the very curious episode of the false Guinevere, there is nothing ; while the most charming story of Lancelot's rela- tions with Galahault of Sorelois disappears, except in a few passing allusions to the 'haughty prince.' On the other hand, the Quest of the Saint Graal, the Mort Artus, some episodes of Lancelot (such as the Chevalier a la Charrette], and many parts of Tristan and Giron le Courtois, are given almost in full. (It seems also probable that considerable portions of the original form of the Arthurian legends are as yet unknown, and have D 2 36 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. altogether perished.) The very interesting discovery in the Brussels Library, of a prose Percevale not impossibly older than Chrestien, and quite different from that of Borron, is an indication of this fact. So also is the discovery by Dr. Jonckbloet in the Flemish Lancelot, which he has edited, of passages not to be found in the existing and recognised French originals. The truth would appear to be that the fascination of the subject, the unusual genius of those who first treated it, and the tendency of the middle ages to favour imitation, produced in a very short space of time (the last quarter or half of the twelfth century) an immense amount of original handling of Geoffrey's theme. To this original period succeeded one of greater length, in which the legends were developed not merely by French followers and imitators of Chrestien, but by his great German adapters, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried of Strasburg, Hartmann von Aue, and by other imitators at home and abroad. Lastly, as we shall see in a future chapter, come Romans d'Aventures, connecting themselves by links more or less immediate with the Round Table cycle, but independent and often quite separate in their main incidents and catastrophes. About the same time as the flourishing of the Arthurian cycle Romances of there began to be written the third great division of Antiquity. Jean Bodel, 'la matiere de Rome la grant 1 .' The Chanson most important beyond all question of the poems dAlixandre. wn j c h g O to m ake U p this cycle (as it is sometimes called, though in reality its members are quite independent one of the other) is the Romance of Alixandre. Of the earliest French poem on this subject, the already mentioned work of Alberic of Besan9on, only a short fragment exists. Then conies a decasyllabic poem in short mono-rhymed laisses of which we have some 800 lines. The Chanson a* Alixandre is, however, a much more im- portant work than either. It is in form a regular Chanson de Geste, written in twelve-syllabled verse, of such strength and grace that the term Alexandrine has cleaved ever since to the metre. Its length, as we have it 2 , is 22,606 verses, and it is assigned to two 1 This expression occurs in the Chanson des Saisnes, i. 6. 7 : ' Ne sont que iij matieres a nul home atandant, De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant.' 2 Ed. Michelant. Stuttgart, 1846. Ch. iv.] Romances of Arthur and of Antiquity. 37 authors, Lambert the Short 1 and Alexander of Bernay, though doubt has been expressed whether any of the present poem is due to Lambert ; if we have any of his work, it is not later than the ninth decade of the twelfth century. The relations of the three poems cannot be thoroughly determined, but are probably not those of direct descent. The remoter sources are various. Fore- most among them may undoubtedly be placed the Pseudo-Callis- thenes, an unknown Alexandrian writer translated into Latin about the fourth century by 'Julius Valerius.' Some oriental traditions of Alexander were also in the possession of western Europe. Out of all these, and with a considerable admixture of the floating fables of the time, Lambert and Alexander wove their work. There is, of course, not the slightest attempt at antiquity of colour. Alexander has twelve peers, he learns the favourite studies of the middle ages, he is dubbed knight, and so forth. Many interesting legends, such as that of the Fountain of Perpetual Youth, make their first appearance in the poem, and it is altogether one of extraordinary merit. Another class, mostly in octosyllables, dealt with the tale of Troy divine, their matter being neither entirely fictitious, nor on the other hand based upon the best authorities. Dares Koman de Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis, with some epitomes of Troie. Homer, were the chief sources of information. The principal poem of this class is the Roman de Troie of Benoist de Sainte More (c. 1 1 60). This work 2 , which extends to more than thirty thousand verses, has the redundancy and the longwindedness which characterise many, if not most, early French poems written in its metre. But it has one merit which ought to conciliate English readers to Benoist. It contains the original of Chaucer's and Shakespeare's Cressida. The fortunes of Cressid (or Briseida, as the French trouvere names her) have been carefully traced out by MM. Moland, He'ricault 3 , and Joly. and form a very curious chapter of literary 1 Li Cars, otherwise It tors ' the crooked.' After this book was first written M. Paul Meyer treated the whole subject of the paragraph in an admirable monograph, Alexandre le Grand dans la Literature Fraitfaise du Moyen Age, 2 vols. Paris, 1886. 2 Ed. Joly. Rouen, 1870. Ed. L. Constan:-, 1904-1912. 3 Moland and He"ricault's Nouvelles du XIV kme Siede. Paris, 1857. Joly, Op cit. See also P. Staffer, Shakespeare et r Ant i quit 1. z vols. Paris, 1880. 38 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. history. Nor is this episode the only one of merit in Benoist. His verse is always fluent and facile, and not seldom picturesque. The poems of the Cycle of Antiquity have until very recently been less diligently studied and reprinted than those Other o f the other two. Few of them, with the exception Bomances on Q j. ^i{ xan< j re an( j Troie. were to be read even in Classical subjects, fragments, save in manuscript. Le Roman a Eneas 1 , which is attributed to Benoist, is much shorter than the Roman de Troie, and, with some omissions, follows Virgil pretty closely. Like many other French poems, it was adapted in German by a Minnesinger, Heinrich von Veldeke. Le Roman de Thebes'* stands to Statius in the same relation as Ene'as to Virgil. And Le Roman de Jules Ce'sar paraphrases, though not directly, Lucan. To these must be added Athis ei Prophilias (Porphyrias), or the Siege of Athens, a work which has been assigned to many authors, and the origin of which is not clear, though it enjoyed great popu- larity in the middle ages. The Prolesilaus of Hugues de Rotelande is the only other poem of this series worth the mentioning 3 . 1 Ed. Suchier. Halle, 1891. a Ed. Constans. Paris, 1890. 3 After the earlier editions of this book were published M. Gaston Paris sketched in Romania and summarised in his Manuel, but never developed in book form, a view of the Arthurian romances different from his father's and from that given in the text. In this view the importance of ' Celtic ' originals is much increased, and that of Geoffrey diminished, Walter Map disappears almost entirely to make room for Chrestien and other French trouveres, the order of composition is altered, and on the whole a lower estimate is formed of the literary value of the cycle. The Celtic ' view has also been maintained in a book of much learning and value, Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail (London, 1888), by Mr. Alfred Nutt, while Heir Zimmer, M. Loth, Professor Rhys, and others have continued the debate in various senses. I have not attempted to incorporate or to combat any of these views in the text for two reasons, partly because they will most probably be superseded by others, and partly because the evidence does not seem to me sufficient to establish any of them certainly. But having repeatedly paid fresh and special attention to the Arthur-story, I think I may be entitled to give a somewhat decided opinion against the ' Celtic ' theory, and in favour of that which assigns the Arthurian cycle substantially to the literary imagination of the trouveres, French and English, of the twelfth century. Nor do I see any ground for displacing Map. Indeed a careful reading of Dr. Sommer's edition of the ' Vulgate ' prose, and a minute comparison of parallel passages in it and in Chrestien, have made me more certain than ever that some form of the prose versions was the earlier. CHAPTER V. FABLIAUX. THE ROMAN DU RENART. SINGULAR as the statement may appear, no one of the branches of literature hitherto discussed represents what may be called a specially French spirit. Despite the astonishing popularity and extent of the Chansons de Gestes, Foreign T-, Elements in they are, as is admitted by the most patriotic French Early pj-ench students, Teutonic in origin probably, and certainly Literature, in genius. The Arthurian legends have at least a tinge both of Celtic and Oriental character; while the greater number of them were probably written by Englishmen, and their distinguishing spirit is pretty clearly Anglo-Norman rather than French. On the other hand, Provenal poetry represents a tempera- ment and a disposition which find their full development rather in Spanish and Italian literature and character than in the literature and character of France. All these divisions, moreover, have this of artificial about them, that they are obviously class literature the literature of courtly and knightly society, not that of the nation at large. Proven9al literature gives but scanty social information ; from the earlier Chansons at least it would be hard to tell that there were any classes but those of nobles, priests, and fighting men ; and though, as has been said, a more complicated state of society appears in the Arthurian legends, what may be called their atmosphere is even more artificial. It is far otherwise with the division of literature which we are now about to handle. The Fabliaux 1 , or short verse tales of old 1 The first collection of Fabliaux was published by Barbazan in 1756. This was re-edited by Mcon in 1808, and reinforced by the same author with a fresh collection in 1823. Meanwhile Le Grand d'Aussy had (1774-1781) given 4 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. France, take in the whole of its society from king to peasant with all the intervening classes, and represent for the most part the view taken of those classes by each other. Perhaps the bourgeois standpoint is most prominent in them, but it is by no means the only one. Their tone too is of the kind which has ever since been specially associated with the French genius. What is called by French authors the esprit gaulois a spirit The Esprit o f mischievous and free-spoken jocularity does not Gaulois i ,, i . i r make its appearance at once, or in all kinds of appearance, vvork. In most of the early departments of French literature there is a remarkable deficiency of the comic element, or rather that element is very much kept uadjgr} The comedy of the Chajisofis-consisls almost entireljMn^k-j^hest horse-play ; while the knightly notion of jz&z_or jests is exem- plified m the Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantinople, where it seems to be limited to extravagant, and not always decent, boasts and gasconnades. More comic, but still farcical in its comedy, is the curious running fire of exaggerated expressions of poltroonery which the Red Lion keeps up in Antioche, while the names and virtues of the Christian leaders are being cata- logued to Corbaran. In the Arthurian Romances .also tbe comic element is scantily represented, and still takes the_j>ame form of exaggeration and horse-play. At the same time it is proper to say~ttrat both tfiese classes of compositions are distin- guished, at least with very rare exceptions, by a very strict and remarkable decency of language. and none later than the beginning of the fifteenth. If, however, their popularity in their original form ceased at the latter period, their course was by no means run. They had passed early from France into Italy (as indeed all the oldest French literature did), and the stock-in-trade of all the Italian Novellieri 1 Fabliau is, of course, the Latin fabula. The genealogy of the word is fabula, fabella, fabel, fable, fablel, fablcau, fabliau. All these last five forms exist. 42 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. from Boccaccio downwards was supplied by them. In England they found an illustrious copyist in Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales are perfect Fabliaux, informed by greater art and more poetical spirit than were possessed by their original authors. In France itself the Fabliaux simply became farces or prose tales, as the wandering reciter of verse gave way to the actor and the bookseller. They appear again (sometimes after a roundabout journey through Italian versions) in the pages of the French tale-tellers of the Renaissance, and finally, as far as collected appearance is concerned, receive their last but not their least brilliant transformation in the Conies of La Fontaine. In these the cycle is curiously concluded by a feturn to the form of the original. Until MM. de Montaiglon and Raynaud undertook their elaborate and carefully arranged edition, the study of the Fabliaux was com- plicated by the somewhat chaotic conditions of the earlier collections. Barbazan and his followers printed as Fabliaux almost everything that they found in verse which was tolerably short. Thus, not merely the mediaeval poems called diis and de'bats, descriptions of Subjects and objects either in monologue or dialogue, which come character of sometimes very close to the Fabliau proper, but Fabliaux. mora i discourses, short" romances, legends like the Lai cTAristote, and such -like things, were included. This interferes with a comprehension of the remarkably characteristic and clearly marked peculiarities of the Fabliau indicated in the definition given above. As according to this the Fabliau is a short comic verse tale of ordinary life, it will be evident that the attempts which have been made to classify Fabliaux according to their subjects were not very happy. It is of course possible to take such headings as Priests, Women, Villeins, Knights, etc., and arrange the existing Fabliaux under them. But it is not obvious what is gained thereby. A better -notion of the genre may perhaps be obtained from a short view of the subjects of some of the principal of those Fabliaux whose subjects are capable of de- scription. Les deux Bordeors Ribaux is a dispute between two Jongleurs who boast their skill. It is remarkable for a very curious list of Chansons de Gestes which the clumsy reciter quotes Ch. v.] Fabliaux. The ( Roman du Renart? 43 all wrong, and for a great number of the sly hits at chivalry and the chivalrous romances which are characteristic of all this literature. Thus one Jongleur, going through the list of his knightly patrons, tells of Monseignor Augier Poupe'e 'Qui a un seul coup de s'espee Coupe bien a un chat 1'oreille;* and of Monseignor Rogier Ertaut, whose soundness in wind and limb is not due to enchanted armour or skill in fight, but is accounted for thus ' Quar onques ne ot cop feru ' (for that never has he struck a blow). Le Vair Palefroi contains the story of a lover who carries off his beloved on a palfrey grey from an aged wooer. La Housse Partie, a great favourite, which appears in more than one form, tells the tale of an unnatural son who turns his father out of doors, but is brought to a better mind by his own child, who innocently gives him warning that he in turn will copy his example. Sire Hain el Dame Anieuse is one of the innumerable stories of rough correc- tion of scolding wives. Brunain la Vache au Prestre recounts a trick played on a covetous priest. In Le Dit des Perdrix, a greedy wife eats a brace of partridges which her husband has destined for his own dinner, and escapes his wrath by one of the endless stratagems which these tales delight in assigning to womankind. Le sot Chevalier, though extremely indecorous, deserves notice for the Chaucerian breadth of its farce, at which it is impossible to help laughing. The two Englishmen and the Lamb is perhaps the earliest example of English-French, and turns upon the mistake which results in an ass's foal being bought instead of the required animal. Le Mantel Matitaillit is the famous Arthurian story known in English as ' The Boy and the Mantle.' Le Vilain Mire is the original of Moliere's Me'decin malgre' lui. Le Vilain qui conquisl Paradis par Plaist is characteristic of the curious irrever- ence which accompanied mediaeval devotion. A villein comes to heaven's gate, is refused admission, and successively silences St. Peter, St. Thomas, and St. Paul, by very pointed references to their earthly weaknesses. As a last specimen may be mentioned 44 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. the curiously simple word-play of Eslula. This is the name of a little dog which, being pronounced, certain thieves take for 'Es tu la ? ' Such are a very few, selected as well as may be for their typical Sources of character, of these stories. It is not unimportant to Fabliaux, consider briefly the question of their origin. Many of them belong no doubt to that strange common fund of fiction which all nations of the earth indiscriminately possess. A con- siderable number seem to be of purely original and indigenous growth : but an actual literary source is not wanting in many cases. The classics supplied some part of them, the Scriptures and the lives of the saints another part ; while not a little was due to the importation of Eastern collections of stories resulting from the Crusades. The chief of these collections were the fables of Bidpai or Pilpai, in the form known as the romance of ' Calila and Dimna,' and the story of Sendabar (in its Greek form Syntipas). This was immensely popular in France under the verse form of Dolo- pathos, and the prose form of Les sept Sages de Rome. The remarkable collection of stories called the Gesla Romanorum is apparently of later date than most of the Fabliaux ; but the tales of which it was composed no doubt floated for some time in the mouths of Jongleurs before the unknpwn and probably English author put them together in Latin. jfs Closely connected with the Fabliaux is one of the most The Koman singular works of mediaeval imagination, the Roman du Renart. du Renari J . This is no place to examine the origin or antiquity of the custom of making animals the mouthpieces of moral and satirical utterance on human affairs. It is sufficient that the practice is an ancient one, and that the middle ages were 1 It should be noticed that this title, though consecrated by usage, ib a misnomer. It should be Roman de Renart, lor this latter is a proper name. The class name is goupil (vulpes). The standard edition is that of Meon (4 vols., Paris, 1826) with the supplement of Chabaille, 1835. This includes not merely the Ancien Renart, but the Couronnement and Renart le Nouvel. Renart le Contrefait is not, I think, in print. Rothe (Paris, 1^45) and Wolf (Vienna, 1861) have given the best accounts of it. M. Ernest Martin has re-edited the Ancien Renart (3 vols., Strasburg and Paris, 1882-1887, with Supplement). Cf. Sudre k Les Sources du R. de R. (Paris, 1893). Ch. v.] Fabliaux- The ' Roman du Renart? 45 early acquainted with Aesop and his followers, as well as with Oriental examples of the same sort. The original author, whoever he was, of the epic (for it is no less) of ' Reynard the Fox,' had therefore examples of a certain sort before his eyes. But these examples contented themselves for the most part with work of small dimension, and had not attempted connected or continuous story. A fierce battle has been fought as to the nationality of Reynard. The facts are these. The oldest form of the story now extant is in Latin. It is succeeded at no very great interval by German, Flemish, and French versions. Of these the German as it stands is apparently the oldest, the Latin version being pro- bably of the second half of the twelfth century, and the German a little later. But (and this is a capital point) the names of the more important beasts are in all the versions French. From this and some minute local indications, it seems likely that the original language of the epic is French, but French of the Walloon or Picard dialect, and that it was written somewhere in the district between the Seine and the Rhine. This, however, is a matter of the very smallest literary importance. What is of great literary im- portance is the fact that it is in France that the story receives its principal development, and that it makes its home. The Latin, Flemish, and German Reynards, though they all cover nearly the same ground, do not together amount to more than five-and- twenty thousand lines. The French in its successive develop- ments amounts to more than ninety thousand in the texts already published or abstracted ; and this does not include the variants in the Vienna manuscript of Renart le Contrefatt, or the different developments of the Ancien Renart, recently published by M. Ernest Martin. The order and history of the building up of this vast compo- sition are as follows. The oldest known ' branches,' T ne Ancien as the separate portions of the Llory are called, date Benart. from the beginning of the thirteenth century. These are due to a named author, Pierre de Saint Cloud. But it is impossible to say that they were actually the first written in French: indeed it is extremely improbable that they were so. However this may be, during the thirteenth century a very large number of poets wrote 46 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. pieces independent of each other in composition, but possessing the same general design, and putting the same personages into play. In what has hitherto been the standard edition of Renart, Me'on published thirty-two such poems, amounting in the aggregate to more than thirty thousand verses. Chabaille added five more in his supplement, and M. Ernest Martin has found yet another in an Italianised version. This last editor thinks that eleven branches, which he has printed together, constitute an 'ancient collection' within the Ancien Renarl, and have a certain connection and inter- dependence. However this may be, the general plan is extremely loose, or rather non-existent. Everybody knows the outline of the story of Reynard ; how he is among the animals (Noble the lion, who is king, Chanticleer the cock, Firapel the leopard, Grimbart the badger, Isengrin the wolf, and the rest) the special representative of cunning and valour tempered by discretion, while his enemy Isengrin is in the same way the type of stupid headlong force, and many of the others have moral character less strongly marked but tolerably well sustained. How this general idea is illustrated the titles of the branches show better than the most elaborate description. ' How Reynard ate the carrier's fish ; ' ' how Reynard made Isengrin fish for eels ; ' ' how Reynard cut the tail of Tybert the cat ; ' ' how Reynard made Isengrin go down the well ; ' ' of Isengrin and the mare ; ' ' how Reynard and Tybert sang vespers and matins ; ' ' the pilgrimage of Reynard,' and so forth. Written by different persons, and at different times, these branches are of course by no means uniform in literary value. But the uniformity of spirit in most, if not in all of them, is extremely remarkable. What is most noticeable in this spirit is the perpetual undertone of satirical comment on human life and its affairs which dis- tinguishes it. The moral is never obtrusively put forward, and it is especially noteworthy that in this Ancien Renart, as contrasted with the later development of the poem, there is no mere alle- gorising, and no attempt to make the animals men in disguise. They are quite natural and distinct foxes, wolves, cats, and so forth, acting after their kind, with the exception of their possession of reason and language. The next stage of the composition shows an alteration and a Ch. v.] Fabliaux. The ' Roman du Renart' 47 degradation. Renart le CouronnS, or Le Couronnemeni Renart^, is a poem of some 3400 lines, which was once attri- Le Couron- buted to Marie de France, for no other reason than nement that the manuscript which contains it subjoins her Renart. Ysopet or fables. It is, however, certainly not hers, and is in all probability a little later than her time. The main subject of it is the cunning of the fox, who first reconciles the great preaching orders Franciscans and Dominicans ; then himself becomes a monk, and inculcates on them the art of Renardie ; then repairs to court as a confessor to the lion king Noble who is ill, and con- trives to be appointed his successor, after which he holds tourna- ments, journeys to Palestine, and so forth. It is characteristic of the decline of taste that in the list of his army a whole bestiary (or list of the real and fictitious beasts of mediaeval zoology) is thrust in ; and the very introduction of the abstract term Renardie, or foxiness, is an evil sign of the abstracting and allegorising which was about to spoil poetry for a time, and to make much of the literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries tedious and heavy. The poem is of little value or interest. The only chrono- logical indication as to its composition is the eulogy of William of Flanders, killed (' jadis,' says the author) in 1251. The next poem of the cycle is of much .greater length, and of at least proportionately greater value, though it has Benart not the freshness and verve of the earlier branches, l Nouvel. Renart le Nouvel was written in 1288 by Jacquemart Gie'le'e, a Fleming. This poem is in many ways interesting, though not much can be said for its general conception, and though it suffers terribly from the allegorising already alluded to. In its first book (it consists of more than 8000 lines, divided into two books and many branches) Renart, in consequence of one of his usual quarrels with Isengrin, gets into trouble with the king, and is besieged in Maupertuis. But the sense of verisimilitude is now so far lost, that Maupertuis, instead of being a fox's earth, is an actual feudal castle ; and more than this, the animals which attack and defend it 1 The necessary expression of the genitive by de is later than this. Mediaeval French retained the inflection of nouns, though in a dilapidated condition. Properly speaking Renars is the nominative, Renart the general inflected case. 4# Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. are armed in panoply, ride horses, and fight like knights of the period. Besides this the old familiar and homely personages are mixed up with a very strange set of abstractions in the shape of the seven deadly sins. All this is curiously blended with re- miniscences and rehandlings of the older and simpler adventures. Another remarkable feature about Renart le Nouvel is that it is full of songs, chiefly love songs, which are given with the music. Its descriptions, though prolix, and injured by allegorical phrases, are sometimes vigorous. The cycle was finally completed in the second quarter of the Renart le fourteenth century by the singular work or works Contrefait. called Renart le Contrefait. This has, unfortunately, never been printed in full, nor in any but the most meagre extracts and abstracts. Its length is enormous; though, in the absence of opportunity for examining it, it is not easy to tell how much is common to the three manuscripts which contain it. Two of these are in Paris and one in Vienna, the latter being appa- rently identical with one which Manage saw and read in the seventeenth century. One of the Parisian manuscripts contains about 32,000 verses, the other about 19,000; and the Vienna version seems to consist of from 20,000 to 25,000 lines of verse, and about half that number of prose. The author (who, in so far as he was a single person, appears to have been a clerk of Troyes, in Champagne) wrote it, as he says, to avoid idleness, and seems to have regarded it as a vast commonplace book, in which to insert the result not merely of his satirical reflection, but of his miscellaneous reading. A noteworthy point about this poem is that in one place the writer expressly disowns any concealment of his satirical intention. His book, he says, has nothing to do with the kind of fox that kills pullets, has a big brush, and wears a red skin, but with the fox that has two hands and, what is more, two faces under one hood 1 . Notwithstanding this, however, there are 1 This is a free translation of the last line of the original, which is as follows : Pour renard qui gelines tue, Qui a la rousse peau vestue, Qui a grand queue et quatre pie's, N'est pas ce livre communes ; Ch. v.] Fabliaux. The 'Roman du Renart' 49 many passages where the old 'common form' of the epic is ob- served, and where the old personages make their appearance. Indeed their former adventures are sometimes served up again with slight alterations. Besides this there is a certain number of amusing stories and fabliaux, the most frequently quoted of which is the tale of an ugly but wise knight who married a silly but beautiful girl in hopes of having children uniting the advantages of both parents, whereas the actual offspring of the union were as ugly as the father and as silly as the mother. Combined with these things are numerous allusions to the grievances of the peasants and burghers of the time against the upper classes, with some striking legends illustrative thereof, such as the story of a noble dame, who, hearing that a vassal's wife had been buried in a large shroud of good stuff, had the body taken up and seized the shroud to make horsecloths of. This original matter, however, is drowned in a deluge not merely of moralising but of didactic verse of all kinds. The history of Alexander is told in one version by Reynard to the lion king in 7000 verses, and is preluded and followed by an account of the history of the world on a scarcely smaller scale. This proceeding, at least in the Vienna version, seems to be burdensome even to Noble himself, who, at the reign of Augustus, suggests that Reynard should exchange verse for prose, and ' com- press.' The warning cannot be said to be unnecessary: but works as long as Renart le Conlrefait^ and, as far as it is possible to judge, not more interesting, have been printed of late years ; and it is very much to be wished that the publication of it might be undertaken by some competent scholar. Renart is not the only bestial personage who was made at this time a vehicle of satire. In the days of Philippe le Bel a certain Franois de Rues composed a poem entitled Fauvel, from the name of the hero, a kind of Centaur, who represents vice of all kinds. The direct object of the poem was to attack the pope and the clergy. Mais pour cellui qui a deux mains Dont il sent en ct siecle mains, Qui ont sous la chappe Faulx Semblant Wolf, Op. cit. p. 5. The final allusion is to a personage of the Roman de la Rose. 50 Mediaeval Liter attire. This chapter would be incomplete without a reference to the Ysopet of Marie de France *, which may be said to be a link of juncture between the Fabliau and the Roman du Renart. Ysopel (diminutive of Aesop) became a common term in the middle ages for a collection of fables. There is one known as the Ysopet of Lyons, which has also been published 2 ; but that of Marie is by far the most important. It consists of 103 pieces, written in octosyllabic couplets, with moralities, and a conclusion which informs us that the author wrote it ' for the love of Count William ' (sup- posed to be Long-Sword), translating it from an English version of a Latin translation of the Greek. Marie's graceful style and her easy versification are very noticeable here, while her morals are often well deduced and sharply put. 1 Ed. Roquefort, vol. ii. See next chapter. a By Dr. W. Forster. Heilbronn, 1882. CHAPTER VI, EARLY LYRICS. THE lyric poetry of the middle ages in France divides itself naturally into two periods, distinguished by very strongly marked characteristics. The end of the thirteenth century is Early and the dividing point in this as in many other branches Later Lyrics, of literature. After that we get the extremely interesting, if artificial, forms of the Rondeau and Ballade, with their many varieties and congeners. With these we shall not busy ourselves in the present chapter. But the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are provided with a lyric growth, less perfect indeed in form than that which occupied French singers from Machault to Marot, but more spontaneous, fuller of individuality, variety, and vigour, , and scarcely less abundant in amount. * Before the twelfth century we find no traces of genuine lyrical work in France. The ubiquitous Cantilenae indeed Origins of again make their appearance in the speculations of Lyric. literary historians, but here as elsewhere they have no demon- strable historical existence. Except a few sacred songs, some- times, as in the case of Saint Eulalie, in early Romance language, sometimes in what the French call langue farcie, that is to say, a mixture of French and Latin, nothing regularly lyrical is found up to the. end of the eleventh century. But soon afterwards lyric work becomes exceedingly abundant. This is what forms the contents of Herr Karl Bartsch's delightful volume E 2 52 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. of Romanzen und Pastourellen '. These are the two earliest forms Romances f French lyric poetry. They are recognised by the and Troubadour Raimon Vidal as the special property Pastourelles. o f tne Northern tongue, and no reasonable pretence has been put forward to show that they are other than indigenous. The tendency of both is towards iambic rhythm, but it is not exclusively manifested as in later verse. It is one of the most interesting things in French literary history to see how early the estrangement of the language from the anapaestic and dactylic measures natural to Teutonic speech began to declare itself 2 . These early poems bubble over with natural gaiety, their refrains, musical though semi-articulate as they are, are sweet and mani- fold in cadence, but the main body of the versification is either iambic or trochaic (it was long before the latter measure became infrequent), and the freedom of the ballad-metres of England and Germany is seldom present. (The Romance differs in form and still more in subject from the Pastourelle, and both differ very remarkably from the form and manner of Provengal poetry. It has been observed by nearly all students, that the love-poems of the latter language are almost always at once personal and abstract in subject. The Romance and the Pastourelle, on the contrary, are almost always dramatic. They tell a story, and often (though not always in the case of the Pastourelle) they tell it of some one other than the singer. The most common form of the Romance is that of a poem varying from twenty lines long to ten times that length and divided into stanzas. These stanzas consist of a certain number (not usually less than three or more than eight) of lines of equal length capped with a refrain in a different metreT^By far the best, though by no means the earliest, of them are those of Audefroy le Bastard, who, according to the late M. Paulin Paris, may be fixed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, telling for the most part how the course of some impeded true love at last ran smooth. They rank with the very best mediaeval poetry in colour, in lively painting of manners and feelings, and in grace of versifi- cation. 1 Leipsic, 1870. * See note at end of chapter. Ch. vi.] Early Lyrics. 53 The Pastourelle is still more uniform in subject. It invariably represents the knight or the poet riding past and seeing a fair shepherdess by his road-side. He alights and woos her with or without success. The stanzas are usually longer, and consist of shorter lines than in the Romances, while the refrains are more usually meaningless though generally very musical. It is, however, well to add that the very great diversity of metrical arrangement in this class makes it impossible to give a general description of it/ There are Pastourelles consisting merely of four-lined stanzas with no refrain at all. So various, notwithstanding the simplicity and apparent mo- notony of their subjects, are these charming poems, that it is difficult to give, by mere reading of any one or even of several, an idea of their beauty. In no part of the literature of the middle ages are its lighter characteristics more pleasantly shown. The childish freedom from care and afterthought, -the half uncon- scious delight in the beauty of flowers and the song of birds, the innocent animal enjoyment of fine weather and the open country, are nowhere so well represented. Chaucer may give English readers some idea of all this, but even Chaucer is sophisticated in comparison with the numerous, and for the most part nameless, singers who preceded him by almost two centuries in France. As a purely formal and literary charac- teristic, the use of the burden or refrain is perhaps their most noteworthy peculiarity. Herr Bartsch has collected five hundred of these refrains, all different. There is nothing like this to be found in any other literature ; and, as readers of Beranger know, the fashion was preserved in France long after it had been given up elsewhere. <^fter the twelfth century the early lyrical literature of France undergoes some changes. In the first place it ceases Thirteenth to be anonymous, and individual singers some of Century, them, like Thibaut of Champagne, of very great Changes in merit and individuality make their appearance. In Lyrio. the second place it becomes more varied but at the same time more artificial in form, and exhibits evident marks of the com- munication between troubadour and trouvere, and of the imitation 54 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. 1. by the latter of the stricter forms of Proven9al poetryj The Romance and the Pastourelle are still cultivated, but by their side grow up French versions, often adapted with considerable independence, of the forms of the South 1 . Such, for instance, is the chanson d'amour, a form less artfully regulated indeed than the corresponding canzon or sestine of the troubadours, but still of some intricacy. It consists of five or six stanzas, each of which has two interlaced rhymes, and concludes with an Envoi, which, however, is often omitted. Chansonnettes on a reduced scale are also found. In these pieces the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, which was ultimately to become the chief distinguishing feature of French prosody, is observable, though it is by no means universal. o the Proven9al tenson corresponds the jeu parti or verse dialogue, which is sometimes arranged in the form of a Chanson. The salut d'amour is a kind of epistle, sometimes of very great length and usually in octosyllabic verse, the decasyllabic being more commonly used in the Chanson. Of this the complainte is only a variety. Again, the Proven9al sirvente is represented by the northern serveniots, a poem in Chanson form, but occupied instead of love with war, satire, religion, and miscellaneous matters. It has even been doubted whether the serventois is not the forerunner of the sirvente instead of the reverse being the case. Other forms are motets, rotruenges, aubades. Poems called rondeaux and ballades also make their appearance, but they are loose in construction and undecided in form. The thirteenth century is, moreover, the palmy time of the Pastourelle J Most of those which we possess belong to this period, and exhibit to the full the already indicated characteristics of that graceful form. But ,the lyric forms oLtbe thirtppnth rpnrnry^ are to somejgxtent ralhejlrQitate3\thaP-- indi- 1 This miscellaneous lyric for the most part awaits publication. M. G. Ray- naud has given a valuable Bibliographic des Chansonniers Fratifais des XIII e et XIV' sticks. 2 vols., Paris, 1884. Also a collection of motets. Paris, 1 88 1. The Societe des Anciens Textes has given 2 vols. of lyrics. M. Jeanroy's Origines de la Poesie Lyrique en France (Paris, 1889) is the chief monograph on the subject, and full of varied information and speculation. It should be read with an admirable review of it by M. Gaston Paris, reprinted from the Journal des Savants. Paris, 1893. Ch.vi.] Early Lyrics. 55 genous,. And-it is-no- doubt^lojbe- Jact-o-this imitation that the common ascription of general poetical priorityloathe Langue d'Oc, unfounded lisTitTias been sufficiently shown to be, is due in tforjnain^ The most courageous defenders of the North have wished to maintain its claims wholly intact even in this instance, but probability, if not evidence, is against them. It has been said that the number of song writers from the end of the twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth is Braces of extremely large. M. Paulin Paris, whose elaborate Lyric in the chapter in the Histoire Litteraire is still the great Thirteenth authority on the subject, has enumerated nearly Centur y- two hundred, to whose work have to be added hundreds of anonymous pieces. ^TVould seem indeed that during a con- siderable period the practice of song writing was almost as incumbent on the French gentleman of the thirteenth century as that of sonnetteering on the English gentleman of the six- teenth. There are, however, not a few names which deserve separate notice. The first of these in point of time, and not the last in point of literary importance, is that of Quesnes de Bethune, the ancestor of Sully, and himself a famous warrior, statesman, and poetry/His epitaph by a poet not usually remark- able for eloquence * is a very striking one. It gives us approxi- mately the date of his death, 1224; and the word vieux is supposed to show that Quesnes must have been born at least as early as the middle of the twelfth century. He took part in two crusades, that of Philip Augustus and that which Ville- hardouin has chronicled. His poems 2 are of all Quesnes de classes, historical, satirical, and amorous, some of the Bethune. last being addressed to Marie, Countess of Champagne; and his Chansons are, in the technical sense, some of the earliest we possess. Contemporary with Quesnes apparently was the personage who is known under the title of Chatelain de Coucy, and whose love for the lady of Fayel resulted in an interchange 1 Philippe Mouskes. This is it : La terre fat pis en cest an Quar li vieux Quesnes estoit mors. 2 In Scheler's Trouveres Beiges. Brussels, 1876. Also ed. Wallenskiold, 1891. 56 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. of very tender and beautiful verse; the poem known as the lady's own is one of the very best of its kind. Long afterwards lover and lady became the hero and heroine of a romance, which has led some persons to throw doubt upon their historical existence, and the Lady of Fayel has even been deprived of her poem by a well-known kind of criticism. Of more importance Thibaut de is Thibaut de Champagne, King of Navarre, who Champagne, is indeed the most important single figure of early French lyrical poetry. He was born in 1201, and died in 1253. His high position as a feudal prince in both north and south, the minority of St. Louis, and the intimate relations which existed between the King's mother, Blanche of Castille, and Thibaut, made him the mark for a good deal of satirical invec- tive. There is a tradition that he was Blanche's lover, the only objection to which is that the Queen was thirty years his senior. Thibaut's poems have been more than once reprinted, the last edition being that of M. Tarb6 * ; this contains eighty-one pieces, not a few of which, however, are probably the work of others. The majority of them are Chansons d' Amour, of the kind just defined. There are, however, a good many Jeux-Partis, and a certain number of nondescript poems on miscellaneous subjects. There is more reason for the common opinion which attributes to Thibaut the marriage of the poetical qualities of northern and southern France, than the mere fact of his having been both Count of Champagne and King of Navarre. His poems have in reality something of the freshness and the individuality of the Trouveres, mixed with a great deal of the formal grace and elegance of the Troubadours. Besides Thibaut there are not a few other song writers of the thirteenth century, who rise out of the crowd named by M. Paulin Paris. Some of these, as might be expected, are famous for their achievements in other departments of literature. Minor Such are Adam de la Halle, Jean Bodel, Guyot Singers, de Provins. There are, however, two, Gace Emle" and Colin Muset, who survive solely but worthily as song writers. 1 Rheims, 1851. Ch. vi.] Early Lyrics. 57 Gace Braid was a knight of Champagne, Colin Muset a pro- fessed minstrel. The former chiefly composed sentimental work; the latter, with the proverbial or professional gaiety of his class, drew nearer to the satirical tone of the Fabliau writers. His best-known and most usually quoted work describes the different welcome which he receives from his family on his return from professional tours, according to the success or ill-success with which he has met. Two other poets, Adam de la Halle and Rutebceuf, are far more prominent in literary history. Adam de la Halle x bore the surname of ' Le Bossu d'Arras,' Adam de la from his native town, though the term hunchback Halle, seems to have had no literal application to him. His exact date is not known, but it must probably have been from the fourth to the ninth decade of the thirteenth century. His dramatic works, which are of signal importance, will be noticed elsewhere. But besides these he has left some seventy or eighty lyrical pieces of one kind or another. Adam's life was not un- eventful; he was at first a monk, but left his convent and married. Then he proved as faithless to his temporal as he had been to his spiritual vows. He lampooned his wife, his family, his townsmen, and, shaking the dust of Arras from his feet, retired first to Douai and then to the court of Robert of Artois, whom he accompanied to Italy. He died in that country about 1288. The style of Adam de la Halle varies from the coarsest satire to the most graceful tenderness. Rutebceuf (whose name appears to be a nickname only) has been more fortunate than most of the poets of early . , / , Rutebceuf. France in leaving a considerable and varied work behind him, and in having it well and collectively edited s . Little or nothing, however, is known about him, except from allusions in his own verse. He was probably born about 1230; he was 1 The most convenient place to look for Adam's history and work is Le TfUdtre Franfais au Moyen Age. Par Monmerque et Michel. Paris, 1874. There are also separate editions of him by Coussemaker, and more recently by A. Rambeau. Marburg, 1 886. 2 By A. Jubinal. 2nd edition. 3 vols. Paris, 1874. Also ed. Kressner, Wolfenbiittel, 1885. 58 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. certainly married in 1260; there is no allusion in his poems to any event later than 1285. By birth he may have been either a Burgundian or a Parisian. His work which, as has been said, is not inconsiderable in volume, falls into three well-marked divisions in point of subject. The first consists of personal and of comic poems ; the second of poems sometimes satirical, sometimes panegyrical, on public personages and events ; the third, which is apparently with reason assigned to the latest period of his life, of devotional poems. In the first division La Pauvrete" Ruteb&uf, Le Manage Rulebceuf, etc., are complaints of his woeful condition; complaints, however, in which there is nearly as much satire as appeal. Others, such as Renart le Bestourne", Le Dit des Cordeliers, Frere Denise, Le Dit de I'Erberie, are poems of the Fabliau kind. In all these there are many lively strokes of satire, and not a little of the reckless gaiety, chequered here and there with deeper feeling, which has always been a characteristic of a certain number of French poets. Rutebceufs sarcasm is especially directed towards the monastic orders. The second class of poems, which is numerous, displays a more elevated strain of thought. Many of these poems are complaintes or elaborate elegies (often . composed on commission) for distinguished persons, such as Geoffrey de Sargines and Guillaume de Saint Amour. Others, such as the Complainte d'Outremer, the Complainte de Constantinople, the Dit de la Vote de Tunes, the Debat du Croise' et du Dfaroisf, are comments on the politics and history of the time, for the most part strongly in favour of the crusading spirit, and reproaching the nobility of France with their degeneracy. ' Mort sont Ogier et Charlemagne' is an often-quoted exclamation of Rutebceuf in this sense. The third class includes La Mort Rutebozuf, otherwise La Repentance Rutebceuf, La Voie de Paradis, various poems to the Virgin, the lives of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and the miracle play of The'ophik. Rutebceufs favourite metres are either the continuous octosyllabic couplet, or else a stanza composed of an octosyllabic couplet and a line of four syllables, the termination of the latter being caught up by the succeeding couplet. Ch.vi.] Early Lyrics. 59 Though he has less of the ' lyrical cry ' than some others, he is perhaps the most vigorous poet of his time. '-There is one division of early poetry which may also be noticed under this head, though it is sometimes dealt with as a kind of miniature epic. This is the lai, a term which is Lais. Marie used in old French poetry with two different signifi- de France, cations. The Trouveres of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made of it a regular lyrical form. But the most famous of its examples, those which now pass under the name of Marie de France, are narrative poems in octosyllabic verse and varying in length considerably. It is agreed that the term and the thing are of Breton origin ; and the opinion which seems most probable is that the word originally had reference rather to the style of music with which the harper accompanied his verse, than to the measure, arrangement, or subject of the latter. As to Marie herself 1 , nothing is known about her with certainty. She lived in England in the reign of Henry III, and often gives English equivalents for her French words. The lais which we possess, written by her and attributed to her, are fourteen in number. They bear_ihj__lilles of Gugemer, Equitan, Le Fresne, Le Bis- claveret, Lanval, Les Deux Amanis, Ywenec, Le Laustic, Mtlun, Le Chaitivel, Le Chevrefeuille, Eliduc, Gradient and L ' Espine. Mr. O'Shaughnessy has paraphrased several of these in English 2 ; they are all narrative in character, ^heir distinguishing features are fluent and melodious versification, pure and graceful language among the purest and most graceful, though decidedly Norman in character, of the time true poetical feeling, and a lively faculty of invention and description. After Marie there was a tendency to approximate the lai to the Provenfal descort, and at last, as we have said, it acquired rules and a form quite alien from those of its earlier examples^ There is a general though 1 Ed. Roquefort. 2 vols. Paris, 1820. The first volume contains the lays ; the later the fables, which have been noticed in the last chapter. Later edition, Warnke. Halle, 1885. Marie also wrote a poem on the Prrgatory of St. Patrick. Three other lays, Tiaorel, Gringamor, and Tiolet have been attributed to her, and arc printed in Romania, vol. viii. 2 Lays of France. London, 1873. 60 Mediaeval Literature. not a universal inclination to melancholy of subject in the early lays, a few of which are anonymous. CHAPTER VII. SERIOUS AND ALLEGORICAL POETRY. IN consequence of the slowness with which prose was used for any regular literary purpose in France, verse continued to do duty for it until a comparatively late period in almost all departments of literature. By the very earliest years of the twelfth century, and probably much earlier (though we have no certain evidence of this latter fact), documents of all kinds began to be written in verse of various forms. Among the earliest serious verse that was written rank, as we might expect, verse chronicles. It was not till 1200 at soonest that long translations from the Latin in French prose were made, but such translations, and original works as well, were written in French verse much earlier. The rhymed Chronicles were numerous, but, with rare ex- ceptions, they cannot be said to be of any very great Verse literary importance. Whether they were imitated Chronicles, directly from the Chansons de Gestes, or vice versa, is a question which, as it happens, can be settled without difficulty. For they are almost all in octosyllabic couplets, a metre certainly later than the assonanced decasyllabics of the earliest Chansons. The latter form and the somewhat later dodecasyllable or Alexandrine are rarely used for Verse Chronicles, the most remarkable exception being the spirited Combat des Trenie 1 , which is however very late, and the Chronique de du Guesdin of the same date. There are earlier examples of history in Alexandrines (some are found in the twelfth century, such as the account of Henry the Second's Scotch Wars by Jordan Fantome, Chancellor of the diocese of Winchester), but they are not numerous or important. It is not 1 This is an account of the battle of thirty Englishmen and thirty Bretons in the Edwardian wars. 62 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. unworthy of notice that the majority of the early Verse Chronicles are English or Anglo-Norman. The first of importance is that of Geoffrey Gaymar, whose Chronicle of English history was written about 1146. Gaymar was followed by_a_mueh better known writer, the Jerseyman WaceJ i j ! \jio_nQL_Dnly T -as_has_,bee^n mentioned^ versified~Ge6TIrey~of Monmouth into the Brut*, but * i. produced the -important^gg^ozL fle /fcg^-g4ving_the history of theJDukes of Normandy and of the Conquest of England. The date of the~^^7js__ii55, of the J5?0_ii(>o. This latter is the better of the two, though Wace was not a great poet, jft consists chiefly of octosyllabics, with a curious insertion of Alexandrines in rhymed not assonanced laisses) Wace was followed by Benoist de Sainte-More, who extended his Chronicle of the Dukes of Normandy to more than forty thousand verses. The 'Life of St. Thomas' (Becket), by Gamier de Pont St. Maxence, also deserves notice, as does an anonymous poem on the English wars in Ireland 4 . But the most interesting of this group is prob- ably the history 5 of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1219 and who during his life played a great part in England. It abounds in passages of historical interest and literary value. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the practice of writing history in verse gradually died out, yet some of the most important examples date from this time. ' Such are the Chronicles of Philippe Mouskes 6 , a Fleming, in more than thirty thousand verses, extending from the Siege of Troy to the year 1243. Mous- kes is of some importance in literary history, because of the great extent to which he has drawn on the Chansons de Gestes for his information. In 1304 Guillaume Guiart, a native of Orleans, wrote in twelve thousand verses a Chronicle of the thirteenth 1 There is, it appears, no authority for calling him Robert. a Wace's Brut is not the only one. The title became common. 3 Ed. Andresen. 2 vols. Heilbronn, 1877-1879. 1 The Song of Dermot and the Earl. Ed. Orpen. Oxford, 1892. Garniei (ed. Hippeau, Paris, 1859) has been very highly (I think, extravagantly) praised by some. The Irish poem is full of vigour. * Ed. P. Meyer (Societe de 1'Histoire de France). Ed. Reiffenberg. Brussels, 1835-1845. Ch. vii.] Serious and Allegorical Poetry. 63 century, including a few years earlier and later. There are a large number of other Verse Chronicles, but few of them are of much importance historically, and fewer still of any literary interest. History, however, was by no means the only serious subject which took this incongruous form in the middle ages. The amount of miscellaneous verse written during the period between the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the fifteenth century is indeed enormous. Only a very small portion of it has ever been printed, and the mere summary description of the manuscripts which contain it is as yet far from complete. If it be said generally that, during the greater part of these three hundred years, the first impulse of any one who wished to write, no matter on what subject, was to write in verse, and that the popular notion of the want of literary tastes in the middle ages is utterly mistaken, some idea may be formed of the vast extent of literature, poetical in form, which was then produced. Much no doubt of this literature is not in the least worthy of detailed notice ; much, whether worthy or not, must from mere considerations of space and proportion remain unnoticed here. What is possible, is to indicate briefly the chief forms, authors, and subjects, which fall 'under lhe~ heading of this chapter, and to give a somewhat detailed account of the great serious poem of mediaeval France, the Roman de la Rose. Pecu- liarities of metre and so forth will be indicated where it is necessary, but it may be said generally that the great mass of this literature is in octosyllabic gpupleis. It has already been observed in discussing the Fabliaux that the first enquirers into old French literature were led to include a very miscellaneous assortment of poems under that head ; and it may now be added that this miscellaneous assortment with much else constitutes the farrago of the present Miscella- _, neous Sati- chapter. I he two great poems of the Roman du rical verse. Renart and the Roman de la Rose stand as repre- sentatives of the more or less serious poetry of the time, and everything else may be said to be included between them. Be- ginning nearest to the Roman du Renart and its kindred Fabliaux, we find a vast number of half-satirical styles of poetry, many, if not most of them, known (according to what has been noted in 64 Mediaeval Liter atiire. [Bk. I. the preface as characteristic of mediaeval literature) by distinctive form-names. Of these dits and dtbats have already been noticed, but it is not easy to give a notion of the number of the existing examples, or of the extraordinary diversity of subjects to which both, and especially the dits, extend. Perhaps some estimate may be formed from the fact that the dits of three Flemish poets alone, Baudouin de Conde", Jean de Conde', and Watriquet de Couvin, fill four stout octavo volumes 1 . The subjects of these and of the large number of dits composed by other writers and anony- mous are almost innumerable. The earliest are for the most part simple enumerations of the names of streets, of street cries, of guilds, of coins, and such-like things. By degrees they become more definitely didactic, and at last allegorical moralising masters them as it does almost every other kind of poetry in the fourteenth century. The de'bat, sometimes called dispute, or baiaille, is an easily understood variety of the dit. Rutebceuf's principal debat has been named ; another in a less serious spirit is that between . Chariot et le Earlier. There is a Batailk des Vi'ns, a Bataille de Careme et de Charnage, a Debat de I' Hiver et I' file 1 , etc., etc. Another name much used for half-satirical, half-didactic verse was that of Bible, of which the most famous (probably because it was the first known) is that of Guyot de Provins, a violent onslaught on the powers that were in Church and State by a discontented monk. (Testaments of the satirical kind, chiefly noteworthy for the bril- liant use which Villon made of the tradition of composing them, resveries and fatrasies (nonsense poems with a more or less sati- rical drift), parodies of the offices of the Church, of its sermons, of the miracle plays, are the chief remaining divisions of the poetry which, under a light and scoffing envelope, conceals a serious purposed Such things have at all times been composed in verse, and the reason is sufficiently obvious. In the first place, the intention of the writers is to a certain extent masked, and in the second, the reader's attention is attracted. But the middle ages by no means confined the use of verse to such cases. Downright instruction was, as often as not, the object of the verse writer in those days. The 1 Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1 866-1 86& Ch. VIL] Serious and Allegorical Poetry. 65 earliest, and as such the most curious of didactic poems, are those of Philippe de Thaun, an Englishman of Norman ex- traction, who wrote in the early part of the twelfth Didactic century. His works are a CompuJ, or Chronological ve , r Treatise (1119), dedicated to an uncle, who was de Thaun. chaplain to Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and a Bestiary, or Zoological Catalogue (1130), dedicated to Adela of Louvain, the wife of Henry the First. These poems, written before the vogue of the versified Arthurian Romances had consecrated the octosyllable, are in couplets of six syllables. Bestiaries and Compuls (the French title of the Chronologies) were for some time the favourites with didactic verse writers, but before long the whole encyclopaedia, as it was then understood, was turned into verse. Astrology, hunting, geography, law, medi- cine, history, the art of war, all had their treatises; and latterly Tresors, or complete popular educators, as they would be called nowadays, were composed, the best-known of which is that of Walter of Metz in 1245. All, or almost all, these works, written as they were in an age sincerely pious, if somewhat grotesque in its piety, and theoretically moral, if somewhat loose in its practice, contained Mora i and not only abundant moralising, but also more or less Theological theology of the mystical kind. It would therefore verse, have been strange if ethics and theology themselves had wanted special exponents in verse. Before the middle of the twelfth cen- tury Samson of Nanteuil (again an Englishman by residence) had versified the Proverbs of Solomon, and in the latter half of the same century vernacular lives of the saints begin to be numerous. Perhaps the most popular of these was the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, of which the fullest poetical form has been left us by an English trouvere of the thirteenth century named Chardry, by whom we have also a verse rendering of the ' Seven Sleepers,' and some other poems \ Somewhat earlier, Hermann of Valenciennes was a fertile author of this sort of work, composing a great Bible de Sapience or versification of the Old Testament, and a large number of lives of saints. Of books of Eastern origin, one of the most 1 Well edited by Koch. Heilbronn, 1879. ff 66 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. important was the Castoiement d'un Pere & son Fils, which comes from the Panchalantra, though not directly. The translated work had great vogue, and set the example of other Casloiements or warnings. The monk Helinand at the end of the twelfth century composed a poem on ' Death/ and a vast number of similar poems might be mentioned. The commonest perhaps of all is a dialogue Des trois Moris el des trots Vtfs, which exists in an astonishing number of variants. Gradually the tone of all this work becomes more and more allegorical. Dreams, Mirrors, Castles, such as the 'Castle of Seven Flowers/ a poem on the virtues, make their appearance. The question of the origin of this habit of allegorising and personi- fication is one which has been often incidentally discussed by lite- ._-AHgorical rary historians, but which has never been exhaustively verse. treated. It is certain that, at a very early period in the middle ages, it makes its appearance, though it is not in full flourishing until the thirteenth century. It seems to have been a reflection in light literature of the same attitude of mind which led to the development of the scholastic philosophy, and, as in the case of that philosophy, Byzantine and Eastern influences may have been at work. Certain it is that in some of the later Greek romances 1 something very like the imagery of the Roman de la Rose is dis- coverable. Perhaps, however, we need not look further than to the natural result of leisure, mental activity, and literary skill, working upon a very small stock of positive knowledge, and re- strained by circumstances within a very narrow range of employ- ment. However this may be, the allegorising habit manifests itself recognisably enough in French literature towards the close of the twelfth century. In the Me'raugis de Porilesguez of Raoul de Houdenc, the passion for arguing out abstract questions of love- lore is exemplified, and in the Roman des Eles of the same author the knightly virtues are definitely personified, or at least allegorised. At the same time some at all events of the Troubadours, especially Peire Wilhem, carried the practice yet further. Merci, Pudeur, Lqyaute, are introduced by that poet as persons whom he met as he rode on his travels. In Thibaut de Champagne a still further 1 See especially Hysminica and Hysminc. Ch. vii.] Sericus and Allegorical Poetry. 67 advance was made, /The representative poem of this allegorical literature, and moreover one of the most remarkable composi- tions furnished by the mediaeval period in France, is The Koman the Roman de la Rose 1 . It is doubtful whether any other de la Rose. poem of such a length has ever attained a popularity so wide and so enduring. The Roman de la Rose extends to more than twenty thousand lines, and is written in a very peculiar style ; yet it maintained its vogue, not merely in France, but throughout Europe, for nearly three hundred years from the date of its commencement, and for more than two hundred from that of its conclusion. The history of the composition of the poem is singular. It was begun by William of Lorris, of whom little or nothing is known, but whose work must, so far as it is easy to make out, have been done before 1240, and is sometimes fixed at 1237. This portion extends to 4670 lines, and ends quite abruptly. About forty years later, Jean de Meung, or Clopinel, afterwards one of Philippe le Bel's paid men of letters, continued it without preface, taking up William of Lords' cue, and extended it to 22.817 verses, preserving the metre and some of the personages, but entirely altering the spirit of the treatment. The importance of the poem requires that such brief analysis as space will allow shall be given here. Its general import is sufficiently indicated by the heading, Ci est le Rommant de la Rose Oil 1'art d'amors est tote enclose ; though the rage for allegory induced its readers to moralise even its allegorical character, and to indulge in various far-fetched explanations of it. In the twentieth year of his age, the author says, he fell asleep and dreamed a dream. He had left the city on a fair May morning, and walked abroad till he came to a garden fenced in with a high wall. On the wall were portrayed figures, Hatred, Felonnie, Villonie, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, Papelardie (Hypocrisy), Poverty all of which are described at length. He strives to enter in, and at last finds a barred wicket at which he is admitted by Dame Oiseuse (Leisure), who tells him that Deduit (Delight) and his company are within. He finds the com- 1 Ed. F. Michel. 2 vols. Paris, 1864. F a 68 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. pany dancing and singing, Dame Liesse (Enjoyment) being the chief songstress, while Courtesy greets him and invites him to take part in the festival. The god of love himself is then described, with many of his suite Beauty, Riches, etc. A further description of the garden leads to the fountain of Narcissus, whose story is told at length. By this the author, who is thenceforth called the lover, sees and covets a rosebud. But thorns and thistles bar his way to it, and the god of love pierces him with his arrows. He does homage to the god, who accepts his service and addresses a long discourse to him on his future duties and conduct. The prospect somewhat alarms him, when a new personage, Bel Acueil (Gracious Reception), comes up and tenders his services to the lover, the god having disappeared. Almost immediately, however, Dangler 1 makes his appearance, and drives both the lover and Bel Acueil out of the garden. As the former is bewailing his fate. Reason appears and remonstrates with him. He persists in his desire, and parleys with Dangier, both directly and by ambas- sadors, so that in the end he is brought back by Bel Acueil into the garden and allowed to see but not to touch the rose. Venus comes to his aid, and he is further allowed to kiss it. At this, however, Shame, Jealousy, and other evil agents reproach Dangier. Bel Acueil is immured in a tower, and the lover is once more driven forth. Here the portion due to William of Lorris ends. Its main characteristics have been indicated by this sketch, except that the extreme beauty and grace of the lavish descriptions which enclose and adorn the somewhat commonplace allegory perforce escape analysis. It is in these descriptions, and in a certain tenderness and elegance of general thought and expression, that the charm of the poem lies, and this is very considerable. The deficiency of action, however, and the continual allegorising 1 Dangier is not exactly 'danger.' To be ' en dangler de qnelqu'un ' is to be 'in somebody's power.' Dangier is supposed to stand for the guardian of the beloved, father, brother, husband, etc. This at least has been the usual interpretation, and seems to me to be much the more probable. M. Gaston Paris, however, and others, see in Dangier the natural coyness and resistance of the beloved object, not any external influence. Ch. vii.] Serious and Allegorical Poetry. 69 threaten to make it monotonous had it been much longer con- tinued in the same strain. It is unlikely that it was this consideration which determined Jean de Meung to adopt a different style. In his time literature was already agitated by violent social, political, and religious debates, and the treasures of classical learning were becoming more and more commonly known. But prose had not yet become a common literary vehicle, save for history, oratory, and romance, nor had the duty of treating one thing at a time yet impressed itself strongly upon authors. Jean de Meung was satirically dis- posed, was accomplished in all the learning of his day, and had strong political opinions. He determined accordingly to make the poem of Lorris, which was in all probability already popular, the vehicle of his thoughts. In doing this he takes up the story as his predecessor had left it, at the point where the lover, deprived of the support of Bel Acueil, and with the suspicions of Dangier thoroughly aroused against him, lies despairing without the walls of the delightful garden. Reason is once more introduced, and protests as before, but in a different tone and much more lengthily. She preaches the disadvantages of love in a speech nearly four hundred lines long, followed by another double the length, and then by a dialogue in which the lover takes his share. The difference of manner is felt at once. The allegory is kept up after a fashion, but, instead of the graceful fantasies of William of Lorris, the staple matter is either sharp and satirical views of actual life, or else examples drawn indifferently from sacred and profane history. One speech of Reason's, a thousand lines in length, consists of a collection of instances of this kind showing the mobility of fortune. At length she leaves the lover as she found him, ' melancolieux et dolant,' but unconvinced. Amis (the friend), who has appeared for a moment previously, now reappears, and comforts him, also at great length, dwelling chiefly on the ways of women, concerning which much scandal is talked. The scene with Reason had occupied nearly two thousand lines; that with Amis extends to double that length, so that Jean de Meung had already excelled his predecessor in this respect. Profiting by the counsel he has received, the lover addresses 70 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. himself to Riches, who guards the way, but fruitlessly. The god of Love, however, takes pity on him (slightly ridiculing him for having listened to Reason), and summons all his folk, to attack the tower and free Bel Acueil. Among these Faux Semblant presents himself, and, after some parley, is received. This new personifica- tion of hypocrisy gives occasion to some of the author's most satirical touches as he describes his principles and practice. After this, Faux Semblant and his companion, Contrainte Astenance (forced or feigned abstinence), set to work in favour of the lover, and soon win their way into the tower. There they find an old woman who acts as Bel Acueil's keeper. She takes a message from them to Bel Acueil, and then engages in a singular conversa- tion with her prisoner, wherein the somewhat loose morality of the discourses of Amis is still further enforced by historical examples, and by paraphrases of not a few passages from Ovid. She after- ward admits the lover, who thus, at nearly the sixteen-thousandth line from the beginning, recovers through the help of False Seeming the ' gracious reception ' which is to lead him to the rose. The castle, however, is not taken, and Dangier, with the rest of his allegorical company, makes a stout resistance to ' Les Barons de L'Ost' the lords of Love's army. The god sends to invoke the aid of his mother, and this introduces a new personage. Nature herself, and her confidant, Genius, are brought on the scene, and nearly five thousand verses serve to convey all manner of thoughts and scraps of learning, mostly devoted to the support, as before, of questionably moral doctrines. In these five thousand lines almost all the current ideas of the middle ages on philosophy and natural science are more or less explicitly contained. Finally, Venus arrives and, with her burning brand, drives out Dangier and his crew, though even at this crisis of the action the writer cannot refrain from telling the story of Pygmalion and the Image at length. The way being clear, the lover proceeds unmolested to gather the longed-for rose. It is impossible to exaggerate, and not easy to describe, the popularity which this poem enjoyed. Its attacks on womanhood and on morality generally provoked indeed not a few replies, of which the most important came long afterwards from Christine de Ch. vii.] Serious and Allegorical Poetry. 71 Pisan and from Gerson. But the general taste was entirely in favour of it. Allegorical already, it was allegorised in fresh Popularity senses, even a religious meaning being given to it. of the The numerous manuscripts which remain of it attest its Eoman de la popularity before the days of printing. It was frequently printed by the earliest typographers of France, and even in the six- teenth century it received a fresh lease of life at the hands of Marot, who re-edited it. Abroad it was praised by Petrarch and translated by Chaucer * ; and it is on the whole not too much to say that for fully two centuries it was the favourite book in the vernacular literature of Europe. Nor was it unworthy of this popularity. As has been pointed out, the grace of the part due to William of Lorris is remarkable, and the satirical vigour of the part due to Jean de Meung perhaps more remarkable still. The allegorising and the length which repel readers of to-day did not disgust generations whose favourite literary style was the allegorical, and who had abundance of leisure; but the real secret of its vogue, as of all such vogues, is that it faithfully held up the mirror to the later middle ages. In no single book can that period of history be so conveniently studied. Its inherited religion and its nascent free-thought; its thirst for knowledge and its lack of criticism; its sharp social divisions and its indistinct aspirations after liberty and equality; its traditional morality and asceticism, and its half-pagan, half-childish relish for the pleasures of sense ; its romance and its coarseness, all its weakness and all its strength, here appear. The imitations of the Roman ds la Rose were in proportion to its popularity. Much of this imitation took place .... r ... .... . . Imitations. in other kinds of poetry, which will be noticed here- after. Two poems, however, which are almost contemporary with its earliest form, and which have only recently been published, deserve mention. One, which is an obvious imitation of Guil- laume de Lorris, but an imitation of considerable merit, is the Roman de la Poire*, where the lover is besieged by Love in 1 The authorship of the English Rose has been much discussed. The poem was adapted in Italy as // fiore, a sonnet-cycle. * Ed. Stehlich. Halle, i8Sl. 72 Mediaeval Literature. a tower. The other, of a different class, and free from trace of direct imitation, is the short poem called De Venus la De'esse /rhe forms of Ballade known as quivoque*e, Fra- trisde, Couronne*e, etc., culminating in the preposterous Emperiere, are monuments of tasteless ingenuity which cannot be surpassed in their kind, and they have accordingly perished. But both in France and in England the Ballade itself and a few other forms have retained popularity at intervals, and have at the present day broken out into fresh and vigorous life. The^ chief authors of jhpsp pieces during^the pejjo_d we are dis- cussing were Jehannot de LescureljGuillajumejleJVIachault, Eustache Deschamps,.J.ean Froissarty Christine de _Pisan 1 _AlainjC4fartief, and Charles-cUQrle'ans. Besides these there were many others, though stanza is optional, but it should not usually be more than eleven or less than eight. The peculiarity of the poem is that the last line of every stanza is identical, and that the rhymes are the same throughout and repeated in the same order. The examples printed at the end of this chapter from Lescurel and Chartier will illustrate this sufficiently. There is no need to enter into the absurdity of ballades tquivoquees, emperieres, etc., further than to say that their main principle is the repetition of the same rhyming word, in a different sense, it may be twice or thrice at the end of the line, it may be at the end and in the middle, it may be at the end of one line and the beginning of the next. The chant royal is a kind of major ballade having five of the longest (eleven-lined) stanzas and an envoy of five lines. The rondel is a poem of thirteen lines (sometimes made into fourteen by an extra repetition), consisting of two quatrains and a five-lined stanza, the first two lines of the first quatrain being repeated as the last two of the second, and the first line of all being added once more at the end. The rondeau, a poem of thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen lines, is arranged in stanzas of five, four, and four, five, or six lines, the last line of the second and third stanzas consisting of the first words-of the first line of the poem. The triolet is a sort of rondel of eight lines only, repeating the first line at the fourth, and the first and second at the seventh and eighth. Lastly, the villanellt alternates one of two refrain lines at the end of each three-lined stanza. These aie the principal forms, though there are many others. Cb.ix.] Later Songs and Poems. 83 ttk_epoch of the Hundred Years' War-was not altogether fertile in lighter poetry or poetry of any kind. Jehannot de jehannot Lescurel ' is one of those poets of whom absolutely de Lescurel. nothing is known. His very name has only survived in the general syllabus of contents of the manuscript which contains his works, and which is in this part incomplete. The thirty-three poems sixteen Ballades, fifteen Rondeaus 2 , and two nondescript pieces which exist are of singular grace, lightness, and elegance. They cannot be later and are probably earlier than the middle of the four- teenth century, and thus they are anterior to most of the work of the school. Guillaumede Machault was a person sufficiently Ouiilaume de before tW world, and his work is very voluminous. Machault. As usual with all these poets, it contains many details of its author's life, and enables us to a certain extent to construct that life out of these indications. Machault was probably born about 1284, and may not have died till 1377. A native of Champagne and of noble birth, he early entered, like most of the lesser nobility of the period, the service of great feudal lords. He was chamberlain to Philip the Fair, and at his death became the secretary of John of Luxem- bourg, the well-known king of Bohemia. After the death of this prince at Cressy, he returned to the service of the court of France and served John and Charles V., finally, as it appears, becoming in some way connected with Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus. His works were very numerous, amounting in all to some 80,000 lines, of which until recently nothing but a few extracts was in print. In the last few years, however, La Prise d'Alexandrie*, a rhymed chronicle of the exploits of Lusignan, and the 1 Ed. Montaiglon. Paris, 1855. * The Rondeau is not in Lescurel systematised into any regular form. 1 Ed. L. de Mas Latrie. Societe de 1'Orient Latin, Geneva, 1877. This is ft poem not much shorter than the Voir Dit, but continuously octosyllabic and very spirited. The final account of the murder of Pierre (which he provoked by the most brutal oppression of his vassals) is full of power. 1 Ed. P. Paris. Societe des Bibliophiles, Paris, 1875. This is a very interesting poem consisting of more than 9000 lines, mostly octosyllabic couplets, with ballades, etc. interspersed, one of which is given at the end of this chapter. It is addressed either to Agues of Navarre, or, as M. P. Paris thought, to Peronelle d'Armentieres, and was written in 1362, when the author was probably ve;y old. 3 84 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. a curious love poem in the style of the age, have been printed. Besides these his works include numerous ballades, etc., and several long poems in the style of those of Froissart, shortly to be described. On the other hand, the works of Eustache Deschamps, which are even more voluminous than those of Machault, his friend and master, are almost wholly composed of short pieces, with one notable exception, the Miroir de Mariage, a poem of 13,000 lines 1 . Deschamps has left no less than 1175 ballades, and as the ballade usually contains twenty-four lines at least, and frequently thirty- Eustache four, this of itself gives a formidable total. Rondeaus, Deschamps. virelais, etc., also proceeded in great numbers from his pen ; and he wrote an important ' Art of Poetry,' a treatise rendered at once necessary and popular by the fashion of artificial rhyming. The life of Deschamps was less varied than that of Machault, whose inferior he was in point of birth, but he held some important offices in his native province, Champagne. Both Deschamps and Machault exhibit strongly the characteristics of the time. Their ballades_are_for thejnosi. part either moral or occa- sional in -subject, and nr rare]z display signs of much attention to elegance of ~prrfttsQlogy or to TJKHght .ancL- value of thought. In the enormous volume of their works, amounting in all to nearly 200,000 lines, and still partly unpublished, there is to be found much that is of interest indirectly, but less of intrinsic poetical worth. The artificial forms in which they for the most part write specially invite elegance of expression, point, and definiteness of thought, qualities in which both, but especially Deschamps, are too often deficient. When, for instance, we find the poet in his anxiety to discourage swearing, filling, in imitation of two bad poets of his time, one, if not two ballades 2 with a list of the chief oaths in use, it is difficult not to lament the lack of critical spirit displayed. Froissart, though inferior to Lescurel, and though far less re- markable as a poet than as a prose writer, can fairly hold his own 1 Deschamps is said to have been also named Morel. A complete edition of his works was executed for the Old French Text Society by the Marquis de Queux de Saint Hilaire. 8 vols. Paris, 1878-1893. 3 Ballades, 147, 149. Ed. Qneux de St Hilaira. Ch. IX.] Later Songs and Poems. 85 with Deschamps and Machault, while he has the advantage of being easily accessible. The later part of his life 3 Froissart. having been given up to history, he is not quite so voluminous in verse as his two predecessors. Yet, if the attribution to him of the Cour d* Amour and the Trtsor Amoureux be correct, he has left some 40,000 or 50,000 lines *. The bulk of his work consists of long poems in the allegorical courtship of the lime, in- terspersed with shorter lyrical pieces in the prevailing forms. One of these poems, the Buisson de Jonece, is interesting because of its autobiographical details; and some shorter pieces approaching more nearly to the Fabliau style, Le Dit du Florin, Le Debat du Cheval et du Le'vrier, etc., are sprightly and agreeable enough. For the most part, however, Froissart's poems, like almost all the poems of the period, suffer from the disproportion of their length to their matter. If the romances of the time, which are certainly not destitute of incident, be tedious from the superabundance of prolix description, much more tedious are these recitals of hyper- bolical passion tricked out with all the already stale allegorical imagery and the inappropriate erudition of the Roman de la Rose. pChristine de Pisan, who was born in 1363, was a pupil of Deschamps, as Deschamps had been a pupil of Machault. She was an industrious writer, a learned person, and a good patriot, but not by any means a great poetess. So at least it Christine would appear, though here again judgment has to be de Pisan. formed on fragments, a complete edition of Christine never having been published, though the Socie'te' des Anciens Textes has at last under- taken the collection of her poetical works. Besides a collection of Ballades, Rondeaux, and so forth, she wrote several Dits (the Dit de la P as tour e, the Dit de Poi'ssy, the Dittie' de Jeanne d' Arc, and some Dils Moraux}, besides a Mutation de Fortune, a Livre des Cent Histoires de Troie, etc., etc?~1 Alain Chartier, who was born in or about 1390, and who died in 1458, is best known by the famous story of Margaret of Scotland, 1 Ed. Scheler. 3 vols. Brussels, 1870-1872. To this add the long poem of Meliador, found at last by M. Longnon and edited by him, 1895-1899. 86 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. queen of France, herself an industrious poetess, stooping to kiss Alain his poetical lips as Jie lay asleep. He also awaits Chartier. a modern editor. Jake Froissart, he devoted himself to allegorical and controversial love poems, and like Christine to moral verse. In the former he attained to considerable skill, and his ballades of ethical meditation show his command of dignified expression. On the whole he may be said to be the most complete example of the scholarliness which tended more and more to characterise French poetry at this time, and which too often degenerated into pedantry. Chartier is the first con- siderable writer of original work who Latinises much ; and his practice in this respect was eagerly followed by the rhetoriqueur school both in prose and verse. He himself observed due measure in it ; but in the hands of his successors it degraded French to an almost Macaronic jargon. TfTall the earlier work of this school not a little grace and ele- gance is discoverable, and this quality manifests itself most strongly in the poet who may be regarded as closing the strictly mediaeval series, Charles d'Orleans 1 . The life of this poet has been fre- quently told. As far as we are concerned it falls into three divisions. In the first, when after his father's death he held the position of a great feudal prince almost independent of royal con- trol, it is not recorded that he produced any literary work. His long captivity in England was more fruitful, and during it he wrote both in French and in English. But the last five-and-twenty years of his life, when he lived quietly and kept court at Blois (bringing about him the literary men of the time from Bouciqualt to Villon, and engaging with them in poetical tournaments), were the most productive. His undoubted work is not large, but the pieces which compose it are among the best of their kind. He is fond, in the allegorical language of the time, of alluding to his having ' put his house in the government of Nonchaloir,' and chosen that per- sonage for his master and protector. There is thus little fervency 1 Ed. Hericault. 2 vols. Paris, 1874. Chailes d'Orleans was the son of the Duke of Orleans, who was murdered by the Burgundians, and of Valentina of Milan. He was born in 1391, taken prisoner at Agincourt, ransomed in 1449, and he died in 1465. His son was Louis XII. Ch. ix.] Later Songs and Poems. 87 of passion about him, but rather a graceful and somewhat indolent dallying with the subjects he treats. Few early French poets are better known than Charles d'Orle*ans, and few deserve their popu- larity better. His Rondeaux on the approach of spring, on the coming of summer and such-like subjects, deserve the very highest praise for delicate fancy and formal skill. Of poets of less importance, or whose names have not been preserved, the amount of this formal poetry \vhichcremains to us is considerable. The best- known collection of such work is the Livre des Cent Ballades *, believed, on tolerably satisfactory evidence, to have been composed by the famous knight-errant Bouciqualt and his companions on their way to the fatal battle of Nicopolis. Before, however, the fifteenth century was far advanced, poetry of this formal kind fell into the hands of professional authors in the strictest sense, Grands Rheloriqueurs as they were called, who, as a later critic said of almost the last of them, ' lost all the grace and elegance of the composition ' in their elaborate rules and the pedantic language which they employed. The complete de- cadence of poetry in which this resulted will be treated partly in the summary following the present book, partly in the first chapter of the book which succeeds it. CHAPTER X. THE DRAMA. THE origins of the drama in France, like most other points affecting mediaeval literature, have been made the subject of a good deal of dispute.' It has been attempted, on the one hand, to father the mysteries and miracle-plays of the twelfth and later centuries on the classical drama, traditions of which are supposed to have been preserved in the monasteries and other homes of Origins of learning. On the other hand, a more probable and Drama. historical source has been found in the ceremonies and liturgies of the Church, which in themselves possess a. con- siderable dramatic element, and which, as we shall see, were early adapted to still more definitely dramatic purposes. Disputes of this kind, if not exactly otiose, are not suited to these pages ; and it is sufficient to say that while Plautus and Terence at least retained a considerable hold on mediaeval students, the natural tendencies to dramatic representation which exist in almost every people, assisted by the stimulus of ecclesiastical traditions, ceremonies, and festivals, are probably sufficient to account for the beginnings of dramatic literature in France. It so happens loo that such historical evidence as we have Earliest entirely bears out this supposition. The earliest corn- Vernacular positions of a dramatic kind that we possess in Dramatic French, are arguments and scraps interpolated in Latin liturgies of a dramatic character. Earlier still these works had been wholly in Latin. The production called ' The Prophets of Christ' is held to date from the eleventh century, and consists of a series of utterances of the prophets and patriarchs, The Drama. 89 who are called upon in turn to bear testimony in reference to the Messiah, according to a common patristic habit. By degrees other portions of Old Testament history were thrown into the dramatic or at least dialogic form. In the drama or dramatic liturgy of Daniel, fragments of French make their appearance, and the Mystery of Adam is entirely in the vulgar tongue. Both these belong to the twelfth century, and the latter appears to have been not merely a part of the church services, but to have been in- Mysteries dependently performed outside the church walls. It and is accompanied by full directions in Latin for the Miracles, decoration and arrangement of stage and scenes. Another im- portant instance, already mentioned, of somewhat dubious age, but certainly very early, is the Mystery of The Ten Virgins. This is not wholly in French, but contains some speeches in a Romance dialect. These three dramas, Daniel, Adam, and The Ten Virgins, are the most ancient specimens of their kind, which, from the thirteenth century onward, becomes very numerous and important. By de- grees a distinction was established between mystery and miracle- plays, the former being for the most part taken from the sacred Scriptures, the latter from legends and lives of the Saints and of the Virgin. Early and interesting specimens of the miracle are to be found in the The'ophile of Rutebceuf and in the Saint Nicholas of Jean Bod el d' Arras, both belonging to the same (thirteenth) century J . But the most remarkable examples of the miracle-play are to be found in a manuscript which contains forty miracles of the Virgin, dating from the fourteenth century. Selections from these have been published at different times, and the publication of the whole was undertaken by the Old French Text Society 2 . As the miracles were mostly concerned with isolated legends, Miracles de they did not lend themselves to great prolixity, and la Vierge. it is rare to find them exceed 2000 lines. Their versification is at first somewhat licentious, but by degrees they settled down into more or less regular employment of the octosyllabic couplet. 1 These, as well as The Ten Virgins and many other pieces soon to be men- tioned, are to be found in Monmerque and Michel, The&tre Francois au Moyen Age, Paris, 1874, ^ ast e ^- ; Adam, ed. Luzarches, 1854. 2 Ed. G. Paris et Ulysse Robert, 1876-1893. 9P Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. Both in them and in the mysteries the curious mixture of pathos and solemnity on the one side, with farcical ribaldry on the other, which is characteristic of mediaeval times, early becomes apparent. The mysteries, however, as they became more and more a favourite employment of the time, increased and grew in length. The narrative of the Scriptures being more or less continuous, it was natural that the small dramas on separate subjects should by degrees be attracted to one another and be merged in larger wholes It was another marked characteristic of mediaeval times that all literary work should be constantly subject to remaniement, the facile scribes of each day writing up the work of their predecessors to the taste and demands of their own audience. In the case of the mysteries, as in that of the Chansons de Gesles, each remaniement resulted in a lengthening of the original. It became an under- stood thing that a mystery lasted several days in the representation; and in many provincial towns regular theatres were constructed for the performances, which remained ready for use between the various festival times. In the form which these representations finally assumed in the fifteenth century, they not only required elaborate scenery and properties, but also in many cases a very large troop of performers. It is from this century that most of the mysteries we possess date, and they are all characterised by enormous length. The two most famous of these are the Passion l of Arnould Gre"ban, and the Viel Testament"*, due to no certain author. The Passion, as originally written in the middle of the fifteenth century, consisted of some 25,000 lines, and thirty or forty years later it was nearly doubled in length by the alterations of Jean Michel. The Mysiere du Viel Testament, of which no manuscript is now known, but which was printed in the last year of the fifteenth century, has also been reprinted, and extends to nearly 50,000 verses. Additions even to this are spoken of; and Michel's Passion, supplemented by a Re'surrection, extended to nearly 70,000 lines, which vast total is believed to have been frequently acted as a whole. In such a case the space of rather than days, which is said to have been sometimes 1 Ed. G. Paris and G. Raynaud. Paris, 1878. * Ed. J. de Rothschild. Paris, 1878-1891. ch. x.] Tlie Drama. 91 occupied in the performance of a m)3tery, cannot be thought excessive. The enormous length of the larger mysteries makes analysis of any one of them impossible ; but as an instance of n e t erogene _ the curious comedy which is intermixed with their ous Character most serious portions, and which shocked critics even of Mysteries, up to our own time, we may take the scene of the Tower of Babel in the My s fere du Viel Testament^. Here the author is not content with describing Nimrod's act in general terms, or by the aid of the con- venient messenger; he brings the actual masons and carpenters on the stage. Gasle-Bois (Spoilwood), Casse-Tuileau (Breaktile), and their mates talk before us for nearly 200 lines, while Nimrod and others come in from time to time and hasten on the work. The workmen are quite outspoken on the matter. They do not altogether like the job ; and one of them says, On ne peut en fin que faillir. Besongnons ; mais qu'on nous paie bien. A little further on and they are actually at work. One calls for a hod of mortar, another for his hammer. The labourers supply their wants, or make jokes to the effect that they would rather bring them something to drink. So it goes on, till suddenly the confusion of tongues falls upon them, and they issue their orders in what is probably pure jargon, though fragments of some- thing like Italian can be made out. In the very middle of this scene occurs a really fine and reverently written dialogue between Justice and Mercy pleading respectively to the Divinity for ven- geance and pardon. Instances such as this abound in the mys- teries, which are sometimes avowedly interrupted in order that the audience may be diverted by a farcical interlude. Of the miracles, that of St. Guillaume du Desert will serve as a fair example. It is but 1500 lines in length, yet Argument the list of dramatis personae extends to nearly thirty, of a and there are at least as many distinct scenes. Mir ade Pla y- William, count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, has rendered him- self in many ways obnoxious to the Holy See. He has recognised 1 Mystere du Viel Testament, i. 259-272. 92 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. an anti-pope, has driven a bishop from his diocese for refusing to do likewise, and has offended against morality. An embassy, including St. Bernard, is therefore sent from Rome to warn and correct him. William is not proof against their eloquence, and soon becomes deeply penitent. He quits his palaces, and retires to the society of hermits in the wilderness. These enjoin penances upon him. He is to have a heavy hauberk immovably riveted on his bare flesh, and with sackcloth for an overcoat to visit Rome and beg the Pope's forgiveness. He does this, and the Pope sends him to the patriarch of Jerusalem, William taking the additional penance as a proof of the heinousness of his sin. After this he retires by himself into a solitary place. Here, however, a knight of his country seeks him out, represents the anarchy into which it has fallen in his absence, and implores him to return. But this is not William's notion of duty. He refuses, and to be free from such importunities in future, retires to the island of Rhodes, and there lives in solitude. Irritated at the idea of his escaping them, Satan and Beelzebub attack him and beat him severely ; but he recovers by the Virgin's intervention, and serves as a model to young devotees who seek his cell, and like him become hermits. At last a chorus of saints descends to see his godly end, which takes place in the presence of the neophytes. The events, of which this is a very brief abstract, are all clearly indicated in the short space of 1500 verses, many of which are only of four syllables *. There is of course no attempt at drawing any figure, except that of the saint, at full length, and this is characteristic of the class. But as dramatised legends, for they are little more, these miracles possess no slight merit. The general literary peculiarities of the miracle and mystery plays do not differ greatly from those of other compositions in verse of the same time which have been already described. Their great fault is prolixity. In the collection of the Miracles de la Vierge, the comparative brevity of the pieces renders them easier to read than the long compositions of the fifteenth century, and the poetical beauty of some of the legends which they tell is sufficient to furnish them with interest. Even in these, however, 1 Miracles de la Viergt, ii. 1-54. Ch. x.] The Drama. 93 the absence of point and of dignity in the expression frequently mars the effect; and this is still more the case with the longer mysteries. Of these latter, however, the work of the brothers Gre*ban for there were two, Arnould and Simon, concerned contains passages superior to the general run, and in others lines and even scenes of merit occur. Although the existence of the drama as an actual fact was for a long time due to the performance and popularity of p ro f ane the mysteries and miracles, specimens of dramatic Drama, work with purely profane subjects are to be found at Adam de la a comparatively early date. Adam de la Halle, so far a e ' as our present information goes, has the credit of inventing two separate styles of such composition 1 . In Li Jus de la Ftuillie he has left us the earliest comedy in the vulgar tongue known ; in the pastoral drama of Robin el Marion the earliest specimen of comic opera. Independently of the improbability that the drama, once in full practice, should be arbitrarily confined to a single class of subject, there were many germs of dramatic composition in mediaeval literature which wanted but a little encouragement to develope themselves. The verse dialogues and debals, which both trouba- dours and trouveres had favoured, were in themselves incom- pletely dramatic. The pastourelles, an extremely favourite and fashionable class of composition, must have suggested to others besides the Hunchback of Arras the idea of dramatising them ; and the early and strongly-marked partiality of the middle ages for pageants and shows of all kinds could hardly fail to induce those who planned them to intersperse dialogue. The plot of Robin el Marion is simple and in a way regular. The ordinary incidents of a pasiourelle, the meeting of a fair shepherdess and a passing knight, the wooing (in this case an unsuccessful one) and the riding away, are all there. The piece is completed by a kind of rustic picnic, in which the neighbouring shepherds and shepherdesses join and disport themselves. Marion is a very graceful and amiable figure ; Robin a sheepish coward, who is not in the least worthy of her. In Adam's other and 1 See Monmerque* and Michel, those who undertake more or less Century of a general history of the country during their time, Chroniclers. an( j those who devote themselves to special persons as biographers, or to the recital of the events which more par- ticularly concern a single city or district. The first class, more- over, is more conveniently subdivided according to the side which the chroniclers took on the great political duel of their period, the struggle between Burgundy and France. The Burgundian side was particularly rich in annalists. The study and practice of historical writing had, as a consequence of the Chronicle of Baudouin, and the success of Lebel and Froissart, taken deep root in the cities of Flanders which were subject to the Duke of Burgundy, while the magnificence and opulence of the ducal court and establishments naturally attracted men of letters. Froissart's immediate successor, Enguerrand de Mon- strelet, belongs to this party. Monstrelet 1 , who wrote a chronicle covering the years 1400-1444, is not remarkable for elegance or picturesqueness of style, but takes particular pains to copy exactly official reports of speeches, treaties, letters, etc. Another im- portant chronicle of the same side is that of George Chastellain 2 , a busy man of letters, who was historiographer to the Duke of Burgundy, and wrote a history of the years 1419-1470. Chastel- lain was a man of learning and talent, but was somewhat imbued with the heavy and pedantic style which both in poetry and prose was becoming fashionable. The memoirs of Olivier de la Marche extend from 1435 to J 489, and are also somewhat heavy, but less pedantic than those of Chastellain. Dealing with the same period, 1 Ed. Buchon. Paris, 1858. 1 Chastellain has been fortunate, like most Flemish writers, in being excel- lently and completely edited (by M. Kervyn de Lettenhove. 