THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Miss Ruth Markell
 
 THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES. 
 
 CLASSIC FRENCH COURSE 
 IN ENGLISH. 
 
 BT 
 
 WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 
 
 C. L. 8. C. DEPARTMENT, 
 
 805 BROADWAY. 
 
 1888.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1886, 
 BT PHILLIPS & HUNT. 
 
 OTHER VOLUMES IN THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 * PBEPABATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH . $1.00 
 
 ** PREPARATORY LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH . 1.00 
 
 *** COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH . . . 1.00 
 
 **** COLLEGE LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH , 1.00 
 
 The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by a Council 
 of six. ft must, however, be understood that recommendation does not 
 involve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of every 
 principle or doctrine contained in the book recommended.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE preparation of the present volume proposed 
 to the author a task more difficult far than that un- 
 ^i dertaken in any one of the four preceding volumes 
 of the group, THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES, to which 
 it belongs. Those volumes dealt with literatures 
 limited and finished : this volume deals with a litera- 
 ture indefinitely vast in extent, and still in vital 
 j^o process of growth. The selection of material to be 
 used was, in the case of the earlier volumes, virtu- 
 ally made for the author beforehand, in a manner 
 greatly to ease his sense of responsibility for the 
 exercise of individual judgment and taste. Long 
 prescription, joined to the winnowing effect of wear 
 
 and waste through time and chance, had left little 
 
 *^ 
 
 > doubt what works of what writers, Greek and 
 
 VN 
 
 Roman, best deserved now to be shown to the gen- 
 eral reader. Besides this, the prevalent custom of 
 
 ill
 
 iv Preface. 
 
 the schools of classical learning could then wisely 
 be taken as a clew of guidance to be implicitly fol- 
 lowed, whatever might be the path through which it 
 should lead. There is here no similar avoidance of 
 responsibility possible ; for the schools have not 
 established a custom, and French literature is a liv- 
 ing body, from which no important members have 
 ever yet been rent by the ravages of time. 
 
 The greater difficulty seen thus to inhere already 
 in the nature itself of the task proposed for accom- 
 plishment, was gravel}- increased by the much more 
 severe compression deemed to be in the present in- 
 stance desirable. The room placed at the author's 
 disposal for a display of French literature was less 
 than half the room allowed him for the display of 
 either the Greek or the Latin. 
 
 The plan, therefore, of this volume, imposed the 
 necessity of establishing from the outset certain 
 limits, to be very strictly observed. First, it was 
 resolved to restrict the attention bestowed upon the 
 national history, the national geography, and the 
 national language, of the French, to such brief 
 occasional notices as, in the course of the volume, 
 it might seem necessary, for illustration of the par- 
 ticular author, from time to tune to make. The
 
 Preface. v 
 
 only introductory general matter here to be found 
 will accordingly consist of a rapid and summary 
 review of that literature, as a whole, which is the 
 subject of the book. It was next determined to 
 limit the authors selected for representation to 
 those of the finished centuries. A third decision 
 was to make the number of authors small rather 
 than large, choice rather than inclusive. The prin- 
 ciple at this point adopted, was to choose those 
 authors only whose merit, or whose fame, or whose 
 influence, might be supposed unquestionably such 
 that their names and their works would certainly be 
 found surviving, though the language in which they 
 wrote should, like its parent Latin, have perished 
 from the tongues of men. The proportion of space 
 severally allotted to the different authors was to be 
 measured partly according to their relative impor- 
 tance, and partly according to their estimated rela- 
 tive capacity of interesting in translation the average 
 intelligent reader of to-day. 
 
 In one word, the single inspiring aim of the author 
 has here been to furnish enlightened readers, versed 
 only in the English language, the means of acquir- 
 ing, through the medium of their vernacular, some 
 proportioned, trustworthy, and effective knowledge
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 and appreciation, in its chief classics, of the great 
 literature which has been written in French. This 
 object has been sought, not through narrative and 
 description, making books and authors the subject, 
 but through the literature itself, in specimen ex- 
 tracts illuminated by the necessary explanation and 
 c-riticism. 
 
 It is proposed to follow the present volume with a 
 wlume similar in general character, devoted to 
 German literature.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. FAB 
 
 FRENCH LITEBATURE 1 
 
 II. 
 FROISSART 18 
 
 III. 
 RABELAIS 28 
 
 IV. 
 MONTAIGNE 44 
 
 V. 
 
 LA ROCHEFOUCAULD (LA BRUYERE; VAUVE- 
 NARGUES) 66 
 
 VI. 
 LA FONTAINE .81 
 
 VII. 
 
 MOLIERB 92 
 
 VIII. 
 PASCAL 115 
 
 vii
 
 viii Content*. 
 
 IX. PAGE 
 
 MADAME DE SEVIGNJG! 134 
 
 X. 
 COBNEILLE 151 
 
 XI. 
 
 RACINE 166 
 
 XII. 
 
 BOSSUET, BOUKDALOUE, MASSILLON 182 
 
 XIH. 
 
 FENELON 205 
 
 XIV. 
 MONTESQUIEU 225 
 
 XV. 
 VOLTAIRE 238 
 
 XVI. 
 ROUSSEAU 255 
 
 XVII. 
 THE ENCYCLOPAEDISTS 282 
 
 XVIII. 
 EPILOGUE . 288 
 
 IXDEX 293
 
 CLASSIC FRENCH COURSE IN ENGLISH. 
 
 i. 
 
 FRENCH LITERATURE. 
 
 OF French literature, taken as a whole, it may 
 boldly be said that it is, not the wisest, not the 
 weightiest, not certainly the purest and loftiest, but 
 by odds the most brilliant and the most interesting, 
 literature in the world. Strong at many points, at 
 some points triumphantly strong, it is conspicuously 
 weak at only one point, the important point of 
 poetry. In eloquence, in philosophy, even in the- 
 ology ; in history, in fiction, in criticism, in episto- 
 lary writing,' in what may be called the pamphlet ; 
 in another species of composition, characteristically, 
 peculiarly, almost uniqueh', French. the Thought 
 and the Maxim ; by eminence in comedy, and in all 
 those related modes of written expression for which 
 there is scarcely any name but a French name, 
 the Jew d' esprit, the bon mot, persiflage, the phrase; 
 in social and political speculation ; last, but not 
 least, in scientific exposition elegant enough in 
 form and in style to rise to the rank of literature 
 
 1
 
 2 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 proper, the French language has abundant achieve- 
 ment to show, that puts it, upon the whole, hardty 
 second in wealth of letters to any other language 
 whatever, either ancient or modern. 
 
 What constitutes the charm partly a perilous 
 charm of French literature is, before all else, its 
 incomparable clearness, its precision, its neatness, 
 its point ; then, added to this, its lightness of touch, 
 its sureness of aim ; its vivacity, sparkle, life ; its 
 inexhaustible gayety ; its impulsion toward wit, 
 impulsion so strong as often to land it in mocker}* ; 
 the sense of release that it breathes and inspires ; 
 its freedom from prick to the conscience ; its exqui- 
 site study and choice of effect ; its deference paid to 
 decorum, decorum, we mean, in taste, as distin- 
 guished from morals ; its infinite patience and labor 
 of art, achieving the perfection of grace and of 
 ease, in one word, its style. 
 
 We speak, of course, broadly and in the gross. 
 There are plenty of French authors to whom some 
 of the traits just named could by no means be 
 attributed, and there is certainly not a single French 
 author to whom one could truthfully attribute them 
 all. Voltaire insisted that what was not clear was 
 not French, so much, to the conception of this 
 typical Frenchman, was clearness the genius of the 
 national speech. Still, Montaigne, for example, 
 was sometimes obscure ; and even the tragedist 
 Corneille wrote here and there what his commen- 
 tator, Voltaire, declared to be hardly intelligible.
 
 French Literature. 3 
 
 So, too, Rabelais, coarsest of humorists, offending 
 decorum in various ways, offended it most of all ex- 
 actl}* in that article of taste, as distinguished from 
 morals, which, with first-rate French authors in gen- 
 eral, is so capital a point of regard. On the other 
 hand, Pascal, not to mention the moralists by 
 profession, such as Nicole, and the preachers Bour- 
 daloue and Massillon, Pascal, quivering himself, 
 like a soul unclad, with sense of responsibility to 
 God, constantly probes you, reading him, to the in- 
 most quick of your conscience. Rousseau, notably 
 in the " Confessions," and in the Reveries supple- 
 mentary to the " Confessions ; " Chateaubriand, echo- 
 ing Rousseau ; and that wayward woman of genius, 
 George Sand, disciple she to both, were so far from 
 being always light-heartedly gay, that not seldom 
 they spread over their page a sombre atmosphere 
 almost of gloom, gloom flushed pensively, as with 
 n clouded " setting sun's pathetic light." In short, 
 when you speak of particular authors, and naturally 
 still more when 3-011 speak of particular works, 
 there are many discriminations to be made. Such 
 exceptions, however, being duly allowed, the lite- 
 rary product of the French mind, considered in the 
 aggregate, will not be misconceived if regarded as 
 p jssessin^ tha general characteristics in style that 
 we have now sought briefly to indicate. 
 
 French literature, we have hinted, is compara- 
 tively poor in poetry. This is due in part, no doubt, 
 to the genius of the people ; but it is also due in
 
 4 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 part to the structure of the language. The lan- 
 guage, which is derived chiefly from Latin, is thence 
 in such a way derived as to have lost the regularity 
 and stateliness of its ancient original, without hav- 
 ing compensated itself with any richness and sweet- 
 ness of sound peculiarly its own ; like, for instance, 
 that canorous vowel quality of its sister derivative, 
 the Italian. The French language, in short, is far 
 from being an ideal language for the poet. 
 
 In spite, however, of this fact, disputed by no- 
 body, it is true of French literature, as it is true of 
 almost any national literature, that it took its rise 
 in verse instead of in prose. Anciently, there were 
 two languages subsisting together in France, which 
 came to be distinguished from each other in name 
 by the word of affirmation oc or oi'Z, yes sever- 
 ally peculiar to them, and thus to be known respec- 
 tively as langue d'oc, and langue d'o'il. The future 
 belonged to the latter of the two forms of speech, 
 the one spoken in the northern part of the country. 
 This, the langue d'ail, became at length the French 
 language. But the langue d'oc, a soft and musical 
 tongue, survived long enough to become the vehicle 
 of lyric strains, mostly on subjects of love and gal- 
 lantry, still familiar in mention, and famous as the 
 songs of the troubadours. The flourishing time of 
 the troubadours was in the eleventh and twelfth cen- 
 turies. Proven9al is an alternative name of the 
 language. 
 
 Side by side with the southern troubadours, or a
 
 French Literature. 5 
 
 little later than they, the trouveres of the north sang, 
 with more manly ambition, of national themes, and, 
 like Virgil, of arms and of heroes. Some produc- 
 tions of the trouveres may fairly be allowed an ele 
 vation of aim and of treatment entitling them to be 
 called epic in character. Chansons de geste (songs 
 of exploit) , or romans, is the native name by which 
 those primitive French poems are known. They 
 exist in three principal cycles, or groups, of produc- 
 tions, one cycle composed of those pertaining to 
 Charlemagne ; one, of those pertaining to British 
 Arthur; and a third, of those pertaining to ancient 
 Greece and Rome, notably to Alexander the Great. 
 The cycle revolving around the majestic legend of 
 Charlemagne for its centre was Teutonic, rather 
 than Celtic, in spirit as well as in theme. It tended 
 to the religious in tone. The Arthurian cycle was 
 properly Celtic. It dealt more with adventures of 
 love. The Alexandrian cycle, so named from one 
 principal theme celebrated, namely, the deeds of 
 Alexander the Great, mixed fantastically the tra- 
 ditions of ancient Greece and Rome with the then 
 prevailing ideas of chivalry, and with the figments 
 of fairy lore. (The metrical form employed in these 
 poems gave its name to the Alexandrine line later 
 so predominant in French poetry.) The volume of 
 this quasi-epical verse, existing in its three groups, 
 or cycles, is immense. So is that of the satire and 
 the allegory in metre that followed. From this 
 latter store of stock and example, Chaucer drew to
 
 6 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 supply his muse with material. The fabliaux, so 
 called, fables, that is, or stories, were still 
 another form of early French literature in verse. It 
 is only now, within the current decade of years, that 
 a really ample collection of fabliaux hitherto, with 
 the exception of a few printed volumes of specimens, 
 extant exclusively in manuscript has been put into 
 course of publication. Rutebeuf, a trouvere of the 
 reign of St. Louis (Louis IX., thirteenth century), 
 is perhaps as conspicuous a personal name as any 
 that thus far emerges out of the sea of practically 
 anonymous early French authorship. A frankly sor- 
 did and mercenary singer, Rutebeuf, always tending 
 to mockery, was not seldom licentious, in both 
 these respects anticipating, as probably also to some 
 extent by example conforming, the subsequent lite- 
 rary spirit of his nation. The fabliaux generally 
 mingled with their narrative interest that spice of 
 raillery and satire constantly so dear to the French 
 literary appetite. Thibaud was, in a double sense, 
 a royal singer of songs ; for he reigned over Na- 
 varre, as well as chanted sweetly in verse his love 
 and longing, so the disputed legend asserts, for 
 Queen Blanche of Castile. Thibaud bears the his- 
 toric title of The Song-maker. He has been styled 
 the Be>anger of the thirteenth century. To Thibaud 
 is said to be due the introduction of the feminine 
 
 
 
 rhyme into French poetry, a metrical variation of 
 capital importance. The songs of Abe" lard, in the 
 century preceding Thibaud, won a wide popularity.
 
 French Literature. 7 
 
 Prose, meantime, had been making noteworthy 
 approaches to form. Villehardouin must be named 
 as first in tune among French writers of history. 
 His work is entitled, "Conquest of Constantinople." 
 It gives an account of the Fourth Crusade. Join- 
 ville, a generation later, continues the succession of 
 chronicles with his admiring story of the life of 
 Saint Louis, whose personal friend he was. But 
 Froissart of the fourteenth century, and Comines 
 of the fifteenth, are greater names. Froissart, by 
 his simplicity and his narrative art, was the Herodo- 
 tus, as Philip de Comines, for his political sagacity, 
 has been styled the Tacitus, of French historical 
 literature. Up to the time of Froissart, the litera- 
 ture which we have been treating as French was 
 different enough in form from the French of to-day 
 to require what might be called translation in order 
 to become generally intelligible to the living genera- 
 tion of Frenchmen. The text of Froissart is pretty 
 archaic, but it definitely bears the aspect of French. 
 
 With the name of Comines, who wrote of Louis 
 XI. (compare Walter Scott's "QuentinDurward"). 
 we reach the fifteenth century, and are close upon 
 the great revival of learning which accompanied the 
 religious reformation under Luther and his peers. 
 Now come Rabelais, boldly declared by Coleridge ** 
 one of the great creative minds of literature ; and 
 Montaigne, with those Essays of his, still living, and,vX 
 indeed, certain always to live. John Calvin, mean- 
 time, writes his " Institutes of the Christian Religion "
 
 8 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 in French as well as in Latin, showing once and for 
 all, that in the right hands his vernacular tongue was 
 as capable of gravity as many a writer before him 
 had superfluously shown that it was capable of levit}-. 
 Amyot, the translator of Plutarch, is a French writer 
 of power, without whom the far greater Montaigne 
 could hardly have been. The influence of Amyot 
 on French literary history is wider in reach and 
 longer in duration than we thus indicate ; but Mon- 
 taigne's indebtedness to him is alone enough to 
 prove that a mere translator had in this man made 
 a very important contribution to the forming prose 
 literature of France. 
 
 "The Pleiades," so called, were a group of seven 
 writers, who, about the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, banded themselves together in France, with the 
 express aim of supplying influential example to im- 
 prove the French language for literary purposes. 
 Their peculiar appellation, "The Pleiades," was 
 copied from that of a somewhat similar group of 
 Greek writers, that existed in the time of Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus. Of course, the implied allusion in it 
 is to the constellation of the Pleiades. The individual 
 name by which the Pleiades of the sixteenth century 
 4riay best be remembered is that of Ronsard the poet, 
 associated with the romantic and pathetic memory 
 of Mary, Queen of Scots. Never, perhaps, in the 
 history of letters was the fame of a poet in the poet's 
 own lifetime more universal and more splendid than 
 was the fame of Ronsard. A high court of literary
 
 French Literature. 9 
 
 judicature formally decreed to Ronsard the title of 
 The French Poet by eminence. This occurred in the 
 youth of the poet. The wine of success so brilliant 
 turned the young fellow's head. He soon began to 
 play lord paramount of Parnassus, with every air of 
 one born to the purple. The kings of the earth vied 
 with each other to do him honor. Ronsard affected 
 scholarship, and the foremost scholars of his time 
 were proud to place him with Homer and with Virgil 
 on the roll of the poets. Ronsard's peculiarity in 
 style was the free use of words and constructions 
 not properly French. Boileau indicated whence he 
 enriched his vocabulary and his syntax, by satirically 
 saying that Ronsard spoke Greek and Latin in French. 
 At his death, Ronsard was almost literally buried 
 under praises. Sainte-Beuve strikingly says that he 
 seemed to go forward into posterity as into a temple. 
 Sharp posthumous reprisals awaited the extrava- 
 gant fame of Ronsard. Malherbe, coming in the 
 next generation, legislator of Parnassus, laughed the 
 literary pretensions of Ronsard to scorn. This stern 
 critic of form, such is the story, marked up his copy 
 of Ronsard with notes of censure so many, that a 
 friend of his, seeing the annotated volume, observed, 
 "What here is not marked, will be understood to 
 have been approved by 3'ou." Whereupon Mal- 
 herbe, taking his pen, with one indiscriminate stroke 
 drew it abruptly through the whole volume. " There 
 I Ronsardized," the contemptuous critic would ex- 
 claim, when in reading his own verwB to an kc- 
 2
 
 10 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 quaintance, for Malherbe was poet himself, he 
 happened to encounter a word that struck him as 
 harsh or improper. Malherbe, in short, sought to 
 chasten and check the luxuriant overgrowth to 
 which the example and method of the Pleiades 
 were tending to push the language of poetry in 
 French. The resultant effect of the two contrary 
 tendencies that of literary wantonness on the 
 one hand, and that of literary prudery on the other 
 was at the same time to enrich and to purify 
 French poetical diction. Balzac (the elder), close 
 to Malherbe in time, performed a service for French 
 prose similar to that which the latter performed for 
 French verse. These two critical and literary powers 
 brought in the reign of what is called classicism in 
 France. French classicism had its long culmination 
 under Louis XIV. 
 
 But it was under Louis XIII., or rather under 
 that monarch's great minister, Cardinal Richelieu, 
 that the rich and splendid Augustan age of French 
 literature was truly prepared. Two organized forces, 
 one of them private and social, the other official and 
 public, worked together, though sometimes perhaps 
 not in harmony, to produce the magnificent literary 
 result that illustrated the time of Louis XIV. Of 
 these two organized forces, the Hotel de Rambouillet 
 was one, and the French Academy was the other. 
 The Hotel de Rambouillet has become the adopted 
 mime of a literary society, presided over by the fine 
 inspiring genius of the beautiful and accomplished
 
 French Literature. 11 
 
 Italian wife of the Marquis de Rambouillet, a 
 who generously conceived the idea of rallying the 
 feminine wit and virtue of the kingdom to exert a 
 potent influence for regenerating the manners and 
 morals, and indeed the literature, of France. At 
 the high court of blended rank and fashion and 
 beauty and polish and virtue and wit, thus estab- 
 lished in the exquisitely builded and decorated sa* 
 loons of the Rambouillet mansion, the selectest 
 literary genius and fame of France were proud and 
 glad to assemble for the discussion and criticism of 
 literature. Here came Balzac and Voiture ; here 
 Corneille read aloud his masterpieces before they v 
 were represented on the stage ; here Descartes 
 philosophized ; here the large and splendid genius 
 of Bossuet first unfolded itself to the world ; here 
 Madame de S6vign6 brought her bright, incisive wit, 
 trebly commended by stainless reputation, unwither- 
 ing beauty, and charming address, in the woman who 
 wielded it. The noblest blood of France added the 
 decoration and inspiration of their presence. It is 
 not easy to overrate the diffusive beneficent influence 
 that hence went forth to change the fashion of lite- 
 rature, and to change the fashion of society, for the 
 better. The Hotel de Rambouillet proper lasted two 
 generations only ; but it had a virtual succession. 
 which, though sometimes interrupted, was scarcely 
 extinct until the brilliant and beautiful Madame 
 Rt'camier ceased, about the middle of the present 
 century, to hold her famous salons in Paris. The v
 
 12 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 continuous fame and influence of the French Acad- 
 emy, founded b}' Richelieu, everybody knows. No 
 other European language has been elaborately and 
 sedulously formed and cultivated like the French. 
 
 But great authors are better improvers of a lan- 
 guage than any societies, however influential. Cor- 
 neille, Descartes, Pascal, did more for French style 
 than either the Hotel de Rambouillet or the Acade- 
 my, more than both these two great literary socie- 
 ./ties together. In verse, Racine, following Corneille, 
 advanced in some important respects upon the ex- 
 ample and lead of that great original master ; but 
 in prose, when Pascal published his "Provincial 
 Letters," French style reached at once a point of 
 perfection be3'ond which it never since has gone. 
 Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fenelon, Massillon, Moliere, 
 La Fontaine, Boileau, La Rochefoucauld, La Bru- 
 yere, what a constellation of names are these, to 
 glorify the age of Louis XIV. ! And Louis XIV. 
 himself, royal embodiment of a literary good sense 
 carried to the pitch of something very like real 
 genius in judgment and taste, what a sun was he 
 (with that talent of his for kingship, probably never 
 surpassed), to balance and to sway, from his un- 
 shaken station, the august intellectual system of 
 which he alone constituted the despotic centre to 
 attract and repel ! Seventy-two years long was this 
 sole individual reign. Louis XIV. still sat on the 
 throne of France when the seventeenth century be- 
 came the eighteenth.
 
 French Literature. 13 
 
 The eighteenth century was an age of universal 
 reaction in France. Religion, or rather ecclesiasti- 
 cism, for, in the France of those times, religion 
 was the Church, and the Church was the Roman 
 Catholic hierarchy, had been the dominant fashion 
 under Louis XIV. Infidelity was a broad literary 
 mark, written all over the face of the eighteenth 
 century. It was the hour and power of the Ency-<j 
 clopaedists and the Philosophers, of Voltaire, of 
 Diderot, of D'Alembert, of Rousseau. Montes- 
 quieu, though contemporary, belongs apart from 
 these writers. More really original, more truly 
 philosophical, he was far less revolutionary, far less 
 destructive, than they. Still, his influence was, on 
 the whole, exerted in the direction, if not of infi- 
 delity, at least of religious indifferentism. The 
 French Revolution was laid in train by the great 
 popular writers whom we have now named, and bj- 
 their fellows. It needed only the spark, which the 
 proper occasion would be sure soon to strike out, 
 and the awful, earth-shaking explosion would follow. 
 After the Revolution, during the First Empire, so 
 called, the usurpation, that is, of Napoleon Bona- 
 parte, literature was well-nigh extinguished in 
 France. The names, however, then surpassingly 
 brilliant, of Chateaubriand and Madame de Stae'l, 
 belong to this period. 
 
 Three centuries have now elapsed since the date 
 of "The Pleiades." Throughout this long period, 
 French literature has been chiefly under the sway of
 
 14 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 x/that spirit of classicism in style which the reaction 
 against Ronsardism, led first by Malherbe and after- 
 wards by Boileau, had established as the national 
 standard in literary taste and aspiration. But Rous- 
 seau's genius acted as a powerful solvent of the 
 classic tradition. Chateaubriand's influence was 
 felt on the same side, continuing Rousseau's. 
 George Sand, too, and Lamartine, were forces that 
 strengthened this component. Finally, the great 
 personality of Victor Hugo proved potent enough 
 definitively to break the spell that had been so long 
 and so heavily laid on the literary development of 
 France. The bloodless warfare was fierce between 
 the revolutionary Romanticists and the conservative 
 Classicists in literary style, but the victory seemed 
 at last to remain with the advocates of the new 
 romantic revival. It looked, on the face of the 
 matter, like a signal triumph of originality over pre- 
 scription, of genius over criticism, of power over 
 rule. We still live in the midst of the dying echoes 
 of this resonant strife. Perhaps it is too early, as 
 yet, to determine on which side, by the merit of 
 the cause, the advantage truly belongs. But, by 
 the merit of the respective champions, the result 
 was, for a time at least, triumphantly decided in 
 favor of the Romanticists, against the Classicists. 
 The weighty authority, however, of Sainte-Beuve, 
 at first thrown into the scale that at length would 
 sink, was thence withdrawn, and at last, if not reso- 
 lutely cast upon the opposite side of the balance,
 
 French Literature. 15 
 
 was left wavering in a kind of equipoise between th 
 one and the other. But our preliminary sketch has 
 already passed the limit within which our choice of 
 authors for representation is necessarily confined. 
 
 With first a few remarks, naturally suggested, 
 that may be useful, on the general subject thus 
 father touched merely than handled, the present 
 writer gives way to let now the representative au- 
 thors themselves, selected for the purpose, supply 
 to the reader a just and lively idea of French litera- 
 ture. 
 
 The first thing, perhaps, to strike the thoughtful 
 mind in a comprehensive view of the subject, is not 
 so much the length though this is remarkable 
 as the long continuity of French literary history. 
 From its beginning down to the actual moment, 
 French literature has suffered no serious break in 
 the course of its development. There have been 
 periods of greater, and periods of less, prosperity 
 and fruit ; but wastes of marked suspension and 
 barrenness, there have been none. 
 
 The second thing noticeable is, that French litera- 
 ture has, to a singular degree, lived an independent 
 life of its own. It has found copious springs of 
 health and growth within its own bosom. 
 
 But then, a third thing to be also observed, is that, 
 on the other hand, the touch of foreign influence, 
 felt and acknowledged by this most proudly and 
 self-sufficiently national of literatures, has proved 
 to it. at various epochs, a sovereign force of revival
 
 16 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 *and elastic expansion. Thus, the great renascence 
 in the sixteenth century of ancient Greek and Latin 
 letters was new life to French literature. So, again, 
 Spanish literature, brought into contact with French 
 through Corneille and Moliere with others, gave to 
 the national mind of France a new literary launch. 
 But the most recent and perhaps the most remark- 
 able example of foreign influence quickening French 
 literature to make it freshly fruitful, is supplied in 
 the great romanticizing movement under the lead 
 of Victor Hugo. English literature especially 
 Shakspeare was largely the pregnant cause of 
 this attempted emancipation of the French literary 
 mind from the burden of classicism. 
 
 A fourth very salient trait in French literary 
 history consists in the self-conscious, elaborate, 
 persistent efforts put forth from time to time by 
 individuals, and by organizations, both public and 
 private, in France, to improve the language, and to 
 elevate the literature, of the nation. We know of 
 nothing altogether comparable to this anywhere else 
 in the literature of the world. 
 
 A fifth striking thing about French literature is, 
 that it has to a degree, as we believe beyond paral- 
 lel, exercised a real and vital influence on the char- 
 acter and the fortune of the nation. The social, the 
 political, the moral, the religious, history of France 
 is from age to age a faithful reflex of the changing 
 phases of its literature. Of course, a reciprocal in- 
 fluence has been constantly reflected back and forth
 
 French Literature. 17 
 
 from the nation upon its literature, as well as from 
 its literature upon the natiou. But where else in the 
 world has it ever been so extraordinarily, we may 
 say so appallingly, true as in France, that the nation 
 was such because such was its literature ? 
 
 French literature, it will at once be seen, is a 
 study possessing, beyond the literary, a social, a 
 political, and even a religious, interest. 
 
 Readers desiring to push their conversance with 
 the literary history of France farther than the pres- 
 ent volume will enable them to do, will consult with 
 profit either the Primer, or the Short History, of 
 French Literature, by Mr. George Saiutsbury. Mr. 
 Saintsbury is a well-informed writer, who, if the 
 truth must be told, diffuses himself too widely to do 
 his best possible work. He has, however, made 
 French literature a specialty, and he is in general a 
 trustworthy authority on the subject. 
 
 Another writer on the subject is Mr. H. Van 
 Laun. Him, although a predecessor of his own in 
 the field, Mr. Saintsbury severely ignores, by claim- 
 ing that he is himself the first to write in English a 
 history of French literature based on original and 
 independent reading of the authors. We are bound 
 to say that Mr. Van Laun's work is of very poor 
 quality. It offers, indeed, to the reader one ad- 
 vantage not afforded by either of Mr. Saintsbury's 
 works, the advantage, namely, of illustrative ex- 
 tracts from the authors treated, extracts, however, 
 not unfrequently marred by wretched translation.
 
 18 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 The cyclopaedias are, some of them, both in articles 
 on particular authors and in their sketches of French 
 literary history as a whole, good sources of general 
 information on the subject. Readers who command 
 the means of comparing several different cyclopae- 
 dias, or several successive editions of some one 
 cyclopaedia, as, for example, the " Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica," will find enlightening and stimulating 
 the not always harmonious views presented on the 
 same topics. Hallam's " History of Literature in 
 Europe " is an additional authority by no means to 
 be overlooked. 
 
 II. 
 
 FROISSART. 
 1337-141O. 
 
 FRENCH literature, for the purposes of the present 
 volume, may be said to commence with Froissart. 
 Froissart is a kind of mediaeval Herodotus. His 
 time is, indeed, almost this side the middle ages ; 
 but he belongs by character and by sympathy rather 
 to the mediaeval than to the modern world. He is 
 delightfully like Herodotus in the style and the 
 spirit of his narrative. Like Herodotus, he became , 
 a traveller in order to become an historian. Like 
 Herodotus, he was cosmopolite enough not to be
 
 Froissart. 19 
 
 narrowly patriotic. Frenchman though he was, he 
 took as ranch pleasure in recounting English victo- 
 ries as he did in recounting French. His countiy- 
 meu have even accused him of unpatriotic partiality 
 ' for the English. His Chronicles have been, perhaps, 
 more popular in their English form than in their 
 original French. Two prominent English transla- 
 tions have been made, of which the later, that 
 by Thomas Johnes, is now most read. Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott thought the earlier excelled in charm of 
 style. 
 
 Jehan or Jean Froissart was a native of Valen- 
 ciennes. His father meant to make a priest of him, 
 but the boy had other tastes of his own. Before he 
 was well out of his teens, he began writing history. 
 This was under the patronage of a great noble. Frois- 
 sart was all his life a natural courtier. He throve 
 on the patronage of the great. It was probably not 
 a fawning spirit in him that made him this kind of 
 man ; it was rather an innate love of splendor and 
 high exploit. He admired chivalry, then in its last 
 days, and he painted it with the passion of an ideal- 
 izer. His father had been an heraldic painter, so it 
 was perhaps an hereditary strain in the son that 
 naturally attached him to rank and royalty. The 
 people that is, the promiscuous mass of mankind 
 hardly exist to Froissart. His pages, spacious as 
 the)* are, have scarcely room for more than kings 
 and nobles, and knights and squires. He is a pic- 
 turesque and romantic historian, in whose chronicles
 
 20 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 the glories of the world of chivalry a world, as we 
 have said, already dying, and so soon to disappear 
 are fixed forever on an ample canvas, in moving 
 form and shifting color, to delight the backward- 
 looking imagination of mankind. 
 
 Froissart, besides being chronicler, was something 
 of a poet. It would still be possible to confront one 
 who should call this in question, with thirty thou- 
 sand surviving verses from the chronicler's pen. 
 Quantity, indeed, rather than quality, is the strong 
 point of Froissart as poet. 
 
 He had no sooner finished the first part of his 
 Chronicles, a compilation from the work of an earlier 
 hand, than he posted to England for the purpose 
 of formally presenting his work to the Queen, a 
 princess of Hainault. She rewarded him hand 
 somely. Woman enough, too, she was, woman under 
 the queen, duly to despatch him back again to his 
 native land, where the young fellow's heart, she saw, 
 was lost to a noble lady, whom, from his inferior 
 station, he could woo only as a moth might woo the 
 moon. He subsequently returned to Great Britain, 
 and rode about on horseback gathering materials of 
 history. He visited Italy under excellent auspices, 
 and, together with Chaucer and with Petrarch, wit- 
 nessed a magnificent marriage ceremonial in Milan. 
 Froissart continued to travel far and wide, always 
 a favorite with princes, but always intent on achiev- 
 ing his projected work. He finally died at Chimay, 
 where he had spent his closing years in rounding
 
 Froissart. 21 
 
 Dut to their completeness his " Chronicles of Eng- 
 land, France, and the Adjoining Countries." 
 
 Froissart is the most leisurely of historians, or, 
 rather, he is a writer who presupposes the largest 
 allowance of leisure at the command of his readers. 
 He does not seek proportion and perspective. He 
 simply tells us all he had been able to find out re- 
 specting each transaction in its turn as it successively 
 comes up in the progress of his narrative. If he 
 goes wrong to-day, he will perhaps correct himself 
 to-morrow, or day after to-morrow, this not by 
 changing the first record where it stands, to make it 
 right, but by inserting a note of his mistake at the 
 point, whatever it may be, which he shall chance to 
 have reached in the work of composition when the 
 new and better light breaks in on his eyes. The 
 student is thus never quite certain but that what he 
 is at one moment reading in his author, may be an 
 error of which at some subsequent moment he will be 
 faithfully advised. A little discomposing, this, but 
 such is Froissart ; and it is the philosophical way to 
 take your author as he is, and make the best of him. 
 
 Of such an historian, an historian so diffuse, and 
 so little selective, it would obviously be difficult to 
 give any suitably brief specimen that should seem 
 to present a considerable historic action in full. We 
 go to Froissart's account of the celebrated battle 
 of Poitiers (France). This was fought in 1356, 
 between Edward the Black Prince on the English 
 side, and King John on the side of the French.
 
 22 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 King John of the French was, of course, a great 
 prize to be secured by the victorious English. 
 There was eager individual rivalry as to what par- 
 ticular warrior should be adjudged his true captor. 
 Froissart thus describes the strife and the issue : 
 
 There was much pressing at this time, through eager- 
 ness to take the king; and those who were nearest to him, 
 ami knew him, cried out, "Surrender yourself, surrender 
 yourself, or you are a dead man!" In that part of the field 
 was a young knight from St. Omer, who was engaged by a 
 salary in the service of the King of England; his name was 
 Denys cle Morbeque; who for five years had attached himself 
 to the English, on account of having been banished in his 
 younger days from France, for a murder committed in an 
 affray at St. Omer. It fortunately happened for this knight, 
 tiidt he was at the time near to the King of France, when he 
 was so much pulled about. He, by dint of force, for he was 
 very strong and robust, pushed through the crowd, and said 
 to the king, in good French, " Sire, sire, surrender yourself ! ' ' 
 The king, who found himself very disagreeably situated, 
 turning to him, asked, " To whom shall I surrender myself ? 
 to whom ? Where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales ? If 
 I could see him, I would speak to him." " Sire," replied Sir 
 Denys, " he is not here; but surrender yourself to me, and I 
 will lead you to him." "Who are you?" said the king. 
 " Sire, I am Denys de Morbeque, a knight from Artois; but I 
 serve the King of England because I cannot belong to France, 
 having forfeited all I possessed there." The king then 
 gave him his right-hand glove, and said, " I surrender my- 
 self to you." There was much crowding and pushing about; 
 for every one was eager to cry out, "I have taken him!" 
 Neither the king nor his youngest son Philip were able to 
 get forward, and free themselves from the throng. . . . 
 
 TIi- Prince [of Wales] asked them [his marshals] if they 
 knew any thing of the King of France: they replied, " No,
 
 Froissart. 23 
 
 s:r, not for a certainty; but we believe he must be either 
 killed or made prisoner, since he has never quitted his bat- 
 talion." The prince then, addressing the Earl of War- 
 n-ick and Lord Cobham, said, " I beg of you to mount your 
 horses, and ride over the field, so that on your return you 
 may bring me some certain intelligence of him." The two 
 barons, immediately mounting their horses, left the prince, 
 an.l made for a small hillock, that they might look about 
 them. From their stand they perceived a crowd of men- 
 at-arms on foot, who were advancing very slowly. The 
 King of France was in the midst of them, and in great dan- 
 ger ; for the English and Gascons had taken him from Sir 
 Denys de Morbeque, and were disputing who should have 
 him, the stoutest bawling out, " It is I that have got him." 
 " No, no," replied the others: " we have him." The king, to 
 escape from this peril, said, " Gentlemen, gentlemen, I pray 
 you conduct me and my son in a courteous manner to my 
 cousin the prince; and do not make such a riot about my 
 capture, for I am so great a lord that I can make aH suffi- 
 ciently rich." These words, and others which fell from the 
 king, appeased them a little; but the disputes were always 
 beginning again, and they did not move a step without riot- 
 ing. When the two barons saw this troop of people, they 
 descended from the hillock, and, sticking spurs into their 
 horses, made up to them. On their arrival, they asked what 
 was the matter. They were answered, that it was the King 
 of France, who had been made prisoner, and that upward 
 of ten knights and squires challenged him at the same time, 
 as belonging to each of them. The two barons then pushed 
 through the crowd by main force, and ordered all to draw 
 aside. They commanded, in the name of the prince, and 
 under pain of instant death, that every one should keep his 
 distance, and not approach unless ordered or desired so to 
 do. They all retreated behind the king; and the two barons, 
 dismounting, advanced to the king with profound reverences, 
 and conducted him in a peaceable manner to the Prince of 
 Wales.
 