8 vols., Brussels). Ch. XI.] Prose Chronicles. in and also written in the Burgundian interest, are the memoirs of Jacques du Clerq, 1448-1467, and of Lefevre de Saint Rdmy, 1407-1436 ; as also the Chronicle of Jehan de Wavrin, beginning at the earliest times and coming down to 1472. Wavrin's subject is nominally England, but the later part of his work of necessity concerns France also. The writers on the royalist side are of less importance and less numerous, though individually perhaps of equal value. The chief of them are Mathieu de Coucy, who continued the work of Monstrelet in a different political spirit from 1444 to 1461 ; Pierre de Fenin, who wrote a history of part of the reign of Charles VI ; and Jean Juvenal des Ursins J , a statesman and ecclesiastic, who has dealt more at length with the whole of the same reign. Of these Juvenal des Ursins takes the first rank, and is one of the best authorities for his period ; but from a literary point of view he cannot be very highly spoken of, though there is a certain simplicity about his manner which is superior to the elaborate pedantry of not a few of his contemporaries and immediate suc- cessors. The second class has the longest list of names, and perhaps the most interesting constituents. First may be mentioned Le Livre des Fails el bonnes Mccurs du sage roi Charles V. This is an elaborate panegyric by the poetess Christine de Pisan, full of learn- ing, good sense, and sound morality, but somewhat injured by the classical phrases, the foreign idioms, and the miscellaneous eru- dition, which characterise the school to which Christine belonged. Far more interesting is the Livre des Fails du Mare'chal de Bouci- qualt" 1 , a book which is a not unworthy companion and commen- tary to Froissart, exhibiting the kind of errant chivalry which characterised the fourteenth century, and in part the fifteenth, and which so greatly assisted the English in their conflicts with the French. Joan of Arc was made, as might have been expected, the subject of numerous chronicles and memoirs which have come down to us under the names of Cousinot, Cochon, and Berry. The Constable of Richemont, who had the credit of overthrowing 1 Ed. Michaud et Poujoulat. * Ed. Michaud et Poujoulat. ii a Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. r. the last remnant of English domination at the battle of Formigny, found a biographer in Guillaume Gruel. Lastly have to be mentioned three curious works of great value and interest bearing on this time. These are the journals of a citizen of Paris (or two such), which extend from 1409 to 1422, and from 1424 to 1440, and the so-called Chronique scandahuse of Jean de Troyes covering the reign of Louis XI. These, wilh the already-mentioned chronicle of Juvenal des Ursins, are filled with the minutest information on all kinds of points. The prices of articles of merchandise, the ravages of wolves, etc., are recorded, so that in them almost as much light is thrown on the social life of the period as by a file of modern newspapers. The chronicle of Jean Chartier, brother of Alain, that of Molinet in continuance of Chastellain, and the short memoirs of Villeneuve, complete the list of works of this class that deserve mention. CHAPTER XII. MISCELLANEOUS PROSE. IT was natural, and indeed necessary, that, when the use of prose as an allowable vehicle for literary composition was General use once understood and established, it should gradually of Prose, but rapidly supersede the more troublesome and far less appro- priate form of verse. Accordingly we find that, from the beginning of the thirteenth century, the amount of prose literature is con- stantly on the increase. It happens, however, or, to speak more precisely, it follows that this miscellaneous prose literature is of much less importance and of much less interest than the con- temporary and kindred literature in verse. For in the nature of things much of it was occupied with what may be called the journeywork of literature, the stuff which, unless there be some special attrac- tion in its form, grows obsolete, or retains a merely antiquarian interest in the course of time. There was, moreover, still among the chief patrons of literature a preference for verse which diverted the brightest spirits to the practice of that form. Yet again, the best prose composition of the middle ages, with the exception of a few works of fiction, is to be found in its chronicles, and these have already been noticed. A review, therefore, much less minute in scale than that which in the first ten chapters of this book has been given to the mediaeval poetry of France, will suffice for its mediaeval prose, and such a review will appropriately close the survey of the literature of the middle ages. It has already been pointed out in the first chapter that docu- mentary evidence exists to prove the custom of preaching in French (or at least in lingua romana) at a very early date. It is not, however, till many centuries after the date of Mummolinus, i H4 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. i. that there is any trace of regularly written vernacular dis- courses. When these appear in the twelfth century the Proven9al Prose dialects appear to have the start of French proper. Sermons. Whether the numerous prose sermons * of St. Bernard 8t Bernard. w hich exist were written by him in French, or were written in Latin and translated, is a disputed point. The most reasonable opinion seems to be that they were translated, but it is uncertain whether at the beginning of the thirteenth or the middle of the twelfth century. However this may be, the question of written French sermons in the twelfth century Maurice de does not depend on that of St. Bernard's author- Sully, ship. Maurice de Sully, who presided over the See of Paris from 1160 to 1195, has left a considerable number of sermons which exist in manuscripts of very different dialects. Perhaps it may not be illegitimate to conclude from this, that at the time such written sermons were not very common, and that preachers of different districts were glad to borrow them for their own use. These also are thought to have been first written in Latin and then translated. But whether Maurice de Sully was a pioneer or not, he was very quickly followed by others. In the following century the number of preachers whose vernacular work has been preserved is very large ; the increase being, beyond all doubt, partially due to the foundation of the two great preaching orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic. The existing literature of this class, dating from the thirteenth, the fourteenth, and the early fifteenth centuries, is enormous, but the remarks made at the beginning of this chapter apply to it fully. Its interest is almost wholly antiquarian, and not in any sense literary. Distinguished names indeed occur in the catalogue of preachers*, but, until we come to the extreme verge of the mediaeval period proper, hardly one of what may be called the first importance. The struggle between the Burgundian and Later Orleanist, or Armagnac parties, and the ecclesiastical Preachers, squabbles of the Great Schism, produced some figures Gerson. o f g rea t er interest. Such are Jean Petit, a furious Burgundian partisan, and Jean Charlier, or Gerson, one of the most 1 ciL Forster. Eilangen. 1885 Ch. XII.] Miscellaneous Prose. 115 respectable and considerable names of the later mediaeval literature. Gerson was born in 1363, at a village of the same name in Lorraine. He early entered the College de Navarre, and distinguished himself under Peter d'Ailly, the most famous of the later nominalists. He became Chancellor of the University, received a living in Flanders, and for many years preached in the most constantly attended churches of Paris. He represented the University at the Council of Constance, and, becoming obnoxious to the Burgundian party, sought refuge with one of his brothers at Lyons, where he is said to have taught little children. He died in 1429. Gerson, it should perhaps be added, is one of the numerous candidates (but one of the least likely) for the honour of having written the Imita- tion. He concerns us here only as the author of numerous French sermons. His work in this kind is very characteristic of the time. Less mixed with burlesque than that of his immediate successors, it is equally full of miscellaneous, and, as it now seems, somewhat inappropriate erudition, and far fuller of the fatal allegorising and personification of abstract qualities which were in every branch of literature the curse of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Yet there are passages of real eloquence in Gerson, though perhaps the chief literary point about him is the evidence he gives of the insufficiency of the language in its then condition for serious prose work. This is indeed the lesson of most of the writing which we have to notice in this chapter. Next to sermons may most naturally be placed devotional and moral works, for, as may easily be imagined, theology and philosophy, properly so called, did not condescend to the vulgar tongue until after the close of the period. Only treatises for the practical use of the unlearned and ignorant adopted the vernacular. Of such there are manuals of devotion and sketches of sacred history which date from the thirteenth century, besides numerous later treatises, among the authors of which Moral and Gerson is again conspicuous. The most popular, Devotional perhaps, and in a way the most interesting of all Tr ea- ti8 es. such moral and devotional treatises, is the book of the Chevalier de la Tour Landry 1 , written in the third quarter of the fourteenth 1 Ed. Montaiglon. Tans, 1854. I 2 n6 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. century. This book, destined for the instruction of the author's three daughters, is composed of Bible stories, moral tales from ordinary literature and from the writer's experience, precepts and rules of conduct, and so forth ; in short, a Whole Duty of Girls. Most however of the works of this sort which were current were, as may be supposed, not original, but translated, and these trans- lations played a very important part in the history of the language. The earliest of all are translations of the Bible, especially of the Psalms and the book of Kings, the former of which may perhaps date from the end of the eleventh century. Translations of the fathers, and of the Lives of the Saints, followed in such numbers that, in 1199, Pope Innocent III. blamed their indiscriminate use. The translation of profane literature hardly begins much before the thirteenth century. In this it becomes frequent; and in the following many classical writers and more mediaeval authors in Latin underwent the process. But it was not till the close of the fourteenth century that the most important translations were made, and that translation began to exercise its natural influence on a comparatively unsophisticated language, by providing terms of art, by generally enriching the vocabulary, and by the elabora- tion of the peculiarities of syntax and style necessary for rendering the sentences of languages so highly organised as Translators. Latin &nd Greek Under j ohn of Valo{s and hig three successors considerable encouragement was given by the kings of France to this sort of work, and three translators, Pierre Bersuire, Nicholas Oresme, and Raoul de Presles, have left special reputations. The eldest of these, Pierre Bersuire or Ber- cheure, a friend of Petrarch, was born in 1290, and towards the end of his life, about 1352, translated part of Livy. Nicholas Oresme, the date of whose birth is unknown, but who entered the College de Navarre in 1348, and is likely to have been at that time thirteen or fourteen years old, and who became Dean of Rouen and Bishop of Lisieux, translated, in 1370 and the following years, the Ethics, Politics, and Economics of Aristotle (from the Latin, not the Greek). He died in 1382. Oresme was a good writer, and particularly dexterous in adopting neo- logisms necessary for his purpose. Raoul de Presles executed Ch. XIL] Miscellaneous Prose, 117 translations of the Bible and of St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei, All these writers furnished an enlarged vocabulary to their suc- cessors, the most remarkable of whom were the already mentioned Christine de Pisan and Alain Chartier. The latter is especially noteworthy as a prose writer, and the comments already made on his style and influence as a poet apply here also. His Quadriloge Invectif and Curtal, both satirical or, at least, polemical books, are his chief productions in this kind. Raoul de p i it i ca i and Presles also composed a polemical work, dealing Polemical chiefly with the burning question of the papal and Works, royal powers, under the tide of Songe du Verger. It might seem unlikely at first sight that so highly technical a subject as law should furnish a considerable contingent to early vernacular literature ; but there are some works of this kind both of ancient date and of no small importance. England and Normandy furnish an important contingent, the ' Laws of William the Conqueror ' and the Coulumier de Normandie being the most remarkable : but the most interesting document of this kind is perhaps the famous Assists de Jerusalem, arranged by Godfrey of Bouillon and his crusaders as the code of the king- Co< j e8 an( j dom of Jerusalem in 1099, and known also as the Legal Lettres du Se'pulcre, from the place of their custody. Treatises. The original text was lost or destroyed at the capture of Jeru- salem by Saladin in 1187; but a new Assise, compiled from the oral tradition of the jurists who had seen and used the old, was written by Philippe de Navarre in 1240, or thereabouts, for the use of the surviving Latin principalities of the East. This was shortly afterwards enlarged and developed by Jean dTbelin, a Syrian baron, who took part in the crusade of St. Louis. These codes concerned themselves only with one part of the original Letlres du Se'pulcre, the laws affecting the privileged classes; but the other part, the Assises des Bourgeois, survives in Le Livre de la Cour des Bourgeois, which has been thought to be older than the loss of the original. These various works contain the most complete account of feudal jurisprudence in its palmy days that is known, for the still earlier Anglo-Norman laws represent a more mixed state of things. It was especially in Cyprus that the Jerusalem u8 Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. codes were observed. The chief remaining works of the same kind which deserve mention are the Etablissements de St. Louis and the Livre de Justice el de Plet, which both date from the time of Louis himself; the Conseil, a treatise on law by Pierre de Fontaines, who died in 1289, and the Coutumes du Beauvoisis of Philippe de Beaumanoir, who wrote in 1283. The legal literature of the four- teenth century is abundant, but possesses considerably less interest. Last of all, before coming to prose fiction, a vast if not very Miscellanies mterest i n g clzss of miscellaneous prose work must be and Didactic mentioned. Books of accounts and domestic economy "Works. o f a u sorts (generally called livres de raisori) were very common. We have a Me'nagier de Paris, a Viandier de Paris, both of the fourteenth century. But much earlier the orderly and symmetrical spirit which has always distinguished the French makes itself apparent in literature. The Livre des Me'tiers de Paris of Etienne Boileau, dating from the thirteenth century, gives a complete idea of the organisation of guilds and trades at that time. An innumerable multitude of treatises on the minor morals, on love, on manners, exists in manuscript, and in rare instances in print. The Tre'sors, or compendious encyclopaedias, which have already been noticed in verse, began in the thirteenth century to be composed in prose, the most remarkable being that of Brunetto Latini, the master 1 of Dante, who avowedly used French as his vehicle of composition, because it was the most commonly read of European languages. This book was written apparently about or before 1270. Nor did the separate arts lack illustration in prose. Medicine and alchemy, astronomy and poetry, war and chess, had their treatises, while Bestiaries and Lapidaries are almost as numerous in prose as in verse. Finally, there is the important category of books of travel. There are a certain number of voyages to the Holy Land 2 ; some miscellaneous travels ; and last, but not 1 I am aware that the ' mastership ' is now disputed : but with all respect to Dante-experts, of whom I do not pretend to be one, the reference in the Inferno seems to me to have no other possible meaning. 2 For instance, the Saint Voyage de Jerusalem (1385), ed. Bonnardot and Longnon. Paris, 1878. The famous book called Sir John Mandeville's, though perhaps originally French, is too much, a part of English literature to be more than mentioned here. Ch. xn.J Miscellaneous Prose. 119 least, those of Marco Polo, which seem to have been written originally in French, the author, when in captivity at Genoa, having dictated it to Rusticien of Pisa, who also figures as a compiler of late versions of the Arthurian legend, and who thus had some skill in French composition. The prose fiction of the period has been kept to the last, because it expresses a different order of literary endeavour from those divisions which have hitherto been treated. The language of the middle ages was ill-suited for work other than narrative ; for narrative work it was supremely well adapted. Yet the prose fiction which we have is not on the whole equal in merit to the poetry, though in one or two instances it is of great value. The medium of communication was not generally known or used until the period of decadence had been reached, and the peculiar de- fects of mediaeval literature, prolixity and verbiage, show themselves more conspicuously and more annoyingly in prose than in verse. We have, however, some remarkable work of the later periods, and in the latest of all we have one writer, Antoine de la Salle, who deserves to rank with the great chroniclers as a fashioner of French prose. The French prose fiction of the middle ages resolves itself into several classes : the early Arthurian Romances already noticed ; the scattered tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which are chiefly to be studied in two excellent volumes of the Biblio- theque Elze'viricnne * / the versions of such collections of legends, chiefly oriental in origin, as the History of the Seven Wise Men and the Gesta Romanorum ; the longer classical romances in prose ; the late prose remaniements of the great verse epics and romances of the twelfth century ; and the more or less original work of the fifteenth century, when prose was becoming an independent and coequal literary exponent. The first class requires no further mention; of the third, the editions of the Roman des Sept Sages, by M. Gaston Paris 2 , and of the Violier des Histoires Romaines, by M. Gustave Brunei 3 , may be referred to as sufficient instances ; of the fourth a very interesting specimen has - been made accessible by the publication of the prose Roman de Jules Cesar 1 Nouvelh s du itfctdu 14* siecle. Ed. Moland et He'ricault. 2 vols. Paris, 1856. Paris, 1876. Paris, 1858. I2O Mediaeval Literature. [Bk. I. of Jean de Tuim 1 , a free version from Lucan made apparently in the course of the thirteenth century, and afterwards imitated by the author of the verse romance ; the fifth, though very numerous, are not of much value, though the great romance of Perceforest and a few others may be excepted from this general condemnation. The second and the last deserve a longer mention. The tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as pub- lished by MM. Moland and Hericault, are eight in number. Those of the second volume are on the whole inferior in interest to those of the first. They consist of Assenelh, a graceful legend of the marriage of Joseph with the daughter of the Egyptian high-priest ; Troilus, interesting chiefly as a prose version of Benoist de Ste. More's legend of Troilus and Cressida, through the channel of Guido Colonna and Boccaccio ; and a very curious English story, that of the rebel Fulk Fitzwarine. The thirteenth-century tales consist of L'Empereur Cons/ant, the story with which Mr. Morris has made English readers familiar under the title of the ' Man born to be King;' of a prose version of the ubiquitous legend of Amis el A miles; of Le roi Flore el la belle Jehanne, a kind of version of Griselda, though the particular trial and exhibition of fidelity is quite different; of the Comtesse de Ponthieu, curious, if not interesting; and lastly, of the finest prose tale of the French middle ages, Aucassin el Nicohite. In this exquisite story Aucassin, the son of the count of Beaucaire, falls in love with Nicolette, a captive damsel. It is very short, and is written in mingled verse and prose. The theme is for the most part nothing but the desperate love of Aucassin, which is careless of religion, which makes him indifferent to the joy of battle and to everything, except ' Nicolette ma tres- douce mie,' and which is, of course, at last rewarded. But the ex- treme beauty of the separate scenes makes it a masterpiece. Antoine de la Salle is one of the most fortunate of authors. The tendency of modern criticism is generally to las'aile en ^ eavour to prove that some famous author has been wrongly credited with some of the work which has made his fame. Homer, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Rabelais, have all had to pay this penalty. In the case of Antoine de la Ed. Settegast Halle, 1881. cb. xii.] Miscellaneous Prose. lai Salle, on the contrary, critics have vied with each other in heaping unacknowledged masterpieces on his head. His only acknow- ledged work is the charming romance of Petit Jean de Sainlre'*. The first thing added to this has been the admirable satire of the Quinze Joyes du Manage 2 , the next the famous collection of the Cent Nouvelles*, and the last the still more famous farce of Pa/Aeh'n*. There are for once few or no external reasons why these various attributions should not be admitted, while there are many internal ones why they should. Antoine de la Salle was born in 1398, and spent his life in the employment of different kings and princes; Louis III, of Anjou, King of Naples, his son the good King Rene", the count of Saint Pol, and Philip the Good of Burgundy, who was his natural sovereign. Nothing is known of him after 1461. Of the three prose works which have been attributed to him there are others of a didactic character in manuscript the Quinze Joyes du Mariage is extremely brief, but it contains the quintessence of all the satire on that honourable estate which the middle ages had elaborated. Every chapter there is one for each 'joy' with a prologue and conclusion ends with a variation on this phrase descriptive of the unhappy Benedict, ' est sy est enclose dans la nasse, et a 1'aventure ne s'en repent point et s'il n'y estait il se y mettroit bientot ; la usera sa vue en languissant, et finira mise'rable- ment ses jours.' The satire is much quieter and of a more humor- ous and less boisterous character than was usual at the time. The Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles are to all intents and purposes prose fabliaux. They have the full licence of that class of composition, its sparkling fun, its truth to the conditions of ordinary human life. Many of them are taken from the work of the Italian novelists, but all are handled in a thoroughly original manner. In style they are perhaps the best of all the late mediaeval prose works, being clear, precise, and definite without the least appearance of bald- ness or dryness. Petit Jehan de Sainlre' is, together with the Chronique de Mtssire Jacques de Lalaing 6 of Georges Chastellain (a delightful biography, which is not a work of fiction), the hand- 1 Ed. Guichard. Paris, 1843. * Ed. Jannet. Paris, 1853; 2nd ed. 1857. * Ed. Wright. Paris, 1858. * Ed. Foumier, Thtdtre Fran$ais avant la Renaissance. Paris, n. d. 4 Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, viii. 1-259. i2i Mediaeval Literature. book of the last age of chivalry. Jehan de Saintre*, who was a real person of the preceding century, but from whom the novelist borrows little or nothing but his name, falls in love with a lady who is known by the fantastic title of 'la dame des belles cousines.' He wins general favour by his courtesy, true love, and prowess ; but during his absence in quest of adventures, his faithless mistress betrays him for a rich abbot. The latter part of this book exhibits something of the satiric intention, which was never long absent from the author's mind ; the former contains a picture, artificial perhaps, but singularly graceful, of the elaborate religion, as it may almost be called, of chivalry. Strikingly evident in the book is the surest of all signs of a dying stage of society, the most delicate observation and sympathetic description joined to sarcastic and ironical criticism. INTERCHAPTER I. SUMMARY OF MEDIAEVAL LITERATURE. IN the foregoing book a view has been given of the principal developments of mediaeval literature in France. The survey has extended, taking the extremest chronological limits, over some eight centuries. But, until the end of the eleventh, the monuments of ancient French literature are few and scattered, and the actual manuscripts which we possess date in hardly any case further back than the twelfth. In reality the history of mediaeval literature in France is the history of the productions of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries with a long but straggling introduction, ranging from the eighth or even the seventh. Its palmy time is unquestionably in the twelfth and the thirteenth. During these two hundred years almost every kind of literature is attempted. Vast numbers of epic poems are written ; one great story, that of Arthur, exercises the imagination as hardly any other story has exercised it either in ancient or in modern times ; the drama is begun in all its varieties of tragedy, comedy, and opera ; lyric poetry finds abundant and exquisite expression; history begins to be written, not indeed from the philosophic point of view, but with vivid and picturesque presentment of fact; elaborate codes are drawn ; vernacular homilies, not mere rude colloquial discourses, are composed ; the learning of the age, such as it is, finds popular treatment; and in particular a satiric literature, more abundant and more racy if less polished than any that classical an- tiquity has left us, is committed to writing. It is often wondered at and bewailed that this vigorous growth was succeeded by a period of comparative stagnation in which little advance was made, and in 124 Summary of Mediaeval Literature. which not a little decided falling off is noticeable. Except the formal lyric poetry of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and the multiplied dramatic energy of the latter, nothing novel or vigorous appears for some hundred and forty years, until the extreme verge of the period, when the substitution of the prose tale, as exemplified in the work attributed to Antoine de la Salle, for the verse Fabliau, opens a prospect which four centuries of progress have not closed. The early perfection of Italian, a language later to start than French, has been regretfully compared with this, and the blame has been thrown on the imperfection of mediaeval ar- rangements for educating the people. The complaint is mistaken, and almost foolish. It is not necessary to look much further than Italian itself to see the Nemesis of a too early development. French, like English, which had a yet tardier literary growth, has pursued its course unhasting, unresting, to the present hour. Italian since the close of the sixteenth century has contributed not a single master- piece to European literature, and not much that can be called good second-rate. It is not impossible that the political troubles of France the Hundred Years' War especially checked the intel- lectual development of the country, but if so, the check was in the long run altogether salutary. The middle ages were allowed to work themselves out to produce their own natural fruit before the full influx of classical literature. What is more, a breathing time was allowed after the exhaustion of the first set of influences, before the second was felt. Hence the French renaissance was a far more vigorous growth than the renaissance of Italy, which displays at once the signs of precocity and of premature decay. But we are more immediately concerned at the present moment \vith the literary results of the middle ages themselves. It is only of late years that it has been possible fully to estimate these, and it is now established beyond the possibility of doubt that to France almost every great literary style, as distinguished from great individual works, is at this period due. The testimony of Brunetto Latini as to French being the common literary tongue of Europe in the thirteenth century has been quoted, and those who have read the foregoing chapters attentively will be able to recall innumerable instances of the literary supremacy of France. It Summary of Mediaeval Literature. 125 must of course be remembered that she enjoyed for a long time the advantage of enlisting in her service the best wits of Southern England, of the wide district dominated by the Provencal dialects, and of no small part of Germany and of Northern Italy. But these countries took far more than they gave: the Chansons de Gestes were absorbed by Italy, the Arthurian Romances by Germany ; the Fabliaux crossed the Alps to assume a prose dress in the Southern tongue ; the mysteries and miracles made their way to every corner of Europe to be copied and developed. To the origination of the most successful of all artificial forms of poetry the sonnet France has indeed no claim, but this is almost a solitary instance. The three universally popular books (to use the word loosely) of profane literature in the middle ages, the epic of Arthur, the satire of Reynard the Fox, the allegorical romance of the Rose, are of French origin. In importance as in bulk no literature of these four centuries could dare to vie with French. This astonishing vigour of imaginative writing was however accompanied by a corresponding backwardness in the application of the vernacular to the use of the exacter and more serious departments of letters. .Before Comines, the French chronicle was little more than gossip, though it was often the gossip of genius. No philosophical, theological, ethical, or political work deserving account was written in French prose before the beginning of the sixteenth century. The very language remained utterly unfitted for any such use. Its vocabulary, though enormously rich in mere volume, was destitute of terms of the subtlety and precision neces- sary for serious prose; its syntax was hardly equal to anything but a certain loose and flowing narration, which, when turned into the channel of argument, became either bald or prolix. The uni- versal use of Latin for graver purposes had stunted and disabled it. At the same time great changes passed over the language itself. In the fourteenth century it lost with its inflections not a little of its picturesqueness, and had as yet hit upon no means of supplying the want. The loose orthography of the middle ages had culminated in a fantastic redundance of consonants which was reproduced in the earliest printed books. This, as readers of Rabelais are aware, was an admirable assistance to grotesque 126 Summary of Mediaeval Literature. effect, but it was fatal to elegance or dignity except in the om- nipotent hands of a master like Rabelais himself. In the fifteenth century, moreover, the stereotyped forms of poetry were losing their freshness and grace while retaining their stately precision. The faculty of sustained verse narrative had fled the country, only to return at very long intervals and in very few cases. The natural and almost childish outspokenness of early times had brought about in all departments of comic literature a revolting coarseness of speech. The farce and the prose tale almost outdo the more nzti fabliau in this. Nothing like a critical spirit had yet mani- fested itself in matters literary, unless the universal following of a few accepted models may be called criticism. The very motives of the mediaeval literature, its unquestioning faith, its sense of a narrow circle of knowledge surrounded by a vast unknown, its acceptance of classes and orders in church and state (tempered as this acceptance had been by the sharpest satire on particulars but by hardly any argument on general points), were losing their force. Everything was ready for a renaissance, and the next book will show how the Renaissance came and what it did. BOOK II. THE RENAISSANCE. CHAPTER I. VILLON, COMINES, AND THE LATER FIFTEENTH CENTURY. To determine at what period exactly mediaeval literature ceases in France and modern literature begins, is not one of the easiest problems of literary history. It has sometimes been solved by the obvious expedient of making out of the fifteenth century a period of transition, sometimes by continuing the classification of ' mediaeval ' until the time when Marot and Rabelais gave unmis- takeable evidence of the presence and working of the modern spirit. Perhaps, however, there may, after all, have been something in the instinct which, in words clumsily enough chosen, made Boileau date modern French poetry from Villon 1 , and there can hardly be any doubt that, as far as spirit if not form goes, modern French prose dates from Comines. These two contemporary Thfl Middle authors, moreover, have in them the characteristic Ages and the which perhaps more than any other distinguishes Renaissance, modern from mediaeval literature, the predominance Characteris- r i ,1 T 1 l titJS f of the personal element. In their works, especi- Fifteenth- ally if Villon be taken with the immediately preced- century ing and partially contemporary Charles d'Orleans, a Literature, difference of the most striking kind is noticeable at once. It is not that the prince who served the god Nonchaloir so piously is deficient in personal characteristics or personal attractiveness, but 1 Villon sut le premier, dans ces siecles grossiers, Dcbiouiller 1'art confus de nos vicux romanciers. Art roit. Ch. I. 128 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. that his personality is still, so to speak, generic rather than indi- vidual. He is still the Trouvere of the nobler class, dallying with half-imaginary woes in the forms consecrated by tradition to the record of them. Not so the vagabond whose words after four centuries appeal directly to the spirit of the modern reader. That reader is cut off from Charles d'Orldans' world by a gulf across which he can only project himself by a great effort of study or of sympathetic determination. The barriers which separate him from Villon are slight enough, consisting mostly of trifling changes in language and manners which a little exeriion easily overcomes. The latter portion of the fifteenth century, or, to speak more correctly, its last two-thirds, have frequently been described as a ' dead season ' in French literature. The description is not wholly just. Even if, according to the plan just explained, we throw Charles d'Orle'ans and Antoine de la Salle, two names of great importance, back into the mediaeval period, and if we allow most of the chroniclers who preceded Comines to accompany them, there are still left, before the reign of Francis the First witnessed the definite blooming of the Renaissance in France, the two names of consummate importance which stand at the head of this chapter, a few minor writers of interest such as Coquillart, Baude, Martial d'Auvergne, an interesting group of literary or at least oratorical ecclesiastics, and a much larger and, from a literary point of view, more important group of elaborate versifiers, the so-called grands rhetor iqueitrs who preceded the Pl^iade in endeavouring to Latinise the French tongue, and whose stiff verse produced by a natural rebound the easy grace of Cle'ment Marot. Each of these per- sons and groups will demand some notice, and the mention of them will bring us to the Renaissance of which the subjects of this chapter were the forerunners. Fran9ois Villon *, or Corbueil, or Corbier, or de Montcorbier, or des Loges, was certainly born at Paris in the year on * 1431. Of the date of his death nothing certain is known, some authorities extending his life towards the close of the 1 Ed. P. L. Jacob. Paris, 1854. Villon's life has been much dealt with, and best by A. Longnon (Paris, 1877), who re-edited the poems in 1892. Dr. Bijvanck, a Dutch scholar, has dealt with the MSS. Ch. i.] Villon, Comincs, and the later Fifteenth Century. 129 century in order to adjust Rabelais' anecdotes of him 1 , others sup- posing him to have died before the publication of the first edition of his works in 1489. That Villon was not his patronymic, whichsoever of his numerous aliases may really deserve that dis- tinction, is certain. He was a citizen of Paris and a member of the university, having the status of clerc. But his youth was occupied in other matters than study. In 1455 he killed, apparently in self- defence, a priest named Philip Sermaise, fled from Paris, was con- demned to banishment in default of appearance, and six months afterwards received letters of pardon. In 1456 a faithless mistress, Catherine de Vausselles, drew him into a second affray, in which he had the worst, and again he fled from Paris. During his absence a burglary committed in the capital put the police on the track of a gang of young good-for-nothings among whom 'Villon's name figured, and he was arrested, tried, tortured, and condemned to death. On appeal, however, the sentence was commuted to banishment. Four years after he was in prison at Meung, con- signed thither by the Bishop of Orleans, but the king, Louis the Eleventh, set him free. Thenceforward nothing certain is known of him. He had at one time relations with Charles d'Orldans. Such are the bare facts of his singular life, to which the peculiar character of his work has directed perhaps disproportionate at- tention. This work consists of a poem in forty stanzas of eight octosyllabic lines (each rhymed a, b, a, b, b, c, b, c) called the Petit Testament 2 ; of a poem in 173 similar stanzas called the Grand Testament, in which about a score of minor pieces, chiefly ballades or rondeaux, are inserted; of a Codicil composed mainly of ballades ; of a few separate pieces, and of some ballades in argot, collectively called Le Jargon. Besides these there are doubtful pieces, including a curious work called Les Repues Franches, which describes in octaves like those of the Testaments the swindling tricks of Villon and his companions, an excellent 1 One of these anecdotes mates him patronised by Edward the Fifth of England. But the very terms of it are unsuitable to that king. a The reader may be reminded that the Testament was a recognised mediaeval style. It was satirical and allegorical, the legacies which it gave being mostly indicative of the legatee's weaknesses or personal peculiarities. K 1 30 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. Dialogue between two characters, the Seigneurs de Mallepaye and Baillevent, and a still better Monologue entitled Le Franc Archier de Bagnolet. The Little Testament was written after the affair with Catherine de Vausselles, the Great Testament after his libera- tion from the Bishop's Prison at Meung. Many of the minor poems contain allusions which enable us to fix them to various events in the poet's life. The first edition of his works was, as has been said, published in 1489. In 1533 he had the honour of having Marot for editor, and up to the date of the Bibliophile Jacob's edition of 1854 (since when there have been several edi- tions), the number had reached thirty-two. The characteristics of Villon may be looked at either techni- cally or from the point of view of the matter of his work. He had an extraordinary mastery of the most artificial forms of poetry which have ever been employed. The rondel, which Charles d'Orle'ans wrote with so much grace, he did not use, but his rondeaux are generally exquisite. The ballade, however, was his special province. No writer has ever got the full virtue out of the recur- rent rhymes and refrains, which are the special characteristics of the form, as Villon has. No one has infused into a mere string of names, such as his famous Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis and others, such exquisitely poetical effects by dint of an epithet here and there and of a touching burden. But the matter of his verse is in many ways perfectly on a level with its manner. No one excels him in startling directness of phrase, in simple but infinite pathos of expression. Of the former, the sudden cry of the Belle Heaulmiere after the recital of her former triumphs Que m'en reste-t-il? honte et pe*che ; and the despairing conclusion of the lover of La Grosse Margot Je suis paillard, paillardise me suit are examples in point; of the latter the line in the rondeau to Death Deux e"tions et n'avions qu'un cceur. No one has bolder strokes of the picturesque, as for instance De Constantinoble L'emperier aux poings dores; Ch. I.] Villon, Comines, and the later Fifteenth Century. 131 and no one can render the sombre horror of a scene better than Villon has rendered it in the famous epitaph of the gibbeted corpses La plnie nous a debues et laves, Et le soleil desseches et noircis, Pies, corbeaulx nous ont les yeux cave's Et arraches la barbe et les sourcils. These are some of Villon's strongest points. Yet in his com- paratively limited work limited in point of bulk and peculiar in style and subject he has contrived to show perhaps more general poetical power than any other writer who has left so small a total of verse. The note of his song is always true and always sweet ; and despite the intensely allusive character of most of it, and the necessary loss of the key to many of the allusions, it has in conse- quence continued popular through all changes of language and manners. Of very few French poets can it be said as of Villon that their charm is immediate and universal, and the reason of this is that his work is full of touches of nature which are uni- versally perceived, as well as distinguished by consummate art of expression. In the great literature which we are discussing, the latter characteristic is almost universally present, the former not so constantly. The literary excellence of Comines 1 is of a very different kind from that of Villon, but he represents the changed attitude of the modern spirit towards practical affairs almost as strongly as Villon does the change in its relations to art and sentiment. Philippe de Comines was born, not at the chateau of the same name which was then in the possession of his uncle, but at Renescure, not very far from Hazebrouck. His family name was Vandenclyte, and his ancestors (Flemings, as their name im- plies) had been citizens of Ghent before they acquired seignorial position and rank. The education of Comines was neglected (he never possessed any knowledge of Latin), and his heritage was heavily encumbered. He was born before 1447, and entered the service of Philip of Burgundy and of his son Charles of Charolais, the future Charles le Te'me'raire. Comines was present at Montlhe'ry and at the siege of Liege, while he played a considerable part in 1 Ed. Chantelauze. Paris, 1881. Also usefully in Michaud et Poujoulat. K 2 132 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. the celebrated affair of Pe*ronne, when Louis XI. was in such danger. Before 1471 he had been charged with several important negotiations by Charles, now duke, in France, England, and Spain. But, either personally disobliged by Charles, or, as seems most likely from the Memoirs, presaging with the keen, unscrupulous intelligence of the time the downfall of the headlong prince, he quitted Burgundy and its master in 1472 and entered the service of Louis, from whom he had already accepted a pension. He was richly rewarded, married an heiress in Poitou, and at one time en- joyed the forfeited fief of Talmont, a domain of the first import- ance, which he afterwards had to restore to its rightful owners, the La Tremoilles. The accession of Charles VIII. was not favourable to him, and, having taken part against the Lady of Beaujeu, he was imprisoned and deprived of Talmont. But with his usual sagacity, he had in the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis XII., chosen the representative of the side destined to win in the long run. The Italian wars gave scope to his powers. He was sent to Venice, was present at the battle of Fornovo, and met Machiavelli at Florence. In the reign of Louis XII. he received new places and pensions, and he died in 1511 aged at least sixty-four. Comines is not a master of style, though at times the weight of his thought and the simplicity of his expression combine to produce an effect not unhappy. He has odd peculiarities of diction, espe- cially inversions of phrase and sudden apostrophes which enliven an otherwise rather awkward manner of writing. Thus, in de- scribing the bad education of the young nobles of his time, he says, ' de nulles lettres ils n'ont connaissance. Un seul sage homme on ne leur met a 1'entour.' And in his account of the operations before the battle of Morat he says, ' II (the Duke of Burgundy) se*journa a Losanne en Savoie ou vous monseigneur de Vienne le servites d'un bon conseil en une grande maladie qu'il cut de douleur et de tristesse.' On the whole, however, no one would think of reading Comines for the merit, or even the quaintness of his style, nor can he be commended as a vivid, even if an inelegant describer. The gallant shows which excited the imaginations of his predecessors, the mediaeval chroniclers from Villehardouin to Froissart, find in him a clumsy annalist and a not too careful Ch. I.] Villon, Comines, and the later Fifteenth Century. 133 observer. His interest is concentrated exclusively on the turns of fortune, the successes of statecraft, and the lessons of conduct to be noticed in or extracted from the business in hand. With this purpose he is perpetually digressing. The affairs of one country remind him of something that has happened in another, and he stops to give an account of this. To a certain extent the mediaeval influence is still strong on Comines, though it shows itself in con- nection with evidences of the modern spirit. He is religious to a degree which might be called ostentatious if it were not pretty evidently sincere ; and this religiosity is shown side by side with the exhibition of a typically unscrupulous and non-moral, if not posi- tively immoral, statecraft. Again, his reflexions, though usually lacking neither in acuteness nor in depth, are often appended to a common-place on the mutability of fortune, the error of anger, the necessity of adapting means to ends, and so forth. Every- where in Comines is evident, however, the anti-feudal and therefore anti-mediaeval conception of a centralised government instead of a loose assemblage of powerful vassals. The favourite mediaeval ideal, of which Saint Simon was perhaps the last sincere champion, finds no defence in Comines ; and it seems only just to allow him ; in his desertion of the Duke of Burgundy, some credit for drawing from the anarchy of the Bien Public, and from his observations of Germany, England, and Spain, the conclusion that France must be united, and that union was only possible for her under a king unhampered by largely appanaged and oniy nominally dependent princes. It should be said that the Mdmoires of Comines are not a continuous history. The first six books deal with the reign of Louis XL from 1465 to 1483. But the seventh is busied with Charles the Eighth's Italian wars only, the author having passed over the period of his own disgrace. Besides the Memoirs we possess a collection of Lettres el Negotiations l . There are three persons who, while of very much less import- ance than those just introduced to the reader, deserve a mention in passing as characteristic and at the same time meritorious writers, during the second and third quarters of the fifteenth cen- tury, the extreme verge of which the life of all three appears to 1 Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove. 2 vols. Brussels, 1867-8. *. 134 The Renaissance. [Bk.n. have touched. These are Guiliaume Coquillart, Henri Baude, and Martial d'Auvergne. All three were poets, all three have been somewhat over-praised by the scholars who in days more or less recent have drawn them from their obscurity, but all three made creditable head against what was mistaken and absurd in the literary fashions of the time. In the writings of all of them more- over there is to be found something, if not much, which is positively good, and which deserves the attention, hardly perhaps of the general reader, but of students of literature. Co- Coquillart. quillart l was a native, and for great part of his life an inhabitant, of Rheims. The extreme dates given for his birth and death are 1421 and 1510, but there is in reality, as is usual in the case of all men of letters before the sixteenth century, very little solid authority for his biography. It may be men- tioned that Marot declares him to have cut short his life by gaming. A life can hardly be said to be cut short at ninety, nor is that an age at which gaming is a frequent ruling passion All that can be said is that he was certainly, as we should now say, in the civil service of the province of Champagne during the reign of Louis XL, that like many other men of the time he united eccle- siastical with legal functions, being not only a town-councillor but a canon, and that he has left satirical works of some merit and importance. These last alone concern us much. His chief produc- tion is a poem entitled Les Droits Nouveaux, in octosyllabic verses, not arranged in stanzas' of definite length, but, on the other hand, interlacing the rhymes, and not in couplets after the older fashion. The plan of this poem is by no means easy to describe. It is partly a social satire, partly a professional lampoon on the current methods of learning and teaching law, partly a political diatribe on the alterations introduced into provincial and national life and polity under Louis XL Not very different in character and exactly similar in form, except that it is arranged as the age would have said par personnages, that is to say semi-dramatically, is the Plai- doyer de la Simple et de la Ruse'e. The Blason des Armes ei des Dames takes up a mediaeval theme in a mediaeval style. The procureurs (advocates) of arms and of ladies endeavour to show each that his 1 Ed. Ileiicault. a vols. Paris, 1857. ch. i.] Villon, Comines, and the later Fifteenth Century. 135 client war or love deserves the chief attention of a. prince. Here, as elsewhere with Coquillart, though of course more covertly, satire dominates. But the best of the pieces attributed to Coquillart are his monologues. There are three of these, the Monologue Coquillart^ the Monologue du Puys, and the Monologue du Gendarme Casse. This last is a ferocious satire on its subject, coarse in language, like most of the author's poems, but full of rude vigour. The profes- sional soldier as distinguished from the feudal militia or the train- bands of the towns was odious to the later middle ages. Henri Baude 1 is a still less substantial figure. He seems to have been an e'lu (member of a provincial board) for the province of Limousin, but to have lived mostly at Paris. He was born at Moulins towards the beginning of the second quarter of the century, and formed part of the poetical circle of Charles d'Orle'ans in his old age. He had troubles with lawless seigneurs and with the police of Paris ; he finally succeeded in obtaining the protection of the Duke of Bourbon, and he did not die till the end of the century. Only a selection from his poems has yet been published. The chief thing remarkable about them (they are mostly occasional and of no great length) is the plainness, the directness, and, in not a few cases, the elegance of the diction, which differs remarkably from the cumbrous phrases and obscure allusive conceits of the time. Many of them are personal appeals for protection and assistance, others are satirical. Baude had a peculiar mastery of the rondeau form. His rondeau to the king, expressing a sentiment often uttered by lackpenny bards in the days of patrons, is a good example of his style, though it is hardly as simple and devoid of obscurity as usual. Martial d'Auvergne 2 , or Martial de Paris (for by an odd chance both of these local surnames are given him, probably Martial from the fact that, like Baude, he was a native d'Auvergne. 1 Edited in part by J. Quicherat. Paris, 1856. 2 Martial d'Auvergne had the exceptional good luck to be reprinted in the i8th century (Vigilles 1724, Arrets 1731). The nineteenth neglected him for a long time until the Societe des Anciens Textes included the Amant rendu Cordelier in its schemes. The notice by M. de Montaiglon (the promised editor of the edition just mentioned) in Crepet's Poctes Fraitfais, i. 427, has been chiefly used here for facts. 136 The Renaissance. [Bk. n of the centre of France and spent his life in the capital), like Coquillart and Baude, was something of a lawyer by pro- fession, and has left work in prose as well as in verse. He certainly died in 1508, and, as he is spoken of as senio con/ectus, he cannot have been born much later than 1420, especially as his poem, the Vigilles de Charles VII., was written on the death of that prince in 1461. This poem is of considerable extent, and is divided into nine ' Psalms ' and nine ' Lessons.' The staple metre is the quatrain, but detached pieces in other measures occur. A complete history of the subject is given, and in some of the digressions there are charming passages, notably one (given by M. de Montaiglon) on the country life. Another very beautiful poem, commonly attributed to Martial, is entitled L'Amant rendu Cordelier au service de I Amour, a piece of amorous allegory at once characteristic of the later middle ages, and free from the faults usually found in such work. A prose work of a somewhat similar kind, entitled Arrets d' Amour, is known to be Martial's. In no writer is there to be found more of the better part of Marot, as in the light skipping verses : Mieux vault la liesse, Car ils ont douleurs L'accueil et 1'addresse, Et des maulx greigneurs, L' amour et simplesse, Mais pour nos labeurs De bergers pasteurs, Nous avons sans cesse Qu'avoir a largesse Les beaulx pres et fleurs, Or, argent, richesse, Fruitages, odeurs Ne la genlillesse Et joye a nos coeurs De ces grants seigneurs. Sans mal qui nous blesse. There is something of the old pastourelles in this, and of a note oi simplicity which French poetry had long lost. Such verse as this of Martial d'Auvergne was, indeed, the exception at the time. The staple poetry of the age was that of The ^ e g ran ds rhe'ton'queurs, as it has become usual Khdtori- to call them, apparently from a phrase of Coquillart' s. queurs. Georges Chastellain 1 was the great master of this school. But to him personally some injustice has been done. ' Ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, as previously cited. For the remainder of the poets reviewed in this paragraph, few ol whom have found modern editors, see Crepet, Pottes Fratifais, vol. i. Ch. I.] Villon, Comines, and the later Fifteenth Century. 137 His pupils and successors, however, for the most part deserve the ill repute in which they are held. This school of poetry had three principal characteristics. It affected the most artificial forms of the artificial poetry which the fourteenth century had seen established, the most complicated modulations of rhyme, such as the repetition, twice or even thrice at the end of a line, of the same sound in a different sense, and all the other puerilities of this particular Ars Poetica. Secondly, it pursued to the very utmost the tradition of allegorising, of which the Roman de la Rose had established the popularity. Thirdly, it followed the example set by Chartier and his contemporaries of loading the language as much as possible with Latinisms, and in a less degree, because Greek was then but indirectly known, Graecisms. These three things taken together produced some of the most intolerable poetry ever written. The school had, indeed, much vitality in it, and overlapped the beginnings of the Renaissance in such a manner that it will be necessary to take note of it again in the next chapter. Some, however, of its greatest lights belonged to the present period. Such were Robertet, a heavy versifier and the author of letters not easily to be excelled in pedantic cox- combry, who enjoyed much patronage, royal and other ; Molinet, a direct disciple of Chastellain, and, like him, of the Burgundian party ; and Meschinot (died 1509), a Breton, who has left us an alle- gorical work on the ' Spectacles of Princes,' and poems which can be read in thirty different ways, any word being as good to begin with as any other. Such also was the father of a better poet than himself, Octavien de Saint Gelais (1466-1502), who died young and worn out by debauchery. Jean Marot, the father of Cle'ment, was a not inconsiderable master of the ballade, and has left poems which do not show to great disadvantage by the side of those of his accomplished son. But the leader of the whole was Guillaume Cretin (birth and death dates uncertain), whom his contemporaries extolled in the most extravagant fashion, and whom a single satirical stroke of Rabelais has made a laughing-stock for some three hundred and fifty years. The rondeau ascribed to Ramina- grobis, the ' vieux poete frai^ais ' of Paniagruel 1 , is Cretin's, and 1 iii. 21. 138 The Renaissance. [Bk. H. the name and character have stuck. Cretin was not worse than his fellows ; but when even such a man as Marot could call him a pdete souverain, Rabelais no doubt felt it time to protest in his own way. Marot himself, it is to be observed, confines himself chiefly to citing Cretin's vers equivoques, which of their kind, and if we could do otherwise than pronounce that kind hopelessly bad, are without doubt ingenious. His poems are chiefly occasional verse, letters, de'bats, etc., besides ballades and rondeaux of all kinds. One charming book which has been preserved to us gives a pleasant contrast to the formal poetry of the time. The Chansons Chansons du du X V" ne Siecle, which M. Gaston Paris has pub- xv m siecie. Hshed for the Old French Text Society \ exhibit informal and popular poetry in its most agreeable aspect. They are one hundred and forty-three in number, some of them no doubt much older than the fifteenth century, but certainly none of them younger. There are pastourelles, war-songs, love-songs in great number, a few patriotic ditties, and a few which may be called pure folk-songs, with the story half lost and only a musical tangle of words remaining. Nothing can be more natural and simple than most of these pieces. Few of the miscellaneous branches of literature at this time deserve notice. But there was a group of preachers Preachers. . . , , . f , who have received attention, which is said by stu- dents of the whole subject of the mediaeval pulpit in France to be disproportionate, but which they owe perhaps not least to the citations of them in a celebrated and amusing book of the next age, the Apologie pour Herodote of Henri Estienne. These are Menot (1440-1518) and Maillard the Franciscans, and Raulin (1443-1514), a doctor of the Sorbonne. These preachers, living at a time which was not one of popular sovereignty, did not meddle with politics as preachers had done in France before and were to do again. But they carried into the pulpit the habit of satirical denunciation in social as well as in purely religious matters, and gave free vent to their zeal. No 1 Tails, 1876. Ch. I.] Villon, Comines, and the later Fifteenth Century. 139 illustrations of the singular licence which the middle ages per- mitted on such occasions are more curious than these sermons. Not merely did the preachers attack their audience for their faults in the most outspoken manner, but they interspersed their discourses (as indeed was the invariable custom throughout the whole middle ages) with stories of all kinds. In Raulin, the gravest of the three, occurs the famous history of the church bells, which reappears in Rabelais, a propos of the marriage of Panurge. CHAPTER II. MAROT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. THE beginnings of the Renaissance in France manifest, as we should expect, a mixture of the characteristics of the later middle ages and of the new learning. In those times the influence of reforms of any kind filtered slowly through the dense crust of custom which covered the national life of each people, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that while Italy felt the full in- fluence of the influx of classical culture in the fifteenth century, that influence should be only partially manifest in France during the first quarter of the sixteenth, while it was not until the century was more than half over that it showed itself in England. The complete manifestation of the combined tendencies of mediaeval and humanist thought was only displayed in Shakespeare, but by that time, as is the wont of all such things, it had already mani- fested itself partially, though in each part more fully and characteris- tically, elsewhere. It is in the literature of France that we find the most complete exposition of these partial developments. Marot, Hybrid Ronsard, Rabelais, Calvin, Gamier, Montaigne, will School of not altogether make up a Shakespeare, yet of the Poetry. var i ous ingredients which go to make up the greatest of literary productions each of them had shown, before Shakespeare began to write, some complete and remarkable embodiment. It is this fact which gives the French literature of the sixteenth century its especial interest. Italy had almost ceased to be animated by the genius of the middle ages before her literature became in any way perfect in form, and the survival of the classical spirit was so strong there that mediaeval influence was never very potent in the moulding of the national letters. England had lost the Marot and his Contemporaries. 141 mediaeval differentia, owing to religious and political causes, before the Renaissance made its way to her shores. But in France the two currents met, though the earlier had lost most of its force, and, according to the time-honoured parallel, flowed on long together before they coalesced. In the following chapters we shall trace the history of this process, and here we shall trace the first stage of it in reference to French poetry. In the period of which Marot is the representative name, the earlier force was still dominant in externals ; in that of which Ronsard is the exponent, the Greek and Latin element shows itself as, for the moment, all-powerful. Between the rhe'toriqueurs proper, the Chastellains and the Cre'tins and the Molinets on the one hand, and Marot and his contemporaries and disciples on the other, a school of poets, con- siderable at least in numbers, intervened. The chief of these was Jean le Maire des Beiges 1 . He was the nephew of j ea n le Molinet, and his birth at Beiges or Bavia in Hainault, Maire. as well as his literary ancestry and predilections, inclined him to the Burgundian, or, as it was now, the Austrian side. But the strong national feeling which was now beginning to distinguish French-speaking men threw him on the side of the King of Paris, and he was chiefly occupied in his serious literary work on tasks which were wholly French. His Illustrations des Gaules is his principal prose work, and in this he displays a remarkable faculty of writing prose at once picturesque and correct. The titles of his other works (Temple d'Honneur et de Veriu, etc.) still recall the fifteenth century, and the Latinising tradition of Chartier appears strong in him. But at the same time he Latinises with a due regard to the genius of the language, and his work, pedantic and conceited as it frequently is, stands in singular contrast to the work of some of his models. Something not dissimilar, though in this case the rhe'loriqueur influence is less apparent, may be said of Pierre Gringore, whose true title to a place in a history of French 1 De Beiges, though the less usual, is the more accurate form. Ed. Stecher. 3 vols. Louvain, 1882-5. He, with others of this time, disputes the honour of insisting on the importance of alternating masculine and feminine rhymes. He was born in 1475, held posts in the household of the Governors of the Netherlands, was historiographer to Louis XII., and died either in 1524 or in 1548. 142 The Renaissance. [Bk II. literature is, however, derived from his dramatic work, and who will accordingly be mentioned later. Nor had the tradition of Villon, overlaid though it was by the abundance and popularity of formal and allegorising poetry, died out in France. At least two remark- Jehan du able figures, Jehan du Pontalais and Roger de ColleYye, Pontaiais. represent it in the first quarter of the century. The former indeed * owes his place here rather to a theory than to certain information ; for if M. d'Hdricault's notion that Jehan du Pontalais is the author of a work entitled Contreditz du Songecreux be without foundation, Jehan falls back into the number of half mythical Bohemians, bilkers of tavern bills and successful out- witters of the officers of justice, who possess a shadowy personality in the literary history of France. Les Contredilz du Songe- creux ranks among the most remarkable examples of the liberty which was accorded to the press under the reign of Louis XII., a king who inherited some affection for literature from his father, Charles d'Orleans, and a keen perception of the importance of literary co-operation in political work from his ancestor, Philippe le Bel, and his cousin Louis XI. In precision and strikingness of expression Jehan recalls Villon ; in the boldness of his satire on the great and the bitterness of his attacks on the character of women he recalls Antoine de la Salle and Coquillart. A trait illus- trating the former power may be found in the line descriptive of the hen-pecked man's condition Tous ses cinq sens lui fault retraire, while his attacks on the nobility are almost up to the level of Burns Noblesse enrichie Richesse ennoblie Tiennent leurs estatz, Qui n'a noble vie Je vous certifie Noble n'est pas. Roger de ColleVye 2 was a Burgundian, living at the famous and Roger de vinous town of Auxerre, and he has celebrated his Coii6rye. loves, his distress, his amiable tendency to conviviality, in many rondeaux and other poems, sometimes attaining a very 1 See Pastes Francis, \. 532. It is perhaps well to say that M. C. d'Hericault, though a very agreeable as well as a very learned writer, is par- ticularly open to the charge that his geese are swans. -' Ed. C. d'Hericault. Paris, 1855. Ch. II.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 143 high level of excellence. ' Je suis Bon-temps, vous le voyez ' is the second line of one of his irregular ballades, and the nickname ex- presses his general attitude well enough. Mediaeval legacies of alle- gory, however, supply him with more unpleasant personages, Faute d'Argent and Plate-Bourse, for his song, and his mistress, Gilleberte de Beaurepaire, appears to have been anything but continuously kind. Colle'rye has less perhaps of the rhe'toriqueur flavour than any poet of this time before Marot, and his verse is very frequently remarkable for directness and grace of diction. But like most verse of the kind it frequently drops into a conventionality less wearisome but not much less definite than that of the mere alle- gorisers. Jehan Bouchet 1 , a lawyer of Poitiers (not to Minor Pre- be confounded with Guillaume Bouchet, author of the decessors of Se'rees), imitated the rhe'toriqueurs for the most part in arot ' form, and surpassed them in length, excelling indeed in this respect even the long-winded and long-lived poets of the close of the four- teenth century. Bouchet is said to have composed a hundred thousand verses, and even M. d'He'ricault avers that he read two- thirds of the number without discovering more than six quotable lines. Such works of Bouchet as we have examined fully confirm the statement. Still, he was an authority in his way, and had some- thing of a reputation. His fanciful nom de plume ' Le Traverseur des Voies Perilleuses ' is the most picturesque thing he produced, and is not uncharacteristic of the later middle age tradition. Rabe- lais himself, who was a fair critic of poetry when his friends were not concerned, but who was no poet, and was even strikingly deficient in some of the characteristics of the poet, admired and emulated Bouchet in heavy verse ; and a numerously attended school, hardly any of the pupils being worth individual mention, gathered round the lawyer. Charles de Bordigne' is only remarkable for having, in his Le'gende de Pierre Faifeu, united the rhe'toriqueur style with a kind of Villonesque or rather pseudo-Villonesque subject. The title of the chief poems of Symphorien Champier, Le Nefdes Dames Amoureuses, sufficiently indicates his style. But Champier, though by no means a good poet, was a useful and studious man of letters, and did much 1 See Fortes Franfais, vol. i. ad Jin., for the poets mentioned in this paragraph and others of their kind. 144 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. to form the literary c/nacle which gathered at Lyons in the second quarter of the century, and which, both in original composition, in translations of the classics, and in scholarly publication of work both ancient and modern, rendered invaluable service to literature. Gratien du Pont J continued the now very stale mediaeval calumnies on women in his Controverses des Sexes Masculin et Fe'tninin. Eloy d'Amerval, a Picard priest, also fell into mediaeval lines in his Livre de la De'ablen'e, in which the personages of Lucifer and Satan are made the mouthpieces of much social satire. Jean Parmentier, a sailor and a poet, combined his two professions in Les Merveilles de Dieu, a poem including some powerful verse. A vigorous ballade, with the refrain Car France estCymetiereanxAnglois, has preserved the name of Pierre Vachot. But the remaining poets of this time could only find a place in a very extended literary history. Most of them, in the words of one of their number, took continual lessons es ccuvres Cre'iim'ques el Bouchetiques, and some of them succeeded at last in imitating the dulness of Bouchet and the preposterous mannerisms of Cre'tin. Perhaps no equal period in all early French history produced more and at the^same time worse verse than the reign of Louis XII. Fortunately, however, a true poet, if one of some limitations, took up the tradition, and showed what it could do. Marot has sometimes been regarded as the father of modern French poetry, which, unless modern French poetry is limited to La Fontaine and the poets of the eighteenth century, is absolutely false. He is sometimes regarded as the last of mediaeval poets, which, though truer, is false likewise. What he really was can be shown without much difficulty. Cle'ment Marot 2 was a man of more mixed race than was usual Clement at this period, when the provincial distinctions wer Marot. still as a rule maintained with some sharpness. His father, Jean Marot, a poet of merit, was a Norman, but he emigrated 1 He was in his old age conspicuous among the enemies of fitienne Dolet. See Etiennt Dolet, by R. C. Christie. London, 1880. 3 Ed. Jannet et C. d'Hericault. 4 vols. Paris, 2nd ed. 1873. M. d'Hericault has prefixed a much larger study of Marot than is to be found here to his edition of the ' beauties ' of the poet, published by Messrs. Gamier. The late M. Guiffrey published two volumes of a costly and splendid .edition, which his death interrupted. Ch. ii.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 145 to Quercy, and Marot's mother was a native of Cahors, a town which, from its Papal connections, as well as its situation on the borders of Gascony, was specially southern. Cle'ment was born probably at the beginning of 1497, and his father educated him with some pains in things poetical. This, as times went, neces- sitated an admiration of Cretin and such like persons, and the practice of rondeaux, and of other pcetry strict in form and alle- gorical in matter. As it happened, the discipline was a very sound one for Marot, whose natural bent was far too vigorous and too lithe to be stiffened or stunted by it, while it unquestionably supplied wholesome limitations which preserved him from mere slovenly facility. It is evident, too, that he had a sincere and genuine love of things mediaeval, as his devotion to the Roman de la Rose and to Villon's poems, both of which he edited, sufficiently shows. He ' came into France,' an expression of his own, which shows the fragmentary condition of the kingdom even at this late period, when he was about ten years old. His father held an appointment as 'Escripvain' to Anne of Brittany, and accom- panied her husband to Genoa in 1507. The University of Paris, and a short sojourn among the students of law, completed Cle*- ment's education, and he then became a page to a nobleman, thus obtaining a position at court or, at least, the chance of one. It is not known when his earliest attempt at following the Cre'tinic lessons was composed ; but in 1514, being then but a stripling, he presented his Jugement de Minos to Fran9ois de Valois, soon to be king. A translation of the first Eclogue of Virgil had even preceded this. Both poems are well written and versified, but decidedly in the rhetor iqueur style. In 1519, having already re- ceived or assumed the title of ' Facteur ' (poet) to Queen Claude, he became one of the special adherents of Marguerite d'Angoule'me, the famous sister of Francis, from whom, a few years later, we find him in receipt of a pension. He also occupied some post in the household of her husband, the King of Navarre. In 1524 he went to Italy with Francis, was wounded and taken prisoner at Pavia, but returned to France the next year. Marguerite's im- mediate followers were distinguished, some by their adherence to the principles of the Reformation, others by free thought of a still 146 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. more unorthodox description, and Marot soon after his return was accused of heresy and lodged in the Chatelet. He was, however, soon transferred to a place of mitigated restraint, and finally set at liberty. About this time his father died. In 1528 he obtained a post and a pension in the King's own household. He was again in difficulties, but again got out of them, and in 1530 he married. But the next year he was once more in danger on the old charge of heresy, and was again rescued from the chats fourrts by Marguerite. He had already edited the Roman de la Rose, but no regular edition of his own work had appeared. In 1533 came out not merely his edition of Villon, but a collection of his own youthful work under the pretty title Adolescence Ck'mentine. In r 535 the Parliament of Paris for a fourth time molested Marot. Marguerite's influence was now insufficient to protect him, and the poet fled first to Be'arn and then to Ferrara. Here, under the protection of Rene'e de France, he lived and wrote for some time, but the persecution again grew hot. He retired to Venice, but in 1539 obtained permission to return to France. Francis gave him a house in the Faubourg Saint Germain, and here apparently he wrote his famous Psalms, which had an immense popularity ; these the Sorbonne condemned, and Marot once more fled, this time to Geneva. He found this place an uncomfortable sojourn, and crossed the Alps into Piedmont, where, not long afterwards, he died in 1544. Marot's work is sufficiently diverse in form, but the classification of it adopted in the convenient edition of Jannet is perhaps the best, though it neglects chronology. There are some dozen pieces of more or less considerable length, among which may specially be mentioned Le Temple de Cupido, an early work of rhe'ioriqueur character for the most part, in dizains of ten and eight syllables alternately, a Dialogue of two Lovers, an Eclogue to the King ; LEnfer, a vigorous and picturesque description of his imprison- ment in the Chatelet, and some poems bearing a strong Huguenot impression. Then come sixty-five epistles written in couplets for the most part decasyllabic. These include the celebrated Coq-h-fAne, a sort of nonsense-verse, with a satirical tendency, which derives from the mediaeval fatrasie, and was very popular Ch. ii.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 147 and much imitated. Another mediaeval restoration of Marot's, also very popular and also much imitated, was the blason, a descrip- tion, in octosyllables. Twenty-six elegies likewise adopt the couplet, and show, as do the epistles, remarkable power over that form. Fifteen ballades, twenty-two songs in various metres, eighty-two rondeaux, and forty-two songs for music, contain much of Marot's most beautiful work. His easy graceful style escaped the chief danger of these artificial forms, the danger of stiffness and monotony ; while he was able to get out of them as much pathos and melody as any other French poet, except Charles d'Orldans and Villon. Numerous e'lrennes recall the Xenia of Martial, and funeral poems of various lengths and styles follow. Then we have nearly three hundred epigrams, many of them excellent in point and elegance, a certain number of translations, the Psalms, fifty in number, certain prayers, and two versified renderings of Erasmus' Colloquies. It will be seen from this enumeration that the majority of Marot's work is what is now called occasional. No single work of his of a greater length than a few hundred lines exists ; and, after his first attempts in the allegorical kind, almost all his works were either addressed to particular persons, or based upon some event in his life. Marot was immensely popular in his lifetime ; and though after his death a formidable rival arose in Ronsard, the elder poet's fame was sustained by eager disciples. With the discredit of the Ple'iade, in consequence of Malherbe's criticisms, Marot's popularity returned in full measure, and for two centuries he was the one French poet before the classical period who was actually read and admired with genuine admiration by others be- sides professed students of antiquity. Since the great revival of the taste for older literature, which preceded and accompanied the Romantic movement, Marot has scarcely held this pride of place. The Ple'iade on the one hand, the purely mediaeval writers on the other, have pushed him from his stool. But sane criti- cism, which declines to depreciate one thing because it appreciates another, will always have hearty admiration for his urbanity, his genuine wit, his graceful turn of words, and his flashes of pathos and poetry. L 2 148 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. It is, as has been said, one of the commonplaces of the subject to speak of Marot as the father of modern French poetry ; the phrase is, like all such phrases, inaccurate, but, like most such phrases, it contains a certain amount of truth. To the cha- racteristics of the lighter. French poetry, from La Fontaine to Beranger, which has always been more popular both at home and abroad than the more ambitious and serious efforts of French poets, Marot does in some sort stand in a parental relation. He retained the sprightliness and sly fun of the Fabliau-writers, while he softened their crudity of expression, he exchanged clumsiness and horse-play for the play of wit, and he emphasised fully in the language the two characteristics which have never failed to dis- tinguish it since, elegance and urbanity. His style is somewhat pedestrian, though on occasion he can write with exquisite ten- derness, and with the most delicate suggestiveness of expression. But as a rule he does not go deep ; ease and grace, not passion or lofty flights, are his strong points. Representing, as he did, the reaction from the stiff forms and clumsily classical language of the rh/loriqueurs, it was not likely that he should exhibit the ten- dency of his own age to classical culture and imitation very strongly. He and his school were thus regarded by their immediate successors of the Pldiade as rustic and uncouth singers, for the most part very unjustly. But still Marot's work was of less general and far-reaching importance than that of Ronsard. He brought out the best aspect of the older French literature, and cleared away some disfiguring encumbrances from it, but he imported nothing new. It would hardly be unjust to say that, given the difference of a century in point of ordinary progress, Charles d'Orle'ans is Marot's equal in elegance and grace, and his superior in sentiment, while Marot is not comparable to Villon in passion or in humour. His limitation, and at the same time his great merit, was that he was a typical Frenchman. A famous epigram, applied to another person two centuries later, might be applied with very little difficulty or alteration to Marot. He had more than anybody else of his time the literary characteristics which the ordinary literary Frenchman has. We constantly meet in the history of literature this contrast between the men who are simply shining examples of the ordinary ch. li.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 149 type, and men who cross and blend that type with new characters and excellences. Unquestionably the latter are the greater, but the former cannot on any equitable scheme miss their reward. It must be added that the positive merit of much of Marot's work is great, though, as a rule, his longer pieces are very inferior to his shorter. Many of the epigrams are admirable ; the Psalms, which have been unjustly depreciated of late years by French critics, have a sober and solemn music, which is almost peculiar to the French devotional poetry of that age ; the satirical ballade of Frere Lubin is among the very best things of its kind ; while as much may be said of the rondeaux ' Dedans Paris ' in the lighter style, and ' En la Baisant ' in the graver. Perhaps the famous line Un doux nenny avec un doux sourire, supposed to have been addressed to the Queen of Navarre, expresses Marot's poetical powers as well as anything else, showing as it does grace of language, tender and elegant sentiment, and supple- ness, ease, and fluency of style. Marot formed a very considerable school, some of whom directly imitated his mannerisms, and composed blazons l and The School Coq-a-l'Ane in emulation of their master and of each of Marot. other, while others contented themselves with displaying the same general characteristics, and setting the same poetical ideals before them. Among the idlest, but busiest literary quarrels of the cen- tury, a century fertile in such things, was that between Marot and a certain insignificant person named Franois Sagon, a belated rheloriqueur ; who found some other rhymers of the same kind to support him. One of Marot's best things, an answer of which his servant, Fripelipes, is supposed to be the spokesman, came of the quarrel ; but of the other contributions, not merely of the prin- cipals, but of their followers, the Marotiques and Sagontiques, nothing survives in general memory, or deserves to survive. Of Marot's disciples, one, Mellin de Saint Gelais, deserves separate mention, the others may be despatched in passing. Victor Brodeau, 1 The blason (description) was a child of the mediaeval dit. Marot's examples, Le beau Tetin and Le laid Tetin, were copied ad infuiitum. The first is pane- gyric, the secoud abuse. 15 Tlie Renaissance, [Bk. H. who, like his master, held places in the courts both of Marguerite and her brother, wrote not merely a devotional work, Les Louanges de Jesus Christ noire Seigneur y which fairly illustrates the devotional side of the Navarrese literary coterie, but also epigrams and ron- deaux of no small merit. JLtienne Dolet, better known both as a scholar and translator, and as the publisher of Marot and (surrep- titiously) of Rabelais, composed towards the end of his life poems in French, the principal of which was taken in title and idea from Marot's Enfer, and which, though very unequal, have passages of some poetical power. Marguerite herself has left a considerable collection of poems of the most diverse kind and merit, the title of which, Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses 1 , rs perhaps not the worst thing about them. Farces, mysteries, religious poems, such as Le Triomphe de V Agneau, and Le Miroir de I'Ame Pe'cheresse, with purely secular pieces on divers subjects, make up these curious volumes. Not a few of the poems display the same nobility of tone and stately sonorousness of verse, which has been and will be noticed as a characteristic of the serious poetry of the age, and which reached its climax in Du Bartas, D'Aubigne*, and the choruses of Gamier and Montchrestien. Bonaventure des PeViers, an admirable prose writer, was a poet, though not a very strong one. Fran9ois Habert, ' Le Banni de Liesse,' must not be confounded with Philippe Habert, author of a remarkable Temple de la Mort in the next century. Gilles Corrozet, author of fables in verse, who, like many other literary men of the time, \vas a printer and publisher as well, Jacques Gohorry, a pleasant song writer, Gilles d'Aubigny, Jacques Pelletier, Etienne For- cadel, deserve at least to be named. Of more importance were Hugues Salel, Charles Fontaine, Antoine He'roet, Maurice Sceve. All these were members of the Lyonnese literary coterie, and in connection with this Louise Labe* also comes in. Salel, famous as the first French translator of the Iliad, or rather of Books I-XII thereof, distinguished himself as a writer of blasons in imitation of Marot, as well as by composing many small poems of the occa- sional kind. Charles Fontaine exhibited the fancy of the time for conceits in the entitling of books by denominating his poems Ruis- 1 Ed. Frank. 4 vols. Paris, 1873-1874. Additions made (Paris, Ch. 11.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 151 seaux de la Fontaine, and was one of the chief champions on Marot's side in the quarrel with Sagon, while he afterwards defended the style Marotique against Du Bellay's announcement of the programme of the Ple'iade. But perhaps he would hardly deserve much re- membrance, save for a charming little poem to his new-born son, which M. Asselineau has made accessible to everybody in Crepet's Poetes Franfais ] . He also figures in a literary tournament very characteristic of the age. La Borderie, another disciple of Marot, had written a poem entitled L'Amye de Cour, which defended libertinism, or at least worldly-mindedness in love, in reply to the Parfaile Amye of Antoine He"roet, which exhibits very well a certain aspect of the half-amorous, half-mystical sentiment of the day. Fontaine rejoined in a Contr'Amye de Cour. Maurice Sceve is also a typical personage. He was, it may be said, the head of the Lyonnese school, and was esteemed all over France. He was excepted by the irreverent champions of the Ple'iade from the general ridicule which they poured on their predecessors, and was surrounded by a special body of feminine devotees and followers, including his kinswomen Claudine and Sibylle Sceve, Jeanne Gaillarde, and above all Louise Labe*. Sceve's poetical work is strongly tinged with classical affectation and Platonic mysticism ; and his chief poem, DeVObjetde la plus haute Vertu, consists of some four hundred and fifty dizains written in what in England and later has been, not very happily, called a metaphysical style. Last of all comes the just-mentioned Louise Labe", ' La belle Cordiere,' one of the chief ornaments of Lyons, and the most important French poetess of the sixteenth century. Louise was younger, and wrote later than most of the authors just mentioned, and in some respects she belongs to the school of Ronsard, like her supposed lover, Olivier de Magny. But the Lyons school was essentially Marotique, and much of the style of the elder master is observable in the writings of Louise 2 . She has left a prose Dialogue d' Amour el de Folie, three elegies, and a certain number of sonnets. Her poems are perhaps the most genuinely passionate of the time and country, and many of the sonnets are extremely beautiful. The language is on the whole simple and elegant, without the over-classicism of the Ple'iade, or 1 i. 651. Ed. Truss. Paris, 1871. 152 the Renaissance* \v&. n. the obscurity of her master Sceve. Strangely enough the poems of this young Lyonnese lady have in many places a singular approach to the ring of Shakespeare's sonnets and minor works, and that not merely by virtue of the general resemblance common to all the love poetry of the age, but in some very definite traits. Her surname of ' La belle Cordiere ' came from her marriage with a rich merchant, Ennemond Perrin by name, who was by trade a ropemaker. Her poems have had their full share of the ad- vantages of reprints, which have of late years fallen to the lot of sixteenth-century authors in France. Mellin de Saint-Gelais l , the last to be mentioned but the most Meilin de important of the school of Marpt, has been very Saint-Gelais. variously judged. The mere fact that he was pro- bably the introducer of the sonnet into France (the counter claim of Pontus de Tyard seems to be unfounded) would suffice to give him a considerable position in the history of letters. But Mellin's claims by no means rest upon this achievement. He was a man of higher position than most of the other poets of the time, being the reputed son of Octavien de Saint-Gelais, and himself enjoying a good deal of royal favour. In his old age, as the representative of the school of Marot, he had to bear the brunt of the Pl&ade onslaught, and knew how to defend him- self, so that a truce was made. He was born in 1487, and died in 1558. His name is also spelt Merlin, and even Melusin, the Saint-Gelais boasting descent from the Lusignans, and thus from the famous fairy heroine Melusine. In his youth he spent a good deal of time in Italy, at the Universities of Bologna and Padua. On returning to France, he was at once received into favour at court, and having taken orders, obtained various benefices and appointments which assured his fortune. It is remarkable that though he violently opposed Ronsard's rising favour at court, both the Prince of Poets and Du Bellay completely forgave him, and pay him very considerable compliments, the latter praising his ' vers emmielle's,' the former speaking, even after his death, of his proficiency in the combined arts of music and poetry. Saint-Gelais was a good musician, and an affecting story 1 Ed. Blanchcmain, 3 vols. Paris, 1873. Ch. II.] Marot and his Contemporaries. 153 is told of his swan-song, for which, as for other anecdotes, there is no space here. His work, though not inconsiderable in volume, is, even more than that of Marot and other poets of the time and school, composed for the most part of very short pieces, epigrams, rondeaux, dizains, huitains, etc. These pieces display more merit than most recent critics have been disposed to- allow to them. The style is fluent and graceful, free from puns and other faults of taste common at the time. The epigrams are frequently pointed, and well expressed, and the complimentary verse is often skilful and well turned. Mellin de Saint -Gelais is certainly not a poet of the highest order, but as a court singer and a skilful master of language he deserves a place among his earlier contem- poraries only second to that of Marot. Something of the same sort may be said of all the writers in verse of the first half of the century. Their importance is chiefly relative. Few of their works are conceived or executed on a scale sufficient to entitle them to the rank of great poets, and, saving always Marot, the excellence even of the trifling compositions to which they confined themselves is very unequal and intermittent. But all are evidences of a general diffusion of the literary spirit among the people of France, and most of them in their way, and according to their powers, helped in perfecting the character of French as a literary instrument. The advance which the language experienced in this respect is perhaps nowhere better shown than in the miscellaneous and popular poetry of the time, Miscellanc- a vast collection of which has been made accessible ous verse. by the reprinting of rare or unique printed originals Anciennes in the thirteen volumes of MM. de Montaiglon and i*o2, and was thus two years older than her brother II 2 164 The Renaissance. [Bk. II. title of Les Marguerites de la Marguerite^ she produced many other works, as well as the Heptameron which was not given to the world until after her death (1558). The House of Valois was by no means destitute of literary talent. But that which seems most likely to be the Queen's genuine work hardly corresponds with the remarkable power shown in the Heptameron. On the other hand, Marguerite for years maintained a literary court, in which all the most celebrated men of the time, notably Marot and Bonaven- ture des Pdriers, held places. If it were allowable to decide literary questions simply by considerations of probability, there could be little hesitation in assigning the entire Heptameron to Des Pdriers himself, and then its unfinished condition would be intelligible enough. The general opinion of critics, however, is that it was probably the result of the joint work of the Queen, of Des Pdriers, and of a good many other men, and probably some women, of letters. The idea and plan of the work are avowedly borrowed from Boccaccio, but the thing is worked out with so much origin- ality that it becomes nothing so little as an imitation. A company of ladies and gentlemen returning from Cauterets are detained by bad weather in an out-of-the-way corner of the Pyrenees, and beguile the time by telling stories. The interludes, however, in which the tale-tellers are brought on the stage in person, are more circumstantial than those of the Decameron, and the individual characters are much more fully worked out. Indeed, the mere setting of the book, independently of its seventy-two stories (for the eighth day is begun), makes a very interesting tale, exhibiting not merely those characteristics of the time and its society which Francis I. She married first the Duke d'Alencon, then Henri d'Albret King of Navarre. Her private character has been most unjustly attacked. She died in 1549. Marguerite is spoken of by four surnames : de Valois from her family; d'Angouleme from her father's title ; d'Alen9on from her first husband's ; and de Navarre from that of her second. In literature, to distinguish her from her great-niece, the first wife of Henri IV., Marguerite d'Angouleme is the term most commonly used. I ought perhaps to add that my friend Mr. Tilley, who has made a special study of this period, takes an exactly opposite view to mine in respect of the styles of Des Peiiers and Marguerite. I cannot alter my own opinion, which has only been confirmed by frequent readings; but I wish to give full weight to his. Ch. in.] Rabelais and his Followers. 165 have been noticed in connection with the Conies et Joyeux Devis, but, in addition, a certain religiosity in which that time and society were also by no means deficient, though it existed side by side with freethinking of a daring kind and with unbridled licentiousness. The head of the party, Dame Oisille, is the chief representative of this religious spirit, though all the party are more or less penetrated by it. The subjects of the tales do not differ much from those of Boccaccio, though they are, as a rule, occupied with a higher class of society. The best of them are animated by the same spirit of refined voluptuousness which animates so much of the writing and art of the time, and which may indeed be said to be its chief feature. But this spirit has seldom been presented in a' light so attractive as that which it bears in the Heptameron. The influence of Rabelais on the one hand, of the Heptameron on the other, is observable in almost all the work of the same kind which the second half of the sixteenth century produced. The fantastic buffoonery and the indiscriminate prodigality of learning, which were to the outward eye the distinguishing characteristics of Panlagruel, found however more imitators than the poetical sentiment of the Heptameron. The earliest of the suc- r r> i i XT i j T- -i i Noel du Fail, cessors of Rabelais was Noel du Fail, a gentleman and magistrate of Britanny, who, five years before the master's death, produced two little books, Propos Rustiques 1 and Baliver- nen'es, which depict rural life and its incidents with a good deal of vividness and colour. The imitation of Rabelais is very per- ceptible, and sometimes a little irritating, but the work on the whole has merit, and abounds in curious local traits. The Propos Rusliques, too, are interesting because they underwent a singular travesty in the next century, and appeared under a new and misleading title. Much later, near forty years afterwards in fact, Du Fail produced the Contes d'Eutrapel 2 , which are rather critical and satirical dialogues than tales. There is a good deal of dry humour in them. The provinciality to be noticed in Du Fail was still a feature of French literature ; and in this particular 1 Ed. La Uorclerie. Paris, 1878. The bibliography of this book is very curious. * Ed. Hippeau. 2 vols. Paris, 1875. i66 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. department it long continued to be* prominent, perhaps owing to the example of Rabelais, who, wide as is his range, frequently takes pleasure in mixing up petty local matters with his other materials. Thus, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Guillaume Bouchet (to be carefully distinguished from Jean Bouchet, the poet of the early sixteenth century) wrote a large collection of Screes l (Soirees), containing gossip on a great variety of subjects, mingled with details of Angevin manners ; and Tabourot des Accords composed his Escraignes Dijonnaises, Synathrisie, Les Bigarrures and Les Touches. Les Matine'es and Les Apres-Dinees" 1 were produced by a person, the Seigneur de Cholieres, of whom little else is known. Cholieres is a bad writer, and a commonplace if not stupid thinker ; but he tells some quaint stories, and his book shows us the deep hold which the example of Rabelais had given to the practice of discussing grave subjects in a light tone. There remain two books of sufficient importance to be treated Apologie separately. The first of these is the Apologie pour pour He'rodote* (1566) of the scholar Henri Estienne. In HSrodote. lne g u j se o f a ser i ous defence of Herodotus from the charges of untrustworthiness and invention frequently brought against him Estienne indulges in an elaborate indictment against his own and recent times, especially against the Roman Catholic clergy. Much of his book is taken from Rabelais, or from the Heptameron ; much from the preachers of the fifteenth century. Its literary merit has been a good deal exaggerated, and its extreme desultori- ness and absence of coherence make it tedious to read for any length of time, but it is in a way amusing enough. Much later (1610) the last it may almost be said the first echo of the genuine Moyen de spirit of Rabelais was sounded in the Moyen de Par- Parvenir. venir * of Be'roalde de Verville. This eccentric work is perhaps the most perfect example of a fairasie in existence. In the guise of guests at a banquet the author brings in man)r 1 Ed. Roybet. Paris. 1 Ed. Tricotel. 2 vols. Paris, 1879. * Ed. Kistelhuber. 2 vols. Paris, 1879. 4 Ed. Jacob. Paris, 1868. It is possibly not Beroalde's. Ch. in.] Rabelais and his Folloivers. 167 celebrated persons of the day and of antiquity, and makes them talk from pillar to post in the strangest possible fashion. The licence of language and anecdote which Rabelais had permitted himself is equalled and exceeded ; but many of the tales are told with consummate art, and, in the midst of the ribaldry and buf- foonery, remarks of no small shrewdness are constantly dropped as if by accident. There seems to have been at the time something not unlike a serious idea that the book was made up from unpublished papers of Rabelais himself. All external con- siderations make this in the highest degree unlikely, and the resemblances are obviously those of imitation rather than of identical authorship. But undoubtedly nothing else of the kind comes so near to the character, if not the excellence, of Garganfua and Pantagruel. CHAPTER IV. THE PLEIADE. V ALMOST exactly at the middle of the sixteenth century a move- ment took place in French literature which has no parallel in literary history, except the similar movement which took place, also in France, three centuries later. The movement and its chief promoters are indifferently known in literature by the name of the Pleiades term applied by the classical affectation of the time to the group of seven men J , Ronsard. Du Bellay, Belleau, jBart Eaujat, Todejle. and Pontus de Tvard who were most active in promoting it, and who banded themselves together in a strict league or colcrie for the attainment of their purposes. These purposes were the Deduction of the French language and French literary forms to a state more comparable, as they thought, to that of the two great classical tongues. They had no intention (though such an intention has been falsely attributed to them both at the time and since) of defacing or destroying their mother- tongue. On the contrary, they were animated by the sincerest and, for the most part, the most intelligent love for it. But the intense admiration of the severe beauties of classical literature, which was the dominant literary note of the Renaissance, translated itself in their active minds into a determination to make, if it were possible, French itself more able to emulate the triunvghs of Greek and of Latin. This desire, even if it had borne no fruit, 1 The list is sometimes given rather differently ; instead of Jodelle and Ponttis de Tyard, Scevole de Sainte-Maithe and Muretus are substituted. But the enumeration in the text is the accepted one. The Pleiade. 169 would have honourably distinguished the French Renaissance from the Italian and German forms of the movement. In _. Character Italy the humanjsts. for the most part, contented them- andEffectsof selves with practice in the Latin tongue, and in the Pleiade Germany they did so almost wholly. But no sooner had the literature of antiquity taken root in France than it was made to bear novas frondes el non sua poma of vernacular literature. There were some absurdities committed by the Pkfiade no doubt, as there always are in enthusiastic crusades of any kind : but it must never be forgotten that they had a solid basis of philological truth to go upon. French, after all, despite a strong Teutonic admixture, was a Latin tongue, and recurrence to Latin, and to the still more majestic and fertile language which had had so much to do in shaping the literary Latin dialect, was natural and germane to its character. In point of fact, the Pleiade made modern French made it, we may say, twice over ; for not only did its original work he language_in a m_anner_ so durable that, Jhe J&- .. action of the next century could not wholly undo it, but it was mainly study of the Ple'iade that armed the great masters of the Romantic movement, the men of 1830, in their revolt against the cramping rules and impoverished vocabulary of the eighteenth century. The effect of the change indeed was far too universal for it to be possible for any Malherbe or any Boileau to overthrow it. The whole literature of the nation, at a time when it was wonder- fully abundant and vigorous, ' Ronsardised ' for nearly fifty years, and such practice at such a time never fails to leave its mark. The actual details of the movement cannot better be given than by going through the list of its chief participators. Pierre de Ronsard 1 , Prince of_Poets 2 , was born at La Poisson- niere, in the Vendomois, or, as it was then more often called, the Gatinais, on the banks of the river Loir, in 1524. He died in his own country in the year 1585, acknowledged, not merely in France but out of it, as the leader of living poets. His early life, however, was rather that of a man of action than of a poet, and one of the most studious of poets. 1 Ed. Blanchemain. 8 vols. Paris, 1857-67. 8 The term usually applied to him by contemporaries. 170 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. His father was an old courtier and servant of Francis I., whose companion in captivity he had been, and Ronsard entered upon court life when he was a boy of ten years old. He visited Scot- land and England in the suite of French ambassadors, and re- mained for some considerable time in Great Britain. He was also attached to embassies in Flanders, Holland, and Germany. But before he was of age he fell ill, and though he recovered, it was at the cost of permanent deafness, which incapacitated him for the public service. He threw himself on literature for a consolation, and under the direction of Daurat, a scholar of renown, studied for years at the College Coqueret. Here Du Bellay, Belleau, BaVf, were his fellow-students, and the four with their master, with tienne Jodelle, and with Pontus de Tyard, afterwards bishop of Chalon, formed, as has been said, the Ple'iade according to the most orthodox computation. The idea conceived and carried out in these studious years (by Ronsard himself and Du Bellay beyond all doubt in the first place) was the reformation of French lan- guage and French literature by study and invtation of the ancients. In 1549 the manifesto of the society issued, in the The Defense - J et Iilustra- shape of DuBdjav's Defense el Illustration de la Langue tion de la FranfaTse, and in 1550 the first practical illustration Langue Q p ^ me t no( j was g| ven by Ronsard's Odes. The Francaise. principles of the Defense et Illustration may be thus summarised. The author holds that the current forms of literature, dizains, rondeaus, etc., are altogether too facile and easy, that the language used is too pedestrian, the treatment wanting in gravity and art. He would have Odes of the Horatian kind take the place of Chansons, the sonnet, non moms docle que plaisanlc invention Ilalienne, of dizains and huitains, regular tragedy and comedy of moralities and farces, regular satires of Fatrasies and Coq-a-1'ane. He takes particular pains to demonstrate the contrary proposition to Wordsworth's, and to prove that merely natural and ordinary language is not sufficient for him who in poesy wishes to produce work deserving of immortality. He ridicules the mediaeval affectations and conceits of some of the writers of his time, who gave themselves such names as 'Le Banni de Liesse,' ' Le Traverseur des Voies Perilleuses/ etc. He speaks, indeed, not too respectfully Ch. iv.] The Pleiade. 171 of mediaeval literature generally, and uses language which probably suggested Gabriel Harvey's depreciatory remarks about the Fairy Queen forty years later. In much of this there is exaggeration, and in much more of it mistake. By turning their backs on the middle ages though indeed they were not able to do it thoroughly the Ple'iade lost almost as much in subject and_jpj.rit as they gained in language and_forrnal excellence. The laudation of the sonnet, while the ballade and chant royal, things of similar nature and of hardly less capacity, are denounced as e'piceries, savours of a rather Philistine preference for mere novelty and foreign fashions. But, as has been already pointed out, Du Bellay was right in the _main, and it must especially be insisted on that his aim_ was to strengthen and .reform, not to alterio^ misguide, the^French lan- guage. The peroration of the book in a highly rhetorical style speaks of the writer and his readers as having ' e'chappe du milieu des Grecs et par les escadrons Remains pour entrer jusqu'au sein de la tant de'sire'e France.' That is to say, the innovators are to carry off what spoils they can from Greece and Rome, but it is to be for the enrichment and benefit of the French tongue. Frpnrhmpn- ftra tn_write French,, not Latin and. but they are to write it not merely in a conversational way, content as Du Bellay says somewhere else, ' n'avoir dit rien qui vaille aux neuf premiers vers, pourvu qu'au dixieme il y ait le petit mot pour rire.' They are to accustom themselves to long and weary studies, ' car ce sont les ailes dont les escripts des hommes volent au ciel,' to imitate good authors._not merely in__Greek and Latin, but in Italian, Spanish, or any other tongue where they may be found. Such was the, manifesto pf^the Ple'iade^; and no one who ~~has studied French literature and French character, who knows the special tendency of the nation to drop from time to time into a sterile self-admiration, and an easy confidence that it is the all- sufficient wonder of the world, can doubt its wisdom. Certainly, whatever may be thought of it in the abstract, it was justified of its children. The first of these was, as has been said, Ronsard's Odes, published in i.gj.^o. These he followed up, in 1552, by Les Amours de Cassandre, in 1553 by a volume of Hymnes, as well^as by Le Bocage Royal, Les Amours de Marie, sonnets, etc., all of which 172 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. were, in 1560, republished in a collected edition of four volumes. From the first Ronsard had been a very popular poet at court, where, according to a well-known anecdote, Marguerite de Savoie, the second of the Valois Marguerites, snatched his first volume from Mellin de Saint Gelais, who was reading it in a designed tone of burlesque, and reading it herself to her brother Henry II. and the court, obtained a verdict at once for the young poet. The accession of Charles IX. brought Ronsard still more into favour, and during the next ten years he produced many courtly poems of the occasional kind, besides others to suit his own pleasure. In 1572 the first part of his most ambitious, but perhaps least suc- cessful, work appeared. This was the Franciade, a dull epic. At the death of Charles, Ronsard retired to his native province, where he had an abbacy, Croix-Val. Here all his poetical powers re- turned, and in his last Amours, Sonnets to He'Iene, and other pieces, some of his very best work is to be found. The year before his death he produced an edition of his works much altered, but by no means invariably improved. There are few poets to whose personal merits there is more unanimity, of trustworthy testimony than there i&.to those of Ron- 'sard. From the time of his betaking himself to literary work, he seems to have been wholly given to study, and to the contempla- tion of natural beauty. Although jealous of his own great repu- tation, and liable to be nettled when it was imperilled, as it was by Du Bartas, he was as a rule singularly placable in literary quarrels. The story of his quarrelling with Rabelais is late, unsupported, and to all appearance fabulous ; while, on the other hand, the passages which have been supposed to reflect on the Pleiade in the writings of Rabelais can, for chronological reasons, by no possibility refer to Ronsard or his friends. Lastly, the poet appears to have had no thought of writing for gain, and though, like all his contemporaries, he did not scruple to solicit favours from the king, he was in no way importunate or servile. But while his personal character, as well as the extraordinary esteem in which he was held by all his contemporaries, has never been seriously contested, critical estimates of his literary work have strangely varied. To his own age he was the ' Prinrp^nf PQgts.' Ch. iv.] The Pleiads. 173 His successor, Malherbe. behaved to him as certain popes are ^ reported to have behaved to their predecessors, excommunicating him in the literary sense. Boileau. with his usual ignorance of French literature before his own day, described his work in lines which French schoolboys long learnt by heart, and which are as false in fact as they are imbecile in criticism. JFenelon was almost the only sincere partisan he had for two centuries. But when the Romantic movement began Ronsard was for a while almost restored to the position he held in his lifetime, and his works became a kind of Bible to the disciples of Sainte-Beuve and the followers of Hugo. The strong mediaeval revival which accompanied the movement was however unfavourable to Ronsard, and he has again sunk, though not very low, in the general estima- tion of French critics. The history is curious, and as a literary phenomenon instructive. But it is not difficult for an impartial judge to place Ronsard in his true position. His main defects are- two : he was too much a poet of malice prepense, and yet he wrote on the whole too fluently. The mass of his work is great, and it is not always, nor perhaps very often, animated by those unmistakable and universal poetical touches which in the long run will alone suffice to induce posterity to keep a writer on its shelf of great poets. Yet these touches are by no means wanting in Ronsard. Many of his sonnets, especially the famous and universally admired * Quand vous serez bienvieille,' not a few of his odes, especially the equally Tamous ' Mignonne, allons voir si la rose/ rank among those poems of which it can only be said that they could not be better, and detached passages innumerable deserve hardly lower praise. But it is when Ronsard is viewed from the standpoint of a thoroughly instructed historical criticism that his real greatness appears. It is when we look at the poets that came before him and at those who , came after him that we see the immense benefit he conferred upon his successors, and upon the language which those successors illustrated. The result of his classical studies was little less than the introduction of an entirely new rhythm into French poetry : let it be observed that a new jhythm, and not merely new metre, is what is spoken of. Since the disuse of the half-inarticulate but sweet rhythmical varieties of the mediaeval pastourelles and romances 174 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. a great monotony had come upon French poetry. The fault of the artificial forms of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries, the epiceries of Du Bellay's scornful allusion, was that they induced their writers to concentrate their attention on the_arrange- ment of the rhymes and stanzas, to the_neglect of_the individual line, the rhythm of which was but too frequently lame, stiff, and "prosaic in the extreme. With Marot and Saint 'Gelais the introduc- tion of less formal patterns, dizains, huitains, etc., had had the ad- ditional drawback of making the individual verse even more prosaic and pedestrian, though it may be somewhat less stiff. Now the line is, after all, the unit of jjoetry, and all reform must start with it. It is the great glory of Ronsard that his reform did so start. From his time French poetry reads quite differently. Perhaps this was due to his study of the HorajjajL quantity-metres, where every sellable has to give its quota to the effect of the line as well as every line its quota to the effect of the stanza. But whether it was this or "something else, the effect is indisputable. To this must be added a liberal, though in Ronsard's own case not excessive, importation of new words from Greek and Latin, a bold and striking mode of expression, the retention of many picturesque old words which the senseless folly of the seventeenth-century reformers banished, and, above all, a great indulgence in diminutives, which give a most charming effect to the lighter verse of Ronsard and his friends, and which also were cut off by the indiscriminate and 'desperate hook' of Malherbe and Boileau. So great were the formal^changes anjL improvements thus introduced, that French poetry takes a new colour from ths^age of Ronsard, a coJm^vvhich.Jn-ils moments ofhealth it has ever since displayed. _ Next to Ronsard, and perhaps above him, if uniform excellence rather than bulk and range of work is considered, ranks Toachim du Bellay *. He was a connection, though it does not Du Bellay. . seem quite clear what connection, of the Cardinal du Bellay to whom Rabelais was so long attached, and whose house included otherHnTustrious members. Probably he was a cousin of the cardinal and of his two brothers the memoir writers. His youth was rendered troublesome by illness and law difficulties, but * Ed. Marty-La veaux. 2 vols. Paris, 1866-7. Ch iv.] The Plt'iade. 175 at last he was able with Ronsard, whose junior he was by a little, to give himself up to study under Daurat. His prose manifesto has already been dealt with, and almost immediately afterwards he in some sort anticipated Ronsard's poetical carrying out of his principles by a volume of Sonnets to Olive, the anagram of a certain Mademoiselle de Viole. The sonnet, however, was not such an absolute novelty as the gde. haying been introduced^ already by Mellin de Saint Gelais. Shortly afterwards he went to Italy with the Cardinal du Bellay, a proceeding which did not bring him good luck. The intriguing diplomacy of the papal court displeased him, and he soon lost his cousin's favour. A volume of sonnets entitled Regrets, full of vigour and poetry, dates from this time. But Du Bellay, deprived of the protection of the most powerful member of his family, again fell into difficulties, and finally died in 1560 at the age of thirty-five. His Roman sojourn has given birth to perhaps the finest of his works, Les Antiqutl/s de Rome, Englished by Spenser under the slightly altered title of ' The^ Ruins of Rome.' Du Bellay's works are not extensive, and indeed they could hardly be so, considering the shortness of his life and the interruptions of business and study which even that short life underwent. But he is undoubtedly the member of the group whose work keeps at the highest level. Nor is his excellence limited to one or two tones. For grace and simplicity his. Vanneur, Ins Epitaphe d'un Chat, and several others of his Jeux Rustiques challenge comparison. He had a strong vein of satire, which he showed in denouncing fawning poetasters as well as the corrupt and intriguing hangers on of the Papal court. His sonnets to Olive have the finest flavour of the peculiarly cultivated and graceful voluptuousness which has been noted as one of the dis- tinguishing marks of the French Renaissance. His Anliguiie's de _R.ome exhibit even more strongly another of those distinguishing marks, the melancholy sense of death, destruction, and nothingness; indeed, as the Heptameron is the typical prose work of this period, so Du Bellay's poems may be taken as its typical poetry. He has been called the AopJIo. of the Pleiade, but he should with justice be called its Mercury as well, for, as he was perhaps its best poet, so he was certainly its best prose writer. Jt is unlucky that he 176 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. was less favoured by fate and fortune than any other of the greater writers of the century. The position of best poet of the Ple*iade Ronsard. the greatest, having mingled a good deal of alloy with his gold has been some- times disputed for Re'mv Belleau 1 . It is certain that :^B^M^rfB|^BB5^r his ' Avril' holds with Du Bellay's ' Vanneur' and Ron- sard's already-mentioned ' Quand vous serez bien vieille/ the rank of the best known and best liked poems of the school. Belleau, whose life was extremely uneventful, was born at Nogent-le-Rotrou in 1528, and was attached during nearly the whole of his life to the household of Rdmy de Lorraine, Marquis d'Elbeuf, and his son Charles, Due d'Elbeuf, whose education he superintended and in whose house he spent his days. He died in 1577 and received an elaborate funeral, being carried to the grave by his brother stars, Ronsard and Bai'f, and by two of the younger disciples of the Ple*iade, Desportes and Jamyn. Belleau was the chief purely . descriptive poet arid the chief pqgticaLtranslator of the Plfoade. He began by a collection of poems entitled Peiites Inventions (short descriptive pieces), and by a translation of Anacreon. In 1565 a more ambitious work, the Bergerie, made its appearance. This is a mixture of prose and poetry, describirjcr country yfe anrl its attractions. It is in this that the famous 1 Ayril ' occurs, and there are other detached pieces not much inferior. In 1566 another rather curiously conceived work made its appearance, the Amours et Nouv"jft Changes de Pierres Pr/cieuses. _ As a whole this is perhaps his best book. Besides these, Belleau also trans- lated or paraphrased the Phenomena of Aratus, Ecdesiasles, and the Song of Solomon. He deserves to rank with not a few poets who have often attained a fair secondary position in the art, and whose special faculty disposes them to patient and ingenious description in more or less poetical verse. The stately and at the same time flexible rhythm, the brilliant and varied vocabulary which Jhe Pleiade used7 lent themselves not ill to this task, and Belleau's talent, learning, and industry enabled him to give an unusually equable charm to his work. But he is altogether too occasional, too void of the higher poetical sentiment, and too 1 Ed. Gouverneur. 3 vols. Paris, 1866. Ch. iv.} The Pleiade. 177 limited in range, to be ranked with Ronsard or with Du Bellay. His peculiar quality of patient labour stood him in good stead in composing a Macaronic poem on the Huguenots, which is by no means without value. TeanAntoinedeI3aYf 1 was a man of more varied talent than 'BeneaiiT and his history and personality are more interesting. He was the natural son of Lazare de Bai'f, French_a.mbajsador at Venice, and of a noble lady of that city. Marriage was impossible, for Lazare de Bai'f, who was him- self a man of letters, was in orders ; but he did his best for his son, and in 1547, when he was still very young, left him a considerable fortune. Bai'f was, except Todelle. the youngest member of the_ Pleiade, but he early distinguished himself by his expertness in "the classical languages. He began in French, like the majority of his school, with a collection of sonnets and other pieces, entitled Les Amours de Meline^ and he followed them up with the Amours de Francine. Francine is said to have had over her predecessor the advantage or disadvantage of existing. Bai'f then turned to the new theatre, which his comrade Jodelle had introduced, and trans- lated or adapted several plays of Plautus, Terence, and Sophocles, but these will be noticed elsewhere. He returned to poetry proper in Les Passe-Temps, a poetical miscellany of merit. Lastly, in 1581, appeared a curious work, entitled Les Jlfimes^ composed of_octo- syllabic dizains, half-moral, half-satirical in tone and subject. Bai'f, who was thought by some of his contemporaries to write even Ijetter in Latin than in French, was a chief defender of the often- mooted though preposterous plan of jidjugtjno; modern languages to _the__e_xaci jj iHej;rg8 .jof the ancients. This idea, which some- what later seduced no less a man than Spenser for a time, and with him many of the brightest wits in England, is perhaps almost more hopeless in French than in our own tongue, owing to the omnipotence of accent and the habit of slurring almost all the syllables of a word except one. But it was frequently entertained at different limes through the century, and is said by Agrippa d'Aubigne' to have been started as early as 1530 by a certain 1 Edited (5 vols., Paris, 1885-90) in the complete Pltiadc of Lemerre. In. selection by Beci de Fouquieies. Paris, 1874. K 178 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. Mousset, of whom there is no other trace. Baif, who was also a spelling reformer, wrote a good deal of verse in the metres he advocated, but with no greater success than the other adventurous persons who have attempted the same tour deforce. He is also said to have conceived the idea of an Academy, and to have in many other ways shown himself an active and ardent reformer of letters. It is for this alertness of spirit and general proficiency in literary craftsman- ship that Bai'f is memorable, rather than for supreme or even re- markable poetical power. His epitaphs are among his_best work, probably owing to his careful study of the hardly-to-be-surpassed examples of this kind of composition which the classical languages afford. He was a diligent panegyrist of country life and country ways, but no single work of his in this class comes up to the masterpieces of Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Belleau. Range^variety, jygd inventiveness of spirit are BaYFs chief merits. _ The three remaining members of the group may be disposed of more rapidly. Daurat, the eldest, and in a sense the Daurat, r ' ' ' Jodeiie, master of all, was, as far as regards French composi- Pontus de tion, the dark star of the Ple'iade, for he wrote nothing Tyar . o ^ importance in the vernacular. Todeile was a voluminous-writer, but his dramatic importance so far exceeds his 'merely poetical value that he will be best treated of when we come to discuss the Theatre of the Renaissance. A somewhat curious instance of his poetical energy is to be found in his unfinished, indeed hardly begun, Contre- Amours. All the rest had started with a volume of verse irTpraise of some real or imaginary mis- tress, so Jodelle determined to write one against an unkind lady. The seventh member of the Ple'iade, Pontus de Tyard, was the eldest save Daurat, the longest-lived and the highest in station, while he was also in a way the most original, having published his first book before the appearance of the Defense et Illustration. He was born at Bissy, near Macon, and, having been appointed Bishop of Chalon, died in 1603, last of the group. Poetry was only part of his literary occupations, and literary work itself by no means absorbed him. But his Erreurs Amoureuses, addressed to a certain Pasithe'e, and other works, give him fair rank in the school. He has been erroneously credited with the introduction of the sonnet into Ch. IV.] The Pleiade. 1/9 France, an honour which is probably due, as has been more than once observed, to Saint Gelais. But if he did not introduce the form, he at least contributed one of its most striking examples in his beautiful Sonnet to ' Sleep,' a favourite subject of the age both in France and England. The Pldiade proper by no means monopolised all the poetical talent of the period. Indeed, there can be no surer testimony to the real strength of the movement than the universal adherence which was given to its methods by those who were in no sense bound to it by personal connection. A second Pl&ade might be made up of members who had almost as much poetical talent as the actual titular stars. Magrvv., Tahureau, Du_jBartas, D\Aubjgne', Desportes, Bertaut^ had each of them talent not far inferior to that of Du Bellay and of Ronsard, and equal to that of the ""five minor members. Gamier was immensely Jodelle's superior in his own line. Jamyn, JDurant,. Passerat, the two La Tallies, Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, even TJL Bp&ie T who had, as far as can be made out, far more vocation in poetry than in prose, are names at least equal to those of Pontusd^Ty^r^_orJBaif. But they did not form part of the eqgj-gejjc cglerie who started and pushed the movement, and so they have lacked the reputation which the combined and successful effort of the Seven has given them. Yet Du Bartas is the one French poet of the sixteenth century who wrote a poem on the great scale \yith success, and D^Aubiaj^ ranks with Regnier and Victor Hugo in the ^strength and vigour of hisjyejse. Olivier de JVIagnv. * was a kind of petted child of the Ple*iade. His Amours are prefaced by commendatory verses, among which compositions of four out of the seven Ronsard, Bait, Belleau and Jodelle figure, and he was as strenuous in carrying out the recommendations of Du Bellay 's Illustration as any of the seven themselves. His Amours just mentioned, his Odes, his Gayetts even, testify to the obedient admiration which young verse-writers often show for the leading poets of their day. But there is no servile imitation in Magny. His life was short, and the dates of its beginning and ending are not exactly known, though 1 Ed. Courlet, 5 vols., Paris, v. d. K 2 The Renaissance. [Bk. IL he died in 1 560. He was aJover of Lauiffi ^abe*. and was worthy of her, poetically speaking. He was born, like Marot, at Cahors ; he went to Rome, like many other literary men of his time, on a diplomatic errand ; and his works were all published between 1553 and his death. The Odes are the best of them ; the Gayete'sm* light and lively enough ; and in both his volumes of sonnets, but especially in the Soupirs^ excellent examples of the form are to be found. Magny had a strong feeling for the formal art of poetry, and it was thus natural that he should eagerly embrace the gospel of Ronsard. But besides this, he had a true poetical imagination, and a real command of poetical language. A sonnet in dialogue, which greatly attracted the admiration of Colletet, the historian of French poetry in the next age, is perhaps not much more than a tour de force. But many of his other pieces show real feeling, and have a certain youthfulness about them which suits well with the sentiments they express, and the ardour of literary as well as amatory devotion which the poet endeavours to convey. Still younger and probably still more short-lived, but superior as a poet, was Jacques Tahureau l . He was born at Le Tahureau. jL ** ~ Mans of a noble family, and died at the age of twenty- eight. But his life, if short, \vas a happy one, and, like most of his contemporaries, he published a volume of amatory sonnets under the title, gracefully affected even for that age of graceful affecta- tion, of Alignar discs Amoureuses de V Admire'e. Unlike many of the heroines of the Ple'iade and their satellites, who are either known or shrewdly suspected to have been imaginary, fti of Tahureau was a real person. What is more, he married her, and they lived together for three years before his early death. Before the Mtgnardises, he had published a Premier Recueil, and after them he produced a third volume of odes, sonnets, etc. All three display the same peculiarities, and these peculiarities are sufficiently remarkable. Tahureau was named by the flattery and the classical fancies of his contemporaries the French Catullus, and the parallel is not so rash as might be thought. It is true that it came originally from Du Bellay in one of his satirical veins. But a later poetical critic, Vauquelin ^e- la-Fresnaye, is more precise in his description, 1 Ed. Blancheiuain. a vols. Geneva, 1869. Ch. iv.] The Pltiade. 181 and oddly enough uses the very term which was afterwards applied in England to Shakespeare's youthful sonnets. Tahureau, he says : Nous affrianda tous au Sucre de cet art. The author of the Mignardises is indeed somewhat ' sugared ' in his style of writing ; but there are genuine passion and genuine poetical feeling as well in his verse. Of the minor poets of the time he is probably the best. Before noticing the four remaining poets who have been mentioned as occupying the highest places next to the Pleiade itself, a brief review of the minor poets until the end Minor of the century may be given. tienne de^liL Boe'tie Ronsardists. wrote poems which, though they have some of the stiffness and a little of the hollowness of his Conire-un, possess a certain grandeur of sentiment and a knack of diction other than commonplace, which explain Montaigne's admiration. Claude Buttet is chiefly re- markable for having made a curious attempt to combine the classicism of the new school with the romanticism of the old. He wrote Sapphics in rhyme, an idea sufficiently ingenious, but hardly successful. Yet it is fair to remember that some of the varieties of Leonine verse lacked neither force nor elegance. The truth is, that these classic metres are so alien to all modern tongues, that, rhymed or unrhymed, they are doomed to failure. Jean de la PeVuse was, like Magny and Tahureau, a poet who died before he had reached his term. At twenty- five few men have left lasting works. Yet La Pe'ruse not only produced a tragedy of some merit, but minor poems promising more. Doublet^ was a much older man, and is chiefly noticeable as an "example of the writers who, beginning with Marot, or even with Cre'tin, and the Rhe'toriqueurs for models, bowed to the over- mastering influence of the Pleiade. Docility of this kind, however, rarely promises much poetical worth, and FJoublet was not a great poet ; but his poems, which have had better fortune in the way of reprints than those of greater men, show power of versification. Arnadis Jamyn^was a somewhat more distinguished poet than those who have just been mentioned. Born in 1540, he came to Paris, when the triumph and supremacy of Regard was completely 1 82 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. assured, and was taken under the protection of the 2l|^^^^t_ lie was also honoured, as we have seen, by being allowed to stand by the side of Ronsard, of Bai'f, of Desportes, at the funeral of Rdmy Belleau. He translated the last twelve books of the Iliad to complete Salel, and began a translation of the Odyssey ; besides which he wrote a poem on the Chase, another on Generosity, and, like everybody else at the time, abundance of miscellaneous pieces. He was a good scholar, and there was more ease in his verse than is usually to be found in his contemporaries (save the greatest of them), who too often allowed their classical studies to stiffen and starch their verse. Another admirable poet, though of no great compass, was the dramatist Gr^vin. His VillanesQues, a modified form of the favourite Villanelle, which had survived the other epiceries condemned by Du Bellay, are singularly graceful and tender, epithets which are also applicable to bis ^Jaisfrs The brothers La Taille also, like GreVin, are chiefly known as dramatists. Jean de la Taille, though but a boy of ten years old when the style Marolique was swept out of fashion, had sufficient inde- pendence to compose blasons (and very pretty ones) of the daisy and the rose. Others of his poems have mediaeval forms or set- tings, but he imitated Ronsard in his Mart de Paris, and Du Bellay in his Courlisan Retir/. The works of Jacques de la Taille, who died young, were chiefly epigrams. Gjjy du Faur de Pibrac wrote moral quatrains, which had a great vogue, and which in a way deserved it. Nicolas Rapin was, with the exception of Passerat, the chief of the poets of the Menippc'e a remarkable group, who will V be noticed further when we come to that singular production. But Passerat himself deserves more notice than simply as a political satirist and a famous Latin scholar. Of all the poets of the sixteenth century before Regnier and aftgr^^aiot, Passerat. was the one who possessed most comic talent. His worklTare full of little touches which exhibit this, while at the same time he was a master of the graceful love of poetry which imitation of the ancients had made fashionable. His Villanelle 'J'ai perdu ma Tonr- t<>r fi11f! > ' g probably the most elegant specimen of a poetical trifle that the age produced, and has of late years attracted great admiration. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye. a lawyer^ the author of an Ch. iv.] The PUiade. 183 Art of Poetry, and of the first satires, so called, in FrenchJiad a good deal of poetical power, which he expended chiefly on pastoral subjects ; but unfortunately his command of language and style was by no means always equal to his command of fresh and agreeable imagery and sentiment. Guillaume de Saluste du Bartas *. the ' ProtestanJ Rnmsard/ was born in 1544 at Montfort, near Auch, served Henry . J Du Bartas. of Navarre in war and diplomacy, was wounded at Ivry, and died of his wounds in 1590. His first work was Judith ; then followed La Premiere Semaine, and next Uranie, Le Triomphe de la Foi, and the Seconde Semaine. He also wrote numerous smaller poems, including one on the battle of Ivry. The ' First Week of Creation ' is his greatest and most famous work. It went through thirty editions in a few years ; was translated into English by Sylvester, gave not a little inspiration to Milton, and was warmly admired by Goethe. Ronsard at first eagerly welcomed Du Bartas ; but his jealousy being aroused by the pretensions of the Calvinist party to set up their poet as a rival to himself, he resented this in an indignant and vigorous address to Daurat, which contains some very just criticisms on Du Bartas. Nevertheless the merits of the latter are extremely great, and his personage and work very interesting. It has been said of him that he represents, in the first place, the extreme development of the Ronsardising innovation ; in the second place, the highest literary culture attained by the French Calvinists. Inferior to D'Aubigne" in knowledge of the world, in the choice of subjects perennially interesting, and in terse vigour of expression, Du Bartas was the superior of the great Protestant satirist in picturesqueness, in imagination, and in facility of descriptive power. The stately and gorgeous abundance of the vocabulary with which the Hellenising and Latinising innovations of the Ple*iade enriched the French lan- guage supplied him with colours and material to work with, and his own genius did the rest. His attempt to naturalise Greek compounds, such as ' Aime-Lyre,' ' Donne-Anne,' and the rest, 1 Du Bartas, always unjustly treated in France, probably from a curious tradition of mingled sectarian and literary jealousy, has not been reprinted of late years. The edition used is that of 1610-1611. Paris, 2 vols. folio. 384 The Renaissance* [Bk. n. has done him more harm than anything else ; but his combination of classical learning, with the varied colour and vivid imagination of the middle age and the Renaissance, often results in extra- ordinarily striking expressions. L'Eschint azure'e, for instance, is a singularly picturesque, if also somewhat barbaric, reminiscence of fvpta vS>m tfaXdrro-ijr: the enforcement of the idea of hora novissima iempora pessima in the four following lines is admirable : Nos execrables mceurs, dedans Gomorrhe apprises, Les troublees saisons, les civiles fureurs, Les menaces du ciel, sont les avant-coureurs De Christ, qui vient tenir ses demieres assises. In such a passage again as the following, the power and sim- plicity of the diction can escape no reader; the piling up of the strokes is worthy of Victor Hugo: Les etoiles cherront. Le de"sordre, la nuict, La frayeur, le trespas, la tempeste, le bruit, Entreront en quartier. All that was wanting to make Du Bartas a poet of the first rank was some faculty of self-criticism ; of natural verve and imagination as well as of erudition he had no lack, but in critical faculty he seems to have been totally deficient. His beauties, rare in kind and not small in amount, are alloyed with vast quantities of dull absurdity. Agrippa d'Aubigne* * (i 550-1 630) was Du Bartas' junior, and long D'Aubi 6 out ^ ve< ^ him. He was an important prose-writer as well as poet, and his long life was as full of interesting events as of literary occupations. At six yaars old he read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; a year or two later his father made him swear, in presence of the gibbeted corpses of the unsuccessful conspirators of Amboise, to revenge their death. Shortly afterwards he narrowly escaped the stake. For a time he dwelt with Henry of Navarre at the court of Charles IX., and there thoroughly imbued himself with the Ronsardising tradition. But he soon escaped with his master, and for years was a Calvinist irrecon- cileable, always for war to the knife, and as rude and bold in the 1 Ed. Re"aume and de Caussade. 6 vols. Paris, 1873-92. This does not in- clude his HiUoire Universe lie, which has however been reprinted (Paris, 1886). Ch. iv.] The PUiade. 185 council chamber as in the field. The death of his master was unfortunate for D'Aubigne' ; but, though he at first opposed the regency of Marie de Medicis, he made terms for himself. The publication, however, of his ' History ' brought enemies on him, and he fled to Geneva, finishing his days there. His prose works are too numerous to mention separately : the chief besides his his- tories are the Confession de Sancy and the Aventures du Baron de F&neste, both satirical in character and full of vigour. He began as a poet by poems in the lighter Ple'iade style, but his masterpiece is Les Jragiques (1616, but written and known much earlier, probably before 1590). Its seven books hold nearly ten thousand lines, and are entitled Miser es, Princes, La Chambre Dore'e, LesFeux,LcsFers, Vengeance, Jugement. The poem is half historical and half satirical, dealing with the religious wars, the persecution of the Huguenots, the abuses of the administration, and of contemporary manners, etc. Nothing equal to the best verses of this singular book had yet been seen in France, and not much equal to them has been pro- duced since. The tone of sombre and impressive declamation had been to some extent anticipated by Du Bartas, but chiefly for purposes of description. D'Aubignd turned it to its natural use in invective, and the effect is often extraordinarily fine. Very copious citation would be necessary to show its excellence: but before Victor HugQ_there is nothing in Frejich equal to at his best in point of clangour of sound and impetuosity of rhythm. It is noteworthy that Du Bartas' Semaine, with the Tragiques and the tragedies of Gamier, finally established the Alex- andrine as the indispensable metre for serious and impassioned poetry in France. Hitherto the decasyllabic and the dodeca- syllable had been used indiscriminately, and Ronsard's Franciade is written in the former. But after the three poets just mentioned, the Alexandrine became invariable ; the decasyllabic being left for light and occasional work, as a sort of medium in usage as in bulk between the Alexandrine and the octosyllable. The truth is that, until the improvements of language and style which the Ple'iade had introduced, the Alexandrine couplet had not had either suppleness or dignity enough for the work. It was lumber- ing and disjointed. As soon, however, as the classical turn, 1 86 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. inseparable from a specially classical metre, had been given to the language, it at once took its place and has ever since kept it, though in the century succeeding it was deprived of much of its force by arbitrary rules. The lines of Boileau condemning Ronsard 1 have inseparably connected Desportes jtnd ...Bertaut t .and have given them a posi- tion in literary history which is as intrinsically inaccurate as it is unduly high. Neither approaches Du Bartas or D'Aubigne" in poetical excellence or in adroit carrying out of Ronsardism. But neither was in the least made retenu by Ronsard's failure, and it did not enter the head of themselves or any of their contemporaries, till their last days, that Ronsard had failed. Philippe j^)esportes 8 was a very unclerical cleric, a successful courtier and Desportes. diplomatist, a great favourite with the ladies of the court. He was also a poet of little vigour, but of great sweetness, much elegance of style and form, and extraordinary neatness, if not originality, of expression. With Jamyn he was the most pro- minent of Ronsard's own particular disciples. His poetical works are sharply divided, like those of Herrick and Donne and some other poets, on the one hand, into poems of a very mundane character, collections of sonnets after the Pleiade fashion to real or imaginary heroines, celebrations of the ladies and the mignons of the court of Henri III., imitations of Italian verse, and the like ; on the other, into devotional poems, which include some translations of the Psalms of not a little merit. Personally Desportes appears to have been a self-seeker and a sycophant ; not without good nature, but covetous, intriguing, corrupt, given to base compliances. He was Du Bellay's poele couriisan in the worst sense of the 1 Here are these celebrated lines : Ronsard, qui le suivit, par une autre methode Reglant tout, brouilla tout, fit un art a sa mode, Et toutefois longtemps cut un heureux destin. Mais sa muse en Fran9ais parlant Grec et Latin Vit dans 1'age suivant, par un retour grotesque, Tomber de ses grands mots le faste pedantesque. Ce poete orgueilleux, trebuche de si haut, Rendit puis retenus Desportes et Bertaut. Art PoJt., Chant L Ed. Michiels. Paris, 1858. Ch iv.] The Pleiade. 187 phrase *. But working at leisure and with care, and undistracted by any literary or sentimental enthusiasm, he found means to give to his work a jolish and correctness .which many of his contemporaries of greater talent did not, or could not, give. In this fact the explanation of Boileau's commendation for it is no doubt meant, relatively speaking, for commendation is probably to be found. Jgjg^gllJpit was, to use a metaphor frequently employed in literary history, the 'moon* of Desportes. Like / ~ 7*= Bertaut. him, he is a poet rather elegant than vigorous, rather correct than spirited. Like him, he wrote light verse and de- votional poems, and, as in the case of Desportes, the religious poems are rather contrary to the reader's expectation the best of the two. His work, however, was even more limited in amount than that of his contemporary. 1 He was not a courtier for nothing. He held numerous abbacies, and Charles IX. is said to have given him 800 gold pieces, Henri III. 10,000 crowns of silver, in each case for a poetical offering of very small bulk. CHAPTER V. THE THEATRE FROM GRINGORE TO GARNIER. IT so happened that the mediaeval theatre closed, as far as its exclusive possession of the stage is concerned, with one of the most remarkable of all its writers. Pierre Grin^ore *, Grmgore. who towards the close of his career preferred the spelling Gringoire, was a Norman by birth. His poetical and dramatic capacity has been considerably exaggerated by the learned but crotchety scholar who was at first charged with the joint editorship of his works in the Bibliotheque Elze'virienne. But, when the hyperboles of M. Charles d'He'ricault are reduced to their simplest terms, Gringore remains a remarkable figure. It is to him that we owe the only complete and really noteworthy tetralogy, composed of cry, sotie, morality, and farce, which exists to show the final result of the mediaeval play the feu du Prince des Sots. To him is also due the most remarkable of the six- teenth-century mysteries, that of Sain/ Lout's; and his miscel- laneous poems, as yet not fully collected, show us a man of letters possessed of no small faculty for miscellaneous work. Gringore first emerges as a pamphleteer in verse, on the side of the policy of Louis XII. He held the important position of mere solle in the company of persons who charged themselves with playing the sotie, and Louis perceived the advantages which he might gain by enlisting such a writer on his side. Gringore's early works are allegorical poems of the kind which the increasing admiration of the Roman de la Rose, joined to the practice of the Rhe'toriqueurs, had made fashionable in France ; but they are directly political in 1 Ed. Hericault, Montaiglon, and Rothschild. 2 vols. Paris, 1858-1877. The Theatre from Gringore to Gamier. 189 tone, and an undercurrent of dramatic intention is always manifest in them. Les folks Entreprises is a very remarkable work. It might be described as a series of monologues of the kind usual and already described, but continuous, and having the independent parts bound to each other by speeches of the author in propria persona. The titles of the separate sections LEntreprise des folz Orgueilleux, Reflexions de I'Auleur sur la Guerre d' lialie, le Blason de Pratique, Balade el Supplication a la Vierge Marie (el se peull Interpreter sur la Royne de France), etc. explain the plan of this curious book as well as any laboured analysis could do. The author takes what he considers to be the chief grievances in Church and State, and dilates upon them in the manner, half moralising, half allegoric, which was popular. An argument of Les folks Enlnprises would, however, require considerable space. It enters into the most recondite theological questions, and of its general tone the heading of the last chapter tells as good a story as anything else can do: 'Comme le tres-chrestien roy et Justice relevent Foy qui estait abattu par Richesse et Papelardise.' Other works of the same semi- dramatic, semi-poetical kind are even more directly political in substance : Les Entreprises de Venise ; La Chasse du Cerf 'des Cerfs (Pope Julius), etc. Sometimes, as in La Coqueluche, the author becomes a simple chronicler describing incidents of his time. Indeed it would hardly be an exaggeration to describe Gringore's work as the result of a kind of groping after journalism condemned by the circumstances of the time to the most awkward and inappropriate form. In his definitely dramatic work the same praciical tendency reappears. The te- tralogy is of a directly politico-social kind. The cry, a summons in ironical terms to sols cf all kinds to come and hear their lesson ; the sotie, an audacious satire on the state of things; the morality, in which the very names of the personages Peuple Francois, Peuple Italique, Divine Pungnicion, etc. speak for themselves, all show this tendency ; and even the bonne bouche at the end, the farce (which is altogether too Rabelaisian in subject for descrip- tion here), seems to illustrate the motto a very practical one ' II faut cultiver son jardin.' Less directly the same purpose can be traced in the Mjstlrt de Monseigntur Saint Lojs. This is a The Renaissance. [Bk. n. picture of the ideal patriot king doing judgment and justice, and serving God by his voyages over sea, and his punishments of blasphemers and loose livers at home. The first two quarters, and especially the first quarter, of the The last A e centuI 7 contributed plentifully to the list of mysteries, of the moralities, and farces. The dates of the latter are Mediaeval not easy to ascertain, and it is probable that most ' re ' of them are older than the present period. The taste for very lengthy mysteries and moralities, however, had by no means died out, and some of the mysteries, notably those of Antoine Chevallet, are of considerable merit. To the sixteenth century too belongs what is probably the longest of all moralities, that on The Just and Unjust Man, which contains 36,000 lines, besides the Mundus, Caro, ei Daemonia, and the Condamnation de Banquet already described. This school was continued, though under some difficulties, until a late period of the century. It had two things in its favour ; it was extremely popular, and it lent itself, far more than the stately rival soon to be discussed, to the political and social uses which had long been associated with the stage in the mind of audiences. In Beza's tragedy of Abraham Sacrifiant, a kind of union takes place between the two styles. But even the triumph of the Pleiade did not at once abolish the mysteries which were still legal injhe provinces, which had a strong hold on the fancy of the populace, and which some men of letters who were themselves much in- debted to the new movement, notably Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, upheld with pen as well as with tongue. Thomas Le Coq, a beneficed clerk of Falaise, wrote a really remarkable play, Cain, of the purest mystery kind, in 1580; and the troubles of the League brought forth a large number of pieces which approached much nearer to the mediaeval drama, and especially to the mediaeval drama in the form which Gringore had given it, than to the model of Jodelle. It was, however, this model which had the seeds of life in it, and which was destined to serve as the pattern for the French drama of the future. In thejnanifesto of the Pleiade Du Bellay gave especial prominence to the drama among the literary kinds, Ch. v.] The Theatre from Gringore to Gamier. 191 in which French had need of strengthening from classical sources. The classical tragedy in the classical language, and even in trans- lation, was already no stranger to French audiences, and the principle of constructing modern vernacular plays on Be inn j n ~ 8 the same model had become familiar to the upper and of the learned classes by the practice of the Italians, with Classical which they had become acquainted, partly through the numerous visits, friendly and hostile, paid by Frenchmen to Italy in the early years of the sixteenth century, partly through the reproduction of these Italian plays at the courts of Francis I. and Henri II. This reproduction of foreign work was "not confine 3"" to the court, for in 1548 the town of Lyons greeted Catherine de Medicis with an Italian play acted by an Italian company. As for translations of classical drama, Lazare de J3ajX,_. translated the Electro, as early as 1537, and Buchanan, Muretus, and others composed Latin plays for their pupils to act. In all these plays, Latin, Italian, and French-translation, the influence of the tragedian Seneca^was paramount, and this influence made ah~enduring mark on the future drama of France. Greek, though it was ardently studied, was, from the purely literary point of view, little comprehended by the French humanists, and of the three tragedians Euripides was the only one who made much im- pression upon them. Seneca, as the only extant Latin tragedia^ ~\C { had a monopoly of the classical language which they understood ^ best and revered most heartily. His model was also peculiarly imitable. The paucity of action, the strict observation of certain easily observable rules, the regular and harmonious but easily com- prehensible system of his choruses, the declamatory style and strong ethical temper of his sentiments, all appealed to the French Renaissance. Within a year or two from the time when Du Bellay ^ jiad sounded th.e note of innovation. Jodelle answered the sum- mons with a tragedy and a comedy at the same time. _jtienne Jodelle l , Seigneur de Lymodin, was one of the youngest of Ronsard's fellows. He was born at Paris in 1^32, Jodelle. and was thus barely twenty years old when, in 1552, he founded at once modern French tragedy with his Cleopdlre, 1 Anden T/u'dtre Franfais, vol. iv. 192 The Renaissance. [Bk. u. and modern French comedy with his Eupene. The representation was a great success, and obtained for the author from the King, Henri II., besides many compliments, the sum of five hundred crowns. The success of the plays also brought about an incident famous in French literary history of the anecdotic kind. The seven determined to celebrate the occasion by a country excursion, and on the way to Arcueil they unluckily met a flock of goats. Deeply imbued as they all 'were wilh classical fancies, it was almost inevitable that the idea of a Dionysiac festival should strike them, and a goat was caught, crowned with flowers and solemnly paraded, Ronsard himself officiating as the god. This harmless freak was represented by the zealots of the time as an impious pagan orgie, in which the goat had been actually sacrificed to a false god, and the reputation of the brotherhood sank almost equally with Catholics and Protestants. Six years after, Jodelle produced his second tragedy, .Z?^"* 1 . also with great success. But he was not a fortunate person. The miscarriage of a pageant of which he had the direction alienated the favour of the court from him, and he was too proud or too careless to solicit its grace. He was a loose and reckless liver, and receives from Pierre de 1'Esloile a character which very probably is unduly harsh. However this may be, he died at the age of forty, indigent and ruined in constitution. His literary activity was great, but only a smnll part of his work survives, and his three plays are the only important portion of this. The comedy has some impression of classical study, though very much less than the two tragedies. It is, unlike the indi- genous farce, divided regularly into acts and scenes ; it is much longer than the native comedy, and some of the characters show, though faintly and at a distance, some traces of a reading of Terence. But it retains the octosyllabic metre, and its general scheme, despite a somewhat greater involution of plot and multi- plicity of characters, is that of a farce. Eugene, the hero, a rich and luxurious churchman, is in love with Alix, whom, to save ap- pearances, he has married to a wittol of the name of Guillaume. Alix, however, has several other lovers, among whom is Florimond a soldier, the rejected suitor of Helene, Eugene's sister. These personages are completed by Maitre Jean, the abbe"s chaplain and ch. v.] The Theatre from Gringore to Gamier. general factotum, a creditor of Guillaume's, some servants of the soldier Florimond, etc. The plot is very simple, consisting of hardly anything but the return of Florimond from the wars, and his wrath at discovering Alix's relations not merely with Guillaume but with Eugene. He is finally made happy with He'lene. Alix takes the wise resolution to be less prodigal of her affections, and the play ends. Some detached passages, especially the opening scene, in which the lazy, dissolute life of wealthy churchmen is very pointedly satirised, are amusing enough, and the characters of the chaplain and the husband are not far from la vraie come'die. The tragedies are indirectly of more importance, but intrinsically much duller reading. Instead, however, of cleaving, as Eugene does, closely to the lines of the existing drama, the innovation in them is of the boldest kind. The octosyllabic verse, hitherto sacred to drama, is exchanged in Ctiopdtre for a mixture of the decasyllabic and the Alexandrine, some scenes being written in the one, others in the other. Nor is the tentative character of the work only thus indicated ; for the rhymes follow different systems in the different scenes. In Didon, however, Jodelle settled down to the unbroken Alexandrine with alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, which has remained the standard vehicle of French tragedy ever since. His general scheme follows that of Seneca closely, and his choruses are written in stanzas of short verses regularly arranged. The matter of both plays is taken with tolerable exactness, in the one case from Plutarch, in the other from Virgil ; but a somewhat full analytic description of the first French tragedy must be given. Didon is something of an advance in versification, as has been pointed out, but in other respects it is perhaps inferior to Cle'opdtre. The piece begins with a prologue to the king, and then the first --\ act opens with a long soliloquy from the ghost of Antony. Long speeches, it should be said, are the bane of this early French tragedy, and for nearly a century the evil increased instead of diminishing. Cleopatra, Charmium, and Eras then appear, for the play follows Plutarch strictly enough. The queen expresses her despair, and announces her intention to die. The first act is con- cluded by a long chorus of Alexandrian women, who bewail the o 1 94 The Renaissance. [Bk. n. shortness of life in six-syllable quatrains. The second act, like the first (unless the monologue of the ghost is counted in this latter), consists of only a single scene and a chorus. The scene is between Octavian, Agrippa, and Proculeius, who argue about the probable fate of Cleopatra. The conqueror is disposed to mercy and to regret for Antony's death, but his officers are less amiably minded. They agree, however, that Cleopatra will have to be watched for fear of suicide. The chorus now is nominally divided into strophes and antistrophes, but these are really only uniform stanzas of six six-syllable lines each, with the rhymes arranged a, b, a, b, c, c, and there is no epode. The third act contains the interview of Octavian with Cleopatra, the surrender of the treasures, and the treachery of Seleucus. The chorus takes part in this scene both by a short song and a longer one in couplets, but arranged in eight-line stanzas, which is preceded by a dialogue with Seleucus. The act thus consists of two scenes. In the fourth act Cleopatra repeats and regularly matures her resolve of death. It contains two choric pieces of some beauty. The first is an undivided song in sixes and fours ; the second has a regular arrangement of strophe, antistrophe, and epode three times re- peated, consisting of five-syllable lines, of which the strophe and antistrophe contain eleven each and the epode eight, arranged strophe and antistrophe a, b, a, b, c, c, d, d, e, e, d, epode a, b, a, b, c, c, d, d. The fifth act is very short, containing a recital by Proculeius of the Queen's death, and a choric lament in quatrains. It will thus be seen that the action in the piece is very small, except in the brawl with Seleucus ; that the chorus has the full importance which it possessed in the classical tragedy; and that, owing to the few changes of scene and the other restrictions imposed upon himself by the poet, the dramatic capabilities of the plan are not a little limited. The same state of things continued to be the case during the whole duration of the school whose master Jodelle was. Style and versification were sometimes better, sometimes worse than his ; but, with comparatively few exceptions, the general conception was the same, long monologue^ few cha- racters, an almost total defect of Action, which is conducted by ~tE Claude d'Aubray, which is, as has been said, the work of Pithou, and which occupies something like half the book, the tone is entirely altered. In this remarkable discourse the whole political situation is treated seriously, and with a mixture of practical vigour and literary skill of which there had hardly been any precedent in- stance. D'Aubray denounces the condition of Paris first, and the condition of the kingdom afterwards. The foreign garrisons, the sufferings of private persons by the war, the deprivation or sus- pension of privileges, are all commented upon. A remarkable historical sketch of the religious wars follows, and then turn by turn the speaker attacks those who have spoken before him, and exposes their conduct. A vigorous sketch of ' Le Roy que nous Ch.vin.] The ' Satyre Me'nippte? Regnier. 235 voulons et que nous aurons,' leads up to the announcement that this king is no other than ' Notre vray Roy Idgitime, naturel et souverain, Seigneur Henry de Bourbon, cy-devant Roy de Na- varre.' After this discomposing harangue the assembly breaks up in some confusion. The Satyre Me'nippfe had an immense effect, and may, perhaps, be justly described as the first example, in modern politics, of a literary work the effect of which was really great and lasting. It is not surprising that such should have been its fortune. For it is a remarkably happy mixture of the older style ofgaulois jocularity (in which exaggeration, personal attack, insinuations of a more or less scandalous character and the like, furnished the attraction)* and the newer style of chastened and comparatively polished prose. The greater part of the first six speeches is of a more antique cast than Montaigne ; and though the speech of D'Aubray ex- hibits a more elaborate and less familiar style, it too is definitely plain and popular in manner. Although there are the allusions usual at the time to classical subjects, the Pldiade pedantry, with which at least two of the contributors, Passerat and Rapin, were sufficiently imbued, is conspicuously absent. Rabelais is fre- quently alluded to; and when the style of the book and the obvious intention of appealing to the general, which it exhibits, are considered, no better testimony to the popularity of Gargantua and Panlagruel could be produced. The descriptions, too, have a Rabelaisian minuteness and richness about them ; and in the burlesque parts the influence of that master is equally perceptible. But the strictly practical point of view is always maintained ; and the temptation, always a strong one with French writers of the middle age and Renaissance, to lose sight of this in endless developments of mere amusing buffoonery, is constantly resisted. There is certainly less exaggeration in the Me'nippee than in Hudibras, though the personal weaknesses of the innumerable individual persons satirised contribute more to the general effect than they do in Butler's great satire. The distinguishing trait of the Satyre Me'nippee, next to those already mentioned, is the con- stant rain of slight ironical touches contributing to the general ellect. Thus the arms of the processioning Leaguers are, 'le 236 The Renaissance. [Bk 11. tout rouille* par Humilite* Catholique ; ' the League scholastics and preachers ' forment tous leurs arguments in ferio! The deputies' benches are covered with cloth, ' parsemees de croisettes de Lorraine et de larmes miparties de vair et de faux argent.' These sure and rapid touches distinguish the book strongly from nearly all mediaeval satire, in which the satirists are wont, whenever they make a point, to dwell on it, and expound it, and illustrate it, and make the most of it, until it loses almost all its piquancy. Very different from this over-elaboration is the confident irony of the Menippe'e, which trusts to the intelligence of the reader for understanding and emphasis. ' Vous pre'voyez bien,' says Mayenne, ' les dangers et inconvdniens de la paix qui met ordre a tout, et rend le droit a qui il appartient.' Hardly even Antoine de la Salle, and certainly no other among the authors of the preceding centuries, would have ventured to leave this, obvious as it seems now-a-days, to reach the reader by itself. A similar but a still more remarkable, because an individually complete, example of the combination of Gallican tradition with classical study was soon afterwards shown by Mathurin Regnier *. . Regnier was born at Chartres on the 2 ist of December, 1573, his father being Jacques Regnier, a citizen of position ; his mother was Simonne Desportes, sister of the poet. Jacques Regnier desired for his son the ecclesiastical, but not the poetical, eminence of his brother-in-law, and Mathurin was tonsured at nine years old. The boy, however, wished to follow his uncle's steps in the other direction, and early began to write. It is said that he wrote lampoons on the inhabitants of his native town, and, repeating them to the frequenters of a tennis-court which his father had built, got himself thus into trouble. His father's threats and punishments, however, had no more effect than is usual in such cases, and Regnier soon, but at a date not exactly known, betook himself to his uncle at Paris. By Desportes, who was in favour with many high personages, he was recommended to the Cardinal de Joyeuse, and took part in that prelate's embassy to Rome in 1593. Joyeuse, however, did nothing for him, and in 1 60 1 he again went to Rome in the suite of Philippe de 1 Ed. Courbet. Paris, 1875. In this edition some of the dates and statements in the text, which have been generally accepted, are contested. Ch.vin.] The ' Satyre Menipp/e.' Regnier. 237 Bethune. He returned before long, and, in 1604, a canonry, to the reversion of which he had been presented long before, fell in. His first collection of satires appeared in 1608. Five years after- wards,- in 1613, on the 22nd of October, he died at Rouen, having not quite completed his fortieth year. His way of life had unfor- tunately been by no means regular, and his early death is said to have been directly caused by his excesses. In this short sketch almost everything that is known of Regnier, except a few anecdotes, has been included, and the total is, it will be seen, exceedingly meagre. Nor is his work abundant even for a man who died comparatively young. Sixteen satires, three epistles, five elegies, and a few miscellaneous pieces, make it up, and probably the total does not exceed seven or eight thousand lines. The rela- tive excellence of this work is however exceedingly high. Regnier is almost the only French poet before the so-called classical period who has continuously maintained his reputation, and who has only been decried by a few eccentric or incompetent critics. He was an ardent defender of the Ronsardising tradition, yet Malherbe, whom he did not hesitate to attack, thought and spoke highly of him. In the next age Boileau allotted to him a mixture of praise and blame which is not too apposite, but in which the praise far exceeds the blame, and elsewhere declared him to be the French writer, before Moliere, who best knew human nature. The ap- proval of Boileau secured that of the eighteenth century, while Regnier's defence of the Pleiade propitiated the first Romantics. Thus buttressed on either side, he has had nothing to fear from literary revolutions. Nor will any judgment which looks rather at merit than authority arrive at an unfavourable conclusion re- specting him. His satires are not indeed absolutely the first of their kind in French. Vauquelin de la Fresnaye, Jean de la Taille, and above all, D'Aubigne", had preceded him. But in breadth as well as, except in the case of D'Aubigne", in force, and above all in even excellence and technical merit, he far surpassed those who in a manner had shown him the way. His satire is exclusively social, and thus it escapes one of the chief drawbacks of political satire, that of dealing with matters of more or less ephemeral existence and interest. He has indeed borrowed con- 238 The Renaissance. [ck. II. siderably from the ancients, but he has almost always made his borrowings his own, and he has in some cases improved on his originals. He has softened the exaggerated air of moral indigna- tion which his English contemporaries, Hall and Marston, bor- rowed from Juvenal, and which sits so awkwardly on them and on many other satirists. He has avoided such still more awkward followings as that which made Pope upset all English literary history in order to echo Horace's remarks about Rome and Greece. Sometimes he has fallen into the besetting sin of his countrymen, the tendency to represent mere types or even ab- stractions instead of lifelike individuals embodying the type, but he has more often avoided it. His descriptive passages are of extraordinary vigour and accuracy of touch, and his occasional strokes are worthy of almost any satiric or didactic poet. He is perhaps weakest, like all poets with the signal exception of Dryden, when he is panegyrical. Yet his first satire in the order of arrangement not of writing addressed to the King, Henri IV., has much merit. The second, on poets, has more, and abounds in vigorous strokes, such as that of the courtier bard who Meditant un sonnet, medite un eveche"; and as the couplet which concludes a lively sketch of his diplo- matic experiences- Mais instruit par le temps a la fin j'ai connu Que la fidelite n'est pas grand revenu. This poem, which contains some humorous descriptions of the poverty of poets, ends with an eloquent panegyric on Ronsard. The next, on ' La Vie de la Cour,' attacks a very favourite subject of the age, and winds up with an extremely well-told version of the fable of the beast of prey and the mule whose name is written on its hoof. The fourth returns to the subject of the poverty of poets. The fifth argues at some length, and in a spirit not very far removed from that of Montaigne, the thesis that ' Le gout par- ticulier decide de tout.' It contains some of Regnier's finest pas- sages. A subject somewhat similar in kind, ' L'honneur ennemi de la vie/ gives further occasion, in the sixth, for the display of the Ch. viii.] The ' Satyre Mtfnippee? Regnier. 239 moralising spirit of the age, which, in Regnier, takes the form of a kind of epicurean pococurantism mingled with occasional bursts of noble sentiment. The seventh is one of the most personal of all; it is entitled 'L'amour qu'on ne peut dompter,' and is a com- ment on the text Video meliora proboque. The eighth is one of the innumerable imitations of the famous ninth satire of the first book of Horace, Ibam forte via sacra, and perhaps the happiest of all such, though it is difficult not to regret that Regnier should have devoted his too rare moments of work to mere imitation. The ninth, however, is open to no such charge. It is entitled Le Critique outre', and is an extraordinarily vigorous and happy remonstrance against the intolerant pedantry with which Malherbe was criticising the Pl&ade. This satire is addressed to Rapin, the veteran contributor to the Me'nippe'e. It is impossible to describe the weak side of the reforms which Malherbe, and after him Boileau, introduced into French poetry, better than in these lines, which deserve citation for their literary importance : Cependant leur scavoir ne s'estend seulement Qu'a regratter un mot douteux au jugement, Prendre garde qu'un qui ne heurte une diphtongue; Espier si des vers la rime est breve ou longue; Ou bien si la voyelle, a 1'autre s'unissant, Ne rend point a 1'oreille un vers trop languissant. Us rampent bassement, foibles d'inventions, Et n'osent, peu hardis, tenter les fictions, Froids a 1'imaginer; car s'ils font quelque chose C'est proser de la rime, et rimer de la prose, Que 1'art lime et relime, et polit de fa9on, Qu'elle rend a 1'oreille un agreable son. The tenth satire, with its title 'Le souper ridicule,' seems to return to Horace, but in reality the scene described has little in common with the Coena of Nasidienus. It affords Regnier an excellent opportunity for displaying his talent for Dutch painting, but is in this respect inferior to the sequel 'Le mauvais gtte.' The subject of this is sufficiently unsavoury, and the satire is almost the only one which in the least deserves Boileau's strictures on the author's ' rimes cyniques/ but the vigour and skill of the treatment are most remarkable. The twelfth is short, and once more apologetically personal. But the thirteenth is the longest, The Renaissance. [Bk. II. one of the most famous, and Unquestionably on the whole the best work of the author. It is entitled ' Macette,' and describes an old woman who hides vice under a hypocritical mask and corrupts youth with her evil philosophy of the world and its ways. In- debted in some measure to the Roman de la Rose for the idea of his central character, Regnier is entirely original in his method of treatment. Nowhere are his verses more vigorous- Son ceil tout penitent ne pleure qu'eau beniste. L'honneur est un vieux saint que Ton ne chomme plus. La sage se sait vendre oil la sotte se dbnne. Nowhere is Regnier so uniformly free from technical defects and from colloquialisms in which he sometimes indulges. The four- teenth returns to general and somewhat vague satire, dealing with the vanity of human reason and conduct, while the fifteenth is once more personal, ' Le Poete malgre' soi.' Lastly, the sixteenth sums up the author's theoretical philosophy in the opening line, ' N'avoir crainte de rien et ne rien espe'rer.' The satires are in bulk and in importance so much the larger part of the work of Regnier, and represent such an important innovation in French literature^ that it has seemed well to describe them with some minuteness. The miscellaneous poems may be reviewed more rapidly, though the best of them add very con- siderably to the poet's reputation, because they show him in an entirely different light. Not a few of the elegies are imitated from Ovid, and some of them might perhaps have been left unwritten with advantage. Indeed, Regnier is here much .more open to Boileau's censure than in his more famous verse. But some lyrical pieces exhibit his command of other measures besides the Alexandrine, and afford occasion for the expression of a melan- choly and genuine sensibility which is not common in French poetry. The poem called ' Plainte ' is very beautiful, and is written in a lyric stanza of much more elaboration than any which was to be used in France for two centuries. One of its peculiarities is a hemistich replacing the expected fourth line of the stanza, which is of eight verses, with singularly musical effect. A so-called ' Ode ' is almost better, and ends thus ; Ch. viii.] The ' Satyre Mtnippfe! Rcgnier. 241 Un regret pensif et confus D' avoir este, et n'estre plus, Rend mon ame aux douleurs ouverte; A mes despens, las ! je vois bien Qu'un bonheur comme estoit le mien Ne se cognoist que par la perte. Regnier was in many ways a fitting representative for the close of the great poetical school of the sixteenth century. In manner he represented the fusion of the purely Gallic school of Marot and Rabelais, with the classical tradition of the Pleiade in its best form. His Alexandrines, if not quite so vigorous as D'Aubigne"s, have all the polish that could be expected before the administration of Malherbe's rules. His lyric measures have the boldness and har- mony which those rules banished from French poetry for full seven generations. In matter he displays a singular mixture of acute observation and philosophic criticism with ardent sensibility both to pleasure and pain. This, as has been repeatedly pointed out, is the dominant temper of the French Renaissance, and though in Regnier it shows something of the melancholy of the decadence as compared with the springing hope of Rabelais and the calm maturity of Montaigne, it is scarcely less characteristic. INTERCHAPTER II. SUMMARY OF RENAISSANCE LITERATURE. THE literary movements of the sixteenth century in France and their accomplishments in other words, the course and result of the French Renaissance can be traced with greater ease and with more precision than those of any other age of the literature. The movement is double, but, unlike most movements, literary and other, it is not sufficiently described as flux and reflux or action and reaction. The later or Pl&ade half of the century was in no sense a reaction against the first or Marot-Rabelais half. If there is an appearance of opposition between the two it is only because, both in Marot and in Rabelais, there was actually a kind of reaction from the movement which faintly and imperfectly foreshadowed that of the Ple'iade, the rhe'loriqueur pedantry of the writers from Chartier to Cre'tin. In this first half of the century, while some- thing of a protest was made by Rabelais explicitly, and implicitly by Marot, against the indiscriminate Latinising of the French tongue, very much more was done by their contemporaries, and in a manner by Rabelais himself, in the way of importing novelties of subject, style, and language, both from ancient and modern sources. Long before Du Bellay wrote, Calvin had modelled the first serious and scholarly work of French prose very closely on a Latin pattern. The translators, with tienne Dolet and Amyot at their head, had begun to transfer to the vernacular, in versions or in original work, the principles of style which they had admired and imitated in the classics. On the other hand, Marot, repre- senting the extreme vernacular school, succeeded, tolerably early in the period, in refining and chastening, the language of the fifteenth century to such an extent that his style, transmitted through Summary of Renaissance Literature. 243 La Fontaine, and then through the lighter work of the eighteenth century, has retained a certain hold on literature for its particular purpose almost to the present day. The most remarkable writer, from the point of view of style, in this part of the century is perhaps Bonaventure des Pe'riers, who displays both the vernacular purity free from classical mixture, and at the same time the Re- naissance admiration and imitation of the classics in a very high degree. Yet the same lesson is taught by the prose of Des Pe'riers as by the verse of Marot. The language had not as yet arrived at its full growth, it had not taken in its full supply of nourishment. It was therefore not equal to the complete duties oT a literary tongue. It wanted enriching, strengthening, educating. This task it was which was performed, and performed on the whole with remarkable skill and success, by the Pl&ade movement. It is not easy to fix on any period in the history of any other language in which, at an interval of fifty years, the advance in the capacities, as distinguished from the mere accomplishments of the tongue, is so noticeable as it is in French between 1550 and 1600. It is not merely that between these dates writers of talent and even genius may be mentioned by the dozen, that the language can boast of having added to its stores the odes of Ronsard, the sonnets of Du Bellay, the myriad graceful songs of the lesser poets of the Pl&ade, the stately descriptions of Du Bartas, the fiery invective of D'Aubigne*, the polished satire of Regnier, the essays of Mont- aigne, the immortal pasquinades of the Mdnippee it is that the whole constitution and organisation of the language has been strengthened and improved. That the secret of the Alexandrine has at last been mastered means that the whole future course of French poetry is in a manner mapped out. That lyric measures have been devised, intricate, not merely in arrangement like those of the mediaeval forms, but in harmony, means that at any future time French poets who choose to recur to this storehouse may find the withal to equip themselves. That the vocabulary has been enormously if somewhat indiscriminately increased, means that writers in the future, at whatever loss they may be for thought, need certainly be at no loss for words to express it. But the gain is greater even than this. Not merely have the glossary, the grammar, the prosody R 2 244 Summary of Renaissance Literature. of the language been enriched, but entirely new moulds in which literary work can be cast have been added to the literature. The form of drama in which France was to achieve, with but little formal alteration, some of her greatest literary triumphs, has been discovered and acclimatised ; the essay has become a recognised thing; attempts at history proper as distinct from mere annals and chronicles have been made. Literature, in short, is organised, and literary labour works in matter roughly at least prepared and shaped. One of the greatest drawbacks of mediaeval literature, the con- fusion of styles, the handling of science in verse, of theology in terms taken from amatory romances, of politics in 'dreams/ of social satire in clumsy allegories, is cleared away. The form most suitable for every kind of literary work has been more or less made clear to the literary workman, and a plentiful supply of material in the shape of vocabulary is at his disposal. That this great accomplishment is on the whole the doing of the Plelade in its larger sense, as designating and including the men of letters of 1550-1600, no impartial student of the period can doubt. But at the same time there is no doubt either that their work was both incomplete and in some respects open to grave objection. They had, like all reformers, literary as well as political, neglected to preserve the historical continuity, and de- liberately turned their backs on the traditions of the language and the literature. Their importations and imitations had been some- times unnecessary, sometimes awkward, sometimes absurd. The mass of their contributions required examination, arrangement, and no doubt in some cases rejection. Moreover, they had on the whole concentrated their attention too much upon pcetry ; prose, the less exquisite but the more useful instrument, had been comparatively neglected. Almost all styles had been tried in it, but no general style nor the conditions of any had been elaborated. In drama much remained to be done. The model was there in the rough, but the workmen had been unskilful, and fifty years of practice on the plan of Jodelle had not yet resulted in the com- position of one really dramatic play. In short, though the Pleiade movement had begun by being nothing if not critical, it had not kept up the habit of self-criticism. The application of this Summary of Renaissance Literature. 245 criticism was what was left for the seventeenth century to supply, and at the same time the elaboration of a complete and workman- like prose style. We shall see how early and how eagerly this task was accepted, and how thoroughly it was carried out ; so thoroughly, that the seventeenth century is the age of perfect French prose. But what was gained in prose was lost in poetry, and, putting the dramatists aside, the drop in this respect from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century is immense. The sixteenth is, putting the nineteenth out of question, the palmy time of poetry in France. The urbanity of Marot, the stately grace of Ronsard and his followers, the majesty of Du Bartas, the fire of D'Aubigne", the nervous and yet effortless strength of Regnier, have never been surpassed, and until the nineteenth century they have rarely been equalled. If to this be added the more irregular and unequal, but hardly inferior merits of the best sixteenth-century prose, the in- exhaustible humour of Rabelais, the simplicity and varied colour of the great memoir-writers, the subtle eloquence of Montaigne, it may perhaps seem that the period can contest the primacy with any other. The dispute between it and its successor is, however, only an instance of one which recurs again and again in literature, and which neither need nor should be handled here at length. BOOK III. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. CHAPTER I. POETS. THE history of the poetry of the seventeenth century in France naturally and necessarily opens with Malherbe, though he was forty-five years old at its beginning, and con- siderably the senior of Regnier, who has been included among the poets of the Renaissance. Fran9ois de Malherbe * was born at Caen in 1555, being the eldest son of his father, another Franois de Malherbe, and both on the father's and mother's side of noble family. He was educated at his native town, in Germany and in Paris, and when he was twenty-one he entered the army. He married in 1581, and had three children, two of whom died young a circumstance not immaterial in connection with his most famous poem, which is a ' Consolation ' to a certain M. du Perier, whose daughter Marguerite had died in her youth. He seems to have written verses tolerably early, but, exercising on himself the same rigid principles of criticism which he applied to others, he preserved none or hardly any of them. It was not till he was past forty that his best-known poems were written, and the whole amount of his surviving work is not large. During the first two- thirds of his life he was not rich, for his patrimony was scanty, and the death of the Grand Prior, Henri d'Angouleme, to whom he had attached himself, deprived him of the chances of preferment. 1 Ed. Lalanne. 5 vols. Paris, 186267 ; also (poems only) conveniently by Jannet. Paris, 1874. Besides his verse Malherbe wrote some translations of Seneca and Livy, and a great number of letters, including many to Peiresc, a savant of the time who is best known from Gassendi's Life of him. Pcets. 347 But in 1 605 he was presented to Henri IV. ; he soon afterwards received various places, and for more than twenty years was a court favourite, and in a way the autocrat of poetry. He died in 1628. It has been said that Malherbe's poetical work is by no means voluminous: a small volume of two hundred pages, not very closely or minutely printed, contains it all ; and ingenious persons have calculated that as a rule he did not write more than four or five verses a month. Nor even of this carefully produced, and still more carefully weeded, result is there much that can be read with pleasure by a modern student of poetry. The verse by which Malherbe is best known, Et, rose, elle a ve*cu ce que vivent les roses, is worth all the rest of his work, and it can hardly be said to be more than a very graceful and touching conceit. But Malherbe's position in the history of French poetry is a very important one. He deliberately assumed the functions of a reformer of literature ; and whatever may be thought of the result of his reforms, their durability and the almost entire acquiescence with which they were received prove that there must have been something in them remarkably germane to the spirit and taste and genius of the nation. His first attempt was the overthrow of the Pteiade. He ridiculed their phraseology, frowned on their metres, and, being himself destitute of the romantic inspiration which had animated them, set himself to reduce poetry to carefully-worded metrical prose. The story is always told of him that he went minutely through a copy of Ronsard, striking out whatever he disapproved of; and that, when some one pointed out the mass of lines that were left, he drew his pen (presumably across the title- page, for it is not obvious how else he could have done it) through the rest at one stroke. The insolent folly of this is glaring enough, for Malherbe is not worthy as a poet to unloose the shoe-latchet of Ronsard. But the critic had rightly appreciated his time. The tendency of the French seventeenth century in poetry proper was towards the restriction of vocabulary and rhythm, the avoid- ance of original and daring metaphor and suggestion, the per- fecting of a few metres (with the Alexandrine at their head) into 248 The- Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. a delicate but monotonous harmony, and the rejection of individual licence in favour of rigid rule. The influence of Boileau came rapidly to second that of Malherbe, and the result is that not a single poet the dramatists are here excluded of the seventeenth century in France deserves more than fair second-class rank. La Fontaine, indeed, was a writer of the greatest genius, but, though the form which his work takes is metrical, the highest merits of poetry proper are absent. La Fontaine, too, was himself, though an admirer of Malherbe, a rebel to the Malherbe tradition, and de- lighted both in reading and imitating the work of the Renaissance and the middle ages. But he is always clear, precise, and matter- of-fact in the midst of fancy, never attaining to the peculiar vague suggestiveness which constitutes the charm of poetry proper. It was, however, impossible that so large a change should accomplish itself at once, and signs of mixed influences appear accordingly in all the poetical work of the first half of the century. The School Cardinal du Perron, Malherbe's introducer at court, of Malherbe. was himself a poet of merit, but rather in the Ple*iade style. His Temple de T Inconstance, though rougher in form, is more poetical in substance than anything, save a very few pieces, of Malherbe's. Chassignet displayed some of the same char- acteristics with a graver and more elegiac spirit. Gombaud is chiefly remarkable as a sonneteer. The two most famous of the actual pupils of Malherbe were Maynard and Racan. Maynard 1 was a diplomatist and lawyer of rank, who was born at Toulouse in 1582, and died in 1646.* His work is miscellaneous, and not very extensive, but it shows that he had learned the secret of polished versification from Malherbe, and that he was able to apply it with a good deal of vigour and of variety. Honorat de Bueil, Marquis de Racan 2 , was the author of a pastoral drama, Les Bergeries, founded on, or imitated from, the Aslree of D'Urfe, of an elaborate version of the Psalms, and of a considerable number of the miscellaneous poems, stances, odes, fyitres, etc., which were fashionable. Racan, though his amiable private char- acter and the compliance of his principal work with a fashionable folly of the time have caused him to be somewhat overestimated 1 Ed. Lemerre. 3 vols. Paris, 1885-8. * Ed. Latour. 2 vols. Paris, 1857. Ch. i.] Poets. 249 traditionally, was a thoroughly pleasing poet, with a great com- mand of fluent and melodious verse, a genuine love of nature, and occasionally a power of producing poetry of a true kind which was shared by few of his contemporaries. The remarkable author of Tyr et Sidon, Jean de Schelandre, produced, besides his play, a considerable number of miscellaneous poems ; but he was a thorough reactionary, avowed his contempt of Malherbe, and studied, not without success, Ronsard and his own coreligionist Du Bartas as models. One of the most original, though at the same time one of the most unequal poets of the early seven-. / teenth century, was The'ophile de Viaud, often called The'ophile * simply. He, too, was a dramatist, but his dramas do not do him much credit, their style being exaggerated and ' precious.' On the other hand, his miscellaneous poems, though very unequal, include much work of remarkable beauty. The pieces entitled ' La Solitude,' ' Sur une Tempete,' and the stanzas beginning ' Quand tu me vois baiser tes bras,' have all the fervour and picturesqueness of the Pleiade without its occasional blemishes of pedantic ex- pression. Thdophile was a loose liver and an unfortunate man. He was accused, justly or unjustly, of writing indecent verses, was imprisoned, and died young. All these poets were writers who, except in so far as they held to the elder tradition of Ronsard or the new gospel of Mal- herbe, can hardly be said to have belonged to any school. Towards the middle of the century, however, two well-defined fashions of poetry, with some minor ones, distinguished themselves. There was, in the first place, the school of the coterie poets, vers de who devoted themselves to producing vers de socie/e, Society either for the ladies, or for the great men of the Voiture. period. The chief of this school was beyond all question Voiture 2 . This admirable writer of prose and verse published absolutely nothing during his lifetime, though his work was in private the delight of the salons. That it should be, under the circum- stances, somewhat frivolous is almost unavoidable. But, especially after the cessation of the great flow of inspiration which had 1 Ed. Alleaume. 2 vols. Paris, 1855. 8 Ed. Ubicini. a vols. Paris, 1855. 250 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. characterised the sixteenth century, it was of no small importance that the art of perfect expression should be cultivated in French. Voiture was one of those who contributed most to the cultivation of this art. His letters are as correct as those of Balzac, and much less stilted; and of his poetry it is sufficient to say that nothing more charming of the kind has ever been written than the sonnet to Uranie, which stirred up a literary war, or the rondeau 1 Ma foi c'est fait de moi.' This last put once more in fashion a beautiful and thoroughly French form, which it had been one of the worst deeds of the Plelade to make unfashionable. The chief rival of Voiture was Benserade, a much younger man, whose sonnet on Job was held to excel, though it certainly does not, that to Uranie. Benserade was of higher birth and larger fortune than Voiture, and long outlived him. He was a great writer of ballets or masques, and not unfrequently, like Voiture, showed that a true poet underlay the fantastic disguises he put on. Around these two are grouped numerous minor poets of different merit. Boisrobert, the favourite of Richelieu and the companion of Rotrou and Corneille in that minister's band of ' five poets ; ' Malevillc, who in one of the sonnet-tournaments of the time, that of the Belle Matineuse, was supposed to have excelled even Voiture; Colletet, whose poems make him less important in literature than his Lives of the French poets, which unfortunately perished during the Commune before they had been fully printed ; Gomberville, more famous as a novelist ; Sarrasin, an admirable prose writer, and a clever composer of ballades and other light verse ; Godeau, a bishop and a very clever versifier ; Blot, who was rather a political than a social rhymer; Marigny, who was also famous for his Mazarinades, but whose satirical power was by no means the only side of his poetical talent ; Charleval, whose personal popularity was greater than his literary ability ; Maucroix, the friend of La Fontaine ; Segrais, an eclogue writer of no small merit ; Chapelle, an idle epicurean, who derives most of his fame from the fact of his having been intimate with all the foremost literary men of the time, and from his having composed, in com- pany with Bachaumont, a Voyage in mixed prose and verse, the form of which was long very popular in France and was imitated Ch. i.] Poets. 251 with especial success by Anthony Hamilton and Voltaire ; Pa- vilion, who deserves a very similar general description, but who gave no such single example of his abilities : all belong to this class. Side by side with the frivolous school, but in curious contrast with it, there existed a school of ponderous epic writers, Epic School, the extirpation of which is the best claim of Boileau Chapeiain. to the gratitude of posterity. The typical poets of this class are Georges de Scude"ry, the author of Alaric, and Chapeiain, the author of the Pucelle. Scudery was a soldier and a man of con- siderable talent, who lacked nothing but patience and the power of self-criticism to produce really good work. Like his more famous sister, he had invention and literary facility. His plays are not without merit in parts, and his epic of Alaric, amidst astonish- ing platitudes and extravagances, has occasional good lines. But Chapeiain is by far the most remarkable figure of the school. He was bred up to be a poet from his earliest age, and by a stroke of luck, impossible in less anomalous times, he was taken at his own valuation for years. La Pucelle was quoted in manuscript, and anxiously expected for half a short lifetime. It only appeared to be hopelessly damned. There are passages in it of merit, but they are associated with lines which read like designed burlesques. The onslaughts of Boileau have created a kind of reaction in favour of Chapeiain with some who disagree with Boileau's poetical principles : but he is not defensible. His odes are indeed tolerable in parts; not so the Pucelle, save, as has been said, in occasional lines. The Clovis of Desmarets de Saint- Sorlin is worse than the Pucelle. On the other hand, the Pere le Moyne in his St. Louis, taking apparently Du Bartas as his model, produced work which, if not very readable as a whole, manifests real and very considerable poetical talent. Lastly, Saint-Amant in the Moise Sauve showed how far below himself a clever writer may be when he mistakes his style. Saint-Amant l , who, to do him justice, did not call Mo'ise Sauv^ an epic but an 'idylle hdroique/ is the link between this school and a third composed of purely convivial poets, who even in this 1 Ed. Livet. 2 vols. Paris, 1855. 252 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. century furnished work of remarkable excellence, and who pro- Baccha- duced a numerous and brilliant progeny in the next, nalian Saint-Amant's Anacreontic poems are of great merit. School. of t he same class was Saint-Pavin, who was not merely Saint-Amant. a ffee jj ve ^ but a member o f the sma u but influential free-thinking sect which preceded and gave birth to the Philosophes of the next century. This time, moreover, was the period of a curious literary trick, the resuscitation or forging of the convivial poems of Oliver Basselin by a Norman lawyer of the name of Jean le Houx. A genuine and contemporary Basselin, in the person of a carpenter named Adam Billaut, produced some notable work of the same kind. Unfortunately the Anacreontic poetry of this time suffers from the too frequent coarseness of its language ; a fault which indeed was not fully corrected until BeVanger's days. The members, however, of all these schools have long lost their hold on all but students of literature, and, with the exception of La Fontaine and Boileau, it is not easy to mention any non- dramatic poet of the seventeenth century who has kept a place in the general memory. Jean la Fontaine * was born at La Fontaine. to J J Chateau Thierry in Champagne in the year 1621, and died at Paris in 1695. His father held a considerable post as ranger of the neighbouring forests, an office which passed to his son. La Fontaine seems to have been carelessly educated, but after a certain time literature attracted him, and he began to study in a desultory fashion, without however, as it would appear, being himself tempted to write. At the age of six-and-twenty he married Marie Hericart, a girl of sixteen, who is said to have been both amiable and beautiful, and not long afterwards he was left his own master by his father's death. He was suited very ill by nature either to fill a responsible office or to be head of a house. The well-known stories of his absence of mind, his simplicity, his indifference to outward affairs, have no doubt been exaggerated, but there is, equally without doubt, a foundation of fact in them. On the other hand, though the most serious charges against his wife seem to rest on no foundation, it is certain that she had little aptitude for housewifery. After a time the household was broken 1 Ed. Moland. 7 vols. Paris, 1879. Ak e< ^ R e n i er i voL i. Paris, 1883. Ch. I.] Poets. 253 up, though there was offspring of the marriage. A division of goods was effected, and husband and wife separated, not to meet again except on visits and for brief spaces of time, though they seem to have remained on perfectly friendly terms. La Fontaine went to Paris, and very soon attracted the notice of Fouquet, the magnifi- cent superintendent of the finances, who gave him a pension of a thousand livres and made him a member of his literary household. Here La Fontaine began to write. At the downfall of Fouquet he was constant to his friend, and produced the best-known of his mis- cellaneous poems, the 'Pleurez, Nymphes de VauxV The mis- fortune unsettled him for a time, and he travelled about. But re- turning to his native place, he was taken into favour by the Duchess of Bouillon, and this was the beginning of a series of patronages which lasted till the end of his life. Once more visiting Paris, he became a favourite with many men and women of rank, and began his serious literary work by producing the first part of his Conies. The remaining parts and the Fables appeared at intervals during the remainder of his life. His second visit to Paris brought about his traditional association with Boileau, Moliere, and Racine, the four meeting at regular intervals, either in taverns or at lodgings in the Rue Vieux Colombier. During the later years of his life La Fontaine was a confirmed Parisian. His office at Chateau Thierry had been sold, and he was the guest of various hospitable persons, the chief of whom was Madame de la Sabliere. In 1668 appeared the first part of the Fables with universal approval. But the loose character of the Conies, and still more the association of La Fontaine with some of the freethinkers who were in ill-repute with the king's spiritual advisers, retarded his admission to the Academy. When Colbert died; La Fontaine and Boileau were the two candidates ; an awkward accident, considering their friend- ship, and the fact that the court was as decidedly for Boileau as the Academy itself for La Fontaine. The latter was elected, but the king delayed his assent, and even seemed likely to exercise a veto, when fortunately a second vacancy occurred, and Boileau being elected, both were approved by the king, Boileau warmly, 1 This is in reality the beginning of the second line of the poem, though it is often quoted as if it were the first. 254 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. La Fontaine with the grudging terms ' Vous pouvez recevoir La Fontaine; il a promis d'6tre sage/ A curious warning of a similar tenor was contained in the ' discours de reception/ La Fontaine's work is considerable, including many miscellaneous poems, the romance of Psyche, and various dramatic attempts which were more or less failures. But the Conies and the Fables are the only works which have held their ground with posterity, and it is upon them that his reputation is justly based. The first part of the Contes appeared at the extreme end of 1664*, the second in 1667, the third in 1671, but the author added pieces in succes- sive editions. The first part of the Fables appeared in 1668, dedicated to the Dauphin, the second in 1679, dedicated to Madame de Montespan, the third in 1693, dedicated to the Due de Bourgogne, who is said to have been taught by Fenelon to delight in La Fon- taine, and to have sent him just before his death all the money he had. The two books are complementary to each other, and La Fontaine's genius cannot be judged by either alone. It has been remarked that he was a diligent though apparently a very desultory reader. He read the Italians, and, apparently with still more relish and profit, the works of the old French writers, to whom the Italians owed so much. The spirit of the Fabliaux had been dead, or at any rate dormant, since Marot and Rabelais; La Fontaine revived it. Even purists, like his friend Boileau, admitted a certain archaism in lighter poetry, and La Fontaine would in all probability have troubled himself very little if they had not. His language is, therefore, more supple, varied, and racy than even that of Moliere, and this is his first excellence. His second is a faculty of easy narration in verse, which is absolutely unequalled except perhaps in Pulci and Ariosto, while it is certainly unsurpassed anywhere. His third distinguishing point is his power of insinuating, it may be a satirical point, it may be a moral reflection, which is also hardly equalled and as certainly 1 In previous editions this date was, by an oversight, wrongly printed as 1662. M. Scherer in correcting it himself made a probable mistake in giving ' 1665.' That date is on the title-page, but the achevl cTimprimer is dated Dec. 10, 1664, and as a second edition was finished by Jan. 10, 1665, it is practically certain that the book was out before the end of the year. ch. i.] Posts. 255 unsurpassed. In the authors whom La Fontaine followed, either deliberately or unconsciously, the models of his tales and his fables were indiscriminately mingled; but he separated them by so rigid a line that, while there is hardly a phrase in his Fables which is not suited virgim'lus ptierisque, the Conies are not exactly a book for youth. In the latter the author has taken subjects, always amusing but not unfrequently loose, from the old fabulists, from Boccaccio, from the French prose tale-tellers of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles and similar collections, from Rabelais, from a few Italian writers of -the Renaissance, and has dressed them up in the incomparable narrative of which he alone has the secret. Where he treads in the steps of the greatest writers he is almost always best. ' Joconde ' supplies the opportunity of a remarkable comparison with Ariosto; ' La Fiance'e du Roi de Garbe ' of a still more remarkable compa- rison with Boccaccio. In this latter respect the palm of vivid and varied narration is with La Fontaine, but he misses something of the spirit of the original in his portrait of Alaciel ; indeed La Fon- taine's weakest point is in the comparatively pedestrian character of his treatment. He has little romance, and in translating, not merely the Italians but such countrymen and women of his own as the authors of the Heptameron, he loses the poetical charm which, as has been pointed out, graces and saves the morality or im- morality of the Renaissance. Therefore, despite the wonderful variety and vivid painting of the Con!es, presenting a series of pic- tures which for these qualities have few rivals in literature, the disapproval with which censors more rigid than Johnson (whose excuse of Prior will fairly stretch to Prior's original) have visited them is not altogether unjustifiable. The Fables, with hardly less excellence of the purely literary kind, are fortunately free from the least vestige of any similar fault. La Fontaine, instead of in the smallest degree degrading the beast- fable, has, on the contrary, exalted it to almost the highest point of which it is capable. Not many books have made and kept a more durable and solid reputation. The few dissentient voices in the chorus of eulogy have been those of eccentric crotcheteers like Rousseau, or sentimentalists like Lamartine. It is, indeed, im- possible to read the Fables without prejudice and not be captivated 256 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. by them. As mere narratives they are charming, and the per- petual presence of an undercurrent of sly, good-humoured, satirical meaning relieves them from all charge of insipidity. La Fontaine, like Goldsmith, was with his pen in his hand as shrewd and as deeply learned in human nature as without it he was simple and naif. Something has to be said of the form and strictly poetical value of these two remarkable books as remarkable, let it be remem- bered, for their bulk as for their excellence, for between them they cannot contain much less than 30,000 verses. The measure is almost always an irregular mixture of lines of different lengths, rhyming sometimes in couplets, sometimes in interlaced stanzas, which La Fontaine established as the vehicle of serio-comic narra- tion. For this, in his hands, it is extraordinarily well fitted. As for the strictly poetic value of the work, it is perhaps significant that though he is, taking quantity and excellence together, the most important non-dramatic writer of verse of the whole century in France, he is rarely thought of (out of France) as a poet. A poet, indeed, in the highest sense of the word he is not. He has hardly any passion, evidences of it being almost confined to the elegy to Fouquet and, perhaps, as M. Thdodore de Banville pleads, to the ' Faucon ' and ' Courtisane Amoureuse ' of the Conies. He has no indefinite suggestion of beauty ; even his descriptions of nature, though always accurate and picturesque, being somewhat prosaic. He may be said to be a prose writer of the very first class who chose to write in verse, and who justified his choice by a wonderful technical ability in the particular form of verse which he used. There is no greater mistake than the supposition that La Fontaine's verse-writing is mere facile improvisation. Nicolas Boileau *, who was long known in France as the ' Law- giver of Parnassus,' and who, perhaps, exercised a more powerful and lasting influence over the literature of his native Boileau. country than any other critic has ever enjoyed, was born at Paris on All Saints' Day, 1636. His father held the post of registrar of one of the numerous courts of law, and his family had legal connections of wide range and long date. He himself 1 Ed. Foumier. Paris, 1873. Ch. I.] Poets. 