 24 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 "We continue our citation from Froissart with the 
 brief chapter in which the admiring chronicler tells 
 the gallant story of the Black Prince's behavior as 
 host toward his royal captive, King John of France 
 (it was the evening after the battle) : 
 
 When evening was come, the Prince of Wales gave a 
 supper in his pavilion to the King of France, and to the 
 greater part of the princes and barons who were prisoners. 
 The prince seated the King of France, and his son the Lord 
 Philip, at an elevated and well-covered table: with them 
 were Sir James de Bourbon, the Lord John d'Artois, the 
 earls of Tancarville, of Estampes, of Dammartin, of Gra- 
 ville, and the Lord of Partenay. The other knights and 
 squires were placed at different tables. The prince himself 
 served the king's table, as well as the others, with every 
 mark of humility, and would not sit down at it, in spite of 
 all his entreaties for him so to do, saying that "he was not 
 worthy of such an honor, nor did it appertain to him to seat 
 himself at the table of so great a king, or of so valiant a 
 man as he had shown himself by his actions that day." He 
 added, also, with a noble air, "Dear sir, do not make a poor 
 meal, because the Almighty God has not gratified your 
 wishes in the event of this day ; for be assured that my lord 
 and father will show you every honor and friendship in his 
 power, and will arrange your ransom so reasonably, that you 
 will henceforward always remain friends. In my opinion, 
 you have cause to be glad that the success ,of this battle did 
 not turn out as you desired; for you have this day acquired 
 such high renown for prowess, that you have surpassed all 
 the best knights on your side. I do not, dear sir, say this 
 to flatter you ; for all those of our side who have seen and 
 observed the actions of each party, have unanimously 
 allowed this to be your due, and decree you the prize and 
 garland for it." At the end of this speech, there were mur- 
 murs of praise heard from every one; and the French said
 
 Froissart. 25 
 
 the prince had spoken nobly and truly, and that he would 
 be one of the most gallant princes in Christendom if God 
 should grant him life to pursue his career of glory. 
 
 A splendid and a gracious figure the Black Prince 
 makes in the pages of Froissart. It was great good 
 fortune for the posthumous fame of chivalry, that the 
 institution should have come by an artist so gifted 
 and so loyal as this Frenchman, to deliver its fea- 
 tures in portrait to after-times, before the living 
 original vanished forever from the view of history. 
 How much the fiction of Sir Walter Scott owes to 
 Froissart, and to Philip de Comines after tToissart, 
 those only can understand who have read both the 
 old chronicles and the modern romances. 
 
 It was one of the congenial labors of Sidney 
 Lanier pure flame of genius that late burned it- 
 self out so swiftly among us ! to edit a reduction 
 or abridgment of Froissart' s Chronicles dedicated 
 especially to the use of the young. " The Boy's 
 Froissart," he called it. This book is enriched with 
 a wise and genial appreciation of Froissart's quality 
 by his American editor. 
 
 Whoever reads Froissart needs to remember that 
 the old chronicler is too much enamoured of chivalry, 
 and is too easily dazzled by splendor of rank, to be 
 a rigidly just censor of faults committed by knights 
 and nobles and kings. Froissart, in truth, seems 
 to have been nearly destitute of the sentiment of 
 humanity. War to him was chiefly a game and & 
 spectacle.
 
 26 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Our presentation of Froissart must close with a 
 single passage additional, a picturesque one, in which 
 the chronicler describes the style of living witnessed 
 by him at the court we may not unfitly so apply 
 a royal word of the Count de Foix. The reader 
 must understand, while he reads what we here show, 
 that Froissart himself, in close connection, relates 
 at full, in the language of an informant of his, how 
 this magnificent Count de Foix had previously killed, 
 with a knife at his throat, his own and his only son. 
 "I was truly sorry," so, at the conclusion of the 
 story, Froissart, with characteristic direction of 
 his sympathy, says, " for the count his father, 
 whom I found a magnificent, generous, and cour- 
 teous lord, and also for the country that was discon- 
 tented for want of an heir." Here is the promised 
 passage ; it occurs in the ninth chapter of the third 
 volume : 
 
 Count Gaston Phoebus de Foix, of whom I am now speak- 
 ing, was at that time fifty-nine years old ; and I must say, 
 that although I have seen very many knights, kings, princes, 
 and others, I have never seen any so handsome, either in the 
 form of his limbs and shape, or in countenance, which was 
 fair and ruddy, with gray and amorous eyes, that gave 
 delight whenever he chose to express affection. He was so 
 perfectly formed, one could not praise him too much. He 
 loved earnestly the things he ought to love, and hated those 
 which it was becoming him so to hate. He was a prudent 
 knight, full of enterprise and wisdom. He had never any 
 men of abandoned character with him, reigned prudently, 
 and was constant in his devotions. There were regular 
 nocturnals from the Psalter, prayers from the rituals to the
 
 Froissart. 27 
 
 Virgin, to the Holy Ghost, and from the burial service. 
 He had every day distributed as alms, at his gate, five florin.-? 
 in small coin, to all comers. He was liberal and courteous 
 in his gifts, and well knew how to take when it was proper, 
 and to give back where he had confidence. He mightily 
 loved dogs above all other animals, and during the summer 
 and winter amused himself much with hunting. . . . 
 
 When he quitted his chamber at midnight for supper, 
 twelve servants bore each a lighted torch before him, which 
 were placed near his table, and gave a brilliant light to 
 the apartment. The hall was full of knights and squires, 
 and there were plenty of tables laid out for any person who 
 chose to sup. No one spoke to him at his table, unless he 
 first began a conversation. He commonly ate heartily of 
 poultry, but only the wings and thighs; for in the daytime, 
 he neither ate nor drank much. He had great pleasure in 
 hearing minstrels; as he himself was a proficient in the 
 science, and made his secretaries sing songs, ballads, and 
 roundelays. He remained at table about two hours, and 
 was pleased when fanciful dishes were served up to him, 
 which having seen, he immediately sent them to the tables 
 of his knights and squires. 
 
 In short, every thing considered, though I had before been 
 in several courts of kings, dukes, princes, counts, and noble 
 ladies, I was never at one that pleased me more, nor was I 
 ever more delighted with feats of arms, than at this of the 
 Count de Foix. There were knights and squires to be seen 
 in every chamber, hall, and court, going backwards and 
 forwards, and conversing on arms and amours. Every thing 
 honorable was ther? to be found. All intelligence from 
 distant countries was there to be learnt, for the gallantry of 
 the count had brought visitors from all parts of the world. 
 It was there I was informed of the greater part of those 
 events which had happened in Spain, Portugal, Arragon, 
 Navarre, England, Scotland, and on the borders of Lan- 
 guedoc ; for I saw, during my residence, knights and squires
 
 28 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 arrive from every nation. I therefore made inquiries from 
 them, or from the count himself, who cheerfully conversed 
 with me. 
 
 The foregoing is one of the most celebrated pas- 
 sages of description in Froissart. At the same time 
 that it discloses the form and spirit of those vanished 
 days, which will never come again to the world, it 
 discloses likewise the character of the man, who 
 must indeed have loved it all well, to have been 
 able so well to describe it. 
 
 We take now a somewhat long forward step, in 
 going, as we do, at once from Froissart to Rabelais. 
 Comines, lying between, we must reluctantly pass, 
 with thus barely mentioning his name. 
 
 III. 
 
 RABELAIS. 
 1495-1553. 
 
 RABELAIS is one of the most famous of writers. 
 But he is at the same time incomparably the coarsest. 
 
 The real quality of such a writer, it is evidently 
 out of the question to exhibit at all adequately here. 
 But equally out of the question it is to omit Rabelais 
 altogether from an account of French literature. 
 
 Of the life of Francois Rabelais the man, these
 
 Rabelais. 29 
 
 few facts will be sufficient to know. In early 
 youth he joined the monastic order of the Francis- 
 cans. That order hated letters ; but Rabelais loved 
 them. He, in fact, conceived a voracious ambition 
 of knowledge. He became immensely learned. 
 This fact, with what it implies of long labor pa- 
 tiently achieved, is enough to show that Rabelais 
 was not without seriousness of character. But he 
 was much more a merry-andrew than a pattern 
 monk. He made interest enough with influential 
 friends to get himself transferred from the Francis- 
 cans to the Benedictines, an order more favorable 
 to studious pursuits. But neither among the Bene- 
 dictines was this roistering spirit at ease. He left 
 them irregularly, but managed to escape punishment 
 for his irregularity. At last, after various vicissi- 
 tudes of occupation, he settled down as curate of 
 Meudon, where (the place, however, is doubtful, as 
 also the date) in 1553 he died. He was past fifty 
 years of age before he finished the work which has 
 made him famous. 
 
 This work is "The Life of Gargantua and Pan- 
 tagruel," a grotesque and nondescript production, 
 founded, probably, on some prior romance or tradi- 
 tionary tale of giants. The narrative of Rabelais is 
 a tissue of adventures shocking every idea of veri- 
 similitude, and serving only as a vehicle for the. 
 strange humor of the writer. The work is replete 
 with evidences of Rabelais's learning. It would be 
 useless to attempt giving any abstract or analysis
 
 30 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 of a book which is simply a wild chaos of material 
 jumbled together with little regard to logic, order, 
 or method of whatever sort. We shall better 
 represent its character by giving a few specimen 
 extracts. 
 
 Rabelais begins his romance characteristically. 
 According as you understand him here, you judge 
 the spirit of the whole work. Either he now gives 
 you a clew by which, amid the mazes of apparent 
 sheer frivolity on his part, you may follow till you 
 win your way to some veiled serious meaning that 
 he had all the time, but never dared frankly to 
 avow ; or else he is playfulty misleading you on a 
 false scent, which, however long held to, will bring 
 you out nowhere in short, is quizzing you. Let 
 the reader judge for himself. Here is the opening 
 passage, the " Author's Prologue," it is called in 
 the English translation executed by Sir Thomas 
 Urquhart and Motteux ; a version, by the way, 
 which, with whatever faults of too much freedom, is 
 the work of minds and consciences singularly sym- 
 pathetic with the genius of the original ; the English 
 student is perhaps hardly at all at disadvantage, in 
 comparison with the French, for the full appreciation 
 of Rabelais : 
 
 Most noble and illustrious drinkers, and you thrice 
 precious pockified blades (for to you, and none else, do I 
 dedicate my writings), Alcibiades, in that dialogue of Plato's 
 which is entitled, " The Banquet," whilst he was setting forth 
 the praises of his schoolmaster Socrates (without all question
 
 Rabelais. 31 
 
 the prince of philosophers), amongst other discourses to that 
 purpose said that he resembled the Sileni. Sileni of old 
 were little boxes, like those we now may see in the shops 
 of apothecaries, painted on the outside with wanton toyish 
 figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, horned hares, sad- 
 dled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, and other such coun- 
 terfeited pictures, at pleasure, to excite people unto laughter, 
 as Silenus himself, who was the foster-father of good Bac- 
 chus, was wont to do; but within those capricious caskets 
 called Sileni, were carefully preserved and kept many rich 
 and fine drugs, such as balm, ambergreese, amomon, musk, 
 civet, with several kinds of precious stones, and other things 
 of great price. Just such another thing was Socrates; for 
 to have eyed his outside, and esteemed of him by his exte- 
 rior appearance, you would not have given the peel of an 
 onion for him, so deformed he was in body, and ridiculous 
 in his gesture. . . . Opening this box, you would have found 
 within it a heavenly and inestimable drug, a more than hu- 
 man understanding, an admirable virtue, matchless learning, 
 invincible courage, inimitable sobriety, certain contentment 
 of mind, perfect assurance, and an incredible disregard of 
 all that for which men commonly do so much watch, run, 
 sail, fight, travel, toil, and turmoil themselves. 
 
 Whereunto (in your opinion) doth this little flourish of 
 a preamble tend? For so much as you, my good disciples, 
 and some other jolly fools of ease and leisure, . . . are too 
 ready to judge, that there is nothing in them but jests, 
 mockeries, lascivious discourse, and recreative lies; . . . 
 therefore is it, that you must open the book, and seriously 
 consider of the matter treated in it. Then shall you find 
 that it containeth things of far higher value than the box 
 did promise ; that is to say, that the subject thereof is not so 
 foolish, as by the title at the first sight it would appear to 
 be. 
 
 . . . Did you ever see a dog with a marrow-bone in his 
 mouth? . . . Like him, you must, by a sedulous lecture
 
 32 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 [reading], and frequent meditation, break the bone, and 
 suck out the marrow; that is, my allegorical sense, or the 
 things I to myself propose to be signified by these Pytha- 
 gorical symbols ; . . . the most glorious doctrines and dread- 
 ful mysteries, as well in what concerneth our religion, as 
 matters of the public state and life economical. 
 
 Up to this point, the candid reader has probably 
 been conscious of a growing persuasion that this 
 author must be at bottom a serious if also a humor- 
 ous man, a man, therefore, excusably intent not 
 to be misunderstood as a mere buffoon. But now 
 let the candid reader proceed with the following, 
 and confess, upon his honor, if he is not scandalized 
 and perplexed. What shall be said of a writer who 
 thus plays with his reader? 
 
 Do you believe, upon your conscience, that Homer, 
 whilst he was couching his Iliad and Odyssey, had any 
 thought upon those allegories which Plutarch, Heraclides 
 Ponticus, Eustathius, Phornutus, squeezed out of him, and 
 which Politian filched again from them ? If you trust it, 
 with neither hand nor foot do you come near to my opinion, 
 which judgeth them to have been as little dreamed of by 
 Homer, as the gospel sacraments were by Ovid, in his Meta- 
 morphoses ; though a certain gulligut friar, and true bacon- 
 picker, would have undertaken to prove it, if, perhaps, he 
 had met with as very fools as himself, and, as the proverb 
 says, "a lid worthy of such a kettle." 
 
 If you give any credit thereto, why do not you the same 
 to these jovial new Chronicles of mine? Albeit, when I 
 did (Hc'a'e them, I thought thereof no more than you, who 
 possibly were drinking the whilst, as I was. For, in the 
 composing of this lordly book, I never lost nor bestowed 
 any more, nor any other time, than what was appointed to
 
 Rabelais. 33 
 
 serve me for taking of my bodily refection ; that is, whilst I 
 was eating and drinking. And, indeed, that is the fittest 
 and most proper hour, wherein to write these high matters 
 and deep sentences; as Homer knew very well, the paragon 
 of all philologues, and Ennius, the father of the Latin 
 poets, as Horace calls him, although a certain sneaking 
 jobbernol alleged that his verses smelled more o the wine 
 than oil. 
 
 Does this writer quiz his reader, or, in good faith, 
 give him a needed hint ? Who shall decide ? 
 
 We have let our first extract thus run on to some 
 length, both for the reason that the passage is as 
 representative as any we could properly offer of the 
 quality of Rabelais, and also for the reason that 
 the key of interpretation is here placed in the hand 
 of the reader, for unlocking the enigma of this re- 
 markable book. The extraordinary horse-play of 
 pleasantry, which makes Rabelais unreadable for the 
 general public of to-day, begins so promptly, affect- 
 ing the very prologue, that we could not present 
 even that piece of writing entire in our extract. 
 We are informed that the circulation in England of 
 the works of Rabelais, in translation, has been in- 
 terfered with by the English government, on the 
 ground of their indecency. We are bound to admit, 
 that, if any writings whatever were to be suppressed 
 on that ground, the writings of Rabelais are certainly 
 entitled to be of the number. It is safe to say that 
 never, no, not even in the boundless license of the 
 comedy of Aristophanes, was more flagrant inde- 
 cency, and indecency proportionately more redun-
 
 34 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 dant in volume, perpetrated in literature, than was 
 done by Rabelais. Indecency, however, it is, rather 
 than strict lasciviousness. Rabelais sinned against 
 manners, more than he sinned against morals. But 
 his obscenity is an ocean, without bottom or shore. 
 Literally, he sticks at nothing that is coarse. Nay, 
 this is absurdly short of expressing the fact. The 
 genius of Rabelais teems with invention of coarse- 
 ness, beyond what any one could conceive as pos- 
 sible, who had not taken his measure of possibility 
 from Rabelais himself. And his diction was as 
 opulent as his invention. 
 
 Such is the character of Rabelais the author. 
 What, then, was it, if not fondness for paradox, 
 that could prompt Coleridge to say, " I could write 
 a treatise in praise of the moral elevation of Rabe- 
 lais' works, which would make the church stare 
 and the conventicle groan, and yet would be truth, 
 and nothing but the truth "? If any thing besides 
 fondness for paradox inspired Coleridge in saying 
 this, it must, one would guess, have been belief on 
 his part in the allegorical sense hidden deep under- 
 neath the monstrous mass of the Rabelaisian buf- 
 foonery. A more judicial sentence is that of 
 Hallam, the historian of the literature of Europe: 
 "He [Rabelais] is never serious in a single page, 
 and seems to have had little other aim, in his first 
 two volumes, than to pour out the exuberance of 
 his animal gayety." 
 
 The supply of animal gayety in this man was
 
 Rabelais. 35 
 
 something portentous. One cannot, however, but 
 feel that he forces it sometimes, as sometimes did 
 Dickens those exhaustless animal spirits of his. A 
 very common trick of the Rabelaisian humor is to 
 multiply specifications, or alternative expressions, 
 one after another, almost without end. From the 
 second book of his romance, an afterthought, 
 probably, of continuation to his unexpectedly suc- 
 cessful first book, we take the last paragraph of 
 the prologue, which shows this. The veracious his- 
 torian makes obtestation of the strict truth of his 
 narrative, and imprecates all sorts of evil upon such 
 as do not believe it absolutely. We cleanse our 
 extract a little : 
 
 And, therefore, to make an end of this Prologue, even 
 as I give myself to an hundred thousand panniers-full of 
 f ur devils, body and soul, ... in case that I lie so much as 
 one single word in this whole history; after the like manner, 
 St. Anthony's fire burn you, Mahoom's disease whirl you, 
 the squinance with a stitch in your side, and the wolf in 
 your stomach truss you, the bloody flux seize upon you, the 
 cursed sharp inflammations of wild fire, as slender and thin 
 !>.s cow's hair strengthened with quicksilver, enter into you, 
 . . . and. like those of Sodom and Gomorrha, may you fall 
 into sulphur, fi>e, an. I bottomless pits, in case you do not 
 fi -mly believe all that I shall relate unto you in this present 
 Chronicle. 
 