257 was brought up to the law, but had not the least inclination for it ; and at his father's death, which happened exactly when he attained his majority, his inheritance was considerable enough to allow him to do as he pleased. The family was a large one, and, according to a custom of the time, the brothers, or at least some of them, were distinguished by additional surnames. That which Nicolas took Desprdaux was, at any rate during his youth, more frequently used than his patronymic, and has continued to be applied to him indifferently, thereby causing some odd blunders on the part of ignorant people. He himself sometimes signed Despreaux and sometimes Boileau-Despre'aux. Besides law, he had also studied theology, and, though he never took orders, he enjoyed for a considerable time a priory at Beauvais, the profits of which, however, he returned when he definitely abandoned the idea of the church as a profession. He very early made attempts in literature, and when he was a man of seven- or eight-and-twenty, he joined La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere in the celebrated society of four. Social and literary criticism was even thus early his forte, and his first collections of Horatian satire were published in 1666, though, owing to the influence of Chapelain, the royal privilege was shortly after withdrawn from them. Boileau, however, soon became a great favourite with the king, as, though in actual conversation he retained his natural freedom of speech, he did not hesitate to use the most grovelling flattery of expression in verse. Pensions and places were given to him freely, so that, his own property being not inconsiderable, he was one of the few wealthy men of letters of the day. He was kept out of the Academy for some time by the fact that he had libelled half its members and was unpopular with the other half, but the royal influence at last got him in in 1684. In his later years the morose arrogance, which was his chief characteristic, in- creased on him, and was doubtless aggravated by the bad health from which he suffered during the whole of his long life. He died in 1711, having outlived all his friends except Louis himself. Boileau's works consist of twelve satires, of the same number of epistles, of an Art Poetique, of the Lutrin, a serio-comic poem, of two odes, and of three or four score epigrams and miscellaneous 258 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. pieces in verse, with a translation of Longinus on the Sublime, some short critical dissertations, and a number of letters in prose. With the exception of the Lutrin it will be observed that almost all his poetical work is very closely modelled on Horace. His satire is extremely clever, but, as necessarily happens when the frame and manner of one time are used for the circumstances of another, it is altogether artificial. The Horatian satire is nothing if not personal, and as Boileau (even more than Pope, who strongly resembles him) had a bad heart, his personalities are unusually reckless and offensive. Thus in a couplet against parasites he inserted at one time the name of Colletet (son of the Colletet men- tioned above), at another that of Pelletier, though both were noto- riously free from the vice, and guilty of no fault except poverty and a disposition to produce indifferent verse. Boileau's crusade, too, against the minor poets of his day was unfortunately followed by his own production of a ridiculous ode, excellently burlesqued by Prior, on the taking of Namur in 1692 by the French. This, with certain pieces of Young's, is perhaps the most glaring example extant of how a writer of great talent and literary skill may combine the basest flattery with the most abjectly bad verse. But where he confined himself to his proper sphere, Boileau exhibited no small power. He was, in fact, a slashing reviewer in verse, and there has rarely been so effective a practitioner of the craft. Narrow as was his idea of poetry, it was perfectly clear and precise, and, as his pupil Racine showed, he could teach it to others with the most striking success. Le Lulrin, too, is a poem which, in a rather trivial kind, is something of a masterpiece. Its subject, the quarrel of a chapter of ecclesiastics about the position of a lutrin (lectern), afforded Boileau plenty of opportunity for introducing that sarcasm on the upper middle classes which was his forte ; the verse is polished and correct, the satire, though rather facile and con- ventional, agreeable enough. His satires and epistles are full of striking traits evidently studied from the life, but he is always personal and almost always artificial, never rising to the large satiric conception of Regnier or of Dryden. So, too, most of the stories which are recorded of him (and they are many) are stories of ill- natured remarks. In his heart of hearts he knew and acknowledged Ch. l.] Poets. 259 the greatness of Corneille, yet formally and in public he could not refrain from directing unjust satire at the veteran whose master- pieces had been produced when he was in his cradle, in order to exalt his own pupil Racine, whom he privately owned to be simply a very clever and docile rhymester. He himself was very much the same with the exception of the docility. His good sense, his talents, his eye for the ludicrous except in his own work were admirable, and the ill-nature of his satires, with their frequent in- justice and the strange ignorance they display of all literature except the Latin classics* and French and Italian contemporary authors, does not prevent their being excellent examples of French and of the art of polite libelling. It is probable that Boileau might have fared better but for his inconceivable folly in attempting, in the Nainur ode, a style for which he had not the least aptitude, and for the parrot-like monotony with which Frenchmen before 1830, and even some of them since that date, have lauded and quoted him and accepted his dicta. But the most lenient estimate of him can hardly amount to more than that he was an excellent writer of prose and pedestrian verse, a critic of singular acuteness within a narrow range, and a satirist who had a keen eye for the ludicrous aspect of things and persons, and a remarkable skill at reproducing that aspect in words. The list of poets of the century has to be completed by some of more or less importance who flourished in the later days of Louis XIV., and, in some few cases, outlived him. Minor Poets Bre"beuf might have been mentioned before, as he of the later was Boileau's elder, and, dying young, did not reach Seventeenth even the most brilliant period of the reign. But he is unlike any of the three schools who have been described, and his language is more modern than that of most of the poets who wrote before or during the Fronde. His principal work is a trans- lation of the Pharsalia, in which both the defects and the merits of the original are represented with remarkable fidelity. Boileau, who found fault with his fatras obscur, allowed him frequent flashes of genius, and these flashes are rather more frequent than might be supposed, being also of a kind which Boileau was not usually inclined to recognise. Bre"beuf is decidedly of what may be called S 2 260 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. III. the right school of French poets, though he is one of the least of that school. His minor poetry displays the same characteristics as his translation, but is of less importance. Madame Deshoulibres, still more unjustly criticised by Boileau, is unquestionably one of the chief poetesses of France ; indeed, with Louise Lab and Marceline Des- bordes-Valmore, she is almost the only one of importance. Her poems, like those of most of her contemporaries, are of the occa- sional order, and have too much in them that is artificial, but fre- quently also they have real pathos and occasionally not a little vigour. ' Le Songe ' is a very admirable ode, having some of the character- istics of the English Caroline school. Racine himself, independ- ently of his dramas, and the choruses inserted in them, wrote some poetry, chiefly religious, which has his usual characteristics of refine- ment in language and versification. Anthony Hamilton has left some verses (notably an exquisite song, beginning ' Celle qu'adore mon cceur n'est ni brune ni blonde ') as dainty and original as his prose. At the end of the century two poets, whose names always occur together in literary history, the Abbe" de Chaulieu and the Marquis de la Fare, close the record. They were not only alike in their literary work, but were personal friends, and not the worst of Chaulieu's pieces is an elegy on La Fare, whom, though the older man of the two, he survived. They were both members of the libertine society of the Temple, over which the Duke de Ven- dome presided, and which, somewhat later, formed Voltaire. The verses of both were strictly occasional. Chaulieu, like many men of letters of the time, published nothing during his long life, though his poems were known to French society in manuscript. Besides the verses on La Fare, Chaulieu's best poem is, perhaps, that ' On a Country Life ' (the author being an inveterate in- habitant of towns). La Fare, on the other hand, is best known by his stanzas to Chaulieu on ' La Paresse,' which he was well quali- fied to sing, inasmuch as it is said that during many years of his long life he did nothing but sleep and eat. The verses of the two continued to be models of style, and (in a way) of choice of sub- ject, during the whole eighteenth century. Macaulay's rhetorical description of Frederic's verses, as ' hateful to gods and men, the faint echo of the lyre of Chaulieu/ is not quite just in its suggestion. ch. i.] Poets. 261 Chaulieu, and still more La Fare, wrote very fair occasional poetry. One curious application of verse during this century requires mention in conclusion. This was the Gazette, or rhymed news- letter, in which the gossip of the day, the diversions of the court, etc., were recorded for the amusement and instruction of great persons in the most pedestrian of octosyllables. The chief writer of these trifles, which are very voluminous, and which have pre- served many curious particulars, was Loret, who was succeeded by Robinet, Boursault, Laurent, and others. CHAPTER II. DRAMATISTS. influence of Malherbe was thus cramping and wither- ing poetry proper in France, it combined with some other causes to enable drama to attain the highest perfection possible in the particular style practised. In non-dramatic poetry, the only name of the seventeenth century which can be said even to approach the first class is that of La Fontaine, whose verse, except for its technical excellence, is almost as near to prose as to poetry itself. But the names of Corneille, Racine, and Moliere stand in the highest rank of French authors, and their works will remain the chief examples of the kind of drama which they professed. Nor is this difference in any way surprising, It has been already shown that the style of drama introduced into France by the Pl&ade, and pursued with but little alteration afterwards, was a A^ highly artificial and a highly limited kind. It lent itself success- F fully to comparatively few situations ; it excluded vflripty enaction on thestage ; itjjave jio opening for the display of complicated cha- racter. But these very limitations made it susceptible of very high polish and elaboration within its own limited range, and made such polish and elaboration almost a necessity if it was to be tolerable at all. The correct and cold language and style which Malherbe preached; the regularity and harmony of versification on which he insisted ; the strict attention to rule rather than impulse which he urged, all suited a thing in itself so artificial as the Senecan tragedy. They were not so suitable to the more libertine genius of comedy. But here, fortunately for France, the regulations were less rigid, and the abiding popularity of the indigenous farce gave a healthy Dramatists. 263 corrective. The astonishing genius of Moliere succeeded in com- bining the two influences the lawless freedom of the old farce, and the ordered decency of the Malherbian poetry. Even his theatre shows some sign of the taint with which ' classical ' drama is so deeply imbued, but its force and truth almost or altogether redeem the imperfections of its scheme. We have seen that the early tragedy, which was more or less directly reproductive of Seneca, attained its highest pitch in the work of Gamier. This pitch was on the whole well maintained by AntoineUe Montchrestien, a man of a singular history Mont- and of a singular genius. The date of his birth is not chrestien. exactly known, but he was the son of an apothecary at Falaise, and belonged to the Huguenot party. Duels and lawsuits suc- ceed each other in his story, and by some means or other he was able to assume the title of Seigneur de Vasteville. In one of his duels he killed his man, and had to fly to England. Being par- doned, he returned to France and took to commerce. But after the death of Henri IV. he joined a Huguenot rising, and was killed in October 1621. Montchrestien wrote a treatise on Poli- tical Economy ' (he is even said to have been the first to introduce the term into French), some poems, and six tragedies, Sophonisbe, or La Cartaginoise, Les Lacenes, David, Aman, Hector, and L 'Ecos- saise. Racine availed himself not a little of Aman, but L' Ecossais^. is Montchrestien'-S best piece. In it he set the exampreto a long line of dramatists, from Vondel to Mr. Swinburne, who have since treated the story of Mary Queen of Scots. It is not part of the merit of Montchrestien to have improved on the technical defects of the Jodelle-Garnier model. His action is still deficient, his seeches immoderately^ long. But his choric odes are of great beauty^ and his tirades, disproportionate as they are, show a con- sjderable advance in the power of indicating character as well as in__ style and versification. Beyond this, however, the force of the model could no further go, and some alteration was necessary. Indeed it is by no means certain that the later plays of this class were ever acted at all. For a not inconsiderable time the fate of French tragedy trembled 1 Ed. Funck-Brentano. Paris, 1889 264 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. in the balance. During the first thirty years of the seventeenth century the most prominent dramatist was Alexandre Hardy \. He is the first and not the least important example in French literary history of a dramatic author pure and simple, a playwright who was a playwright, and nothing else. Hardy was for years attached to the regular company of actors who had succeeded the Cpufrezie at the Hotel de Bourgogne, and wrote or adapted pieces for them at the tariff (it is said) of fifty crowns a play. His fertility was immense ; and he is said to have written some hundreds of plays. The exact number is variously stated at from five to seven hundred. Forty-one exist in print. Although not destitute of original power, Hardy was driven to the already copious theatre of Spain for subjects and models. His plays being meant for acting and for nothing else, the scholarly but tedious exer- citations of the Ple"iade school were out of the question. Yet, while he introduced a great deal of Spanish embroilment into his plots, and a great deal of Spanish bombast into his speeches, Hardy still accepted the general outline of the classical tragedy, and, though utterly careless of unity of place and time, adhered for the most part to the perhaps more mischievous unity of action. His best play, Mariamne, is powerfully written, is arranged with consider- able skill, and contains some fine lines and even scenes ; but, little as Hardy hampered himself with rules, it still has, to an English reader, a certain thinness of interest. A contemporary of Hardy's, Jean de Schdlandre, made, in a play 3 which does not seem ever to have been acted, a remarkable attempt at enfranchising French tra- gedy with the full privileges rather of the English than of the Spanish drama; but this play, Tyr el Sidon, had no imitators and no in- fluence, and the general model remained unaltered. But during the first quarter of the century the theatre was exceedingly popular, and the institution of strolling troops of actors spread its popularity all 1 Ed. Stengel. 5 vols. Marburg, 1884. Cf. Rigal, AlexanJre Hardy. Paiis, 1889. z This singular work has been published in vol. 8 of the Ancien Theatre Franfais in the Bibliotheque Elz^virienne. It consists of two parts (or, as the author calls them, days), and fills some two hundred pages. The traditions of the classical drama aie thrown to the winds in it, and the liberty of action, the abundance of personages, the bustle and liveliness of the presentation are almost equal to those of the contemporary English theatre. Ch. ii.] Dramatists. 365 over France. Nearly a hundred names of dramatic writers of this time are preserved. Most of these, no doubt, were but retainers of the houses or the troops, and did little but patch, adapt, and translate. But of the immediate predecessors of Minor Corneille, and his earlier contemporaries, at least half- predecessors a-dozen are more or less known to fame, besides of Corneille - the really great name of Rotrou. Mairet, Tristan, Du Ryer, Scude'ry, Claveret, and D'Aubignac, were the chief of these. Mairet has been called the French Marston, and the resemblance is not confined to the fact that both wrote tragedies on the favourite subject of Sophonisba. The chief work of Tristan, who was also a poet of some merit, was Marianne (Mariamne), very closely modelled on an Italian original, and much less vigorous, though more polished than Hardy's play on the same subject. Du Ryer had neither Mairet's vigour nor Tristan's tenderness, butTie made more progress than either of them had done in the direction of the completed tragedy of Corneille and Racine. Scudery's Amour Tyrannique is vigorous and bombastic. Claveret and D'Aubignac (the latter of whom was an active critic as well as a bad play-wright) principally derive their reputation, such as it is, from the acerbity with which they attacked Corneille in the dispute about the Cid ; nor should the name of Theophile de Viaud be passed over in this connection. His Pyrame et Thisbe' is often considered as almost the extreme example (though Corneille's Clitandre is perhaps worse) of the conceited Spanish-French style in tragedy. The passage in which Thisbe accuses the poniard with which Pyramus has stabbed himself of blushing at having sullied itself with the blood of its master is a commonplace of quotation. Yet, like all The'ophile's work, Pyrame et Thisbe' has value, and so has the unrepresented tragedy of Pasiphae". Among these forgotten names, and others more absolutely for- gotten still, that of Rotrou * is pre-eminently distinguished. Jean de Rotrou (the particle is not uniformly allowed him) was born at Dreux in 1609. and was thus three years younger than Corneille. He went earlier to Paris, however, and 1 Ed. Viollet-le-Duc. Also in a convenient selection of his best plays, by L. de Ronchaud. Paris, 1882. 266 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. at once betook himself to dramatic poetry, his Hypocondriaqut being represented before he was nineteen. He formed with Cor- neille, Colletet, Bois- Robert, and L'Etoile, the band of Richelieu's ' Five Poets,' who composed tragedies jointly on the Cardinal's plans 1 . He also worked unceasingly at the theatre on his own account. Thirty-five pieces are certainly, and five more doubt- fully, attributed to him. For some time he had to work for bread, and the only weakness charged against him, a mania for gambling, left him poor, and perhaps prevented him from devoting to his work as much pains as he might otherwise have given. After a time, however, he was pensioned, and appointed to various legal posts which members of his family had previously held at Dreux. His fidelity to his official duty was the cause of his death. He was at Paris when a violent epidemic broke out at Dreux. All who could left the town, and Rotrou was strongly dissuaded from re- turning. But he felt himself responsible for the maintenance of order, likely at such a time to be specially endangered. 'He returned at once, caught the infection, and died. Rotrou's plays are too numerous for a complete list of them to be here given, and by common consent two of them, Le Veritable Saint -Genest and Venceslas> greatly excel the rest, though vigorous verse and good scenes are to be found in almost all. These plays, it should be observed, were not written until after the publication of Corneille's early masterpieces, though Rotrou had exhibited a play the year before the appearance of Me'lite. The two poets were friends, and though Corneille in a manner supplanted him, Rotrou was un- wavering throughout his life in expressions of admiration for his great rival. Of the two plays just mentioned, Venceslas is the more regular, the better adapted to the canons of the French stage, and the more even in its excellence. Saint-Genesi is perhaps the more interesting. The central idea is remarkable. Genest, an actor, performs before Diocletian a part in which he represents a Christian martyr. He is miraculously converted during the study 1 It is pretty generally known that Richelieu himself (besides other dramatic work) composed the whole, or nearly the whole, of a play, Mirame, which he had sumptuously performed, and which was fathered by Desmarest. It pos- sessed no merit. Ch. ii.] Dramatists. 267 of the piece, and at its performance, after astonishing the audience by the fervour and vividness with which he plays his part, boldly speaks in his own person, and, avowing his conversion, is led off to prison and martyrdom. Many of the speeches in this play are admirable poetry, and the plot is far from ill-managed. The play within a play, of which Hamlet and the Taming of the Shrew are English examples, was, at this transition period, a favourite stage incident in France. Corneille's Illusion is the most complicated example of it, but Saint-Genest is by far the most interesting and the best managed. There is every reason to believe that though, as has been said, Rotrou's best pieces were influenced by Corneille, the greater poet owed something at the beginning of his career to the example of his friend. Pierre Corneille * was born at Rouen in 1606. Corneule. His father, of the same name, was an official of rank in the legal hierarchy ; his mother was named Marine le Pesant. He was educated in the Jesuits' school, went to the bar, and obtained certain small legal preferments which he afterwards sold. He prac- tised, but ' sans gout et sans succes,' says Fontenelle, his nephew and biographer. His first comedy, Me'hte, is said to have been suggested by a personal experience. It succeeded at Rouen, and the author took it to Paris. His next attempt was a tragedy or a tragi-comedy, Clitandre, of a really marvellous extravagance. It was followed by several other pieces, in all of which there is remarkable talent, though the author had not yet found his way. He found it at last in Ale'de'e, where the famous reply of the heroine ' Que vous reste-t-il ? ' ' Moi,' struck at once the note which no one but Corneille himself and Victor Hugo has ever struck since, and which no one had ever struck before. Corneille, as has been said above, was one of Richelieu's five poets, but he was indocile to the Cardinal's caprices ; and either this indocility or jealousy set Richelieu against Le Cid. This great and famous play was suggested by, rather than copied from, the Spanish of Guillem de Castro. It excited an extraordinary turmoil among men of letters, but the public never went wrong about it from the first. Boileau's phrase Tout Paris pour Chimene a les yeux de Rodrigue, 1 Ed. Mai ty-Laveaux. 12 vols. Paris, 1862-67. 268 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. is as sound in fact as it is smart in expression. The Cid appeared in 1636, and for some years Corneille produced a succession of masterpieces. Horace, Ct'nna, Polyeude^ Le Menteur (a remarkable comic effort, to which Moliere acknowledged his indebtedness), and Rodogune, in some respects the finest of all, succeeded each other at but short intervals. Half-a-dozen plays, which were somewhat inferior in merit, and had the drawback of coming before a public used to the author and his method, followed, and the last and least good o{them,PertAari/e, was damned. Corneille, always the proudest of writers, was deeply wounded by this ill- success, and publicly renounced the stage. He devoted himself for some years to a strange task, the turning of the Imitalion of A'Kempis into verse. At last Fouquet, the Maecenas of the day, prevailed on him to begin again. He did so with (Edipe, which was successful. It was followed by many other plays, which had varying fates. Racine, with a method refined upon Corneille's own, and a greater sympathy with the actual generation, became the rival of the elder poet, and Corneille did not obey the wise maxim, solve senescenlem. Yet his later plays have far more merit than is usually allowed to them. The private life of Corneille was not unhappy, though his haughty and sensitive temperament 'brought him many vexations. His gains were small, never exceeding two hundred louis for a play, and though this was supplemented by occasional gifts from rich dedicatees and by a scanty private fortune, the total was insufficient. ' Je suis saoul de gloire et aflame" d'argent ' is one of the numerous sayings of scornful discontent recorded of him. He had a pension, but it was in his later days very ill paid. Nor was he one of the easy-going men of letters who console themselves by Bohemian indulgence. In general society he was awkward, constrained, and silent: but his home, which was long shared with his brother Thomas they married two sisters seems to have been a happy one. He retained till his death in 1684, if not the favour of the King and the general public, that of the persons whose favour was best worth having, such as Saint-Evremond and Madame de Se'vigne', and his own confidence in his genius never deserted him. Corneille's dramatic career may be divided into four parts ; the Ch. II.] Dramatists. 269 first reaching from Melite to L 'Illusion Comique ; the second (that of his masterpieces), from the Cid to Rodogune ; the third, from Theodore to Pertharite ; the fourth, that of the decadence, from (Edipe to Sure'na. The following is a list of the names and dates (these latter being sometimes doubtful and contentious) of his plays. Melite, 1629, a comedy improbable and confused in inci- dent and overdone with verbal poinles, but much beyond anything previous to it. Clitandre, 1630, a tragedy in the taste of the time, one of the maddest of plays. La Veuve, 1634, a comedy, well written and lively. La Galerie du Palais (same year), a capital comedy of its immature kind, bringing in the humours of contem- porary Paris. La Suivanle, a comedy (same year), in which the great character of the soubrette makes her first appearance. La Place Roy-ale, a comedy, 1635, duller than the Galerie du Palais, which it in some respects resembles. Me'de'e, a tragedy (same year), incomparably the best French tragedy up to its date. L Illusion Comique, 1636, a tragi-comedy of the extremest Spanish type, com- plicated and improbable to a degree in its action, which turns on the motive of a play within a play, and produces, as the author himself remarks, a division into prologue (Act i), an imperfect comedy (Acts ii-iv), and a tragedy (Act v). Le Cid, 1636, the best- known if not the best of Corneille's plays, and, from the mere playwright's point of view, the most attractive. Horace, 1639, often, but improperly, called Les Horaces, in which the Cornelian method is seen complete. The final speech of Camille before her brother kills her was as a whole never exceeded by the author, and the 'qu'il mourut' of the elder Horace is equally characteristic. Cinna, 1639, the general favourite in France, but somewhat stilted and devoid of action to foreign taste. Polyeucle, 1640, the greatest of all Christian tragedies. La Mori de Pompe'e, 1641, full of stately verse, but heavy and somewhat grandiose. Le Menteur, 1642, a charming comedy, followed by a Suite du Menteur, 1643, not infe- rior, though the fickleness of public taste disapproved it. The'odore, 1645, a noble tragedy, which only failed because the prudery of theatrical precisians found fault with its theme the subjection of a Christian virgin to the last and worst trial of her honour and faith. Rodogune, 1646, the chef-dozwre of the style, displaying from begin- 270 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. ning to end an astonishing power of moving admiration and terror. This play marks the climax of Corneille's faculty. In He'raclius, 1647, no real falling-off is visible; indeed, the character of Phocas stands almost alone on the French stage as a parallel in some sort to lago. Andromede, 1650, introduced a considerable amount of spectacle and decoration, not unhappily. Don Sanche (TAragoft,i6^i, Nicomede, 1652, and Pertharite, 1653 (each of which may possibly be a year older than these respective dates), show what political economists might call the stationary state of the poet's genius. The first two plays produced after the interval, (Edipe, 1659, and La Toison d'Or, 1660, both show the benefit of the rest the poet had had, together with certain signs of advancing years. La Toison d'Or, like Andromede, includes a great deal of spectacle, and is rather an elaborate masque interspersed with regular dramatic scenes than a tragedy. It is one of the best specimens of the kind. In Serlorzus, 1662, there are occasional passages of much grandeur and beauty, but Sophonisbe, 1663, is hardly a success, nor is Olhon, 1664. Age'silas, 1666, and Atlila, 1667, have been (the latter unfairly) damned by a quatrain of Boileau's. But Tile el Be're'nice, 1670, must be acknowledged to be inferior to the play of Racine in rivalry with which it was produced. Pukherie, 1672, and Sure'na, 1674, are last fruits off an old tree, which, especially the second, are not unworthy of it. Nor was Conieille's contribution to the re- markable opera tf Psyche, 1671, inconsiderable. This completes his dramatic work, which amounts to thirty pieces and part of another. It should be added that, to all the plays up to La Toison d'Or, he subjoined in a collected edition very remarkable criticisms of them, which he calls Examens. The characteristics of this great dramatist are perhaps more uniform than those of any writer of equal rank, and there can be little doubt that this uniformity, which, considering the great bulk of his work, amounts almost to monotony, was the cause of his gradual loss of popularity. We shall not here notice the points which he has in common with Racine, as a writer of the French classical drama. These will come in more suitably when Racine himself has been dealt with. In Corneille the academic criticism of the time found the fault that he rather excited admiration Ch. II.] Dramatists. 271 than pity and terror, and it held that admiration was ' not a tragic / passion.' The criticism was clumsy, and to a great extent futile, but it has a certain basis of truth. It is comparatively rare for Corneille to attempt, after his earliest period, to interest his hearers or readers in the fortunes of his characters. It is rather in the way that they bear their fortunes, and particularly in a kind of haughty disdain for fortune itself, that these characters impress us. Sometimes, as in the Cleopatre of Rodogune, this masterful temper is engaged on the side of evil, more frequently it is combined with amiable or at least respectable characteristics. But there is always something ' remote and afar ' about it, and the application by La Bruyere of the famous comparison between the Greek tra- gedians is in the main strictly accurate. It follows that Corneille's demand upon his hearers or readers is a somewhat severe one, and one with which many men are neither disposed nor able to comply. It was a greater misfortune for him than for almost any one else that the French and not the English drama was the Sparta which it fell to his lot to decorate. His powers were not in reality limited. The Menteur shows an excellent comic faculty, and the strokes of irony in his serious plays have more of true humour in them than appears in almost any other French dramatist. Had the licence of the English stage been his, he would probably have been able to impart a greater interest to his plays than they already possess, without sacrificing his peculiar faculty of sublime moral portraiture, and certainly without losing the credit of the magnificent single lines and isolated passages which abound in his work. The friendly criticism of Moliere on these sudden flashes is well known. ' My friend Corneille,' he said, ' has a familiar who comes now and then and whispers in his ear the finest verses in the world, but sometimes the familiar deserts him, and then he writes no better than anybody else.' The most fertile familiar cannot suggest fifty or sixty thousand of these finest lines in the world ; and the consequence is that, what with the lack of central interest which follows from Corneille's own plan, with the absence of subsidiary interest and relief which is inevitable in the French classical model, and with the drawbacks of his somewhat declamatory style, there are long passages, sometimes whole scenes 272 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. and acts, if not whole plays of his, which are but dreary reading, and could hardly be, even with the most appreciative and creative acting, other than dreary to witness. It was Corneille's fault that, while bowing himself to the yoke of the Senecan drama, he did not perceive or would not accept the fact that there is practically but one situation, by the working out of which that drama can be made tolerable to modern audiences. This situation is love-making, which in real life necessitates a vast deal of talking, and about which, even on the stage, a vast deal of talking is admissible. The characters of the French classic or heroic play are practically allowed to do nothing but talk, and the author who would make them interesting must submit himself to his fate. Corneille would not submit wholly and cheerfully, though he has, as might be ex- pected, been obliged to introduce love-making into most of his plays. , J To a modern reader the detached passages already referred to, and the magnificent versification which is displayed in them, make up the real charm of Corneille except in a very few plays, the chief of which are the Ci'd, Horace, Polyeucte, Rodogune. Du Bartas, D'Aubigne", and Regnier, had indicated the capacities of the Alexandrine ; Corneille demonstrated them and illustrated them almost indefinitely. He did not indulge in the pedantry of rimes dijficiles, by which Racine attracted his hearers, nor was his verse so uniformly smooth as that of his younger rival. But what it lacked in polish and grace it more than made up in grandeur and dignity. The best lines of Corneille, like those of D'Aubigne", of Rotrou (from whom, comparatively stammering as was the teacher, Corneille perhaps learnt the art), and of Victor Hugo, have a peculiar crash of sound which hardly any other metre of any other language possesses. A slight touch of archaism (it is very slight) which is to be discovered in his work assists its effect not a little. The inveterate habit which exists in England of com- paring all dramatists with Shakespeare has been prejudicial to the fame of'Corneille with us. But he is certainly the greatest tragic dramatist of France on the classical model, and as a fashioner of dramatic verse of a truly poetical kind he has at his best few equals in the literature of Europe. The character, career, and work of Racine were curiously Ch. 11.] Dramatists. 273 different from those of Corneille. Jean Racine 1 was more than thirty years younger than his greater rival, having been . born at La Fertd Milon, at no great distance from Soissons, in 1639. His father held an official position at this place, but he died, as Racine's mother had previously died, in the boy's in- fancy, leaving him without any fortune. His grandparents, however, were alive, and able to take care of him, and they, with other rela- tives, willingly undertook the task. He was well educated, going to school at Beauvais, from 1650 (probably) to 1655, and then spending three years under the care of the celebrated Port Royalists, from which he benefited much. A year at the College d'Harcourt, where he should have studied law, completed his regular education; but he was always studious, and had on the whole greater advantages of culture than most men of letters of his time and country. For some years he led a somewhat un- decided life. His relations did their best to obtain a benefice for him, and in other ways endeavoured to put him in the way of a professional livelihood ; but ill-luck and probably disinclination on his part stood in the way. He wrote at least two plays at a com- paratively early age which were refused, and are not known to exist, and he produced divers pieces of miscellaneous poetry, especially the 'Nymphe de la Seine, 1 which brought him to the notice of Chapelain. At last, in 1664, he obtained a pension of six hundred livres for an ode on the king's recovery from sickness, and the same year La Thtba'ide was accepted and pro- duced. For the next thirteen years plays followed in rapid, but not too rapid succession. Racine was the favourite of the king, and consequently of all those who had no taste of their own, as well as of some who had, though the best critics inclined to Cor- neille, between whom and Racine rivalry was industriously fostered. The somewhat indecent antagonism which Racine had shown to- wards a man who had won renown ten years before his own birth was justly punished in his own temporary eclipse by the almost worthless Pradon. He withdrew disgusted from the stage in 1677. About the same time he married, was made historio- grapher to the king, and became more or less fervently devout 1 Ed. Mesnard. 8 vols. Fjuis, 1867. T 274 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. Years afterwards, at the request of Madame de Maintenon, he wrote for her school-girls at St. Cyr the dramatic sketch of Esther, and soon afterwards the complete tragedy of Athalie, the greatest of his works. Then he relapsed into silence as far as dramatic utterance was concerned. He died in 1699. Thus he presented the sin- gular spectacle, only paralleled by our own Congreve, and that not exactly, of a short period of consummate activity followed by almost complete inaction. That this inaction was not due to ex- haustion of genius was abundantly shown by Esther and Athalie. But Racine was of a peculiar and in many ways an unamiable temper. He was very jealous of his reputation, acutely sensitive to criticism, and envious to the last degree of any public approbation bestowed on others. Having made his fame, he seems to have pre- ferred, in the language of the French gaming table, faire Charle- magne, and to run no further risks. He had, however, worse fail- ings than any yet mentioned. Moliere gave him valuable assist- ance, and he repaid it with ingratitude. With hardly a shadow of provocation he attacked in a tone of the utmost acrimony the Port Royal fathers, to whom he was under deep obligations. The charge of hypocrisy in religious matters which has been brought against him is probably gratuitous, and, in any case, does not con- cern us here. But his character in his literary relations is far from being a pleasant one. The following is a list of Racine's theatrical pieces. La The'ba'ide, 1664, indicates with sufficient clearness the lines upon which all Racine's plays, save the two last, were to be constructed a minute adherence to the rules, very careful versification and sub- ordination of almost all other interests to stately gallantry but it is altogether inferior to its successors. In Alexandre le Grand, 1665, the characteristics are accentuated, and what Corneille disdainfully called Le commerce rampant de soupirs et de flammes is more than ever prominent. In Andromaque, 1667, an immense advance is perceptible. The characters become personally inter- esting (Hermione is perhaps more attractive than any of Corneille's women), and a power of passionate invective not unworthy to be compared with Corneille's, but with more of a feminine character Ch. II.] Dramatists. 275 about it, appears. This was followed by Racine's only attempt in the comic sock, Les Plaideurs, 1668, a most charming trifle which has had, and has deserved, more genuine and lasting popularity than any of his tragedies. He returned to tragedy, and rapidly showed the defects of the stereotyped mannerism inevitably im- posed on him by his plan. Brilannicus, 1669, Berenice, 1670, Bajazet, 1672, and Milhridate, 1673, with all their perfection of technique, announce, as clearly as anything can well do, the fatal monotony into which French tragedy had once more fallen, and in which it was to continue for a century and a half. Iphigenie, 1674, has much more liveliness and variety, the deep pathos and terror of the situation making even Racine's interminable love -casuistry natural and interesting. But Phedre, 1677, the last of the series, is unquestionably the most remarkable of Racine's regular tragedies. By it the style must stand or fall, and a reader need hardly go farther to appreciate it. Brilannicus was indeed preferred by eighteenth-century judges ; but for excellence of construction, artful beauty of verse, skilful use of the limited means of appeal at the command of the dramatist, no play can surpass Phedre ; and if it still is found wanting, as it undoubtedly is by the vast majority of critics (including nowadays a powerful minority even among Frenchmen themselves), the fault lies rather in the style than in the author, or at least in the author for adopting the style. Esther, 1689, and Alhalie, 1691, on the other hand, while retaining a certain similarity of form and machinery, are radically different from the other plays. It is evident that Racine before writing them had attentively studied the sixteenth-century drama, to the strict form of which, with its choruses, he returns, and from which he borrows, in some cases directly, the Aman of Montchrestien having clearly suggested passages in Esther. His great poetical faculty has freer play; he escapes the monotonous 'soupirs et flammes' altogether, and the result is in Esther on the whole, in Athalie wholly, admirable. Racine's peculiarities as a dramatist have been already indicated, but may now be more fully described. He was emphatically one of those writers Virgil and Pope are the other chief notable representatives of the class who, with an incapacity for the finest T 2 276 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. original strokes of poetry, have an almost unlimited capacity for writing from models, for improving the technical execution of their poems, and for adjusting the conception of their pieces to their powers of rendering. These writers are always impossible without forerunners, and not usually possible without critics of the peda- gogic kind. Racine was extraordinarily fortunate in his forerunner, and still more fortunate in his critic. He was able to start with all the advantages which thirty years of work on the part of his rival, Corneille, gave him ; and he had for his trainer, Boileau, one of the most capable, if one of the most limited and prejudiced, of literary schoolmasters. Boileau was no respecter of persons, and arrogant as he was, he was rather an admirer of Racine than of Corneille ; yet, according to a well-known story, he distinguished between the two by saying that Corneille was a great poet, and Racine a very clever man, to whom he himself had taught the knack of easy versification with elaborate rhyming. It is indeed in his versifica- tion that both the strength and the weakness of Racine lie, and in this respect he is an exact analogue to the poets mentioned above. He treated the Alexandrine of Corneille exactly as Pope treated the decasyllabic of Dryden, and as Virgil treated the hexameter of Lucretius. In his hands it acquired smoothness, softness, polish, and mechanical perfections of many kinds, only to suffer at the same time a compensatory monotony which, when the honied sweetness of it began to cloy, was soon recognised as a terrible drawback. The extraordinary estimation in which Racine is held by those who abide by the classical tradition in France depends very mainly on the melody of his versification and Chymes, but it does not depend wholly upon this. There must also be taken into account the perfection of workmanship with which he carries out the idea of the drama which he practised. What that ideal was must therefore be considered. It must be remembered that the object of the French drama of Racine's time was not in the least to hold the mirror up to nature. The model which, owing to admiration of the classics, the Pl^iade had almost at haphazard followed, rendered such an object simply unattainable. The so-called irregularity of the English stage, which used to fill French critics with alternate wonder and disgust, is Ch. ii.] Dramatists. 277 nothing but the result of an unflinching adherence to this standard. It is impossible to reproduce the subtilitas naturae in its most subtle example the character of man without introducing a large diversity of circumstance and action. That diversity in its turn cannot be produced without a great multiplication of cha- racters, a duplication or triplication of plot, and a complete disregard of pre-established ' common form.' Now this ' com- mon form ' was the essence of French tragedy. Following, or thinking that they followed, the ancients, French dramatists and dramatic critics Adopted certain fixed rules according to which a poet had to write just as a whist-player has to play the game. There was to be no action on the stage, or next to none, the / interest of the play was to be rigidly reduced to a central situation, subsidiary characters were to be avoided as far as possible, the only means afforded to the personages of explaining themselves was by dialogue with confidantes the curse of the French stage and the only way of informing the audience of the progress of the action was by messengers. Corneille accepted these limitations partially, and without too much good-will, but he evaded the diffi- culty by emphasising the moral lesson. The ethical standard of his plays is perhaps higher on the whole than that of any great dramatist, and the wonderful bursts of poetry which he could com- mand served to sugar the pill. But Racine was not a man of high moral character, and he was a man of great shrewdness and discernment. He evidently distrusted the willingness of audi- ences perpetually to admire moral grandeur, whether he did or did not hold that admiration was not a tragic passion. Probably he would have put it that it was not a passion that would draw. ./ Love-making, on the contrary, would draw, and this is the staple of all his plays save Esther and Athalie. The defect which infests all French literature, which was aggravated enormously by this style of drama, and which is noticeable even in his greater contemporaries, Corneille and Moliere, manifested itself in his work almost inevitably. If there is one fault to be found with the creations of French literary art, it is that they run too much into types. It has been well said that the duty of art is to give the universal in the particular. But to do this exactly is difficult. It is the fault of 278 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. English and of German literature to give the particular without a sufficient tincture of the universal, to lose themselves in mere ' humours.' It is the fault of French literature to give the type only without differentiation. An ill-natured critic constantly feels in- clined to alter the lists of Racine's dramatis personae, and instead of the proper names to substitute ' a lover,' ' a mother,' ' a tyrant,' and so forth. So great an artist and so careful a worker as Racine could not, of course, escape giving some individuality to his creations. Hermione, Phedre, Achille, Berenice, Athalie, are all individual enough of their class. But the class is the class of types rather than of individuals. After long debate this difference has been admitted by most reasonable French critics, and they now confine themselves to the argument that the two processes, the illustration of the universal by means of the particular, and the indication of the particular by means of the universal, are processes equally legiti- mate and equally important. The difficulty remains that, by com- mon consent of mankind Frenchmen not excluded Hamlet, Othello, Falstaff, Rosalind, are fictitious persons far more interest- ing to their fellow-creatures who are not fictitious than any per- sonages of the French stage. There is, moreover, a simple test which can be applied. No one can doubt that, if Shakespeare had chosen to adopt the style, and had accepted the censorship of a Boileau, he could easily have written Phedre. It would be a bold man who should say that Racine could, with altered circumstances but unaltered powers, have written Othello. The style of tragedy which was likely to be successful in Minor France had been pointed out so clearly by Corneille Tragedians. an( ] by Racine that it could not fail to find imitators. As usual, the weakness of the style was more fully manifested by these imitators than its strength. The best of them was Thomas Corneille, the younger brother of Pierre. A much more facile versifier than his brother, he produced a large number of plays, of which Camma, JLaodice, Ariane, Le Comle d Essex, have considerable merit. Thomas Corneille succeeded his brother in the Academy, and died at a great old age. He was an active journalist and miscellaneous writer as well as a dramatist, and his principal mis- fortune was that he had a brother of greater genius than himself. Ch. II.] Dramatists. 279 Pradon, whose success against Phedre so bitterly annoyed Racine, was a dramatist of the third, or even the fourth class, though he enjoyed some temporary popularity. Campistron, a follower rather than a rival of Racine, was a better writer than Pradon, but pushed to an extreme the softness and almost effeminacy of subject and treatment which madeCorneille contemptuously speak of his younger rival and his party as ' les doucereux.' Quinault, before writing good operas and fair comedies, wrote bad tragedies. The only other authors of the day worth mentioning are Duche* and Lafosse. Lafosse is a man of one play, though as a matter of fact he wrote four. In Manlius he gave Roman names and setting to the plot of Otway's Venice Preserved, and achieved a decided success. The history of French comedy is remarkably different from that of French tragedy. In the latter case a foreign model was followed almost slavishly ; in the former the actual possessions of the lan- guage received grafts of foreign importation, and the result was one of the capital productions of European literature. Develop- Whether the popularity of the indigenous farce of ment of itself saved France from falling into the same false Comedy. groove with Italy it is not easy to say, but it is certain that at the time of the Renaissance there was some danger. At first it seemed as if Terence was to serve as a model for comedy just as Seneca served as a model for tragedy. The first comedy, Eugene, is strongly Terentian, though even here a greater freedom of move- ment, a stronger infusion of local colour is observable than in Didon or Cle'opdire. So, too, when the Italian Larivey adapted his remarkable comedies the vernacular savour became still stronger. Yet it was very long before genuine comedy was produced in France. The farces continued, and kinds of dramatic entertain- ment, lower even than the farce, such as those which survive in the work of the merry-andrew Tabarin *, were relished. The Spanish 1 The work of (or attributed to) this singular and obscure person has been edited by M. G. Aventin in 2 vols. of the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne (Paris, 1858). The name was certainly assumed, and the date and history of the bearer are quite uncertain. The third decade of the seventeenth century seems to have been his most flourishing time, lie was the most remarkable of a class of charlatans, others of whom bore the names of Gaultier-Garguille, Gros- Guillaume, etc., and the work which goes under his name is typical of a large 280 The Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. comedy, with its strong spice of tragi-comedy, was imitated to a considerable extent. A few examples of the Commedia erudi/a, or Terentian play, continued to be produced at intervals ; and the stock personages of the Commedia detfarte, Harlequin, Scaramouch, etc., at one time invaded France, and, under cover of the comic opera and the Foire pieces, made something of a lodgment. In the earlier years of the seventeenth century, moreover, a consider- able number of fantastic experiments were tried. We have a Come'die des Proverfos, in which the action is altogether subordinate to the introduction of the greatest possible number of popular say- ings ; a Comedie des Chansons spun out of a vast and precious col- lection of popular songs ; a Comedie des Comedies, which is a cento made up of extracts from Balzac, the moralist and letter-writer ; a Comedie des Come'diens, in which the famous actors of the day are brought on the stage in their own persons 1 , etc., etc. While French comedy was thus endeavouring to find its way in all manner of tentative and sometimes grotesque experiments, dramatists of talent occasionally struck, as if by accident, into some of the Side paths of that way, and directed their successors into the way itself. The early comedies of Corneille have been spoken of; despite the improbability of their Spanish plots, they show a distinct feeling after real excellence. The eccentric Cyrano de Bergerac, especially in his Pe'dant Joue', furnished Moliere with hints, and displayed consider- able comic power. Scarron, a not dissimilar person, whose Roman Comique shows the interest he felt in the theatre, also wrote comedies, the chief of which were extremely popular, the character of Jodelet in the play of the same name (i 645) becoming for the time a stock one both in name and type. Scarron's other chief pieces were Don Japhet d'Arme'nie, L He'ritier ridicule \ La Precaution inutile. It was in the Menieur of Corneille that Moliere himself considered that true comedy had been first reached, and it was this play which mass of facetiae. It consists of dialogues between Tabarin and his master, of farcical adventures in which figure Rodomont (the typical hero of romance) and Isabelle (the typical heroine), etc., etc. 1 These will be found in the dramatic collection of the Bibliotheque Elzeviri- enne already cited, as well as other pieces, of which the most remarkable is the Corrivaux of Troterel (1612). Saint-Evremond among his earlier works produced a Comedie des Academistes , satirising the then young Academy. Ch. II.] Dramatists. 281 set him on the track. But French comedy of the seventeenth century, before Moliere, is one of the subjects which have hardly any but a historical and antiquarian interest. Although far less artificial than contemporary tragedy, it is inferior as literature. It was attempted by writers of less power, and it is disfigured by too frequent coarseness of language and incident. It was on the whole the lowest of literary styles during the first half of the century. With Moliere it became at one bound the highest. Jean Baptiste Poquelin *, afterwards called Moliere, was born at Paris, probably in January 1622, in the Rue St. Honors'. The Poquelin family seem to have come from Beauvais. ~ .... . ,. Moliere. borne hypotheses as to a Scotch origin have been dis- proved. Moliere's father was an upholsterer, holding an appoint- ment in the royal household, and of some wealth and position. Moliere himself had every advantage of education, being at school at the famous Jesuit College de Clermont, and afterwards studying philosophy (under Gassendi) and law. He was, according to some accounts, actually called to the bar. At his majority he seems to have received a considerable share of his mother's fortune, and thus to have become independent. He joined some other young men of fair position in establishing a theatrical company called L ' Illuslre Theatre, which, however, failed with heavy loss to him, notwithstanding the assistance of a family of professional actors and actresses, one of whom, Madeleine Be'jart, figures prominently in his private history. He was not to be thus dis- gusted with his profession. In 1646 he set out on a strolling tour through the provinces, and was absent from the capital for nearly thirteen years. The notices of this interesting part of his career which exist are unfortunately few, and, like many other points connected with it, have given rise to much controversy. It is sufficient to say that he returned to Paris in 1658, and on the 24th of October performed with his troupe before the court. He had long been a dramatist as well as an actor, and had written besides minor pieces, most of which are lost, the Elourdi and the De'pit Amourcux. Moliere soon acquired the favour of the king, and the Precieuses Ridicules, the first of his really great works, 1 Ed. Moland. 7 vols. Paris, 1863. Ed. (in ' Grauds Ecrivains ' series) Despois, Regnier, and Mesnard. Paris. 282 TJie Seventeenth Century. [Bk. in. gained for him that of the public. In 1662 he married Armande Bdjart, the younger sister of Madeleine a marriage which brought him great unhappiness, though it was probably not without influ- ence on some of his finest work. The king was godfather to the first child of the marriage, and Moliere was a prosperous man. He became valet-de-chambre to Louis, and it was some insolence of his noble colleagues which is alleged, in a late and improbable though famous story, to have occasioned the incident of his par- taking of the king's en cas de nuit. The highest point of his genius was shortly reached ; Tarluffe, the Festin de Pierre, and Le Mi'san- //$/-0/> rui n ru- Minor Poets. r lorian s fables are graceful copies of his master- Those of Arnault, with less grace, have more originality ; often, indeed, Arnault's short moral poems are not so much fables as what used to be called in English ' emblems.' The most famous of these, which of itself deserves to keep Arnault's memory green, is ' La Feuille.' Marie Joseph Chenier, the younger brother of Andre*, and, unlike him, a fervent republican, is chiefly known as a dramatist. He had, however, a vein of satirical verse, which was not commonplace. Another dramatist, Andrieux, also deserves mention in passing. Superior to either of these as a poet, and wanting only the good-fortune of having been born a little later, was Nepomucene Lemercier, a playwright of no small merit, and a poet of extraordinary but unequal vigour. The Panhypocrisiade, a kind of satirical epic par personnages (to use the old French expression for a dramatic narrative), is his principal work, and a very remarkable one. Last of all have to be mentioned Fontanes and Chenedolld, who are the characteristic poets of the Empire, with the exception of an epic school of no value. The chief importance of Fontanes in literature is derived not from any per- formances of his own, but from the fact that he was the appointed intermediary between Napoleon and the men of letters of the time, and was able to exercise a good deal of useful patronage. Che"ne- clolle* was in production if not in publication, for he published late in life, a precursor of Lamartine, much of whose style and manner may be found in him. An amiable appreciation of natural beauty, and a tendency to facile pathos, derived from 376 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. the contemplation of natural objects, distinguish him from his predecessors. The vigorous, if not always edifying, work of the song-writers and authors of vers de socie'le during this century remains to be noticed. The example of La Fontaine's tales was followed by many writers of more talent than scruple, but their Light Verse. .. ] literary value is not sufficient to entitle them to a Piron. J place here. No history of French literature, how- ever, would be complete without a notice of Piron, the greatest epigrammatist of France, and one pf her keenest and brightest wits. Piron's temper was an idle one, and he did little solid work in literature, except his epigrams and one comedy, La Me'tromanie. He wrote many vaudevilles and operettas, and no one, with the possible exception of Catullus, has ever excelled him in the art of packing in a few light and graceful lines the greatest possible quantity of malicious wit. Panard, also a vaude- villist, is remarkable for the number and excellence of his drink- ing songs, and the variety and melody of their rhythm. Colle*, author of amusing but spiteful memoirs, and, like Piron and Panard, a writer of comic operettas, excelled rather in the political chanson. Gentil Bernard, the Cardinal de Bernis, the Abbe" Boufflers, and Dorat, were all writers of vers de soaY/e, the last being much the best. Their style of writing was frivolous and conventional in the extreme, but long practice and the vogue which it enjoyed in French society had brought it to something like the condition of a fine art. Dorat was surnamed by a con- temporary the 'glowworm of Parnassus.' The expression was not an unhappy one, and may be fairly applied to the other" authors who have been mentioned in his company. He himself was a rather voluminous author in different styles. The literary baggage of the others is not heavy. Vade*, a writer of light and trifling verse, who died comparatively young, devoted himself to composing poems in the 'poissard' dialect of Paris, which are among the best of such things. At the close of the century, and deserving more particular notice, appeared Ddsaugiers, the best light song-writer of France, with the single exception of B^ranger, and preferred to him by some critics. De'saugiers escaped the ch. I.] Poets. 377 revolution by good fortune, had a short but rather adventurous career of foreign travel, and then settled down to vaudeville-writing, song-making, and jovial living in Paris. He was a great frequenter of the Caveau, a kind of irregular club of men of , Desaugiers. letters which had been instituted by Piron and his friends, and which long continued to be a literary and social rendezvous. Ddsaugiers was the last of the older class of Chan- sonniers, who relied chiefly on love and wine for their subjects, and who, if they touched on politics at all, touched on them merely from the personal and satirical point of view, with occasional in- dulgence in cheap patriotism. His songs have great sweetness and ease, but they contain nothing that can compare with Beranger in his rr^ore serious and pathetic mood. This is a sketch, necessarily and designedly rapid, of the poetical history of the eighteenth century in France. The matter thus rapidly treated is of no small interest to professed students of literature; it abounds incurious social indications ; it gives frequent instances of the extremest ingenuity applied to somewhat un- worthy use. But in the history of the literature as a whole, and to those who have to regard it not as a collection of curiosities, but as a fruitful field of great and noble work, it cannot but be of subordinate interest, and as such requires but cursory treat- ment here '. 1 Rouget de L'Isle, the author of the famous Marseillaise, deserves mention for that only. He published poems, but their singular difference from, and inferiority to, his masterpiece were the chief causes of the scepticism (apparently ill-founded) which has sometimes been displayed as to his authorship of it. CHAPTER II. DRAMATISTS. Ax the beginning, and indeed during the whole course, of the eighteenth century, the theatre continued to enjoy all the vogue Divisions of which the extraordinary brilliancy of the authors of Drama. the preceding age had conferred on it. There were three tolerably distinct kinds of dramatic work tragedy, comedy, and opera the latter either artificial or comic, and subdividing itself into a great many classes, from the dignified opera of the Come'die Fran9aise and the Come'die Italienne, down to the vaude- villes and operettas of the so-called 'fair' theatre, Theatre de la Foire, Towards the middle of the century there grew up a fourth class, to which the not very appropriate and still less definite name of drame is applied. This was subdivided, also somewhat arbitrarily, into trage'die kourgeoise and come'die larmoyanle. Thus the dramatic author had considerable liberty of choice except in tragedy proper, where the model of Racine was enforced on him with pitiless rigour. La Motte, who was, as has been said, a brilliant writer of prose, endeavoured to break these bonds, first, by decrying the alleged superiority of the ancients ; secondly, by attacking the theory of the unities; and, lastly, by boldly denying the necessity of verse in tragedy, and still more the necessity of rhyme. He was, of course, answered, and the only one of the answers which has much interest for posterity is that which Voltaire prefixed to the second edition of (Edipe. This is, as always with its author, lively and ingenious, but ill-informed, destitute of true critical principles, and entirely in- conclusive. La Motte himself wrote a tragedy, Ines La Motte. de Caslro, in which he did not venture to carry out his own principles, and which had some success. But the justice of his Dramatists. 379 strictures was best shown by the increasing feebleness of French tragedy throughout the century. Were it not for the prodigious genius of Voltaire, not a single tragedy of the age would now have much chance of being read, still less of being performed ; and were it not for that genius, and the unequal but still remark- able talent of Crebillon the elder, not a single tragedy of the age would be worth reading for any motive except curiosity, simple or studious. Crebillon was born in 1674, and lived to the age of eighty-nine. His family name was Jolyot, and the most remarkable thing about his private history is, that, being clerk to a lawyer, he was enthu- siastically encouraged by his master in his poetical attempts. His first acted tragedy, Idome'nee, appeared in 1703 ; his last, ' The Tri- umvirate,' more than fifty years later. In the interval Crebillon. he was irregularly busy, and the duel of tragedies, the Elder - which in his old age his partisans got up between him and Voltaire, was not entirely in favour of the more famous and gifted writer. Crebillon's best works were Atre'e, 1707, and Rhadamiste et Zenobte t 1711, the latter being his masterpiece. He had, in the eyes of the minute critics of his time, some technical defects of style and con- struction. But, despite the restraints of the French stage, he suc- ceeded in being truly tragical and truly natural ; and not a few of his verses have a grandeur which has been said to be hardly discoverable elsewhere in French tragedy between Corneille and Hugo. Voltaire's own tragedies have been very differently judged by different persons. It has been said lhat they owed their popu- larity chiefly to the adroit manner in which, without Voltaire and going too far,- the author made them opportunities llis followers, for insinuating the popular opinions of the time. Yet Za'ire at least is still a successful* and popular play on the stage ; and it is admitted that Voltaire had both a most intimate acquaint- ance with the objects and methods of the playwright, and an ex- traordinary affection for the theatre. If to this be added his astonishing dexterity as a literary workman, his acuteness in dis- cerning the taste of the public, and his complete mastery of the language, and if it be remembered that the classical French 380 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. tragedy is almost wholly a tour de force, it will appear that it would have been very surprising if he had not succeeded in it. His tragedies, however, are by no means of equal merit. The best is, beyond all doubt, the already -mentioned Zaire, 1732, in which Voltaire took just so much from the Othello of that Shakespeare whom he was never tired of decrying as would suffice to animate and support his own skilful workmanship. The earlier play, (Edipe, 1718, was astonishingly successful, and is still astonish- ingly clever. La Mart de Cesar, another Shakespearian adapta- tion, is less happy. In Alzire, a play written in the time of the poet's greatest intimacy with Madame du Chatelet, and dedicated to her, his extraordinary talent once more appears, as also in Le Fanatisme, better known as Mahomet, 1742. The best, how- ever, of his plays, next to Zaire, is certainly Me'rope, 1743, which is a prodigy of ingenuity. The author has deliberately eschewed the means whereby both Corneille and Racine respectively alle- viated the dryness and dulness of the Senecan model the heroic virtues of the one, and the sighs and flames of the other. The play probably is the most perfect carrying out of the model pure and simple, and its inferiority is the inferiority of the kind, not of the individual. Indeed it may be questioned whether, on the mere technical merits, Voltaire is not superior to both Corneille and Racine, though he is of course very far inferior to them as a poet, and as a draughtsman of character. Voltaire wrote many other plays, earlier and later, of which Tancrede is the only one which requires special mention. Nor, except Cre'billon, do the tragic contemporaries and successors of Voltaire require more than very short notice. Le Franc de Pompignan wrote a respectable Didon ; Saurin, who was in some sort a follower of Voltaire, a more than respectable Spartacus. The subject had perhaps the chief part in the success of the Siege de Calais of Pierre Burette, who called himself De Belloy, and who followed it up by other patriotic tragedies or dramas. But he had the merit of attempting, though not with much success, some innovations on the meagreness of the established model. The tragedies of La Harpe are written throughout with the cold correctness (as correctness was then held) which characterised his work generally. Ch. ii.] Dramatists. 381 Almost all the men of letters of this time wrote plays of this kind, but they are for the most part valueless. Ducis is remarkable for a serious, and to a certain extent successful, attempt to inoculate the French tragedy with Shakespearian force. Versions of Hamlet, of Macbeth, and other plays appeared from his hands, which were also busy during a long life with dramatic work of all sorts. These versions have naturally been regarded in England as mere travesties, but there seems no reason to doubt that they really operated fa- vourably as schoolmasters to bring their audience somewhat nearer to dramatic truth. The classical tragedy was indeed expiring of simple old age, and most of the names of its practitioners, which emerge during the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth century, are those of innovators in their measure and degree, whose innovations, however, were obliterated and made forgotten by the great romantic reform. Marie Joseph Che'nier followed Voltaire's manner very closely (substituting for Voltaire's bait of insinuated free-thinking that of republicanism more or less violently expressed) in Charles IX., Cyrus, Cains Gracchus, Henry VIII., Tibere, the last a work of some merit. Legouve' dramatised Gessner's Death of Abel on the principles of Boileau. Nepomucene Lemercier, the strange failure of a genius who has been already noticed in the last chapter, produced much more re- markable work. His Agamemnon, his Fre'de'gonde et Brunehault and some others display his merits, and show that he was striving after something better. But, like most transitional work, they are unsatisfactory as a whole. The Hector of Luce de Lancival, the Templiers of Raynouard, and many other pieces, were once popular, but are now utterly forgotten. The list of comic writers, along with whom, for convenience' sake, those of the authors of opera and drame may be included, is far longer and more important. It includes two men, Lesage and Beaumarchais, of European reputation, half-a-dozen others, Destouches, Marivaux, Piron, Cresset, Sedaine, who have produced work of remarkable character and merit, and a crowd of clever playwrights who amused their own times, and would amuse ours, if it were not that all comedy, save the very highest, is of its nature ephemeral. The list is worthily opened by Lesage, 382 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. who, during the greater part of his life, earned by vaudevilles and operettas, composed either alone or in co-operation for the Theatre de la Foire, the bread which his incomparable novels would hardly have sufficed to procure him. This lighter dramatic work is, it may be observed, among the chief products of the century, and it has continued up to the present day to form one of the staple elements in the journey-work of French literature. Little of it has permanent qualities, yet the remarkable talents of many of the men who composed it make it, ephemeral as it is, interesting historically and even intrinsically. It derived partly from the indi- genous farce, partly from the Italian comedy of stock personages, and partly from the merry-andrew performances already mentioned. The theatres at which it was performed were the object of much jealousy from the Come"die Fran5aise, and restrictions of the most annoying kind were placed on it. Once an edict forbade more than a single actor to appear a condition surmounted by the ingenuity of Piron. Sometimes it was confined to dumb show, illustrated by songs on placards which the audience chanted. Often the audience joined in the chorus, and it may be said generally that singing was always included. Besides this rapid and perishable kind of work Lesage has left two pieces in the true style of Moliere. The more extravagant and farcical side of the master's genius is represented by Crispin Rival de son Maitre, 1707, a lively piece, the subject of which is indicated by its title, and which carries off the extreme and probably intentional improbability of its plot by its brisk and rapid action, its vivid pictures of character, and the shower of wit which the dialogue everywhere pours out. Turcaret, 1709, is a regular comedy of the highest merit. It has been found fault wilh by some French critics, enamoured of the ruling passion and central situation theory ; but this is really a testimony to its merit. Turcaret is in the strictest sense a criticism of life at the time, and the author shows the true prodigality of genius in filling his canvas. It is often described as a satire on the corruption and vices of the financiers, who were the curse of France at the time; and this it is in part But the play satirises as well the loose morals of the nobility, the follies of provincial coteries, the meanness of the trading classes ; while each Ch. II.] Dramatists. 383 character, instead of being an abstraction, is as sharp and individual as Gil Bias himself. Like Lesage, Piron worked much for the theatre ; indeed he made his debut, as has been said, by venturing on a task which even Lesage had declined, the writing of a comic opera with a single actor only. Like Lesage, too, he has left one comedy of durable reputation, La Me'tromam'e, which, if it falls short of Turcard in holding up the mirror to nature, equals it in wit, and has for a French audience the attraction of being written in very good verse, while Turcaret is in prose. With perhaps less genius than Piron, and certainly with less than Lesage, Destouches devoted himself to a higher class of work on the whole, and has left more pieces that are remembered.' Le Philosophe Marie, 1727, and Le Glorieux, 1732, are among the classics of French comedy. Le Dissipateur, Le Tambour Nocturne, L Obstacle Impre'vu have also much merit; and if La Fausse Agnes has something of the farcical in it, it is farce of the right kind. Destouches wrote seventeen comedies ; and, if bulk and merit are taken together, he deserves the first place, or one second only to Marivaux, among the comic dramatists of the century in France. In contrast to these three writers, who all followed the traditions of the comedy of Moliere and Regnard, Nivelle de la Chausse'e invented, or at least brought into fashion, wha* was called come'die larmoyante, or drame. La Chausse'e was a good deal ridiculed by his contemporaries, notably by Piron, who devoted to him some of his most admirable epigrams. But he was popular, and not altogether undeservedly popular, though his d/ama occupied in French literary history something of the same place as that of Lillo and Moore in English. La Chausse'e was followed by a greater writer, but a worse dramatist, than himself. Come"die While La Chausse'e was a clever versifier and an Larmoyante. adroit playwright, Diderot understood the theory both L & ChaussSe. of poetry and of the theatre much better than he Diderot. understood the practice. Thus L'ficole des Meres, La Gouvernante, Le Prejuge' a la Mode are better plays than Le Pere de FamiUe or Le Fils Nalurel. It ought to be said that Diderot succeeded better in two small pieces, La Piece el le Prologue and Est-il Bon ? Esl-il Me'chantf which were never acted. It should perhaps also 384 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. be explained that the peculiarity of what was almost indifferently called trage'dte bourgeoise and come'die larmqyante is the choice of possible situations in real life, which neither of the two con- ventional treatments of heroic tragedy and comedy purely comic can afford. Many writers followed La Chausse"e and Diderot. Of these the most important perhaps was Saurin, who, not content with regular tragedy and comedy, obtained much success with Beverley, an adaptation of Moore's Gamester, of which Diderot wrote an unacted version. L'Ecole des Bourgeois and L' Embarras des Richesses, by D'Allain- val, one of the few French writers who experienced the privations of their English contemporaries in Grub Street, are good pieces, and so are the short La Pupille and the Originaux of Fagan, a clerk in the public service, who, like Lesage and Piron (Colle* and Panard may be added), wrote vaudevilles, parades, etc. for the Theatre de la Foire. In the titles of most of these pieces the close following of Moliere, which was usual, and wisely usual, during the first half of the century, may be noiiced. The same tradition is observed in one of the best comedies of the century, the Me'chant of Cresset, which, like his poem of Ver- Veri, had a great success, and deserved it, being equally good as literature and as drama. Marivaux, without, perhaps. Marivaux. attaining as positive an excellence, was more original, and very much more productive. The fullest edition of his dramatic works contains thirty-two pieces, and even this is not complete. Several of them, Le Jeu de I Amour et du Hasard, 1730, Le Legs, 1736, Les Fausses Confidences, 1737, have con- tinued to be popular. All the work of Marivaux, dramatic and non-dramatic, is pervaded more or less by a peculiarity which at the time received the name of Marivaudage. This peculiarity consists partly in the sentiment, and partly in the phraseology. The former is characteristic of the eighteenth century, disguising a considerable affectation under a mask of simplicity, and the latter (sparkling with abundant, if somewhat precious wit) is in- geniously constructed to suit it and carry it off. Of the three greatest literary names of the time, Diderot, it has been seen, tried the theatre not too happily. Voltaire, as Ch. ii.] Dramatists. 385 successful in tragedy as his models permitted him to be, was not successful at all in comedy, and, indeed, rarely tried it. His best piece, Nanine, a dramatisation of Pamela, or at least suggested by it, is chiefly remarkable for being written in decasyllabic verse. The third, Rousseau, who lived to denounce the theatre, wrote a short operetta, Le Devin du Village, which is not without merit. Desmahis, a prote'ge of Voltaire, produced, in 1750, a good comedy, L 1 Impertinent, on a small scale; and La Noue, another of his favourites (for he was as indulgent to his juniors as he was jealous of men of his own standing), the Coquette Corrige'e, A third member of the same class, Saurin, already twice mentioned, must be mentioned again, and still more deservedly, for Les Mceurs du Temps. The best dramatists, however, among the immediate followers of the Philosophes were Sedaine and Marmontel. Sedaine is, indeed, with the possible exception of Beaumarchais, the best dramatist of the last half of the century. Le Philosophe sans le Savoir, 1765, and La Gageure Impre'vue, 1768, are both admirable pieces. The author, like many of his predecessors, was a constant worker for the Ope'ra Comique, and one of the best of the class. Marmontel also adopted this line of composition, to which the musical talent of Gretry gave, at the time, great advantages. His best light dramatic work is a kind of comedy vaudeville, the Ami de la Maison. Beyond all doubt, however, the most remarkable, if not the best, dramatist of the late eighteenth century is Beaumar- Beaumar- chais. Some critics have seen in the enormous chais. success of the Barbier de Se'ville, 1775, and the Mariage de Figaro, 1784, nothing but a succes de circonsiance connected with the political ideas which were then fermenting in men s minds. This seems to be unjust, or rather it is unjust not to recognise some- thing very like genius in the manner in which the author has suc- ceeded in shaping his subject, without choosing a specially political one, so as to produce the effect acknowledged. The wit of these two plays, moreover, is indisputable. But it may be allowed that Beaumarchais' other productions are inferior, and that his Me- mot'res, which are not dramatic at all, contain as much wit as the Figaro plays. As a satirist of society and a contributor of c c 386 The Eighteenth Century, [Bk. iv. illustrations to history, Beaumarchais must always hold a very high place, higher perhaps than as an artist in literature. Of his life, it is enough to say that he was born in 1731 ; became music master to the daughters of Louis XV. ; engaged in a law-suit, the subject of the Me'moires, with some high legal functionaries ; made a fortune by speculating and by contracts in the American war, and lost it by further speculations, one of which was the preparation of a sumptuous edition of Voltaire. Besides the Figaro plays, his chief dramatic works are Eugenie, Les Deux Amis, and lastly, La Mere Coupable, in which the characters of his two famous works reappear. After Beaumarchais, but few comic authors demand mention. Collin d'Harleville, one of the pleasantest writers of light comedies in verse, produced Les Chateaux en Espagne, L' Inconstant, LOpti- miste, and Le Vieux Ce'libataire, 1792, all sparkling pieces, which only need freeing from the restraints of rhyme. Andrieux, the author of Les Etourdis, 1787, Le Tre'sor, Le Vieux Fat, and others, has something of the same character. Nepomucene Le- mercier distinguished himself in comedy, chiefly by Plaule, in irregular verse, and by a comedy-drama, Pinto, in prose. These have his usual characteristics of somewhat spasmodic genius. Fabre d'Eglantine, the companion of Danton and Camille Des- moulins on the scaffold, is better remembered for his death than for his life. But his Intrigue Epistolaire and Philinte de Moliere shew talent. Le Sourd, by Desforges, is an amusing play. It will be seen that the positive achievements of drama during this period were considerably superior to those of Characteris- ,, ,. . T7 . . ... - tics of poetry. 1 he tragedies of Voltaire are prodigies of Eighteenth- literary cleverness. In comedy proper Lesage pro- century duced work of enduring value; Destouches, Mari- vaux, Piron, Cresset, and some others, work which does not require any very great indulgence to entitle it to the name, in the right sense, of classical ; Beaumarchais, work which is indissolubly connected with great historical events, and which is not unworthy the connection. Moreover, as a matter of general literary history, the drama during this time displays numerous evidences of life and promise, as well as of decadence. The Ch.n.] Dramatists. 387 gradual recognition of the vaudeville as a separate literary kind gave occasion to much work, the ephemeral character of which should not be allowed to obscure its real literary excellence, and founded a school which is still living and flourishing with by no means simulated life. The attempt of La Chaussee and Diderot to widen the range and break down the barriers of legitimate drama was premature, and not altogether well directed ; but it was the forerunner of the great and durable reaction of nearly a century later. Still the actual dramatic accomplishment of this period, though in many ways interesting, and to a certain extent positively valuable, is not of the first class. It is made up either of clever imitations and variations of modes which had already been expressed with greater perfection, and with far greater genius, by the preceding century, or of what may be fairly called dramatic pamphleteering, or else of tentative and immature ex- periments in reform, which came to nothing, or to very little, for the time being. Even its most gifted practitioners regarded it as a kind of journey-work, which was understood to lead to honour and profit, rather than as an art, in which honour and profit, if not entirely to be ignored, are altogether secondary considerations. Hence, in a lesser degree, the drama of the eighteenth century shares the disadvantage which has been noted as characterising its poetry. Its value is a value of curiosity chiefly, a relative value. Indeed, as a mere mechanical art, drama sank even lower than poetry proper ever sank ; and for some fifty years before the romantic revival it may be doubted whether a single play was written, the destruction of which need greatly grieve even the most sensitive and appreciative student of French literary history. c c 2 CHAPTER III. NOVELISTS. THE peculiarity of the eighteenth century in France as regards literature that is to say, the application of great talents to almost every branch of literary production without the result of a distinct original growth in any one department is nowhere more notice- able than in the department of prose fiction 1 . The names of Lesage, Pre'vost, Marivaux, Voltaire, Rousseau, are deservedly re- corded among the list of the best novel writers. Yet, with the exception of Manon Lescaut, which for the time had no imitators, of the great works of Lesage which, admirable in execution, were by no means original in conception, and of the exquisite but com- paratively insignificant variety of the prose Con/e, of which Voltaire was the chief practitioner, nothing in the nature of a masterpiece, still less anything in the nature of an epoch-making work, was com- posed. The example of Manon was left for the nineteenth century to develop, the others either died out (the adventure romance, 1 The works of fiction written by the great authors of the century are easily obtainable. Manon Lescaut has been frequently and satisfactorily reproduced of late years the two editions of Glady, with and without illustrations, being especially noteworthy. Restif de la Bretonne is a literary curiosity whose voluminous works hardly any collector possesses in their entirety; but the three volumes of the Contemporaries, selected and edited for the Nouvelle Collection Jannet by M. Assezat, will give a very fair idea of his peculiarities. Of most of the other authors mentioned convenient, handsome, and not too ex- pensive editions will be found in the Bibliotheque Amusante of MM. Gamier Freres. This includes Mesdames de Tencin, de Fontaines, Riccoboni, de Beau- mont, de Genlis, de Duras, de Souza, as well as Marivaux and Fievee. Le- sage's more remarkable fictions are obtainable at every library. Xavier de Maistre forms a single cheap volume. A handsome little edition of Constant's Adolf he has been edited by M. de Lescure for the Librairie des Bibliophiles. Cazotte's Diable Amoureux is in the Nouvelle Collection Jannet. M. Uzanne's reproductions of the prose tale-tellers are excellent. Novelists. after Lesage's model, flourishing brilliantly in England, but hardly at all in France), or else were subordinated to a purpose, the pur- pose of advocating philosophe views, or of pandering to the not very healthy cravings of an altogether artificial society. Yet, so far as merely literary merits are concerned, few branches of litera- ture were more fertile than this during the period. The first, and on the whole, the most considerable name of the century in fiction is that of the author of Gil Bias. Alain Rene Lesage was born at Sarzeau, near Vannes, on the 8th of May, 1668, and died at Boulogne on the i7th of November, 1747. He was bred a lawyer, and should have had a fair competence, but, being early left an orphan, was deprived of most of his property by the dishonesty of his guardian. He married young, moreover, and, unlike most of the prominent men of letters of his day, never seems to have enjoyed any solid patronage or protection from any powerful man or woman. This is indeed sufficiently accounted for by anecdotes which exist showing his extreme independence of character. Like most men of talent in such circumstances, he turned, though not very early, to literature, and began by a translation of the ' Letters ' of Aristaenetus. No great success could have awaited him in this line, and perhaps the greatest stroke of good-fortune in his life was the suggestion of the Abbe' de Lyonne that he should turn his attention to Spanish literature, a suggestion which was not made more unpalatable by the present of a small annuity. He translated the ' New Don Quixote ' of Avellaneda (than which he might have found a better subject), and he adapted freely plays from Rojas, Lope de Vega, and Cal- deron. It was not, however, till he was nearly forty that he pro- duced anything of real merit. The Diable Boileux appeared in 1707, and was at once popular. Still Lesage did not desert the stage, and the production of his admirable comedy Turcaret ought to have secured him success there. But the Comedie Franaise was at that time more under the influence of clique than at any other time of its history; and Lesage, disgusted with the treat- ment he received from it, gave himself up entirely to writing farces and operettas for the minor theatres, and to prose fiction. Gil Bias, his greatest work, originally appeared in 1715, but was not 390 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. IV. completed till twenty years later. He also wrote besides one or two bright but trifling minor works of a fictitious character, La Valise Trouve'e (a letter-bag supposed to be picked up), Une Journe'e des Parques, a keen piece of Lucianic satire, etc. many other romances in the same general style as his great works, and more or less borrowed from Spanish originals. The chief of these are Guzman d 1 Alfarache, Este'vanille Gonzales, Le Bachelier de Sala- manque, and a curious Defoe-like book entitled Vie el Avenlures de M. de Beauchene. In his old age he retired to the house of his second son, who held a canonry at Boulogne, and resided there for some years, until, in 1747, he died in his eightieth year. His works have hitherto been very insufficiently collected and edited. Le Diable Boiteux and Gil Bias are far the greatest of Lesage's romances, and, as it happens, they are the most original, little except the starting-point being borrowed in the one case, and nothing but a few detached details in the other. Lesage was, however, true to the general spirit of his model, the picaroon ro- mance of Spain, a kind of Roman d'Aventures transported from the days and conventional conditions of chivalry to those of ordi- nary but still adventurous life in the Peninsula. The directly satirical intention predominates in the Diable Boiteux, the more purely narrative faculty in Gil Bias. In both the piercing ob- servation of human character, which Lesage possessed in a greater degree perhaps than any other French writer, appears, and so does his remarkable power of making the results of this observation live and move. No French writer is so little of a mere Frenchman as Lesage, and in this point of cosmopolitan humanity he may be compared, without extravagance, in kind if not in degree, to Shake- speare. Besides his skill in character-drawing, and his faculty of spicing his narrative with epigram, Lesage also possessed ex- traordinary narrative ability. His books are not remarkable for what is called plot, that is to say, the action rather continues inde- finitely in a straight line than converges on a given and definite point. But this continuance is so adroitly managed that no break is felt, and the succession very seldom becomes tedious. The novel of Lesage is the immediate parent and pattern of that of Fielding and Smollett in England. It is somewhat remarkable Ch. 1 1 1.] Novelists. 391 that it had no successors of importance or merit in France. This is probably to be accounted for by the cosmopolitan tone which has been already remarked upon. Indeed Lesage, as a rule, has had less justice done to him by his countrymen than any other of their great writers. Yet his style, looked at merely from the point of view of art, is excellent, and perhaps superior to that of any of his contemporaries properly so called. Close in the track of Madame de la Fayette followed Madame de Fontaines (Marie Louise Charlotte de Givri), the date of whose birth is unknown, but who died in 1730. She was a friend of Voltaire's youth, and her best work is named La Comtesse de Savoie, the date of the story being the eleventh century. She also wrote a short story of less merit called Amenophis. Madame de Tencin (Claudine Alexandrine Gue*rin), the mother of D'Alem- bert, the friend of Fontenelle, and one of the most famous salon- holders of the early eighteenth century, was a more fertile and a cleverer writer. She was born in 1681, and died in 1749. She had a bad heart, but an excellent head, and she showed her powers in the Me'moires du Comte de Comminges and the Siege de Calais, besides some minor works. The fault of almost all ro- mances of the La Fayette school, the habit of throwing the scene into periods about which the writers knew nothing, appears in these works. But the first writer of fiction after Lesage who is worthy of separate mention at any length (for in these later centuries of our history there are, as any reader of books will under- , J Marivaux. stand, vast numbers of practitioners in every branch of literary art who are entirely unworthy of notice in a compendious history of literature) is Marivaux, an original and remarkable novelist, who, though by no possibility to be ranked among the great names of French literature, occupies a not inconsiderable place among those who are remarkable without being great. Pierre Carlet de Marivaux, whose strict paternal appellation was simply Pierre Carlet, was born at Paris on the 8th of February, 1688. His father was of Norman origin, and held employments in the financial branch of the public service. Very little is known of the son's youth, and indeed not much of his life. He is said to 392 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. have produced his first play, Le Pere Prudent et Equitable, at the age of eighteen, and his dramatic industry was thenceforward con- siderable. As a romancer he worked more by fits and starts. His first attempt at prose fiction is said to have been for the authen- ticity of the attribution is not certain a romance in a kind of pseudo-Spanish style, called Les Effels surprenants de la Sympathie, published six years later. Then he took to the sterile and ignoble literature of travesty, attacking Homer and Fe'nelon in the style of Scarron and Cotton. This brought him, through La Motte, under the influence of Fontenelle, to whom he owed not a little. He made a fortune and lost it in Law's bubble. Then he turned journalist, and after writing social articles in the Mercure, started a periodical himself, the nature of which is sufficiently shown by its borrowed title, Le Spectateur Franfats, 1722. At a later period he began another paper of the same kind, Le Cabinet duPhilosophe, 1734. His plays, which have been already noticed, were written partly for the Comddie Frangaise, and partly for a very popular Italian company which appeared in France during the second quarter of the century. But for the present purpose his works which concern us are the famous romance of Marianne, 1731-1742, and the less-known one of the Pqysan Parvenu, 1735. His dramas, rather than his fictions, procured him a place in the Academy in 1742, and he died in 1763. Marianne has been said to be the origin of Pamela, which may not be exactly the fact, though it is difficult not -to believe that it gave Richardson his idea. But it is certain that it is a remarkable novel, and that it, rather than the plays, gave rise to the singular phrase Marivaudage, with which the author, not at all voluntarily, has enriched literature. The plot is simple enough. A poor but virtuous girl has adventures and recounts them, and the manner of recounting is extremely original. A morally faulty but in- tellectually admirable contemporary, Crebillon the younger, de- scribed this manner excellently by saying that the characters not only say everything that they have done and everything that they have thought, but everything that they would have liked to think but did not. This curious kind of mental analysis is expressed in a style which cannot be defended from the charge of affectation Ch. HI.] Novelists. 393 notwithstanding its extreme ingenuity and occasional wit. The real importance of Marianne in the history of fiction is that it is the first example of the novel of analysis rather than of in- cident (though incident is still prominent), and the first in which an elaborate style, strongly imbued with mannerism, is applied to this purpose. The Paysan Parvenu, the title of which sug- gested Restif's novel Le Paysan Perverti, and which was probably not without influence on Joseph Andrews, is not very different in manner from Marianne, and, like it, was left unfinished after publication in parts at long intervals. A third eminent writer of novels was, in point of production, a contemporary of Lesage and Marivaux, though he was nearly thirty years younger than the first, and fully ten years younger than the second, and he more than either of them set the example of the modern novel. The Abbe* Pre*vost, sometimes called PreVost d'Exilles, was born at Hesdin, in Picardy, in April, 1697. He was brought up by the Jesuits, and after a curious hesitation between entering the order and becoming a soldier (he actually served for some time) he joined the famous community of the Benedictines of Saint Maur, the most learned monastic body in the Roman church. When he did this he was four-and-twenty, and he continued for some six years to give him- self up to study, not without interludes of professorial work and of preaching. He became, however, disgusted with his order, and unfortunately left his convent before technical permission had been given ; a proceeding which kept him an exile from France for several years. It was at this time (1728) that he threw himself into novel-writing, taking his models, and in some cases, his scenes and characters, from England, which he visited, and of which he was a fervent admirer. He obtained permission to return in 1735, and then started a paper called Le Pour el le Con/re, something like those of Marivaux, but more like a modern critical review. He received the protection of several persons of position and in- fluence, notably the Prince de Conti and the Chancellor D'Agues- seau, and for nearly thirty years led a laborious literary life, in the course of which he is said to have written nearly a hundred volumes, mostly compilations. His death, which occurred in November, 394 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. 1763, was perhaps the most horrible in literary history. He was on his way from Paris to his cottage near Chantilly, when he was struck by apoplexy. A stupid village doctor took him for dead, and 'began a post-mortem examination to discover the cause. PreVost revived at the stroke of the knife, but was so injured by it that he expired shortly afterwards. His 'chief works of fiction are the Memoir es d'un Homme de Qualile, 1729, Cleveland, and the Doyen de Kille'rine, 1735, ro- mances of adventure occupying a middle place between those of Lesage and Marivaux. But he would have been long forgotten had it not been for an episode or rather postscript of the Me'moires entitled Manon Lescaut, in which all competent criticism recognises the first masterpiece of French literature which can properly be called a novel. Manon is a young girl with whom the Chevalier des Grieux, almost as young as herself, falls frantically in love. The pair fly to Paris, and the novel is occupied with the descrip- tion of Manon's faithlessness a faithlessness based not on want of love for Des Grieux, but on an overmastering desire for luxury and comfort with which he cannot always supply her. The story, which is narrated by Des Grieux, and which has a most pathetic ending, is chiefly remarkable for the perfect simplicity and ab- solute life-likeness of the character-drawing. The despairing constancy of Des Grieux, conscious of the vileness of his idol, yet unable to help loving her, the sober goodness of his friend Tiberge, the roystering villany of Manon's brother Lescaut, and, above all, the surprising and novel, but strictly practical and reasonable, figure of Manon, who, in her way, loves Des Grieux, who has no objection to deceive her richer lovers for him, but whose first craving is for material well-being and prosperity make up a gallery which has rarely been exceeded in power and interest. A novelist of merit, slightly junior to these, was Madame Ricco- boni (Marie Jeanne Laboras de Me*zieres), who was born in 1713, married an actor and dramatic author of little talent, and died at a great age in 1792. Her best works of fiction are Le Marquis de Cressy, Mylady Catesby, and Ernestine, with an exceedingJy clever continuation (which, however, stops short of the conclusion) of Ch. in.] Novelists. 395 Marivaux' Marianne. All these books are constructed with con- siderable skill, and are good examples of what may be called the sentimental romance. Duclos, better known now for his historical and historical-ethical work, was also a novel-writer at this period. The Letlres du Marquis dt Rosette, of Madame Elie de Beaumont, rather resembles the work of Madame Riccoboni. The works of the three principal writers who have just been discussed belong to the first half of the century, and do not exhibit those characteristics by which it is most generally known. Marivaux is indeed an important representative of the laborious gallantry which descended from the days of the precieuses Fon- tenelle being a link between the two ages and PreVost exhibits, in at least its earlier stage, the sensibility which was one of the great characteristics of the eighteenth century. But neither of them can in the least be called a philosophe. On the other hand, the philosophe movement, which dominated the middle and latter portions of the age, was not long in invading the department of fiction. Each of the three celebrated men who stood at its head devoted himself to the novel in one or other of its forms ; while Montesquieu, in the Lellres Persanes, came near to it, and each of the trio themselves had more or fewer followers in fiction. No long work of prose fiction stands under the name of Voltaire, but it may be doubted whether any of his works displays his pecu- liar genius more fully and more characteristically than the short tales in prose which he has left. Every one of them has a moral, political, social, or theological purpose. Zadig, 1748, is, perhaps, in its general aim, rather philosophical in the proper sense ; Babouc, 1746, social; Memnon, 1747, ethical. Mi- cromegas, 1752, is a satire on certain forms of science; the group of smaller tales, such as Le Taureau Blanc, are theological or rather anti-theological. L'lnge'nu, 1767, and UHomme aux Qua- ranle ]2cus (same date), are political from different points of view. All these objects meet -and unite in the most famous and most daring of all, Candide, 1758. Written ostensibly to ridicule phi- losophical optimism, and on the spur given to pessimist theories by the Lisbon earthquake, Candide is really as comprehensive as it is desultory. Religion, political government, national peculiarities, 396 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. human weakness, ambition, love, loyalty, all come in for the unfailing sneer. The moral, wherever there is a moral) is, 'be tolerant, and cultivez volre jardinl that is to say, do whatsoever work you have to do diligently. But in all these tales the de- structive element has a good deal the better of the constructive. As literature, however, they are almost invariably admirable. There is probably no single book in existence which contains so much wit, pure and simple, as the moderate sized octavo in which are comprised these two or three dozen short stories, none of which exceeds a hundred pages or so in length, while many do not extend beyond two or three. Nowhere is the capacity of the French language for persiflage better shown, and nowhere, perhaps, are more phrases which have become household words to be found. Nowhere also, it is true, is the utter want of reverence, which was Voltaire's greatest fault, and the absence of profundity, which accompanied his marvellous superficial range and acuteness, more constantly displayed. No inconsiderable portion of the extensive and unequal work of Diderot is occupied by prose fiction. He began by a licentious tale in the manner, but without the wit, of Cre'billon the younger ; a tale in which,' save a little social satire, there was no purpose whatever. But by degrees he, like Voltaire, began to use the novel as a polemical weapon. The powerful story ofZa Religieuse, 1760, was the boldest attack which, since the Reformation and the licence of Latin writing, had been made on the drawbacks and dangers of conventual life. Jacques le Falalisie, 1766, is a curious book, partly suggested, no doubt, by Sterne, but having a legitimate French ancestry in the falrasie of the sixteenth century. Jacques is a manservant who travels with his master, has adventures with him, talks incessantly to him, and tells him stories, as also does another character, the mistress of a country inn. One of these stories, the history of the jealousy and attempted revenge of a -great lady on her faith- less lover by making him fall in love with a girl of no character, is admirably told, and has often since been adapted in fiction and drama. Other episodes of Jacques le Fataliste are good, but the whole is unequal. The strangest of all Diderot's attempts in Ch. in.] Novelists. 