 So much for Rabelais's prologues. Our readers 
 must now see something of what, under pains and 
 penalties denounced so dire, they are bound to be- 
 lieve. We condense and defecate for this purpose
 
 36 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 the thirty-eighth chapter of the first book, which is 
 staggeringly entitled, " How Gargantua did eat up 
 Six Pilgrims in a Sallad " : 
 
 The story requireth that we relate that which happened 
 unto six pilgrims, who came from Sebastian near to Nantes; 
 and who, for shelter that night, being afraid of the enemy, 
 had hid themselves in the garden upon the chickling peas, 
 among the cabbages and lettuces. Gargantua, finding him- 
 self somewhat dry, asked whether they could get any lettuce 
 to make him a sallad; and, hearing that there were the 
 greatest and fairest in the country, for they were as great 
 as plum trees, or as walnut trees, he would go thither 
 himself, and brought thence in his hand what he thought 
 good, and withal carried away the six pilgrims, who were in 
 so great fear that they did not dare to speak nor cough. 
 Washing them, therefore, first at the fountain, the pilgrims 
 said one to another, softly, " What shall we do ? We are 
 almost drowned here amongst these lettuce: shall we speak ? 
 But, if we speak, he will kill us for spies." And, as they 
 were thus deliberating what to do, Gargantua put them, 
 with the lettuce, into a platter of the house, as large as the 
 huge tun of the White Friars of the Cistertian order; which 
 done, with oil, vinegar, and salt, he ate them up, to refresh 
 himself a little before supper, and had already swallowed up 
 five of the pilgrims, the sixth being in the platter, totally 
 hid under a lettuce, except his bourbon, or staff, that ap- 
 peared, and nothing else. Which Grangousier [Gargantua's 
 father] seeing, said to Gargantua, " I think that is the horn 
 of a shell snail : do not eat it." " Why not ? " said Gargan- 
 tua; "they are good all this month:" which he no sooner 
 said, but, drawing up the staff, and therewith taking up the 
 pilgrim, he ate him very well, then drank a terrible draught 
 of excellent white wine. The pilgrims, thus devoured, 
 made shift to save themselves, as well as they could, by 
 drawing their bodies out of the reach of the grinders of his
 
 Rabelais. 37 
 
 teeth, but could not escape 'from thinking they had been put 
 in the lowest dungeon of a prison. And, when Gargantua 
 whiffed the great draught, they thought to have drowned in 
 his mouth, and the flood of wine had almost carried them 
 away into the gulf of his stomach. Nevertheless, skipping 
 with their bourbons, as St. Michael's palmers used to do, 
 they sheltered themselves from the danger of that inunda- 
 tion under the banks of his teeth. But one of them, by 
 chance, groping, or sounding the country with his staff, to 
 try whether they were in safety or no, struck hard against 
 the cleft of a hollow tooth, and hit the mandibulary sinew 
 or nerve of the jaw, which put Gargantua to very great 
 pain, so that he began to cry for the rage that he felt. To 
 ease himself, therefore, of his smarting ache, he called for 
 his tooth-picker, and, rubbing towards a young walnut-tree, 
 where they lay skulking, unnestled you my gentlemen pil- 
 grims. For he caught one by the legs, another by the scrip, 
 another by the pocket, another by the scarf, another by the 
 band of the breeches; and the poor fellow that had hurt 
 him with the bourbon, him he hooked to him by [another 
 part of his clothes]. . . . The pilgrims, thus dislodged, ran 
 away. 
 
 Rabelais closes his story with jocose irreverent 
 application of Scripture, a manner of his which 
 gives some color to the tradition of a biblical pun 
 made by him on his death-bed. 
 
 The closest English analogue to Rabelais is un- 
 doubtedly Dean Swift. We probably never should 
 have tfad "Gulliver's Travels" from Swift, if we 
 had not first had Gargantua and Pantagruel from 
 Rabelais. Swift, however, differs from Rabelais as 
 well as resembles him. Whereas Rabelais is simply 
 monstrous in invention, Swift in invention submits
 
 38 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 himself loyally to law. Give Swift his world of 
 Liliput and Brobdingnag respectively, and all, after 
 that, is quite natural and probable. The reduction 
 or the exaggeration is made upon a mathematically 
 calculated scale. For such verisimilitude Rabelais 
 cares not a straw. His various inventions are 
 recklessly independent one of another. A character- 
 istic of Swift thus is scrupulous conformity to whim- 
 sical law. Rabelais is remarkable for whimsical 
 disregard of even his own whimse3 - s. Voltaire put 
 the matter with his usual felicity, Swift is Rabelais 
 in his senses. 
 
 One of the most celebrated justly celebrated 
 of Rabelais's imaginations is that of the Abbey of 
 Th61eme [Thelema]. This constitutes a kind of 
 Rabelaisian Utopia. It was proper of the released 
 monk to give his Utopian dream the form of an 
 abbey, but an abbey in which the opposite should 
 obtain of all that he had so heartily hated in his own 
 monastic experience. A humorously impossible 
 place and state was the Abbey of TheUeme, a kind 
 of sportive Brook Farm set far away in a world 
 unrealized. How those Thelemites enjoyed life, 
 to be sure ! It was like endless plum pudding 
 for everybody to eat, and nobody to prepare : 
 
 All their life was spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, 
 but according to their own free will anil pleasure. They 
 rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did 
 eat, drink, labor, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and 
 were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer 
 to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing;
 
 Rabelais. 39 
 
 for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and 
 strictest tie of their order, there was but this one clause to 
 be observed, 
 
 DO WHAT THOU WILT. 
 
 . . . By this liberty they entered into a very laudable emu- 
 lation, to do all of them what they saw did please one. If 
 any of the gallants or ladies should say, Let us drink, they 
 would all drink. If any one of them said, Let us play, they 
 all played. If one said, Let us go a walking into the fields, 
 they went all. . . . There was neither he nor she amongst 
 them, but could read, write, sing, play upon several musical 
 instruments, speak five or six several languages, and compose 
 in them all very quaintly, both in verse and prose. Never 
 were seen so valiant knights, so noble and worthy, so dex- 
 trous and skilful both on foot and a horseback, more brisk 
 and lively, more nimble and quick, or better handling all 
 manner of weapons than were there. Never were seen 
 ladies so proper and handsome, so miniard and dainty, less 
 forward, or more ready with their hand, and with their 
 needle, in every honest and free action belonging to that sex, 
 than were there. For this reason, when the time came, that 
 any man of the said abbey, either at the request of his 
 parents, or for some other cause, had a mind to go out of it, 
 he carried along with him one of the ladies, namely her who 
 had before that accepted him as her lover, and they were 
 married together. 
 
 The foregoing is one of the most purely sweet 
 imaginative passages in Rabelais's works. The rep- 
 resentation, as a whole, sheathes, of course, a keen 
 satire on the religious houses. Real religion, Rabe- 
 lais nowhere attacks. 
 
 The same colossal Gargantua who had that eating 
 adventure with the six pilgrims, is made, in Rabelais's 
 second book, to write his youthful son Pantagruel
 
 40 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 also a giant, but destined to be, when mature, a 
 model of all princely virtues a letter on education, 
 in which the most pious paternal exhortation occurs. 
 The whole letter reads like some learned Puritan 
 divine's composition. Here are a few specimen 
 sentences : 
 
 Fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, 
 Arabian, 'and Latin physicians, not despising the Talinud- 
 ists and Cabalists; and by frequent anatomies get thee the 
 perfect knowledge of that other world, called the microcosm, 
 which is man. And at some of the hours of the day apply 
 thy mind to the study of the Holy Scriptures : first, in Greek, 
 the New Testament, with the Epistles of the Apostles ; and 
 then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In brief, let me see thee 
 an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge. . . . 
 
 ... It behoveth thee to serve, to love, to fear God, and 
 on him to cast all thy thoughts and all thy hope, and, by 
 faith formed in charity, to cleave unto him, so that thou 
 mayst never be separated from him by thy sins. Suspect 
 the abuses of the world. Set not thy heart upon vanity, for 
 this life is transitory; but the Word of the Lord endureth 
 forever. 
 
 "Friar John" is a mighty man of valor, who 
 figures equivocally in the story of Gargantua and 
 Paritagruel. The Abbey of Th61eme is given him in 
 reward of his services. Some have identified this 
 fighting monk with Martin Luther. The represen- 
 tation is, on the whole, so conducted as to leave the 
 reader's sympathies at least half enlisted in favor of 
 the fellow, rough and roistering as he is. 
 
 Panurge is the hero of the romance of Pantagruel, 
 almost more than Pantagruel himself. It would
 
 Rabelais. 41 
 
 be unpardonable to dismiss Rabelais without first 
 making our readers know Panurge by, at least, a few 
 traits of his character and conduct. Panurge was 
 a shifty but unscrupulous adventurer, whom Pan- 
 tagruel, pious prince as he was, coming upon him b} 1 
 chance, took and kept under his patronage. Panurge 
 was an arch-imp of mischief, mischief indulged in 
 the form of obscene and malicious practical jokes. 
 Rabelais describes his accomplishments in a long 
 strain of discourse, from which we purge our selec- 
 tion to follow, thereby transforming Panurge into 
 a comparatively proper and virtuous person : 
 
 He had threescore and three tricks to come by it 
 [money] at his need, of which the most honorable and most 
 ordinary was in manner of thieving, secret purloining, and 
 filching, for he was a wicked, lewd rogue, a cozener, drinker, 
 roysterer, rover, and a very dissolute and debauched fellow, 
 if there were any in Paris; otherwise, and in all matters else, 
 the best and most virtuous man in the world; and he was 
 still contriving some plot, and devising mischief against the 
 Serjeants and the watch. 
 
 At one time he assembled three or four especial good 
 hacksters and roaring boys; made them in the evening 
 drink like Templars, afterwards led them till they came 
 under St. Genevieve, or about the college of Navarre, and, 
 at the hour that the watch was coming up that way, which 
 he knew by putting his sword upon the pavement, and his 
 ear by it, and, when he heard his sword shake, it was an 
 infallible sign that the watch was near at that instant, 
 then he and his companions took a tumbrel or garbage-cart, 
 and gave it the brangle, hurling it with all their force clown 
 the hill, and then ran away upon the other side; for in less 
 than two days he knew all the streets, lanes, and turnings 
 in Paris, as well as his Deus tlel. 
 4
 
 42 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 At another time he laid, in some fair place where the 
 said watch was to pass, a train of gunpowder, and, at the 
 very instant that they went along, set fire to it, and then 
 made himself sport to see what good grace they had in 
 running away, thinking that St. Anthony's fire had caught 
 them by the legs. ... In one of his pockets he had a great 
 many little horns full of fleas and lice, which he borrowed 
 from th'e beggars of St. Innocent, and cast them, with small 
 canes or quills to write with, into the necks of the daintiest 
 gentlewomen that he could find, yea, even in the church; 
 for he never seated himself above in" the choir, but always 
 in the body of the church amongst the women, both at mass, 
 at vespers, and at sermon. 
 
 Coleridge, in his metaphysical way, keen at the 
 moment on the scent of illustrations for the phi- 
 losophy of Kant, said, " Pantagruel is the Reason ; 
 Panurge the Understanding." Rabelais himself, in 
 the fourth book of his romance, written in the last 
 years of his life, defines the spirit of the worK. 
 This fourth book, the English translator says, is 
 "justly thought his masterpiece." The same au- 
 thority adds with enthusiasm, " Being wrote with 
 n?ore spirit, salt, and flame than the first part." 
 Here, then, is Rabelais's own expression, sincere or 
 jocular, as you choose to take it, for what consti- 
 tutes the essence of his writing. We quote from 
 the " Prologue " : 
 
 By the means of a little Pantagruellsm (which, you 
 know, is a certain jollity of mind, pickled in the scorn of 
 fortune), you see me now [" at near seventy years of age," 
 his translator says], hale and cheery, as sound as a bell, and 
 ready to drink, if you wilL
 
 Rabelais. 43 
 
 It is impossible to exaggerate the mad, rollicking 
 humor, sticking at nothing, either in thought or in 
 expression, with which especially this last book of 
 Rabelais's work is written. But we have no more 
 space for quotation. 
 
 Coleridge's theory of interpretation for Rabelais's 
 writings is hinted in his " Table Talk," as follows : 
 " After any particularly deep thrust, . . . Rabelais, 
 as if to break the blow, and to appear unconscious 
 of what he has done, writes a chapter or two of 
 pure buffoonery." 
 
 The truth seems to us to be, that Rabelais's su- 
 preme taste, like his supreme power, lay in the line 
 of humorous satire. He hated monkery, and he 
 satirized the system as openly as he dared, this, 
 however, not so much in the love of truth and free- 
 dom, as in pure fondness for exercising his wit. 
 That he was more than willing to make his ribald 
 drollery the fool's mask from behind which he might 
 aim safely his shafts of ridicule at what he despised 
 and hated, is indeed probable. But in this is sup- 
 plied to him no sufficient excuse for his obscene and 
 blasphemous pleasantry. Nor yet are the manners 
 of the age an excuse sufficient. Erasmus belonged 
 to the same age, and he disliked the monks not less. 
 But what a contrast, in point of decency, between 
 Rabelais and Erasmus !
 
 44 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 IV. 
 
 MONTAIGNE. 
 1533-1592. 
 
 MONTAIGNE is signally the author of one book. 
 His "Essays" are the whole of him. He wrote 
 letters, to be sure, and he wrote journals of travel 
 in quest of health and pleasure. But these are 
 chiefly void of interest. Montaigne the Essayist 
 alone is emphatically the Montaigne that survives. 
 "Montaigne the Essayist," that has become, as 
 it were, a personal name in literary history. 
 
 The "Essay's" are one hundred and seven in 
 number, divided into three books. They are very 
 unequal in length ; and the}' are on the most various 
 topics, topics often the most whimsical in charac- 
 ter. We giye a few of his titles, taking them as 
 found in Cotton's translation : 
 
 That men by various ways arrive at the same end; 
 Whether the governor of a place ought himself to go out to 
 parley; Of liars; Of quick or slow speech; A proceeding of 
 some ambassadors ; Various events from the same counsel ; 
 Of cannibals; That we laugh and cry from the same thing; 
 Of smells; That the mincl hinders itself; Of thumbs; Cf 
 virtue; Of coaches; Of managing the will; Of cripples; 
 Of experience.
 
 Montaigne, 45 
 
 Montaigne's titles cannot be trusted to indicate 
 the nature of the essays to which they belong. The 
 author's pen will not be bound. It runs on at its 
 own pleasure. Things the most unexpected are in- 
 cessantly turning up in Montaigne, things, proba- 
 bly, that were as unexpected to the writer when he 
 was writing, as they, will be to the reader when, he 
 is reading. The writing, on whatever topic, in 
 whatever vein, always revolves around the writer 
 for its pivot. Montaigne, from no matter what 
 apparent diversion, may constantly be depended 
 upon to- bring up in due time at himself. The tether 
 is long and elastic, but it is tenacious, and it is 
 securely tied to Montaigne. This, as we shall pres- 
 ently let the author himself make plain, is no acci- 
 dent, of which Montaigne was unconscious. It is 
 the express idea on which the " Essays " were writ- 
 ten. Montaigne, in his " Essays," is a pure and 
 perfect egotist, naked, and not ashamed. Egotism 
 is Montaigne's note, his differentia, in the world of 
 literature. Other literary men have been egotists 
 since. But Montaigne may be called the first, 
 and he is the greatest. 
 
 Montaigne was a Gascon, and Gasconisms adul- 
 terate the purity of his French. But his style a 
 little archaic now, and never finished to the nail 
 had virtues of its own which have exercised a whole- 
 some influence on classic French prose. It is sim- 
 ple, direct, manly, genuine. It is fresh and racy of 
 the writer. It is flexible to every turn, it is sensitive
 
 46 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 to every rise or fall, of the thought. It is a stead- 
 fast rebuke to rant and fustian. It quietly laughs 
 to scorn the folly of that style which writhes in an 
 agony of expression, with neither thought nor feeling 
 present to be expressed. Montaigne's "Essaj's" 
 have been a great and a beneficent formative force 
 in the development of prose style in French. 
 
 For substance, Montaigne is rich in practical 
 wisdom, his own by original reflection, or by dis- 
 creet purvey al. He had read much, he had ob- 
 served much, he had experienced much. The result 
 of all, digested in brooding thought, he put into his 
 " Essays." These grew as he grew. He got him- 
 self transferred whole into them. Out of them, in 
 turn, the world has been busy ever since dissolving 
 Montaigne. 
 
 Montaigne's "Essays" are, as we have said, 
 himself. Such is his own way of putting the fact. 
 To one admiring his essays to him, he frankly re- 
 plied, " You will like me, if you like my essays, for 
 they are myself." The originality, the creative 
 character and force, of the " Essays," lies in this 
 autobiographical quality in them. Their fascina- 
 tion, too, consists in the self-revelation they contain. 
 This was, first, self-revelation on the part of the 
 writer ; but no less it becomes, in each case, self- 
 revelation in the experience of the reader. For, as 
 face answereth to face in the glass, so doth the 
 heart of man to man, from race to race, and from 
 generation to generation. If Montaigne, in his
 
 Montaigne. 47 
 
 " Essays," held the mirror up to himself, he, in the 
 same act, held up the mirror to you and to me. 
 The image that we, reading, call Montaigne, is 
 really ourselves. We never tire of gazing on it. 
 We are all of us Narcissuses. This is why Mon- 
 taigne is an immortal and a universal writer. 
 
 Here is Montaigne's Preface to his "Essays;" 
 " The Author to the Reader," it is entitled : 
 
 Reader, thou hast here an honest book; it doth at the 
 outset forewarn thee that, in contriving the same, I have 
 proposed to myself no other than a domestic and private 
 end: I have had no consideration at all either to thy service 
 or to my glory. My powers are not capable of any such de- 
 sign. I have dedicated it to the particular commodity of 
 my kinsfolk and friends, so that, having lost me (which 
 they must do shortly), they may therein recover some traits 
 of my conditions and humors, and by that means preserve 
 more whole, and more life-like, the knowledge they had of 
 me. Had my intention been to seek the world's favor, I 
 should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties. 
 I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genu- 
 ine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice; 
 for it is myself I paint. My defects are therein to be read 
 to the life, and my imperfections and my natural form, so 
 far as public reverence hath permitted me. -If I had lived 
 among those nations which (they say) yet dwell under the 
 sweet liberty of nature's primitive laws, I assure thee I 
 would most willingly have painted myself quite fully, and 
 quite naked. Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my 
 book. There's no reason thou sheujdst employ thy leisure 
 about so frivolous and vain a subject. Therefore, farewell. 
 
 From Montaigne, the 12th of June, 15SO. 
 
 Michel Eyqnem de Montaigne, our author, as the
 
 48 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 foregoing date will have suggested, derived his most 
 familiar name from the place at which he was born 
 and at which he lived. Readers are not to take too 
 literally Montaigne's notice of his dispensing with 
 " borrowed beauties." He was, in fact, a famous 
 borrower. He himself warns his readers to be care- 
 ful how they criticise him ; they may be flouting 
 unawares Seneca, Plutarch, or some other, equally 
 redoubtable, of the reverend ancients. Montaigne 
 is perhaps as signal an example as any in literature, 
 of the man of genius exercising his prescriptive 
 right to help himself to his own wherever he may 
 happen to find it. But Montaigne has in turn been 
 freely borrowed from. Bacon borrowed from him, 
 Shakspeare borrowed from him, Dryden, Pope, 
 Hume, Burke, Byron, these, with many more, in 
 England; and, in France, Pascal, La Rochefou- 
 cauld, Voltaire, Rousseau, directly or indirectly, 
 almost every writer since his day. No modern 
 writer, perhaps, has gone in solution into subse- 
 quent literature more widely than Montaigne. But 
 no writer remains more solidly and insolubly entire. 
 We go at- once to chapter twenty-five of the first 
 book of the "Essays," entitled, in the English 
 translation, "Of the education of children." The 
 translation we use henceforth throughout is the 
 
 classic one of Charles Cotton, in a text of it edited 
 
 - 
 
 by Mr. William Carew Hazlitt. The " preface," 
 already given, Cotton omitted to translate. We 
 have allowed Mr. Hazlitt to supply the deficiency.
 
 Montaigne. 49 
 
 Montaigne addressee his educational views to a 
 countess. Several others of his essays are similarly 
 inscribed to women. Mr. Emerson's excuse of 
 Montaigne for his coarseness, that he wrote for a 
 generation in which women were not expected to be 
 readers, is thus seen to be curiously impertinent 
 to the actual case that existed. Of a far worse 
 fault in Montaigne than his coarseness, we mean 
 his outright immorality, Mr. Emerson makes no 
 mention, and for it, therefore, provides no excuse. 
 We shall ourselves, in due time, deal more openly 
 with our readers on this point. 
 
 It was for a "boy of quality" that Montaigne 
 aimed to adapt his suggestions on the subject of 
 education. In this happy country of ours, all boys 
 are bays of qualit}- ; and we shall go nowhere amiss 
 in selecting from the present essay : 
 
 For a boy of quality, then, I say, I would also have his 
 friends solicitous to find him out a tutor who has rather a 
 well-made than a well-filled head, seeking, indeed, both the 
 one and the other, but rather of the two to prefer manners 
 and judgment to mere learning, and that this man should 
 exercise his charge after a new method. 
 
 'Tis the custom of pedagogues to be eternally thunder- 
 ing in their pupil's ears, as they were pouring into a funnel, 
 whilst the business of the pupil is only to repeat what the 
 others have said: now, I would have a tutor to correct this 
 error, and that, at the very first, he should, according to the 
 capacity he has to deal with, put it to the test, permitting 
 his pupil himself to taste things, and of himself to discern 
 and choose them, sometimes opening the way to him, and 
 sometimes leaving him to open it for himself; that is, I
 
 50 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 would not have him alone to invent and speak, but that he 
 should also hear his pupil speak in turn. . . . Let him 
 make him put what he has learned into a hundred several 
 forms, and accommodate it to so many several subjects, to 
 see if he yet rightly comprehends it, and has made it his 
 own. . . . 'Tis a sign of crudity and indigestion to disgorge 
 what we eat in the same condition it was swallowed: the 
 stomach has not performed its office, unless it have altered 
 the form and condition of what was committed to it to con- 
 coct. . . . 
 
 Let him make him examine and thoroughly sift every 
 thing he reads, and lodge nothing in his fancy upon simple 
 authority and upon trust. Aristotle's principles will then be 
 no more principles to him than those of Epicurus and the 
 Stoics: let this diversity of opinions be propounded to, and 
 laid before, him; he will himself choose, if he be able; if 
 not, he will remain in doubt. 
 
 " Che, non men che saper, dubbiar m'aggrata." 
 
 DANTE, Inferno, zl. 93. 
 
 [" That doubting pleases me, not less than knowing." 
 
 LONGFELLOW'S Translation.'] 
 
 For, if he embrace the opinions of Xenophon and Plato, by 
 his own reason, they will no more be theirs, but become his 
 own. Who follows another, follows nothing, finds nothing, 
 nay, is inquisitive after nothing. "Non sumus sub rege; 
 sibi quisque se vindicet." [" We are under no king; let each 
 look to himself." SENECA, Ep. 33.] Let him, at least, 
 know that he knows. It will be necessary that he imbibe 
 their knowledge, not that he be corrupted with their pre- 
 cepts; and no matter if he forget where he had his learning, 
 provided he know how to apply it to his own use. Truth 
 and reason are common to every one, and are no more his 
 who spake them first, than his who speaks them after; 'tis 
 no more according to Plato, than according to me, since 
 both he and I equally see and understand them. Bees cull
 
 Montaigne. 61 
 
 their several sweets from this flower and that blossom, here 
 and there where they find them ; but themselves afterward 
 make the honey, which is all and purely their own, and no 
 more thyme and marjoram: so the several fragments he 
 borrows from others he will transform and shuffle together, 
 to compile a work that shall be absolutely his own; that is to 
 say, his judgment: his instruction, labor, and study tend 
 to nothing else but to form that. . . . Conversation with 
 men is of very great use, anJ travel into foreign countries; 
 ... to be able chiefly to give an account of the humors, 
 manners, customs, and laws of those nations where he has 
 been, and that we may whet and sharpen our wits by rub- 
 bing them against those of others. . . . 
 
 In this conversing with men, I mean also, and princi- 
 pally, those who live only in the records of history: he 
 shall, by reading those books, converse with the great and 
 heroic souls of the best ages. 
 
 It is difficult to find a stopping-place in discourse 
 so wise and so sweet. We come upon sentences 
 like Plato for height and for beauty. An example : 
 " The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual 
 cheerfulness ; her state is like that of things in the 
 regions above the moon, always clear and serene." 
 But the genius of Montaigne does not often soar, 
 though even one little flight like that shows that it 
 has wings. Montaigne's garnishes of quotation 
 from foreign tongues are often a cold-blooded de- 
 vice of afterthought with him. His first edition 
 was without them, in many places where subse- 
 quently they appear. Readers familiar with Emer- 
 son will be reminded of him in perusing Montaigne. 
 Emerson himself said, "It seemed to me [in read-
 
 52 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 ing the "Essays " of Montaigne] as if I had myself 
 written the book in some former life, so sincerely it 
 spoke to my thoughts and experience." The rich 
 old English of Cotton's translation had evidently a 
 strong influence on Emerson, to mould his own style 
 of expression. Emerson's trick of writing " 'tis," 
 was apparently caught from Cotton. The following 
 sentence, from the present essa}- of Montaigne, 
 might very well have served Mr. Emerson for his 
 own rule of writing: "Let* it go before, or come 
 after, a good sentence, or a thing well said, is 
 always in season ; if it neither suit well with what 
 went before, nor has much coherence with what fol- 
 lows after, it is good in itself." Montaigne, at any 
 rate, wrote his "Essays" on that easy principle. 
 The logic of them is the logic of mere chance asso- 
 ciation in thought. But, with Montaigne, what- 
 ever is true of Emerson, the association at least 
 is not occult ; and it is such as pleases the reader, 
 not less than it pleased the writer. So this Gascon 
 gentleman of the olden time never tires us, and 
 never loses us out of his hand. We go with him 
 cheerfully where he so blithely leads. 
 
 Montaigne tells us how he was himself trained 
 under his father. The elder Montaigne, too, had his 
 ideas on education, the subject which his son, in 
 this essay, so instructively treats. The essayist leads 
 up to his autobiographical episode by an allusion to 
 the value of the classical languages, and to the ques- 
 tion of method in studying them. He says :
 
 Montaigne. 53 
 
 In my infancy, and before I began to speak, he, [my father] 
 committed me to the care of a German, . . . totally ignorant 
 of our language, but very fluent, and a great critic, in Latin. 
 This man, whom he had fetched out of his own country, and 
 whom he entertained with a very great salary, for this only 
 end, had me continually with him : to him there were also 
 joined two others, of inferior learning, to attend me, and to 
 relieve him, who all of v them spoke to me in no other lan- 
 guage but Latin. As to the rest of his family, it was an 
 inviolable rule, that neither himself nor my mother, man 
 nor maid, should speak any thing in my company, but such 
 Latin words as every one had learned only to gabble with 
 me. It is not to be imagined how great an advantage this 
 proved to the whole family: my father and my mother by 
 this means learned Latin enough to understand it perfectly 
 well, and to speak it to such a degree as was sufficient for 
 any necessary use, as also those of the servants did, who 
 were most frequently with me. In short, we Latined it at 
 such a rate, that at overflowed to all the neighboring villages, 
 where there yet remain, that have established themselves 
 by custom, several Latin appellations of artisans and their 
 tools. As for what concerns myself, I was above six years 
 of age before I understood either French or Perigordin 
 [" Perigordin " is Montaigne's name for the dialect of his 
 province, Perigord (Gascony)], any more than Arabic; and, 
 without art, book, grammar, or precept, whipping, or the 
 expense of a tear, I had, by that time, learned to speak as 
 pure Latin as my master himself, for I had no means of 
 mixing it up with any other. 
 
 We are now to see how, helped by his wealth, the 
 father was able to gratify a pleasant whimsey of his 
 own in the nurture of his boy. Highly aesthetic was 
 the matin reveille that broke the slumbers of this 
 hopeful young heir of Montaigne :
 
 54 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Some being of opinion that it troubles and disturbs the 
 brains of children suddenly to wake them in the morning, 
 and to snatch them violently and over-hastily from sleep, 
 wherein they are much more profoundly involved than we, 
 he [the father] caused me to be wakened by the sound of 
 some musical instrument, and was never unprovided of a 
 musician for that purpose. . . . The good man, being ex- 
 tremely timorous of any way failing in a thing he had so 
 wholly set his heart upon, suffered himself at last to be 
 overruled by the common opinions: ... he sent me, at six 
 years of age, to the College of Guienne, at that time the 
 best and most nourishing in France. 
 
 In short, as in the case of Mr. Tulliver, the world 
 was "too many" for Eyquem pere; and, in the 
 education of his son, the stout Gascon, having 
 started out well as dissenter, fell into dull con- 
 formity at last. 
 
 We ought to give some idea of the odd instances, 
 classic and other, with which Montaigne plentifully 
 bestrews his pages. He is writing of the " Force 
 of Imagination." He says : 
 
 A woman, fancying she had swallowed a pin in a piece 
 of bread, cried and lamented as though she had an intoler- 
 able pain in her throat, where she thought she felt it stick; 
 but an ingenious fellow that was brought to her, seeing no 
 outward tumor nor alteration, supposing it to be only a con- 
 ceit taken at some crust of bread that had hurt her as it 
 went down, caused her to vomit, and, unseen, threw a 
 crooked pin into the basin, which the woman no sooner 
 saw, but, believing she had cast it up, she presently found 
 herself eased of her pain. . . . 
 
 Such as are addicted to the pleasures of the field, have.
 
 Montaigne. 55 
 
 I make no question, heard the story of the falconer, who, 
 having earnestly fixed his eyes upon a kite in the air, laid a 
 wager that he woul J bring her down with the sole power of 
 his sight, and did so, as it was said ; for the tales I borrow, 
 I charge upon the consciences of those from whom I have 
 them. 
 
 We italicize the last foregoing words, to make 
 readers see that Montaigne is not to be read for the 
 truth of his instances. He uses what comes to 
 hand. He takes no trouble to verify. "The dis- 
 courses are my own," lie says; but even this, as 
 we have hinted, must not be pressed too hard in 
 interpretation. "Whether a given reflection of Mon- 
 taigne's is strictly his own, in the sense of not 
 having been first another's, who gave it to him, is 
 not to be determined except upon very wide read- 
 ing, very well remembered, in all the books that 
 Montaigne could have got under his eye. That was 
 full fairly his own, he thought, which he had made 
 his own by intelligent appropriation. And this, 
 perhaps, expresses in general the sound law of 
 property in the realm of mind. At any rate, Mon- 
 taigne will wear no yoke of fast obligation. He 
 will write as pleases him. Above all things else, he 
 likes his freedom. 
 
 Here is one of those sagacious historical scep- 
 ticisms, in which Montaigne was so fond of poising 
 his mind between opposite views. It occurs in his 
 essay entitled, "Of the Uncertainty of our Judg- 
 ments."
 
 56 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Amongst other oversights Porapey is charged withal at 
 the battle of Pharsalia, he is condemned for making his 
 army stand still to receive the enemy's charge, " by reason 
 that" (I shall here steal Plutarch's own words, which are 
 better than mine) " he by so doing deprived himself of the 
 violent impression the motion of running adds to the first 
 shock of arms, and hindered that clashing of the combatants 
 against one another, which is wont to give them greater im- 
 petuosity and fury, especially when they come to rush in 
 with their utmost vigor, their courages increasing by the 
 shouts and the career; 'tis to render the soldiers' ardor, as a 
 man may say, more reserved and cold." This is what he 
 says. But, if Caesar had come by the worse, why might it 
 not as well have been urged by another, that, on the con- 
 trary, the strongest and most steady posture of fighting is 
 that wherein a man stands planted firm, without motion; 
 and that they who are steady upon the march, closing up, 
 and reserving their force within themselves for the push of 
 the business, have a great advantage against those who are 
 disordered, and who have already spent half their breath in 
 running on precipitately to the charge? Besides that, an 
 army is a body made up of so many individual members, it 
 is impossible for it to move in this fury with so exact a 
 motion as not to break the order of battle, and that the best 
 of them are not engaged before their fellows can come oa 
 to help them. 
 
 The sententiousness of Montaigne may be illus- 
 trated by transferring here a page of brief excerpts 
 from the " Essays," collected by Mr. Bayle St. John 
 in his biography of the author. This apothegmatic 
 or proverbial quality in Montaigne had a very impor- 
 tant sequel of fruitful influence on subsequent French 
 writers, as chapters to follow in this volwme will 
 abundantly show. In reading the sentences sub-
 
 Montaigne. 57 
 
 joined, you will have the sensation of coming sud- 
 denly upon a treasure-trove of coined proverbial 
 wisdom : 
 
 Our minds are never at home, but ever btyond home. 
 
 I will take care, if possible, that my death shall say noth- 
 ing that my life has not said. 
 
 Life in itself is neither good nor bad: it is the place of 
 what is good or bad. 
 
 Knowledge should not be stuck on to the mind, but incor- 
 porated in it. 
 
 Irresolution seems to me the most common and apparent 
 vice of our nature. 
 
 Age wrinkles the mind more than the face. 
 
 Habit is a second nature. 
 
 Hunger cures love. 
 
 It is easier to get money than to keep it. 
 
 Anger has often been the vehicle of courage. 
 
 It is more difficult to command than to obey. 
 
 A liar should have a good memory. 
 
 Ambition is the daughter of presumption. 
 
 To serve a prince, you must be discreet and a liar. 
 
 We learn to live when life has passed. 
 
 The mind is ill at ease when its companion has the colic. 
 
 We arc all richer than we think, but we are brought up 
 to go a-begging. 
 
 The greatest masterpiece of man is ... to be born at 
 the right time. 
 5
 
 58 Classic Wrench Course in English. 
 
 We append a saying of Montaigne's not found 
 in Mr. St. John's collection : 
 
 There is no so good man who so squares all his thoughts 
 and actions to the laws, that he is not faulty enough to 
 deserve hanging ten times in his life. 
 
 Montaigne was too intensely an egotist, in his 
 character as man no less than in his character as 
 writer, to have many personal relations that exhibit 
 him in aspects engaging to our love. But one 
 friendship of his is memorable, is even historic. 
 The name of La Boe'tie is forever associated with 
 the name of Montaigne. La Boe'tie is remarkable 
 for being, as we suppose, absolutely the first voice 
 raised in France against the idea of monarchy. His 
 little treatise " Coutr' Un " (literally, "Against 
 One"), or u Voluntary Servitude," is by many 
 esteemed among the most important literary pro- 
 ductions of modern times. Others, again, Mr. 
 George Saintsbury for example, consider it an 
 absurdly overrated book. For our own part, 
 we are inclined to give it conspicuous place in 
 the history of free thought in France. La Boe'tie 
 died young; and his " Contr' Un " was published 
 posthumously, first by the Protestants, after 
 the terrible day of St. Bartholomew. Our readers 
 may judge for themselves whether a pamphlet in 
 which such passages as the following could occur, 
 must not have had an historic effect upon the inflam- 
 mable sentiment of the French people. We take
 
 Montaigne. 59 
 
 Mr. Bayle St. John's translation, bracketing a hint 
 or two of correction suggested by comparison of the 
 original French. The treatise of La Boe'tie is some- 
 times now printed with Montaigne's "Essays," in 
 French editipns of our author's works : La Boeti? 
 says : 
 
 You sow your fruits [crops] that he [the king] may rav- 
 age them ; you furnish and fill your houses that he may have 
 something to steal; you bring up your daughters that he may 
 slake his luxury; you bring up your sons that he may take 
 them to be butchered in his wars, to be the ministers of his 
 avarice, the executors of his vengeance; you disfigure your 
 forms by labor [your own selves you inure to toil] that he 
 may cocker himself in delight, and wallow in nasty and 
 disgusting pleasure. 
 
 Montaigne seems really to have loved this friend 
 of his, whom lie reckoned the greatest man in France. 
 His account of La Beetle's death is boldly, and not 
 presumptuously, paralleled by Mr. St. John with the 
 " Phaedon " of Plato. Noble writing, it certainly is, 
 though its stateliness is a shade too self-conscious., 
 perhaps. 
 
 We have thus far presented Montaigne in words 
 of his own such as may fairly be supposed likely to 
 prepossess the reader in his favor. We could mul- 
 tiply our extracts indefinitely in a like unexception- 
 able vein of writing. But to do so, and to stop 
 with these, would misrepresent Montaigne. Mon- 
 taigne is very far from being an innocent writer. 
 His moral tone generally is low, and often it is
 
 60 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 execrable. He is coarse, but coarseness is not the 
 worst of him. Indeed, he is cleanliness itself com- 
 pared with Rabelais. But Rabelais is morality itself 
 compared with Montaigne. Montaigne is corrupt 
 and corrupting. This feature of his ^writings, we 
 are necessarily forbidden to illustrate. In an essay 
 written in his old age, -^ which we will not even 
 name, its general tenor is so evil, Montaigne holds 
 the following language : 
 
 I gently turn aside, and avert my eyes from the stormy 
 and cloudy sky I have before me, which, thanks be to God, 
 I regard without fear, but not without meditation and 
 study, and amuse myself in the remembrance of my better 
 years : 
 
 " Animus qnod perdidit, optat, 
 Atque in prseterita se totus imagine versat." 
 
 PETRONIUS, c. 128. 
 
 ["The mind desires what it has lost, and in fancy flings 
 itself wholly into the past."] 
 
 Let childhood look forward, and age backward: is not 
 this the signification of Janus' double face ? Let years 
 haul me along if they will, but it shall be backward ; as long 
 as my eyes can discern the pleasant season expired, I shall 
 now and then turn them that way; though it escape from 
 my blood and veins, I shall not, however, root the image of 
 it out of my memory: 
 
 " Hoc est 
 Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui." 
 
 MARTIAL, x. 23, 7. 
 
 [" 'Tis to live twice to be able to enjoy former life again."] 
 Harmlessly, even engagingly, pensive seems the
 
 Montaigne. 61 
 
 foregoing strain of sentiment. Who could suppose 
 it a prelude to detailed reminiscence on the author's 
 part of sensual pleasures the basest enjoyed in 
 the past? The venerable voluptuary keeps himself 
 in countenance for his lascivious vein, by writing as 
 follows : 
 
 I have enjoined myself to dare to say all that I dare to 
 do; even thoughts that are not to be published, displease 
 me; the worst of my actions and qualities do not appear to 
 me so evil, as I find it evil and base not to dare to own 
 them. . . . 
 