397 prose fiction if it is to be called a fiction and not a dramatic study is the so-called Neveu de Rameau, in which, in the guise of a dialogue between himself and a hanger-on of society (or rather a monologue of the latter), the follies and vices, not merely of the time, but of human nature itself, are exposed with a masterly hand, and in a manner wonderfully original and piquant. Neither Voltaire, however, nor Diderot devoted, in proportion to their other work, as much attention to prose fiction Bousseau. as did Jean Jacques Rousseau. Even the Confessions might be classed under this head without a great violation of pro- priety, and Rousseau's only other large books, La Nouvelk He'lo'ise, 1760, and Emile, 1764, are avowed novels. In both of these the didactic purpose asserts itself. In the latter, indeed, it asserts itself to a degree sufficient seriously to impair the literary merit of the story. The second title of Emile is L Education, and it is devoted to the unfolding of Rousseau's views on that subject by the aid of an actual example in Emile the hero. It had a great vogue and a very considerable practical influence, nor can the race of novels with political or ethical purposes be said to have ever died out since. As a novel, properly so called, it has but little merit. The case is different with Julie or La Nouvelk He'lo'ise. This is a story told chiefly in the form of letters, and recounting the love of a noble young lady, Julie, for Saint- Preux, a man of low rank, with a kind of after-piece, depicting Julie's married life with a respectable but prosaic free-thinker, M. de Wolmar. This famous book set the example, first, of the novel of sentiment, secondly, of the novel of landscape painting. Many efforts have been made to dethrone Rousseau from his position of teacher of Europe in point of sentiment and the picturesque, but they have had no real success. It is to La Nouvelle He'lo'ise that both sentimental and picturesque fictions fairly owe their original popu- larity ; yet Julie cannot be called a good novel. Its direct narrative interest is but small, its characters are too intensely drawn or else too merely conventional, its plot far too meagre. It is in isolated passages of description, and in the fervent passion which pervades parts of it, that its value, and at the same time its importance in the history of novel-writing, consist 398 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. Some lesser names group themselves naturally round those of the greater Philosophes in the department of prose fiction. Vol- taire's style was largely followed, but scarcely from Voltaire's point of view, and those who practised it fell rather under the head of Conteurs pure and simple than of novelists with a pur- pose. The prose Conte of the eighteenth century forms a re- markable branch of literature, redeemed from triviality by the Cre'billon exceptional skill expended on it. The master of the Younger, the s j-yi e was Cre'billon the younger, in whom its merits and defects were both eminently present. Son of the tragic author, Cre'billon led an easy but a rather mysterious life, married an Englishwoman, and was supposed by his friends to be dead long before he had actually quitted this world. His works, of which it is unnecessary to mention the names here, exhibit the moral corruption of the times in almost the highest possible degree. But they abound in keen social satire, in acute literary criticism, and in verbal wit. What is more, they show an extra- ordinary mastery of the art of narrative of the lighter kind. Around Cre'billon are grouped a large number of writers, some of whom almost rival him in delicate literary knack, and most of whom equal him in perverse immorality of subject and tone. Marmontel's Conies Moraux seldom deserve this last censure, and considerably excel most of the kind in variety, ingenuity, and ' criticism of life.' Voisenon, Caylus, Boufflers, Moncrif (the most original and most eccentric of all), La Morliere, are also of the class. Their prose may, on the analogy of Vers de Socie'te', be called Prose de Societe', and of a very corrupt society too. But its formal excellence is considerable. Of exceptional excellence among the short tales of this time, and free from their drawbacks, is the Diable Amour eux, 1772, of Cazotte, a singular person, strongly tinged with the ' illuminism,' or belief in occult sciences and arts, which was a natural result of the philosophe movement. Gazette's melancholy story has a place in all histories of the French Revolution, and his name was (probably) borrowed by La Harpe for a bold and striking apologue, the authenticity or spuriousness of which is very much a matter of guess-work. The Diable Amour eux is a singularly powerful story Ch. in.] Novelists. 399 of its kind, uniting, in the fashion so difficult with tales of diablerie, literary verisimilitude and exactness of presentation with strangeness of subject. Voltaire's chief pupils and followers, while taking his own view of the utility of the prose tale for controversial purposes, followed another model for the most part in point of form. The immense influence of Te'le'maque was felt by Voltaire himself, though in his case it resulted in history pure and simple. Marmontel in Belisaire and Les Incas, Florian in Numa Pompilius and Gonsalve de Cordoue, returned to historical romance. Something of the same class, though based upon much more solid scholarship, was the Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis of the Abbe" Barthe'lemy. All these books, like their predecessor, have somewhat passed out of the range of literature proper into that of school books. They are, however, all good examples of the easy, correct, and lucid, if cold and conventional, tongue of the later eighteenth century. Rousseau had a far more important disciple in fiction. Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was born at Havre in Bernardin de 1737. He was by profession an engineer, and both Saint-Pierre. professionally and on his private account wandered about the world in a curious fashion. At last he met Rousseau, and the influence of Jean Jacques developed the sentimental morality, the speculative republicanism, and the ardent, if rather affected, love of nature which had already distinguished him. His best book, Paul et Virginie, is perhaps the only one of his works which can properly be called a novel ; but La Chaumiere Indienne deserves to be classed with it, and even the Etudes de la Nature are half fiction. Paul et Virginie was written when the author's admiration of nature and of the savage state, imbibed from Rousseau or quick- ened by his society, had been further inflamed by a three years' residence in Mauritius. Like the books mentioned in the last paragraph, Paul et Virginie has lost something by becoming a school-book, but its faults and merits are in a literary sense greater than theirs. The over-ripe sentiment and the false delicacy of it will always remain evidence .of the stimulating but unhealthy atmosphere in which it was written. But it cannot be denied that, both here and elsewhere in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, there is 4o The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. IV. a very remarkable faculty of word-painting, and also of influencing the feelings. The later eighteenth century saw a vast number of novelists and novels, few of which were of much literary value, while most of them displayed the evil influences of the time in more. ways than one. Dulaurens, a vagabond and disreputable writer, is chiefly remembered for his Compere Mathieu, a book presenting some points of likeness to Jacques k Fatah'sle, and like it in- spired partly by Sterne, and partly by Sterne's master, Rabelais. Writers like Louvet and La Clos continued the worst part of Cre- billon's tradition without exhibiting either his literary skill or his wit. Hestif de la A much more remarkable name is that of Restif de Bretonne. la Bretonne, who has been called, and not without reason, the French Defoe. He was born at Sacy in Burgundy in 1734, and died at Paris in 1806. Although of very humble birth, he seems to have acquired an irregular but considerable education, and, establishing himself early in Paris, he became an indefatigable author. About fifty separate works of his exist, some of which are of great extent, and one of which, Les Contemporaines^ includes forty-two volumes and nearly three hundred separate articles or tales. Restif, whose entire sanity may reasonably be doubted, was a novelist, a philosopher, a social innovator, a diligent observer of the manners of his times, a spelling reformer. His work is for the most part destitute of the most rudimentary notions of decency, but it is apparently produced in good faith and with no evil purpose. His portraiture of manners is remarkably vivid. It is in this, in his earnest but eccentric philanthropy, and in his grasp of character, not seldom vigorous and close, that he chiefly resembles Defoe. He has been called in France the Rousseau of the gutter, which also is a comparison not without truth and instruction, despite the jingle (' Rousseau du ruisseau ') by which it was no doubt suggested. The law which seems to have ordained that, though the eighteenth century in France should produce no masterpiece in fictitious literature, or only one, all the most distinguished literary names should be connected with fiction, extended to the long and, in a literary sense, dreary debateable land between the eighteenth Ch. in.] Novelists. 401 century itself and the nineteenth. Of this period the two dominant names are beyond question those of Chateaubriand and of Madame de Stael. Both attempted various kinds of writing, but some of the most important work of both comes under the heading of the present chapter, and both as literary figures are best treated here. Francois Rend de Chateaubriand was born at Saint Malo, where he is now buried, in 1768, and died in 1848. chateau- He belonged to a family which was among the briand. noblest of Britanny and of France, but which was not wealthy, and he was a younger son. Intended at first for the navy, he was allowed, at the outbreak of the Revolution, to indulge his fancy for travelling, and journeyed to North America. There he learnt the anti-monarchical turn which things had taken in France. He at once returned and joined the emigrants at Coblentz. He was seriously wounded at the siege of Thionville, and had some difficulty in making his way, by Holland and Jersey, to England, where he lived in great poverty. Chateaubriand's acceptance of the Legitimist side had been but half-hearted, and his first published work, Sur les Revolutions Anciennes el Modernes, still expresses the peculiar liberalism which it is sometimes forgotten was much more deeply rooted in the French noblesse of the eighteenth century than in any other class. This opened the way to his return at the time that Napoleon, then entering on the consulate, endeavoured, by all the means in his power, to conciliate the emigrants. The Genie du Christianisme, which had been preceded by Alala (a kind of specimen of it), was his first original, and his most characteristic, work. This curious book, which it is impossible to analyse, consists partly of a rather desultory apology for Christian doctrine, partly of a series of historical illustrations of Christian life: it appeared in 1802. It suited the policy of Napoleon, who made Chateaubriand, first, secretary to the Roman Embassy, and then ambassador to the Valais. But Chateaubriand had nevec given up his legitimism, and the murder of the Duke d'Enghien shocked him irresistibly. He at once resigned his post, and thenceforward was in more or less covert opposition, though he was not actually banished from France. Pursuing the vein which he had opened in the Genie, he made a journey to the East, the Dd 4O2 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. result of which was his Iline'raire de Paris a Jerusalem, and the unequal but remarkable prose epic of Les Martyrs. This, the story of which is laid in the time of Diocletian, shifts its scene from classical countries to Gaul, where the half-mythical heroes of the Franks appear, and then back to Greece, Rome, and Purgatory. The fall of Napoleon opened once more a political career, of which Chateaubriand had always been ardently desirous. His pamphlet, De Bonaparte et des Bourbons, was, perhaps, the most important literary contribution to the re-establishment of the ancient monarchy. During the fifteen years which elapsed between the battle of Waterloo and the Revolution of July, Chateaubriand underwent vicissitudes due to the difficulty of adjusting his liberalism and his legitimism, sentiments which seem both to have been genuine, but to have been quite unreconciled by any reasoning process on the part of their holder. Yet, though he had again and again experienced the most ungracious treatment both from Louis XVIII. and Charles X., the July monarchy had no sooner established itself than he resigned his positions and pensions, and took no further official part in po- litical affairs during the rest of his life. In his latter days he was much with the celebrated Madame Recamier, and completed his affectedly-named but admirable Memoires d' Outre -Tombe, an autobiography which, though marred by some of his peculiarities, contains much of his most brilliant writing. Of the works not hitherto noticed, Rent, Le Dernier Abencfrage, Les Natchez, and some sketches of travels and of French history, are the most remarkable. For some thirty years, from 1810 to 1840, Chateaubriand was unquestionably the greatest man of letters of France in the estima- tion of his contemporaries. His fame has since then diminished considerably, and much has been written to account for the change. It is not, however, very difficult to understand it. Chateaubriand is one of the chief representatives in literature of the working of two conditions, which, while they lend for the time much adven- titious importance to the man who takes full advantage of them, invariably lead to rapidly-diminished estimates of him when they have ceased to work. He was a representative at once of transition and reaction of transition from the hard and fast Ch. III.] Novelists. 403 classical standards of the eighteenth century to the principles of the romantic and eclectic schools, of reaction against the philo- sophe era. He was one of the earliest and most influential ex- ponents of the so-called maladie du stick, of what, from his most illustrious pupil, is generally called Byronism. His immediate literary teachers were Rousseau and Ossian. He was not a thoroughly well-educated man, and he was exceptionally deficient in the purely logical and analytic faculty as distinguished from the rhetorical and synthetic. What he could do and did, was to glorify Christianity and monarchism in a series of brilliantly-coloured pictures, which had an immense effect on an age accustomed to the grty tints and monotonous argument of the opposite school, but which, to a posterity which is placed at a different point of view, seem to lack accuracy of detail and sincerity of emotion. Nevertheless Chateaubriand, if not a very great man, was a very great man of letters. His best passages are not easily to be surpassed in brilliancy of style and vividness of colouring. If the sentiment of his Rent seems hollow now-a-days, it must be re- membered that this is almost entirely a matter of fashion and of novelty. The Genie du Chrisiianisme, despite many defects of taste, more of insight, and most of mere learning, remains one of the most eloquent pleadings .in literature, and not one of the least effective ; while the Itine'raire is the pattern of all the picturesque travels of modern times. All these works, and most of the rest, are practically novels with a purpose. Even in the autobiography the historic part is entirely subdued and moulded to the exigencies of the dramatic and narrative construction. Regarded merely as an individual writer, Chateaubriand would supply a volume of ' Beauties ' hardly inferior to that which could be gathered from any other prose author in France. Regarded as a precursor, he deserves far more than any other single man, and almost more than all others put together, the title of father of the Romantic movement. His chief rival in the literature of the empire was also essen- tially, though not wholly or professedly, a novelist. Anne Louise Germaine Necker, who married a Swedish diplomatist, the Baron de Stael Holstein, and is, therefore, generally known n d 2 404 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. as Madame de Stael, was the daughter of the great financier Necker, and of Susanne Curchod, Gibbon's early Stael ^ Ove * ^ e was mtr oduced young to salon life in Paris, and early displayed ungovernable vanity, and much of the sensibility of the time, that is to say, an indulgence in sentiment which paid equally little heed to morality and to good sense. Her marriage was one purely of convenience : and while her husband, of whom she seems to have had no reason whatever to complain, obtained some wealth by it, she herself secured a very agreeable position, inasmuch as the king of Sweden pledged himself either to maintain M. de Stael in the Swedish embassy at Paris, or to provide for him in other ways. She approved the early stages of the Revolution, but was shocked at the deposition and death of the king and queen. Whereupon she fled the country. Before she was thirty she had written various books, Lettres sur J. J. Rousseau, Defense de la Reine, De V Influence des Passions, and other pieces of many kinds. When the influence of Napoleon became paramount, Madame de Stael, who had returned to Paris, found herself in an awkward position, for she was equally deter- mined to say what she chose, and to have gallant attentions paid to her, and Napoleon would not comply with either of her wishes. She, therefore, had to leave France, .but not before she had pub- lished her first romance, Delphine, and a book on literature. She now travelled for some years in Germany and Italy in the company of Benjamin Constant, who was the object of one of her numerous accesses of affection. Corinne, her principal novel, and her greatest work but one, appeared in 1807, her book De I Allemagne being suppressed in Paris, whither she had returned, but which she soon had to leave again, 1810. The Restoration gave her access once more to France, and enabled her to resume possession of property which had been unjustly seized ; but she died not long afterwards, in 1817. Her Dix Anne'es d'Exil and her Considerations sur la Re'vohition Fran^aise were published posthumously, the latter being one of her chief works. She had married secretly, in 1812, a M. de Rocca, a man more than young enough to be her son. The personality of Madame de Stael is far from being attractive owing to her excessive vanity, which disgusted all her con- Ch. in.] Novelists. 405 temporaries, and the folly which made a woman, who had never been beautiful, continue, long after she had ceased to be young, to give herself in life and literature the airs of a newest Heloi'se. But she is a very important figure in French literature. Part of her influence, as represented by the book De I'Allemagne, does not directly concern us in this chapter ; this part was mainly, but not wholly, literary. It was helped and continued, however, by her other works, especially by her novels, and, above all, by Corinne. This influence, put briefly, was to break up the narrowness of French notions on all subjects, and to open it to fresh ideas. Her political and general works led the way to the nineteenth century, side by side with Chateaubriand's, but in an entirely different sense. What Chateaubriand inculcated was the sense of the beauty of older and simpler times, countries, and faiths which the self- satisfaction of the eighteenth century had obscured ; what Madame de Stael had to impress were general ideas of liberalism and progress to which the same century, in its crusade against super- stition and its rather short-sighted belief in its own enlightenment, was equally blind. Delphine, which is in the main a romance of French society only, written before the author had seen much of any other world except a close circle of French emigrants abroad, exhibits this tendency much less than Corinne, which was written after that German visit by far the most important event of Madame de Stael's life. Here, as Rousseau had incul- cated the story of nature and savage life, as Chateaubriand was, at the same time, inculcating the study of Christian antiquity and the middle ages, so Madame de Stael inculcated the cultivation of aesthetic emotions and impulses as a new influence to be brought to bear on l.fe. Her style, though not to be spoken of disre- spectfully, is, on the whole, inferior to her matter. It is full of the drawbacks of eighteenth-century e'loges and academic discourses, now tawdry, now deficient in colour, flexibility, and life, at one time below the subject, at another puffed up with commonplace and insincere declamation. Yet when she understood a subject, which was by no means invariably the case, Madame de Stael was an excellent exponent ; and when her feelings were sincere, which they sometimes were, she was not devoid of passion. 406 77^ Eighteenth Century. [Bk. IV. A considerable number of names of writers of fiction during the later republic and the empire have a traditional place in the history of literature, and some of their works are still read, but chiefly as school-books. Madame de Genlis, the author of Les Velllees du Chateau, and also of many volumes of ill-natured, and not too accurate, memoirs and reminiscences, continued the moral tale of the eighteenth century, and in Mile, de Clermonl produced work of merit. Fieve'e, a journalist and critic of some talent, is remembered for the pretty story of the Dot de Suzelte. Madame de Souza, in her Adele de Se'nanges and other works, revived, to a certain extent, the style of Madame de la Fayette. Ourika and Edcuard, especially the latter, preserve the name of Madame de Duras. Madame Cottin, in Malek Adel, Elizabeth or Les Exiles de Sibe'rie, etc., com- bined a mild flavour of romance with irreproachable moral senti- ments. A vigorous continuator of the licentious style of novel, with hardly any of the literary refinement of its eighteenth -century contributors, but with more fertility of incident and fancy, was Pigault Lebrun, the forerunner of Paul de Kock. Madame de Krudener, a woman of remarkable history, produced a good novel of sentiment in Valerie. Two novelists, singularly different in idiosyncrasy, complete Xavier de what may be called the eighteenth-century school. Maistre. Xavier de Maistre, younger brother of the great Catholic polemist, Joseph de Maistre, was born at Chambe'ry, in 1763. He served in the Piedmontese army during his youth, and his most famous work, the Voyage aulour de ma Chambre, was published in 1794. The national extinction of Savoy and Pied- mont, at least the annexation of Savoy and the effacement of Piedmont, made Xavier de Maistre an exile. He joined his brother in St. Petersburg, served in the Russian army, fought, and was wounded in the Caucasus ; attained the rank of general, and died at St. Petersburg, in 1852, at the great age of eighty-nine. His work consists of the Voyage, an account of a temporary imprisonment in his quarters at Turin, obviously suggested by Sterne, but exceedingly original in execution ; Le Le'preux de la Cite aTAos/e, in which the same inspiration and the same inde- pendent use of it are noticeable ; and Les Prisonniers du Caucase, Ch. in.] Novelists. 407 a vivid narrative rather in the manner of the nineteenth than of the eighteenth century, with a continuation of the Voyage called Expedition Nocturne, which has not escaped the usual fate of continuations, and a short version of the touching story of Pras- covia, which contrasts very curiously with Madame Cottin's more artificial handling of the same subject. The important point about Xavier de Maistre is that he unites the sentimentality of the eighteenth century, and not a little of its Marivaudage, with an exactness of observation, a general truth of description, and a sense of narrative art which belong rather to the nineteenth. Although he was not a Frenchman, his style has always been regarded as a model cf French ; and the great authority of Sainte-Beuve justly places him and Merime'e side by side as the most perfect tellers of tales in the simple fashion. Benjamin Constant's A dolphe, 1815, is a very different work, but an equally remarkable one. It may be a question whether it is not entitled to take rank rather as the first book of the nine- Benjamin teenth-century school than as the last of the eighteenth. Constant. But its author (better known as a politician) published no further attempt to pursue the way he had opened ; and though he him- self denied its application to the persons who were usually identified with its characters, there is every reason to believe that it was rather the record of a personal experience than a deliberate effort of art. It is very short, dealing with the love of a certain Adolphe for a certain Elle*nore and his disenchantment. The psychological draw- ing, though one-sided, is astonishingly true, and though sensibiliif is still present, it has obviously lost its hold both on the characters represented and their creator. Deliberate analysis appears almost as much as in the work of Beyle himself. It is in every respect a remarkable book, and many parts of it might have been written at the present day. What distinguishes it from almost all its fore- runners is that there is hardly any attempt at incident, far less at adventure. The play of thought and feeling is the sole source of interest. It is true that the situation is one that could not support a long book, and that it is thus rather an essay at the modern analytic novel than a finished example of it. But it is such an, essay, and very far from an unsuccessful one. CHAPTER IV. HISTORIANS, MEMOIR -WRITERS, LETTER -WRITERS. IN the three branches of literature included in this chapter the interest of the eighteenth century is great, but unequally divided. In Characterise history proper, that is to say, the connected survey from tics and documents of a greater or lesser period of the past, the Ei V htenth- a & e saw > ^ not tne De g'n mn g> certainly the maturing of century a philosophical conception of the science. Putting History. Bossuet out of the question, Vico in Italy, Montesquieu and Turgot in France, are usually and rightly credited with the work- ing out of this great conception. But though pretty fully worked, or at least sketched out, it was not applied in any book of bulk and merit. The writings of Montesquieu and Turgot themselves are not history they are essays of lesser or greater length in his- torical philosophy. Nor from the merely literary point of view has France any historical production of the first rank to put forward at this time. The works of greater extent, such as Rollin's, are of no special literary value ; the works of literary value, such as Voltaire's studies, are of but small extent, and rather resemble the historical essay of the preceding century, which still continued to be prac- tised, and which had one special practitioner of merit in Rulhiere. But nothing even distantly approaching the English masterpiece of the period, the Decline and Fall, was produced ; hardly anything approaching Hume's History. Nor again do the memoirs x of this 1 In studying the history, and especially the memoirs, of the eighteenth century, the reader is at a disadvantage, inasmuch as the admirable collections of MM. Buchon, Petitot, Michaud et Poujoulat, etc., do not extend beyond its earliest years. Their place is very imperfectly supplied by a collection in twenty-eight small volumes, edited by F. Earriere for MM. Didot. This is Historians, Memoir -Writers, Letter -Writers. 409 time equal those of the seventeenth century in literary power, though they are useful as sources of historical and social informa- tion. No man of letters of the first class has left such work, and no one, not by profession a man of letters, has by such work come even near the position of the Cardinal de Retz or the Duke de Saint-Simon, the latter of whom, it is fair to remember, actually lived into the second half of the century. On the other hand, the letter- writers of the time are numerous and excellent. Although no one of them equals Madame de Se'vigne' in bulk and in completeness of merit, the letters of Mademoiselle de 1'Espinasse, of Madame du Deffand, of Diderot to Mademoiselle Volland, and some others, are of very great excellence, and almost unsurpassed in their character- ization of the intellectual and social peculiarities of the time. The absence of regular histories of the first merit would be more sur- prising than it is if it were not fully accounted for by the dominant peculiarity of the day, which is never to be forgotten in studying its history the absorption, that is to say, of the greater part of the intellect of the time in the philosophe polemic. Almost all the histories that were written, except as works of pure erudition, were in reality pamphlets intended to point, more or less allegorically, some moral as to real or supposed abuses in the social, ecclesias- tical, or political state of France. This peculiarity could not fail to detract from their permanent interest, even if it did not (as it too often did) make the authors less careful to give a correct account of their subject than to make it serve their purpose. The first regular historian who deserves mention is Charles Rollin, who perhaps had a longer and wider monopoly r 1 j r i itOllin. ol a certain kind of historical instruction than any other author. He was born at Paris in January, 1661, of the middle class, and, after studying at the College du Plessis, he became Professor at the College de France, and, in 1694, Rector useful as far as it goes, but it is very far from complete ; much of it is in extract only, and the component parts of it are not selected as judiciously as they might be. Separate editions of the principal memoirs of the century are of course oltninable, and the number is being constantly increased ; but such separate editions are far less useful than the collections which enable the memoir-writing of France during five centuries of its history to be studied at an advantage scarcely to be paralleled in the literature of any other nation. 410 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. of the University; a post in which he distinguished himself by introducing many useful and much-needed reforms. He was a Jansenist, but was not much inconvenienced in consequence. Rollin's book (that is to say the only one by which he is re- membered) is his extensive Hisioire Ancienne, 1730-1738, the work of his advanced years, which was the standard treatise on the subject for nearly a century, and was translated into most languages. Although showing no particular historical grasp, written with no power of style, and not universally accurate, it deserves such praise as may be due to a work of great practical utility requiring much industrious labour, and not imitated from or much assisted by any previous book. The Hisioire Romaine, which followed it, was of little worth, but Rollin's Traite des Eludes was a very useful book in its time. Two historians, who hardly deserve the name, are usually ranked together in this part of French history, partly because they represent almost the last of the fabulous school of history- writers, partly because their disputes (for they were of opposite factions) have had the honour to be noticed by Montesquieu. These were Dubos and Boulainvilliers. The Abbe Dubos. Dubos was a writer of some merit on a great variety of subjects ; his Reflexions sur la Poe'sie et la Peinture being of value. His chief historical work is entitled Histoire Critique de T Elablisstment de la Monarchic Fran$aise dans les Gauks, in which, with a paradoxical patriotism, which has found some echoes among living historians, he maintained that the Prankish invasion of Gaul was the consequence of an amicable invitation, that the Gauls were in no sense conquered, and that all conclusions based on the supposition of such a conquest were therefore erroneous. It is fair to Dubos to say that he had been in a manner provoked Boulain- by the arguments of the Count de Boulainvilliers. villiers. According to this latter, the Prankish conquest had resulted in the establishment of a dominant caste, which alone had full enfranchisement, and which was lineally, or at least titularly, represented by the French aristocracy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These reckless and baseless hypotheses would not require notice, were it not important to show how long Ch. iv.] Historians, Memoir - Writers, Letter -Writers. 411 it was before the idea of rigid enquiry into documentary facts on the one hand, and philosophical application of general laws on the other, were observed in historical writing. Montesquieu himself will come in for mention under the head of philosophers, but Voltaire's ubiquity will be maintained in this chapter. His strictly historical work was indeed considerable, even if what is perhaps the most remarkable of it, the Essai sur les Mceurs (which may be described as a treatise, with instances, on the philosophy of history, as applied to modern times), be excluded. Besides smaller works, the histories of Charles XII. and Peter the Great, the Age of Louis XIV., the Age of Louis X V., and the Annals of the Empire, belong to the class of which we are now treating. Of these there is no doubt that the Siede de Louis Quatorze, 1752, is the best, though the slighter sketches of Charles, 1731, and Peter, 1759, are not undeserving of the position they have long held as little masterpieces. Voltaire, how- Voltaire, ever, was not altogether well qualified for a historian ; indeed, he had but few qualifications for the work, except his mastery of a clear, light, and lively style. He had no real con- ception, such as Montesquieu had, of the philosophy of history, or of the operation of general causes. His reading, though exten- sive, was desultory and uncritical, and he constantly fell into the most grotesque blunders. His prejudices were very strong, and he is more responsible than any other single person for the absurd and ignorant disdain of the middle ages, which, so long as it lasted, made comprehension of modern history and society simply impos- sible, because the origins of both were wilfully ignored. These various drawbacks had perhaps less influence on the Siede de Louis Quatorze than on any other of his historical works, and it is accord- ingly the best He was well acquainted with the subject, he was much interested in it, it touched few of his prejudices, and he was able to speak with tolerable freedom about it. The result is excel- lent, and it deserves the credit of being almost the first finished history (as distinguished from mere diaries like those of L'Estoile) in which not merely affairs of state, but literary, artistic, and social matters generally found a place. The third and fourth quarters of the century are the special 412 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. period when history was, as has been said, degraded to the level of a party pamphlet, especially in such works as the Abbe* Raynal's Hisloire des Indes. This was a mere vehicle for philosophe tirades on religious and political subjects, many if not most of which are known to have proceeded from Diderot's fertile pen. Crevier and Lebeau, however, names forgotten now, continued the work of Rollin ; and meanwhile the descendants of the laborious school of historians mentioned in the last book (many of whom survived until far into the century) pursued their useful work. Not the least of these was Dom Calmet, author of the well-known ' Dic- tionary of the Bible.' But the chief historical names of the later eighteenth century are Mably and Rulhiere. Mably, who might be treated equally well under the head of philosophy, was an abbe", and moderately orthodox in religion, though decidedly Republican in politics. He was a man of some learning ; but, if less ignorant than Voltaire, he was equally blind to the real meaning and influence of the middle ages and of mediaeval institutions. He looked back to the institutions of Rome, and still more of Greece, as models of political perfection, without making the slightest allowance for the difference of circumstances ; and to him more than to any one else is due the nonsensical declamation of the Jacobins about tyrants and champions of liberty. His works, the Enlreliens de Phocion, the Observations sur F Hisloire de France, the Droils de t Europe fonde's sur les Trace's, are, however, far from destitute of value, though, as generally happens, it was their least valuable part which (especially when Rousseau followed to enforce similar ideas with his contagious enthusiasm) produced the greatest effect Rulhiere, who was really a historian of excellence, and who might under rather more favourable circumstances Bulluere. have been one of the most distinguished, was born about 1735. His Christian names were Claude Carloman. He was of noble birth, was educated at the College Louis-le-Grand, and served in the army till he was nearly thirty years old. He then went to St. Petersburg as secretary to the ambassador Breteuil, whom he also accompanied to Sweden. He returned to Paris and began to write the history of the singular proceedings which during Ch. iv.] Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter- Writers. 413 his stay in the Russian capital had placed Catherine II. on the throne. The Empress, it is said, tried both to bribe and to frighten him, but could obtain nothing but a promise not to print the sketch till her death. He continued to live in Paris, where he was distinguished for rather ill-natured wit and for polished verse- tales and epigrams. For some reason he devoted himself to the history of Poland. In 1787 he was elected to the Academy. Then he wrote some Eclair cissemenls Historiques sur les Causes de la Revocation de fEdit de Nantes, and is said to have begun other historical works. He died in 1791. His 'Anecdotes on the Revolution in Russia' did not appear till 1797; his Histoire de TAnarchie de Pologne not till even later. The Polish book is unfinished, and is said to have been garbled in manuscript. But it has very considerable merits, though there is perhaps too much discussion in proportion to the facts given. The Russian anecdotes deserve to rank with the historical essays of Retz and Saint -Re"al in vividness and precision of drawing. These are the chief names of the century in history proper, for Volney, who concludes it in regard to the study of history, is, like many of his predecessors, rather a philosopher busying himself with the historical departments and applications of his subject than a historian proper. Still more may this be said of Diderot in such works as the Essai sur les Regnes _de Claude et de Ne'ron. The creation of a school of accomplished historians was left for the next century, when the opportunity of such a subject as the French Revolution in the immediate past, the stimulus of the precepts and views of the great writers on the philosophy of history, and lastly the disinterring of the original documents of mediaeval and ancient history, did not fail to produce their natural effect. The number of historians of the first and second class born towards the close of the eighteenth century is remarkable. The first memoirs, properly so called, which have to be mentioned as belonging to the eighteenth century, Memoirs are those of Mademoiselle Delaunay, afterwards Madame da Madame de Staal. Mademoiselle Delaunay was at- Staal- tached to the household of the Duchess du Maine, De l auna y- the beautiful, impetuous, and highborn wife of one of the stupidest 4*4 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. and least interesting of men, who happened also to be the illegi- timate son of Louis XIV. The Duke du Maine, or rather his wife, for he himself was nearly as destitute of ambition as of ability, was at the head of the party opposed to that of which the Duke of Orleans (the Regent) was the natural chief, and Saint Simon the ablest partisan. The 'party of the bastards' failed, but the duchess kept up a vigorous literary and political agitation ngainst the Regent. The court (as it may be called) of this opposition was held at Sceaux, and of the doings of this court Madame de Staal has left a very vivid account. The Marquis d'Argenson, a statesman and a man of great intelligence, concealed under a rough and clumsy exterior, has left memoirs which are valuable for the early and middle part of the reign of Louis XV. The memoirs, properly so called, of Duclos are of small extent, but he has left impersonal memoirs of the later reign of Louis XIV. and the beginning of that of his great-grandson, which are among the best historical work of the time. His account of the famous ' system ' of Law is one of the principal sources of information on its subject, as is his handling of the Cellamare conspiracy and other affairs of the regency. Duclos was a man not only of considerable literary talent, but of wide historical reading, which appears amply in his work. The gossiping memoirs, attributed to Madame du Hausset, bedchamber- woman to Madame de Pompadour, give many curious details of ihe middle period of Louis XV.'s reign ; and in the vast collection of tittle-tattle, often scandalous enough, called the Me'moires de Bachaumonl, much matter of interest, and some that is of value, may be found. Among the most valuable memoirs of this kind are those of Colle", which have been only recently edited in full. Colle", who, though a time-server and an ill-natured man, had much lite- rary talent, was an acute observer, and enjoyed great opportu- nities, has left important materials for the middle of the century. The Baron de Be*senval, half a Savoyard and half a B6senval. . . , . Pole, who played an important part in the" early days of the Revolution, and who had previously encouraged Marie Antoinette in the levities, harmless enough but worse than ill- judged, which had so fatal a result, has left reminiscences of the Ch. iv.] Historians, Memoir- Writers > Letter -Writers. 415 later years of Louis XV., and a connected narrative of the out- break of the Revolution. The memoirs concerning the Philosophes form a library in themselves, even those which concern Voltaire alone making a not inconsiderable collection. Those Madame of Madame d'Epinay (the friend of Grimm, of Galiani, d'Epinay. and of Rousseau), of Marmontel, of Morellet, are perhaps the principal of this group. Marmontel's memoirs are among his best works, and Madame d'Epinay's are among the most charac- teristic of the period. There is a certain group of interesting memoirs of actors and actresses, which dates from this time, including those of the great actress Mademoiselle Clairon, the tragic actor Le Kain, and others. Circumstances rather political than literary have given a place in literary history to the memoirs of Linguet and Latude Minor concerning the Bastile. That celebrated building, how- Memoirs, ever, figures largely in the memoirs of the time, and the experiences of Voltaire, Marmontel, Cre*billon, and others show how greatly exaggerated is the popular notion of its dungeons and torments. The so-called memoirs of the Duke de Richelieu (the type, and a very debased type, of the French noblesse of the eighteenth century, as La Rochefoucauld was of that of the seventeenth) are the work of Soulavie, a literary man and unfrocked abbe* of very dubious character : but they at least rest upon authentic data, and abound in the most curious information. The President Renault, a man of probity and learning, has left memoirs of value which have been considerably added to of late. As might be expected, the collection of memoirs which have reference to the Revolution and the Empire is very Memoirs large. The fortunes of the ill-fated royal family are O f t ^ e dealt with in three sets of memoirs, on which all his- Bevolu- torians have been obliged to draw, those of Madame Campan, of Weber, and of Clery, all three of whom were attendants on Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. The memoirs of the first-named are supposed to be the least accurate in matters of fact. The ill-natured and factious Madame de Genlis has left two different works of the memoir kind, the one entiiled Souvenirs de Fe'licie, which is somewhat fictitious in form 416 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. and arrangement, but is believed to be accurate enough in facts; the other, definitely called Memoirs, which was written long after date, and is much coloured by prejudice. The Marquis de Bouille', whose gallant conduct during the Nancy mutiny set an example which the nobility of France were unfortunately slow to follow, and who would have saved Louis XVI. in the Varennes flight but for ill-luck and the king's incredible folly, has also left memoirs of value; and so has Dumouriez. The memoirs of Louvet, of Daunou, of Riouffe, of the Duke de Lauzun, of the Comte de Vaublanc, of the Comte de Sdgur, may be mentioned. The unamiable but striking and characteristic figure of Madame Roland lives in memoirs which are among the most celebrated of the time. A group of short but striking accounts of eye-witnesses and narrowly-rescued victims remains to testify to the atrocities of that Second of September, which some recent historians have striven in vain to palliate. The exceedingly interesting episodes of the Venddan War, the subsequent Chouannerie, and the Emigra- tion, were long very insufficiently known by original documents, the chief authorities for the first being the narrative of Madame de Lescure on one side and of the Republican general Turreau on the other. The approach and passage of the centenary of the Revo- lution stimulated the publication of a good many others more valuable to the historian than to the critic and the reader. Many of the men of the Revolution, of the servants of the Empire and of their wives, have left accounts (of more or less value in point of matter) of the events of the time, some of which have been only very recently published. Among these latter special notice is deserved by the memoirs of Davout, of Madame de Rdmusat, and of Count Miot de Melito. Still more recently there of Marbot and Thie'bault, subordinate generals of Napoleon's, have excited much interest, the first for their descriptions at once vivid and businesslike of battle scenes, the second for varied merits. But no one of these (those of Madame de Re'musat perhaps excepted) is of the first literary importance or interest. It is otherwise with letters, of which the century contributes to literature some of the most remarkable which we possess. The most typical may be noticed with some minuteness. Among these the Ch. iv.] Historians, Memoir-Writers, Letter-Writers. 417 correspondence of Grimm, though one of the bulkiest and most important, may be dismissed with a brief reference ; for Abundance it will be noticed again in the succeeding chapter, and of Letter- most of it is not either the work of one man or real cor- writers, respondence. The flying sheets which Grimm, largely aided by his complaisant friends, and especially by Diderot, sent to his august Russian and German correspondents, were in reality periodical sum- maries of the state of politics, society, letters, and art in Paris, not different in subject and style from the printed newspaper letters of the present day. Of the letter-writers proper three women and three men may be selected, Mademoiselle Ai'sse*, Mademoiselle de Les- pinasse, and Madame du Deffand ; Voltaire, Diderot, and Galiani. Mademoiselle Ai'sse' had a singular history. When a child she was carried off by Turkish rovers, and sold at Con- Mademoi- stantinople to the French ambassador, M. de Ferriol. BeUe AlssS. This was at the beginning of the century. Her purchaser had her brought up carefully at Paris as his property, which no doubt he always considered her. But in his old age he became childish, and Mademoiselle Ai'sse" was free to frequent society to which she had been early introduced. She met and fell in love with a certain Chevalier d'Aydie, who himself (at a later date, for the most part) was a letter-writer of some merit. Her letters to him and of him constitute her claim to a position in the history of literature. They display the sensibilite of the time in a decided form, but in a milder one than the later letters of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Both beyond all doubt were much indebted to the famous and passionate Lettres Porlugaises published in French by Claude Barbin in 1669, but avowedly translated from the Portuguese, and written in that language by Marianna Alcoforado, a nun of Beja, to Noel Bouton, afterwards Marshal de Chamilly, who while serving with the French auxiliaries in Portugal had met, captivated, and deserted her. There is something in Mademoiselle Ai'sse' more than mere sensibilitfz. tender and affectionate spirit finding graceful expression and deserving a happier fate. She, like most other people of her time, turned devout, but earlier than most, and died in 1733. Madame du Deffand was a very different person. She was born in 1697, and was married in 1718 to the Marquis du Deffand. But she E e 4i 8 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. soon separated from him, and lived for many years the then usual life Madame of gallantry. This merged insensibly into a life of du Deffand. literary and philosophical society. Though Madame du Deffand was not, like the wealthier but more plebeian Madame Geoffrin, and like Madame Helve'tius later, a 'nursing mother of the philosophers/ in the sense of supplying their necessities, her salon in the Rue Saint Dominique was long one of the chief resorts of philo- sophism. In 1753 she became blind, but this made little difference in her appetite for society. She lived, like many other great ladies, in a monastery, and died in 1780. As a letter-writer Madame du Deffand was the correspondent of most of the greatest men of letters of the time (Voltaire, D'Alembert, Renault, Montesquieu, etc.). But her most remarkable correspondence, and perhaps her most interest- ing one, was with Horace Walpole, the most French of contemporary Englishmen. Their friendship, for which it is hard to find an exact name, unless, perhaps, it may be called a kind of passionate commu- nity of tastes, belongs to the later part of her long life. Madame du Deffand is the typical French lady of the eighteenth century, as Richelieu is the typical grand seigneur. She was perhaps the wittiest woman (in the strict sense of the adjective) who ever lived l , and an astonishingly large proportion of the best sayings of the time is traced or attributed to her. Nearly seventy years of con- versation and a great correspondence did not exhaust her faculty of acute sallies, of ruthless criticism, of cynical but clearsighted judgment on men and things. But she was thoroughly unamiable, purely selfish, jealous, spiteful, destitute of humour, if full of wit. A comparison with Madame de Se'vigne' shows how the French character had, in the upper ranks at least, degenerated (it is worth remembering that Madame du Deffand was born just after Madame de Sdvign^'s death), though it must be admitted that the earlier cha- racter shows perhaps the germs of what is repulsive in the second. The third most remarkable lady letter-writer of the century, Made- Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, was closely connected moiseiie de with Madame du Deffand. She was indeed her com- Lespinasse. p an i O n, her coadjutor, and her rival, Julie Jeanne Eleonore de Lespinasse was in reality the illegitimate daughter 1 Her earlier contemporary, Madame de Tencin, is her chief competitor. Ch. iv.] Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter - Writers. 419 of a lady of rank, the Countess d'Albon, who lived apart from her husband, and the name Lespinasse was merely a fancy name taken from the D'Albon genealogy. She was born, or at least baptized, at Lyons on the ipth November, 1732. Her mother, who practically acknowledged her, died when she was fifteen, leaving her fairly provided for. But her half-brothers and sisters deprived her of most of her portion, though for a time they gave her a home. In 1754 Madame du Deffand, to whom she had been recommended, and who had just been struck with blindness, invited her to come and live with her, which she did, after some hesitation. For ten years the two presided jointly over their society, but at l?st Madame du Deffand's jealousy broke out. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse retired, taking with her not a few of the habitue's of the salon, with D'Alembert at their head. Madame Geoffrin seems to have endowed her, and she established herself in the Rue de Bellechasse, where D'Alembert before long came to join her. They lived in a curious sort of relationship for more than ten years, until Mademoiselle de Lespinasse died on the 22nd May, 1776. During this time she was a gracious hostess and a bond of union to many men of letters, especially those of the younger philosophe school. But this is not what gives her her place here. Her claim rests upon a collection of love-letters, not addressed to D'Alembert. She was thirty-four when the earliest of her love affairs began, and had never been beautiful. When she died she was forty -four, and her later letters are more passionate than the earlier. Her first lover was a young Spaniard, the Marquis Gonsalvo de Mora ; her second, the Count de Guibert, a poet and essayist of no great merit, a military reformer said to have been of some talent, and pretty evidently a bad-hearted coxcomb. To him the epistles we have are addressed. All the circumstances of these letters are calculated to make them ridiculous, yet there is hardly any word which they less deserve. The great defect of the eighteenth century is that its sensibilitf excludes real passion. The men and women of feeling of the period always seem as if they were playing at feeling ; the affairs of the heart, which occupy so large a place in its literature, show only the progress of a certain kind of game which has its rules and stages to which E e 2 420 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. the players must conform, but which, when once over, leaves no more traces than any other kind of game. To this Mademoiselle de Lespinasse is a conspicuous exception. It has been said of her that her letters burn the paper they are Written on with the fervency of their sentiment, nor is the expression an exaggerated one. Except in Rousseau and (in a different form) in Manon Lescaut, it is in these letters that we must look for almost the only genuine passion of the time. It is no doubt unreal to a certain degree, morbid also in an even greater degree as regards what is real in it. But it te in no sense consciously affected, and conscious affectation was the bane of the period. Mademoiselle Ai'sse' and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse show in various forms the amiable weaknesses of womankind, Madame du Deffand its unamiable strength. The letters of Voltaire, of Diderot, and of the Abbe" Galiani are not so typical of a sex, but are more representative of individuals and at the same time of the age. Voltaire's correspondence is simply enormous in point of bulk. Fresh letters of his are constantly being discovered and edited even now J . His long life, his extraordinary industry, his position during nearly a generation as the leading man of letters of Europe, the curious diversity of his interests, even the prosperity in point of fortune which made him com- mand the services of secretaries and understrappers, while humbler men of letters had to do the mechanical work of composition for themselves, all contributed to bring about this fecundity. We have from him early love-letters, letters to private friends of all dates, business letters, literary letters, letters to great persons, letters in- tended for publication, letters not intended for publication, flatter- ing letters, insulting letters, benevolent letters, patronising letters, begging letters, letters of almost every sort and kind that the ingenuity of human imagination can conceive or the diversity of 1 This immense production, coupled with the shifty tricks of publication, and the constant revision of some of his work in which Voltaire indulged, makes the issue of a really 'complete' edition of him almost an impossibility, and certainly an unachieved task as yet. Fortunately one of the best Biblio- graphies extant has been devoted to him by M. Georges Bengesco. Paris. 4 vols. 1882-90. Cb. iv.] Historians, Memoir- Writers, Letter- Writers. 421 human relationships and circumstances require. Partial critics have contended that the singular quality of Voltaire's genius might be sufficiently exemplified from his letters, if no other documents were forthcoming. Without going quite so far as this, it may be allowed that his correspondence is a remarkable monument of those qualities in literature which enable a man to express himself happily and rapidly on any subject that happens to present itself. The letters do not perhaps supply any ground for disputing Carlyle's sentence on Voltaire (a sentence which has excited the wrath of French critics) that there is not one great thought in all his works. But they enable us, even better than any other division of those works, to appreciate the singular flexibility of his intellect, the extraordinarily wide range of his interests and sympathies, the practical talents which accompanied his literary genius. Diderot's correspondence is also considerable in bulk, though not in that respect to be compared to Voltaire's. It has several minor divisions, the chief of which is a body of letters addressed to the sculptor Falconnet in Russia. But the main claim of this versatile writer and most fertile thinker to rank in this chapter lies in his letters to Mademoiselle Volland, a lady of mature years, to whom, in his own middle and old age, he was, after the fashion of the time, much attached. These letters were not published till forty or fifty years after his death, and it is not too much to say that they supply not only the most vivid picture of Diderot himself which is attainable, but also the best view of the later and extremer philosophe society. Many, if not most of them, are written from that society's head-quarters, the country house of the Baron d'Holbach, at Grandval, where Diderot was an ever welcome visitor. This society had certain drawbacks which made it irksome, not merely to orthodox and sober persons, but to fastidious judges who were not much burdened with scruples. Horace Walpole, for instance, found himself bored by it. But it was the most 'characteristic society of the time, and Diderot's letters are the best pictures of it, because, unlike some not dis- similar work, they unite great vividness and power of description with an obvious absence of the least design to ' cook,' that is to say, to invent or to disguise facts and characters. Diderot, who 422 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. possessed every literary faculty except the faculty of taking pains and the faculty of adroitly choosing subjects, was marked out as the describer of such a society as this, where brilliancy was the one thing never wanting, where eccentricity of act and speech was the rule, where originals abounded and took care to make the most of their originality, and where all restraint of convention was deliberately cast aside. The character and tendencies of this society have been very variously judged, and there is no need to decide here between the judges further than to say that, on the whole, the famous essay of Carlyle on Diderot not inadequately reduces to miniature Diderot's own picture of it. Only the ex- tremest prejudice can deny the extraordinary merit of that picture itself, the vividness and effortless effect with which the men and women dealt with their doings and their sayings are presented, the completeness and dramatic force of the presentation. The last of the epistolers selected for comment, the Abbe* Galiani, has this peculiarity as distinguished from Voltaire and Diderot, that he is little except a letter-writer to the present and probably to all future generations of readers. He will indeed appear again, but his dealings with political economy are of merely ephemeral interest. Galiani was of a noble Neapolitan family, was attached to the Neapolitan Legation in Paris, and made himself a darling of philosophe society there. When he was recalled to his native country and endowed with sufficiently lucra- tive employments, his chief consolation for the loss of Parisian society was to gather as far as he could a copy of it consisting partly of Italians, partly of foreign and especially English visitors to Italy to study classical archeology, in which (and especially in the department of numismatics) he wae an expert, and to write letters to his French friends. In his long residence at Paris, Galiani had acquired a style not entirely destitute of Italianisms, but all the more piquant on that account. His letters were pub- lished early in this century, but incompletely and in a somewhat garbled fashion. They have recently had the benefit of two dif- ferent complete editions. They are addressed, the greater part of them to Madame d'Epinay, and the remainder to various correspondents. Galiani had the reputation of being one of the ch. iv.] Historians, Memoir -Writers, Letter -Writers. 423 best talkers of his time, and the memoirs and correspondence of his friends (especially Diderot's) contain many reported sayings of his which amply support the reputation. Like many famous talkers, he seems to have been not quite so ready with the pen as with the tongue. But it is only by comparison that his letters can be depreciated. Less voluminous and manifold than Voltaire, less picturesque than Diderot, he is a model of general letter-writing. He is also remarkable as an exponent of the curious feeling of the time towards religion ; a feeling which was prevalent in the cultivated classes (with certain differences) all over Europe. Galiani was not, like some of his French friends, a proselytising atheist. He held some ecclesiastical employments in his own country with decency, and died with all due attention to the rites of the Church. But it is obvious that he was as little of a Christian, in any definite sense of the word, as any humanist of the fifteenth century. The light thrown in this fashion upon the social, moral, and intellectual characteristics of the time constitutes the chief value of all its historical literature, except the great philosophico-historical works of Montesquieu and Turgot. It has a certain flimsiness about it ; it is brilliant journalism rather than literature properly so called ; the dialect in which it is written wants the gravity and sonorous- ness, the colour and the poetry, of the seventeenth and earlier centuries. But it is unmatched in power of social portraiture. Written, as much of it is, by men of the middle class, and more of it by men who, from whatever class they sprang, were deeply in- terested in social, economical, and political problems, it is free from that ignoring of any life and rank except that of the nobility which mars much of the work of earlier times. The picture it gives is very far from being a flattering one : the nature to which the mirror is held up is in most cases a decidedly corrupt nature ; but the mirror is held frankly, and the reflection is useful to posterity. CHAPTER V. ESSAYISTS, MINOR MORALISTS, CRITICS. WHAT may be, for want of a better word, called occasional writing in prose received a considerable development during the eighteenth century. Some of the forms which it had Occasional Writing previously taken, the Pens/e, the maxim, and so forth, in the were less practised, though at the beginning and end Eighteenth- o f our p resen t period two remarkable men, Vauve- century. . nargues and Joubert, distinguished themselves in them, and in the form of satirical aphorism Chamfort and Rivarol, before and during the Revolution, brought them to great perfection. But it was powerfully encouraged by the institution of official floges, pronounced in the French Academy on famous men of the immediate or remoter past, and of prize essays, sub- jects for which, in ever increasing numbers, were proposed, not merely by that body, but by provincial societies of a similar but humbler kind. More than all this, the growth of periodical litera- ture, though not exactly rapid, was steady, and gave opportunity for the cultivation of the two main branches of occasional writing as it is understood in modern times, namely, social or ethical essays of the Addisonian kind, and critical studies, literary or other. A great impetus was given to this by the novelist Provost, who, after his return from England, edited, as has been observed, more than one avowed imitation of the English Spectator and Taller. At the beginning of the century the chief place among newspapers was occupied by the Mercure Galant, which had enjoyed the con- tempt of 'La Bruyere, and the management of Vise* and Thomas Corneille. Towards the middle and tnd of the period, the Gazette de France, under the management of Suard, held the principal Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 425 place with a somewhat higher aim ; and of non-official publica- tions the Jesuit Journal de Trevoux and the xriC\-philosophe Anne'e Litltraire of Fre'ron were notable. It was not till after the begin- ning of the Revolution that journalism proper spread and multi- plied, and that journalists became a power. A short notice of the chief of these will be found lower down in this chapter, but a full history of French journalism is impossible here. The first place in point of time, and not the least in point of importance, among the occasional writers of the eighteenth century, is due to Fontenelle. The personal name of this Fontenelle. curious writer, who is perhaps the most striking ex- ample in literary history of multifarious talent and unwearied in- dustry just stopping short, despite their combination, of genius, was Bernard le Bovier, and his mother was a sister of Corneille, whose life Fontenelle himself wrote. He was educated by the Jesuits and studied for the bar, but was unsuccessful as an ad- vocate, and soon gave up active practice. He came to Paris very young, and soon became distinguished, after a fashion, in society and literature. He was one of the last of the pre'deux, or rather he was the inventor of a new combination of literature and gallantry which at first exposed him to not a little satire. Unfortunately too for him he tried first to emulate his uncles in the drama, for which he had no talent, and one of his plays (Aspar'), failing completely, gave his enemies abundant opportunity. No one, however, illustrated better than Fontenelle the saying that ' no man was ever written down except by himself.' He was the butt of the four most dangerous satirists of his time Racine, Boileau, La Bruyere, and J. B. Rousseau ; but though the epigrams which Racine and Rousseau directed against him are among the best in the language, and though the ' portrait ' of Cydias, in the Carac- teres, at least equals them, Fontenelle received hardly any damage from these. Finding that he was not likely to be a successful dramatic poet, even in opera, he turned to prose, and wrote ' dialogues of the dead,' in avowed imitation' of Lucian, and a kind of romance called ' Lettres du Chevalier d'ffer . . .,' in which he may be said to have set the example of the elaborate and rather affected style, afterwards called Marivaudage, from his most famous pupil. 426 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. Even here his success was doubtful, and he again changed his ground. He had paid some attention to science, and he saw that there was an opening in the growing curiosity of educated people for scientific popularising. To this and to literary criticism and history he devoted himself for the remainder of his long life, becoming President of the Academy of Sciences, and virtual dic- tator of the Academic Fran9aise. His filoges and his academic essays generally were highly popular. But his chief single works are the famous Enlrelien sur la Pluralities Mondes, an example of singularly hardy speculation, and of no contemptible learning, art- fully disguised by an easy style, and his Hisloiredes Oracles, of which much the same may be said. With hardly diminished powers Fontenelle achieved an age not often paralleled in literary his- tory, though his contemporary, Saint Aulaire, a minor poet, nearly equalled it. He died in his hundredth year, and almost at the end of it, his long life extending from the very earliest glories of the Siecle de Louis XIV. to the very hottest period of the En- cyclopaedist battle. The singular variety of his works, and his force of character, disguised under a somewhat frivolous exterior, but enabling him to live down enmity and ridicule which would have crushed most men, would of themselves make Fontenelle a remarkable figure in literature. But his actual work has more merits than that of mere variety. He realised quite as keenly as his enemy La Bruyere the importance of manner in literature, though his taste was hardly so pure. If not exactly an original thinker, he was an acute and comprehensive one, and forestalled most of his con- temporaries in consciously taking the direction which they were almost unwittingly pursuing. He fully appreciated the value of paradox as stimulating men's minds and giving flavour to litera- ture; and his positive wit was very considerable. To not many men are more good sayings attributed, and the goodness of these is not always verbal only. The most famous of them, uttered in defence of his peculiar union of heterodoxy and caution, 'I may have my fist full of truth, and yet only care to open my little finger/ may be immoral or not, but it expressed very early, and with singular force, the intellectual attitude of two whole generations. Inseparable from Fontenelle' s name in literary history, as the Ch v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 427 two were long closely united in life, is the name of La Motte. La Motte was a much younger man than Fontenelle, L& Motte and he died more than thirty years before him, but during the first thirty years of the century the pair exercised a kind of joint sovereignty in the Belles Lettres. They revived the quarrel of the ancients and moderns, inclining to the modern side. But La Motte's translation of Homer, or rather his adaptation (for he omitted about half), is not of a nature to inspire much confidence in his ability to judge the matter, though his essays and letters on the subject are triumphs of ingenious word-fence. Unlike Fontenelle, La Motte had one considerable dramatic success with the pathetic subject of Inh de Castro, and his fables are not devoid of merit. It was, however, as a prose writer of the occasional kind, and especially as a paradoxical essayist, that he earned and deserved most fame, his prose style being superior to Fontenelle's own. The next name deserving of mention belongs to a very different writer. Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, covered in his brief space of life not a third of the period allotted Vauvenar- to Fontenelle, who was nearly sixty when Vauvenargues gues. was born, and outlived him ten years. Nor did he leave any single work of consequence. Yet his scanty writings are far more valuable in matter, if not in form, than those of the witty cente- narian. Vauvenargues was born at Aix, in Provence, on the 6th of August, 1715. His family was ancient and honourable, but appears to have been poor, and his education was interrupted by the bad health which continued throughout his short life. Never- theless he entered the army at the age of eighteen. After this he had scanty opportunities of study, and it is said that he was ignorant not only of Greek but even of Latin. He served at first in Italy, and then for some years was employed on garrison duty. At the outbreak of the war of the Austrian succession his regiment was sent into Germany, and he had a full share of the hardships of the Bohemian campaign. No promotion came to him, his means were almost exhausted, and in 1744 he resigned his com- mission, after taking the curiously unworldly step of writing directly to the king, asking for a place in the diplomatic service. An ap- plication to the minister of foreign affairs was not much more 428 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. successful, and Vauvenargues, whose evil star pursued him. had no sooner established himself with his family than a bad attack of small-pox destroyed the little health he still had. He set to work, however, to write, and in the short time before his death actually published some of his works, and left others in a condition ready for publication. He lived in Paris for the last three years of his life, and died in 1747, at the age of thirty-two. Latterly he had made acquaintance with Voltaire, who entertained a very high and generous opinion of his talents, due perhaps partly to the remark- able difference of their respective characters and points of view. Vauvenargues' principal work is an Introduction a la Connoissance de t Esprit Huinam, besides which he left a considerable number of maxims, reflections, etc., on points of ethics and of literary criticism. In the last part of his work there is more curiosity than instruction. It is, however, in its way an instructive thing to see that a man of talent and even of genius could object to Molie e for having chosen des styels irop bas, while he speaks of Boileau in the most enthusiastic, terms. The truth (and in the history of literature it is a very important truth) is that Vauvenargues was too little versed in any language but his own to have the requisite range of comparison necessary for literary criticism, and that his real interest in literature was almost entirely proportioned to its bearing upon conduct. His maxims, his Connoissance de F Esprit, his Conseils a mi Jeune Homme, etc., are all occupied almost entirely with questions of morality. Vauvenargues (and in this he was re- markable) stood entirely aloof from the sceptical movement of his age. There was, indeed, a certain scepticism in him, as in almost all thinkers, but it was of the stamp of Pascal's, riot in the least mocking or polemical, and even, as compared with Pascal's own, much less strictly theological. In most of his writings he shows himself an earnest and upright man, profoundly convinced of the importance of right conduct, gifted with an acute perception of its usual moving springs and directions, not remarkable for humour or poetical feeling, but serious, sober, and a little stoical. His literary characteristics reflect some of these peculiarities, and also betray something of his neglected education. He is never slovenly in. thought, but he sometimes shocked the exact verbal critics of the ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 429 eighteenth century by such phrases as ' les sens sont flatte*s d'agir, de galoper un cheval,' whereupon his censor annotates ' neglige". Les sens ne galopent pas un cheval.' A more serious fault is that, in his shorter maxims especially, he does not observe the rule of abso- lute lucidity which La Rochefoucauld, who was as much his model in point of style as he was his opposite in general views, never breaks through. His sayings (it is a merit as well as a drawback) are often rather suggestive than expressive ; they remind the reader of his own curious comparison of Corneille with Racine, ' les he'ros de Corneille disent souvent de grandes choses sans les inspirer ; ceux de Racine les inspirent sans les dire.' Contemporary with Fontenelle and La Motte was the Chancellor D'Aguesseau, one of the most prominent figures of the earlier reign of Louis XV., a steady defender of orthodoxy yet, as was seen in the case of the Encyclopaedia, willing to assist enlighten- ment a man of irreproachable character, and a writer of some merit. D'Aguesseau was born in 1668, and died in D'Aguess- 1751. He early received considerable preferment in eavu the law, and held the seals at intervals for the greater part of the last thirty years of his life. He was a defender of Galli- canism indeed, he was suspected of Jansenist leanings and a man of great benevolence in private life. His legal and historical learning was immense, and he was not without some tincture of science. He deserves a place here chiefly for his speeches on public occasions, which were in effect elaborate moral essays. An important part of them consists of what were called Mer- curiales (that is to say, discourses pronounced on certain Wed- nesdays (Die Mercurii) by the first president of the Parliament of Paris) on the abuses of the day, the duties of judges, the nature of justice, and similar subjects. Another writer, who has been mentioned more than once be- fore, held somewhat aloof from the Encyclopaedists, though he was not, like D'Aguesseau, definitely orthodox, or, like Vauvenargues, severely moral. Charles Pinaud Duclos was one of Duclos. the most miscellaneous of the miscellaneous writers of the time. He held the office of historiographer royal, and pro- duced some remarkable works of the historical kind, one of which 43 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. has been noticed. He composed novels in a fanciful style midway between Cre"billon and Marivaux. He also wrote on grammar, but some of his best work consists of short academic essays, and of a moral study called Considerations sur les Mceurs de Notre Temps, which is both well written and shows discernment. Duclos' character has been somewhat variously represented, but the un- favourable reports (which are in the minority) may probably be traced to the studied brusqueness of his manners, and to his unwillingness to make common cause with the philosophe coterie, though, if some stories are to be believed, he often conversed and argued quite in their style. Yet another typical figure of the same numerous class is Jean Francois Marmontel, one of the most eminent pro- Marmontel. J r fessional men of letters of the second class. Mar- montel's moral tales, his Be'lisaire, and his plays have already been noticed, but his main place in literature is that of a journalist and critic. He was born at Bort, in the district of Limoges, in 1723, and obtained some provincial reputation in letters. Introduced to Voltaire in 1746, he began as a dramatist, and, after some failures, acquired the protection of Madame de Pompadour. He was made editor of the Mercury which gave him an influential position and a competence. He afterwards succeeded Duclos as historiographer, notwithstanding the outcry which had been made against his Be'lisaire. He had contributed almost all the minor articles on literary subjects to the Encyclopaedia, and these were collected and published as fiUmcnts de Lilte'rature in 1787. He died in 1799. The Ele'menls de Litle'ralure are, with the Cours de Litte'ralure of La Harpe, the chief source of information as to eighteenth-century criticism of the fashionable kind in France. They are very voluminous, and, from the circumstances of their original form, deal with a vast number of subjects. The style is for the most part simple and good, destitute alike of the dryness and of the bombast which were the two faults of contemporary writing. But Marmontel's system of criticism will not bear a moment's ex- amination. It consists simply in the assumption that Racine, Boileau (though he was at first recalcitrant to Boileau, and had to be admonished by Voltaire that fa porie malheur}, and their con- cb. V.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 431 temporaries are infallible models, and in the application of this principle to all other nations. The passion for finding plausible general reasons also leads Marmontel into grotesque aberrations, as where he gives three reasons for English success in poetry as contrasted with our inferiority in the other arts. First, Englishmen, loving glory, saw early that poetry acquired glory for a nation. Secondly, being naturally given to sadness and meditation, they wish for emotions to distract and move them. Thirdly, their genius is proper to poetry. This last remark, the reader should observe, comes from a countryman of Moliere, a man who must have read the Malade Imaginaire, and who was moreover a man of much more than ordinary talent. Marmontel often has acute remarks, and his blunders and absurdities are rather symptomatic of the false state in which criticism was at the time than of individual shortcomings. Somewhat younger than Marmontel was La Harpe, who pur- sued the same lines of dramatic poetry and literary La Harpa. criticism, the latter with more success in his kind, so much so, that Malherbe, Boileau, and he may be ranked to- gether as the three representatives of the infancy, flourishing, and decadence of the ' classical ' theory of literary criticism in France. La Harpe was born at Paris in 1739, was brought up by charity, gained a reputation as a brilliant exhibitioner at the College d'Harcourt, and, after the mishap of being imprisoned for a libel, obtained new success at the Academy competitions; He acquired the favour of Voltaire, and fairly launched himself in literature. For many years he furnished tragedies to the stage, and criticised the literary work of others with a singular mixture of acuteness, pedantry, and ill-temper. He was converted from Republicanism by an imprisonment during the Terror, and became a violent conservative and defender of orthodoxy. He died in 1803. His principal critical work is his Cours de Literature, which was the work chiefly of his later days. La Harpe had very considerable talent, which was however warped by the false and narrow system of criticism he adopted, and by his personal ill- temper and overbearing disposition. He is even more than Boileau the type of the schoolmaster-critic, who marks passages 432 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. for correction according to cut-and- dried rules instead of at- tempting to judge the author according to his own standard. Yet, if he is the most typical example of the school, he is also perhaps the best. In dealing with authors of his own century, he is especially worthy of attention, because for the most part they themselves had before them the standards which he used, and his method is therefore relevant as far as it goes. La Harpe wrote well in the fashion of his day. With Duclos, Marmontel, and La Harpe, Thomas is usually named. This writer, like others of our present sub- Thomas. , jects, was chiefly a composer of academic Eloges, Me'moireS) Discours, and the like. He also wrote a book on Les Femmes, a subject which he treated, as he did most things, with seriousness, and with a mixlure of declamation and sentimentality. His literary value is but small. Of the definitely orthodox party only two names need be men- Orthodox tioned, that of the Abbe Guende, who devoted himself Apologists. to exposing Voltaire's numerous slips in erudition in his Letlres de Quelques Jui/s, and that of the Abbe" Bergier, who is chiefly noteworthy as having held the singular post of official refuter of the Encyclopaedists, in virtue of which appointment he received two thousand livres per annum from the General Assembly of the clergy fon sixteen years. He wrote with assiduity, but was not read, and three years before the Revolution he lost his annuity, which the Assembly struck off. Bergier was a man of learning, industry, and good faith, but unfortunately he did not possess sufficient literary talent to execute the task entrusted to him. The Abbe* Gue'ne'e, on the contrary, was a fair match even for Voltaire, but he did not attempt, perhaps it was too early to attempt, any- thing more than skirmishing. A bitter personal opponent of La Harpe, and a famous man in literary history, was FreVon. Elie Catherine FreVon Pr6ron. } was born at Quimper m Bntanny in 1719, and was educated by the Jesuits. He began a critical journal when he was only seven-and-twenty, under the title (not so strange then as now) of Letlres de Madame la Comlesse de . , . . But he had already con- tributed to the Observations and Jugements of Desfontaines. The Ch. v.] Essayists^ Minor Moralists^ Critics. 433 Lellres were suppressed in 1749, but continued under another title, and at last, in 1754, became the celebrated Annie Liiteraire, which for twenty years was full of gall and wormwood for Voltaire and all his partisans. Voltaire was never slow to retaliate in such matters, and his retorts culminated in the play of L'Ecossaise, in which FreVon was caricatured under the title Fre'lon (hornet). Every effort was made by the Encyclopaedists (who were not in the least tolerant in practice) to procure the suppression of the Anne'e. But Freron had solid supports in high places and held on gallantly. It is said that his death, in 1776, was caused by a report that the sup- pression had been at last obtained. He certainly suffered both from gout and from heart disease, complaints not unlikely to make a sudden shock fatal. FreVon, like his English prototype John Dennis, has had the disadvantage that his adversaries were numerous, witty, not too scrupulous, and on the winning side. His personal character seems to have been none of the most amiable. But he was more frequently right than wrong in his criticisms on detached points, and his literary standards were de- cidedly higher and better than those of his enemies. He had moreover abundant wit and an imperturbable temper, which enabled him to turn the laugh against Voltaire in his criticism of the first representation of L'Ecossaise itself. Two other adversaries of Voltaire who deserve notice as literary critics were the Abb Desfontaines (already mentioned) and Palissot. Desfontaines was a man of doubtful character ; but it is not certain that he was in the wrong in the dispute which changed him from a friend into an enemy of Voltaire, and, like Fre'ron, he very fre- quently hit blots both in the patriarch's works and in those of his disciples. Palissot was the author of a play called Les Pkilosophes, an tfcossaise on the other side, in which Rousseau, Diderot, and others were outrageously ridiculed. There was no great merit in this, but Palissot was not a bad critic in some ways, and his notes on French classics, especially Corneille, frequently show much greater taste than those of most contemporary anno- tators. The leaders of the philosophes themselves gave considerable attention to criticism. Voltaire wrote this, as he wrote every- Ff 434 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk iv. thing, his principal critical work being his Commentary on Corneille, in which the constraint of general dramatic and poetic theory which the critic imposes on himself, and the merely con- ventional opinions in which he too often indulges, do not interfere with much acute criticism on points of detail. D'Alembert dis- Philosophe languished himself by his extraordinarily careful and Criticism, polished Eloges, or obituary notices, which remain D'Alembert, among the finest examples of critical appreciation i erot. Q f a certa j n kj n( j to b e f oun( j j n literature. Although he did not definitely attempt a new theory of criticism, D'Alembert'^ vigorous intellect and unbiassed judgment enabled him to estimate authors so different as (for instance) Massillon and Marivaux with singular felicity. But the greatest of the Encyclopaedists in this respect was unquestionably Diderot. While his contemporaries, bent on innovation in politics and religion, accepted without doubt or complaint the narrowest, most conventional, and most un- natural system of literary criticism ever known, he, in his hurried and haphazard but masterly way, practically anticipated the views and even many of the dicta of the Romantic school. Most of Lea Feuilles Diderot's criticisms were written for Grimm's ' Leaves,' de Grimm. w hich thus acquired a value entirely different from and far superior to any that their nominal author could give them. Some of these short notices of current literature are among the finest examples of the review properly so called, though in point of mere literary style and expression they constantly suffer from Diderot's hurried way of setting down the first thing that came into his head in the first words that presented themselves to clothe it. But everywhere there is to be perceived the cardinal principle of sound criticism that a book is to be judged, not according to arbitrary rules laid down ex cathedra for the class of books to which it is supposed to belong, but according to the scheme of its author in the first place, and in the second to the general laws of aesthetics ; a science which, if the Germans named it, Diderot, by their own confession, did much to create. Even more remarkable Diderot's in this respect than his book-criticisms are his Salons, Salons. criticisms of the biennial exhibitions of pictures in Paris, also written for Grimm. There are nine of these, ranging Ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 435 over a period of twenty-two years, and they have served as models for more than a century. Diderot did not adopt the old plan (as old as the Greeks) of mere description, more or less elaborate, of the picture, nor the plan of dilating on its merely technical cha- racteristics, though, assisted by artist friends, he managed to introduce a fair amount of technicalities into his writing. His method is to take in the impression produced by the painting on his mind, and to reproduce it with the associations and suggestions it has supplied. Thus his criticisms are often extremely discursive, and some of his most valuable reflections on matters His General at first sight quite remote from the fine arts occur in Criticism, these Salons. Of drama Diderot had a formal theory which he illustrated by examples not quite so happy as his precepts. This theory involved the practical substitution of what is called in French drame for the conventional tragedy and comedy, and it brought the French theatre (or would have brought it if it had been adopted, which it was not until 1830) much nearer to the English than it had been. Diderot was moreover an enthusiastic admirer of English novels, and especially of Richardson and Sterne, partly no doubt because the sentimentalisrn which characterised them coincided with his own sensibih'le, but also (it is fair to believe) because of their freedom from the artificiality and the strict ob- servance of models which pervaded all branches of literature hi France. Of poetry proper we have little formal criticism from Diderot. His own verses are few, and of no merit, nor was the poetry of the time at all calculated to excite any enthusiasm in him. But the aesthetic tendency which in other ways he expressed, and which he was the first to express, was that which, some forty years after his death, brought about the revival of poetry in France, through recurrence to nature, passion, truth, vividness, and variety of sentiment. So long as the old regime lasted journalism was naturally in a condition of suppression, but from the beginning of the Revolution it assumed at once an important position in the state, Newspapers and a position still more important as a nursery of of the Revo- rising men of letters. At the time of the outbreak only lotion, two papers of importance existed, the already mentioned Gazette F f 2 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. IV. de France, and the Journal de Paris, in which Garat, Andre* Chdnier, Roucher, and many other men of distinction, won their spurs. 1789, however, saw the birth of numerous sheets, some of which continued almost till our own days. The most important was the Gazelle Nationale or Monileur Universel, in which not merely Garat and La Harpe, but Ginguene*, a literary critic of talent and a repub- lican of moderate principles, together with the future historian Lacretelle, and the comic poet, fabulist, and critic Andrieux, took part. Rivarol, Champcenetz, and Pelletier conducted the Royalist Acles des Aptilres, Marat started his ultra-republican Ami du Peuple, Camille Desmoulins the Courier de Brabant, Durozoy the Gazette de Paris, Barrere and Louvet, both notorious, if not famous names, launched for the first time a paper with a title destined to fortune, Le Journal des De'bats 1 ; and Camille Desmoulins changed his oddly- named journal into one named more oddly still, Les Revolutions de France et de Brabant. All these, and more, were the growth of the single year 1789. The next saw the avowedly Royalist Ami du Roi of Royou,the atrocious Pert Duchene of Hebert, the cumbrously-named Journal des Amis de la Constitution, on which Fontanes, Clermont- Tonnerre, and other future Bonapartists and Constitutionalists worked. In 1791 no paper of importance, except the short-lived Girondist Chronique du Mois, appeared. In the next year many Terrorist prints of no literary merit were started, and one, entitled Nouvelles Politiques, to which the veterans Suard and Morellet, with Guizot, a novice of the time to come, Lacretelle, Dupont de Nemours, and others, were contributors. In the later years of the re- volutionary period, the only important newspaper was what was first called the Journal de I Empire, and at the end of Napoleon's reign the Journal des De'bats, on which Fie've'e, Geoffrey, and many other writers of talent worked. In the early days of these various journals political interests naturally engrossed them. But by degrees the importance of criticism grew, and under the Restoration came the Conservateur Lille'raire and the Globe, in the former of which Victor Hugo was introduced to the public, and in the latter Sainte- Beuve. This sudden uprise of journalism produced a remark- 1 At the centenary of this famous newspaper appeared a history of it. (.Le Journal des Dtbats. Paris, 1889.) Ch.v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 437 able change in the conditions of literary work, and offered chances to many who would previously have been dependent on individual patronage. But so far as regards literature, properly so called, all its results which were worth anything appeared subsequently in books, and there is therefore no need to refer otherwise than cursorily to the phenomenon of its development Put very briefly, the influence of journalism on literature The Pi flu " . ence of Jour- may be said to be this : it opens the way to those to nalism. whom it might otherwise be closed; it facilitates the destruction of erroneous principles ; it assists production ; and it interferes with labour and care spent over the thing pro- duced. From the crowd of clever writers whom this outburst of journal- ism found ready to draw their pens in one service or the other, two names emerge as pre-eminently remarkable. Garat and Champcenetz were men of wit and ingenuity, Andre" Che'nier was a great poet, and his brother, Marie Joseph, a man of good literary taste and master of an elegant style, Lacretelle a pains- taking historian, and many others worthy of note in their way. But Chamfort and Rivarol deserve a different kind Chamfort. of notice from this. They united in a remarkable fashion the peculiarities of the man of letters of the eighteenth century with the peculiarities of the man of letters of the nineteenth, and their individual merit was, though different and complemen- tary, almost unique. Chamfort was born in Auvergne, in 1741. He was the natural son of a person who occupied the position of companion, and legally possessed nothing but his baptismal name of Nicholas. Like his rival, La Harpe, he obtained an exhibition at one of the Paris colleges, and distinguished himself. After leaving school he lived for a time by miscellaneous literature, and at last made his way to society and to lilcrary success by dint of com- peting for and winning academic prizes. On the second occasion of his competition he defeated La Harpe. Afterwards Madame Helve*tius assisted him, and at last he received from Chabanon (a third-rate man of letters, who may be most honourably mentioned here) a small annuity which made him independent. It is said that he married, and that his wife died six months afterwards. He 438 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. was elected to the Academy, and patronised by all sorts of persons, from the queen downwards. But at the outbreak of the Revolution he took the popular side, though he could not continue long faith- ful to it. In the Terror he was menaced with arrest, tried to commit suicide, and died horribly mutilated in 1794. Chamfort's literary works are considerable in bulk, but only a few of them have merit. His tragedies are quite worthless, his comedy, La Jeune Indienne, not much better. His verse tales exceed in licentiousness his models in La Fontaine, but fall far short of them in elegance and humour. His academic essays are heavy and scarcely intelligent. But his brief witticisms and his short anecdotes and apophthegms hardly admit a rival Chamfort was a man soured by his want of birth, health, and position, and spoilt in mental development by the necessity of hanging on to the great persons of his time. But for a kind of tragi-comic satire, a saeva indignatio, taking the form of contempt of all that is exalted and noble, he has no equal in literature except Swift. The life of Rivarol was also an adventurous one, but much less sombre. He was born about 1750, of a family which seems to have had noble connections, but which, in his branch of it, had descended to innkeeping 1 . Indeed it is said that Riverot, and not Rivarol, was the name which his father actu- ally bore. He himself, however, first assumed the title of Chevalier de Parcieux, and then that of Comte de Rivarol. The way to literary distinction in those days was either the theatre or criticism, and Rivarol, who appears to have had no theatrical taste or talent, chose the latter. His translation (with essay and notes) of Dante is an extraordinarily clever book, and so is his discourse on the universality of the French tongue. It was not, however, in mere criticism that Rivarol's forte lay, though he long afterwards continued to exhibit his acuteness in it. In 1788 he excited the laughter of all Paris, and the intense hatred of the hack-writers of his time, by publishing, in conjunction with Champcenetz, an Almanack de nos Grands Hommes, in which he caricatures his smaller con- 1 It should perhaps be said thnt a modern and very competent editor of Rivarol, the late M. de Lescure, made a strong case for the genuineness of at least some of Rivarol's pretensions. Ch. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists, Critics. 439 temporaries in the most pitiless manner. When the Revolution broke out Rivarol took the Royalist side, and contributed freely to its journals. He soon found it necessary to leave the country, and lived for ten years in Brussels, London, Hamburg, and Berlin, publishing occasionally pamphlets and miscellaneous works. He died at the Prussian . capital in 1801. Not only has Rivarol a considerable claim as a critic, and a very high position as a political pamphleteer, but he is as much the master of the prose epigram as Chamfort is of the short anecdote. Following the ex- ample of his predecessors, he put many of his best things in a treatise, De T Homme Iniellecluel et Moral, which, as a whole, is very dull and unsatisfactory, though it is lighted up by occasional flashes of the most brilliant wit. His detached sayings, which are not so much Pensees or maxims as conversational good things, are among the most sparkling in literature, and, with Chamfort's, occupy a position which they keep almost entirely to themselves. It has been said of him and of Chamfort (who, being of similar talents and on opposite sides, were naturally bitter foes) that they ' knew men, but only from the outside, and from certain limited superfi- cial and accidental points of view. They knew books, too, but their knowledge was circumscribed by the fashions of a time which was not favourable to impartial literary appreciation. Hence their anec- dotes are personal rather than general, rather amusing than in- structive, rather showing the acuteness and ingenuity of the authors than able to throw light on the subjects dealt with. But as mere tale-tellers and sayers of sharp things they have few rivals.' It may be added that they complete and sum up the merits and defects of the French society of the eighteenth century, and that, in so far as literature can do this, the small extent of their selected works furnishes a complete comment on that society. Contemporary with these two writers, though, from the post- humous publication of his works years after the end of his long life, he seems in a manner a contemporary of our own, was Joseph Joubert, the last great Pense'e-w\\sx of France and of Europe. Joubert's birthplace was Montignac, in Perigord, and the date of his birth 1754, three years after that of 44 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk.iv. Rivarol, and about twelve after that of Chamfort. He was educated at Toulouse, where, without taking regular orders, he joined the Freres de la Doctrine Chre'tienne, a teaching community, and studied and taught till he was twenty-two years old. Then his health being, as it was all through his life, weak, he returned home, and succeed- ing before long to a small but sufficient fortune, he went to Paris. Here he became intimate with the second philosophe generation (La Harpe, Marmontel, etc.), and is said to have for a time been an enthusiastic hearer of Diderot, the most splendid talker of that or any age. But Joubert's ideals and method of thought were radi- cally different from those of the Philosophes, and he soon sought more congenial literary companions, of whom the chief were Fon- tanes and Chnedolle', while he found his natural home in the salon of two ladies of rank and cultivation, Madame de Beaumont and Madame de Vintimille. Before long he married and established himself in Paris with a choice library, into which, it is said, no eighteenth-century writer was admitted. His health became worse and worse, yet he lived to the age of seventy, dying in 1824. Fourteen years afterwards Chateaubriand, at the request of his widow, edited a selection of his remains, and four years later still his nephew, M. de Raynal, produced a fuller edition. Joubert's works consist (with the exception of a few letters) exclusively of Pensies and maxims, which rank in point of depth and of exquisite literary expression with those of La Rochefoucauld, and in point of range above them. They are even wider in this respect than those of Vauvenargues, which they also much re- semble. Ethics, politics, theology, literature, all occupy Joubert. In politics he is, as may be perhaps expected from his time and circumstances, decidedly anti-revolutionary. In theology, without being exactly orthodox according to any published scheme of orthodoxy, Joubert is definitely Christian. In ethics he holds a middle place between the unsparing hardness of the self-interest school and the somewhat gushing manner of the sentimentalists. But his literary thoughts are perhaps the most noteworthy, not merely from our present point of view. All alike have the charac- teristic of intense compression (he described his literary aim in the phrase ' tormented by the ambition of putting a book in a page, a Cb. v.] Essayists, Minor Moralists^ Critics. 