 ... I am greedy of making myself known, and I care 
 not to how many, provided it be truly. . . . Many things 
 that I would not say to a particular individual, I say to the 
 people; and, as to my most secret thoughts, send my most 
 intimate friends to my book. . . . For my part, if any one 
 should recommend me as a good pilot, as being very modest, 
 or very chaste, I should owe him no thanks [because the 
 recommendation would be false]. 
 
 We must leave it as, however, Montaigne him- 
 self is far enough from leaving it to the imagina- 
 tion of readers to conjecture what " pleasures " they 
 are, of which this worn-out debauchee (nearing 
 death, and thanking God that he nears it " with- 
 out fear ' ' ) speaks in the following sentimental 
 strain : 
 
 In farewells, we oftener than not heat our affections 
 towards the things we take leave of: I take my last leave of 
 the pleasures of this world ; these are our last embraces. 
 
 Mr. Emerson, in his ki Representative Men,"
 
 62 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 makes Montaigne stand for The Sceptic. Sceptic 
 Montaigne was. He questioned, lie considered, he 
 doubted. He stood poised in equilibrium, in indif- 
 ference, between contrary opinions. He saw rea- 
 sons on this side, but he saw reasons also on that, 
 and he did not clear his mind. " Que s$ai-je?" 
 was his motto ("What know I?"), a question as 
 of hopeless ignorance, nay, as of ignorance also 
 void of desire to know. His life was one long in- 
 terrogation, a balancing of opposites, to the end. 
 
 Such, speculatively, was Montaigne. Such, too, 
 speculatively, was Pascal. The difference, however, 
 was greater than the likeness, between these two 
 minds. Pascal, doubting, gave the world of spir- 
 itual things the benefit of his doubt. Montaigne, 
 on the other hand, gave the benefit of his doubt to 
 the world of sense. He was a sensualist, he was a 
 glutton, he was a lecher. He, for his portion, chose 
 the good things of this life. His body he used to 
 get him pleasures of the body. In pleasures of the 
 body he sunk and drowned his conscience, if he 
 ever had a conscience. But his intelligence sur- 
 vived. He became, at last, if he was not such 
 from the first, almost pure sense, without soul. 
 
 Yet we have no doubt Montaigne was an agree- 
 able gentleman. We think we should have got on 
 well with him as a neighbor of ours. He was a 
 tolerably decent father, provided the child were 
 grown old enough to be company for him. His 
 own lawful children, while infants, had to go xmt
 
 Montaigne. 63 
 
 of the house for their nursing ; so it not unnaturally 
 happened that all but one died in their infancy. 
 Five of such is the number that you can count in 
 his own journalistic entries of family births and 
 deaths. But, speaking as "moral philosopher," in 
 his "Essays," he says, carelessly, that he had lost 
 "two or three" "without repining." This, per- 
 haps, is affectation. But what affectation ! 
 
 Montaigne was well-to-do ; and he ranked as a 
 gentleman, if not as a great nobleman. He lived 
 in a castle, bequeathed to him, and by him be- 
 queathed, a castle still standing, and full of per- 
 sonal association with its most famous owner. He 
 occupied a room in the tower, fitted up as a library. 
 Over the door of this room may still, we believe, be 
 read Montaigne's motto, " Que si;ai-je?" Votaries 
 of Montaigne perform their pious pilgrimages to 
 this shrine of their idolatry, year after j'ear, cen- 
 tury after century. 
 
 For, remember, it is now three centuries since 
 Montaigne wrote. He was before Bacon and 
 Shakspeare. He was contemporary with Charles 
 IX., and with Henry of Navarre. But date has 
 little to do with such a writer as Montaigne. His 
 quality is sempiternal. He overlies the ages, as 
 the long hulk of " The Great Eastern " overlay the 
 waves of the sea, stretching from summit to sum- 
 mit. Not that, in the form of his literary work, he 
 was altogether independent of time and of circum- 
 stance. Not that he was uninfluenced by his his-
 
 64 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 toric place, in the essential spirit of his work. But, 
 more than often happens, Montaigne may fairly be 
 judged out of himself alone. His message he 
 might, indeed, have delivered differently ; but it 
 would have been substantially the same message if 
 he had been differently placed in the world, and in 
 history. We need hardly, therefore, add any thing 
 about Montaigne's outward life. His true life is in 
 his book. 
 
 Montaigne the Essayist is the consummate, the 
 ideal, expression, practically incapable of improve- 
 ment, of the spirit and wisdom of the world. This 
 characterization, we think, fairly and sufficiently 
 sums up the good and the bad of Montaigne. We 
 might seem to describe no very mischievous thing. 
 But to have the spirit and wisdom of this world 
 expressed, to have it expressed as in a last authori- 
 tative form, a form to commend it, to flatter it, to 
 justify it, to make it seem sufficient, to erect it into 
 a kind of gospel, that means much. It means 
 hardly less than to provide the world with a new 
 Bible, a Bible of the world's own, a Bible that 
 shall approve itself as better than the Bible of th? 
 Old and New Testament?. Montaigne's "Essays" 
 constitute, in effect, such a book. The man of the 
 world may, and, to say truth, does, in this vol- 
 ume, find all his needed texts. Here is viaticum 
 daily manna for him, to last the year round, and 
 to last year after year ; an inexhaustible breviary 
 for the church of this world ! It is of the gravest
 
 Montaigne. 65 
 
 historical significance that Rabelais and Montaigne, 
 but especially Montaigne, should, to such an extent, 
 for now three full centuries, have been furnishing 
 the daily intellectual food of Frenchmen. 
 
 Pascal, in an interview with M. de Saci (care- 
 fully reported by the latter) , in which the conversa- 
 tion was on the subject of Montaigne and Epictetus 
 contrasted, these two authors Pascal acknowl- 
 edged to be the ones most constantly in his hand, 
 said gentl}* of Montaigne, "Montaigne is abso- 
 lutely pernicious to those who have any inclination 
 toward irreligion, or toward vicious indulgences." 
 We, for our part, are prepared, speaking more 
 broadly than Pascal, to say that, to a somewhat 
 numerous class of naturally dominant minds, Mon- 
 taigne's " Essa}-s," in spite of all that there is good 
 in them, nay, greatly because of so much good in 
 them, are, by their subtly insidious persuasion to 
 evil, upon the whole quite the most powerfully 
 pernicious book known to us in literature, either 
 ancient or modern.
 
 66 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 V. 
 
 LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: 1613-1680 (La Bruyere: 
 1646 (?)-1696 ; Vauvenargues : 1715-1747). 
 
 IN La Rochefoucauld we meet another eminent 
 example of the author of one book. "Letters," 
 "Memoirs," and " Maxims " indeed name produc- 
 tions in three kinds, productions all of them notable, 
 and all still extant, from La Rochefoucauld's pen. 
 But the " Maxims " are so much more famous than 
 either the "Letters " or the " Memoirs," that their 
 author may be said to be known only by those. If 
 it were not for the " Maxims," the " Letters " and 
 the "Memoirs" would probably now be forgotten. 
 We here may dismiss these from our minds, and con- 
 centrate our attention exclusively upon the " Max- 
 ims." Voltaire said, "The 'Memoirs' of the Due 
 de La Rochefoucauld are read, but we know his 
 ' Maxims ' by heart." 
 
 La Rochefoucauld's " Maxims " are detached sen- 
 tences of reflection and wisdom on human character 
 and conduct. They are about seven hundred in 
 number, but they are all comprised in a very small 
 volume ; for they generally are each oiilj' two or 
 three lines in length, and almost never does a single 
 maxim occupy more than the half of a moderate- 
 sized page. The " Maxims," detached, us we have
 
 La Rochefoucauld. 67 
 
 described them, have no very marked logical se- 
 quence in the order in which they stand. They all, 
 however, have a profound mutual relation. An 
 unvarying monotone of sentiment, in fact, runs 
 through them. They are so many different expres- 
 sions, answering to so many different observations 
 taken at different angles, of one and the same per- 
 sisting estimate of human nature. ' Self-love is 
 the mainspring and motive of every thing we d:>, or 
 say, or feel, or think : ' that is the total result of 
 the " Maxims " of La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 The writer's qualifications for treating his theme 
 were unsurpassed. He had himself the right char- 
 acter, moral and intellectual ; his scheme of conduct 
 in life corresponded ; he wrote in the right language, 
 French ; and he was rightly situated in time, in place, 
 and in circumstance. He needed but to look closely 
 within him and without him, which he was gifted 
 with eyes to do, and then report what he saw, in 
 the language to which he was born. This he did, 
 and his " Maxims " are the fruit. His method was 
 largely the sceptical method of Montaigne. His 
 result, too, was much the same result as his master's. 
 But the pupi'! surpassed the master in the quality of 
 his work. There is a fineness, an exquisiteness, in 
 the literary form of La Rochefoucauld, which Mon- 
 taigne might indeed have disdained to seek, but 
 which he could never, even with seeking, have 
 attained. Each maxim of La Rochefoucauld is a 
 ' gem of purest ray serene," wrought to the last
 
 68 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 degree of perfection in form with infinite artistic 
 pains. Purity, precision, clearness, densitj", point, 
 are perfectly reconciled in La Rochefoucauld's style 
 with ease, grace, and brilliancy of expression. The 
 influence of such literary finish, well bestowed on 
 thought worthy to receive it, has been incalculably 
 potent in raising the standard of French production 
 in prose. It was Voltaire's testimony, "One of 
 the works which has most contributed to form the 
 national taste, and give it a spirit of accuracy and 
 precision, was the little collection of ' Maxims ' by 
 Francois Due de La Rochefoucauld." 
 
 There is a high-bred air about La Rochefoucauld 
 the writer, which well accords with the rank and 
 character of the man La Rochefoucauld. He was 
 of one of the noblest families in Fiance. His 
 instincts were all aristocratic. His manners and his 
 morals were those of his class. Brave, spirited, a 
 touch of chivalry in him, honorable and amiable as 
 the world reckons of its own, La Rochefoucauld ran 
 a career consistent throughout with his own master- 
 principle, self-love. He had a wife whose conjugal 
 fidelity her husband seems to have thought a suffi- 
 cient supply in that virtue for both himself and her. 
 He behaved himself accordingly. His illicit rela- 
 tions with other women were notorious. But they 
 unhappily did not make La Rochefoucauld in that 
 respect at all peculiar among the distinguished 
 men of his time. His brilliant female friends col- 
 laborated with him in working out his "Maxims."
 
 La Rochefoucauld. 69 
 
 These were the labor of years. They were pub- 
 lished in successive editions, during the lifetime of 
 the author ; and some final maxims were added from 
 his manuscripts after his death. 
 
 Using, for the purpose, a very recent translation, 
 that of A. S. Bolton (which, in one or two places, 
 *we venture to conform more exactly to the sense of 
 the original) , we give almost at hazard a few speci- 
 mens of these celebrated apothegms. We adopt 
 the numbering given in the best Paris edition of the 
 " Maxims : " 
 
 No. 11. The passions often beget their contraries. Ava- 
 rice sometimes produces prodigality, and prodigality avarice: 
 we are of ten firm from weakness, and daring from timidity. 
 
 No. 13. Our self-love bears more impatiently the con- 
 demnation of our tastes than of our opinions. 
 
 How much just detraction from all mere natural 
 human greatness is contained in the following pene- 
 trative maxim ! 
 
 No. 18. Moderation is a fear of falling into the envy and 
 contempt which those deserve who are intoxicated with their 
 good fortune ; it is a vain parade of the strength of our mind ; 
 and, in short, the moderation of men in their highest eleva- 
 tion is a desire to appear greater than their fortune. 
 
 What effectively quiet satire in these few words ! 
 
 No. 19. We have strength enough to bear the ills of 
 others. 
 
 This man had seen the end of all perfection in the 
 apparently great of this world. He could not bear
 
 70 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 that such should flaunt a false plume before their 
 fellows : 
 
 No. 20. The steadfastness of sages is only the art of 
 locking up their uneasiness in their hearts. 
 
 Of course, had it lain in the author's chosen line 
 to do so, he might, with as much apparent truth, 
 have pointed out, that to lock up uneasiness in the 
 heart requires steadfastness no less nay, more 
 than not to feel uneasiness. ^ 
 
 The inflation of " philosophy" vaunting itself is 
 thus softly eased of its painful distention : 
 
 No. 22. Philosophy triumphs easily over troubles passed 
 and troubles to come, but present troubles triumph over 
 it. 
 
 When Jesus once rebuked the fellow-disciples of 
 James and John for blaming those brethren as self- 
 seekers, he acted on the same profound principle 
 with that disclosed in the following maxim : 
 
 No. 34. If we had no pride, we should not complain of 
 that of others. 
 
 How impossible it is for that Proteus, self-love, to 
 elude the presence of mind, the inexorable eye, the 
 fast hand, of this incredulous Frenchman : 
 
 No. 39. Interest [self-love] speaks all sorts of languages, 
 and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness. 
 
 No. 49. We are never so happy, or so unhappy, as we 
 imagine. 
 
 No. 78. The love of justice is, in most men, only the fear 
 of suffering injustice.
 
 La Rochefoucauld. 71 
 
 What a subtly unsoldering distrust the following 
 maxim introduces into the sentiment of mutual 
 friendship ! 
 
 No. 83. What men have called friendship, is only a 
 partnership, a mutual accommodation of interests, and an 
 exchange of good offices: it is, in short, only a traffic, in 
 which self-love always proposes to gain something. 
 
 No. 89, Every one complains of his memory, and no one 
 complains of his judgment. 
 
 How striking, from its artful suppression of strik- 
 inguess, is the first following, and what a wide, 
 easy sweep of well-bred satire it contains ! 
 
 No. 93. Old men like to give good advice, to console them- 
 selves for being no longer able to give bad examples. 
 
 No. 119. We are so much accustomed to disguise our- 
 selves to others, that, at last, we disguise ourselves to 
 ourselves. 
 
 No. 127. The true way to be deceived, is to think one's 
 self sharper than others. 
 
 The plain-spoken proverb, "A man that is his 
 own lawyer, has a fool for his client," finds a more 
 polished expression in the following : 
 
 No. 132. It is easier to be wise for others, than to be so 
 for one's self. 
 
 How pitilessly this inquisitor pursues his pre} r , 
 the human soul, into all its useless hiding-places ! 
 
 No. 138. We would rather speak ill of ourselves, than not 
 talk of ourselves.
 
 72 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 The following maxim, longer and less felici- 
 tously phrased than is usual with La Rochefou- 
 cauld, recalls that bitter definition of the bore, 
 " One who insists on talking about himself all the 
 time that you are wishing to talk about your- 
 self:" 
 
 No. 139. One of the causes why we find so few people 
 who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation, is, 
 that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of 
 what he wishes to say, than of replying exactly to what is 
 said to him. The cleverest and the most compliant think it 
 enough to show an attentive air; while we see in their eyes 
 and in their mind a wandering from what is said to them, 
 and a hurry to return to what they wish to say, instead of 
 considering that it is a bad way to please or to persuade 
 others, to try so hard to please one's self, and that to listen 
 well is one of the greatest accomplishments we can have in 
 conversation. 
 
 If we are indignant at the maxims following, it is 
 probably rather because they are partly true than 
 because they are wholly false : 
 
 No. 144. We are not fond of praising, and, without inter- 
 est, we never praise any one. Praise is a cunning flattery, 
 hidden and delicate, which, in different ways, pleases him 
 who gives and him who receives it. The one takes it as a 
 reward for his merit : the other gives it to show his equity 
 and his discernment. 
 
 No. 146. We praise generally only to be praised. 
 
 No. 147. Few are wise enough to prefer wholesome blame 
 to treacherous praise. 
 
 No. 149. Disclaiming praise is a wish to be praised a 
 second time.
 
 La Rochefoucauld. 73 
 
 No. 152. If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of 
 others could not hurt us. . 
 
 No. 184. We acknowledge our faults in order to atone, 
 by our sincerity, for the harm they do us in the minds of 
 others. 
 
 No. 199. The desire to appear able often presents oui 
 becoming so. 
 
 No. 201. Whoever thinks he can do without the woJld, 
 deceives himself much; but whoever thinks the world can- 
 not do without him, deceives himself much more. 
 
 "With the following, contrast Ruskin's noble para- 
 dox, that the soldier's business, rightly conceived, 
 is self-sacrifice ; his ideal purpose being, not to kill, 
 but to be killed : 
 
 No. 214. Valor, in private soldiers, is a perilous calling, 
 which they have taken to in order to gain their living. 
 
 Here is, perhaps, the most current of all La 
 Rochefoucauld's maxims : 
 
 No. 218. Hypocrisy is a homage which vice renders to 
 virtue. 
 
 Of the foregoing maxim, it may justly be said, 
 that its truth and point depend upon the assump- 
 tion, implicit, that there is such a thing as virtue, 
 an assumption which the whole tenor of the 
 '* Maxims," in general, contradicts. 
 
 How incisive the following ! 
 
 No. 226. Too great eagerness to requite an obligation is 
 a kind of ingratitude. 
 
 No. 298. The gratitude of most men is only a secret desire 
 to receive greater favors. 
 G
 
 74 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 No. 304. We often forgive those who bore us, but we 
 cannot forgive those whom we bore. 
 
 No. 313. Why should we have memory enough to retain 
 even the smallest particulars of what has happened to us, 
 and yet not have enough to remember how often we have 
 told them to the same individual ? 
 
 The first following maxim satirizes both princes 
 and courtiers. It might be entitled, " How to in- 
 sult a prince, and not suffer for your temerity " : 
 
 No. 320. To praise princes for virtues they have not, is 
 to insult them with impunity. 
 
 No. 347. We find few sensible people, except those who 
 are of our way of thinking. 
 
 No. 409. We should often be ashamed of our best actions, 
 if the world saw the motives which cause them. 
 
 No. 424. We boast of faults the reverse of those we have: 
 when we are weak, we boast of being stubborn. 
 
 Here, at length, is a maxim that does not depress, 
 that animates you : 
 
 No. 432. To praise noble actions heartily, is in some sort 
 to take part in them. 
 
 The following is much less exhilarating : 
 
 No. 454. There are few instances in which we should 
 make a bad bargain, by giving up the good that is said of us, 
 on condition that nothing bad be said. 
 
 This, also : 
 
 No. 458. Our enemies come nearer to the truth, in the 
 opinions they form of us, than we do ourselves. 
 
 Here is a celebrated maxim, vainly " suppressed " 
 by the author, after first publication :
 
 La Rochefoucauld. 75 
 
 No. 583. In the adversity of our best friends, we always 
 find something which does not displease us." 
 
 Before La Rochefoucauld, Montaigne had said, 
 "Even in the midst of compassion, we feel within us 
 an unaccountable bitter-sweet titillation of ill-natured 
 pleasure in seeing another suffer;" and Burke, 
 after both, wrote (in his " Sublime and Beautiful ") 
 with a heavier hand, " I am convinced that we have 
 a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the 
 real misfortunes and pains of others." 
 
 La Rochefoucauld is not fairly cynical, more than 
 is Montaigne. But, as a man, he wins upon you 
 less. His maxims are like hard and sharp crystals, 
 precipitated from the worldly wisdom blandly solute 
 and dilute in Montaigne. 
 
 The wise of this world reject the dogma of human 
 depravity, as taught in the Bible. They willingly 
 accept it, nay, accept it complacently, hugging 
 themselves for their own penetration, as taught 
 in the " Maxims " of La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 Jean de La Bruyere is personally almost as little 
 known as if he were an ancient of the Greek or 
 Roman world, surviving, like Juvenal, only in his 
 literary production. Bossuet got him employed to 
 teach history to a great duke, who became his 
 patron, and settled a life-long annuity upon him. 
 He published his one book, the " Characters," in 
 1687, was made member of the French Academy in
 
 76 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 1693, and died in 1696. That, in short, is La 
 Bruyere's biography. 
 
 His book is universally considered one of the most 
 finished products of the human mind. It is not a 
 great work, it lacks the unity and the majesty of 
 design necessary for that. It consists simply of de- 
 tached thoughts and observations on a variety of 
 subjects. It shows the author to have been a man 
 of deep and wise reflection, but especially a con- 
 summate master of style. The book is one to read 
 in, rather than to read. It is full of food to thought. 
 The very beginning exhibits a self-consciousness on 
 the writer's part very different from that spontaneous 
 simplicity in which truly great books originate. La 
 Bruyere begins : 
 
 Every thing has been said ; and one comes too late, after 
 more than seven thousand years that there have been men, 
 and men who have thought. 
 
 La Bruyere has something to say, and that at 
 length unusual for him, of pulpit eloquence. We 
 select a few specimen sentences : 
 
 Christian eloquence has become a spectacle. That gos- 
 pel sadness, which is its soul, is no longer to be observed in 
 it; its place is supplied by advantages of facial expression, 
 by inflexions of the voice, by regularity of gesticulation, by 
 choice of words, and by long categories. The sacred word 
 is no longer listened to seriously; it is a kind of amusement, 
 one among many; it is a game in which there is rivalry, and 
 in which there are those who lay wagers. 
 
 Profane eloquence has been transferred, so to speak, from
 
 La Bruyere. 77 
 
 the bar, . . . where it is no longer employed, to the pulpit, 
 where it ought not to be found. 
 
 Matches of eloquence are made at the very foot of the 
 altar, and in the presence of the mysteries. He who listens 
 sits in judgment on him who preaches, to condemn or to 
 applaud, and is no more converted by the discourse which 
 he praises than by that which he pronounces against. The 
 orator pleases some, displeases others, and has an under- 
 standing with all in one thing, that as he does not seek 
 to render them better, so they do not think of becoming 
 better. 
 
 The almost cynical acerbity of the preceding is 
 ostensibly relieved of an obvious application to 
 certain illustrious contemporary examples among 
 preachers by the following open allusion to Bossuet 
 and Bourdaloue : 
 
 The Bishop of Meaux [Bossuet] and Father Bourdaloue 
 make me think of Demosthenes and Cicero. Both of them, 
 masters of pulpit eloquence, have had the fortune of great 
 models; the one has made bad critics, the other, bad 
 imitators. 
 
 Here is a happy instance of La Bruyere's success- 
 ful pains in redeeming a commonplace sentiment by 
 means of a striking form of expression ; the writer 
 is disapproving the use of oaths in support of one's 
 testimony : 
 
 An honest man who says, Yes, or No, deserves to be 
 believed ; his character swears for him. 
 
 Highly satiric in his quiet way, La Bruyere knew 
 how to be. Witness the following thrust at a con-
 
 78 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 temporary author, not named by the satirist, but, no 
 doubt, recognized by the public of the time : 
 
 He maintains that the ancients, however unequal and 
 negligent they may be, have fine traits; he points these out; 
 and they are so fine that they make his criticism readable. 
 
 How painstakingly, how self-consciously, La 
 Bruyere did his literary work, is evidenced by the 
 following : 
 
 A good author, and one who writes with care, often 
 has the experience of finding that the expression which he 
 was a long time in search of without reaching it, and 
 which at length he has found, is that w r hich was the most 
 simple, the most natural, and that which, as it would seem, 
 should have presented itself at first, and without effort. 
 
 We feel that the quality of La Bruyere is such as 
 to fit him for the admiration and enjoyment of but a 
 comparatively small class of readers. He was some- 
 what over-exquisite. His art at times became arti-, 
 fice infinite labor of style to make commonplace 
 thought seem valuable by dint of perfect expression. 
 "We dismiss La Bruyere with a single additional 
 extract, his celebrated parallel between Corneille 
 and Racine : 
 
 ^j Corneille subjects us to his characters and to his ideas; 
 Racine accommodates himself to ours. The one paints men 
 as they ought to be; the other paints them as they are. 
 There is more in the former of what one admires, and 
 of what one ought even to imitate; there is more in the 
 latter of what one observes in others, or of what one expe- 
 riences in one's self. The one inspires, astonishes, masters,
 
 La Bruyere. 79 
 
 instructs; the other pleases, moves, touches, penetrates. 
 Whatever there is most beautiful, most noble, most imperial, 
 in the reason is made use of by the former; by the latter 
 whatever is most seductive and most delicate in passion. 
 You find in the former, maxims, rules, and precepts; in the 
 latter, taste and sentiment. You are more absorbed in the 
 plays of Corneille; you are more shaken and more softened 
 in those of Racine. Corneille is more moral ; Racine, more 
 natural. The one appears to make Sophocles his model ; the 
 other owes more to Euripides. 
 
 Less than half a century after La Rochefoucauld 
 and La Bruyere had shown the way, Vauvenargues 
 followed in a similar style of authorship, promising 
 almost to rival the fame of his two predecessors. 
 This writer, during his brief life (he died at thirty- 
 two), produced one not inconsiderable literary work 
 more integral and regular in form, entitled, " Intro- 
 duction to the Knowledge of the Human Mind"; 
 but it is his disconnected thoughts and observations 
 chiefly that continue to preserve his name. 
 
 Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, though 
 nobly born, was poor. His health was frail. He 
 did not receive a good education in his 3'outh. In- 
 deed, he was still in his youth when he went to the 
 wars. His culture always remained narrow. He 
 did not know Greek and Latin, when to know Greek 
 and Latin was, as it .were, the whole of scholarship. 
 To crown his accidental disqualifications for liter- 
 ary work, he fell a victim to the small-pox, which 
 left him wrecked in body. This occurred almost
 
 80 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 immediately after he abandoned a military career 
 which had been fruitful to him of hardship, but not 
 of promotion. In spite of all that was thus against 
 him, Vauvenargues, in those years, few and evil, 
 that were his, thought finely and justly enough to 
 earn for himself a lasting place in the literary history 
 of his nation. He was in the eighteenth century of 
 France, without being of it. You have to separate 
 him in thought from the infidels and the " philoso- 
 phers " of his time. He belongs in spirit to an 
 earlier age. His moral and intellectual kindred was 
 with such as Pascal, far more than with such as 
 Voltaire. Vauvenargues is, however, a writer for 
 the few, instead of for the many. His fame is high, 
 but it is not wide. Historically, he forms a step- 
 ping-stone of transition to a somewhat similar nine- 
 teenth-century name, that of Joubert. A very few 
 sentences of his will suffice to indicate to our readers 
 the quality of Vauvenargues. Self-evidently, the 
 following antithesis drawn by him between Corneille 
 and Racine is subtly and ingeniously thought, as 
 well as very happily expressed this, whatever 
 may be considered to be its aptness in point of 
 literary appreciation : 
 
 Corneille's heroes often say great things without inspiring 
 them; Racine's inspire them without saying them. 
 
 Here is a good saying : 
 
 It is a great sign of mediocrity always to be moderate in 
 praising.
 
 La Fontaine. 81 
 
 There is worldly wisdom also here : 
 
 He who knows how to turn his prodigalities to good 
 Recount, practises a large and noble economy. 
 
 Virgil's "They are able, because thej seam to 
 themselves to be able," is recalled by this : 
 
 The consciousness of our strength makes our strength 
 greater. 
 
 So much for Yauvenargues. 
 
 VI. 
 
 LA FONTAINE. 
 1621-1695. 
 
 LA FONTAINE enjoys a unique fame. He has abso- 
 lutely " no fellow in the firmament" of literature. 
 He is the only fabulist, of any age or any nation, 
 that, on the score simply of his fables, is admitted 
 to be poet as well as fabulist. There is perhaps no 
 other literary name whatever among the French, by 
 long proof more secure, than is La Fontaine's, of 
 universal and of immortal renown. Such a fame is, 
 of course, not the most resplendent in the world ; but 
 to have been the first, and to remain thus far the 
 only, writer of fables enjoying recognition as true 
 poetry, this surely is an achievement entitling La
 
 82 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Fontaine to monumental mention in any sketch, how- 
 ever summary, of French literature. 
 
 Jean de La Fontaine was humbly born, at Chateau- 
 Thierry in Champagne. His early education was 
 sadly neglected. At twenty years of age he was 
 still phenomenally ignorant. About this time, being 
 now better situated, he developed a taste for the 
 classics and for poetry. With La Fontaine the man, 
 ';t is the sadly familiar French story of debauched 
 manners in life and in literary production. We 
 cannot acquit him, but we are to condemn him only 
 in common with the most of his age aud of his na- 
 tion. As the world goes, La Fontaine was a "good 
 fellow," never lacking friends. These were held fast 
 in loyalty to the poet, not so much by any ster- 
 ling worth of character felt in him, as by an ex- 
 haustless, easy-going good-nature, that, despite his 
 social insipidity, made La Fontaine the most accept- 
 able of every-day companions. It would be easy to 
 repeat many stories illustrative of this personal qual- 
 ity in La Fontaine, while to tell a single story illus- 
 trative of any lofty trait in his character would be 
 perhaps impossible. Still, La Fontaine seemed not 
 ungrateful for the benefits he received from others ; 
 and gratitude, no commonplace virtue, let us accord- 
 ingly reckon to the credit of a man in general so 
 slenderly equipped with positive claims to admiring 
 personal regard. The mirror of bonhomie (easy- 
 hearted good-fellowship), he always was. Indeed, 
 that significant, almost untranslatable, French word
 
 La Fontaine. 83 
 
 might have been coined to fit La Fontaine's case. 
 On his amiable side a full h^mispher^ or more of 
 the man it sums him up completely. Twenty years 
 long, this mirror of bonhomie was domiciliated, 
 like a pet animal, under the hospitable roof of the 
 celebrated Madame de la Subliere. There was truth 
 as well as humor implied in what she said one day : 
 " I have sent away all my domestics ; I have kept 
 only my dog, my cat, and La Fontaine.' ' 
 
 But La Fontaine had that in him which kept the 
 friendship of serious men. Moliere, a grave, even 
 melancholy spirit, however gay in his comedies ; 
 Boileau and Racine, decorous both of them, at least 
 in manners, constituted, together with La Fontaine, 
 a kind of private ' Acadeni}-," existing on a diminu- 
 tive scale, which was not without its important influ- 
 ence on French letters. La Fontaine seems to have 
 been a sort of Goldsmith in this club of wits, the 
 butt of many pleasantries from his colleagues, called 
 out by his habit of absent-mindedness. St. Augus- 
 tine was one night the subject of an elaborate eulogy, 
 which La Fontaine lost the benefit of, through a 
 reverie of his own indulged meantime on a quite dif- 
 ferent character. Catching, however, at the name, 
 La Fontaine, as he came to himself for a moment, 
 betrayed the secret of his absent thoughts by asking, 
 "Do you think St. Augustine had as much wit as 
 Rabelais?" "Take care, Monsieur La Fontaine: 
 you. have put one of your stockings on wrong side 
 out," he had actually done so, was the only
 
 84 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 answer vouchsafed to his question. The speaker in 
 this case was a doctor of the Sorbonne (brother to 
 Boileau), present as guest. The story is told of 
 La Fontaine, that egged on to groundless jealousy 
 of his wife, a wife whom he never really loved, and 
 whom he soon would finally abandon, he challenged 
 a military friend of his to combat with swords. The 
 friend was amazed, and, amazed, reluctantly fought 
 with La Fontaine, whom he easily put at his mercy. 
 " Now, what is this for? " he demanded. " The pub- 
 lic says you visit my house for my wife's sake, not 
 for mine," said La Fontaine. "Then I never will 
 come again." "Far from it," responds La Fon- 
 taine, seizing his friend's hand. " I have satisfied 
 the public. Now you must come to my house every 
 day, or I will fight you again." The two went back 
 in company, and breakfasted together in mutual good 
 humor. 
 
 A trait or two more, and there will have been 
 enough of the man La Fontaine. It is said that 
 when, on the death of Madame de la Sabliere, La 
 Fontaine was homeless, he was met on the street by 
 a friend, who exclaimed, " I was looking for you ; 
 come to my house, and live with me!" "I was 
 on the way there," La Fontaine characteristically 
 replied. At seventy, La Fontaine went through a 
 process of " conversion," so called, in which he pro- 
 fessed repentance of his sins. On the genuineness 
 of this inward experience of La Fontaine, it is not 
 for a fellow-creature of his, especially at this dis-
 
 La Fontaine. 85 
 
 tance of time, to pronounce. When he died, at 
 seventy-three, F6nelon could say of him (in Latin), 
 ' La Fontaine is no more ! He is no more ; and 
 with him have gone the playful jokes, the merry 
 laugh, the artless graces, and the sweet Muses ! " 
 
 La Fontaine's earliest works were Coutes, so 
 styled ; that is, stories, tales, or romances. These 
 are in character such that the subsequent happy 
 change in manners, if not in morals, has made them 
 unreadable, for their indecency. We need con- 
 cern ourselves only with the Fables, for it is on 
 these that La Fontaine's fame securely rests. The 
 basis of story in them was not generally original with 
 La Fontaine. He took whatever fittest came to his 
 hand. With much modesty, he attributed all to 
 ^Esop and Phaedrus. But invention of his own is 
 not altogether wanting to his books of fables. Still, 
 it is chiefly the consummate artful artlessness of the 
 form that constitutes the individual merit of La 
 Fontaine's productions. With something, too, of 
 the air of real poetry, he has undoubtedly invested 
 his verse. 
 
 We give, first, the brief fable which is said to 
 have been the prime favorite of the author himself. 
 It is the fable of "The Oak and the Reed." Of this 
 fable, French critics have not scrupled to speak in 
 terms of almost the very highest praise. Chamfort 
 says, "Let one consider, that, within the limit of 
 thirty lines, La Fontaine, doing nothing but yield 
 himself to the current of his story, has taken on
 
 86 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 every tone, that of poetry the most graceful, that of 
 poetry the most lofty, and one will not hesitate to 
 affirm, that, at the epoch at which this fable ap- 
 peared, there was nothing comparable to it in the 
 French language." There are, to speak precisely, 
 thirty-two lines in the fable. In this one case, let 
 us try representing La Fontaine's compression by 
 our English form. For the rest of our specimens, 
 we shall use Elizur Wright's translation, a meri- 
 torious one, still master of the field which, near fifty 
 years ago, it entered as pioneer. Mr. Wright here 
 expands La Fontaine's thirty-two verses to forty- 
 four. The additions are not ungraceful, but they 
 encumber somewhat the Attic neatness and sim- 
 plicity of the original. We ought to say, that La 
 Fontaine boldly broke with the tradition which had 
 been making Alexandrines lines of six feet 
 obligator} 7 in French verse. He rhymes irregularly, 
 at choice, and makes his verses long or short, as 
 pleases him. The closing verse of the present piece 
 is, in accordance with the intended majesty of the 
 representation, an Alexandrine. 
 
 The Oak one day said to the Reed, 
 "Justly might you dame Nature blame; 
 A wren r s weight would bow down your frame; 
 
 The lightest wind that chance may make 
 
 Dimple the surface of the lake 
 
 Your head bends low indeed, 
 The while, like Caucasus, my front 
 To meet the branding sun is wont, 
 Xay, more, to take the tempest's brunt.
 
 La Fontaine. 87 
 
 A blast you feel, I feel a breeze. 
 Had yon been born beneath my roof, 
 Wide-spread, of leafage weather-proof, 
 
 Less had you known your life to tease; 
 
 I should have sheltered you from storm. 
 
 But oftenest you rear your form 
 On the moist limits of the realm of wind. 
 Nature, methinks, against you sore has sinned." 
 
 " Your pity," answers him the Reed, 
 " Bespeaks you kind; but spare your pain; 
 I more than you may winds disdain. 
 
 I bend, and break not. You, indeed, 
 Against their dreadful strokes till now 
 Have stood, nor tamed your back to bow: 
 But wait we for the end." 
 
 >Scarce had he spoke, 
 When fiercely from the far horizon broke 
 The wildest of the children, fullest fraught 
 With terror, that till then the North had brought. 
 
 The tree holds good; the reed it bends. 
 
 The wind redoubled might expends, 
 And so well works that from his bed 
 Him it uproots who nigh to heaven his head 
 Held, and whose feet reached to the kingdom of the 
 dead. 
 
 In the fable of the " Rat retired from the 
 World," La Fontaine rallies the monks. With French 
 finesse, he hits his mark by expressly avoiding it. 
 " What think you I mean by my disobliging rat? A 
 monk ? No, but a Mahometan devotee ; J take it 
 for granted that a monk is always ready with his 
 help to the needy ! "
 
 Classic French Course in English, 
 
 The sage Levantines have a tale 
 
 About a rat that weary grew 
 Of all the cares which life assail, 
 
 And to a Holland cheese withdrew. 
 His solitude was there profound, 
 Extending through his world so round. 
 Our hermit lived on that within,' 
 And soon his industry had been 
 With claws and teeth so good, 
 
 That in his novel heritage, 
 
 He had in store for wants of age, 
 Both house and livelihood. 
 What more could any rat desire ? 
 
 He grew fat, fair, and round. 
 
 God's blessings thus redound 
 To those who in his vows retire. 
 One day this personage devout. 
 Whose kindness none might doubt, 
 Was asked, by certain delegates 
 That came from Rat United States, 
 For some small aid, for they 
 To foreign parts were on their way, 
 For succor in the great cat-war : 
 Katopolis beleaguered sore, 
 
 Their whole republic drained and poor, 
 No morsel in their scrips they bore. 
 
 Slight boon they craved, of succor sure 
 In days at utmost three or four. 
 " My friends," the hermit said, 
 " To worldly things I'm dead. 
 How can a poor recluse 
 To such a mission be of use ? 
 What can he do but pray 
 That God will aid it on its way ? 
 And so, my friends, it is my prayer 
 That God will have you in his care."
 