44 1 page into a phrase, and a phrase into a word '), while all have the same lucidity and freedom from enigma. All are alike polished in form and style according to the best models of the seventeenth century ; but whereas study and reflection might have been sufficient to give Joubert the material of his other thoughts, the wide differ- ence between his literary judgments and those of his time is less easily explicable. No finer criticism on style and on poetry in the abstract exists than his, and yet his reading of poetry cannot have been very extensive. He is even just to the writers of the eighteenth century, whose manner he disliked, and whose society he had abjured. He seems, indeed, to have had almost a perfect faculty of literary appreciation, and wherever his sayings startle the reader it will generally be found that there is a sufficient explanation beneath. There is probably no writer in any language who has said an equal number of remarkable things on an equal variety of subjects in an equally small space, and with an equally high and unbroken excellence of style and expression. This is the intrinsic worth of Joubert. In literary history he has yet another interest, that of showing in the person of a man living out of the literary world, and far removed from the operation of cliques, the pro- cess which was inevitably bringing about the great revolution of 1830. Like Joubert, Paul Louis Courier had a great dislike and even contempt for the authors of the eighteenth century, but curiously enough this dislike did not in the least affect his theological or political opinions. He was born at Paris, in 1772, being the son of a wealthy man of the middle class. His youth was passed in the country, and he early displayed a great liking for classical study. As a compromise between business, which he hated, and literature, of which his father would not hear, he entered the army in 1792. He served on the Rhine, and not long after joining broke his leave in a manner rather unpleasantly resembling de- sertion. His friends succeeded in saving him from the conse- quences of this imprudence, and he served until Wagram, when he finally left the army, again in very odd circumstances. He then lived in Italy (where his passion for the classics led him into an absurd dispute about an alleged injury he had caused to a manuscript 44 2 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. iv. of Longus) until the fall of the Empire. When he was forty- five years old he was known in literature only as a translator of classics, remarkable for scholarship and for careful modelling of his style upon the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rather than upon the eighteenth. Although he had hitherto taken little active part in politics, the so-called ' ideas of 89 ' had sunk deeply into him. Impelled, not by any wide views on the future of the nation, but apparently by the mere bourgeois hatred of titles, old descent, and the other privileges of the aristocracy, he began a series of pamphlets to the success of which there is no rival except that of the Letters of Junius, while Junius falls far short of Courier in intrinsic literary merit. There are, indeed, few authors whose merit resides so wholly in their style and power of expression as Courier's. His thought is narrow in the extreme ; even where its conclusions are just it rests on the jealousies of the typical bourgeois. But in irony of the controversial kind he has, with the exception of Pascal and Swift, no superior. He began by a Pe'tilion aux Deux Chambres. Then he contributed a series of letters to Le Ccnseur, a reform journal ; then he published various pamphlets, usually signed ' Paul Louis, Vigneron,' and ostensibly addressed to his neighbours and fellow villagers. He had established himself on a small estate in Touraine, which he farmed himself. But he was much in Paris, and his political writings made him acquainted with the prison of Sainte Pe'lagie. His death, in April 1825, was singular, and at first mysterious. He was shot, the murderer escaping. It was suspected to be one of his own servants, to whom he was a harsh and unpopular master, and the suspicion was confirmed some years afterwards by the confession of a game- keeper. His Simple Disccurs against the presentation of Chambord to the Due de Bordeaux, his Livret de Paul Louis, his Pamphlet des Pamphlets, are all models of their kind. Nowhere is the peculiar quality which is called in French narquois displayed with more con- summate skill. The language is at once perfectly simple and of the utmost literary polish, the arguments, whether good or bad, always tellingly expressed. But perhaps he has written nothing better than the Lelire a M. Renouard, in which he discusses the mishap with the manuscript of Longus, and the letter to the Ch. v.] Essayists^ Minor Moralists^ Critics. 443 Academic des Inscriptions on their refusal to elect him. The style of Courier is almost unique, and its merits are only denied by those who do not possess the necessary organ for appreciating it. This chapter may perhaps be most appropriately concluded by the notice of a singular writer who, although longer lived, was contemporary with Courier. Etienne Pivert de Sdnancour may be treated almost indifferently as a moral essayist, or as a producer of the peculiar kind of faintly narrative and strongly ethical work which Rousseau had made fashionable. The infusion of narrative in his principal and indeed only remarkable work, Obermann, is however so slight, that he will come in best here, though in his old age he wrote a pro- fessed novel, Isabella. Sdnancour was born in 1770, his father being a man of position and fortune, who lost both at the Revo- lution. The son was destined for the Church, but ran away and spent a considerable time in Switzerland, where he married, re- turning to France towards the end of the century. He then published divers curious works of half-sentimental, half-speculative reflection, by far the most important of which, Obermann, appeared in 1804. Then Senancour had to take to literary hack-work for a subsistence ; but in his later years Villemain and Thiers procured pensions for him, and he was relieved from want. He died in 1846. Obermann has not been ill described by George Sand as a Rene with a difference ; Chateaubriand's melancholy hero feeling that he could do anything if he would but has no spirit for any task, S zoology, botany, and mineralogy. He was thus enabled to observe and experiment to his heart's content, and to collect a sufficient number of facts for his vast Natural History. Buffon, however, was only half a man of science. He was at least as anxious to write pompous descriptions and to indulge in showy hypotheses, as to confine himself to plain scientific enquiry. He accordingly left the main part of the hackwork of his Histoire Nalurelk (a vast work extending to thirty-six volumes) to assistants, of whom the chief was Daubenton, himself contributing only the most striking and rhetorical passages. The book was very remark- able for its time, as the first attempt since Pliny at a collection of physical facts at once exhaustive, and in a manner systematised, and though there was much alloy mixed with its metal, it was of real value. Buffon's life was long, and he outlived all the other chiefs of the philosophe party (to which in an outside sort of fashion he belonged), dying at Paris in the year 1788. It is perhaps easier to condemn Buffon's extremely rhetorical style than to do justice to it. To a modern reader it too frequently seems to verge on the ridiculous, and to do more than verge on the trivial. It is necessary, however, to take the point of view of the time. Buffon found natural science in a position far below that assigned to literary erudition and to the arts in general estimation. He also found it customary that these arts and letters should be treated in pompous eloges. His real interest in science led him to think that the shortest way to raise it was to treat it in the same manner, and there is little doubt that his method was effectual in its degree. It is perhaps curious that he, the author of the phrase ' Le style c'est I'homme,' should have so completely exemplified it. Many authors of elaborate prose have been perfectly simple and un- pretentious in private life. Buffon was as pompous and inflated as his style. Anecdotes respecting him are numerous ; but perhaps the most instructive is that which tells how, having heard some one speak of the style of Montesquieu, he asked, ' Si M. de Montesquieu avait un style ? ' It is needless to say that from any just standpoint, even of purely literary criticism, the hollow pomp of the Hisioire Nalurelk sinks into insignificance beside the nervous and solid yet graceful vigour of the Esprit des Lois. Ch. VIL] Scientific Writers. 473 No single scientific writer equals the fame of Buffon, but there are not a few who deserve to be mentioned after him. Lesser Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, a Breton by Scientific birth, who was a considerable mathematician and a Writers - physicist of more eccentricity than merit, owes most of his literary celebrity to the patronage of Frederick the Second, and the pitiless raillery of Voltaire, who quarrelled with him on his visit to Berlin, where Maupertuis was president of the Academy. Maupertuis' chief scientific performance was his mission to Lapland to de- termine the measurement of a degree of longitude in 1736. Of this mission he published an account. At the same time a similar mission was sent to South America under La Condamine, who underwent considerable hardship, and, like Maupertuis, published his adventures when he came back. Mathematics were indeed the favourite study of the time. Clairaut, De Moivre, Euler, Laplace, all wrote in French, or belonged to French-speaking and French- descended races ; while Voltaire's own contributions to the re- ception of Newton's principles in France were not small, and his beloved Madame du Chatelet was an expert mathematician. Voltaire also devoted much attention to chemistry, which was the special subject of such of the Baron d'Holbach's labours as were not devoted to the overthrow of Christianity. It was not, however, till the eve of the Revolution that the most important discoveries in this science were made by Lavoisier and others. The Empire was a much more favourable time for science than for literature. Bonaparte was fond of the society of men of science, and pleased by their usual indiffprence to politics. Monge, Berthollet, Cham- pollion, were among his favourites. Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier were, however, the chief men of science of this period, and Cuvier at least had no mean command of a literary style sufficient for his purposes. His chief work of a literary-scientific character was his discourse Sur les Revolutions de la Surface du Globe. Earlier than this the physician Cabanis, in his Rapporis de Physique et de Morale, composed a semi-materialist work of great excellence according to eighteenth-century standards. Bichat's La Vie et la Mori, the work of an anatomist of the greatest talent, who died young, also belongs to literature. 474 The Eighteenth Century. [Bk. IV. Some contributions to letters were also made by the voyages of Voyages and discovery which formed part of the general scientific Travels, curiosity of the time. The chief of them is that of Bougainville, 1771, which, giving the first clear notion to French- men of the South Sea Islands, had a remarkably stimulating effect on the imaginations of the philosophe party. In works of pure erudition more directly connected with lite- Linguistio rature, the age was less fruitful than its immediate and Literary predecessor. The laborious studies of the Bene- Study. dictines, however, continued. One work of theirs, important to our subject, was projected and in part carried out under the superintendence chiefly of Dom Rivet. This was the Histoire Litte'raire de la France a mighty work, which, after long interruption by the Revolution and other causes, was taken up again, and has proceeded steadily for many years, though it has not yet reached the close of the middle ages. This work was part, and a very important part, of a revival of the study of old French literature. The plan of the Benedictines led them at first into the literature of mediaeval Latin. But the works of the Trouveres, of their successors in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and of the authors of the French Renaissance, also received attention, scattered at first and desultory, but gradually co-ordinating and regulating itself. La Monnoye, Lenglet-Dufresnoy, the President Bouhier, and many others, collected, and in some cases edited, the work of earlier times. The Marquis de Paulmy began a vast Biblio- thequt des Romans, for which the Comte de Tressan undertook the modernising and reproducing of all the stories of chivalry. Tressan, it is true, had recourse only to late and adulterated versions, but his work was still calculated to spread some knowledge of what the middle ages had actually done in matter of literature. La Curne de Sainte Palaye devoted himself eagerly to the study of the language, manners, and customs of chivalry. Barbazan collected the specially French product of the Fabliau, and, with his successor Me"on (who also edited the Roman du Renarl), provided a great corpus of lighter mediaeval literature for the student to exercise himself upon. By degrees this revived literature forced itself upon the public eye, and before the Republic had given place to the Empire, it received Ch. VII.] Scientific Writers. 475 some attention at the hands of official teachers of literature who had hitherto scorned it. M. J. Che"nier, Daunou, and others, un- dertook the subject, and made it in a manner popular ; while towards the extreme end of the present period Raynouard and Fauriel added the subject of Proven9al literature to that of the literature of Northern France, and helped to propagate the study abroad as well as at home. In the older fields the renown of France for purely classical scholarship diminished somewhat as compared with the days of Huet, Manage, Dacier, and the Delphin classics. The principal work of erudition was either directed towards the so-called phi- losophy in its wide sense of enquiry and speculation into politics and manners, or else to mathematics and physics. The Bene- dictines confined themselves for the most part to Christian an- tiquity. Yet there were names of weight in this department, such as the President Renault, a writer something after the fashion of Fontenelle, but on classical subjects; and the President de Brasses, also an archaeologist of merit, and the author of some pleasant Lettres sur F Italic, but chiefly noteworthy as having been among the founders of the science which busies itself with the manners and customs of primitive and prehistoric man in such writings as those on Navigations aux Terres Austraks and Le Culle des Dieux Fetiches. INTERCHAPTER IV. SUMMARY OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE. THE eighteenth century was pre-eminently the century of academic literature in France : far more so than the seventeenth, which had seen the foundation of the Academic Fran9aise. The word ' academy' in this sense was an invention of the Italian humanists, prompted by their Platonic, or perhaps by their Ciceronian, studies. Academies, or coteries of men of letters who united love of society with the cul- tivation of literature, became common in Italy during the sixteenth century, and from Italy were translated to France. The famous society, which now shares with the original school of Plato the honour of being designated in European language as 'The Academy' without distinguishing epithet, was originally nothing but one of these coteries or clubs, which met at the house of the judicious and amiable, but not particularly learned, Conrart. Conrart's influence with Richelieu, the desire of the latter to secure a favourable tribunal of critics for his own literary attempts, and perhaps also his foresight and his appreciation of the genius of the French lan- guage, determined the Cardinal to establish this society. It was modestly endowed, and was charged with the duty of composing an authoritative Dictionary of the French literary language ; a task the slow performance of which has been a stock subject of ridicule for two centuries and a half. The Academy, though it suffered some vicissitudes in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, has survived all changes, and is virtually one of the most ancient existing institutions of France. But, though it from the beginning enjoyed royal and ministerial favour, it was long before it collected a really representative body of members, and it was subjected at first to a good deal of raillery. One of Saint-Evremond's early The Eighteenth Century. 477 works was a Com/die des Acade'mistes ; while one of the most polished and severe of his later prose critical studies is a ' Dissertation on the word " Vaste," ' in which the tendency of the Academy to trifling discussions (the curse of all literary societies), the literary in- dolence of its members, and the pedagogic limitations of its critical standards, are bitterly, though most politely, ridiculed. It did itself little good by lending its name to be the cover for Richelieu's jealousy of the Cid, though there is more justice in its examen of that famous play than is sometimes supposed. But the institution was thoroughly germane to the nature, tastes, and literary needs of the French people, and it prospered. Conrart was a tower of strength to it ; and in the next generation the methodical and ad- ministrative talents of Perrault were of great service, while it so ob- viously helped the design of Louis XIV. to play the Augustus, that a tradition of royal patronage, which was not afterwards broken, was established. The greatest blots on the Academy were the almost un- avoidable servility which rewarded this patronage, and the private rivalries and cliques which have occasionally kept some of the greatest names of French literature out of its lists. Moliere and Diderot are the most shining examples among these, but many others keep them company. Nevertheless, by the end of the seventeenth century at least, it became the recognised aim of every Frenchman of letters to belong to the ' forty geese that guard the Capitol ' of French literature, as Diderot, not quite a disinterested witness, called them. Throughout the eighteenth century their power was supreme. Competition for the various academic prizes was, in the infancy of periodicals, the easiest and the commonest method by which a struggling man of letters could make himself known ; and literary heresy of any kind was an almost certain cause of exclusion from the body when once the dictatorship of Fontenelle (a benevolent autocrat who, being something of a heretic himself, tolerated freelhinking in others) had ceased. Moreover, except in rare cases, chiefly limited to persons of rank who were elected for reasons quite other than literary, it was not usual for an author to gain admission to the Academy until he was well stricken in years, and until, as a natural consequence, his tastes were for the most part formed, and he was impatient of innovation. 47 N The Eighteenth Century. At first the influence of the Academy was beyond question salutary in the main, if not wholly. Balzac, whose importance in the history of prose style has been pointed out, was one of its earliest members. It was under its wing that Vaugelas undertook the much-needed enquiry into French grammar and its princi- ples as applied to literature. The majority of the early members were connected with the refining and reforming coteries of the Rambouillet and other salons. It was somewhat slow in elect- ing Boileau, though it is to be feared that this arose from no higher motive than the fact that he had satirised most of its mem- bers. But Boileau was the natural guiding spirit of an Academy, and it fell more and more under his influence not so much his personal influence as that of his principles and critical estimates. In short, during the seventeenth century it played the very useful part of model and measure in the midst of a time when the chief danger was the neglect of measures and of models, and it played it very fairly. But by the time that the eighteenth century began, it was by no means of a restraining and guiding influence that France had most need. The exuberance of creative genius between 1630 and 1690 had supplied literature with actual models far more valu- able than any scheme of cut-and-dried rules, and it was in need rather of a stimulant to spur it on to further development. Instead of serving as this, the Academy served (owing, it must be confessed, in great part to the literary conservatism of Voltaire and the philosophes generally) as a check and drag upon the spontaneous instincts all through the century, and in all the departments of Belles Lettres. It contributed more than anything else to the mischievous crystallisation of literary ideas, which during this time offers so strange a contrast to the singular state of solution in which were all ideas relating to religion, politics, and morals. The consequence of the propounding of a set of consecrated models, of the constant competition in imitation of those models, and of the reward of diligent and successful imitation by admission into the body, which in its turn nursed and guided a new generation of imitators, was the reduction of large and important departments of literature to a condition of cut-and-driedness which has no parallel in* history. The drama in particular, which was artificial and The Eighteenth Centrtry. 479 limited at its best, was reduced to something like the state of a game in which every possible move or stroke is known and regis- tered, and in which the sole novelty consists in contriving some permutation of these moves or strokes which shall be, if possible, not absolutely identical with any former combination. So in a lesser degree, it was in poetry, in history, in prose tales, in verse tales. If a man had a loose imagination, he tried to imitate La Fontaine as well as he could in manner, and outbid him in matter ; if he thought himself an epigrammatist, he copied J. B. Rousseau ; if he was disposed to edification, the same poet supplied him with models; if the gods had made him descriptive, he executed" variations in the style of Delille, or Saint-Lambert, who had them- selves copied others ; if he wrote in any other style, he had an eye to the work of Voltaire. Neologism in vocabulary was carefully eschewed, and a natural consequence of this was the resort (in the struggle not to repeat merely) to elaborate and ingenious peri- phrases, such as those which have been quoted in the chapter on eighteenth-century poetry. In short, literature had got into a sort of treadmill in which all the effort expended was expended merely in the repeated production of certain prescribed motions. It was partly a natural result of this, and partly an effect of other and accidental causes, that the actual composition of the Academy was in the first quarter of the nineteenth century by no means such as to inspire much respect. But it was all the less likely to initiate or to head any movement of reform. The consequence was, that when the reform came, it came from the outside, not from the inside, that it was violently opposed, and that, though it prevailed, and its leaders themselves quickly forced their way into the sacred precincts, it was as victorious rebels, not as welcomed allies. The further consequence of this, and of the changes of which account will be given in the following book, was the alteration to a great extent of the status of the Academy itself. It always (though with the old reproach of illustrious outsiders) included most of the leading men of letters of France, and its membership is still, theoretically, the greatest honour that a French man of letters can receive. But its position is far more ornamental than it was. It hardly pretends to be in any sense legislative : it is an honorary 480 The Eighteenth Century. assembly, not a working parliament. The chief circumstance that keeps it before the public is the curious and time-honoured custom which ordains that the academician appointed to receive each new member shall, in the most polished and amiable manner, give the most ironical description he can of the novice's achieve- ments and claims to recognition. BOOK V. THE NINETEENTH CENTTTBY 1 . CHAPTER I. THE WRITERS OF THE LATER TRANSITION. THE last inter-chapter will at once have indicated the defects under which the later classical literature of France laboured, and the remedies which were necessary for them. Those remedies began to be applied early in the reign of Charles X., and the literary revolution which accompanied them is called The the Romantic movement. Strictly speaking, this Homantio movement was not supposed to affect any branch Movement of letters except Poetry, Drama, Fiction, and the Belles Lettres generally ; in reality its influence was far wider. Nor did the entire century see it exhausted 1 . As is usual in the later stages of such things, this influence is in part disguised under the form of apparent reactions, developments, modifications, and other eddies or backwaters of the great wave. But, as the Romantic movement was above all things a movement of literary emancipation, it can never be said to be superseded until fresh chains are imposed on literature. Of this there is as yet no sign, the various 'schools' started during the last quarter of the century having been com- paratively unproductive and already in most cases short-lived. 1 The render is reminded that the standpoint henceforth is 1500. For an) thing later see Postscript. i i 482 77ft? Nineteenth Century. [Bk. V. ' Naturalism,' for instance, sometimes regarded as the successor of Romanticism, is in fact only a partial transformation of it. The literature of the Revolution, the Empire, and the early Restoration, which has been in part already surveyed, displayed the last effete products of the old classical tradition side by side with the vigorous but nondescript and tentative efforts at reform of Chateaubriand, Madame de Stael, Courier, and others. So the first products of the new movement found themselves side by side with what may be called a second generation of the transi- tion. The names which chiefly illustrate this second generation must be dealt with before the Romantics proper are arrived at. The chief of them are Beranger, Lamartine, Lamennais, Cousin, Writers of Stendhal, Nodier, and the dramatists Alexandre Soumet the later and Casimir Delavigne, with a certain fringe of less Transition, important names. Most of these, while irresistibly impelled half-way towards the movement, stood aloof from it in feeling and taste; others, such as Stendhal, exercised upon it an influence not much observed at first, but deep, lasting, and in- creasing as it lasted ; one, Nodier, threw in his lot with it frankly and decidedly. Pierre Jean de BeVanger is one of the most original and not the least pleasant figures in the catalogue of French B6ranger. poets. His life, though long, was comparatively un- eventful. Despite the particle of nobility, he belonged to the middle class, and rather to the lower than to the upper portion of it; for, if his father was a man of business, his grandfather was a tailor. He was born in 1780, lived in his youth with an aunt at Pdronne, was then apprenticed to a printer, and in 1804 was saved from absolute poverty only by the patronage of Lucien Bonaparte, to whom he had sent some of his verses, and who procured him a small government clerkship. He held this for some years. After the Restoration, Bdranger, whose political creed was an odd compound of Bonapartism and Republicanism, got into trouble with the government for his political songs. He was repeatedly fined and imprisoned, but each sentence made him more po.pular. After the Revolution of July, however, he refused to accept any favours from the Orleanist dynasty, and lived quietly, Ch. L] The Writers of the Later Transition. 483 publishing nothing after 1833. In 1848 he was elected to the Assembly, but immediately resigned his seat. He behaved to the Second Empire as he had behaved to the July monarchy, refusing all honours and appointments. He died in 1857. Beranger's poetical works consist entirely of chansons, political, amatory, bacchanalian, satirical, philosophical after a fashion, and of almost every other complexion that the song can possibly take. Their form is exactly that of the eighteenth-century chanson, the frivolity and licence of language being considerably curtailed, and the range of subjects proportionately extended. The popularity of BeVanger with ordinary readers, both in and out of his own country, has always been immense ; but a some- what singular reluctance to admit his merits has been shown by successive generations of purely literary critics. In France his early contemporaries found fault with him on the one hand for being a mere chansonnier, and, on the other, for dealing with the chanson in a graver tone than that of his masters, Panard, Colle', Gouffe, and his immediate predecessor and in part contemporary, Desaugicrs. The sentimental school of the Restoration thought him vulgar and unromantic. The Romantics proper disdained his pedestrian and conventional style, his classic vocabulary. The neo-Catholics disliked his Voltairianism. The Royalists and the Republicans detested, and detest equally, though from the most opposite sides, his devotion to the Napoleonic legend. Lastly, the half-freethinking, half-dilettante school founded by M. Renan combined most of these hatreds, and endeavoured to sink his reputation lower than ever. The 'vulgate' if not vulgar opinion was perhaps truly formulated by M. Lanson to the effect that he is ' irremediablement vulgaire' in thought, and that his style is 'le style de Scribe ' (v. infra]. Yet BeVanger deserves his popularity, and does not deserve the grudging appreciation of critics. His one serious fault is his retention of the conventional mannerism of the eighteenth century in point of poetic diction, and he might argue that time had almost irrevocably associated this with the chanson style. His versifica- tion, careless as it looks, is really studied with a great deal of care and success. As to his matter, only prejudice against his political, i i 2 484 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. religious, and ethical attitude can miss the lively wit of his best work ; its remarkable pathos ; its sound common sense ; its hearty, if somewhat narrow and mistaken, patriotism ; its freedom from self-seeking and personal vanity, spite, or greed ; its thorough humanity and wholesome natural feeling. The criticism which cannot relish poetry higher than his is indeed unfortunate ; but it is perhaps only less unfortunate to be unable to recognize poetry, such as it is, in him. Nor can it be fairly said that his range is narrow. Le Grem'er, Le Rot cf Yvetot, Roger Boniemps, Les Souve- nirs du Peuple, Les Fous, Les Gueux, cover a considerable variety of tones and subjects, all of which are happily treated. BeVanger indeed was not in the least a literary poet. But there is room in literature for other than merely literary poets, and among these BeVanger will always hold a very high place. The common com- parison of him to Burns is in this erroneous, that the element of passion, which is the most prominent in Burns, is almost absent from BeVanger, and that the unliterary character which was an accident with Burns was with Beranger essential. The point of contact is, that both were among the most admirable of song writers, and that both hit infallibly the tastes of the masses among their countrymen. To have hit these is not itself an infallible mark of greatness. But there are few worse critical faults than to assume that what is popular cannot be good, however certain it may be that popularity does not constitute goodness. Alphonse Prat de Lamartine was in almost every conceivable respect the exact opposite to Be'ransrer. He was born Lamartine. * at Macon, on the 2ist of October, 1791, of a good family of Tranche-Comic*, which, though never very rich, had long devoted itself to arms and agriculture only. His father was a strong royalist, was imprisoned during the Terror, and escaped narrowly. Lamartine was educated principally by the Peres de la Foi, and, after leaving school, spent some time first at home and then in Italy. The Restoration gave him entrance to the royal bodyguard; but he soon exchanged soldiering for diplomacy, and was appointed attache" in Italy. He had already (1820) published the Me'dilalions, his first volume of verse, which had a great success. Lamartine married an English lady in 1822, and spent Cli. L] T/ie Writers of the Later Transition. 485 some years in the French legations at Naples and Florence. He was elected to the Academy in 1829. After the revolution of July he set out for the East, but, being elected by a constituency to the Chamber of Deputies, returned. He acquired much fame as an orator, contributed not a little to the overthrow of Louis Philippe, and in 1848 enjoyed for a brief space something not unlike a dictatorship. Power, however, soon slipped through his hands, and he retired into private life. His later days were troubled by money difficulties, though he wrote incessantly. In 1867 he received a large grant from the government of Napoleon III., and died not long afterwards in 1869. The chief works of Lamartine are, in verse, the already mentioned Meditations (of which a new series appeared in 1823), the Harmonies, 1829, the Recueillements, Le Dernier Chant du Pe'lerinage tf Harold. Jocelyn, La Chute d'un Ange, the two last being fragments of a huge epic poem on the ages of the world; in prose, Souvenirs c Orient, Histoire des Girondins, Les Confidences, Raphael, Graziella, besides an immense amount of work for the booksellers, in history, bio- graphy, criticism, and fiction, produced in his later days. Lamartine's characteristics, both in prose and verse, are well marked. He is first of all a sentimentalist and a landscape-painter, and French poets have as a rule been neither. This is what Sainte-Beuve meant when, to Mr. Arnold's frank confession that he could not think Lamartine ' important,' the great critic replied, ' He is important/br us! This is practically the gist of M. Faguet's admirable essay *, which is not so much a panegyric of Lamartine as an admission of the shortcomings of his predecessors, and vhich, written after his return to popularity in France, will be found in fact a justification of what had been urged against him earlier. He may indeed be said to have wrought into verse what Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint- Pierre, and Chateaubriand had already expressed in prose, supplying only an additional, and perhaps original, note of meditative tenderness. Lamartine's verse is exquisitely harmonious, and frequently picturesque; but it is deficient in vigour and brilliancy, and marred by the perpetual current of sentimental complaining. Beyond this he never could 1 Etudes sur le XfX* Sihle (Paris 1887), p. 73 sj. 486 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. get ; his only important attempt in a different and larger style, the Chute {fun Ange, being, though not without merits, on the whole a failure. Attempts have been made to represent him as a philo- sophical poet : and M. Scherer, a Wordsworlhian in his way, has even put him above Wordsworth in some respects as expressing adoration of nature. But no catholic student of poetry can admit this. In harmony of verse and delicate tenderness of feeling his poetry was an enormous advance on the eighteenth century, and its power over its first readers is easily understood. But Lamar- tine made little, if any, organic change in the mechanism of French poetry, so far as its versification is concerned, while his want of range in subject equally disabled him from effecting a revolution. His best poems, such as Le Lac, Pqysage dans le Golfe de Genes, Le Premier Regret, are however among the happiest expressions of a dainty but rather conventional melancholy, irreproachable from the point of view of morals and religion, thoroughly well- bred, and creditably aware of the beauties of nature, which it describes and reproduces with a great deal of skill. The history of his reputation during the century is extremely interesting, because, though it contains little that is surprising to careful students of literature on the great scale, it is an example typical of its kind, and very characteristic of the nineteenth century itself. He was, as has been said, almost at once extremely popular, and the rise of the more brilliant and vivacious Romantic school did not at first injure his popularity with readers, though it did with critics. His fame indeed passed the bounds of his own country, and, especially in England, gained a hold which has not been equalled by any of his successors, even by Hugo. But the rise of the latter gradually overshadowed Lamartine, and for some time before his own death he had been regarded with little affec- tion, indeed with a certain contempt, by most persons in France who took an interest in poetry. This period of eclipse lasted till about 1880, and was finally put an end to by the death of M. Hugo and the turn of tide which followed it. The Hugonic school itself had already split up and dwindled ; the mere force of vulgar reaction naturally sought out Lamartine as a stick to beat Hugo with; and, lastly, the curious morbid sect which, deriving on the Ch. I.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 487 one side from M. Renan, on the other,, from Beyle, exercised so much influence in the last two decades of the age, found Lamar- tine's sentiment, his half-tones, his subdued lights, congenial or at any rate not offensive to it. He had been beyond all doubt unduly depreciated in the middle period just referred to; but a catholic criticism will be slow to accept the revised estimate of him in full. For he is quite of the second order of poets, even if a liberal ex- tension be given to the first sweet but not strong, elegant but not full, not imitative but at the same time not original, not insincere but also never intense. The next name on the list belongs to a far stronger, if a less accomplished, spirit than Lamartine. Felicite' Robert j T r. , -r Lamennais. de Lamennais was born in 1782, at St. Malo. In the confusion of the last decade of the eighteenth century, when, as a contemporary bears witness, even persons holding important state offices had often received no regular education whatever, Lamennais was for the most part his own teacher. He betook himself, however, to literature, and in 1807 was appointed to a mastership in the St. Malo Grammar School. Shortly afterwards he published a treatise on ' The Church during the Eighteenth Century/ and, taking orders, before long followed it up by others. These placed him in the forefront of the Catholic reaction, of which Chateaubriand from the picturesque, and Joseph de Maistre from the philosophical side, were the leaders. He took priest's orders in 1816, and in 1817 published his Essai sur f Indifference en matiere de Religion. This is a sweeping defence of the absolute authority of the Church, but the ' rift within the lute ' already appears. Lamennais bases this authority, according to a tradition of that very eighteenth century which he most ardently opposes, on universal consent. Although therefore the deductive portion of his argument is in thorough accordance with Roman doctrine, the inductive portion can hardly be said to be so, and it prepared the way for his subsequent change of front. For a time Lamennais contented himself with the hope of establishing a sect of liberal royalist Catholics. A rapid succession of journals, most of which were suppressed, led to the Avem'r, in which Montalembert, Lacordaire, and others took part, and which, like some English The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. V. periodicals of a later period, aimed directly at the union of ortho- dox religious principles of the Roman complexion with political liberalism, and a certain freedom of thought in other directions. The Avenir was definitely censured by Gregory XVI. in 1832, and Lamennais rapidly fell away from his previous orthodoxy. He had established himself in the country with a following of youthful disciples. Of these the best-known now is Maurice de Guerin, a feeble poet who died young, but who, with his abler sister Euge'nie, interested Sainte-Beuve, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and others. Les Paroles (Fun Crqyant, which appeared in 1834, united specu- lative Republicanism of the most advanced kind with a direct defiance of Rome in matter of religion, and this was followed by a long series of works in the same spirit. Lamennais' ardent and ill-balanced temperament, the chief note of which was the most excessive personal vanity, no sooner threw off the yoke of orthodoxy than it ran to the opposite extreme, and the Catholic royalist of the First Empire became an atheistic, or at most theistic, democrat. Lamennais died in 1854. He had a great influence both on men and on books in France, and his literary work is extremely remarkable. It bears the marks of his insufficient education and of his excitable temperament. In the Paroles d'un Crqyant the style is altogether apocalyptic in its mystic and broken declamation, full of colour, energy, and vague impressiveness, but entirely wanting in order, lucidity, and arrangement. The earlier works show something of this, though necessarily not so much. Lamennais' literary, as distinguished from his political and social, importance consists in the fact that he was practically the first to introduce this style into French. He has since had notable disciples, among whom Michelet and even Victor Hugo may be ranked. The contrast of the return from Lamennais to Cousin is almost as great as that of the change from Lamartine to Lamennais. The careers of the poet and the philosopher have indeed some- thing in common, for Cousin's delicate, exquisite, and somewhat Victor feminine prose style is a nearer analogue to the poetry Cousin. o f Lamartine even than the latter's own prose, and the sudden decline of Cousin's reputation in philosophy almost Ch. i.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 489 matches that of Lamartine's reputation as a poet, though it has as yet shown no signs of revival. Victor Cousin was born in 1792, at Paris, and was one of the most brilliant pupils of the Lyc^e Charle- magne. He passed thence to the cole Normale, and, in. the year of the Restoration, became Assistant Professor to Royer Collard at the Sorbonne. He adopted vigorously the doctrines of that philosopher, which practically amounted to a translation of the Scottish school of Reid and Stewart, but he soon combined with them much that he borrowed from Kant and his successors in Germany. This latter country he visited twice; on the second occasion wiih the unpleasant result of an arrest. He soon returned to France, however, and became distinguished as a supporter of the liberal party. The years immediately before and after the July Revolution were Cousin's most successful time. His lectures were crowded, his eclecticism was novel and popular, and when after July itself he became officially powerful he distinguished himself by patronising young men of genius, who however were apt to com- plain that the success to which he helped them lost them his friendship. During the reign of Louis Philippe he was one of the most influential of men of letters, though, curiously enough, he combined with his political liberalism a certain tendency to re- action in matters of pure literature. After 1848 he retired from public life, and, though he survived for nearly twenty years, pro- duced little more in philosophy. His brilliant but patchy eclec- ticism had had its day, and he saw it ; but he earned new and perhaps more lasting laurels by betaking himself to the study of French literary history, and producing some charming essays on the . ladies of the Fronde. Cousin's history is interesting as an instance of the accidental prosperity which, in the first half of this century, the mixture of politics and literature brought to men of letters. But his own literary merits are very considerable. Without the freedom and originality of the great writers who were for the most part his juniors by ten or twenty years, he possessed a style studied from the best models of the seventeenth century, which, despite a certain artificiality, has great beauty. Besides editions of philo- sophical classics, the chief works of his earlier period are Fragments Philosophiques, 1827, Cours de I'Hisioire de la Philosophic t 1827; 49 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. of his later, Du Vrai, JDu Beau et du Bien, and his studies on the women of the seventeenth century. The author now to be noticed found, for a long time, little place in histories of literature, and estimates of his positive value are even yet much divided, despite a vast increase, both of knowledge about him and of attention to him, during recent years. Henri Beyle, who wrote under the name of De Stendhal, was born at Grenoble in January, 1783. His family belonged to the middle class, though, unfortunately, Beyle allowed himself during the Empire to be called M. de Beyle, and incurred not a little ridicule in consequence. His literary alias was also, it may be noticed, arranged so as to claim nobility. He was a clever boy, but manifested no special predilection for any profession. At last he entered the army, and served in it (chiefly in the non- combatant branches) on some important occasions, including the campaigns of the St. Bernard, of Jena, and of Moscow. He also held some employments in the civil service of the Empire. At the Restoration he went to Italy, which was always his favourite place of residence; but when in 1821 political troubles began to arise he was ' politely ' expelled by the Austrian police. After this he lived chiefly in Paris, making part of his living by the unexpected function of contributing to the London New Monthly Magazine. He knew English well, admired our literature, and visited London more than once. Being, as far as he was a politician at all, a Bonapartist, he was not specially interested in the Revolution of 1 830 ; but it was profitable to him, for through some of his friends he was appointed French consul, first at Trieste, and then (the Austrians objecting) at Civitk Vecchia. He lived, however, chiefly at Rome, and travelled a good deal. Latterly his health was weak, and he died at Paris, in 1842, of apoplexy. He was buried at Montmartre ; but, with his usual eccentricity, he directed that his epitaph should be written in Italian, and he was described as a Milanese. Beyle's character, personal and literary, was very peculiar. In temperament, religious views, and social ideas he was a belated philosophe of the Diderot school. But in literature he had improved even on Diderot, and very nearly anticipated the full results of the Romantic movement, while in politics, as has been said, he was Ch. I.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 491 an Imperialist. His works are pretty voluminous. They consist of novels (La Chartreuse de Par me, Armance, Le Rouge et le Noir, etc.) ; of criticism (Histoire de la Peinture en Italic, Racine et Shakespeare, Melanges] ; of biography (Lives of Napoleon, Haydn, Mozart, Metastasio, etc.); of topographical writing of a miscellaneous kind (Promenades dans Rome, Naples el Florence, etc.) ; and, lastly, of a singular book entitled De t Amour, which unites extraordinary acuteness and originality of thought with cynicism of expression and paradox of theory. In this book, and in his novels, Beyle made himself the ancestor of what has been called successively Realism and Naturalism in France. Perhaps, however, his most remarkable work was Merime'e, of whose family he was a friend, and who, far excelling him in merit of style if not in freshness of thought, learnt beyond all doubt from him his peculiar and half- affected cynicism of tone, his curious predilection for the apparently opposed literatures of England and of Southern Europe, and not improbably also his Imperialism. Beyle is a difficult author to judge briefly, the contradictions, affectations, and oddities in him demanding minute examination. Of his power, intrinsic and exerted on others, there is no doubt. The preceding paragraph remains, with unimportant alterations, precisely as it stood in the first edition of this history ; and at that time the estimate contained in it would probably have seemed, if anything, exaggerated even to most French readers, though, besides Me'rime'e, Taine and others were Beyle's partisans. In the years subsequent to 1880, however, a certain school of French novelists and critics, with M. Paul Bourget at their head, directed attention both by panegyric and imitation to his 'psychological' handling of literature, and, either as a consequence or as a coincidence, large additions were made to the general* knowledge of him. No new book of imagination, save perhaps the curious Lamiel, was indeed added to the tale of his works ; but four or five volumes of letters and memoirs (sometimes couched in a half disguise, as Vie de Henri Brulard, etc.) added to the knowledge of his life, which had hitherto been chiefly confined to short and cautious notices by his literary executor, by his pupil Me'rime'e, and by critics and acquaintances who, as in the case of Sainte-Beuve, were 492 Tlie Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. by no means always very friendly. These same compositions more- over had to some extent the character of original work ; for Beyle, who was always egotistic, was equally autobiographic in his original work, and fantastic in his autobiographies. It cannot however be said that the new matter (devotedly edited by M. Stryienski), though it turned much guess-work into certainty, added much that could not have that had not by intelligent persons been guessed. Beyle appeared as a man of, in some respects, disagreeable character, who had posed as more offensive than he was ; and as a thinker and student both of human nature and of letters, who had great acuteness and originality, but was frequently the dupe of his own abhorrence of dupers. The most immediate influence which Beyle exerted was in unhinging, as in the above-mentioned Racine el Shakespeare, the doors which shut out French thought and taste from the general literary ' conversation-house ' of the world : the most enduring, the manner in which, following to a great extent, but modifying, the example of Constant's Adolphe, he introduced into French novel-writing the minute analysis of character, emotion, and motive, partly in normal but still more in morbid conditions. The three remaining writers require shorter notice. Charles Nodier, who was born at Besancon in 1780, and died Nodier. at Paris in 1844, is one of the most remarkable failures of a great genius in French literary history. He did almost everything lexicography, text-editing, criticism, poetry, romance and he did everything well, but perhaps nothing supremely well. If an exception be made to this verdict, it must be in favour of his short tales, some of which are exquisite, and all but, if not quite, masterpieces. As librarian of the Mazarin Library, Nodier was a kind of centre of the early Romantic circle, and, though he was more than twenty years older than most of its members, he identified himself thoroughly with their aims and objects. His consummate knowledge of the history and- vocabulary of the French tongue probably had no mean influence on that con- servative and restorative character which was one of the best sides of the movement. The most noteworthy things among his original work are certain fantasy-pieces, recalling to some extent German, English, and other exotic models, but touched with a real originality, CXI.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 493 full of grace, fancy, and pathos, and only lacking the final gifts of form and style to be of the very first class. Such are the tales of Trilby, Le Lutin JArgail, and Jnh de las Sierras, which express, and strongly stimulated, the early Romantic fondness for the out- landish and the weird : such the charming legend of the Fee aux Miettes, where Hoffmann and Voltaire combine : such nearly the whole volume of Contes de la Veille'e. Casimir Delavigne was born at Havre in 1793. He first dis- tinguished himself by his MessSm'ennes, a series of ... . , Delavigne. satires or patriotic jeremiads on the supposed degra- dation of France under the Restoration. Then he took to the stage, and produced successively Les Vepres Siciliennes, Marino Faliero, Louis XI. (well known in England from the affection which several English tragic actors have shown for the title part), Les Enfanfs a" Edouard, etc. He also wrote other non-dramatic poems, most of them of a political character. Casimir Delavigne is a writer of little intrinsic worth. He held aloof from the Romantic movement, less from dislike to its extravagances and its cliquism than from genuine weakness and inability to appre- ciate the defects of the classic tradition. He is in fact the direct successor of Ducis and Marie Joseph Che'nier, having forgotten something, but learned little. The defects of his poems are parallel to those of his plays. His patriotism is conventional, his verse conventional, his expression conventional, though the convention is in all three cases slightly concealed by the skilful adoption of a certain outward colouring of energy and picturesqueness. He was not unpopular in his day, being patronised to a certain extent by the extreme classical party, and recommended to the public by his liberal political principles. But he is almost entirely obsolete already, and is never likely to recover more than the reputation due to fair literary workmanship, in an inferior style. Alexandre Soumet was another dramatist of the same kind, but perhaps of a less artificial stamp. He adhered to the , . ... . Soumet. old model ot drama, or to something like it, more, apparently, because it satisfied his requirements, than from abstract predilection for it, or from dislike to the new models. His Norma has the merit of having at least suggested the libretto of one of the 494 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. most popular of modern operas, and his Une Fete sous Ne'ron is not devoid of merit. Soumet was in the early days of the move- ment a kind of outsider in it, and it cannot be said that at any time he became an enemy, or that his work is conspicuous for any fatal defects according to the new method of ciiticism. A deficiency of initiative, rather than, as in Delavigne's case, a pre- ference of inferior models, seems to have been the reason why he did not advance further. At the head of the minor poets of this transition period has to Minor be mentioned Millevoye, who might, perhaps with Poets of the equal or greater appropriateness, have found a place Transition m tne p rece di n g book. He is chiefly remarkable as Early * ne aut hor of one charming piece of sentimental verse, Eomantio La Chutg des Feuilles ; and as the occasion of an Movement, immortal criticism of Sainte-Beuve's, 'II se trouve dans les trois quarts des hommes un poete qui meurt jeune tandis que rhomme survit.' The peculiarity of Millevoye and his happi- ness was that he did not survive the death of the poet in him, but died at the age of thirty-four. Except the piece just mentioned, he wrote little of value, and his total work is not large. But he may be described as a simpler, a somewhat less harmonious, but a less tautologous Lamartine, to whom the gods were kind in allowing him to die young. A curious contrast to Millevoye is furnished by his contemporary, Ulric Guttinguer. Guttinguer was born in 1785, and, like Nodier, he joined himself frankly to the Romantic movement, and was looked up to as a senior by its more active promoters. Like Millevoye, he has to rest his fame almost entirely on one piece, the verses beginning, ' Us ont dit : 1'amour passe et sa flamme est rapide ; ' but, unlike him, he lived to a great age, and was a tolerably fertile producer. By the side of these two poets ranks Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, who shares, with Louise Labe" and Marie de France, the first rank among the poetesses of her country. Madame Desbordes-Valmore was born in 1787, and died in 1859. Her .first volume of poems was pub- lished in 1819, and, as in all the verse of this time, the note of sentiment dominates. She continued to publish volumes at inter- vals until 1843, and another was added after her death. Great Ch. I.] The Writers of the Later Transition. 495 sweetness and pathos, with a total absence of affectation, dis- tinguish her work. Perhaps her best piece is the charming song, in a kind of irregular rondeau form, S'il avail su. Jean Polonius, whose real name was Labenski, was a Russian, who contributed frequently to the Annalts Romaniiquts, and subsequently published two volumes of French poetry. Emile and Antoni Deschamps were the translators of the Romantic movement. Antoni accom- plished a complete translation of Dante, Emile translated from English, German, and Italian poets indifferently. They also published original poems together, and separately. Madame Tastu was also a translator, or rather a paraphraser, and an author of original poems of a sentimental kind. Lastly, Jean Reboul, a native of Nimes, and born in a humble situation, deserves a place among these. CHAPTER II. 1830. IT was reserved for a younger generation than that, some of whose members have been noticed in the last chapter, actually to cross the Rubicon, and to achieve the reform which Romantic was ne^ed- The assistance which the vast spread Propaganda . of periodical literature lent to such an attempt has in Penodi- ^ een a i reac ]y noted, and it was in four periodical publications that the first definite blast of the literary revolution was sounded. In these the movement was carried on for many years before the famous representation of Hernani, which announced the triumph of the innovators. These four publications were : first, Le Conservateur Litte'raire (a journal published as early as 1819, before the Odes of Victor Hugo, who was one of its main- stays, or even the Meditations of Lamartine had appeared); secondly, the Annales Roman tiques, which began in 1823, with perhaps the most brilliant list of contributors that any periodical with the pos- sible exception of the nearly contemporary London Magazine ever had : a list including Chateaubriand, Lamennais, Lamartine, Joseph de Maistre (posthumously), Alfred de Vigny, Henri de Latouche, Hugo, Nodier, Be'ranger, Casimir Delavigne, Madame Desbordes- Valmore, and Delphine Gay, afterwards Madame de Girardin. Although not formally, this was practically a kind of annual of the Muse Franfatse, which had pretty nearly the same contributors, and conducted the warfare in more definitely polemical manner by criticism and precept, as well as by example. But this journal was, at any rate for a time, ihe organ rather of the intermediate and Ch. n.] 1830. 497 transitionary school of Soumet and Delavigne than of the extreme Romantics. Lastly, there was the important newspaper a real newspaper this called Le Globe, which appeared in 1822. The other Romantic organs had been either colourless as regards politics, or else more or less definitely conservative and monar- chical, the Middle-Age influence being still strong. The Globe was avowedly liberal in politics. Men of the greatest eminence in various ways, Jouffroy, Damiron, Pierre Leroux, and Charles de Rdmusat, wrote in it; but its literary importance in history is due to the fact that here Sainte-Beuve, the critic of the move- ment, began, and for a long time carried out, the vast series of critical studies of French and other literature which, partly by destruction and partly by construction, made the older literary theory for ever obsolete. The various names in poetry and prose of this Romantic Movement must now be reviewed. Victor Marie Hugo 1 was born at Besanson on the 28th of February, 1802. His father was an officer of distinc- Victor tion in Napoleon's army, his mother was of Vende'an Hugo, blood and of royalist principles, which last her son for a long time shared. His literary activity began extremely early. He was, as has been seen, a contributor to the Conseroateur Litte'raire at the age of seventeen, and, with much work which he did not choose to preserve, some which still worthily finds a place in his published collections appeared there. Indeed, with his two brothers, Abel and Eugene, he took a principal share in the management of the periodical. His Odes et Poesies Diver ses appeared in 1822, when he was twenty, and were followed two years afterwards by a fresh collection. In these poems, though great strength and beauty of diction are apparent, nothing that can be called distinct innovation appears. It is otherwise with the Odes et Ballades of 1826, and 1 The life of Hugo and the history of his works have been subjected to thorough if also pitiless treatment in the four volumes of M. Eclmond Eire", V. II. ataitt 1830, aprls 1830, and apris 1852 (Paris, 1883-1894). There may be something a little repugnant in M. Eire's processes, and his criticism of purely literary things is often not happy. But it must be allowed that Hugo, by his violent changes of opinion, his equally violent attacks on those who thought as he had thought at other times, his colossal vanity, and his somewhat Popian tricks, too often invited rough handling 498 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. the Orientales of 1829. Here the Romantic challenge is definitely thrown down. The subjects are taken by preference from times and countries which the classical tradition had regarded as bar- barous. The metres and rhythm are studiously broken, varied, and irregular; the language has the utmost possible glow of colour as opposed to the cold correctness of classical poetry, the completes! disdain of conventional periphrasis, the boldest reliance on exotic terms and daring neologisms. Two romances in prose, more fantastic in subject and audacious in treatment than the wildest of the Orientales, had preceded the latter. The first, Han d hlande, was published anonymously in 1823. It handled with much extravagance, but with extraordinary force and picturesque- ness, the adventures of a bandit in Norway. The second, Bug Jargal, an earlier form of which had already appeared in the Conserra/eur, was published in 1826. But the rebels, of whom Victor Hugo was by this time the acknowledged chief, knew that the theatre was at once the stronghold of their enemies and the most important point of vantage for themselves. Victor Hugo's theatrical, or at least dramatic, debut was not altogether happy. Cromwell, which was published in 1828, was not acted, and indeed, from its great length and other peculiarities, could hardly have been acted. It is rather a romance thrown into dramatic form than a play. In its published shape, however, it was introduced by an elaborate preface, containing a full exposition of the new views, which served as a kind of manifesto. Some minor works about this time need not be noticed. The final strokes in verse and prose were struck, the one shortly before the revolution of July, the other shortly after it, by the drama of Hernani, ou T Honneur Casiillan, and the prose romance of Notre Dame de Paris. The former, after great difficulties with the actors and with outside influences it is said that certain academicians of the old school actually applied to Charles X. to forbid the representation was acted at the Theatre Franais on the 25th of February, 1830. The latter was published in 1831. The reading of these two celebrated works, despite nearly sixty. years of subsequent and constant production with unflagging powers oji the part of their author, would suffice to give any one a fair, Ch. ii.] 1830. 499 though not a complete, idea of Victor Hugo, and of the character- istics of the literary movement of which he has been the head. The main subject offfemam'is the point of honour which compels a noble Spaniard to kill himself, in obedience to the blast of a horn sounded by his mortal enemy, at the very moment of his marriage with his beloved. Notre Dame de Paris is a picture, by turns brilliant and sombre, of the manners of the mediaeval capital. In both, the author's great failing, a deficient sense of humour and of proportion, which occasionally makes him overstep the line- between the sublime and the ridiculous, is sometimes perceivable. In both, too, there is a certain lack of technical neatness and completeness in construction. But the extraordinary command of the tragic pass'ons of pity,, admiration, and terror, the wonderful faculty of painting in words, the magnificence of language, the power of indefinite poetical suggestion, the sweep and rush of style which transports the reader, almost against his will and judgment, are fully manifest in them. As a mere innovation, Hernani is the most striking of the two. Almost every rule of the old French stage is deliberately violated. Although the lan- guage is in parts ornate to a degree, the old periphrases are wholly excluded ; and when simple things have to be said they are said with the utmost simplicity. The cadence and arrangement of the classical Alexandrine are audaciously reconstructed. Not merely is the practice of enjambement (or overlapping of lines and couplets, as distinct from the rigid separation of them) frequent and daring, but the whole balance and rhythm of the individual line is altered. Ever since Racine the one aim of the dramatist had been to make the Alexandrine run as monotonously as possible. The aim of Victor Hugo was to make it run with the greatest possible variety. In short, the whole theory of the drama was revolutionised. The decade which followed the revolution of July was Victor Hugo's most triumphant period. A series of dramas, Marion de Lorme, Le Roi s amuse, Lucrece Borgia, Marie Tudor, Angela, Les Eurgraves, succeeded each other at short intervals, and were accompanied by four volumes of immortal verse, Les FeuiUes d" Aulomne, Chants du Cr/puscule, Les Voix Inte'rteures, Les Rayons et les Ombres. The dramas continued to show Victor Hugo's com- ic U a 500 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. V. mand of tragic passion, his wonderful faculty of verse, his fertility in moving situations and in incidents of horror and grandeur; but they did not indicate an increased acquaintance with those minor arts of the playwright which are necessary to the success of acted dramas, and which many of Hugo's own pupils possessed to perfection. Accordingly, towards the end of the decade, some reaction took place against them, and their author ceased to write for the stage. His purely poetical productions showed, however, an increase at once of poetical and of critical power ; and, of the four volumes mentioned, each one contains many pieces which have never been excelled in French poetry, and which may be fairly compared with the greatest poetical productions of the same kind in other literatures. Meanwhile, Victor Hugo's political ideas (which never, in any of their forms, brought him much luck, literary or other) had undergone a remarkable change. During the reign of Louis Philippe, he, who had recently been an ardent legitimist, became, first, a constitutional royalist (in which capacity he accepted from the king a peerage), then an extreme liberal, and at last, when the revolution of 1848 broke out, a republican democrat. He was banished for his opposition to Louis Napoleon, and fled, first to Brussels, and then to the Channel Islands, launching against his enemy a prose lampoon, Napoleon k Petit, and then a volume of verse, Les Chdtiments, of wonderful vigour and brilliancy. During the ten years before this his literary work had been for the most part suspended, at least as far as publication is con- cerned. But his exile gave a fresh spur to his genius. After four years' residence, first in Jersey, then in Guernsey, he published Les Contemplations (2 vols.), a collection of lyrical pieces, not different in general form from the four volumes which had pre- ceded them; an3, in 1859, La Le'gcnde des Sihles, a marvellous series of narrative or pictorial poems representing scenes from different epochs of the history of the world. These three volumes together represent his poetical talent at its highest. He, at other times before and since, equalled, but he never surpassed them. In La LSgende de.s Siecles the variety of the music, the majesty of some of the pieces and the pathos of others, the rapid succession Ch. II.] 1830. 501 of brilliant dissolving views, and the complete mastery of language and versification at which the poet arrived, combine to produce an effect not easily paralleled elsewhere. The Contemplations, as their name imports, are chiefly meditative. They are somewhat un- equal, and the tone of speculative pondering on the mysteries of life which distinguishes them sometimes drops into what is called sermonising, but their best pieces are admirable. During the whole of the Second Empire Victor Hugo continued to reside in Guernsey, publishing, in 1862, a long prose romance, Les Mise'r- abks, one of the most unequal of his books ; then another, the exquisite Travailleurs de la Mer, as well as a volume of criticism on William Shakespeare, some passages in which rank among the best pieces of ornate prose in French; and, in 1869, L'Homme qui rit, a historical romance of a somewhat extravagant character, recalling his earliest attempts in this kind, but full of power. A small collection of lyric verse, mostly light and pastoral in character, had appeared under the title of Chansons des Rues el des Bois. The Revolution which followed the troubles of France, in 1870, restored Victor Hugo to his country only to inflict a bitter, though passing, annoyance on him. He had somewhat mistaken the temper of the National Assembly at Bordeaux, to which he had been elected. He even found himself laughed at, and he retired to Brussels in disgust. Here he was identified by public opinion with the Communists, and subjected to some manifestations of popular displeasure, which, unfortunately, his sensitive temperament and vivid imagination magnified unreasonably. Returning to France after the publication of nearly his weakest book, L'AnnJe Terrible, he lived quietly, but as a kind of popular and literary idol, till his death in 1885. Of his abundant later (including not a little posthumous) work, Qualre- Vingl-Treize, another historical romance, and two books of poetry (a second series of the LSgende des Siecles, 1877, and Les Quaire Vents de F Esprit, 1881) at their best, equal anything he has ever done. The second Le'gende is inferior to the first in variety of tone and in vivid pictorial pre- sentment, but equals it in the declamatory vigour of its best passages. Les Qua/re Vents de f Esprit is, perhaps, the most striking single book that Victor Hugo produced, containing as 502 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. it does lyric and narrative work of the very finest quality, and a drama of an entirely original character, which, after more than sixty years of publicity, showed a new side of the author's genius. This somewhat minute account of Victor Hugo's work must be supplemented by some general criticism of his literary character- istics. As will probably have been observed, from what has already been said, there were remarkable gaps in his ability. In purely intellectual characteristics, the characteristics of the logician and the philosopher, he was weak. Indeed, all but unreasoning admirers admit that his thought, in any definite kind, is far below his language, and is not usually great. He was also, as has been said, deficient in the sense of humorous contrast, and in the per- ception of strict literary proportion. Long years of solitary pre- eminence, and of the frequently unreasonable worship of fools as well as of wise men, gave him, or encouraged in him, a tendency to regard the universe too much from the point of view of France in the first place, Paris in the second, and Victor Hugo in the third. His unequalled skill in the management of proper names tempted him to abuse them as instruments of sonority in his verse. He is often inaccurate in fact, presenting in this respect a remarkable resemblance to his counterpart and complement Voltaire. It was pointed out early in his career by Sainte-Beuve, a critic of the first competence, and at that time very well disposed to him, that his perpetual description, brilliant as it is, is often an artistic fault, and differs far less in reality than in appearance from the Delillian para- phrases noticed iormerly. The one merit which swallowed up almost all others in classical and pseudo-classical literature is want- ing in him the sense of measure. He is a childish politician, a visionary social reformer. But, when all this has been said, there remains a sum total of purely literary merits which suffices to place him on a level with the greatest in literature. The mere fact that he is equally remarkable for the exquisite grace of his smaller lyrics, and for the rhetorical magnificence of his declamatory passages, argues some peculiar and masterly idiosyncrasy in him. No poet has a rarer and more delicate touch of pathos, none a mere masculine or a fuller tone of indignation, none a more im- Ch. II.] 1830. 503 perious command of awe, of the vague, of the supernatural aspects of nature. The great peculiarity of Victor Hugo is that his poetry always transports. No one who cares for poetry at all, and who has mastered the preliminary necessity of acquaintance with the French language and French prosody, can read any of his better works without gradually rising to a condition of enthusiasm in which the possible defects of the matter are altogether lost sight of in the unsurpassed and dazzling excellence of the manner. This is the special test of poetry, and there is none other. The technical means by which Victor Hugo produces these effects have been already hinted at. They consist in a mastery of varied versification, in an extraordinary command of pictorial language, dealing at once with physical and mental phenomena, and, above all, in a certain irresistible habit of never allowing the iron to grow cold. Stroke follows stroke in the exciting and trans- porting process after a fashion hard to parallel in other writers. Other poets are often best exhibited by very short extracts, by jewels five words long. This is not so with Victor Hugo. He has such jewels, but they are not his chief titles to admiration. The ardour and flow, as of molten metal, which characterise him are felt only in the mass, and must be sought there. What has been said of his verse is true, with but slight modifications, of his prose, which is, however, on the whole inferior. His unqualified versification is a weapon which he could not exchange for the less pointed tool of prose without losing much of his power. His defects emerge as his merits subside. But, taking him altogether, it may be asserted, without the least fear of contradiction, that Victor Hugo deserves the title of the greatest poet hitherto, and of one of the greatest prose writers, of France. Such a faculty, thrown into almost any cause, must have gone far to make it triumph. But in a cause of such merits, and so stoutly seconded by others, as that of the destruction of the classical tradition which had cramped and starved French literature, there could be no doubt of success when a champion such as Victor Hugo took up and carried through to the end the task of championship. Hugo was no sooner dead than the process followed which has been noticed in the case of Lamartine, which always takes place 504 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. more or less on the death of a writer of commanding position, but which has never been more noteworthy than in the latter part of the nineteenth century, a time of general affectation of literary culture, but of more engouement and crotchet than solid critical scholarship. There had always been a strong minority who held more or less to the classical models of tradition, and these naturally had never forgiven Hugo. His political extravagances had alienated from him a certain portion of his old adherents ; while the larger part, having passed through successive stages of Parnassianism, Decadence, Symbolism (see chap. III. post}, and what not, had come, if not to neo-classicism, to a crotchety kind of ' precious- ness,' which regarded his effects as garish, his workmanship as wanting in distinction, his innovations in prosody as half-hearted and unsystematic. All this, together with the mere fickleness which is found in most nations, and in the French most of all, combined to depreciate Hugo in the current speech and writing of literature, though his works seem at no time to have lost their sale, and though he retained somewhat more than a faithful few among critical admirers. The change, being a matter of history, has to be here recorded, but it need not in the least affect the estimate conveyed in the last paragraph, which simply expresses Hugo's value when he is looked at from the standpoint of a general and impartial survey of literature. From such a standpoint current opinion may now and then play truant ; but its better part always returns sooner or later. It is very seldom that the two different forces of criticism and crea- tion work together as they did in the case of the Romantic movement. Each had numerous representatives, but the point of importance is that each was represented by one of the greatest masters. Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, the critic not merely of the Romantic move- ment, but of the nineteenth century, and in a manner the first Sainte- master of catholic criticism that the world has Beuve. seen, was born at Boulogne on the 23rd of Decem- ber, 1804. His father held an office of some importance; his mother was of English blood. He was well educated, first at his native town, then at Paris. He began by studying medicine, but very soon turned to literature, and, as has been said, distinguished Cb.IU] 1830. 505 himself on the Globe. The most important of his articles in this paper were devoted to the French literature of the sixteenth century, and these were published as a volume, in 1828, with great success. Sainte-Beuve at once became the critic en litre of the movement, though he did not very long continue in formal connection with it. It was some time, however, before he resigned himself to purely critical work. Les Poesies de Joseph Delorme, Les Consolations, and Volupie' were successive attempts at original composition, which, despite the talent of their author, hardly made much mark, or deserved to make it. He did. not persevere further in a career for which he was evidently unfitted, but betook himself to the long series of separate critical studies, partly of foreign and classical literature, but usually of French, which made his reputation. The papers to which he chiefly contributed were the Comtitutionnel and the Monileur, and during the middle of the ceniury his Monday feuilleions of criticism were the chief recurring literary event of Europe. These studies with others, and with some of the numerous prefaces and introductions which he was constantly contributing to new editions of classics, were at intervals collected and published in sets under the titles, among others, of Critiques el Portraits Litte'- raires, Portraits Contemporains, Causeries du Lundi, and Nouveaux Lundis,ihe last series only finishing with his death in 1869. Besides this he had undertaken a single work of great magnitude in his Histoire de Port Royal, on which he spent some twenty years. He was elected to the Academy in 1845, and after the establishment of the Empire he was one of the few distinguished literary men who took its side. The first reward that he obtained was a pro- fessorship in the College de France; but some years before his death he received the senatorship, a lucrative position, and one which interfered very little with the studies of the occupant. In character Sainte-Beuve strongly resembled some of the Epicureans of his favourite seventeenth century ; but whatever faults he may have had were redeemed by much good-nature and an entire absence of literary vanity. The importance of Sainte-Beuve in literature is historically, and as a matter of influence, superior even to that of the great poet with whom he was for some time in close friendship, though before very 506 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. long their stars fell apart. Until his time the science of criticism had His been almost entirely conducted on what may be called Method. pedagogic lines. The critic either constructed for himself, or more probably accepted from tradition, a cut-and-dried scheme of the correct plan of different kinds of literature, and con- tented himself with adjusting any new work to this, marking off its agreements or differences, and judging accordingly. Here and there in French literature critics like Saint-Evremond, Fdnelon, La Bruyere in part, Diderot, Joubert, had adopted another method, but the small acquaintance which most Frenchmen possessed with litera- ture other than their own stood in the way of success. Sainte-Beuve was the first to found criticism on a wide study of literature, instead of directing a more or less narrow study of literature by critical rules. Victor Hugo himself has laid down, in the preface to the Orientates, one important principle the principle that the critic has only to judge of the intrinsic goodness of the book, and not of its conformity to certain pre-established ideas. There remains the difficulty of deciding what is intrinsically good or bad. To solve this, the only way is, first, to prepare the mind of the critic by a wide study . of literature, which may free him from merely local and national prejudices; and, secondly, to direct his attention not so much to cut-and-dried ideas of an epic, a sonnet, a drama, as to the object which the author himself had before him when he composed his work. In carrying out this principle it becomes obviously of great importance to study the man himself as well as his works, and his works as a whole as well as the particular sample before the judge. Sainte-Beuve was almost the first in France to set the example of the causerie critique, the essay which sets before the reader the life, circumstances, aims, society, and literary atmosphere of the author, as well as his literary achievements. This accounts for the extreme interest shown by the public in what had very commonly been regarded as one of the idlest and least profitable kinds of literature. Dan era ^ tne same tmie ^ e method has two dangers to which of the it is specially exposed. One is the danger of limiting Method. th e consideration to external facts merely,and giving a gossiping biography rather than a criticism. The other, and the more subtle danger, is the construction of a new cut-and-dried Ch. II.] 1830. 507 theory instead of the old one, by regarding every man as simply a product of his age and circumstances, and ticketing him off accordingly without considering his works themselves to see whether they bear out the theory by facts. In either case, the great question which Victor Hugo has stated, ' L'ouvrage est-il bon ou est-il mauvais ? ' remains unanswered in any satisfactory measure. Sainte- Beuve himself did not often fall into either error. His taste was remarkably caiholic and remarkably fine. The only fault which can justly be found with him is the fault which naturally besets such a critic, the tendency to look too complacently on persons of moderate talent, whose merits he himself is perhaps the first to recognise fully, and to be proportionately unjust to the greater names whose merits, on good systems and bad alike, are universally acknowledged, in whose case it is difficult to say anything new, and who are therefore somewhat ungrateful subjects for the in- genious and delicate analysis which more mixed talents repay. But study of the work of such a man as Sainte-Beuve is an almost absolute safeguard against the intolerance of former days in matter of literature, and this is its chief value. He was charged in his lifetime, and has been still more charged since, with a certain jealousy of the great reputations which grew up in his day. This reproach is common; and it is almost inevitable by critics who are really critical. It is natural that a talent which is at once rare and new should be welcomed warmly, for its novelty and reality alike. Afterwards it becomes in a sense its own rival, and its mere progress invites the application of the other side of the critic's office. Now, as critical minds of the first order are not common, this is apt to seem to outsiders an incongruous back- sliding, and to be attributed to personal motives. It can only be said that in few critics will less unfairness be found than in Sainte- Beuve. In omission as distinguished from positive error, he is scarcely chargeable with more than one other fault. He sometimes seemed to- be unable or unwilling to give a clear comparative summary and estimate of his man. No doubt such summaries are often treacherous and inadequate; but the execution of them is perhaps the highest degree of the critic's craft. Around Victor Hugo were grouped not a few writers who were 508 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk.v. only inferior to himself. But, before mentioning the members of what is called the cinacle, or innermost Romantic circle, a third name of almost equal temporary importance to those of Hugo and Sainte-Beuve must be named that of Alexandre Dumas. This writer, one of the most prolific, and in some respects one of the most remarkable of dramatists and novelists, was the son of a Dumas the general in the revolutionary army, and was born, on Elder. t h e 23rd of July, 1806, at Villers-Cotterets. He had hardly any education ; but, coming to Paris at the age of twenty, he was fortunate enough to obtain a clerkship in the household of the Duke of Orleans. He tried literature almost at once, and in 1829 his Henri III. el sa Cour was played, and was a great success. This was a year before Hernam, and, though Dumas had no pretence to rival Hugo in literary merit, his drama was quite as revolutionary in style, events, language, and general arrangement as Hugo's. But he had not heralded it by any general defiance, and it possessed (what his greater contempo- rary's dramatic work never fully possessed) the indefinable know- ledge of the stage and its requirements, which always tells on an audience. After the Revolution of July, the daring play of Antony achieved an almost equal success, despite its attacks on the pro- prieties, attacks of which at that lime French opinion was not tolerant in a serious piece. Then he returned to the historical drama in the Tour de Nesle, another drama of strong situations and reckless sacrifice of everything else to excitement. After this Dumas published many plays, of which Don Juan de Marana and Kean are perhaps the most extravagant, and Mademoiselle de Belle-hie, 1839, the best. But before long he fell into a train of writing more profitable even than the drama, wherein he achieved far higher successes. This was the composition of historical romances something in Scott's manner. The most famous of these, such as the Three Musketeers, La Reine Margol, and Monte Cn'sfo, were produced towards the latter part of the reign of Louis Philippe, his early patron. He travelled a great deal, making books and money out of his travels; and sometimes, as when he was the companion of Garibaldi, finding himself in curious company. No man, probably, ever made so much money by literature in ch. ii.] 1830. 509 France as Dumas, though he was not equally skilled in keeping it. He died, in the midst of the disasters of his country, on Christmas Eve, 1870. His literary position and influence are not very easy to estimate, because of the strange ..extent to which he carried what is called collaboration, and his frank avowal of something very like plagiarism in many of the works which he wrote unassisted. Endeavours have even been made to show that his most celebrated works are the production of hack writers whom he paid to write under his name. Nor is there the least doubt that he did resort on a large scale to something like the practice of those portrait-painters who employ their pupils to paint in the draperies, backgrounds, and accessories of their work. But that Dumas was the moving spirit still, and the actual author of what is best and most peculiar in the works that .go by his name, is sufficiently proved by the fact that none of his assistants, whose names are in many cases known, and who in not a few instances subsequently attained eminence on their own account, has equalled or even resembled his peculiar style. The chief of these were Florentine, an acute critic and busy jour- nalist; Auguste Maquet, one of the minor figures of the early Romantic circle, who will be mentioned anon ; and the novelist of the latter half of the century, whose successful style is least like that of Dumas, Octave Feuillet. Dumas' dramatic work is of but little value as literature properly so called. His forte is the already mentioned playwright's instinct, as it may be termed, which made him almost invariably choose and conduct his action in a manner so interesting and absorbing to the audience that they had no time to think of the merits of the style, the propriety of the morals, the congruity of the sentiments. His plays, in short, are intended to be acted, not to be read. Of his novels many are disfigured by long passages of the inferior work to be expected from mere hack assistants, by unskilful insertions of passages from his authorities, and sometimes by plagiarisms so audacious and flagrant that the reader takes them as little less than an insult. His best work, however, such as the whole of the long series ranging from Les Trois Mousquelaires through Vingt Ans apres to Le Vicomte de Bragelonnc> a second long series of which La Reine Margot is 510 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. a member, and parts of others, has peculiar and almost unique merits. The style is not more remarkable as such than that of the dramas; there is not always, or often, a well-defined plot, and the characters are drawn only in the broadest outline. But the cunning admixture of incident and dialogue by which Dumas carries on the interest of his gigantic narrations without wearying the reader is a secret of his own, and has never been thoroughly mastered by any one else. Unlike some romancers he has con- trived to interest age as well as youth, to retain his hold upon readers at the most different stages of their lives and tastes. And more than once, chiefly in the last passages of the two series just named, he has contrived to invest his apparently sketchy characters with a poignant interest, both tragic and comic, not often excelled by the minutest workers. While Dumas thus gave himself up to the novel of incident, two other writers of equally remarkable genius, and of greater merely literary power, also devoted themselves to prose fiction. Honore' de Balzac (who had no right to the de and whose name HonorS de was really Balssa) was born at Tours, on the 2oth Balzac. o f May, 1799. He was fairly well educated, but his father's circumstances compelled him to place his son in a lawyer's office. This Balzac could not endure, and he very shortly betook himself to literature, suffering very considerable hardships. The task he attempted was fiction, and his experience in it was unique. For years he wrote steadily, and published dozens of volumes, not merely without attaining success, but without deserving it. But few of these are ever read now, and when they are opened it is out of mere curiosity, a curiosity which meets with but little return. Yet Balzac continued, in spite of hardship and of ill-success, to work on, and in his thirtieth year he made his first mark with Le Dernier Chouan, a historical novel, which, if not of great ex- cellence, at least shows a peculiar and decided talent. From this time forward he worked with spirit and success in his own manner, and in twenty years produced the vast collection which he himself termed La Come'die Humaine, the individual novels being often connected by community of personages, and always by the peculiar fashion of analytical display of character which from them is Ch. II.] 1830. 511 identified with Balzac's name. The most successful of these are concerned with Parisian life, and perhaps the most powerful of all are Le Pere Goriot, Eugenie Grandet, La Coustne Bette, La Peau de Chagrin, La Recherche de V Absolu, Seraphita. The last is the best piece of mere writing that Balzac has produced. He had also a wonderful faculty for short tales (Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu, Une Passion dans le De'sert, etc.). He tried the theatre, but failed. Notwithstanding Balzac's untiring energy (he would often work for weeks together with the briefest intervals of sleep) and the popularity of his books, he was always in pecuniary difficulties. These were caused partly by his mania for speculation, and partly by his singular habits of composition. He would write a novel in short compass, have it printed, then enlarge the printed sheets with corrections, and repeat this process again and again until the expenses of the mere printing swallowed up great part of the profits of the work. At last he obtained wealth, and, as it seemed, a pro- spect of happiness. In 1850 he married Madame Hanska, a rich Polish lady, to whom he had been attached for many years. He had prepared for a life of opulent ease at Paris with his wife ; but a few months after his marriage he died of heart disease. Balzac is in a way the greatest of French novelists, because he is the most entirely singular and original. It has been said of him, with as much truth as exaggeration, that he has drawn a whole world of character after having first created it out of his own head. Balzac's characters are never fully human, and the atmosphere in which they are placed has something of the same unreality (though it is for the most part tragically and not comically unreal) as that of Dickens. Everything is seen through a kind of distorting lens, yet the actual vision is defined with the most extraordinary precision, and in the most vivid colours. Balzac had great dra\vb.u ks. Among all his personages of high society there is not a gentleman or a lady. His virtuous personages are usually virtuous in the theatrical sense only; his scheme of human character is too generally low and mean. But he can analyse vice and meanness with wonderful vigour, and he is almost unmatched in the power of conferring apparent reality upon what the reader nevertheless feels to be imaginary and ideal. It follows 5 1 2 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. almost necessarily that he is happiest when his subject has a strong touch of the fantastic. The already mentioned Peau de Chagrin a magic skin which confers wishing powers on its possessor but shrivels at each wish, shortening his life correspondingly and Seraphita, a purely romantic or fantastic tale, are instances of this. Almost more striking than either are the Conies Drolatiques, tales composed in imitation of the manner and language of the sixteenth century. Here the grotesque and fantastic incidents and tone exactly suit the writer, and some of the stones are among the masterpieces of French literature. The same sympathy with the abnormal may be noticed in the Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu, where a solitary painter touches and retouches his supposed masterpiece till he loses all power of self-criticism, and at last exhibits triumphantly a shapeless and unintelligible daub of mingled colours. Balzac's style is not in itself of the best ; it is clumsy, inelastic, and destitute of the order and proportion which distinguish the best French prose, but it is not ill suited to the peculiar character of his work. With Balzac's name is inseparably connected, if only from the George striking contrast between them, that of George Sand. Sand. Amandine Lucile Aurore Dupin, who took the writing name of George Sand, was born at Paris in 1804, and had a somewhat singular family history, of which it is enough to say here that she was descended through her father's mother from Marshal Saxe, the famous son of Augustus of Saxony and Aurore von Koningsmarck. At the age of eighteen she married a man named Dudevant, and was very unhappy, though it is rather diffi- cult to determine on whom the blame of the unhappiness ought to rest. They separated after a few years, and she came to Paris, from her home at Nohant in Berry, to seek a living. She found it soon in literature, having met with a friend and com- panion in the novelist Jules Sandeau, and with a stern and most useful critic in Henri de Latouche. Her first novel of importance was Indiana, published in 1832. This was followed by Valentine, Le'lia, Jacques, etc. The interest of all or most of these turns on the sufferings of l\izfemme incomprise, a celebrated person in litera- ture, of whom George Sand is the historiographer, if not the inventor. A long series of novels of this kind gave way, between 1840 and Ch. II.] 1830. 513 1849, first to a series of philosophical rhapsodies, of which Spiridion is the best, and then to one in which the political aspirations of the socialist Republicans appear. Of these, Consuelo, which is perhaps popularly considered the author's masterpiece, was the chief. Her private history was somewhat remarkable, and she succeeded in making at least two men of greater genius than herself, Alfred de Musset and Chopin, utterly miserable. They, however, afforded the subjects of two noteworthy books, Elk et Lui, and Lucrezia Floriani, the latter perhaps the most character- istic of all her early works. After the establishment of the Second Empire her tastes and habits became quieter. She lived chiefly, and latterly almost wholly, at Nohant, being greatly attached to the country; and she wrote many charming sketches of country life with felicitous introduction of patois, such as La Mare au Diable, Francois le Champt, La Petite Fadette. Some voluminous memoirs, published in 1854, dealt with her own early experiences. She lived till the age of seventy-two, dying in 1876, and never ceased to put forth novels which showed no distinct falling off in fertility or imagination, or in command of literary style. She must have written in all nearly a hundred books. As the chief charac- teristics of Balzac are intense observation, concentrated thought, and the most obstinate and unwearying labour, so the chief characteristic of George Sand is easy improvisation. She had an active and recep- tive mind which took in the surface of things, whether it was love, or philosophy, or politics, or scenery, or manners, with remarkable and indifferent facility. She had also a style which, if it cannot be ranked among the great literary styles from its absence of statuesque outline and from its too great fluidity, was excellently suited for the task of rapid production. Her novels, therefore, slipped from her without the slightest mental effort, and appear to have cost her nothing. It is not true, in this case, that what has cost nothing is worth nothing. But even favourable critics admit that it is pecu- liarly difficult to read a novel of George Sand a second time, and this is perhaps a decisive test. She is, indeed, far more of an im- provising novelist than Dumas, to whom the term has more often been applied, though she wrote better French, and attempted more ambitious subjects. The nobler characteristics of her novels Ll 514 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. reappear, perhaps to greater advantage, in her numerous and agreeable letters, especially those to Gustave Flaubert. In striking contrast with these three novelists was Prosper Me'rimee, also a novelist for the most part, but, unlike them, a comparatively infertile writer *, and one of the most exquisite masters of French prose that the nineteenth century has seen. Me'rime'e was born in 1803, and was therefore almost exactly of an age with the writers just mentioned. For a time he took a certain share in the Romantic movement, but his distin- guishing characteristic was a kind of critical cynicism, partly real, partly affected, which made him dislike and distrust exaggeration of all kinds. He accordingly soon fell off. Possessing independent means, and entering the service of the government, he was not obliged to write for bread, and for many years he produced little, devoting himself as much to archaeology and the classical languages as to French. He accepted the Second Empire apparently from a genuine and hearty hatred of democracy, and was rewarded with the post of senator. But he had to assist Napoleon III. in his Ccesar, and to dance attendance on the Court, the latter duty being made somewhat less irksome to him by his personal attachment to the Empress. Two collections of letters 2 which were published after his death, one addressed to an ' unknown ' lady 3 , and the other to the late Sir Antonio Panizzi, while adding to Me'rime'e's literary reputation, also threw very curious light on his character, exhibiting him as a man who, with genuine and hearty affections, veiled them under an outward cloak of cynicism, for fear of being betrayed into vulgarity and extravagance. He died in 1870, at the beginning of the troubles of France, by which he was deeply afflicted. The entire amount of Me'rime'e's work is, as has been said, not large, and during the last twenty years of his life it is almost 1 Merimee's work is not absolutely despicable in bulk, for it extends to some eighteen volumes pretty closely packed. But much of these is occupied with familiar letters, and much more with merely miscellaneous writing. His finished and definitely literary publications do not amount to a third of the whole. 2 A third, Lettres a line Aittre Inconnue, is of less importance, as is a fourth which appeared hi 1896. Many letters are as yet unpublished. M. Filon's Alhimee et ses Amis (Paris, 1894) is very valuable. 3 Now known, after many wild surmises, to have been Mile. Jenny Dacquin. Ch.II.] 1830. 515 insignificant. But, such as it is, it has an enduring and monu- mental value, which belongs to the work of few of his contem- poraries. He began by a curious practice, which united the romantic fancy for strange countries and strong local colour with his personal longing for privacy and the absence of literary Mat. Le Theatre de Clara Gazul plays, nominally by a Spanish actress was produced when he was but one-and-twenty ; two years later, with an audacious anagram on the title of his previous work, he published, under the title of La Guzla, some nominal translation of Dalmatian prose and verse, in which he utilised with extra- ordinary cleverness the existing books of Slav poetry.- La Famille de Carvajal was a further supercherie in the same style. In the very height and climax of the Romantic movement Me'rime'e produced two works, attesting at once his marvellous supremacy of style, his strange critical appreciation of the current forces in literature, his penetrating insight into history, and the satiric background of all his thoughts and studies. These were La Jacquerie and a Chronique du Regne de Charles IX. These books, with Balzac's Contes Drolatiques (which they long preceded), are the most happy- creative criticisms extant of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in France. They are not fair or complete : on the contrary, they are definitely and unfairly hostile. But the mastery at once of human nature and of literary form which they display, the faculty of vivid resurrection indicated by them, the range, the insight, the power of expression, are extraordinary. During the rest of his life Me'rimee, with some excursions into history (ancient and modern), archaeology, and criticism, confined himself for the most part to the production, at long intervals, of short tales or novels of very limited length. They are all masterpieces of literature, and, like most masterpieces of literature, they indicate, in a comparatively incidental and by-the-way fashion, paths which duller men have followed up to the natural result of absurdity and exaggeration. Colomba, Mateo Falcone, La Double Meprise> La Ve'nus d'llle, L 1 Enlevement de la Redoute, Lokis, have equals, but no superiors, either in French prose fiction or in French prose. Grasp of human character, reserved but masterly description of scenery, delicate analysis of motive, ability to represent the super- Ll2 5i 6 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. natural, pathos, grandeur, simple narrative excellence, appear turn by turn in these wonderful pieces, as they appear hardly anywhere else. except in the author to whom we shall come next. It is noteworthy, however, that Me'rime'e is a master of the simple style in literature as Gautier is of the ornate. One cannot be said to be greater than the other, but between them they exhibit French prose in a perfection which, since the seventeenth century, it had not possessed. The"ophile Gautier was born considerably later than most of the ThSpphile writers just mentioned. His birth-year was 1811, Gautier. 'and he was a native of Tarbes in Gascony. His education was partly at the grammar school of that town, and partly at the Lyce*e Charlemagne. Here (as elsewhere) he made friends with Gdrard de Nerval, who had a great influence on his life. After leaving school lie was intended for the profession of art. But, like Thackeray, to whom he had many points of resemblance, he had much less artistic faculty than taste. Those who are tormented l by a combined sense of ' want of ideas, sensibility, and imagination' in him, and of his magnificent literary faculty, say that he ought to have been a painter, and was only a man of letters by accident and mistake. GeVard introduced him to the circle of Victor Hugo, and he speedily became one of the most fervent disciples of the author of Hernani. In a red waistcoat which has become historic, and in a mass of long hair which he continued to wear through life, he was the foremost of the Hugonic claque at the representation of that famous play. Young as he was, he soon justified himself as something more than a hanger-on of great men of letters. In 1830 itself he produced a volume of verse, and this was followed by Alberius, an 1 Gautier has been a severe trial to those who will not or cannot perceive that form is what makes literature. It was not surprising that M. Scherer should fail to appreciate him; but it is piquant that he should drive M. Faguet (pp. cit. supra}, ordinarily one of the soberest, most catholic, and least crotchety of critics, to a kind of despairing charivari of paradox and contradiction. Gautier ' knew all the resources of French language and style,' he produces ' effects incredible and such as one would not have thought that French could attain.' Yet 'il perira, je crois, tout entier.' These things agree not together. ch.ii.] 1830. 517 audacious poem in the extremest Romantic style, and by a work which did him both harm and good, Mademoiselle de Maupin. In this the most remarkable qualities of phrase and artistic conception were accompanied by a wilful disregard of the proprieties. Before long his unusual command of style, which was partly natural, partly founded on a wide and accurate study of the French writers of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, recommended him to newspaper work, at which he toiled manfully for the remainder of his life. There was hardly a department of belles-lettres which he did not attempt. He travelled in Algeria, in Russia, in Turkey, in Spain, in Italy, in England, and wrote accounts of his travels, which are among the most brilliant ever printed. He was an assiduous critic of art, of the drama, and of literature, and the only charge which has ever been brought against his work in this kind is that it is usually too lenient that his fine appreciation of even the smallest beauties has made him overlook gross defects. His work in prose ficiion was incessant, in poetry more intermittent, and all the more perfect. When the Empire established itself, Gautier, who had no political sympathies, but was, in an undecided sort of way, a conservative from the aesthetic point of view, accepted it. But he gave it no active support, beyond continuing to contribute to the Hfoniteur, and received from it no patronage of any kind. Nor did he sacrifice the least iota of principle, insisting, in the very face of Les Chdtiments, on having his praise of Victor Hugo inserted in the official journal on pain of his instant resignation. He led a pleasant but laborious life in one of the suburbs of Paris, with a household of sisters, daughters, and cats, to all of whom he was deeply attached. Here he lived through the Prussian siege. On the restoration of order he manfully grappled with his journalist work again, all hopes of lucrative appointments having gone with the Empire. But his health had been broken for some time, and he died in 1872. The works by which Gautier will be remembered are, in miscel- laneous prose, a remarkable series of studies on curious figures, chiefly of the seventeenth century, called Les Grotesques^ and a com- panion series on the partakers in the movement of i83O, 1 "besides his descriptive books. In novel-writing there must be mentioned 518 The Nineteenth Century. (Bk. v. an unsurpassed collection of short tales (the best of which is La Morte Amoureuse} ; Le Roman de la Monrie, a clever lour deforce reviving ancient Egyptian life ; and, lastly, Le Capitaine Fracasse, a novel in the manner of Dumas, but fashioned in his own inimitable style. In verse, he wrote, besides work already mentioned, the Come'die de la Mori, some miscellaneous poems of later date, and, finally, the Emaux et Came'es. In prose he is, as has been said, the greatest recent master of the ornate style of French, as Mdrimee is the greatest master of the simple style. His mastery over mere language is accompanied by a very fine sense of the total form of his tales, so that the already-mentioned Morte Amoureuse is one of the unsurpassable things of literature. In general writing he has a singular faculty of embalming the most trivial details in the amber of his phrase, so that his articles can be read again and again for the mere beauty of them. As a poet he is specially noteworthy for the same command of form joined to the same exquisite perfection of language. In Emaux et Came'es especially it is almost impossible to find a flaw; language, metre, arrangement, are all complete and perfect, and this formal completeness is further informed by abundant poetic suggestion. The chief faults which can be found with Gautier are, that he set himself too deliberately against the tendencies of his age, and excluded too rigidly everything but purely aesthetic subjects of interest ; that the range of his literary energy excelled its power of concentration ; and that journalism in his case too often usurped what was meant for literature. He too suffered in the last quarter of the century from the inevitable reaction a reaction all the more ungrateful in his case in that to absolutely no writer have his juniors been more indebted for vocabulary, for form, and for the subtler inspirations of manner, spirit, envisagement of things. It is scarcely too violent an image to say that all younger writers, except a few extreme neo-classicists, since 1860 or thereabouts, have consciously or unconsciously steeped them- selves in Gautier. But the reaction, as usual, needs no appeal ad misericordiam to dismiss or reduce it. Gautier's defects as well as his merits and the latter are indeed a possession for ever remain unaffected. The most happily gifted, save one, of the great men of 1830, Ch. II.] 1830. 519 the weakest beyond comparison in will, in temperament, in faculty of improving his natural gifts, has yet to be mentioned. Alfred de Musset was born at Paris in 1810. His father held Alfred de a government place of some value ; his elder brother, Musset. M. Paul de Musset, was himself a man of letters, and at the same time deeply attached to his younger brother; and the family, though after the death of the father their means were not great, constantly supplied Alfred with a home. He was thrown, when quite a boy, into the society of Victor Hugo, the ce'nade or inner clique of the Romantic movement. When only nineteen Musset published a volume of poetry, which showed in him a poetic talent inferior only to Hugo's own, and, indeed, not so much inferior as different. These Conies d'JEspagne et d' Italic were quickly fol- lowed up by a volume entitled Un Spectacle dans un Fauteuil, and Musset became famous. Unfortunately for him, he became intimate with George Sand, and the result was a journey to Italy, from which he returned equally broken in health and in heart. His temperament was of almost ultra-poetic excitability, and he had a positively morbid incapacity for undertaking any useful employ- ment, whether it was in itself congenial or no. Thus he refused a well-paid and agreeable position in the French embassy at Madrid ; and, though he had written admirable prose tales for his own pleasure, he was either unwilling or unable to write them under a regular commission, though the Revue des Deux Mondes was always open to him, and as a matter of fact published most of his work. As he grew older he unfortunately became addicted to the constant and excessive use of stimulants. He was elected to the Academy in 1852, but produced little of value thereafter, and died in 1857. Alfred de Mussel's work, notwithstanding his comparatively short life and his want of regular energy, is not inconsiderable in amount, and in quality is of the highest merit and interest. His poems, its most important item, are deficient in strictly formal merit. He is a very careless versifier and rhymer, and his choice of language is far from exquisite. He has, however, a wonderful note of genuine passion, somewhat of the Byronic kind, but quite independent in species, and entirely free from the falsetto which spoils so much of Byron's work. Besides this his lyrics are, in what 520 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v may be called ' song-quality/ scarcely to be surpassed. Les Nuits, a series of meditative poems in the form of dialogues between the poet and his Muse on nights in the months of May, August, October, and December; Rolla, an extravagant but powerful tale of the maladie du siecle \ the addresses to Lamartine and to Malibran, and a few more poems, yield to no work of our time in genuine, original, and passionate music. Next to his poems in subject, though not in merit, may be ranked the prose Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle. His prose tales, Emmeline, Frederic et Ber- nerette, etc., are of great merit, but inferior relatively to his poems, and to his remarkable dramas. These latter are among the most original work of the century. It was some time before they com- mended themselves to audiences in France, but they have long won their true position. They are of very various kinds. Some, and perhaps the happiest, are of the class called in French proverbes, dramatic illustrations, that is to say, of some common saying, // ne faut jurer de Hen : II faui quune porte soil ouver te ou ferme'e, etc. The grace and delicacy of these, the ingenuity with which the story is adapted to the moral, the abundant wit (for wit is one of Mussel's most prominent characteristics) which illustrates and pervades them, make them unique in literature. Others, such as Les Caprices de Marianne, Le Chandelier, are regular comedies (admitting, as against the classical tradition, that a comedy may end ill) ; and others, as Lorenzaccio, nearly attain to the dignity of the historic play. The dramatic instinct in Musset was very strong, and. may, perhaps, be said to have exceeded in volume, originality, and variety, if not in intensity, the purely poetical. Altogether, Musset is the most remarkable instance in French literature, and one of the most remarkable in the literature of Europe, of merely natural genius, hardly at all developed by study, and not assisted in the least by critical power and a strong will. What, perhaps, distinguished him most is his singular conjunction of the most fervid passion and the most touching lyrical ' cry ' with the finest wit, and with unusual dramatic ability. The grudging iconoclasm Q{ fin de siecle critics has fastened on the formal defects and indolences already noticed, and has found an additional offence in the alleged facility and universality of his appeals to passion. It Ch. II.] 1830. 521 is scarcely necessary to point out the fallacy of this. The response of the multitude to the poet's appeal may not immediately decide his merits, but it is not necessarily a disqualification, nor its absence a title. There have been it must be repeated bad poets who were quite unpopular. These eight sum up whatever is greatest and most influential in the generation of 1830. Victor Hugo gave direction and leading to the movement, identified it with his own masterly and com- manding genius, and furnished it, at brief intervals, with consum- mate examples. Sainte-Beuve supplied it with the necessary basis of an immense comparative erudition, by which he was enabled to disengage, and to exhibit to those who run, the true principles of literary criticism, and to point the younger generation to the sources of a richer vocabulary, a more flexible and highly coloured style, a more cosmopolitan appreciation. Alexandre Dumas, with less strictly literary virtue than any other influen e of the group, occupied the important vantage grounds O f the of the theatre and the lending library in the Romantic Bomantic interest. Balzac, equalling the others in the range of his field, added the special example of a minute psychological analysis, and of the most untiring labour. George Sand taught the secret of utilising to the utmost the passing currents of personal arfd popular sentiment and thought. Me'rime'e, the master least followed, supplied, in the first place, the necessary warning against a too enthusiastic following of school models ; and, in the second, himself held up a model of prose style of a severity and exactness equal to the finest examples of the classical school, yet possessing to the full the Romantic merits of versatile adaptability, of glowing colour, of direct and fearless phrase. Gautier exhibited, on the one hand, a model of absolute perfection in formal poetry, the workmanship of a gem or a Greek vase ; on the other, the model of a prose style so flexible as to serve the most ordinary purposes, so richly equipped as to be equal to any emergency, and yet, in its most elaborate condition, worthy to rank with his own verse. Lastly, again as an outsider (a position which he shares in the group with Me'rime'e, though in very different fashion), Musset brought the most natural and unaffected tears and laughter by turns, to correct the too 522 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. scholastic and literary character of the movement, and to show how the most perfectly artistic effect could be produced with the least apparatus of formal study or preparation. Three poets deserving of all but the first rank, and belonging to the generation of 1830 itself, must come next: indeed the first of the three was the equal of almost any writer yet men- tioned in this chapter except Hugo, in the quality of his work, though its quantity was exceptionally small, and its influence even smaller. Alfred de Vigny was born at Loches on the 2yth of March, Alfred de r 799- He was a man of rank, and his marriage Vigny. in 1826 with an Englishwoman of wealth gave him independence. He left the army, in which he had served for some years, in 1828, and spent the rest of his life, until his death in 1864, in literary ease. He had been for some time a member of the Academy. His poetical career was peculiar. Between 1821 and 1829 he produced a small number of poems of the most exquisite finish, which at once attained the popularity they deserved, and were repeatedly reprinted. But for thirty-five years he published hardly anything else in verse, his Poemes Philosophiques not appear- ing (at least as a volume) until afier his death. Yet he was by no means idle. He had written and published in 1826 the prose romance of Cinq Mars, and he followed this up, though at con- siderable intervals, with others, as well as with dramas, of which Chatterton is the best and best known. He also translated Othello and The Merchant of Venice. Alfred de Vigny may perhaps be most aptly described as a link between Andre* Che'nier and the Romantic poets. He is not much of a lyrist, his best and most famous poems (Afoi'se, JEloa, Doloridd] being in Alexandrines, and the general form of his verse inclines to that of the eighteenth-century elegy, while it has much of the classical (not pseudo-classical) proportion and grace of Chenier. But his language, and in part his versifica- tion, are Romantic, though quieter in style than those of most of his companions, whom, it must be remembered, he for the most part forestalled. In Mo'ise much of what has been called Victor Hugo's ' science of names ' is anticipated, as well as his large manner of landscape and declamation. Eloa suggests rather ch.n.] 1830. 523 Lamartine, but a Lamartine with his weakness replaced by strength, while Dolorida has a strong flavour of Musset. The remarkable thing is that in each case the peculiarities of the poet to whom Vigny has been compared were not fully developed until after he wrote, and that therefore he has the merit of originality. It is probable, however, that, exquisite as his poetical power was, it lacked range, and that he, having the rare faculty of discerning this, designedly limited his production. The best of the post- humous poems already mentioned the best of all being perhaps La Maison du Zterger, an utterance of stately despair, magnificently versed are fully worthy of his earlier ones, but they display no new faculty. He had however one special quality rather of spirit than of form, the presence of a peculiar blank Nihilism or Natural- ism expressed with a gorgeous dreariness of language which is very impressive, if a little theatrical. This has somewhat com- mended itself to the ruling pessimism of later days in France ; and it may be partly due to it (as well as to the fact that he had at no time enjoyed any passionate vogue either with readers or with critics) that Vigny has escaped the depreciation which we have had occasion to notice in so many of his contemporaries and rivals. On the other hand, no attempt has been made, as was made in the case of Lamartine, to make him ' popular.' Popular indeed Vigny can never be ; for he has neither the defects nor the qualities of popularity with the great vulgar or the small. He is a very great artist, and the possessor of a vein of poetry not abundant but extra- ordinarily rich within its limits. But by a curious and unfortunate chance, not easy to parallel elsewhere, the dash of insincerity and the want of inevitableness in him are exactly suited to disgust those whom his great formal and characteristic merits most conciliate, while these merits are not quite of the kind to suit those who would not be annoyed by his defects. In other words, it requires a certain not altogether common temper of mind to admire Vigny : and this same temper, while admiring, is rather likely not to like him. The common literary slang phrase about him during his lifetime spoke of his retirement in a tour d'ivoire : and, if the words be rightly apprehended, they contain at once a sufficient eulogy and a sufficient criticism. 524 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. If Alfred de Vigny is a poet of few books, Auguste Barbier is Augusts a poet of one. Born in 1805, Barbier never formed Barbier. p art o f fa e Romantic circle, properly so called, but he shared to the full its inspiring influence. He began by an historical novel of no great merit, but the revolution of 1830 served as the occasion of his lambes, a series of extraordinarily brilliant and vigorous satires, both political and social. The most famous of all these is La Cur&, a description of the ignoble scramble for place and profit under the new Orleanist government. No satirical work in modern days has had greater success, and few have deserved it more; the weight and polish of the verse being altogether admirable. Satire is, however, a vein which it is very difficult to work for any length of time with much novelty, as may be seen sufficiently from the fact that the works of all the best satirists, ancient and modern, are contained in a very small compass. Barbier endeavoured to secure the necessary variety of subjects by going to Italy in // Pianto, and to England in Lazare, but without success, though both contain many examples of the nervous and splendid verse in which he excels. During the last forty years of his life, which did not end till 1882, he wrote much, and he was elected to the Academy in 1869, but Les lambes will remain his title to fame. A name far less generally known, but deserving of being known Gerard de very well indeed, is that of Gerard de Nerval, or, as Nerval. his right appellation was, Ge'rard Labrunie. He also was born in 1805, and was one of the most distinguished pupils of the celebrated Lyce'e Charlemagne, where he made the acquaint- ance of The'ophile Gautier. Ge'rard (as he is most generally called) was a man of delicate and far-ranging genius, afflicted with the peculiar malady which weighs on such men, and which may perhaps 'be described as an infirmity of will, passing at times into actual mental derangement. He was not idle, and there was no reason why he should not be prosperous. At an early age he translated Faust, to the admiration of Goethe. His Travels in the East were widely read, and every newspaper in Paris was glad of his co-operation; yet he was frequently in distress, and died in a horrible and mysterious manner, either by his own hand or mur- ch.n.] 1830. 525 dered by night prowlers. He has been more than once com- pared to Poe, whom, however, he excelled both in amiability of temperament and in literary knowledge. But the two have been rightly selected by an excellent judge as being, in company with Mr. William Morris, the chief masters of the verse which ' lies on the further side between poetry and music.' Most of Gerard's work is in prose, taking the form of fantastic but exquisite short tales, entitled Les Filles de Feu, La Boheme Galante, etc. His verse, at least the characteristic part of it, is not bulky ; it consists partly of folksongs slightly modernised, partly of sonnets, partly of miscel- laneous poems. But, if the expression ' prose poetry ' be ever allowable, which has been doubted, it is seldom more applicable than to much of Ge'rard de Nerval's work, both in his description of his travels and in avowed fiction. Some minor names remain to be mentioned. Me"ry, one of the most fertile authors of the century, was a writer of verse as well as of prose, and displayed much the same talent of brilliant impro- visation in each capacity. Auguste Brizeux, a Breton by birth, made himself remarkable by idyllic poetry (Marie, La Fleur d'Or) chiefly dealing with the scenery and figures of his native pro- vince. Amede'e Pommier is a fertile and not inelegant verse writer, of no very marked characteristics. Charles Dovalle, who was shot at the age of twenty-two, in one of the miserable duels between journalists so common in France, would probably have done remarkable work had he lived. He'ge'sippe Moreau, to whom a life but very little longer was vouchsafed, devoted himself partly to bacchanalian and satirical verse, for which he had not the slightest genius, but produced also some poems of country life, which rank among the sweetest and most natural of the century. Much of his work is little more than a corrupt following of Be'ranger. In the same way the imitation of Lamartine was not fortunate for Victor de Laprade (Psyche, Les Symphonies, Les Voix de Silence]. This imitation is not so much in subject (for M. de Laprade was a philosopher rather than a sentimentalist) as in manner and versification. His verse is also much more strongly impregnated than Lamartine's with classical culture. With due allowance for difference of dates and countries, there is considerable 526 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. resemblance between Laprade and Southey. Both had the same accomplishment of style, the same unquestioning submission to the dogmas of Christianity, the same width of literary information. It is unfortunate for France that Laprade was somewhat deficient in humour, a rare growth on her soil at all times. All these names are more or less widely known, but there is Curiosit6s a c ' ass ^ ' oublie's et dedaignes,' as one of their most Roman- faithful biographers has called them, who belong to tiques. t ^ e mO vement of 1830, and whose numbers were probably, while their merit was certainly, greater than at any other literary epoch. Few of them can be mentioned here, but those few are worthy of mention, and it may perhaps be said that the native vigour of most of them, though warped and distorted for the most part by oddities of temperament or the unkindness of fortune, equalled, if it did not surpass, that of many of their more fortunate brethren. The first of these is P&rus Borel, one of the strangest P6trua figures in the history of literature. Very little is Borel. known of his life, which was spent partly at Paris and partly in Algeria. He was perhaps the most extravagant of all the Romantics, surnaming himself ' Le Lycanthrope,' and identifying himself with the eccentricities of the Bousingots, a clique of political Bohemians who for a short time made themselves conspicuous after 1830. Borel wrote partly in verse and partly in prose. His most considerable exploit in the former was a strange preface in verse to his novel of Madame Putiphar ; his best work in prose, a series of wild but powerful stories entitled Champavert. His talent altogether lacked measure and criticism, but it is undeniable. Auguste Fontaney was born in 1803 and died in 1837, having, like many of the literary men of his day, served for a short time in diplomacy. He was a frequent contributor to the early Romantic periodicals, and somewhat later to the Revue des Deux Mondes. His work is very unequal, but at its best it is saturated with the true spirit of poetry. Felix Arvers, like our own Blanco White, has obtained his place in literary history by a single sonnet, one of the most beautiful ever written. Auguste de Chatillon was both poet and painter ; his chief title to remembrance in the former capacity being a volume of cheerful verse entitled A FAuberge de Ch.II.] 1830. 527 la Grand Pinte. Napoleon Peyrat, who, after the fashion of those times (in which Auguste Maquet, a fertile novelist, and a jour- nalist, and a collaborateur of Alexandre Dumas, called himself Augustus Mackeat, and Theophile Dondey anagrammatised his surname into O'Neddy), dubbed himself Napol le Pyre'ne'en, sur- vives, and justly, in virtue of a single short poem on Roland, pos- sessed of extraordinary verve and spirit. Last of all has to be mentioned Louis Bertrand, a poet endowed with the Louis rarest faculty, but unfortunately doomed to misfortune Bertrand. and premature death. Born at Ceva in Piedmont, in 1807, and brought up at Dijon, he came to Paris, found there but scanty encouragement, and died in a hospital in 1841. His only work of any importance, Gaspard de la Nuit, a series of prose ballads arranged in verses something like those of the English translation of the Bible, and testifying to the most delicate sense of rhythm, and the most exquisite power of poeiical suggestion, did not appear until after his death. He and Borel perhaps only of the names contained in this paragraph represent individual and solid talent ; the others are chiefly noteworthy as instances of the extra- ordinary stimulating force of the time on minds which in other days would probably have remained indocile to poetry, or at least unproductive of it. Such were the principal actors of mil-huit-cent-trente, as it is called in the anecdotage of French literary history the chief forces, with some of the minor ones, in the great Romantic movement. This movement, somewhat over-praised and mis- praised no doubt by those who participated in it, and by enthu- siastic after-comers, has at no time lacked depreciation and abuse at least as exaggerated as its praise. At first, and necessarily, it was abhorrent to academic critics and to steady-going persons of all descriptions : as it proceeded it became something of a fashion with its own members to smile or sigh over it, to poohpooh it as a sowing of wild oats. And for some time past it has been also the fashion not merely to do this, but to represent it as of little real literary importance, as if not actually quite superseded, dead in what importance it had, as having given place to another a ' Naturalist '-movement, which, though according to different 528 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. judgments valuable or disgusting, has at any rate put Romanticism into the lumber-room. We must before we go further say a little on some of these points. Much that is urged against ' 1830' is undoubtedly true. It was in no sense an original movement ; for almost all that was good in it had been anticipated, even as part of the same actual revolu- tion, in Germany and in England. It suffered not merely from defects of taste, but still more seriously frorp defects of scholarship. Not one perhaps, except Me'rimee and Sainte-Beuve, of the eight or, if we add Vigny, nine men who have been specified here as its greatest names, can be called a scholar in the sense which implies a wide knowledge of literature ancient and modern, with exact knowledge of some parts of it. It would be impossible to draw up, except in the vaguest and most general terms, a Romantic credo that would be either intelligible or inclusive ; and when critics of the minor kind attack the Romantic muster-lists and say, ' What an Army 1 Me'rimee sneering at Hugo, and Hugo foaming at Me'rime'e; Sainte-Beuve, after his greenest youth, writing in depreciation of all; the admirers of Vigny dismissing Gautier as without ideas, without feeling, without imagination, and the ad- mirers of Gautier scornfully turning away from Musset as from a slipshod sentimentalist/ there is no possibility of denying their facts. A very great deal of the work most specially of the move- ment is childish ; a little disgusting ; much mistaken in aim and imperfect in accomplishment. All perhaps has that special colour- ing of time which, with time, fades and passes to all eyes but those purged with unusual doses of critical euphrasy. It is no wonder that critics even of the strength of M. Brunetiere should be unable to refrain from scornful contrast of the methods and aims that pro- duced Phedre and the Caracteres with the methods and aims that produced Han d'Islande and L'Ane Mori. And yet there is no need for the most strictly critical champion of 1830 to 'look over his shoulder,' as soldiers say; and it is as nearly as may be certain that competent literary historians of the future, though they may be less enthusiastic for individual Roman- tics than some of us have been, will maintain the importance of mil-huil-cent-lrentc. This importance is assured by the very same Ch. II.] 1830. 529 fact which excuses its shortcomings and its extravagances the solid inexpugnable fact that in no country in the world did the pseudo-classical tradition obtain such hold as it obtained in France. Germany had not advanced sufficiently far to have a definite literary tradition at all ; England, for all the successive dictator- ships of Pope and of Johnson, was preserved by that mighty influ- ence of Shakespeare to which both Pope and Johnson had to bow, and even independently of Shakespearians never lacked a good number of rebels to the classical Baal. The other European literary countries were in too sleepy and decadent a condition for it to matter much what theories they held, seeing that their produc- tion was so unimportant. But with France it was very different. France had arrogated to herself, and had even to some extent been allowed, a kind of literary primacy in the Europe of the eighteenth century. She had, however impoverished her literature might be in sap and spirit, maintained a high standard of form such as it was, a vigorous practice in all literary kinds. She had never lacked names which seemed to be of the greatest, and which really were great. And the whole of this force and fame had been devoted to the classical theory. Even critics like Diderot, destructive of that theory as their practice and some of their isolated doctrines might be, had never attacked it directly. The only body that in any Euro- pean country directly connected the State with literature, a body that dispensed patronage, admitted to society, distributed fame, was, as it were, sworn to its maintenance. And therefore the over- throwing of the theory, the setting at nought of the code, the tear- ing up and burning of the fences imposed, had in France (and so for Europe generally) an importance which it could never have had in any other country. Mere destruction, mere innovation, are generally very bad things indeed. But with actually dead wood, actually withered grass, there is nothing to do but to slash off and rake up as ruthlessly as you please. The ' classicism of M. de Jouy/ as the phrase went (thus immortalising one who seems to have been a pleasant old gentleman enough with a mistaken literary idea), was dead wood and withered grass. It was cut off and raked away rather boisterously, the sets planted and the seed sown in its M m 53 The Nineteenth Century. place were rather indiscriminately selected and hastily handled. But something that had to be done was done ; and a great result followed. It will be better to reserve what has to be said of the alleged decease of Romanticism and the reigning of Naturalism in its stead for the Interchapter which will come between the new form of this book and the Conclusion. And some important workers in the more prosaic departments of literature have yet to be noticed, who, though not directly concerned in the War of Liberation in Form (this was chiefly carried on by the practitioners in poetry, fiction, and drama), helped to a vast extent the widening in scene and subject, who removed the blinkers that had so long restricted Frenchmen's view to a narrow strip of their own literature and an arbitrary selection from the classics, who opened the Middle Ages, foreign modern literatures, the East, antiquity, science. But the very fact that in France all literature had become Academic made the assault on the Academy, which was necessarily conducted by way of poetry and drama, the central position of the fight. It is of course easy to cavil at the practice of assigning too great import- ance to special dates and events, and equally easy to show the unwisdom of attaching too little. But the rather more than ten years' war in which the performance of Hernani was the landing of the Greeks, and the election of Hugo to the Academy the capture of Troy, is and will remain one of the capital incidents of literary history. CHAPTER III. POETS OF THE LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY, THREE distinct stages, the last diverging in several directions, are perceptible in French poetry since the date of the Romantic movement ; and the preceding chapter has exhausted The the remarkable names belonging to the first. The Second second opens with those poets who, being born in or Romantic about 1820, came to years of discretion in time to see Poets, the first force of the movement spent, and found the necessity of striking out something of a new way for themselves. Of this group three names stand pre-eminently forward, those of Baude- laire, Banville, and Leconte de Lisle, while some others may be mentioned beside them. Charles Baudelaire, the greatest of this group, and indeed the greatest French poet of the second half of the century, *' Baudelaire, both in intrinsic originality and in influence on his juniors, was born in Paris on April 9, 1821. His father, Frangois Baudelaire or Beaudelaire, held some posts in the civil service of the First Empire, and was twice married. His eldest son by his first wife was named Claude, became a lawyer, and died a year before his brother, with whom he was on bad terms. Charles's mother, Caroline Dufays, was left a widow after ten years' marriage, and remarried a year afterwards, her second husband being Colonel, afterwards General, Aupick. Stepfather and stepson, however, appear to have got on very well together for a time, and Baude- laire was well educated at Lyons and at the College Louis-le-Grand in Paris. But when it was time to take up a profession Charles M m 2 532 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. was restive. He was packed off on a voyage to India, which was not without effect on his work ; but soon returned and, being of age, entered on his patrimony (which was modest) in 1842, became his own master, and was thenceforward a man of letters or nothing. The remainder of his life, which was in the ordinary sense destitute of incident, was passed in Paris until, in 1864, he established him- self in Belgium, where he hoped to make money by lecturing, and to bring out a complete edition of his works. His expectations were deceived, and his health, which it is to be feared his own foibles had undermined, grew worse and worse. He was brought back to Paris suffering from general paralysis, and died on the 3ist of August, 1867. The singular character of Baudelaire's work, his melancholy end, and the oddity of the few details which for many years were known about him, contrasting with the extreme uneventfulness, in the ordinary sense, of his life, have directed on this life perhaps a disproportionate amount of attention. It was not in reality very different from that of a considerable number of recruits in the army of Bohemia, except that Baudelaire had a love of mystifica- tion and 'pose' exceeding almost any other recorded in history, that he was always of a retiring and somewhat solitary disposition, and that his models both in literature and life were rather English than French. Indeed, during his lifetime he was better known as the author of a nearly complete translation of Edgar Poe upon which he bestowed immense pains, and which is certainly remark- able of its kind than for his original work. This work, both in prose and verse, is not, considering that its author's literary career extended to a full quarter of a century, very abundant ; but it is of the rarest originality and character. As early as his return from his Indian voyage Baudelaire had completed some poems, and he published these, or others, at intervals in different papers for many years. It was not, however, till 1857 that they appeared in a volume under the title ot Les Fleurs du Mai. This included some pieces on subjects much better left alone, and the government of the Empire thought fit to prosecute the author and publishers. They were fined, and the book, as far as these pieces were con- cerned, was condemned. A second edition, with the incriminated ch. in.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century, 533 articles omitted, but with thirty-five new poems, appeared in 1861 ; and after the poet's death the complete edition of his works, which was undertaken by Gautier and others of his friends, gave a still larger collection, the condemned poems being still excluded, but obtainable in Belgian editions. Besides these poems, which even in the absolutely complete edition never yet given would not over- flow a single volume of very moderate size, Baudelaire's chief other work is an extremely original collection of Petils Poemes en Prose, inspired no doubt by the Gaspard de la Nuit of Louis Bertrand (see above), but handled with remarkable originality. A few stories and novelettes, of which the chief is La Fanfarlo, have to be added, as well as a certain amount of critical and mis- cellaneous work, about equal in bulk to what has already been mentioned, dealing with literary, artistic, and other branches of aesthetics, and always instinct with genius. There were also letters, but few of which have yet been published. Victor Hugo, in his emphatic way, once congratulated Baude- laire on having 'created a new shudder'; and this side of his genius has no doubt attracted most popular attention. -As a matter of fact, however, it is but one side, and not really the most re- markable, of a singular combination of morbid but delicate analysis and reproduction of the remoter phases and moods of human thought and passion. There is nothing macabre, as the French are fond of calling it nothing grim-grotesque in such pieces as L'Albatros, La Vie Anle'rieure, Hyrnne, Le Chat, and many others in verse, as Les Bienfaits de la Lune in prose ; and these pieces are poetically quite the equals of Le Vin de t Assassin or La Charogne. Baudelaire's peculiar and extraordinary charm is due less to the formal merit of his verse, in which the attraction is rather of the words than of the metre, than to its strange expression of a mood known at all times save the most prosaic, but especially frequent, it would seem, in the centuries immediately before and after the Christian era, at the Renaissance, and in the nineteenth century a mood wherein the keenest perception of material delights is combined with a constant tendency both to critical and mystical analysis of passion and thought alike. Lucretius and Donne are the nearest of all poels to Baudelaire in this. His 534 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. adaptation to it of his verse, and of the prose for which Poe and De Quincey had undoubtedly served him as models, is wonderfully skilful. Nor was he less apt as a critic to seize and reveal in others the manifestation of talents, and that not merely of talents akin to his own. For Baudelaire's appreciation had a very wide range. Unfortunately his personal eccentricities, and the somewhat childish challenges to convention which he threw out in his work, startled many readers, while the extreme stretch of his Roman- ticism annoyed others. It was long before even tolerably liberal French critics of the more academic schools could speak of him with patience. Even they, however, have slowly and reluctantly come round to the opinion of his power which was from the first held by good judges, while of his influence there is no longer question. In tone and spirit Baudelaire was almost as much the leader of young French poets for the last thirty or forty years of this century as Victor Hugo was their master in form for the last sixty or seventy. An intimate friend and contemporary of Baudelaire, whose senior Theodore ' ne was by a year, but whom he outlived by a quarter de of a century, was Theodore de Banville. He was in Banviiie. remarkable contrast to his friend, and supplied quite different notes of the poetic character which was to dominate the second half of the century. He was of a good family in the Morvan, and the son of an officer in the navy; but he himself began as a poet, before he was twenty, with a volume entitled Les Cariatides, and he continued to write unceasingly for something like fifty years. Banville was an equal master of serious and comic verse, and during the short-lived republic of 1848, and the Empire which followed, he showed his powers in both, not merely by the volume above named, but by others, entitled Les Stalactites, Odelettes, Les Exile's, etc., on the serious side, and by two volumes of singularly agreeable attempts in parody, satire, and other lighter styles, respectively entitled Les Occidentales (in affectionate travesty of Hugo's Orientales] and Odes Funambulesques. Some of these latter exhibit a faculty of humour in verse scarcely manifested elsewhere in French, while the formal, and especially the metrical, quality of the serious verse is always admirable. A volume on the Ch. in.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 535 Prussian war was not more successful than might have been anticipated; but an exquisite collection of Trente-six Ballades Joyeuses soon redeemed it, and for many years M. de Banville con- tinued to pour forth strains not of unpremeditated but of most accomplished art, some of his very best work occurring in a post- humous collection. Nor had he confined himself to the practice of poesy. His Petit Traite' on the subject may be said to be the handbook and register of the Romantic prosody, first as expounded by the Hugonic licenses, and then as codified and methodised by students and practitioners with more scholarship, if less genius, than Hugo. He was also a not unfrequent dramatist, and espe- cially in the later years of his life produced no small number of prose stories and opuscula of all kinds, not always quite worthy of himself in subject, but always charmingly written. He died in 1891. It has been said that Banville was the opposite, or rather the complement, of Baudelaire. He was this not least in the extreme minuteness of his attention to formal details and the easy mastery with which he could bend the stubbornest and adapt the most intricate metres to his purpose, while Baudelaire was as a rule contented with very simple forms. The criticism sometimes made on Banville, both before and since his death, that he was ' all on the outside,' is unjust even if made hastily, and entirely incom- petent if made with deliberation. There is hardly a single volume of Banville's pretty numerous books of verse which does not contain pieces sufficient to refute it. But there is no doubt that he does not as a rule go very deep, and that a considerable part of the charm of his verse is due to his absolute mastery of technique. Without permitting himself the licenses which, as we shall see, his younger contemporaries were shortly to claim, he could practically do with French verse anything he pleased. Allowing for the smaller scope of French in this respect, he was the equal of ' Thomas Ingoldsby ' in inexhaustible fertility of rhyming, while his skill at grotesque and tour de force never deprived him of the power of finishing his serious verses with rhymes at once simple and rich, elaborate and harmonious. He was in fact a perfect virtuoso in rhyme and rhythm. 536 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. The third of this remarkable trio was again a little older than Leeonte M. de Banville, whom he outlived. The side of the de Lisle. Romantic movement which he took up might have seemed as exterior as that to which Banville addicted himself. M. Leeonte de Lisle (1820-1894) was a Creole ; and either for that or some other reason he devoted himself especially to cultivating the exotic and polyglot side of the Romantic tradition. Like Baude- laire, he expended a great deal of pains upon translation, versions of more than one or two of the great Greek poets, epic and dramatic, having appeared from his pen. One of the chief features of these translations was the carrying to excess of the pedantic crotchet from which English has also suffered the attempt to transliterate Greek exactly, and not merely to discard the loose Latin equivalents for the pure Greek names which the eighteenth century had tolerated, but to flood French with kh's, with circum- flexed o's and ^'s. Theophile Gautier, whose taste in such matters was excellent, and whose fashion of quiet and good-humoured wit has rarely been equalled, remarked on one of M. Leeonte de Lisle's ' own early books, ' II serait plus simple d'e'crire en grec.' But his earlier and original poems, Poesies Antiques, Poesies Bar bares, Poemcs et Poesies, and the like, are of very high merit, both in the barbaresque and rhetorical style beloved of the author, to which all manner of strange nations and languages contribute (Le Massacre de Mona, Le Runoia, Le Sommeil du Condor, etc.), and in simpler pieces such as Requies. In sentiment M. Leeonte de Lisle had always betrayed a distinct inclination towards pessimism, and to' the adoption of a key of thought corresponding to that remarked above in Vigny ; latterly he emphasised this still more and became something of a nihilist and anti-Christian poet. But his earlier examples had been powerful in pleasing readers and priming imitators with the choice of subjects above remarked on, and also with a very distinct kind of handling, a kind which may perhaps best be called statuesque, which has been widely popular and much imitated, and which perhaps had more to do with the special characteristics of the ' Parnasse ' (see below), to which all the three poets just named were contributors, than even the metrical presti- digitation of Banville, and certainly more than the high and rare Ch. HI.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 537 combination of passion, idealism, and analysis which has been noted in Baudelaire. The minor poets of this second Romantic school may "again be grouped together. Charles Coran, a miscellaneous poet of talent, anticipated the school of which we p ets of the shall shortly have to give some notice, that of the Second Parnassiens. Josdphin Soulary was remarkable for the m a r extreme beauty of his sonnets, in devoting himself to which form he anticipated a general tendency of contemporary poets both English and French. Auguste Vacquerie, better known as a critic, a dramatist, and a journalist, began as a lyrical and miscellaneous poet, and achieved some noticeable work, which became more and more an echo of Hugo, whose connection and fervent disciple M. Vacquerie was. Gustave Le Vavasseur at- tempted, not without success, to revive the vigorous tradition of Norman poetry. Pierre Dupont, better known than 3 Dupont. any of these, seemed at one time likely to be a poet of the first rank, but unfortunately wasted his talent in Bohemian dawdling and disorder. His songs were the delight of the young generation of 1848 (a characteristic ' fling' of the time being the saying, Lamartine, un piano ; Victor Hugo, un grand homnie ; Dupont, un poete !), and two of them, Le Chant des Ouvriers and Les jBceufs, are still most remarkable compositions. Louis Bouilhet (whose best poem is Melanis] was the intimate friend of Flaubert, and as a poet showed some resemblance to M. Leconte de Lisle, though he went still further afield for his subjects. . He had no small power, but the defect of the old descriptive poetry revived in him, and in some of his contemporaries and followers, the defect necessarily attendant on forgetfulness of the fact that description by itself, however beautiful it may be, is not poetry. With these may be mentioned Gustave Nadaud, a song-writer pure and simple, free from almost any influence of school literature, a true follower of Be*ranger, though with much less range, wit, and depth. He was especially the song-writer of the Second Empire, with which he at first had some difficulties, though he was later reconciled and decorated. He played a creditable part in the war of 1870, but wrote little after it, though he did not die till 1893. One refrain of 538 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. his Brigadier^ vous avez raison, has had the luck to become a catchword. Except Dupont and Nadaud, all the poets just mentioned may be said to belong more or less to the school of Gautier the school, that is to say, which attached preponderant importance to form in poetry. Towards the middle of the Second Empire a crowd of younger writers, who had adopted this Parnasse principle still more unhesitatingly, grew up, and and the formed what was known for some years, partly Romantic seriously, partly in derision, as the Parnassien school. Dispersion. ' The origin of this term was the issue, in 1866 (as a sort of poetical manifesto preluding the great Exhibition of the next year), of a collection of poetry from the pens of a large number of poets, from Theophile Gautier and Emile Deschamps downwards. This was entitled Le Parnasse Contemporain, after an old French fashion. Another collection of the same kind was begun in 1869, interrupted by the war, and continued afterwards; and 1876 saw a third: while the Parnassien movement was also represented in several newspapers, the chief of which was La Renaissance. Another nickname of the poets of this sect (which, however, included almost all French writers of verse, even Victor de Laprade being counted in) was les impossibles, for their presumed devotion to art for art's sake, and their scorn of didactic, domestic, and sentimental poetry. Their numbers were very large, and, from the great and almost intentional ' school '-character of their work, it is unnecessary, as well as impossible, to give much detailed account of them here. But the three volumes just referred to are an indispensable possession and study for those who wish to understand the development, not merely of French, but of Euro- pean poetry. As was to be expected, some of their number diverged to work other than poetical, the chief of these, whom we shall meet again, being an admirable critic and novelist, M. Anatole France, and a story-teller equally graceful and graceless, M. Armand Silvestre. One, Albert Glatigny (a strolling poet, somewhat re- sembling an uncriminal Villon, with some of Villon's genius, which he showed in a few touching poems, especially the Ballade des Enfanis sans Souci], died early. Another, Ste"phane Mallarme", the Ch. in.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 539 most erudite and laborious of literary contortionists, lived to take part in further developments of ' school ' writing, to be noticed below. A third, Jose 'Maria de Herddia, an exquisite if rather empty practitioner in the sonnet (which, like the even more artificial forms of old French verse, fostered by Banville, was a favourite with the group), lived also, but to become an Academician. The three chief poets who, having formed part of the group, remained poets and attained to something like acknowledged eminence in their art were Sully Prudhomme, Fra^ois Coppe'e, and Paul Verlaine. It has been noted that Vigny and Leconte de Lisle were, each in his way, philosophical poets ; but the chief late nineteenth-century poet to achieve a high position in this philosophical SullyPrud- poetry is M. Sully Prudhomme (b. 1839). Perhaps it homme. may be doubted whether this kind of poetical vogue is ever (as the French themselves say in a phrase not quite translatable by any terse English equivalent) de bon aloi whether it is not due to mixed causes, and chiefly to the fact that persons who have no genuine affection for poetry as such are pleased to tolerate and even welcome it when it clothes themes which they can understand and appreciate. M. Prudhomme had powerful literary friends 1 , while he also enjoyed the inestimable advantage of writing, not for bread, but as he pleased. The result Stances et Poemes, 1865; Solitudes, 1869; Vaines Tendr esses, 1875; La Justice, 1878; Bon- heur, 1888 certainly displays a considerable mastery of expression and versification, and a kind of thought coloured by the pessimism of the period, but less hopeless than Vigny's and less aggressive than Leconte de Ligle's. It is probable that in ' the firm perspec- tive of the past ' it will be found not to rise above the second class of poetry, but it will very likely hold in permanence a fairly respect- able place in that second class. The popularity and accomplishment of M. Franois Coppe'e have been of a different kind, though they also have led Frai^ois to Academic recognition. M. Prudhomme is a poet Copp6e. or nothing: M. Coppe'e, besides a considerable amount of verse 1 A very full and interesting study by one of the chief of these will be found in M. Gaston Paris' Penseurs et Poctes, Paris, 1896. (See also Postscript.} 54 The Nineteenth Centtiry. [Bk. v. (JRetiguatrts,lS66; Intimiie's, 1868 ; La Greve des Forgerons, 1869; Les Humbles, 1872 ; Promenades et Inter ieurs, 1872 ; Conies et Vers, 1881-7), has been a fairly prolific and successful dramatist, and a writer of very pleasant short prose tales. The titles given above may suggest, and will suggest correctly, that M. CoppeVs favourite subjects are of the popular-pathetic kind the kind which in different ways Dickens in prose, and Mrs. Browning in verse, made well known in England somewhat earlier. He has been accused of sentimentality and superficiality, but it may be questioned whether the fault is not rather in the subjects than in the artist. The poetry of humble, as of all life, is real, but not more real than that of other life ; and the poet who makes it his business to exploit it is certain to fall into the trivial and the maudlin. Still M. Copp^e, though the lovers of pure poetry may not care much for him, is entitled to that praise which has been already assigned in a different way to Beranger, that he has undoubtedly given the poetic pleasure to many who are not capable of receiving it other- wise, while he has never sought to give that pleasure by unworthy means. Not so much as this last can be said, unfortunately, of the greatest of these three as a poet, though he was something of Paul a poetical Helot M. Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), who Verlaine. di e( } j n middle age after a strange, pathetic, and scan- dalous life. The middle part of this was so much hidden from public observation that, when at last he attained celebrity, the scanty reading or short memory of not a few critics regarded him as a new phenomenon. But he had contributed some half-dozen poems (the best of them, perhaps, Vers Dare's, Cauchemar, Sub Urbe) in a very Gautieresque manner, richly rhymed and bringing the visual impression strongly before the reader, to the first Parnasse of 1866, and he published other verse early. Nearly twenty years, however, passed (partly in ways with which scandal made itself busy) before, in the new departures of poetry which coincided more or less with the death of Victor Hugo, he became famous and in a way prolific. Poemes Saturniens, including his early work, and reprinted 1890; Sagesse, 1881 ; Amour, 1888; Romances sans Paroles, 1887; Parallelement, 1889; Fetes Gal antes, Jadis et ch. in.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 541 Naguere, etc., are the chief titles of his work. Verlaine (who was not unwilling that his extraordinary head and face should be compared to the bust of Socrates, and the most produceable of whose peculiarities are not unkindly immortalised in the eccentric poet of M. Anatole France's Lys Rouge] wrote some miscellaneous prose and criticism, and was a fair scholar in English and other languages. Like Baudelaire, and even more than Baudelaire, whose most considerable disciple he undoubtedly was, Paul Verlaine was long the subject of violent denunciation and of imbecile discipleship ; but as he wrote thirty years later the discipleship naturally in- creased, while the obloquy was less. He falls short of his master in originality, necessarily; and less necessarily in intellectual power, in distinct unity, genuineness, and intensity of poetic character. But he has the advantage of greater variety and sweet- ness in form. He began, as has been said, in the extreme of the Parnassian manner which derived from Gautier, and of which the two requisites were prosodic precision pushed to or beyond the verge of stiffness, and a handling which aimed first of all at bringing the actual sight-impression as vividly as possible before the eye. But he ended as the apostle, though not the extreme practitioner, of the loosening of French prosody (which Romanticism in its early stages had begun, and in regard to which the Parnassian tension was only a slightly reactionary episode), and as the exponent of an extraordinary faculty of musical presentment. These various tendencies clash and jangle strangely, though by no means inhar- moniously, in his later work. A great deal of the theory on which his youthful admirers fastened the search for nuances- rather than for definite colours and the like was undoubtedly extravagant; but some of it was not. and the result was unquestionably the best French poetry of the last quarter of the century, too often wilfully offensive in subject, almost always charming in its appeal to sight and to hearing, not seldom touching and creative in feeling and imagination. Verlaine, who, as has been said, was very familiar with English, made advances on his master in point of importing that indefinite music of English poetry, the want of which so often strikes readers of French, into his native tongue. 54* The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. V. The methods by which he attained this music are to some His extent traceable ; and are only an extension of those Methods which Banville, and even Victor Hugo himself, had used before him. One is the attempt to discard the famous alternation of ' masculine ' and ' feminine ' rhymes, which after long preliminary experiment had set in during the sixteenth century. It cannot be said that he ever attained to the complete ignoring of this most troublesome limitation ; but he resisted if he could not forget it. Another is the shaking himself free from the hard-and-fast caesura, proportioned to the line, which had also become obligatory. A third is the indulgence in a much greater degre&Vof lines of odd numbers of syllables. And a fourth, the least welcome to English ears, is a large extension of that license of French prosody in curious contrast to its usual rigidity, but corre- sponding to the practice of its most classical prose which allows not merely a syllable, but a whole word of exactly the same spelling, to rhyme to another (cceur, cceur . . .point, point, and so on). He also indulges freely in interior or leonine rhyme; and in other modes of keeping up a musical accompaniment of sound. The variety of movement and of music which is due to these and other devices is very great and very refreshing. It is conditioned on the bad side by a certain accretion of artificiality ; Verlaine is often not more ' inevitable ' than Theodore de Banville himself, and he has often much worse taste. But on the other hand he has unquestionably something which is, though sometimes, rarely present in the serene poet of the Cariattdes. In life it seems certain that his accesses and excesses of sensuality were inter- spaced with accesses of mystical devotion, and this mixture not indeed unique, since there are many examples of it, the capital one being our own Donne produces a real ' wind of the spirit ' in his work. In the Poemes Salurniens (which, as has beer- said above, may be taken to. represent generally the tradition of Gautier, modified not a little by touches of Baudelaire and Leconte de Lisle) few liberties are taken with prosody. Yet the sonnet ' Never more,' with its monorhymed quatrains composing the octave, the Gautieresque Cauchemar, Soleils Couchants (the metrical motive of which is that of a virelai crossed with a pantoum\ Ch. in.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 543 Une Grande Dame (pure Baudelaire), and others, make something of a masque or a mosaic; ic was not easy to say to what the poet would come. In the later books the Romantic combination of formal artifice and spiritual excitement had reached its apogee. It was thought outrageous, and the actress demurred to it, when Victor Hugo made Mile. Mars address a lover as ' rnon lion.' Verlaine addresses his beloved as ' ma vague,' which marks the advance on Hernani. It is impossible here to review in any detail the work of this remarkable and no doubt not quite sane poet, and it would have been improper to give him even so much space as has been given if he were not the one typical example, that France has produced, since Baudelaire. He is at present the ' furthest ' His im- purely childish and tasteless extravagances of form portance. and matter being put aside) of the Romantic revolt, and is likely to remain so. He has really achieved in not a few cases that mixture of musical and visual appeal that playing on language as on a lute, and manipulating the ideas it evokes as the constituents- of a panorama which the critics of France at last admit to have been an art hidden from their poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the comparative rarity with which he attains to perfect success, the necessity which he betrays of appealing to outrageous qualities of subject, and the feebleness of most of his followers, seem to show once more that, after all, the limitations of French poetry had their origin in a genuine diagnosis of the French spirit. It would be of but little interest or use to examine fully the various schools of ' Decadents/ ' Symbolists V and the like, which rose and fell in the last decades of the century. From time to time in France, as in other countries, there have been announced ' new poets ' who have equally, in the course of nature, ceased to be new and to be thought poets. The strongest hand in verse, as in prose, though in the former only a novice who could 1 For an examination of ' Symbolism,' refreshing in its old-fashioned thoroughness and vigour, though perhaps showing also a good deal of old- fashioned prejudice, see M. Ferdinand Brunetiere, Essais sur la l.itteraturt Coniemporaine, Paris, 1892. 544 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. not or did not care to carry his work further in that direction, was M. Guy de Maupassant, who preluded his remarkable novels (see below) with a volume simply entitled Des Vers. This did not display much variety of poetical faculty, but was vigorous, indi- vidual, and impressive, as little else has been since. M. Richepin, one of those not unfrequent men of letters who show extraordinary facility in almost every branch of literature for a time, but less often do anything really solid and lasting, perhaps came next to M. de Maupassant with La Mer, La Chanson des Gueux, etc., and with him may be bracketed M. Maurice Rollinat. All these three indulged themselves to the fullest in the license of subject now usual with Frenchmen in belles lettres, and in connection with them, though in order of time and character he should perhaps have been joined rather with Verlaine or M. Mallarm^, seeing that he also was a Parnassian, was another eccentric writer, Villiers de L'Isle Adam, whose right to his famous historic name was not uncontested, and who did much wild work, some of it not without 'attraction, chiefly between 1880 and 1890. A future was at one time predicted for M. Maurice Bouchor 1 , who attempted to oppose the Parnassian impassibility with bacchanalian strains, and a present of popularity was once enjoyed by M. Paul Deroulede, who in the reaction from the great defeat of 1870 delivered himself of divers generous strains, not unpoetical, but not quite so poetical as patriotic. Lastly (not to take notice of the work absolutely of the hour) must be mentioned a school of half-exotic poets (the Symbolists above referred to in part), at the head of whom was M. Jean More'as. These poets endeavoured to turn French prosody, not partially but entirely, upside down, with lines of unlimited length, rhymes and caesuras pushed far beyond the Verlainian licenses, and other means for destroying the strict regularity, the uniform measures and limits, which for nearly 1 M. Bonchor's more recent ' marionette ' dramas have been praised by the competent, as have the ' Buddhist ' poems of ' Jean Lahor,' believed to be identical with the Parnassian, H. Cazalis, author, thirty years ago, of a good volume of verse entitled Melancholia. But ' Buddhist ' poetry and ' marionette ' drama, however good in themselves, tell tales as to tl'xs poetical condition of their time. Ch. HI.] Poets of the Later Nineteenth Century. 545 a thousand years for eight hundred at any rate have been the distinguishing characteristics of French verse. Such changes, however, if they can be produced at all, can only be produced by a poet ; and a poet the school in question did not succeed in producing, though it produced some tolerable versifiers of their kind >. 1 See Postscript. K n CHAPTER IV. THE MODERN DRAMA. THE progress of French drama during the last half-century is of somewhat less importance to literature, but of even more to social history, than that of poetry. The greatest masters of drama have already been mentioned among the eight typical names of 1830, 1830 in even Balzac having attempted it, though without drama. much success, while Gautier produced at least a poetical ballet. Great part of Alfred de Vigny's work, including Chatterton, is at any rate in dramatic form, and George Sand threw much of hers into drama. The importance of Musset's theatre has already had justice done to it ; and there can of course be no question that the interest taken by Frenchmen in plays made the work, in this kind, of Hugo and Dumas not merely of capital but of preponderating importance in the Romantic crusade. Although the partisans of the two still skirmish as to the relative value of their dramatic work, it is not rash to say that posterity, judging securely, will hold Hugo a second-rate or, at best, a very uncertain playwright, who wrote magnificently, and Dumas a play- wright of extreme ingenuity, fertility, and technical skill, who was not in the least a poet, and did not write prose extraordinarily well. It may be added that, except those whose fondness for theatrical entertainments blinds them to every other consideration, no one can possibly go to the plays of either for his best work. Although Hugo's splendour and his sweetness find ample oppor- tunity in such things as the catastrophes of Hernani and of Le Roi s amuse, yet these opportunities are attended by special tempta- tions to mere rhetoric indeed, to a kind of bombast difficult to 1 'he Modern Drama. 547 parallel elsewhere in a poet of genius outside of the heroic plays of Dryden. And, while Dumas' ingenuity of construction, fertility of incident, and command of dialogue appear excellently in his plays, all these things are better illustrated in his novels. But to say this is not to say much more than that the mysterious curse which in England almost entirely divorced the acted drama from literature during the nineteenth century was not wholly without effect in France likewise. The effect there was, however, much less : owing partly to the greater welcome accorded in France to the drama itself, and partly to the fact, connected with this, but not absolutely identical with it, that nearly all the greatest Frenchmen of letters, as well as most of those who are not the greatest, at one time or another try the theatre. Whether the long accepted axiom, ' They order these things better in France,' applies specially to the journey- work of literature, dramatic as well as other, is perhaps a more dubious point ; but it will undoubtedly have its weight with some judgments. The most famous and successful playwrights, however, as distin- guished from the producers of literary dramas, have yet to be noticed. Pixe'recourt, a melodramatist and a book- Minor and collector, achieved his first success with a play on the later well-known story of the Dog of Montargis (itself Dramatists, dating back to the earliest days of the Chansons de Gestes), in 1814, and followed it up with a long succession of similar pieces. One of the less famous partakers in the first Romantic movement, Bouchardy, distinguished himself, in succession to PixeVe*court, as a Romantic melodramatist, his most famous works being Le Sonneur de Saint Paul and Lazare le Pdtre. Eugene Scribe, who had been born in 1791, made his debut, as far as success goes, in 1816, with Une Nuil de la Garde Nalionale. Scribe was one of the most prolific, one bf the most successful, and one of the least literary of French dramatists. For nearly half a century he continued, sometimes alone, sometimes in collabora- tion, to pour forth vaudevilles, dramas, and comedies, almost all of which were favourably received. Scribe was generous to his asso- ciates, and would sometimes acknowledge the communication of a bare idea by a share in the profits of the play which it suggested. N n a 548 The Nineteenth. Century. [Bk. v. He had also an almost unrivalled knowledge of the technique of the theatre, and not a little wit. But his style is loose and careless, and his dramas do not bear reading, while the poverty of his inven- tion in quality, despite its abundance in volume, and the Philistine meanness of his conceptions of life and morality, have also brought cn him severe criticism. Indeed, it has not been uncommon for censors, sober enough as a rule, to see in his wide and long-con- tinued popularity an indictment against the French middle classes. On the other hand, the perfection of his adaptation of means to ends has been admitted even by those who see nothing but a 'glorified Vaudevillist ' in Scribe. His most important later plays are Valerie, 1822 ; Le Maria ge (C Argent, 1827 ; Bertrand et Raton, 1833; Le Verre dEau, 1840; Une Chaine, 1841; Bataille de Dames, 1851. In 1843 a kind of reaction was supposed to be about to take place, the signs of which were the performance of the Lucrece of Ponsard in that year, and of the Cigu'e of Emile Augier the year after. Ponsard, however, was only a Romantic Ponsard. , . . , \vhose colour was deadened by his inability to attain more brilliant tones. His succeeding plays, Agnes de Me'ranie, Charlotte Corday, LHonneur et I Argent, showed this sufficiently. Ponsard did not write ill ; and indeed the tendency to order and measure which always forms the foundation of the average French character deserves to be credited to him as much as deficiency of imagination and inspiration deserve to be debited with his compara- tive dullness. Yet his name, though perhaps indissolubly connected with a moment in the history of literature, is never likely to be much remembered with any direct admiration for his work. M. Emile Emile Augier (1820-1889) was a m ore remarkable and a Augier. rnore independent figure. In so far as he represented a protest against Romanticism at all (which he did only very partially), it is because he shared in the growing tendency towards realism, that is, to a recurrence in the Romantic sense to the trage'die bourgeoise of the preceding century, and because also he gave no countenance to the practice, in which some of the early Romantics indulged, of representing immoral personages as inter- esting. Almost all M. Augier's dramas, such as L ' Avenluriere, Ch. iv.] The Modern Drama. 549 1849, which is his masterpiece, Gabrtelle, 1849, Diane. 1852, Le Mariage (fOlympt, 1855, Le Fils de Giboyer, 1862, Maitrc Gu/n'n, 1864, and others of more recent date (the latest being Les Fourchambault, 1878), were distinctly on the side of virtue. But the author did not make the excellence of his intention a reason for passing off inferior work, and he is justly recognised as one of the leaders of French drama in the latter half of the century. Indeed, for some thirty years, not merely during the Empire, but until the date of the play last mentioned, he had no rivals but Dumas fils and M. Sardou in general popularity, though some critics decline to recognise the third of the trio as the equal of the other two. Augier had no command of verse, though he sometimes tried it ; in prose he is far superior to Scribe, with whom he has sometimes been classed as representing bourgeois ideals. The last charge, not urged in malam par/em, is en the whole true. A remarkable if rather narrow common sense, a slight tendency to freethinking, or at least to anti-clericalism, combined with strict probity in morals, and a companion leaning to sentimentalism, which does not exclude sanity in matters of human relationship, distinguish this dramatist. Augier represents that eighteenth- century type which, on its good as well as on its bad side, was so specially congenial to the French spirit ; and he had no difficulty in adjusting it to the affairs of his own day. About this same time (1845) when Augier made his de'bul, was the date of the appearance of a fertile and successful playwright of the less exalted class, Dennery (Don Ce'sar de Itazan, L'A'ieule). Auguste Maquet, another of the old guard of Romanticism, distin- guished himself by helping to adapt to the stage the novels of Dumas the elder, which he had already helped to write ; and one of his colleagues on Dumas' staff, Octave Feuillet, who was shortly to make a great reputation for himself as a novelist, appeared on the boards with Echec el Mat. Feuillet, indeed, was a pretty con- stant practitioner on the stage, and gradually served himself heir to Musset in the delicate and interesting kind of the proverbe, not always with proverbial titles. During the whole of this decade (1840-1850) Delphine Gay, the beautiful and accomplished wife of the journalist Emile de Girardin, was a frequent and successful 550 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. play-writer. Soon afterwards M. Legouve", son of the academician of the same name, and himself an academician, began to collaborate with Scribe in work of more importance (Adrienne Lecouvreur) than the latter had before attempted ; while George Sand and her former friend, Jules Sandeau, were also drawn into the inevitable theatrical vortex. In collaboration with Augier, Sandeau produced, from one of his own novels, one of the best plays of the century, Le Gendre de M. Poirier, 1855. Eugene Labiche, who had been born in 1815, distinguished Eugdne himself, in 1851, by Le Chapeau de Faille cTItah'e, Labiche. an( j j n j t \ a [^ fa foundation of a long career of suc- cess in the lighter kind of play which, at last, conducted him to the Academy. His best-known play is Le Voyage de M. Perrichon. The importance of Labiche (whose palmiest time was the Second Empire, and of whose innumerable pieces it would be impossible to give a list, and useless to make a further selection) depends very much on the position which the reader is willing to assign off the stage to the peculiar kind of drama, not quite comedy and not merely farce, which the French loosely call vaudeville. It is certain that in France this kind of work has come nearer to literature proper than in any other country ; and there are those who assign a positively high position in literature to Labiche. It is, however, rather difficult for those who remember the place now held by the minor theatre of Lesage (a man of far greater genius than the author of M. Perrichon^ and, like him, an expert playwright) to think that after the same time has elapsed Ce'limare le Bien-Aime' will be much more read than La Princesse de Carizme. It might task the greatest expert in comparative criticism to say whether, if it is read by any one, it will give as much amusement as to some La Princesse de Carizme itself gives now. The year 1852 was memorable for the French stage, for it saw the production of La Dame aux Cornelias, the first important play Dumas the of Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895). For a time Younger. ]\j D um as, beginning as usual, and very young, with a volume of verse, devoted himself to novel-writing, and not merely the piece above mentioned, but others of his future plays, appeared first in this form. Indeed, it was many years (from the Aventures de Cfa.iv.] The Modern Drama. 551 Quaire Femmes et (Tun Perroqueidi 1 846 to the Affaire Cle'menceau of 1867, and even later) before he gave it up. Few of his novels are much read now, though the Dame aux Came'lias has kept a certain vogue, and Tristan le Roux, 1850, Diane de Lys, 1851, and a few others have their partisans. But they were all written with vigour, and had dramatic if not fictitious interest. His proper sphere, however, was the stage. Most of his plays were directed to some burning question of the social or ethical kind, and it was also his practice to re-issue them after a time, with argumentative pre- faces, in a very singular style. Diane de Lys, 1853 ; Le Demi- Monde, 1855 ; La Question d Argent, 1857 ; Le Fils Nalurel, 1858 ; Le Supplice d'une Femme, 1865 (nominally composed with Emile de Girardin); Les Idees de Madame Aubray, 1867; Une Visile de Noces, 1871; and L'Etrangere, 1875, are his chief works. The history of the reputation of Alexandre Dumas fih is rather curious, and it may be permitted to think that criticism has not yet said by any means the last word on it. Putting aside the usual and natural mistakes about him at his de'but, when his selection of dangerous subjects caused him to be looked upon with suspicion not merely abroad but at home, it cannot be said that for the first twenty years of his career he was taken very seriously. The ingenuity of his construction and the sparkle of his dialogue were pretty generally admitted, but he was regarded rather as a brilliant paradoxer and rhetorician than as anything more. For the last twenty years, on the other hand, his reputation, though not uncon- tested, grew constantly on the whole ; and some sober critics have been a little staggered by finding him pronounced in England ' one of the most brilliant artists in words of latter-day France ' in France itself, ' le plus original et puissant des auteurs comiques depuis Moliere.' These are very great words : and in presence of them the historian who has no room for argument or controversy can only state the facts, and hint that perhaps a reservation of judgment may save those who dislike violent reversals of opinion from the danger of such a reversal some day, if they are not to find themselves in flagrant discord with authorities of the future as good as those who praise M. Dumas so highly now. The strong set of recent taste towards 'psychological' literature, 'problems,' 55* The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. 'missions,' purposes, and so forth, has naturally and justly con- ciliated that taste to an author who anticipated, met, served, and did his utmost to further it. And it may be observed that the artistic qualities of M. Dumas were not fully recognised till the greatest artists of France had passed or were passing away. He well deserves impartial study ; and it is possible that such study may finally assign him a place a good deal below the surprisingly high rank with which he has recently been brevetted, but still that of a most expert and fertile playwright and active thinker, and a writer of merit not much below the first. In 1854 appeared a now forgotten work by Victorien Sardou, born in 1831 and destined to be the favourite dramatist of the Victorien Second Empire, and to share with MM. Augier and Sardou. Dumas^f/j the chief rank among the dramatists of the last half of the century. Seven years later Nos Intimes gave him a great success, and, in 1865, La Famille Benoiton a greater, which he followed up with Nos Sons Vtllageots, 1866. Afterwards he wrote many plays, of which the finest by far, and one of the few comedies of this age likely to become classical, is the admirable Rabagas a satire of the keenest on the interested politicians who, in France as elsewhere, take up demagogy as a trade. Sardou attempted serious work in various plays, the best of which is, perhaps, Patrie, but it was not his forte. Satirical observation of manners, and especially of the current political and social follies of the day, is what he could do best, and in this peculiar line he had few rivals. But he is admitted to be one of the most unequal of writers. The progress of Sardou's reputation was in the opposite direction to that of the reputation of Dumas fils. He was more intimately connected with the Empire than was his rival, and (as viewed at least from an impartial outside) he satirised more the special weaknesses of Frenchmen as such. The ' problem ' treat- ment of Dumas flattered that peculiarity of mankind which endures strictures on vices when it will not bear strictures on follies ; while Sardou's Rabagas, with other work of his, is of the dangerous character touched in the saying that no man is seriously offended by being called a villain, but none will endure being shown as a. fool or a snob. It is at the same time true that M. Sardou's Cb. iv.] The Modern Drama. 553 strictly literary faculties were inferior to those of Dumas and even of Augier, an inferiority which told on the success of his more serious work, such as Patrie, La Haine, and Thermidor. But it may be said with some positiveness that the not infrequent attempt to make him out a second Scribe is absurd, and that his later unpopularity was chiefly due to the fact that he, partly by intention, partly not, brought too much home to Frenchmen the faults which had led to their great disaster. Instead of calling him a Scribe it would be much wiser to call him a Beaumarchais, partly manque. A peculiar offspring of the Second Empire was the brilliant burlesques of Offenbach, which owed at least part of their brilliancy to the librettos composed for them by MM. Meilhac and Halevy. The first-named of these had produced successful dramas as far back as 1859. The collaborateurs did not confine themselves to furnishing words for M. Offenbach's music, but attempted the prose drama frequently and with success, Froufrou being their most important work in this way. M. Gondinet and M. Pailleron also deserve notice as successful manufacturers of light plays, the latter in especial having an excellent wit (Le monde ou Von sennuie, Le Chevalier Trumeau], This may also be asserted of M. Hale'vy, who more recently, in Les Pelites Cardinal and other non-dramatic sketches, showed himself to even greater advantage than on the stage. Indeed the Cardinal family may be said to be the most striking literary creation of its kind for years. It may also perhaps be said that on MM. Hale'vy and Pailleron the reputation of France for real gaiety during the closing years of the century must chiefly rest. ' Psychology ' is not gay, and it is impossible to think that since the French endeavoured to give themselves up to it they have either equalled other nations to whom it comes more naturally, or have sustained their own 1 reputation in kinds to which they them- selves are naturally adapted. As for M. Gondinet, gossip represented him as for many years a sort of universal schoolmaster to bring neophytes to the understanding of theatrical practicabilities, a thing which in its way is as much a tell-tale of the state of matters theatrical in France at that time as other things which have been noted in the poetical department. 554 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. In a different class and earlier, Joseph Autran, a poet of the school of Lamartine, obtained a great reputation by his tragedy of La Fille vho did not greatly love the characteristics of his work, to be regarded as a ' grand homme de nos jours ' at any rate. His later works and history (see Postscript} helped the confusion; but on the bulk of his work the following judgment may be seriously ventured. The system on which ' Les Rougon Macquart ' is written is radically wrong, inasmuch as Art is not the servant but the equal of Science (whether the latter be rightly or wrongly conceived), and must discharge her own functions by her own laws. The charging and surcharging of individual works with commercial, social, professional, scientific, artistic detail is disgusting, and at its worst hopelessly dull. The unnatural grime, relieved with equally unnatural rose-pink at intervals, adds to the fault. The author, though undoubtedly possessed of strength, has no taste and no judgment, no faculty of presenting a complete character, and little of composing a really interesting plot. His style as style is vulgar, despite its vigour, and attains that vigour partly by the obvious trick of saying things and using words which are not generally said and used in polite society. On the other hand, an athletic faculty of grappling both with schemes and details must be granted, and twice or thrice (some, adding Une Page d" Amour, would say three or four times) in works not yet mentioned something better still appears. In the hapless passion and the fantastic scenery of La Faule de t Abbe 1 M our et \ in the real tragedy of La Joie de Vivre, where the irony of health Ch.v.J The Modern Novel. 569 and fate opposed is brought into play; and in the best scenes of the concluding number, Le Docleur Pascal, the author entirely transcends himself to relapse often in the same work, always in others, to his general level. And even in these, to which has to be added the opening of L'CEuvre, the arrangement and appeal of the whole are repulsive in some way or ways to good wits and tastes. It is therefore extremely improbable that M. Zola will live except by his bad side, which may be consulted more or less shamefacedly by amateurs of the disgusting. He incurs the doom which Diderot (no milk-and-water critic, and one who probably knew that what he wrote would recoil on himself) pronounced on those who meddle with lacenda ; and it may be added that his handling, even when his subjects are unobjectionable, is as a rule far too inartistic to give him a chance of long life. A qualification is usually, and to a great extent rightly, set to the inclusion of M. Alphonse Daudet among the Aiptonse chiefs of Naturalism. Both in his good and in his Baudot, bad points he was in the main other than they, and his con- nection with them was very mainly personal and accidental. Born at Nimes in the same year with M. Zola, he came to Paris early and had experiences in schools and public offices, publishing a volume of verse when he was but eighteen, and enjoying some success, when barely of age, at the theatre. He was not however an exceedingly young man when, in 1868 and the following year, he published the two charming books which established his reputation, and which perhaps, save in one instance, he never on sound literary principles excelled later. These were Letlres de Mon Moulin, the later and better of the two, a collection of short tales and studies quite exquisite at its best, and Le Petit Chose, a half autobiographic novel of great pathos, and, though somewhat limited and immature, full of promise. It cannot be said whether it was natural perverseness, or Naturalist theory, which led M. Daudet, in his later, more famous, and more popular work Jack, 1873; Froment Jeune et Risler AfnJ, 1874; Les Rois en Exil, 1879; Numa Roumestan, 1882; UEvange r liste t \'H>'&y, Sapho, 1884; L'Immorfel, 1889 to expose himself to two criticisms with which we shall deal presently. But meanwhile he had at intervals 57 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. V. in Tartarin de Tarascon and its continuations embodied, as formerly in Lei/res de Mon Moulin, the characteristics of his countrymen, the modern ' Mdridionaux ' of France, combining with this a faculty of universal presentation concerning not Tarascon, not Tobolsk, not Tangier, but the world nowhere else shown in recent French writing, and not often in any modern work. M. Daudet, who had written a good deal of personal reminiscence, was for some years after the publication of L'Immortel incapacitated from serious literary labour by ill-health, so that he published little or nothing. His elder brother Ernest was also a prolific litterateur, and his son Le'on produced in Les J\lorticoles an ugly but rather powerful naturalist study of hospital life. Of the two charges above mentioned, the first would be of little importance if M. Daudet himself or his maladroit admirers had not attempted to deny the facts. A strong tone of Dickens appears even in Le Petit Chose, but this might be accidental. The resemblances to the same author and to Thackeray in Jack and in Froment Jeune et Risler Aine' are so strong as to be practically inexplicable if M. Daudet was unacquainted with his English originals, while in one particular case, that of a passage of Fromenl Jeune compared with the famous jewel-scene in Vanity Fair, persuasion rises to certainty. This however is a very small matter. The other is not small. By an unlucky choice or chance, M. Daudet selected, as his province of the Naturalist document- study, the embodiment, under the most transparent disguises, of real personages and incidents in his novels. Thus Le Nabab utilizes his experiences as secretary to the Due de Morny; Les Rois en Exil, as indeed it honestly promises, exploits the dethroned King of Naples and other luckless or graceless crowned heads; Numa Roumestan is simply Gambetta ; and L'Immortel attempts to libel almost the whole personnel, at one time or another, dead or living, of the Academy. Nor is it any reply to this that the best fiction is always and must always be based on personal observation and experience. Such observation and experience do indeed furnish the material, the suggestion to be worked up and carried out by art: but the true artist never seeks the interest at worst base, at best factitious and vulgar of gossip and scandal. It is un- Ch. v.] The Modern Novel. 57 1 fortunate that there should be these objections to a writer of such charm as M. Daudet, but it is some consolation that Nemesis as usual was even with him, and made this clumsy copying an invariable hindrance rather than a help to his work. The best of this latter, outside the books already praised, is doubtless Sapho, where the ' key,' if it exists, is at any rate not ostentatiously paraded, and which is well worth contrasting with Nana as an instance of the not-vulgar and the vulgar ways of treating soiled subjects. The strongest pupil of the Naturalist school, a pupil positively stronger within his own limits than any of his masters except Flaubert, was Guy de Maupassant, a godson and close Q uy a e personal disciple of the author of Madame Bovary, Maupas- who was born in 1850 and died of general paralysis in 1893. M. de Maupassant (who was a Norman by birth and took his best scenery and figures from Normandy) first distinguished himself in three different ways about his thirtieth year, by publishing the book of verse already spoken of (a path which he did not pursue), by his preface (announcing a militant variety of Naturalist theory) to Flaubert's posthumous work, and by a contribution of extraordinary brilliancy to the joint volume of tales referred to under the head of M. Zola, Les Soirees de Me'dan. This, the best short story of its kind since MeVimee, and hardly inferior to Me'rime'e himself, was followed up during the ten or twelve years in which the author enjoyed life and health by very many short stories (the best of which on the tragic side is ' Monsieur Parent,' the best on the comic ' Les Sceurs Rondoli ') and by some half dozen substantive novels, Une Vie, JBel Ami, Mont Oriol, Pierre et Jean, Fort comme la Mart, Noire C T *-i i the chief literary critic of the Neo-Catholic movement during the later years of Louis Philippe's reign. Ozanam's chief work was his study on Dante. About this time a considerable resurrection of pulpit eloquence took place. Its chief representative was the already-mentioned Jean Baptiste Henri La- Lacordaire. cordaire, who was born in 1802 and died in 1861. Lacordaire was a partner of Lamennais in the Avenir. But, un- like his master, he took the papal reproof obediently, and con- tinued to preach in the orthodox sense. He entered the order of St. Dominic in 1840, but was nevertheless elected to the Assembly, in 1848, as a compliment, doubtless, to the fervent radicalism he had displayed earlier. Lacordaire's literary reputation is almost entirely confined to his sermons, the most famous of which were preached at Notre Dame. Other celebrated preachers of the Ch. vii.] 'Philosophy, Theology, and History. 591 middle of the century were, on the Catholic side, the Pere Fdlix, and, on the Protestant, Athanase Coquerel. Of the extreme orthodox party, during the Second Empire, the chief names from the point of view of literature were those of Monseigneur Dupanloup, bishop of Orleans, and the journalist, Louis Veuillot. The former, one of the most eloquent and one of the ablest men of his time in France, began with a certain liberalism, but gradually hardened into extremer views, distinguishing himself in his place in the Academy by violent opposition to the admission of M. Littre", as a positivist. The latter, as editor of the journal L'Univers, brought remarkable wit and a faculty of slashing criticism, not often equalled, to the service of his party, indulging, however, too often in mere scurrility. From this same literary point of view, the chief name in the theological literature of this period is once more on the unorthodox side. Since the days of Joseph de Maistre the Church had far more than held her own in the literary arena ; but the discourage- ment given at Rome to the followers of Lamennais seemed to bring ill luck with it. Ernest Renan, who, with some Ernest faults, was one of the most remarkable masters of Benan. French style in our time, was born in 1823, at Tre"guier in Brittany. He was intended for the priesthood, and was educated for the most part at clerical seminaries. On arriving, however, at manhood, he did not feel inclined to take orders; accepted the place of usher at a school, and soon distinguished himself by linguistic studies, especially on the Semitic languages. He also exercised himself a good deal in literary criticism and as a journalist of all work on the staffs of the Journal des De'bats and the Revue des Deux Mondes. His first really remarkable work, published in 1850, is Averroes et FAverroisme, a book injured by the author's want of sympathy with the thought of the middle ages, but full of research and of reflection. This gained him a post in the Paris Library. He then produced several works, dealing more or less with the Hebrew Scriptures. In 1860 he had a government mission to Phoenicia and Palestine, which enabled him to examine the Holy Land very attentively. On his return he was appointed to the chair of Hebrew at the College de France, but the outcry 592 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. against his unorthodoxy was so great that he was suspended. He began about this time to publish his famous series of Origines du Christianisjne with, for a first volume, a Vie de Jesus, imbued with a curious kind of eclectic and romantic rationalism. This was followed by numerous volumes dealing with the early ages of Christianity. In 1870 he made himself conspicuous by a letter to Strauss on the subject of the Franco-German War, and after the peace he continued and very considerably enlarged his literary work. Besides completing the Origines, he produced, in a form of semi-dramatic dialogue which he called 'Drame Philosophique,' some half-political, half-fanciful studies of great literary excellence, such as Caliban, a satire on democracy, La Fontaine de Jouvence, a brilliant mediaeval fantasy-piece, covering a violent attack on Germany, Le Pretre de Ne'mi, and lastly L'Abbesse de Jouarre, which excited grave disapproval by the tone of semi-philosophical Hedonism which pervaded it. This tone also appeared in others of Renan's later works, which were numerous. He followed up the Origines with an Histoire du Peuple d" Israel in the same style : he printed an early work, L'Avenir de la Science, which he had written in the troublous days about 1850: and he issued or collected various essays, Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse, Feuilks delache'es, the last-named not appearing till the year of his death, 1892. M. Renan was in point of style, for many years before his death, the most considerable prose writer of France who was a prose writer only. His prejudices were strong, and his strictly argu- mentative and logical faculty rather weak. In temperament he was what may be called a sentimental rationalist. But his literary knowledge was extraordinarily wide and very accurate, while his literary sympathies, though somewhat irregular in their operation, were warm. These peculiarities reflect themselves in his style, which is a direct descendant of that of Rousseau through M. Renan's own countryman, Chateaubriand. As a describer of scenery he was unmatched among his contemporaries. He had an extraordinary power of vivid and interesting narration inclining somewhat to the over-picturesque. No one was able more cleverly to seize on the most striking and telling features of a landscape, Ch. vii.] Philosophy, Theology \ and History. 593 a book, a character, and, by adroit dwelling on these, to present the whole as vividly as possible to his readers. No one again was more thoroughly master of a certain rather vague but telling eloquence which deals chiefly with the moral feelings and the domestic affections, and exercises an amiably softening influence on those who submit themselves to it. Although his style never gained in strength, its seduction and half-oratorical grace increased steadily till the time of his death ; and in a somewhat morbid way the Drames Philosophiques, the later essays, and passages in the Histoire d 'Israel possess a charm nowhere else to be found. M. Kenan's taste, however, was not impeccable, and the above referred-to mixture of sensuality and ' culture ' was found offensive enough by some, especially when put forth as- a substitute for religion. His criticism, moreover, was of the most uncritical character, and the arbitrary fantasies of his Histoire d' Israel (in which parts of the same document are accepted or rejected without the slightest evidence, and whole structures of conjectural history are built upon a single or not even a single word) excited protests not merely from the orthodox, but from all who under- stood the art of judgment. In history a group of distinguished names, besides a still larger number of names only less individually distinguished, deserve notice. First among these, in order of time, may be mentioned the two brothers Ame'dee and Augustin Thierry, the Historians, former of whom was born in 1787 and died in 1873, Thierry, while the latter, born in 1795, died in 1856. Both devoted them- selves to historical studies. But, while Ame'dee employed himself almost wholly on the history of Gaul during Roman times and on Roman history, Augustin, who was by far the more gifted of the two, took a wider range. He was born and educated at Blois, and for some time devoted himself to politics and sociology, being a disciple of Saint- Simon, and a fellow-worker of Comte. He soon, however, betook himself to history, and in 1825 published his ' History of the Norman Conquest in England.' Blindness followed, but he was able to continue his work. In 1835 he published Dix Ans d 'Etudes Historiques, and in 1840, what is perhaps his best work, Re'cits des Temps Me roving tens, a book 594 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. which has few rivals as exhibiting in a fascinating light, but without any sacrifice of historical accuracy to mere picturesqueness, the circumstances and events of an unfamiliar time. His last work of importance was an essay on the Tiers-Etat and its origin. Thierry is an excellent example of a historian handling, with little guidance from predecessors, a difficult and neglected but important age. Far less important as a historian, but distinguished by his double character of statesman and litterateur, in which he was Thiers. more fortunate than his two rivals in the same double career, Guizot and Lamartine, was Louis Adolphe Thiers, who was born at Marseilles, of the lower middle class, in 1797. He was brought up for the law, being educated at Marseilles and at Aix. Then he went to Paris, and after a short time obtained work on the Constilutionnel as supporter of the liberal opposition during the Restoration. His Histoire de la Revolution Frangaise appeared between 1823 and 1827, and brought him much reputation, which was very ill deserved as far as fulness and accuracy of information are concerned. French readers, however, have ever been indifferent to mere accuracy, and are given to admire even a superficial appear- ance of order and clearness ; at any rate, the book, added to his considerable reputation as a political writer, made him famous. A paper, which he founded in the beginning of 1830, the National, had much share in bringing about the Revolution of that year. After it Thiers was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Aix, and in a short time became a renowned debater. He held office again and again under Louis Philippe, and was believed to be in favour of a warlike policy. When he retired from office he began his principal literary work (a continuation of his first), ' The History of the Consulate and the Empire.' He took no part in the Revolution of 1848, and accepted the Republic, but was banished at the coup dtiat, though not for long. In 1863 he re-entered the Chamber, having constantly worked at his History, which tended not a little to reconstruct the Napoleonic legend. Yet he was a steady though a moderate opponent of the Second Empire. On its downfall, Thiers, as the most distinguished statesman the country possessed, undertook the negotiations with the enemy a difficult Ch. vii.] Philosophy, Theology, and History. 595 task, which he performed with extreme ability. He then became President of the Republic, which post he held till 1873. He died on the 3rd of September, 1877. The chief fault of Thiers as a historian is his misleading partiality, which is especially displayed in his account of Napoleon's wars, and reaches its climax in that of the battle of Waterloo. He has, however, great merits in lucidity of arrangement, in an eloquent if rather declamatory style, and in a faculty of conveying a considerable amount of information without breaking the march of his narrative. By a curious coincidence, the chief rival of Thiers in politics (at least during the greater part of his life) was of his own class and condition, and, like him, primarily a man of letters. Guizot. Franfois Pierre Guillaume Guizot was, however, ten years the senior of Thiers, having been born in 1787, at Nimes. Guizot was a Protestant, and his father perished in the Terror. He was educated at Geneva, but went to Paris early, and produced in 1809 (being then only twenty-two) a dictionary of synonyms. After this he did miscellaneous literary work of various kinds, and at the Restoration filled, as a moderate Royalist, various posts under government, being appointed, among other things, to a history professorship at the Sorbonne. He became more and more liberal, and in 1824 his lectures were forbidden. His literary activity was, however, incessant, his greatest work being a col- lection of early French historical writings in thirty-one volumes. He also paid much attention to the history of England, and published, in 1826, a Histoire de la Revolution d' Angleierre. This was followed by many other works, of which his ' History of Civilisation in Europe,' and ' History of Civilisation in France,' are the best known. He had been elected a member of the Chamber before the Revolution of 1830, and after it he was appointed Minister of Public Instruction, having the powerful support of the Broglie family. He was afterwards ambassador to London, and then Prime Minister, being, it is said, very much to blame for the Revolution of February. He escaped to London with some difficulty, and, though he revisited France, had to return to England at the advent of Louis Napoleon. He was not, however, a per- manent exile, but was allowed to enjoy his estate at Val Richer in Q q 2 596 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. Normandy. He died in 1874, having been incessantly occupied on literary work of all kinds (chiefly connected with French and English history) for the last half-century of his life. The chief of these in bulk was a voluminous history of France not completed till after his death. Guizot's enormous fertility (for not a twentieth of his works has been mentioned) perhaps injuriously affected his style, which is not remarkable. Sound common sense and laborious acquaintance with facts are his chief characteristics. A companion of Thiers at college, and a prottge of his during his years of power, was Frangois Mignet, who, born a year before his friend, outlived him. Mignet, too, wrote, and at the same time as Thiers, a History of the French Revolution of curiously different character. He became secretary of the Institute, and in 1837 a member of the Academy. His chief later works were on the ' Spanish Succession/ on Mary Stuart, and on Charles the Fifth after his abdication, with, last of all, the rivalry of Charles V. and Francis I. Mignet is as trust- worthy as Thiers is the reverse. But his historical manner is exceedingly dry, as also is his style, though it is correct and not inelegant. A very different writer was Jules Michelet, the most original and remarkable historian in point of style that France has Michelet. _ r _ ever produced. Born at Pans, in 1798, he was also educated there, and became a schoolmaster. Soon after he came of age he was transferred to the Ecole Normale. The Revolution of 1830, owing to the influence of Cousin and Guizot, opened great opportunities for historical students, and Michelet was enabled to publish not a few historical treatises, some of a rather specialist nature, others popular abstracts of French history. In 1838 he was appointed to a chair in the College de France, and, in con- junction with his friend Quinet, he took part in the violent polemic against the Jesuits which distinguished the time. He had already for some years begun his strange and splendid Histoire de France, 1833-1867, but he accompanied its progress with a crowd of little books of a controversial and miscellaneous character. Shortly before the Revolution of 1848 he began, and soon after the coup Ch. vii.] Philosophy, Theology, and History. 597 d'etat finished, his Histoire de la Revolution. He declined to take the oaths to the Empire, and so lost the place in the Record Office which he then held. He died in 1874, and, notwithstanding his incessant literary activity during his life, various unpublished works have appeared since, one of which, describing the hunger-pinched population of the Riviera, is a masterpiece of his volcanic style. This style is characteristic not only of his great History, but also of his smaller books, of which Des Je'suites, Du Pretre, Du Peuple, L'Ot'seau, L' Insects, L 'Amour, La Sordere (the last perhaps the most remarkable of all), are especially noteworthy. It is entirely unlike the style of any previous French writer, except that of Lamennais, who was, however, rather Michelet's contemporary than his predecessor, and that of Victor Hugo, in some of his more recent work. Broken and irregular in construction, it is extraordinarily vivid in colour, and striking in the outline of its presentment. The History of France is a book to which little justice can be done in the space here available. It is strongly prejudiced by Michelet's republican and anti-Catholic views, and, like all picturesque histories, it brings into undue relief incidents and personages which have happened to strike the author's imagination. But it is extraordinarily stimulating, full of energy and life, and almost unequalled in the power with which the writer restores and revives the past. For some time little justice was done in France itself to Michelet, despite his genius and his intense patriotism. He held aloof from the Romantics : and the more positive schools distrusted or despised his imaginative fanaticism. It must be confessed that he has no judg- ment, that he is sometimes almost silly, and constantly more than extravagant. But the re-creative power in which he is only sur- passed by Carlyle, whom he in turn surpasses in splendour of literary decoration, and this splendour itself, appear to be making their way at last. And it must be added that Michelet, despite his violence, is seldom or never disagreeable, even to those who disagree with him most. He hated nothing (except Jesuits) so much as England, aristocracy, and the Church, yet he has had no warmer admirers than some conservative orthodox Englishmen. A bosom friend of Michelet, and his compeer in the attack on 598 The Nineteenth Century. [Bk. v. the Jesuits, was Edgar Quinet, who was born near Bourg in 1803 and died in 1875. He was brought up for the Quinet. , . , . , . most part at his country home in a retired situation, where he early showed not only great devotion to literature, but a curious tendency towards philosophic mysticism. He travelled in Germany when young, and his translation of Herder's Philosophic der Geschichte introduced him to Cousin and gave him some profit and much reputation. He was sent to Greece on a government mission, and after a time received a professorship, first at Lyons, and then at Paris, though his republicanism did not recommend him. He was an active supporter of the Revolution of February, and a consistent opponent of the Empire, during which he remained in exile. Quinet's works, both in poetry and prose, are numerous. The chief are a great prose poem, or dramatic allegory, called Ahasuerus, 1834, a work on the early French epics (insufficiently informed, but appreciative and enthusiastic), Le Genie des Religions, 1843 ( a series of discourses full of the widest and vaguest gene- ralisation, but stimulating and generous), Les Re'volutions Jltalie, Merlin I ' Enchanteur ; 1861 (another curious book something after the fashion of Ahasuerus\ a nondescript miscellany on history and science entitled La Creation, 1869, and La Revolution, 1865. His poems (in verse) are Promethe'e, Napole'on, Les Esclaves, of which the first and last are dramatic in form. His style and thought were strongly tinged with mysticism, and with a singular undog- matic pietism, as well as with strong but speculative republicanism in politics. He is thus not a historian to consult for facts (though his knowledge both of history and literature was accurate and wide), but an inspiriting generaliser on the philosophy of history. Both in Michelet and in Quinet, especially in the latter, there is an affectation of the seer, as well as an undue fluency of language, and an absence of precision in form and place, which detract from their otherwise high literary value. The collected works of the first exceed fifty volumes, those of the second fill nearly thirty ; and much of this vast total is ephemeral in interest and unchastened in form. Although neither was a journalist, both exhibit the defects of a period of journalism, and in Quinet's case some have held that little but his Letlers will survive. Cb. vii.] Philosophy) Theology, and History. 599 The last of the greater names calling for mention is that of Alexis de Tocqueville, who was born, of a noble _ Tocqueville. Norman family, at Verneuil, in 1805. Tocqueville was educated for the bar, and called to it after the Restoration. But after the revolution of July he exchanged his appointment in the magistracy for a travelling mission to America, to examine the prisons and penitentiaries of the United States. He, however, studied something else than prisons, and, in 1835, published his famous work on ' Democracy in America.' He married an Englishwoman, and soon afterwards entered the Chamber. During the Republic he occupied positions of some importance. The Empire dismissed him from public life, but gave him the oppor- tunity of writing his second great book on the Ancien Regime. His health was, however, weak, and he died, in 1859, f con ~ sumption. The characteristics of Tocqueville as a historian (or rather as a philosophic essayist on history) are great purity and clearness of style, unusual logical power, and an entire absence of prepossession. He is one of the few historians who have treated democracy without either enthusiastic love for it on the one hand, or fanatical dislike and fear of it on the other ; and his two books are, and are likely to remain, classics. A very rapid survey must suffice for the remainder of the names in this division. A. de Barante, among numerous Minor other works of merit, is best known by a careful and historians, detailed history of the Dukes of Burgundy, which has also con- siderable merits of historical representation; J. A. Buchon, Petitot, J. A. Michaud, and J. Poujoulat, produced invaluable collections of the chronicles and memoirs in which France is so rich. J. J. Ampere occupied himself chiefly with Roman history, and with the history of France and French literature in the Gallo- Roman time. A. Beugnot, besides other work, arranged a precious collection of feudal law. Emile de Bonnechose wrote a good short history of France. Louis Blanc (an important actor in the Revolution of 1848) produced an elaborate and well -written history of the Revolution from the moderate republican side, and afterwards reprinted from newspapers some curious letters from England during his exile here. In opposition chiefly to Thiers, 6oo The Nineteenth Century. P. Lanfrey, in a laborious history of Napoleon, entirely overthrew the Napoleonic legend, and damaged, it would seem irreparably, the character of its hero. Philippe de Se'gur gave a history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon. Mortimer-Ternaux accomplished a valuable history of the Terror. M. Henri Martin was the author of the only recent history of France on a scale which challenges comparison with Michelet. It has no extraordinary literary merit and its author was something of a partisan. But it is full, sober, and fairly accurate. Fustel de Coulanges (1830-1889), who founded a school and has been highly extolled by it, first dis- tinguished himself in 1864 by a book on La die Antique, and followed it up by other studies of ' Institutions ' ancient and modern, usually learned and ingenious, but too often over- generalised. The Duke d'Aumale made something more than a mere addition to the works of ' Royal and Noble Authors ' in his History of the Princes of Condd. The Duke de Broglie, a politician, upon whom the political changes of France enforced political retirement, has produced a series of historical works on the 1 8th century and has edited the interesting memoirs of his father, the patron of Guizot. M. Ernest Lavisse, one of the best of living French historians, has also busied himself with i8th century history, especially that of Prussia. Of other recent memoirs by far the most remarkable, whether as literature or history, are those of Madame de Re'musat, mother of Charles de Rdmusat, who died early in the Restoration period, but whose memoirs and letters, not published till after her son's death (but already referred to here), have given her a posthumous reputation hardly inferior to that of any of the literary ladies before her and not likely soon to wane. POSTSCRIPT IT has seemed desirable, in order to complete this book fully according to its title without going beyond that, to add something as to some writers of distinction who, though belonging almost wholly to the nineteenth century, survived it, and in some cases did remark- able work for more or fewer years of the twentieth. Of new- comers it has not (see Preface] seemed necessary to say anything : and it is in no discourteous or neglectful spirit that some who still survive and have done not contemptible work, beginning it late in the last century, are here passed over. The maintenance of a definite standpoint is one of the most valuable, though perhaps not one of the most frequent, things in historical treatment ; and with every hope that some development parallel to that which followed 1815 may follow 1915, we may lay it down that none such has as yet made its appearance. Little need be added to what has been said above on the Post- Naturalist developments in poetry, some of which have been glanced at. The attempt to install M. Sully Prudhomme in the vacant position of ' first poet ' which has been noticed continued over the century line; but was put an end to by his death in 1907. Fran9ois Copp^e, his less ambitious but more natural contemporary, followed him next year, while the next again (1909) saw the deaths of Catulle Mendes (whose varied literary career had been crowned by an exceedingly valuable survey, for official purposes, of the later French poetry of the nineteenth century), and of the dramatist Sardou, who had never recovered the light and fleeting reputation usually granted to those of his profession who are not poets. Yet another year and M. Jean Moreas, whom we have mentioned as representative of a rather larger group of experimental versifiers in various schools, followed these, as, ten years earlier, in the closing years of the nineteenth century itself, Albert Samain, a musical 602 Postscript. enough writer of no particular sect much praised by some for a time, had preceded them all. In drama M. Pailleron had quitted a world suffering perhaps not less from ennui, but not by his fault, in 1899. More important than any of these in relation to the history of the department concerned, and as the death of a man of disputable merits but undoubted mark, was the fatality which put an end to M. Zola's life in 1903. He had been for some time before the event which was of a singular nature and took place in exile more famous for his enthusiastic defence of the unpopular side in the too notorious Dreyfus case than even for his novels. But these latter had lost none of that quality of iapage or ' sensation ' which has been attributed to them above. He completed his series of Les Iruis Villes with Rome, and then began another of the most ambitious character Les Qua/re Evangiks, of which he only lived to com- plete three, Fe'condite\ Travail, and Ve'rite\ the last appearing actually after his death. It was concerned with a transparent double of the Dreyfus case itself, the circumstances being tinged with characteristic grime ; the gospel of Fe'condite' lay in its double applica'.ion of the command to increase and multiply both to chil- dren and to food for them ; that of Travail in an attack on Capital and defence of Labour, but with a plea (not exactly to ' Labour's ' taste) for labour-saving machinery. In these three obscure and, as they have been called, ' apocalyptic ' books there is no loss of power; indeed, it may be doubted whether the author had ever previously shown so much. But they also showed, if not a complete, a very serious loss of guiding faculty. The propensity to inconvenient subject and treatment increases ; the mania for detail, technical and other, increases likewise ; and the inability to indicate definite character or to discipline the abundance of this detail into a satisfactory story, is most prominent of all. Yet perhaps no book of Zola's, offensive as these are in some ways, reconciles the critical reader more to him, as showing that he had a certain kind of poetic quality, although it was terribly mal- administered. The chief novelist whose death followed his more or less closely and had done remarkable work earlier was M. Andre" Theuriet (d. 1907). The main loss in criticism, and a very heavy one, of the earlier years Postscript. 603 of the century was (in 1906) M. Brunetiere, of whose work a sufficient account has been given above. His conservative instincts, as was natural, strengthened themselves in his later years, and to some extent limited in direction, though they never damaged in quality, his critical faculties. M. Edouard Rod, critic and novelist, died three years later. Of writers who did not reach 1 900, but who were not noticed in the main text, two, for different reasons, may be touched upon here. One, to be mentioned wholly for honour though he had some crotchets and might have had more knowledge, was a remarkable critic who died thirty years ago, but was very little known even in France till after his death, Ernest Hello (1828- 1885). His life was short, and troubled by disease ; he was a militant Catholic of the Veuillot type, and he used equally violent language about Victor Hugo and Shakespeare. But he admired both : and his critical faculty, disengaged from uncritical prejudices, was of the most unusual quality. On the other hand, M. Henri Becque (?-i899), who for some time before and after his death was hailed as a restorer of the French theatre, left a series of plays of which it is hardly too much to say that they have no literary quality whatever. But this quality existed abundantly in a third writer, who died much more recently, but whose work had attracted little notice till shortly before his death. This was- Auguste Angellier (1848-1911), who belonged to no school in poetry and whose poems were, for a time, very little read outside France or even in it, but who possessed per- haps a more genuine poetical faculty than any poet with the possible exceptions of MM. Prudhomme and Coppe"e who was alive in 1900. The excusableness and indeed the desirableness of cutting the main history short at the last year of the century may be almost sufficiently seen from this short necrology of the first decade which followed. No one of the names it contains can be said by any impartial critic to be one of absolutely the first class ; only M. Zola could under any estimate or calculus pretend to that class. Com- pare the fact with the results obtainable from applying a similar process to the last three decades of the preceding age, and the lesson must be clear. The twentieth century has the stage to itself ; all good wishes attend it ; but the history of its work may be left to future historians. INTERCHAPTER V. SUMMARY OF NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE. IN drawing up a summary of Nineteenth Century Literature in France half the matter may be said to be hardly in serious dispute ; as to the other half, authorities are in some disagreement. Although from time to time paradox, sometimes youthful, sometimes not, endeavours to belittle the importance of ' 1830,' or in other words of the Romantic movement which began ten or fifteen years before that date and reached concentration if not culmination in 1830 itself, no literary historian or critic who combines seriousness with intelligence has ever denied that the first half of the century is emphatically and for all time identified with that movement in France. We have seen already, and it is not necessary to recapitu- late at any great length, what it was, what it did, and who took part in it. We have seen that it was above all things, though it was alsd a process of innovation in some ways and reaction in others, a process of simple expansion that the entirely arbitrary and unnatural swaddling-bands which had been imposed on French literature in the century preceding (partly because the chief activity of the nation was then occupied in other ways, and latterly because there was a notable dearth of literary genius) were burst and thrown away. We have seen how it led to an immense development and variety in strictly poetic production, how it completely re- organised drama, created almost entirely new kinds of novel, found vent in the most remarkable critical literature that had yet been seen, and in varying ways, but with the same general spirit, impressed itself upon all departments of literature. In the course of this process of expansion the language received very large positive Summary of Nineteenth Century Literature. 605 accretions as well as new uses and fashions ; and these accretions, which naturally have more effect upon prose than on poetry, have altered French prose even more decidedly than the verse and the drama to which the movement at first addressed itself. It will also have been seen that one main result of the movement was to assimi- late French much more to other languages and other literatures than had hitherto been the case. The French i8th century had indeed by no means entirely neglected foreign literatures; and it had even bestowed especial attention upon English. But there had always been a feeling, tacit or expressed, that France had nothing to learn from any other nation in point of literary form. Now the Romantics went for subjects, for styles, for literary kinds as well as for words, and, as far as they dared, for prosody, to England and Spain, to Germany and Italy, and even to the Straits of Malacca. More than half the preceding book, however, is only an exposition of these things at such length as was possible, and it need not be repeated save in the shortest but exactest of summaries. The Romantic movement immensely strengthened French poetry, pro- duced French prose at its best of a higher and more varied kind than had ever been known, lowered the excellence of average prose in perhaps an almost compensating degree, widely enlarged the range of kinds open to the practitioner, but left him much more dependent on his individual genius, and less able, by observing con- secrated rules, to turn out work of a certain average perfection in the kinds commonly attempted. So far there is no difference of opinion, or none that requires more serious attention than is due to such statements as that ' Hugo n'existe pas/ or that Gautier is an obsolete curiosity of literature. But in regard to the second half of the century, and to the literary characteristics of it, there is more difference of competent and expert opinion. It is not uncommon to hold not merely that about the close of the reign of Louis Philippe or the beginning of the Empire the original force of Romanticism proper was spent, but that a distinct reaction of the kind later known as Naturalism set in, with the tendency championed by Taine and others to materialism instead of idealism in philosophy, and to ' psychological,' 606 Summary of Nineteenth Century Literature. 1 realist/ and other forms of actual observation in poetry, drama, and fiction : the representatives of this being in different ways Flaubert, Baudelaire, the Goncourts, Dumas fils, and even, in so far as his careful depicting of foreign countries went, Gautier. And those who hold this would write 'Naturalism' as the ticket of 1860-1900, allowing ' Romanticism' to be that of 1820-1860. In reply to this several things have to be observed. First, that the unquestioned leader of French literature till his death so recently as 1885 was Victor Hugo, and that although there might be the usual attempts at revolt there was no real rejection of his influence, which was to the last Romantic and purely Romantic. Secondly, that the greatest man of letters of the second generation, Flaubert, though claimed by Realists and Naturalists, and though himself, indulging in some scoffs at the men of 1830, is admitted by almost all good critics to be Romantic to the core. Thirdly, that in all the so-called Naturalists the best part of their work is not due to any resilience from Romantic principles, but the reverse. There is, however, a stronger and more decisive consideration than any of these, and this is that all characteristics of the literature of the second half of the century which are of the slightest import- ance were present in the first. They were present as part of that revolt against classical rules and conventions which formed the most characteristic part of Romanticism itself, and of which there has been no reversal. The worst tendencies of Naturalism as well as the best, the preference for garbage as well as the observation of nature, the pessimism and the preciousness, the analysis and the psychology, are present in 1830 as in 1880. Only and this is where the opportunity of fallacy undoubtedly comes in what had been in the earlier time part of the general revolt, of the general search for something new and free and unconventional, took in these special respects during the later a more distinct character of theory and ' pose.' To which it may be added that as the genial force of the century died down (and such a dying down can hardly be denied in the second generation as compared to the first, much less in the third as compared to the second) theory, pose, exaggeration, systematised eccentricity, became more and more necessary to supply what was lacking. Summary of Nineteenth Century Literature. 607 At any rate whether it be preferred to divide the time sharply between Romanticism and Naturalism, or rather to see in the Naturalist side, which is far from being the whole, of the later production, a debased, exaggerated, and distorted form of Roman- ticism itself history has confirmed prophecy in declaring that the force of Naturalism itself was spent by 1900, and that nothing has taken its place in the shape of a dominant movement supported by imposing idiosyncrasies. Schools of poetry, so called, arose but no great poet ; the immense production of novels was not arrested, but no Dumas on the one side and no Balzac on the other appeared. Drama and the more serious prose forms told the same tale. Only criticism had, if not exactly a renaissance (for it had never died down), a fresh and vigorous growth; and criticism, though it sometimes accompanies, more frequently succeeds great creative periods *. These symptoms are the symptoms, if literary diagnosis is possible at all, of ebb-tide, or of the interval between ebb and flood in literature. It is no business of the literary historian, though it may be an allowable, healthful, and agreeable exercise for the literary critic, to attempt to prophesy the length of that interval or the period when the tide will again flow. It is the business of the literary historian to record the facts. And, while those facts, as far as the history of the century goes, have been pointed out to the best of this historian's ability, he is also entitled to point out that, in more than the fact that we have already witnessed the close of a chronological period, there are at least strong signs of our being near to the end of a literary one. That literary period has been fruitful as few have been, and more full of incident and achievement than almost any other of the same length in France. To some extent and in some kinds especially poetry, criticism, and prose fiction it has altered for the greater and better, not merely the total achievement of French, but 1 Some illustrations of these remarks will be found in the two Prefaces and in the Postscript immediately preceding. 608 Summary of Nineteenth Century Literature. its relative position as regards other languages and literatures. It has been hinted, both in this place and elsewhere, that in some respects, in some of the qualifications which in the concluding chapter will be specified as peculiar to the literature as a whole, there has not been quite the same effect that France in gaining exotic gifts has perhaps allowed her domestic and patrimonial estate in literature to remain a little unimproved, even to go a little to waste. But the gains have far exceeded the losses ; the balance is altogether to credit ; and the period may go to rest with the full consciousness of having done its duty. It is not at all impos- sible that in the immediate or at least the near future there may be something of a return to that comparative unity of European litera- ture, that absence of sharp national divisions, which existed to some extent in the Middle Ages, and was interrupted, partly by ecclesiastical, partly by political causes, at and after the Renaissance. But so long as the separate national literary productions of separate centuries are regarded by themselves, the French literature of the ipth century will have one of the most distinct places among them, and one not far from the highest. CONCLUSION. IN the five books of this History the reader has, it is believed, before him a sufficient though necessarily brief description of the various men and works whereof knowledge is desirable to enable him to perceive the main outlines of the course of French litera- ture. In the inter- chapters some attempt has been made to sum up the general phenomena of that literature as distinguished from its particular accomplishments during the chief periods of its development. Beyond this neither the scale of the book, nor its plan as indicated in the preface, has permitted of indulgence in generalising criticism. But it has been suggested by authorities whose competence is not disputable that something in the nature of a summary of these summaries, pointing out briefly the general history, accomplishments, and peculiarities of the French tongue in its literary aspect during the ten centuries of its existence, is re- quired, if only for the sake of a symmetrical conclusion. It may be urged on the other side that the history of literature like all other histories, and perhaps more than all other histories is never really complete, and that there is consequently some danger in attempting at any given time to treat it as finished. He must have been a miraculously acute critic who, if he had attempted such treatment of the present subject about the year 1815 or earlier, would not have found his results ludicrously falsified by the event but few years afterwards. But this drawback only applies to general- isation of the pseudo-scientific kind which attempts to predict : it can be easily guarded against by attending to the strict duties of the historian and, without attempting to speak of the future, dealing only with the actually accomplished past. The first thing, and perhaps the most important thing, which must strike anyone who looks upon French literature as a whole, is that, taking all conditions together, it is the most complete R r Conclusion. example of a regularly and independently developed national litera- ture that presents itself anywhere. It is no doubt inferior in the point of independence to Greek, but then it has a much longer course, considered as the exponent of national character. It has a shorter course than English, and it is not more generally exposi- tory of national characteristics ; but then it is for a great part of that course infinitely more independent of foreign influences, and, unlike English, it has scarcely any breaks or dead seasons in its record. Compared with Latin (which as a literature may be said to be entirely modelled on Greek) it is exceptionally original: compared with Spanish and Italian it has been exceptionally long- lived and hale in its life : compared with German it was exception- ally early in attaining the full possession of its faculties. Just as (putting aside minor and somewhat pedantic considerations) no country in Europe has so long and so independently developed a political history, so in none has literary history developed itself more independently and for a longer space of continuous time. No foreign invasion sensibly affects the French tongue ; no foreign influence sensibly alters the course of French literature. It has been shown at intervals during this history how little direct influ- ence classical models had on the original forms of literature in France, how completely German and Celtic contributions of sub- ject were assimilated, how the Proven9al examples of form were rather independently followed than literally or slavishly adopted. The dawn or rather the twilight of the Renaissance seemed to threaten a more powerful and dangerous admixture. But the native genius of the language triumphed, and finally, in the Pl^iade reforms, reduced to harmlessness the Rhe'toriqueur innovations and the simul- taneous danger of Italianising. The criticism of Malherbe, harm- ful in some ways, served as a counterpoise to the danger of Spanish influence which was considerable in the early years of the seven- teenth century, and by the eighteenth the idiosyncrasy of French was so strong that, great as was the effect successively produced by English and by German, it was unable to do more than slightly modify French literature itself. Yet again the singular avrapKt to of French may be seen by turning from its general accom- plishments at different times to its particular forms. No one of Conclusion. 611 these was directly adopted from any foreign, not even from any classical example, with the doubtful exception of the classical tragedy. The French made their own epic, their own lyric, their own comic and miscellaneous drama. They may be said almost to have invented the peculiar and striking kind of history called the memoir, which has characteristics distinguishing it radically from the classical commentary. They apparently invented the essay, and though they only borrowed the beast-fable, they are entitled to the credit of having seen in it the germ of the short verse tale which has no direct moral bearing. All the nations of Europe, so to speak, sent during the middle ages their own raw material of subject to be worked up by French or French-speaking men into literary form. France therefore gives (next to Greece, and in some respects even before Greece) the most instructive and trustworthy example extant of the chronology and order of spontaneous literary development first poetry, then drama, then prose : in poetry, first epic, then lyric, then didactic and miscellaneous verse : in drama, first ceremonial and liturgic pieces, then comedy, then artificial tragedy : in prose, first history, then miscellaneous work, and lastly artificial and elaborate fiction. It is a curious and somewhat complex phenomenon that the cycle which began with verse fiction should apparently end with fiction in prose, but the foregoing pages will have shewn sufficiently how dangerous it would be to generalise from this. One thing however may be safely concluded from the mere fact of this remarkable resistance to foreign influence, or rather from the still more remarkable power of assimilation which this resist- ance implies. The literature which has been able to exert both must have very strongly marked general characteristics of its own. As a matter of fact French literature has these characteristics : and a brief enumeration and description of them may complete, more appropriately than anything else could do, the survey of its history. French literature, notwithstanding the revolution of fifty years ago, is generally and rightly held to be the chief representative among the greater European literatures of the classical rather than the romantic spirit. It is therefore necessary to define what is meant by these much controverted terms ; and the definition which best R r 2 6ia Conclusion. expresses the views. of the present writer is one somewhat modified from the definition given by Heine. The terms classic and romantic apply to treatment not to subject, and the difference is that the treatment is classic when the idea is represented as directly and with as exact an adaptation of form as possible, while it is romantic when the idea is left to the reader's faculty of divination assisted only by suggestion and symbol. Of these two modes of treatment France has always inclined to the classic : during at least two centuries, the seventeenth and eighteenth, she relied upon it almost wholly. But the fertility of her mediaeval and Renais- sance literature in strictly romantic examples, and the general tendency of the literature of the nineteenth century, have shewn a romantic faculty Inferior, but only inferior, to the classical. To illustrate this statement by a contrast, it may be pointed out that in Greek the romantic element is almost in abeyance, while in English all without exception of our greatest masterpieces have been purely romantic. Or to put the matter in yet other words, the sense of the vague is, among authors of the highest rank, rarely present to a Greek, always present to an Englishman, and alternately present and absent, but oftener absent, to a Frenchman, The qualities which this general differentia has developed in French may now be enumerated. The first is a great and remarkable sobriety. It is true that there is nothing more extravagant than an extravagant Frenchman, but that is the natural result of reaction. As a rule, the contribu- tions of matter which France received so abundantly from other nations are always toned and sobered by her in their literary form- ation. The main materials of her wonderful mediaeval literature of fiction were furnished by Wales, by Germany, and by the East ; all of them, to judge by the later but more or less independent handlings which we have from indigenous sources, must have teemed with the supernatural. In the Chansons de Gestes, in the Arthurian romances, and even in the earlier Romans d'A ven- tures, the supernatural, though recognised as became a devout age and country, is yet to a certain extent rationalised. It rarely obtrudes itself, and it still more rarely presents itself with exagger- ated attributes. A continual spirit of criticism exhibits itself Conclusion. 613 throughout French literature; it always, as represented by its most numerous and on the whole most famous representatives, tends to order, to measure, to symmetry. The next characteristic is abundant and almost superabundant wit. The terms wit and humour have been argued over even more than classical and romantic, and it is equally impossible to enter into the controversy here. Suffice it to say that, according to the most satisfactory definition of humour (thinking in jest while feeling in earnest), wit might be defined to be thinking in jest without interrogating the consciousness as to whether the feeling is earnest or not. At a very early period, as soon indeed as the French spirit had thoroughly emerged from its German-Latin- Celtic swaddling clothes, this faculty of half reckless thinking in jest made its appearance. In classical literature wit is notoriously absent with rare exceptions (Aristophanes and Lucian being almost the only ones of importance); in scarcely any other modern literature does it make its appearance early. But it shows in French by the twelfth century, and it increases during every century that succeeds: while joined to sobriety it begets that satirical criticism, which is so noteworthy a secondary product of French. A third quality closely connected with the two former but not, like satirical criticism, simply derived from them, is the close attention to form which has always distinguished French. At the present time, despite the great advance made by other literatures and a certain falling off in itself, French prose is on the average superior in formal merit to any other prose written in a modern language. If we look back for eight hundred years, French verse is found to be more carefully and artistically arranged than the corresponding poetical beginnings of any other European country. In the excogitation of careful rules and the deft carrying out of those rules no literature can on the whole approach this except Greek. No literature therefore, with that exception, gives so much of the pleasure which is given by the spectacle of not unreasonable difficulty skilfully overcome in a game which is well played. A fourth merit is to be found in the inventiveness of Frenchmen of letters. In no literature is there a greater variety, and in none is that variety so obviously the effect not of happy blundering but 6 1 4 Conclusion. of organised and almost scientific development of the possibilities of art. The wonderful fertility with which the early Trouveres handled and re-handled the motives of the Arthurian and Carlovin- gian legends has been noticed ; and, as a very different but comple- mentary instance, the surprising success and variety with which a scheme so limited as that of the classical tragedy was applied, deserves mention. At the present day in one important depart- ment of literature (the drama) inventiveness is almost limited to Frenchmen, and there are few periods of their present history at which they have not in this respect led the van in one department or in another. Yet another characteristic must be noted, which is, in respect to matter, the complement of the already mentioned attention to form. This is the singular clearness and precision with which not merely the greatest Frenchmen of letters, but all save the least, are accustomed to put their meaning. Whereas the two great classical languages, from the licence of order given by their abundant inflections and complicated syntax, are sometimes enigmatic ; whereas German notoriously lends itself to the wrapping up of a simple meaning in a cloud of words ; whereas English seems to encourage those who use it not indeed to obscurity but to desultoriness and beating about the bush, French properly used is almost automatically clear and precise. Rivarol's somewhat sententious conceit that the French language has a ' probite" attache'e a son ge'nie ' is not a conceit merely. That this lucidity is sometimes accompanied by want of depth is quite true, but it is equally true that it is often mistaken for it. There is no want of depth in Descartes or in Malebranche, yet there are no clearer writers in the whole range of philosophic literature. To these main characteristics others which are in a way corol- laries might be added, such as urbanity, ease, ready adaptation to different classes of subject, and the like. But those already dwelt upon are the principal, and they have sufficed to make French, as far as general usefulness and interest go, the best vehicle of ex- pression in prose among European languages. In poetry it is not quite the same. Most of the qualities just enumerated are in poetry but of secondary use, some of them are almost directly Conclusion. 615 unfavourable to the vagueness, the indefinite suggestion, the ' making the common uncommon/ which are necessary to poetry. The clearness of French prose has a tendency to become colour- less in French poetry, its sobriety turns to the bald, its wit to conceits and prettinesses, its inventiveness to an undue reliance on complicated devices for creating an artificial attraction, its sense of form and rule to dryness and lack of passion. Moreover the merely sonorous qualities of French render it a difficult instrument for the production of varied poetical sounds. It is almost wholly destitute of quantity, and the intonation which supplies that want is of such a kind that hardly any foot but the iambus is possible in it. On the other hand its terminations admit of elaborate and harmonious rhymes (indeed French poetry without rhyme is a practical impossibility), and the abundance of mute e endings has facilitated the adoption of an artificial source of variation of sound in the so-called ' masculine and feminine ' rhyming which is in its perfection almost peculiar to the language. With these aids and by the most elaborate attention to metre and euphony, the great poets of France have been enabled to surmount to a very large extent the corresponding difficulties of their prosody. But they have not on the whole been equally fortunate in surmounting the diffi- culties caused by the very genius of the language the clear, sober, critical ethos of French. This is an enemy to mystery, to vagueness, to what may be called the twilight of sense all things more or less necessary to the highest poetry. It will not I think be alleged by any impartial reader of this book that its author is insensible to the majesty or to the charm of French verse. But it is impossible for me to admit that that majesty and that charm are shewn in the highest degree (in the degree in which not merely Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Shelley, Heine, shew them, but many minor names in Greek, in English, and in German), by any but a very few Frenchmen, and by these in more than comparatively few places. A very competent and obliging French critic has said that it is impossible for any Frenchman to agree with me exactly in my estimate of La Fontaine, and probably there is no better instance than La Fontaine of the fundamental difference of con- ception of poetry which corresponds to the English channel. 616 Conclusion. Inexhaustibly inventive, full of criticism of life, a master of har- monious language, managing rhythms and metres with a skill only the more artful that it seems so artless, La Fontaine yet has too little of dawn or sunset, still less of twilight or moonlight, too much of the light of common day to deserve, according to my estimate, the title of poet in the highest degree. The same may be said of most other French poets except a few who are to be found almost exclusively in the middle ages, in the Renaissance, and in the nineteenth century. Only in one form of the highest poetry, the passionate declamation which is in effect oratory of the most picturesque kind, France has never been wanting, and in this she has for half the time been mightily helped by the possession of the magnificent Alexandrine metre. 1 At the close of the eleventh century and at the beginning of the twelfth we find the vulgar tongue in France not merely in full organisation for literary purposes, but already employed in most of the forms of poetical writing. An immense outburst of epic and narrative verse has taken place, and lyrical poetry, not limited as in the case of the epics to the north of France, but extending from Roussillon to the Pas de Calais, completes this. The twelfth century adds to these earliest forms the important development of the mystery, extends the subjects and varies the manner of epic verse, and begins the compositions of literary prose with the chronicles of St. Denis and of Villehardouin, and the prose ro- mances of the Arthurian cycle. All this literature is so far con- nected purely with the knightly and priestly orders, though it is largely composed and still more largely dealt in by classes of men, trouveres and jongleurs, who are not necessarily either knights or priests, and in the case of the jongleurs are certainly neither. With a possible ancestry of Romance and Teutonic cantilena, Breton lot's, and vernacular legends, the new literature has a certain pattern and model in Latin and for the most part eccle- 1 The courtesy of Messrs. A. and C. Black allows me to repeat the following passage from an article of mine in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For this repetition I may borrow from a better writer than myself the excuse that a man cannot say exactly the same thing in two different sets of words so as to please himself, or perhaps others. Conclusion. 617 siastical compositions. It has the sacred books and the legends of the saints for examples of narrative, the rhythm of the hymns for a guide to metre, and the ceremonies of the church for a stimulant to dramatic performance. By degrees also in this twelfth century forms of literature which busy themselves with the unprivileged classes begin to be born. The fabliau takes every phase of life for its subject ; the folk-song acquires elegance and does not lose raciness and truth. In the next century, the thirteenth, mediaeval literature in France arrives at its zenith and remains there until the first quarter of the fourteenth. The early epics lose something of their savage charm, the polished literature of Provence quickly perishes. But in the provinces which speak the more prevailing tongue nothing is wanting to literary develop- ment. The language itself has shaken off all its youthful incapa- cities, and, though not yet well adapted for the requirements of modern life and study, is in every way equal to the demands made upon it by its own time. The dramatic germ contained in the fabliau and quickened by the mystery produces the profane drama. Ambitious works of merit in the most various kinds are published ; Aucassin el Nicolette stands side by side with the Hisloire de Saint Louis, the Jeu de la Feuillie with the Miracle de The'ophile, the Roman de la Rose with the Roman du Renart. The earliest notes of ballade and rondeau are heard ; endeavours are made with zeal, and not always without understanding, to naturalise the wisdom of the ancients in France, and in the graceful tongue that France possesses. Romance in prose and verse, drama, history, songs, satire, oratory, and even erudition, are all represented and repre- sented worthily. Meanwhile all nations of Western Europe have 'come to France for their literary models and subjects, and the greatest writers in English, German, Italian, content themselves with adaptations of Chretien de Troyes, of Benoist de Sainte More, and of a hundred other known and unknown trouveres and fabu- lists. But this age does not last long. The language has been put to all the uses of which it is as yet capable ; those uses in their sameness begin to pall upon reader and hearer; and the enormous evils of the civil and religious state reflect themselves inevitably in literature. The old forms die out or are prolonged only in half- 618 Conclusion. lifeless travesties. The brilliant colouring of Froissart, and the graceful science of ballade- and rondeau-writers like Lescurel and Deschamps, alone maintain the literary reputation of the time. Towards the end of the fourteenth century the translators and political writers import many terms of art, and strain the language to uses for which it is as yet unhandy, though at the beginning of the next age Charles d'Orle'ans by his natural grace and the virtue of the forms he used, emerges from the mass of writers. Through- out the fifteenth century the process of enriching or at least in- creasing the vocabulary goes on, but as yet no organising hand appears to direct the process. Villon stands alone in merit as in peculiarity. But in this time dramatic literature and the literature of the floating popular broadsheet acquire an immense extension all or almost all the vigour of spirit being concentrated in the rough farce and rougher lampoon, while all the literary skill is engrossed by insipid rheiortgueurs and pedants. Then comes the grand upheaval of the Renaissance and the Reformation. An immense influx of science, of thought to make the science living, of new terms to express the thought, takes place, and a band of literary workers appear of power enough to master and get into shape the turbid mass. Rabelais, Amyot, Calvin, and Herberay fashion French prose; Marot, Ronsard, and Regnier refashion French verse. The Pteiade introduces the drama as it is to be and the language that is to help the drama to express itself. Montaigne for the first time throws invention and* originality into some other form than verse or than prose fiction. But by the end of the century the tide has receded. The work of arrangement has been but half done, and there are no master spirits left to complete it. At this period Malherbe and Balzac make their* appearance. Unable to deal with the whole problem, they deter- mine to deal with part of it, and to reject a portion of the riches of which they feel themselves unfit to be stewards. Balzac and his successors make of French prose an instrument faultless and admirable in precision, unequalled for the work for which it is fit, but unfit for certain portions of the work which it was once able to perform. Malherbe, seconded by Boileau, makes of French verse an instrument suited only for the purposes of the drama of Conclusion. 619 Euripides, or rather of Seneca, with or without its chorus, and for a certain weakened echo of that chorus, under the name of lyrics. No French verse of the first merit other than dramatic is written for two whole centuries. The drama soon comes to its acme, and during the succeeding time usually maintains itself at a fairly high level until the death of Voltaire. But prose lends itself to almost everything that is required of it, and becomes constantly a more and more perfect instrument. To the highest efforts of pathos and sublimity its vocabulary and its arrangement are still unsuited, though the great preachers of the seventeenth century do their utmost with it. But for clear exposition, smooth and agreeable narrative, sententious and pointed brevity, witty repartee, it soon proves itself to have no superior and scarcely an equal in Europe. In these directions practitioners of the highest skill apply it during the seventeenth century, while during the eighteenth its powers are shown to the utmost of their variety by Voltaire, and receive a new development at the hands of Rousseau. Yet, on the whole, it loses during this century. It becomes more and more unfit for any but trivial uses, and at last it is employed for those uses only. Then occurs the Revolution, repeating the mighty stir in men's minds which the Renaissance had given, but at first experiencing more difficulty in breaking up the ground and once more rendering it fertile. The faulty and incomplete genius of Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael gives the first evidence of a new growth, and after many years the Romantic movement completes the work. That movement occupied the whole of two generations, and, though at the close of the second its force may appear to be spent, the results remain, and no new movement of real importance is visible, and the efforts of the Romantics them- selves have been crowned with an almost complete regeneration of letters, if not of language. The poetical power of French has been once more triumphantly proved, and its productiveness in all branches of literature has been renewed, while in that of prose fiction there has been almost created a new class of composition. Finally, we may sum up even this summary. For volume and merit taken together the product of these eight centuries of litera- ture excels that of any European nation, though for individual 62O Conclusion. works of the supremest excellence they may perhaps be asked in vain. No French writer is lifted by the suffrages of other nations the only criterion when sufficient time has elapsed to the level of Homer, of Shakespeare, or of Dante, who reign alone. Of those of the authors of France who are indeed of the thirty but attain not to the first three, Rabelais and Moliere alone unite the general suffrage ; and this fact roughly but surely points to the real excellence of the literature which these men are chosen to represent. It is great in all ways, but it is greatest on the lighter side. The house of mirth is more suited to it than the house of mourning. To the latter, indeed, the language of the unknown minstrel who told Roland's death, of him who gave utterance to Camilla's wrath and despair, and of him who in our day sang how the mountain wind makes mad the lover who cannot forget, has amply made good its title of entrance. But for one Frenchman who can write admirably in this strain there are a hundred who can tell the most admirable story, formulate the most pregnant reflexion, point the acutest jest. There is thus no really great epic in French, few great tragedies, and those im- perfect and in a faulty kind, little prose like Milton's or like Jeremy Taylor's, little verse (though more than is generally thought) like Shelley's or like Spenser's. But there are the most delightful short tales, both in prose and in verse, that the world has ever seen, the most polished jewellery of reflexion that has ever been wrought, songs of incomparable grace, comedies that must make men laugh so long as .they are laughing animals, and above all such a body of narrative fiction, old and new, prose and verse, as no other nation can show for art and for originality, for grace of workmanship in him who fashions, and for certainty of delight to him who reads. INDEX. About, Edmond (1828-1885), nove- list and journalist, 560. Academic influences, 458, 478-480. criticism, 530. Academic Fran9aise, 306, 326, 339, 476-480. Actors, societies of, too, 101. Adalbert, St., 3. Adam, mystery of, 89. Adam de la Halle (13th cent.), trou- vere and dramatist, 56, 57, 93. Adenes le Roi (I3th cent.), trouvere, 19 note i, 74, 75. Adolescence Clementine, 146. Adolphe, 407. Aguesseau, H. F. d' (1668-1751), orator, 429, 452. Aisse, Mile. (1693-1 733), letter-writer, 417. Alba, 28. Alberic of Besan9on (r.2th cent.), poet, 24. Albigensian War, Chronicle of, 26. Alembert, Jean le Rond d' (1717- 1783), encyclopaedist, 391, 434, 453. 455. 47 1 - Alexander of Bernay (I2th cent.), trouvere, 37. Alexandrines, 61, 62, 185, 272. Alexis, Vie de Saint, 8 note. Atiscans, 15, 19. Alixandre, Chanson (f, 36. Allainval, Leonor J. C. Soulas d' (1700-1753), dramatist, 384. Almanack de nos Grands Hommes, 438. Alzire, 380. Amadas et Idoine, 78. Amadis of Gaul, 209, 291, 292. Amants Magnifiques, 284. Amerval, Eloy d' (isth cent.), 144. Amis et Amiles, \\, 13-15, 19, 120. story of, 13. Amphitryon, 284. Amyot, Jacques (1513-1594), trans- lator, 204-206, 218, 242, 618. poet, Ancien Theatre Francais. 95 seqq. Anciennes Poesies Francises, 153, 154. Andrieux, Fran9ois G. J. S. (i^g- 1833) ,dramatist and poet,375, 386. Andromaque, 274. Andromede. 270. Angellier, Augnste (1848-1911), poet, 603. Antioche, Chanson d", 16, 35, 40, So. Antiquites de Rome^ 175. Antony, 508. Apologie pour Herodote, 138, 166. Argenson, Rene Louis de Voyer, Marquis d' (1694-1757), memoir- writer, 414. Arnauld, A. (1612-1694), Port Royal- ist, 39. 3io, 346. Arnault, A. V. (1766-1834), poet and fabulist, 375. Arthur, 30. tale of, its origins, 30, 123. ARTHURIAN ROMANCES, 30-36, 38 note, 612, 616. Arthurian cycle, French order of, 31, ~ 78 ' Romances, spirit and literary value of, 34- comedy of, 40. Arvers, Felix (1806-1851), poet, 526. Asseneth, 120. A ssi 'ses de Jerusalem, 117. Assonance, 10, 23. Ast>-e"e, 292, 294. Athalie, 274, 275, 277. Aubignac, Fran9ois Hedelin, Abbe d' (1604-1676), dramatist, novelist, and critic, 265, 293. Aubigne, Agrippa d' (1550-1630), poet and historian, 184, 185, 225, 226, 229. Aucassin et Nicolette, 77, 120, 617. Audefroy le Bastard (i2th cent.), trouvere, 52. Augier, E. (1820-1889), dramatist, 54 8 > 549- Aulnoy, Marie C., Comtesse d' (d. 1720), tale-teller, 300. 623 Index. Autran, Joseph (1813-1877), poet and dramatist, 554. Baif, Jean Antoine de (1532-1592), poet, 168, 170, 177, 178, 182, 198. Lazare de (P-I547), translator, 191. Balada, 28. Ballade, 82. Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis, 13. Balzac, Honore de (1799-1850), no- velist, 510-512, 515, 607. Balzac, Jean Guez de (1594-1655), essayist and letter-writer, 327, 328,618. Banville, Th. de (b. 1820), poet, 534, 535, 554- Barbey d'Aurevilly, J. (b. 1808), mis- cellaneous writer, 557. Barbier, Auguste (1805-1882), poet, 524. Barbter de Seville, 524. Barlaam and Josaphat, 65. Baron (1643-1729), comic writer and actor, 289. Bartas, Guillaume de Saluste du (i544- I 59), Pet, 183, 184. Barthelemy, Louis, Abbe (1750-1812), scholar, 399. Bassompierre, Fra^ois, Marechal de, memoir-writer, 309. Bast art de Bouillon, 16, 80. Baude, Henri (1430-1495), poet, 135. Baudelaire, C. (1821-1866), poet and critic, 531-534, 606. Baudouin de Sebourc, 1 6, 80. Bayle, P. (1647-1706), philosopher and encyclopaedist, 347. Beaumarchais, Caron de (1731-1799), dramatist, 385. Becque, H. (? -1899), dramatist, 603. Belisaire, 430. Bellay, Guillaume (1491-1543) and Martin ($-1559) du, memoir- writers, 228. Bellay, Joachim du (15 24-1 560), poet, 174-176, 179, 180, 191, 242. Belleau, Kemy (1528-1577), poet, 176, 198. Belloy, Burette de (1727-1775), dra- matist, 380. Benedictine students, 475. Benoist de Sainte More (1154-1189), trouvere and chronicler, 37, 38, 62, 617. Benserade, Isaac de (1612-1691), poet, 250. Beranger, Pierre Jean de (1780-1857), poet, 482-484. Bergerac, Cyrano de (1620-1655), dramatist and novelist, 280, 296. Bergier, Nicolas Sylvestre (1718- 1790), theologian, 432. Berlioz, H. (1803-1869), miscellaneous writer, 586. Bernard, C. de (1805-1850), novelist, 558. Beroalde de Verville (1558-1612), tale-teller, 166. Bersuire, Pierre (1290-1352), trans- lator, 1 1 6. Bertaut, Jean (1552-1611), poet, 187, 310. Berte aus grans Pi&s, 1 7, 75. Bertin, Antoine (1752-1 790), poet, 373. Bertrand, L. (1807-1841), poet, 527. Berwick, James Fitzjames, Duke of (1660-1734), memoir- writer, 316. Be"senval, Pierre Victor, Baron de (1722-1791), memoir- writer, 414. Bestiaries, 65, 118. Beyle, Henri (1783-1842), novelist and critic, 490-492. Beza, Theodore (1519-1605), dra- matist and translator, 190, 203. Bible, 64. Bibliothtque des Romans, 21, 474. Bichat, M. F.X. (i 771-1802), scientific writer, 473. Billaut, A. (1600-1662), poet, 252. Blanc, L. (1813-1882), historian, 599. Blancandin et I 'Orguilleuse a" 'Amour, 77; / Blandin de Cornoalha, 26. Blason, 182. Blasphtmatturs, 99. Blonde d? Oxford, 79. Blot (1610-1655), poet, 250. Bodel, Jean (b. 1269), trouvere, 36, 5 6 , 73, 89. Bodin, Jean (1530-1596), lawyer, 220. Boethius, Proven9al poem on, 24, 25. Boe'tie, Etienne de la (1530-1563), poet and political writer, 181, 214, 215, 221. Boileau, Nicolas (1636-1711), poet and critic, 256-259, 618. Boisrobert,F.LeMetelde (1592-1 662), poet and dramatist, 250. Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Index. 623 Vicomtede (1754-1840), political writer, 470. Bordigne, Charles de(i6th cent.), poet, MS- Borel, P. (1809-1859), poet and novelist, 526. Bornier, H. de (b. 1825), dramatist, 554- Borron, Robert and Helie de (i2th and 1 3th cent.), 3 1 . 32. Bossuet, Jacques Benigne (1627-1 704), theologian and preacher, 352- 355- Bouchardy, Joseph (1810-1870), dramatist, 547. Bouchet, Guillaume (d. 1607), tale- teller, 166. Bouchet, Jehan (1476-1555), historian and poet, 143, 144, 166. Bonciqualt, Jean le Maigre (d. 1421), memoir-writer, 86. Bougainville, Louis Antoine de (1729- 1811), traveller, 474. Bouilhet, L. (1821-1872), poet, 537. Boulainvilliers, Henri de (1658-1722), historian and political writer, 410. Bourdaloue, Louis (1632-1704), theo- logian, 359. Bourgeois Gentilhomme, 284. Bourgot, Paul (b. 1852), novelist, 573. Boursault, Edme (1638-1708), drama- tist, 287. Bradamante, 196. Brantome, Pierre de Bourdeilles, Abbe de (1540-1614), memoir-writer, 221-224. Brebeuf, Guillaume de (1618-1661), poet, 259. Brienne, Comte de (i7th cent.), memoir-writer, 311. Brizeux, Auguste (1803-1858), poet, 525- Brodeau, Victor( 1 470- 1 540) ,poet , 1 49. Brosses, Ch. de (1709-1777), mis- cellanist, 475. Brueys, D. A. de (1640-1725), drama- tist, 289. Brun de la Montaigne, 74, 77. Brunetiere, F. (1849-1906), critic, 582, 603. Brunetto Latini (1220-1294), scholar, n 8, 124. Bueves de Commarchis, 75. Buffon, George Lewis Leclerc, Count de (1707-1788), naturalist, 471. Bugjargal, 498. Buttet, Claude (i6th cent.), poet, 181. Cabanis, J. P. G. (1757-1808), scien- tific writer, 473. Calmet, Dom Augustin (1672-1757), biblical historian, 412. Calvin, Jean (1509-1564), theologian, 201-203, 618. Campistron (1656-1737), dramatist, 279, 288. Candide, 395. Canso, 28. Cantilenae, 6, 51. Caracteres of La Bruyere, 337. Carloix, Vincent (i6th cent.), memoir- writer, 226. Carte de Tendre, 293. Cassel, glossary of, 3. Castelnau, Michel de (1500-1592), memoir- writer, 229. Castoiement fun Pere d son Fits, 66. Caylus, Madame de (1673-1729), memoir-writer, 316. Cazotte, Jacques (17 20-1 792), novelist, 398. Ctnacle, the, 508, 519. Cent Nouvclles Nouvelles, 121, 163, 255- Chamfort, N. (1741-1794), moralist and critic, 437, 438. Champcenetz (1759-1794), journalist, etc., 436, 437. Champier, Symphorien (1472-1535), poet, 143. Chanson, 54, 483. Chanson d"Alixandre, 36, 38. Chanson d 'Amour, 54. Chanson de Roland, argument of, n. Chanson des Albigeois, 27. Chansonnettes, 54. CHANSONS DE GESTES, 2, 5, 6, 9-21, 33. 36, 39, 4 2 , 61, 62, 80, 612. Chanson des Rues et des Bois, 501. Chansons du XV reme Sihle, 138. Chapelain, Jean (1595-1674), poet, 251, 257, 273, 321. Chapelle, C. E. L. (1626-1686), poet, 250. Chardry (i3th cent.), trouvere, 65. Charlemagne a Constantinople, Voyage de, 17. Charlemagne in Chansons, 12, 13, 15, 18. 624 Index. Charleval, C. J. L. Fancon de Ris, seigneur de (1612-1693), poet, 250. CJiarroi de Nimes, !c, 15. Charron, Pierre (1541-1603), moralist and theologian, 219, 220. Chartier, Alain (1390-1458), poet, 82, 85,86, 117, 137, 141, 242. Chasles, P.L. (1798-1873), critic, 582. Chassignet, J. B. (1578-1620), poet, 248. Chastellain, Georges (1403-1475), chronicler, no, 121, 136. Chateaubriand, Fra^ois Auguste de (1768-1848), novelist and mis- cellaneous writer, 401, 402, 619. Chatillon, A. de (1810-1884), poet, 526. Chaulieu, Abbe de (1639-1 720), poet, 260. Chanssee, Nivelle de la (1692-1754), dramatic poet, 383, 387. Chef 'd"(Kuvre Inconnu, 511. Chenedolle, C. de (1769-1833), poet, 375. 44- Chenier, Andre Marie de (1762-1794), poet, 374, 375. Chenier, Marie Joseph (1764-1811), poet, critic, and journalist, 373, 375, 493- Cherbuliez, V. (b. 1832), novelist, 560. Chltifs, 1 6. Cheval de Fust, 75. Chevahrie OgierdeDanemarche, la t \6. Chevalier & la Charrette, 33, 34, Chevalier as Deux Espies, 78. Chevalier au Cygne, 16, 80. Chevalier au Lyon, 33, 34. Chivalry, spirit of, 25, 34. Cholieres, Sieur de (i6th cent.), 166. Chrestien de Troyes (d. c. 1195), trou- pe, 33, 34, 36, 617. Chrestien, Florent (1541-1596), trans- lator and political writer, 232. Christ, Passion du, 90. Chronique de du Guesclin, 61. Chronique de Messire Jacque de La- laing, 121. Chronique des Quatre Premiers Valois, 107. Chronique de Rains, 106. Chronique du Regne de Charles IX, 5I5- Chronique scandaleuse of Jean de Troyes, 112. Chroniquts of Froissart, 108. Croniques, Grandes et Inestimable!, du Grant et Enorme Giant Gar* gantua, 157. Chroniques of Jean Lebel, 107, 108, 109. Chute d'un Ange, 485. Cinna, 269. Cinq Mars, 522. Clari, Robert de (i2th cent.), chroni- cler, 1 06. Claude, Jean (1619-1687), theologian, 35 1 - Claveret (i?th cent.), dramatist, 265. Clllie, 294. Cltomades, 75. CltopAtre, drama, 191, 193, 196, 198. Cleop&tre, novel, 279, 293. Cleveland, 394. Cligts, 34. Chtandre, 267, 269. Codes and Legal Treatises, 117. Colle", Charles (1709-1783), poet, dra- matist, and memoir-writer, 376. Collerye, Roger de (i6th cent.), 142, *43- Colletet, G. (1598-1659), poet, 250. Collin d'Harleville, J. F. (1755-1806), comic poet and dramatist, 386. Combat des Trente, 61. Comedie des Academistes, 280 note. Comldie des Chansons, 280. Comidie des Come"diens, 280. Comidie des Comedies, 280. Comtdie des Proverbes, 280. Comedie Italienne, 378. Comedie Larmoyante, 383. Comines, Philippe de (c. 1447-1511), memoir- writer, 131-133. Commedia dell' arte, 280. Commedia erudita, 280. Compare Mathieu, 400. Comte, A. (1796-1851), philosopher, 589. Comtesse de Ponthieu, 120. Condamnation de Banquet, 99, 190. Conde, B. and J. de (i4th cent.), trouveres, 64. Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de (1715- 1780), philosopher, 467. Condorcet, Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat (1743-1794), economist and philosopher, 463. Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle, 520. Index. 625 Confession du Vicaire Savoyard, 459. Confessions, 397, 457, 458, 459, 460. Confrerie de la Passion (licensed, 1402), 100. Conjuration de Fiesque, 306, 313. Conjuration des Espagnols centre Venise, 307. Conquete de Constantinoble, 104, 105, 107. Conspiration de Waist ein, 306. Constant, Benjamin (1767-1830), po- litician and novelist,4O4,4o7,459. Consuelo, 513. Contes Drolatiques, 512, 515. C antes d ' Espagne et (fltalie, 519. Contes cTEutrapel, 165. Contes etjoyeux Devis, 165. Contes of La Fontaine, 253-256. Contrat Social, 458, 459. Contreditz du Songecreux, 142. Contre-un, 221. Conversation du Pere Canaye, 333. Coppee, F. (1842-1908), poet, 539, 554,6oi. Coq-a-1'Ane, 146, 149, 170. Coquillart, Guillaume (? 1421-1510), poet, 134, 135, 136. Goran, Ch. (b. 1814), poet, 537. Corinne, 404, 405. Corneille, Pierre (1606-1684), poet and dramatist, 267-272. Corneille, Thomas (1625-1706), dra- matist, 278, 288. Corrozet, Gilles (1510-1568), poet and fabulist, 150. Cottin, Madame (1773-1807), novel- ist, 406, 407. Coucy, Chatelain de (i3th cent.), Poet, 55. Mathieu de (i5th cent.), chronicler, til. Courier, Paul Louis (1772-1825), translator and political pamphlet- eer, 441, 482. Couronnement Lovs, 15. Cousin, Victor (1792-1868), philoso- pher, 488-490. Couvin, Watriquet de (i4th cent), trouvere, 64. Crebillon the Elder, C. Jolyot de (1674-1763), dramatist, 379, 380. Crebillon the Younger, C. P. Jolyot de (1707-1778), novelist, 398. Cretin, Guillaume (d. 1525), .poet, 137. !38> H4. 181, 242. Crispin, Rival de son Mattre, 382. Cromwell, 498. Cuvier, G. C. (1769-1832), naturalist, 473- Cygne, Chevalier au, 16, 25, 80. Cymbalum Mundi, 162, 163, 220. Dacier, Madame (1654-1720), 339 note. Dames Galantes, 223. Dancourt, F. C. (1661-1725), dra- matist, 289. Dangeau, Ph. de Courcillon, Marquis de (1638-1720), memoir-writer, 3i7- Daniel, 89. Daniel, Pere (1649-1728), historian, 306. Daphnis et Chloe, 205. Dassoucy, C. Coypeau (1605-1674), miscellanist, 296. Daubenton, Louis Jean Marie (1716- 1800), naturalist, 472. Daudet, A. (b. 1 840), novelist, 569-5 7 1 . Daurat, Jean (c. 1507-1588), poet, 168, 170, 175, 178, 183. Daurel et Beton, 19 note 2. Defense et Illustration de la Langue Franfaise, 170, 178. Deffand, Madame du (1697-1780), letter- writer, 417, 418. Definition of Chansons de Geste, 10. De PAllemagne, 404, 405. De r Amour, 491. De FEglise Gatticane, 468. De r Esprit, 465. De r Homme, 465. Delavigne, Casimir (1793-1843), poet and dramatist, 493. Delille, Jacques (1758-1813), poet, 372, 479- Denis Pyramus (i3th cent.), poet, 77. Dipit Amonreux, 281, 282. Desaugiers, M. A. M. (1772-1827), poet, 376. Descartes, Rene" (1596-1650), philoso- pher, 340-346, 614. Deschamps, Emile (1795-1871), poet, 538. Deschamps, Eustache (1328-1415), poet, 82, 84. Descort, 27. Desfontaines, P. F. Guizot (1685- .1745), critic, 432, 433. S S 626 Index. Deshonlieres, Madame (1638-1694), poetess, 260. Desmahis, J. F. E. (1722-1761), dra- matist, 385. Desorgues, J. T. (1763-1808), poet, 373- Des Periers, B. (1500-1544), tale- teller, 150, 162, 163. Desportes, Philippe (1546-1606), poet, 186, 187. Destouches, P. H. (1680-1754), dra- matist, 383. Deux Bordeors Ribaux, 42. Dh>in du Village, 385. Diable Amoureux, 398. Diable Boiteux, 389, 390. Dialects, 5, 114. and Provincial Literatures, 5. Dictionnaire de Trlvoux, 297. Diderot, Denis (1713-1784), encyclo- paedist, 383, 396, 421, 434, 453, 454- Discours de la Methode, 342, 344, 345. Dits and Debats, 42, 63, 64, 85, 93, 95, 96. Dive Bouteille, 159, 161. Dolet, Etienne (1509-1544), poet, translator, and printer, 150, 206, 207, 242. Dolopathos, 44, 77. Doon de Mayence, 17. Dorat, C. J. (1734-1780), poet, 376. Doublet, Jean (i6th cent.), poet, 181. Dovalle, Ch. (1807-1829), poet, 525. Droz, G. (b. 1832), novelist, 560. Dubos, Jean Baptiste (1670-1742), historian, 410. Du Cange, see Dufresne. Ducis, J. F. (1733-1816), poet and dramatist, 381. Duclos, Charles Pinaud (1704-1772), historian and moralist, 395, 414, 429. Dufresne, Charles (Dn Cange) (1614- 1688), historian, scholar, 325. Dufresny, Charles Riviere (1648- 1724), dramatist, 287, 288, 289, 448. Duguay-Trouin, Rend (1673-1736), memoir- writer, 317. Dulaurens, Henri Joseph (1719-1797), satirist and novelist, 400. Dumas the Elder, Alexandre (1806- 1870), dramatist and novelist, 508-510, 518, 527. Dumas the Younger, Alexandre (1824- 1 895), dramatist and novelist, 550. Dupanloup, F. A. P. (1802-1878), theologian, 591. Du Pape, 468. Du Perron, Cardinal (1556-1618), poet and controversialist, 203, 248. Duplessis-Mornay (1549-1623), con- troversialist, 203, 221. Dupont, P. (1821-1870), poet, 537. Durant, G. (1550-1615), poet, 232. Duras, Madame de (1778-1829), novelist, 406. D'Urfe, Honore (1567-1725), novelist, 292. Durmart le Gallois, 78. Dn Ryer, Pierre (1605-1658), drama- tist, 265. Eastern stories in Early French litera- ture, 44. Ecole des Femmes, 283. Ecole des Maris, 283. Emaux et Camtes, 518. Emile, 397, 458. Encyclopaedia, 452. Enfances Godefroy, 16. Enfances Ogier, 75. Enfants sans Souci, 101. ' Enjambement,' 76, 499. Epinay, Madame d' (1725-1783), memoir-writer, 415. Erckmann-Chatrian, novelists, 557. Erec et Enide, 34. Esprit des Lois, 448, 449. ' Esprit Gaulois,' 40, 154, 235. Esquisse des Progres de I' Esprit Humain, 463. Essais of Montaigne, 214, 215, 326, 337> 344- Essai sur les Mceurs, 411. Essai sur les Regnes de Claude et de Neron, 413, 454. Essai sur F Indifference en mattire de Religion, 487. Essai sur fOrigine des Connoissances Humaines, 467. Essayists, historical, 308. Estienne, Henri (15281598), scholar, 138, 166, 209. Estrees, F. A. d' (i7th cent.), memoir- writer, 309. Estuld; 44. Etovrdi, 281, 282. Index. 627 Eugene, 192, 193. Eulalie, St., Song of, 4, 51. Expedition Noctunte, 407. Fables of La Fontaine, 253, 254, 255, 299- 375- Fabliaux, 5, 39-44, 95, 121, 125,474. Fabre d'Eglantine, P. F. N. (1755- 1794), poet and dramatist, 386. Fdcheux, 283. Fagan, C. B. (1702-1755), dramatist, 384- Faguet, Emile (b. 1847), critic, 584. Farce, 95, iSS, 190. Farce du Cuvier, 97 ; Farce de Folle Balance, 98 ; Farce du Paste et de la Tarte, 96. Faron, St., Song of, 3, 7. Fatrasie, 166, 170, 396. Fauchet, Claude (1530-1601), critic, 207, 208. Fauvel, 49. Femmes Savantes, 285. Fenelon, F. do Salignac de la Mothe- (1661-1715), theologian, 355. Fenin, Pierre de (d. 1506), chronicler, in. Festin de Pierre, 282, 283. Feuilles de Grimm, 434. Feuillet, O. (1821-1890), dramatist and novelist, 559. Feydeau, E. (1821-1874), novelist, 560-563. Fiancee du Roi de Garde, 255. Fierabras, 6, 19. Fievee, Joseph (1767-1839), novelist, etc., 406. Fitzwarine, story of, 120. ' Five Poets,' the, 250, 267. Flamenco, 26. Flaubert, G.(i82i-i88i),novelist,56i. Flechier, Esprit (1632-1 710), preacher, 360. Fleury, Abb (1640-1723), historian, 306. Flore et Blanchejleur, 77. Florian, G. P. de (1755-1794), poet and fabulist, 375. Folks Entreprises, 189. Fontaine, Charles (1513-1587), poet, 150. 154- Fontaines, Madame de (d. 1730), novelist, 391. Fontanes, L. de (1757-1821), poet, 375. 440. Fontaney, A. C. (1803-1837), poet and critic, 526. Fontenay-Mareuil, F. Dnval de (1595- 1647), memoir- writer, 308. Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de (1657-1757), miscellaneous wri- ter, 425. Forbin, C. de (1656-1733), memoir- writer, 317. France, Anatole (b. 1844), poet, novel- ist, and critic, 538, 573, 583. Freron, Elie Catherine (1719-1776), journalist, 432, 446. Froissart, Jean (1337-1410), historian and poet, 82, 84, 85, 108-110. Fromentin, Eugene (1820-1876), no- velist and critic, 586. Furetiere, Antoine (1620-1688), novel- ist and miscellaneous writer, 297. Gaboriau, E. (1835-1873), novelist, 558. Gace Brule (i3th cent.)> poet, 56. Galerie du Palais, 269. Galiani, Abbe (1681-1 753), economist and letter-writer, 422, 462. Gamon, Achilla (i6th cent.), memoir- writer, 229. Ganelon, 12, 13, 17. Garat, D. J. (1749-1833), journalist", etc., 436, 437. Gargantua, 157-159. Garin le Loherain, 16. Gamier, Robert (1545-^. 1601), dra- matist, 196, 197. Gaspard de la Nuit, 533. Gassendi (1592-1655), Neo-Epicurean philosopher, 347. G autier, Theophile (1811-1872), poet, critic, and novelist, 516-518, 521, 524, 605, 606. Gaymar, Geoffrey (b. 1149), chroni- cler, 62. Gazetteers, the rhyming, 261. Gtnie du Christianisme, 401, 403. Genlis, Madame de (1746-1830), no- velist, 406, 415. Geoffrey of Monmouth (i2th cent.), historian, 30 seqq. Gerard de Roussillon, 16. Gerard de Viane, 1 7. Gerson, Jean Charlier de (1363-1429), theologian, 114, 115. Gernzez, E. (1799-1865), critic, 581. Gesta Romanorum, 44. S S 2 628 Index. Geste, Meaning of, 9 note I. Gielee, Jacquemart (i3th cent.), poet, 47- Gilbert, N. J. L. (1751-1780), poet, 373- GY/.&&J, 383, 389, 390. Gillot, Jacques (i6th cent.), political writer, 232. Ginguene, P. L. (1748-1816), critic, etc., 436. Girardin, Madame de (1804-1855), dramatist, 549. Girartz de Rossilho, 19, 24, 25. Giron le Courtois, 32, 35. Glatigny, A., poet, 538. Globe, 497. Glorieux, 383. Godeau, A. (1605-1672), poet, 250. Golden Violet, etc., 28, 29. Gombaud, J. Ogier de (1570-1666), poet, 248. 292. Comber ville, Marin le Roy Seigneur de (1600-1647), poet and novel- ist, 250, 293. Goncoart, E. and J. de, miscellaneous writers, 564-566, 606. Gourville, Jean Herault de (d. 1703), memoir- writer, 315. Graal, the Holy, Chapter iv, passim. Grammont, Marechal de, and his family, literary work of, 316. Grandes Chroniques de France, 104, 1 06, 107. Grand Cyrus Le, 292-294. Grandeur et Decadence des Remains, 448. Grands Capitaines, 222. Grands Jours d'Auvcrgne, 361. Gratien du Pont(i6th cent.), poet, 144. Great St. Graal, 31. Gre'ban, Arnoul and Simon (i5th cent.), dramatists, 93. Cresset, J. B. L. (1709-1777), poet and dramatist, 371, 384. GreVin, J. (1540-1570), dramatist and poet, 182, 195. Grimm, F. M. (1723-1807), miscel- lanist, 417. Gringore, Pierre (1478-1544), poet and dramatist, 141, 188, 189. Grandeur, 289. Guenee, Antoine (1717-1803), contro versialist, 432, 446. Guiart, Guillaume (i3th cent.), chro- nicler, 62. Guillaume de Palerne, 77. Guise, Fran9ois, Duke of (1519-1563), memoir-writer, 229. Henri, Duke of (1614-1663), me- moir-writer, 316. Guizot, F. P. G. (1787-1874), his- torian, etc., 595. Guttingner.U. (1785-1866), poet, 494. Guyot de Provins, trouvere, 56, 64. or Kyot, author of Proven9al Percevale, trouvere, 26. Habert, Fran9ois (1520-1562 or 1574), poet, 150. Philippe (1605-1637), poet, IRQ. Haillan, du (1537-1610), historian, 230. Halevy, L. (b. 1834), dramatist and novelist, 553. Hamilton, Anthony (1640-1720), poet and tale-teller, 260, 300. Han cTIslande, 498. Hardy, Alexandre (1560-1631), dra- matist, 264. Helgaire, Bp., 3 note 2. Hello, Ernest (1828-1885), critic, 603. Helvetius, Claude Adrien (1715- 1771), philosopher, 465. Renault, E. J. F., President (1685- 1770), lawyer, etc., 415. Hcnriade, 368, 370, 371. Henri de Valenciennes (l2th cent.), chronicler, 105. Heptameron, 163-165. Htraclius, 270. Herberay des Essnrts, Nicholas (d. 1550), translator, 209, 210, 291. Hernani, 496, 498, 499. Heroet, Antoine (d. 1568), poet, 151. Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules, 317. Histoire Ancienne, 410. Histoire Comique de Francion, 296, 297. Histoire de rAnarchie de Pologne, 413. Histoire de Port Royal, 505. Histoire Litttraire de la France, 474. Histoire des Indes, 412. Histoire des Oracles, 426. Histoire des Variations des glises Protestantes, 353. Historia Britonum, 30 note. Historiettes of Tallemant des Reaux, 3 6 3- Holbach, P. H. Thiry Baron d' (1723- \l%<])),philosophe, 466, 473. Index. 629 Horace, 269. Holman, Frai^ois (1524-1593), 230. Hugo, Victor Marie ( 1 802-1 885 \ poet, novelist, and dramatist, 497-5 4, 606. Hugues Capet, 17. Hugues de Rotelande, trouvere, 38. Huon dc Bordeaux, 15, 17. H uon de Mery ( 1 3th cent.) , trouvere, 7 6. Tamils (Barbier), 524. lambes (Chenier), 375. Illusion comique, 267, 269. Impromptu de Versailles, 283. Ines de Castro, 378. Institution Chritienne, 201, 202. Iphigenie, 275. Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem, 402, 403- Jacques de Lalaing, 121. Jacques le Fataliste, 396, 400. Jalousie du Barbouillc, 282, 284. Jamyn, Amadis (1530-1585), poet, 176, 181, 186. Janin, J. (1804-1874), novelist and critic, 557. Jargon, 129. Jaufre, 26. Jean cle Tuim (i3th cent.), trouvere, 1 20. Jeannin, Pierre (1546-1632), diplo- matist, 228. Jehan de Paris, 155 note. Jeu du Prince des 'Sots et de Mere Sotte, 99, 1 88. Jeu parti, 54. Joconde, 255. Jodelle, Etienne (1532-1573), drama- tist and poet, 178, 191-194, 197. Joinville, Jean de (1224-1319), chro- nicler, 1 06, 107. Joly, Claude (1607-1700), and Guy (I7th cent.), memoir-writers, 312. Jonah t Book of, 4. Joubert, Joseph (1754-1824), pensfe- vvriter, 439-441. Joufrois de Poitiers, 79. Jourdains de Blaivies, 15, 17. Juives, 197. Julie, 458. Jus de la Feuillie, 93. Juvenal des Ursins, Jean (1350-1431), chronicler, ill, 112. Karr, A. (b. 1801), novelist and jour- nalist, 557. Krudener, Madame de (1764-1824), novelist, 406. Labe, Louise (1526-1566), poetess, 151, 152, 180, 260, 494. Labiche, E. (b. 1815), dramatist, 550. La Boe'tie, Etienne de (1530-1563), poet, etc., 181, 214, 221. La Borderie (i6th cent.), poet, 151. La Bruyere, Jean de (1645-1696), novelist, 336-339- La Calprenede, Gauthier de Costes, Seigneur de (1610-1653), novel- ist, 293. La Chatre, E. de (i7th cent), memoir- writer, 311, 315. La Chaussee, Nivelle de (1692-1754), dramatist, 383, 387. La Condarnine, C. M. de (1701-1774), scientific writer, 473. Lacordaire, J. B. H. (1802-1861), journalist and preacher, 590. Lacretelle, C. J. D. (1766-1855), his- torian, 436, 437. La Fare, Marquis de (1644-1712), poet, 260. La Fayette, Madame de (1634-1693), novelist, 294, 297-299, 334, 391. La Fontaine, Jean (1631-1697), poet and dramatist, 252-256, 61=;, 616. Lafosse, A. de (1653-1 708), dramatist, 279. Lagrange-Chancel, F. J. de (1677- 1758), poet, 369. La Harpe, J. F. de (1739-1803), dra- matist and critic, 431, 437, 440. Lais, 5, 59, 81. La Jacquerie, 515. La Legende des Siecles, 500, 501. La Marche, O. de la (i5th cent), chronicler, no. Lamartine, Alphonse Prat de (1791- 1869), poet, historian, and novel- ist, 484-487. Lambeit (liCors), 1 3th cent, trouvere, 37- Lamennais, Felicite Robert de (1782- 1854), theologian and journalist, 487, 488. La Mettrie, J. O. de (1/09-1757), philosopher, 465. La Morte Amoureuse, 518. Index, La Mothe le Vayer, F. de (1588- 1672), moralist, etc., 347. La Motte, Antoine Houdart de (1672- 1731), dramatist and critic, 427, 429. Lancelot du Lac, 32, 34, 35, 36. Lanfrey, P. (1828-1877), historian, 600. Langue d'Oc, 4, 22, 23. Langue d'Oil, 4, 22. L' Annie Terrible, 501. La Noue, F. de (1651-1691), memoir- writer, 225. J. B. Sauve (i 701-1 761), dramatist, 385. La Nonvelle Htlo'ise, 397, 460. La Peruse, Jean de (i6th cent.), poet, 181, 195. Lapidaries, 118. Laprade,V. de (i 8 12-1 887), poet, 525. La Princesse de Cleves, 298. Larivey, Pierre (b. c. 1540), comic author, 198, 199. La Rochefoucauld, Frar^ois de Mar- cillac, Duke de (1613-1680), moralist and memoir-writer, 298, 299. 334-336. La Salle, A. de (1398-1460?), ro- mance-writer, 120-122, 124, 128, 155- La Taille, Jacques de (1541-1562), poet and dramatist, 182, 195. La Taille, Jean de (1540-1608), poet and dramatist, 182, 195, 198. Latin to French, relation of, 1-3. Latin Literature, influence of, on Early French, 2. La Tour Landry, Chevalier de (i4th cent.), moralist, 115, 116. L'Avare, 284. Laws of William the Conqueror ; 1 1 7. League, preachers of the, 204. Le Bel Inconnu, 78. Lebel, Jean (i4th cent.), chronicler, 107, 108. Lebrun, Escouchard (1729-1807), poet, 372-373. Le Capitaine Fracasse, 518. . Le Cid, 269, 477. Leconte de Lisle, C. M. R. (1820- 1894), poet, 536. VEcossaut, 263, 433. Leger, St., Life of, 4. Legislation Primitive, 470. Legouve, G. M. J. G. (1764-1812), poet and dramatist, 381. Legouve, Ernest (b. 1807), dramatist, 550- Le Houx, Jean (d. 1616), poet, 232. Le Lepreux de la Citi d Aoste, 406. U Rmpereur Constant, 120. Le Roi Flore et la belle Jehanne, 120. Le Maire de Beiges, J. 0475-I54 8 ). poet and historian, 141, 207. Lemaitre, Jules (b. 1853), critic, 584, 585. Lemercier, N. (1771-1840), poet and dramatist, 375, 381, 386. Lemierre, A. M. (1723-1793), poet, 37 1 - Lenient, C. F. (b. 1826), critic, 582. Leroy, P. (i6th cent), publicist, 232. Lesage, Alain Rene (1668-1747), novelist and dramatist, 381, 386, 389, 390. Les Chdtiments, 500, 517. Les Contemplations, 500. Les Contemporaries, 400. Lescurel, Jehannot de (i4th cent.), poet, 82, 83. Les Mistrables, 501. Les Quatre Vents de FEsprit, 501. Lespinasse, Mademoiselle de (1732- 1776), letter- writer, 418. Les Saisnes, 1 7. L'Estoile, Pierre de (i6th cent.), me- moir-writer, 227. Lettres de Quelques Juifs, 432. Lettres du Stptilcre, 117. Lettres Persanes, 447, 448. Lettres Portugueses, 417. Le Vavasseur, L. G. (b. 1819), poet, 637- L? Homme-Machine, 465. L'Homme qui Kit, 501. L'Hospital, Michel de (1505-1573), 221. Lingua romana rustica, a, 113. Lisle, C. J. Rouget de (1760-1836), poet, 377 note. Literature proper, beginning of, 6. Littre, E. (1801-1881), positivist and philologist, 587, 589, 591. Livre des Cent Ballades, 87. Livre desfaits du Marshal de Bouci- qualt, in. Livres de raison, 118. Loret, J. (d. 1665), poet and gazetteer, 261. LSrris, William of (i3th cent.), trou- vere, 67, 7-1. Index. 631 Lutrin, 257, 258. Lyrics, origins of, 51. Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de (1709- 1 785), historian and publicist, 412. Macaire, 17. Macette, 240. Machault, Guillatime de (c. 1284- !377). Poet, 82, 83, 84. Mademoiselle, La Grande, see Mont- pensier. Magny, Olivier de (d. 1560), poet, 179, 1 80. Mahomet, 380. Maillard, Olivier (1440-1502), preach- er, 138. Maimbourg.L. (1610-1688), historian, 35- Maintenon, Madame de (1635-1719), letter-writer, 295. Mairet, Jean (1604-1686), dramatist, 265. Maistre, Joseph Marie de (175 3-1821), philosopher and political writer, 468, 487. Maistre, Xavier de (1763-1852), no- velist, 406. Malade Imaginaire, 285, 287. Malebranche, Nicolas (1638-1715), philosopher, 349, 350, 614. Malfilatre, J. C. L. de Clinchamp, (ms- 1 ? 6 ?)* P et . 373- Malherbe, Fra^ois de (1555-1628), poet, 246-248, 618. school of, 248. Manekine, 78, 79. Motion Lescaut, 388, 394. Mantel Mautaillie, 43. Map, Walter (i2th cent.), prose romancer, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 103. Maquet, A. (1813-1888), dramatist and novelist, 509,^527, 549. Marguerite d'Angouleme, Queen of Navarre (1492-1549), poetess and tale-teller, 150, 162, 163. Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre and France (1553-1615), memoir-writer, 226. Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses, 150, 164. Mariage de figaro, 385. Mariamne, 264, 265. Marianne, 392, 395. Marie de France (i3th cent.), poetess, 47. 5, 59- Marigny, J. Carpentier de (i7th cent.), poet, 250. Marillac, M. de (1573-1632), memoir- writer, 308. ' Marivaudage,' 384, 392, 407, 425. Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de (,1688- 1763), novelist and dramatist, 384, 39 1 . 393. 395- Marmontel, Jean Frangois (1723- 1799), dramatist, critic, etc., 385, 399. 430, 44- Marot, Clement (c. 1497-1544), poet, 144-149, 181, 241. school of, 149-152. Marot, Jean (1463-1523), poet, 137. Martial d'Auvergne (c. 1420-1508), poet, 135, 136. Martin, H. (1810-1887), historian, 600. Mascaron,Jean (1634-1703), preacher, 361. Massillon, Jean Baptiste (1663-1742), preacher, 358, 360. Maucroix, F. de (1619-1708), poet, 250. Maupassant, G. de, poet and novelist, 544. 57 1- Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Mcreau de (1698-1759), mathematician and physicist, 473. Maynard.Jean (1582-1646)^061, 248. Mazarinadcs, 295, 305, 323. Medecin malgrt lui, 284. Medecin Volant, 282. Mdte, 267, 269. Meditations (Descartes), 342. Meditations (Lamartine), 484, 485 , 496. Mtlite, 266, 267, 269. Mhnoires de Grammont, 300. Mtmoires d' Outre-7'otnbe, 402. Menage, G. de (1613-1692), scholar, 321, 339 note. Mendes, C. (? -1909), 601. Mtnippe,Satyre, 231-236, 243, 330. Menot, Michel (1440-1518), preacher, 138. Menleur, 269, 271, 280. Menteur, Suite du, 269. Meon, Dominique Martin (1748- 1829), scholar, 474. Meraugis de Portlesguez, 66, 76. Meraire Galant, 288. Mercuriales (D'Aguesseau), 429. Merimee, Prosper (1803-1870), novel- ist, historian, and miscellaneous writer,407, 514-516,518, 521,528. 632 Index. Merlin, 32. Mirope, 380. Mery, J. (1798-1866), poet and novel- ist, 525. Meschinot, Jean (1415 or 1420-1491 or 1509), poet, 137. Messiniennes, 493. Mitromanie, 376, 383. Meung, Jean de (isth cent), political writer and poet, 67, 69, 71. Mezeray, Fra^ois Eudes de (1610- 1683), historian, 305, 306. Michel, Francisque (1809-1888), scholar, 12. Michel, Jean (d. 1495), mystery-writer, 90. Michelet, Jules (1798-1874), histo- rian, etc., 582, 596-597. Micromegas, 395. Mignardiscs Amoureuses de fAdmirie, 1 80. Mignet, F. (b. 1796), historian, 596. Millevoye, C. (1782-1816), poet, 494. Miracles de la Vierge, 89, 92. Misanthrope, 282, 284, 290. Moise Sauve, 251. Moliere, J. B. Poquelin (1622-1673), dramatist, 281-287, 620. his comedy, 290. Molinet, Jehan (d. 1507), poet and chronicler, 137, 141. Moniage Guillaume, 15. Monnier, H. (1799-1877), novelist and miscellaneous writer, 587. Monologue, 94. Monologue du Gendarme Casst, 35. Monselet, C. (1829-1888), miscella- neous writer, 587. Monstrelet, Enguerrand de (c. 1390- X 453) chronicler, no. Montaigne, Michel Eyquem, Sieur de ( I 533~i592), 213-219. Montalembert, C. F. de (1810-1870), historian and political writer, 487, 590. Montchrestien, Antoine de (d. 1621), dramatist, 263. Montegut, E. (b. 1826), critic, 580. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de (1689-1755), political philosopher, 447-450. Montfleury, A. J. (1640-1685), actor and dramatist, 287. Montluc, Blaise de (1502-1577), me- moir-writer, 224, 225. Montpensier, A. M. L. de (La Grande Mademoiselle), (1627-1693), me- moir-writer, 313. Monuments, Early, 3-5. MoralittdesEnfansdtMaintenant, 98. Moralities, 98, 188, 189, 190. More'as, Jean (? -1910), 544. Moreau,He"gesippe(i8io-i838), poet, 525. Morellet, Andre F. (1727-1819), critic and economist, 462. Mart Artus, 32, 35. Mart de Pompce, 269. Motteville, Madame de (1612-1689), memoir- writer, 310. Mouskes, Philippe (1215-1283), chro- nicler, 62. Moyen de Parvenir, 166. Mummolinus, St., bishop of Noyon, 3, "3- Mundus, caro, daemonia, 99, 190. Murger,H. (1822-1861), novelist, 559. Muset, Colin (isth cent.), trouvere, 56, 57- Musset, Alfred de (1810-1857), poet, novelist, and dramatist, 519-521, 528, 541, 546. MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS, 89-93, 125, 1 88, 190. Mystere de Saint Louis, 188, 189. Mystere du Viel Testament, 90, 91. Mystery of Adam, 89. Nadaud, G. (1820-1893), poet, 537. Naimes, Duke, 12, 18. Nangis, Guillaume de (b. 1302), his- torian, 106. Nanine, 385. Naturalism and naturalists, 563, 606. Nemours, Marie de (1625-1707), me- moir-writer, 310. Nennius (9th cent.), chronicler, 30, 31. Nerval, Gerard de (1805-1857), poet and novelist, 516, 524. Neveu de Rameau, 397. Newspapers, 435-437- Newspapers of the Revolution, 435. Nicholas of Troyes (i6th cent.), novel- ist, 162. Nicole, P. (1625-1695), 323, 346. Niconiede, 270. Nisard, D. (1806-1888), critic, 581. Nobla Leyczon, 28. Nodier, Charles (1780-1844), miscel- laneous writer, 492. Index. 6 33 Noel dn Fail (1520-1591), tale-teller, 165. Norma, 493. Notre Dame de Paris, 498, 499. Nouvelles Recreations ct Joy tux Devis, 163. Obermann, 443. Odes et Ballades, 497. (Edipe (Corneille), 268, 270. (Voltaire), 370, 378, 380. Oisivetes de M. de Vanban, 461. Old French Literature, revival of study of, 587. Oraisons Funebres, 361. Oresme, Nicholas (1348-1382), trans- lator, 116. Orientates, 498, 506. ORIGINS, The, 1-8. of Chansons de Gestes, 10. Orleans, Charles d' (1391-1465), poet, 82, 86, 87, 148,618. Ossat, Cardinal d' (1536-1604), letter-writer, 227, 228. Ozanam, F. (1813-1853), critic and historian, 590. Pailleron, E. (1834-1899), dramatist, 553> 602. Palaprat, Jean (1650-1721), dramatic author, 289. Palissot de Montenoy, Charles (1730- 1814), dramatist and critic, 433. Palissy, Bernard (c. 1510-1589), potter and scientific writer, 210. Palma-Cayet, P. V. (1525-1610), his- torian, 227. Panard, C. F. (1694-1765), poet, 376, 483- Panhypocrisiade, 375. Pantagniel, 157, 158, 165, 167, 207, 235. 291. Pantagrueline Prognostication, 159. Pare, Amboise (c. 1510-1590), sur- geon, 211. Paris, Paulin (1800-1881), literary historian, 6, 21, 55, 587. Gaston (b. 1839), literary historian, 587. Parmentier, Jean (1494-1530), poet, 144. Parnasse, the, and Parnassien School, 536, 537, 538. Parny, Evariste de (1753-1814), poet, 373- Paroles cfun Croyant, 488. Partenopex de Blots, 77. Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662), moralist, 328, 332. Pasquier, Etienne (1529-1665), legist and antiquary, 208, 209. Passerat, Jean (1534-1662), poet, 182, 232, 235. Passion, mystery of the, 90. Pastourelle, 28, 52, 53, 54, 81, 93. Pathelin, 95, 121. Patru, O. (1604-1681), lawyer, etc., 339 note. Paul et Virginie, 399. Paulmy, A. R. de Voyer d'Argenson, Marquis de (1722-1787), his- torian and bibliographer, 474. Pavilion, E. (1632-1705), poet, 251. Peau de Chagrin, 512. Ptdant Jou&, 280, 296. Pellisson, P. (1624-1693), historian, 306. Pensies (Joubert), 440. Pensees (Pascal), 329, 331, 346. Perceforest, 120. Percevale, 26, 32-34, 36, 74, 76. Perefixe, Hardouin de Beaumont de (1605-1671), historian, 305. Period of Composition of Chansons de Gestes, n. Perrault, Charles (1628-1703), fairy- tale-writer, 300. Perrot d'Ablancourt (1606-1664), translator, 339 note. Pertharite, 270. Petit, Jean (1360-1411), theologian and publicist, 114, 122. Petit Jean de Saintri, 121, 122. Peyrat,N. (' Napol le Pyreneen'), poet, 527- Phedre, 275, 278. Philippe de Remy, Seigneur de Beau- manoir (i3th cent.), poet and jurisconsult, 78, 118. PHILOSOPHE MOVEMENT, Bk. iv. Ch. \\.-\i.passim. ' Philosophe,' 1 7th cent, meaning of the word, 347 note. Pibrac, Guy du Faur de (1529-1584), poet, 182. Pierre de Saint Cloud (i3th cent.), trouvere, 45. Pigault, Lebrun (1753-1835), novelist and dramatist, 406. Piron, J. (1690-1773), poet and dra- matist, 376, 377, 382, 383. 634 Index. Pisan, Christine de (1363-1420), poetess, 70, 82, 85, 86, in, 117. Pithou, P. (1539-1596), lawyer and satirist, 232, 234. Pixerecourt, R. C. G. de (1773-1844), dramatist, 547. Plaideurs, 275. Planche, G. (1808-1857), critic, 582. Planh, 27. PLEIADE, the, 147, 148, 151, 168, 169, 176,179,195,197,198, 208,217, 226, 232, 237, 243, 244, 247, 249, 250, 264, 276, 343, 364, 618. Political economists, 461. ' Politiques,' 232, 234. Polo, Marco (1256-1323), Venetian traveller, 119. Polonius, Jean (Labenski) (1790- 1855), poet, 495. Polyeucte, 269, 272. Pompignan, Le Franc de (1709-1784), poet, 371, 380. Ponsard, F. (1824-1867), dramatist, 548- Pontalais, Jehan du (i5th cent.), poet, 142. Pontchartrain, P. Phelypeaux de (i 566- 1621), memoir-writer, 308. Pontis, L. de (b. 1583), memoir- writer, 309. Port Royal, 346 Pradon,N.(i632-i698), dramatist, 279. Prideuses Ridicules, 281, 282, 285, 287, 292. Presles, Raoul de (1314-1383), trans- lator, 1 1 6, 117. Prevost, Abbe (1697-1763), novelist, 393, 395. 4 2 4- Prise cT Alexandrie, 83. Prise (T Orange, 15. ' Prophets ' (the) of Christ, 88. Prof os Rustiques, 165. Prose, general use of, 113. PROVENfAL LITERATURE, 22-29. range and characteristics of, 23, 52; periods of, 24 ; First, 24, Second, 25, Third, 37. Proven?al to French, relation of, 28. Provinciates , 329, 330, 346. Prudhomme, Sully (1839-1907), poet, 539, 6o1 - Psyche (romance), 285. Psyche (opera), 270. Pucelle, Chapelain's, 251. Voltaire's, 371. Pulcherie, 270. Pyrame et Thisbt, 265. Pyramus, Denis, 77. Quatre Fils Ay man, 17. Quesnay, Fra^ois (1694-1774), sur- geon and economist, 461. Quesnes de Bethune (d. 1224), trou- vere, 55, 56. Quest of the Saint Graal, 32, 35, 74. Quinault (1638-1688), dramatist, 279, 287. Quinet, E. (1803-1875), historian, etc., ^582, 596, 598. Quinze Joyes du Manage, 121. Rabelais, Fran?ois (1495-1553). 162, 207, 211, 213, 618, 620. his followers, 125, 126, 127. Rabutin, Fra^ois de (d. 1852), me- moir-writer, 229. Rabutin, R. de Bussy (1618-1693), memoir-writer, 317. Racan, Marquis de (1589-1670), poet, 248. Racine, Jean (1639-1699), dramatist, 273-278. Louis (1692-1763), poet, 369, 370. Raoul de Cambrai, 16, 19. Raoul de Houdenc (i3th cent.), poet, 66, 74, 76. Rapin, Nicolas (1535-1608), poet and miscellaneous writer, 182, 232, 335, 239- de Thoyras, P. (16611725), histo- rian, 306. Rapports de Physique et de Morale, 473. Raulin (1443-1514), preacher, 138. Raynal, G. I. F. (1713-1796), his- torian, 412. Reboul, Jean (1796-1864), poet, 495. Recherche de la Veriti, 349. Recherches de la France, 208. Refrains, 53, 54. Regnard, Jean (1656-1710), dramatist, 288. Regnier, Mathurin (1573-1613), poet and satirist, 236-241. Reichenau, glossary of, 3. Relation of French to Latin, I, a. Remusat, Madame de (1780-1821), memoir and letter- writer, 4 1 6 , 600. Ch. A. de (1797-1875), philo- sophical and miscellaneous writer, 497, 588. Index. 635 RENAISSANCE, the, Bk. ii. French, 248, 279. course and result of, 242, 245. period of, 127, 128, 140, 168, 169, 279. forerunners of, 128. prose-writers of, 200. French, as compared with Italian, 124, 279. late disenchantment of, 213. and Middle Ages, 127, 474. Renan, E. (1823-1892), historian and critic, 591-593. Renart, Coiironncmcnt de, 47. Renart le Contrefait, 48, 49. Renart le Nouvel, 47, 48. Renart, Ancien, 45, 46. Renaul de Montauban, 17. Rent, 403. Repues Franches, 129. Restif de La Bretonne.N. (1734-1806), novelist, 400. Retroensa, 28. Retz, Cardinal de (1614-1679), me- moir-writer, 306, 311, 312. Revolution, memoirs of the, 415, 416. Revue des Deux Monde s, 519, 526, 558. Reynard the Fox, 45-49. ' Rhetoriqueurs,' 87, 136-138, 141. Riccoboni, Maclame (1713-1792), novelist, 394. Richelieu, Alphonse Louis du Plessis (1585-1642), memoir- writer, 309. and the Academy, 476, 477. Duke de (1696-1788), memoir- writer (?), 415. Richepin, J., poet and novelist, 544. Rivarol, A. de (1750-1801), journalist and moralist, 438, 614. Rivet de la Grange, Dom Antoine (1683-1649), Benedictine and savant, 474. Robert de Borron (i2th cent.), trou- vere, 31,32, 34,35- Robertet, F. (d. 1522', letter-writer, '37- Robin et Marion, 93. Rodogune, 268, 269, 271, 272. Rohan, Henri de (i 579-1638), memoir- writer, 308. Roland, Chanson de, 6, 7, 8, n, 15, 18. history, argument, etc., 11-13. Roilin, Charles (1661-1741), historian, 409. Roman Bourgeois, 297. Roman Comique, 280. Roman de Brut, 62. Roman de Dolopathos, 77. Roman des Eles, 66, 76. Roman d'Entas, 38. Roman de Jules Cisar, 38, 119. Roman de TEscouffle, 78. Roman de la Poire, 71. Roman de la Rose, 63, 67-71, 77, 85, 9 8 > 125, 137, 145, 146, 240, 617. Roman de Rou, 62. Roman des Sept Sages, 44, 119. Roman de Thebes, 38. Roman de Troie, 37, 38. Roman du Chevalier as Detix Esfices 78. Roman du Renart, 44-50,63 , 474, 6 1 7. Romans d'Avcntures, 36, 73-80, 209, 612. Romana Lingua, 2, 3. Romance, Picaroon, 294. Romance Tongue, 3. Romances, Arthurian, 34. Romances, Heroic, 292. Romanzen und Pastourellen, 52-54. Rondeau and Rondel, 28, 82, 135, 137. Ronsard, Pierre de (1524-1585), poet, 169-174, 176, 177, 178, 183, 232, 238, 247, 249. Rossilho, Girartz de, 19, 20, 24, 25. Rotrou, Jean de (1609-1660), drama- tist, 265, 267, 272. Roucher, J. F. (i745-!794), Pet, 372. Rousseau, Jean Baptiste (1669-1741), poet, 368, 372, 385, 479, 485. Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778), novelist and philosophe , 397, 403, 405, 456-460, 619. Rulhiere, C. C. de (1735-1791), his- torian, etc., 408, 412. Rusticien of Pisa, 119. Rutebcenf (b. 1230), trouvere, 57-59, 58, 64, 89. Sagon, Fran9ois (i6th cent.), poet, 149. Saint- Aldegonde, Marnix de (i6th cent.), polemical writer, 203. Saint-Amant, M. A. de (1594-1661), poet, 251, 252. Saint-Bernard, sermons of, 114. Saint-Evremond, Charles de Margue- tel de St. Denis, Seigneur de (1610-1703), moralist and critic, 306, 315, 326, 347, 348, 476. Index. Saint-Gelais, O. de (1466-1502), poet, J37, ^z. *53. Mellin de (1491-1558), poet, 149. Saint- Guillaume du Disert, Miracle Play of, 91, 92. Saint-Lambert (1717-1803), poet, 371, 479- Saint- Louis, 251. Saint-Marc Girardin (1801-1873), critic, 582. Saint-Pavin, S. de (1600-1670), poet, 252. Saint-Pierre, C. F. Castel, Abbe de (i 6 5 8- 1 743) , political writer, 461 . Saint-Pierre, J. H.Bernardin de(i737~ 1814), novelist, 399, 485. Saint-Real, Cesar Vichard, Abbe de (1631-1692), historian, 307. Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, Duke de (1675-1755), memoir- writer, 317-320. Saint- Victor, P. de (1827-1882), critic, 576. Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin (1804 -1869), critic, 171, 407, 436, 502, 54-57> 575. 579- Sainte-Palaye, La Curne de (1697- 1781), philologist, 474. Saisnes, 17. Salel, Hugues(r. 1 504-1 553), poet and translator, 150, 182, 207. Sales, Fran9ois de (1567-1635), de- votional writer, 351. Saliat, Pierre (i6th cent.), translator, 206. Salut d' Amour, 54. Sand, George (A. L. A. Dupin, Ma- dame Dudevant, 1804-1876), no- velist, 443, 512-514, 521. Sandeau, J. (1811-1883), novelist and dramatist, 512, 550, 558. Sarcey, F. (b. 1828), critic, 576. Sardou, V. (1831-1909), dramatist, 5f>2, 553. 601. Sarrasin, J. (1605-1654), poet and historian, 250, 306. Satyre Menippee, 231-236. Saucourt, ballad of, 7. Saurin, Bernard Joseph (1709-1781), poet and dramatist, 380, 384, 385- Saurin, Jacques (1677-1 703), preacher, 361. Scarron, Paul (1610-1660), novelist and dramatist, 280, 294, 295, 297. Sceve, Maurice (d. 1564), poet, 151, 152. Schelandre, Jean de (1585-1635), poet and dramatist, 249, 264. Scherer, E. (1815-1889), critic, 486, 579- Science et Asnerye, 99. Scribe, E. (1791-1861), dramatist, 547, 548. Scudery, Georges de (1661-1667), poet and dramatist, 251, 265, 293. Scudery, Madeleine de (1607-1701), novelist, 292-294, 299. Sedaine, Michel Jean (1719-1797), dramatist, 385. Segrais, J. R. de (,1624-1701), poet, 25- , Senancour, Etienne Pivert de (1770- 1846), moralist, 443. Senecan drama, 272, 279. September massacres, memoirs of, 416. Sept Sages de Rome, 44. Straphita, 512. Series, 166. Serena, 27. Serres, Olivier de (1539-1619), scien- tific writer, 211. Sertorius, 270. Serventois and Sirvente, 54. Servitude Volontaire, 221. Sestina, 27. Sevigne, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de (1626-1696), 320- 323- Sganarelle, 283. Siecle de Louis Quatorze, 41 1 . Siege de Calais, 380. Siege of Metz, 229. Siege of Orleans, i oo. Siege of St. Qucntin, 229. Sirvente, 26, 27, and Serventois, 54. Socrate Chretien, 327, 344. Soirtes de St. Pttersbourg, 468. Songe du Verger, 117. Sonnets, 175, 250. Sophonisbc, 270. Sorel, Charles (d. 1674), novelist, 296. Soties, 99, 100, 1 88, 189. Soulary, J. (b. 1815), poet, 537. Soulie, F. (1800-1847), novelist, 557- Soumet, Alexandre (1788-1845), dra- matist, 493. Index, 637 Sourches, Marquis de (i7th cent), memoir- writer, 320. Sonza, Madame de (1761-1836), no- velist, 406. Spartacus, 380. Staal, Madame de (Mile, de Lau- nay, 1684-1750), memoir-writer, 4*3. Stae'l, Madame de (A. L. G. Necker, 1766-1817), novelist, etc., 403- 45> 459, 48 2 , 619. Stapfer, P. (b. 1840), critic, 585. Strasburg Oaths (sworn in 842 be- tween Charles the Bald and Louis the German against their brother Lothaire), i, 4. Sne, E. (1804-1854), novelist, 556. Sully, Maurice de (1160-1196), ser- mon-writer, 114. Sully, Maximilien de Bethune, Duke de, memoir- writer, a 28. Surtna. 270. Systeme de la Nature, 466. Tabarin (i7th cent), dramatist, 279 note. Tahureau, Jacques (1527-1555), poet, 1 80. Taine, H. (1828-1893), critic and historian, 576-579, 605. Tallemant des Reaux, Gede'on (1619- 1692), anecdotist, 324. Tartuffe, 282, 283, 284. Tastu, Madame (b. 1798), poetess, 495- Tavannes, Jean and Guillaurae de, memoir- writers, 229. TMmaque, 356, 357, 399. 7*emple de Gnide, 447. Tencin, Madame de (C. A. Guerin), (1681-1749), novelist, 391. Tenson, 54. Testament, 64. Testaments, of Villon, 128-131. Thaun, Philippe cle (i2th cent.), tron- vere, 65. Theagenes and Charidea, 204. Theatre de la Foire, 378, 382, 384. Jhe&tre de I 'Agriculture et du A 'tn- age des Champs, 211. Theatre Fran9ais, 498. Thtba'ide, 273. Theodore, 269. Tlieophile, Miracle, 89. ' Theophile,' poet, see Viaud. Thibaut de Champagne (1201-1253), poet, 28, 53, 56, 66. Thierry, Amedee (1787-1873), his- torian, 593. Thierry, Augustin (1795-1856), his- torian, 593. Thiers, A. (1797-1877), historian, 594- Thomas, A. L. (1732-1785), essayist, 432. Thuana (sc. Historia), 229. Tillemont, S. le Nain de (1637- 1698), ecclesiastical historian, 306. Tile et Berenice, 2 Jo. Tocqueville, A. de (1805-1859), his- torian and political writer, 599. Toisond'Or, 270. Torneijamens, 27. Tory, Geoffroy (i6th cent.), gramma- rian, 211. ' Tragedie Bourgeoise, 384. Tragiques, 185. Traiti des Sensations, 467. Travailleurs de la Mer, 501. Tresors, 118. Tressan, L. E. de la Vergne, Comte de (1705-1782), romance-writer, 21, 474- Trevoux, Dictionnaire de, 297. Journal de, 425. Triolet, 96. Tristan, Romance of, 32, 35, 74. Tristan (i7th cent.), dramatist, 265. Troie, Roman de, 37. Troilus, 1 20. Troubadour Poetry, forms of, 26. Trouveres and Jongleurs, 7, 19, 74, 474- Turcaret, 382, 383. Turgot, A. R. J. (1727-1781), econo- mist, 408, 462. Turoldus (nth cent.), trouvere, ia. Turpin, chronicle of, 103 note. Tyard, Pontus de (1521-1603), poet, 168, 170, 178, 179- Tyr et Sidon, 249, 264. Un Spectacle dans un Fauteuu, 519. Vachot, Pierre (i6th cent.), poet, 144. Vacquerie, A. (b. 1819), critic and poet, 537. Vade, Jean Joseph (1719-1757), poet, 376. 6 3 8 Index. Vair, Gnillanme dn (1556-1621), law- yer and moralist, 220, 328. Vair Pahfroi, 43. ValMc, 406. Valmore, Marceline Desbordes (1787 -1859), poetess, 494. Variitts Historiques et Litteraires, 323- Varillas,A. (i624-i696),historian,305. Vauban, Sebastien le Prestre de (1633 ~ 1 73 1 )> engineer and political economist, 461. Vaudeville, 387. Vaugelas, C. F. de (1585-1650), grammarian, 328, 364, 478. Vauqnelin de la Fresnaye (1536- 1606), poet, 180, 182, 190, 237. Yauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers, Mar- quis de (1715-1747), essayist and moralist, 427-429. Venceslas, 266. Vengeance de Raguidel, 76- Vtnus, de, la Dtesse d Amors, 72. Veritable Saint Genest, 266. Verlaine, Paul (1844-1896), poet, 54-543- Verse Chronicles, 61-63. Vertot, Abbe (1655-1735), historian, 35, 36. Ver-Vert, 384. Veuillot, L. (1813-1880), journalist, 59 1. Viaud Julien ('Pierre Loti 7 ), (b. 1850), novelist, 572. Viaud, Theophile de (1590-1626), poet and dramatist, 249, 265. Vieilleville, Marechal de (1509-1571), memoir- writer, 226. Vigny, Alfred de (1799-1864), poet and novelist, 522, 523. Vilain, le, qui conqnist Paradis par Plaist, 43. Vilain Mire, 43. Villanelle, 82. Villanesques, 182. Villars, Boyvin du (i6th cent.), me- moir-writer, 229. Villars, L. H., Duke de (1653-1734), memoir- writer, 316. Villedieu, Madame de (1631-1683), novelist, 293. Villehardouin, Geoffroi de (c. 1160- 1213), 104-106, 616. Villemain, A. (1790-1870), critic,58i. Villon, Fran9ois (1431-1485), poet, 128-131, 618. Vinet, A. (1797-1847), critic, 581. Viollet-le-Duc, E. E. (1814-1879), architectural writer, 586. Virgins, Ten, 6, 23, 89. Voir Dit, 83. Voiture, V. (1598-1648), poet and letter-writer, 249, 250, 328. Volney, C. F. de Chasseboeuf, Comte de (1757-1820), philosophe and traveller, 413, 464. Voltaire, F. Arouet de (1694-1778), life and poems, 370, 371. plays, 379, 380. tales, 395, 396. histories, 411. criticism, 433. philosophy, 450, 451. scientific work, 473. Voyages h la Lune et au Soleil, 296. Voyage autotir de ma Ckambre, 406. Voyage de Charlemagne h Constanti- nople, 17, 40. Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, 399. Wace (c. 1120-1174), trouvere, 62. William of Lorris, see Lorris. William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, chronicle of, 62. William IX., Count of Poictiers (1020 -1090), troubadour, 24, 26. William of Tudela (i3th cent ), poet, 26. William of Tyre (d. 1129), historian, 1 06. Ysopet, 50. Zadig, 395. Za'ide, 298. Zaire, 379. Zola, E. (1840-1903), novelist and critic, 563, 565, 566-569, 602 THE END. PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES COLLEGE LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below. 64 ^64 PEC'D COL. LIB. Orf 25 f 5 2 4 1965 '67, 31 Jun 7 '' m REC'O COL . * .^3 v^Qdflfl R1619W count f8foM970- RhC'U OJV. k^L - hra l"C.b 1^ tC ^ 13/2 4 '34 IWM MAY '84 Jook Sliii-25/i-9,'59(A4772s4)4280 UCLA-College Library PQ119S15S L 005 750 084 5 Library PQ 119 001 125727 6