 La Fontaine. 89 
 
 His well-fed saintship said no more, 
 But in their faces shut the door. 
 
 What think you, reader, is the service, 
 For which I use this niggard rat ? 
 
 To paint a monk ? No, but a dervise. 
 A monk, I think, however fat, 
 Must be more bountiful than that. 
 
 The fable entitled " Death and the Dying " is 
 much admired for its union of pathos with wit. 
 "The Two Doves" is another of La Fontaine's 
 more tender inspirations. " The Mogul's Dream " 
 is a somewhat ambitious flight of the fabulist's 
 muse. On the whole, however, the masterpiece 
 among the fables of La Fontaine is that of "The 
 Animals Sick of the Plague." Such at least is the 
 opinion of critics in general. The idea of this fable 
 is not original with La Fontaine. The homilists of 
 the middle ages used a similar fiction to enforce 
 on priests the duty of impartiality in administering 
 the sacrament, so called, of confession. We give 
 this famous fable as our closing specimen of La 
 Fontaine : 
 
 The sorest ill that Heaven hath 
 Sent on this lower world in wrath, 
 The plague (to call it by its name), 
 
 One single day of which 
 Would Pluto's ferryman enrich, 
 Waged war on beasts, both wild and tame. 
 They died not all, but all were sick: 
 No hunting now, by force or trick, 
 7
 
 90 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 To save what might so soon expire. 
 No food excited their desire: 
 Nor wolf nor fox now watched to slay 
 The innocent and tender prey. 
 
 The turtles fled, 
 
 So love and therefore joy were dead. 
 The lion council held, and said, 
 " My friends, I do believe 
 This awful scourge for which we grieve, 
 Is for our sins a punishment 
 Most righteously by Heaven sent. 
 Let us our guiltiest beast resign, 
 A sacrifice to wrath divine. 
 Perhaps this offering, truly small, 
 May gain the life and health of all. 
 By history we find it noted 
 That lives have been just so devoted. 
 Then let us all turn eyes within, 
 And ferret out the hidden sin. 
 Himself, let no one spare nor flatter, 
 But make clean conscience in the matter. 
 For me, my appetite has played the glutton 
 Too much and often upon mutton. 
 What harm had e'er my victims done ? 
 
 I answer, truly, None. 
 Perhaps, sometimes, by hunger pressed, 
 
 I've eat the shepherd with the rest. 
 
 I yield myself if need there be; 
 
 And yet I think, in equity, 
 Each should confess his sins with me; 
 For laws of right and justice cry, 
 The guiltiest alone should die." 
 "Sire," said the fox, "your majesty 
 Is humbler than a king should be, 
 And over-squeamish in the case. 
 
 What ! eating stupid sheep a crime P 
 
 No, never, sire, at any time.
 
 La Fontaine. 91 
 
 It rather was an a~t of grace, 
 
 A mark of honor to their race. 
 
 And as to shepherds, one may swear, 
 
 The fate your majesty describes, 
 Is recompense less full than fair 
 
 For such usurpers o'er our tribes." 
 
 Thus Renard glibly spoke, 
 And loud applause from listeners broke. 
 Of neither tiger, boar, nor bear, 
 Did any keen inquirer dare 
 To ask for crimes of high degree ; 
 
 The fighters, biters, scratchers, all 
 From every mortal sin were free; 
 
 The very dogs, both great and small, 
 
 Were saints, as far as dogs could be. 
 
 The ass, confessing in his turn, 
 Thus spoke in tones of deep concern : 
 "I happened through a mead to pass; 
 The monks, its owners, were at mass : 
 Keen hunger, leisure, tender grass, 
 
 And, add to these the devil, too, 
 
 All tempted me the deed to do. 
 I browsed the bigness of my tongue: 
 Since truth must out, I own it wrong." 
 On this, a hue and cry arose, 
 As if the beasts were all his foes. 
 A wolf, haranguing lawyer-wise, 
 Denounced the ass for sacrifice, 
 The bald-pate, scabby, ragged lout, 
 By whom the plague had come, no doubt. 
 His fault was judged a hanging crime. 
 
 What! eat another's grass? Oh, shame! 
 The noose of rope, and death sublime, 
 
 For that offence were all too tame ! 
 
 And soon poor Grizzle felt the same.
 
 92 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Thus human courts acquit the strong, 
 And doom the weak, as therefore wrong. 
 
 It is suitable to add, in conclusion, that La Fon- 
 taine is a crucial author for disclosing the irrecon- 
 cilable difference that exists, at bottom, between 
 the Englishman's and the Frenchman's idea of 
 poetry. No English-speaker, heir of Shakspeare 
 and Milton, will ever be able to satisfy a French-, 
 man with admiration such as he can conscientiously 
 profess for the poetry of La Fontaine. 
 
 VII. 
 
 MOLIERE. 
 1623-1673. 
 
 is confessedly the greatest writer of 
 comedy in the world. Greek Menander might have 
 disputed the palm ; but Meuander's works have per- 
 ished, and his greatness must be guessed. Who 
 knows but we guess him too great? Moliere's 
 works survive, and his greatness may be measured. 
 We have stinted our praise. Moliere is not only 
 the foremost name in a certain department of litera- 
 ture ; he is one of the foremost names in literature. 
 The names are few on which critics are willing to 
 bestow this distinction. But critics generally agree 
 in bestowing this distinction on Moliere.
 
 Moliere. 93 
 
 Moliere's comedy is by no means mere farce. 
 Farces he wrote, undoubtedly ; and some element 
 of farce, perhaps, entered to qualify nearly every 
 comedy that flowed from his pen. But it is not for 
 his farce that Moliere is rated one of the few great- 
 est producers of literature. Moliere's comedy con- 
 stitutes to Moliere the patent that it does of high 
 degree in ge'nius, not because it provokes laughter, 
 but because, amid laughter provoked, it not seldom 
 reveals, as if with flashes of lightning, lightning 
 playful, indeed, but lightning that might have been 
 deadly, the "secrets of the nethermost abyss" of 
 human nature. Not human manners merely, those 
 of a time, or of a race, but human attributes, those 
 of all times, and of all races, are the things with 
 which, in his higher comedies, Moliere deals. Some 
 transient whim of fashion may in these supply to 
 him the mould of form that he uses, but it is human 
 nature itself that supplies to Moliere the substance 
 of his dramatic creations. Now and again, if you 
 read Moliere wisely and deeply, you find your laugh- 
 ter at comedy fairly frozen in your throat, by a 
 gelid horror seizing you, to feel that these follies or 
 these crimes displayed belong to that human nature, 
 one and the same everywhere and always, of which 
 also you yourself partake. Comedy, Dante, too, 
 called his poem, which included the " Inferno." 
 And a Dantesque quality, not of method, but of 
 power, is to be felt in Moliere. 
 
 This character in Moliere the writer, accords
 
 94 Classic French Course in Englii>7t. 
 
 with the character of the man Moliere. It might 
 not have seemed natural to say of Moliere, as was 
 said of Dante, " There goes the man that has been 
 in hell." But Moliere was melancholy enough in 
 temper and in mien to have well inspired an ex- 
 clamation such as, ' There goes the man that has 
 seen the human heart.' 
 
 A poet as well as a dramatist, his own fellow- 
 countrymen, at least, feel Moliere to be. In Victor 
 Hugo's list of the eight greatest poets of all time, 
 two are Hebrews (Job and Isaiah) , two Greeks 
 (Homer and ^Eschylus), one is a Roman (Lucre- 
 tius), one an Italian (Dante), one an Englishman 
 (Shakspeare), seven. The eighth could hardly 
 fail to be a Frenchman, and that Frenchman is 
 Moliere. Mr. Swinburne might perhaps make the 
 list nine, but he would certainly include Victor Hugo 
 himself. 
 
 Curiously enough, Moliere is not this great 
 writer's real name. It is a stage name. It was 
 assumed by the bearer when he was about twenty- 
 four years of age, on occasion of his becoming one 
 in a strolling band of players, in 104(3 or there- 
 about. This band, originally composed of amateurs, 
 developed into a professional dramatic company, 
 which passed through various transformations, until, 
 from being at first grandiloquently self-styled, 
 L'lllustre Theatre, it was, twenty years after, rec- 
 ognized by the national title of Theatre Frar^ais. 
 Holiere's real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin.
 
 Moliere. 95 
 
 Young Poquelin's bent, early encouraged by see- 
 iug plays and ballets, was strongly toward the stage. 
 The drama, under the quickening patronage of 
 Louis XIII. 's lordly minister, Cardinal Richelieu, 
 was a great public interest of those times in Paris. 
 Moliere's evil star, too, it was perhaps in part that 
 brought him back to Paris, from Orleans. He ad- 
 mired a certain actress in the capital. She became 
 the companion probably not innocent companion 
 of his wandering life as actor. A sister of this 
 actress a sister young enough to be daughter, 
 instead of sister Moliere finally married. She led 
 her jealous husband a wretched conjugal life. A 
 peculiarly dark tradition of shame, connected with 
 Moliere's marriage, has lately been to a good degree 
 dispelled. But it is not possible to redeem this 
 great man's fame to chastity and honor. He paid 
 heavily, in like misery of his own, for whatever 
 pangs of jealous}- he inflicted. There was some- 
 times true tragedy for himself hidden within the 
 comedy that he acted for others. (Moliere, to the 
 very end of his life, acted in the comedies that he 
 wrote.) "When some play of his represented the 
 torments of jealousy in the heart of a husband, it 
 was probably not so much acting, as it was real life, 
 that the spectators saw proceeding on the stage be- 
 tween Moliere and his wife, confronted with each 
 other in performing the piece. 
 
 Despite his faults, Moliere was cast in a noble, 
 generous mould, of character as well as of genius.
 
 96 Classic French Course in Englisli. 
 
 Expostulated with for persisting to appear on the 
 stage when his health was such that he put his life 
 at stake in so doing, he replied that the men and 
 women of his company depended for their bread on 
 the play's going through, and appear he would. He 
 actually died an hour or so after playing the part of 
 the Imaginary Invalid in his comedy of that name. 
 That piece was the last work of his pen. 
 
 Moliere produced in all some thirty dramatic 
 pieces, from among which we select a few of the 
 most celebrated for brief description and illustra- 
 tion. 
 
 The "Bourgeois Gentilhomme " ("Shopkeeper 
 turned Gentleman ") partakes of the nature of the 
 farce quite as mucli as it does of the comedy. But 
 it is farce such as only a man of genius could pro- 
 duce. In it Moliere ridicules the airs and affectations 
 of a rich man vulgarly ambitious to figure in a social 
 rank too exalted for his birth, his breeding, or his 
 merit. Jourdain is the name under which Moliere 
 satirizes such a character. We give a fragment 
 from one of the scenes. M. Jourdain is in process 
 of fitting himself for that higher position in society 
 to which he aspires. He will equip himself with 
 the necessary knowledge. To this end he employs a 
 professor of philosophy to come and give him lessons 
 at his house : 
 
 M. JOURDAIN. I have the greatest desire in the world to 
 be learned; and it vexes me more than I can tell, that my
 
 Moliere. 97 
 
 father and mother did not make me learn thoroughly all the 
 sciences when I was young. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY. This is a praiseworthy feel- 
 ing. Nam sine rloctrina vita est quasi mortis imayo. You 
 understand this, and you have, no doubt, a knowledge of 
 Latin ? 
 
 M. JOUR. Yes; but act as if I had none. Explain to me 
 the meaning of it. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. The meaning of it is, that, without science, 
 life is an image of death. 
 
 M. JOUR. That Latin is quite right. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Have you any principles, any rudiments, of 
 science ? 
 
 M. JOUR. Oh, yes! I can read and write. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. With what would you like to begin ? Shall 
 I teach you logic ? 
 
 M. JOUR. And what may this logic be ? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. It is that which teaches us the three opera- 
 tions of the mind. 
 
 M. JOUR. What are they these three operations of the 
 mind? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. The first, the second, and the third. The 
 first is to conceive well by means of universals; the second, 
 to judge well by means of categories; and the third, to draw 
 a conclusion aright by means of the figures Barbara, Cela- 
 rent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton, etc. 
 
 M. JOUR. Pooh! what repulsive words! This logic does 
 not by any means suit me. Teach me something more en- 
 livening. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Will you learn moral philosophy ? 
 
 M. JOUR. Moral philosophy ? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Yes. 
 
 M. JOUR. What does it say, this moral philosophy? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. It treats of happiness, teaches men to mod- 
 irate their passions, and 
 
 M. JOUB. No, none of that. I am devilishly hot-tern-
 
 98 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 pered, and morality, or no morality, I like to give full vent 
 to my anger whenever I have a mind to it. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Would you like to learn physics ? 
 
 M. JOUR. And what have physics to say for themselves? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Physics are that science which explains the 
 principles of natural things and the properties of bodies; 
 which discourses of the nature of the elements, of metals, 
 minerals, stones, plants, and animals ; which teaches us the 
 cause of all the meteors, the rainbow, the iynis fatmix, 
 comets, lightning, thunder, thunderbolts, rain, snow, hail, 
 and whirlwinds. 
 
 M. JOUR. There is too much hullaballoo in all that, too 
 much riot and rumpus. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Very good. 
 
 M. JOUR. And now I want to intrust you with a great 
 secret. 1 am in love with a lady of quality, and I should be 
 glad if you would help me to write something to her in a short 
 letter which I mean to drop at her feet. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Very well. 
 
 M. JOUR. That will be gallant, will it not ? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Undoubtedly. Is it verse you wish to write 
 to her ? 
 
 M. JOUR. Oh, no ! not verse. 
 
 PKOF. PHIL. You only wish prose ? 
 
 M. JOUR. No. I wish for neither verse nor prose. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. It must be one or the other. 
 
 M. JOUR. Why ? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Because, sir, there is nothing by which we 
 can express ourselves except prose or verse. 
 
 M. JOUR. There is nothing but prose or verse ? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. No, sir. Whatever is not prose, is verse; 
 and whatever is not verse, is prose. 
 
 M. JOUR. And when we speak, what is that, then ? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Prose. 
 
 M. JOUR. What! when I say, "Nicole, bring me my 
 slippers, and give me my nightcap," is that prose?
 
 Moliere. 99 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Yes, sir. 
 
 M. JOUR Upon my word, I have been speaking prose 
 these forty years without being aware of it; and I am under 
 the greatest obligation to you for informing me of it. Well, 
 then, I wish to write to her in a letter, " Fair Marchioness, 
 your beautiful eyes make me die of love; " but I would have 
 this worded in a genteel manner, and turned prettily. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Say that the fire of her eyes has reduced 
 your heart to ashes ; that you suffer day and night for her, 
 tortures 
 
 M. JOUR. No, no, no, I don't any of that. I simply wish 
 for what I tell you, " Fair Marchioness, your beautiful eyes 
 make me die of love." . 
 
 PROF. PHIL. Still, you might amplify the thing a little. 
 
 M. JOUR. No, I tell you, I will have nothing but these 
 very words in the letter; but they must be put in a fashion- 
 able way, and arranged as they should be. Pray show me a 
 little, so that I may see the different ways in which they can 
 be put. 
 
 PROF. PHIL. They may be put first of all, as you have 
 &aid, " Fair Marchioness, your beautiful eyes make me die of 
 love; " or else, " Of love die make me, fair Marchioness, your 
 beautiful eyes;" or, " Your beautiful eyes of love make me, 
 fair Marchioness, die; " or, " Die of love your beautiful eyes, 
 fair Marchioness, make me; " or else, " Me make your beau- 
 tiful eyes die, fair Marchioness, of love." 
 
 M. Jouu. But of all these ways, which is the best ? 
 
 PROF. PHIL. The one you said, " Fair Marchioness, 
 your beautiful eyes make me die of love." 
 
 M. JOUR. Yet I have never studied, and I did all right 
 off at the first shot. 
 
 The " Bourgeois Gentilhomme " is a very amusing 
 comedy throughout. 
 
 From " Les Femuies Savaates " (*' The Learned
 
 100 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Women ") " The Blue-Stockings," we might per- 
 haps freely render the title we present one scene 
 to indicate the nature of the comedy. There had 
 grown to be a fashion in Paris, among certain women 
 high in social rank, of pretending to the distinction 
 of skill in literary criticism, and of proficiency in 
 science. It was the Hotel de Ratnbouillet reduced 
 to absurdity. That fashionable affectation Moliere 
 made the subject of his comedy, ''The Learned 
 Women." 
 
 In the following extracts, Moliere satirizes, under 
 the name of Trissotin, a contemporary writer, one 
 Cotin. The poem which Trissotin reads for the 
 learned women to criticise and admire, is an actual 
 production of this gentleman. Imagine the domestic 
 coterie assembled, and Trissotin, the poet, their 
 guest. He is present, prepared to regale them with 
 what he calls his sonnet. We need to explain that 
 the original poem is thus inscribed : "To Mademoi- 
 selle de Longueville, now Duchess of Namur, on 
 her Quartan Fever." The conceit of the sonneteer 
 is that the fever is an enemy luxuriously lodged in 
 the lovely person of its victim, and there insidiously 
 plotting against her life : 
 
 TRISSOTIN. Sonnet to the Princess Urania on her Fever. 
 Your prudence sure is fast asleep, 
 That thus luxuriously you keep 
 And lodge magnificently so 
 Your very hardest-hearted foe. 
 
 BLISE. Ah! what a pretty beginning! 
 
 ARMANIE. What a charming turn it has I
 
 Moliere. 101 
 
 PHILAMINTE. He alone possesses the talent of making 
 easy verses. 
 
 ARM. We must yield to prudence fast asleep. 
 
 BEL. Lodge one's very hardest-hearted foe is full of 
 charms for me. 
 
 PHIL. I like luxuriously and magnificently : these two 
 adverbs joined together sound admirably. 
 
 BEL. Let us hear the rest. 
 
 TKISS. Your prudence sure is fast asleep, 
 That thus luxuriously you keep 
 And lodge magnificently so 
 Your very hardest-hearted foe. 
 
 ARM. Prudence fast asleep. 
 
 BEL. To lodge one's foe. 
 
 PHIL. Luxuriously and magnificently. 
 
 TEISS. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say, 
 From out your chamber, decked so gay, 
 Where, ingrate vile, with murderous knife } 
 Bold she assails your lovely life. 
 
 BEL. Ah ! gently. Allow me to breathe, I beseech you 
 
 ARM. Give us time to admire, I beg. 
 
 PHIL. One feels, at hearing these verses, an indescribable 
 something which goes through one's inmost soul, and makes 
 one feel quite faint. 
 
 ARM. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say, 
 
 From out your chamber, decked so gay 
 How prettily chamber, decked so gay, is said here! And 
 with what wit the metaphor is introduced ! 
 
 PHIL. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say. 
 Ah! in what an admirable taste that whate'er men say is! 
 To my mind, the passage is invaluable. 
 
 ARM. My heart is also in love with whate'er men say. 
 
 BEL. I am of your opinion: whate' ?r men say is a happy 
 expression. 
 
 ARM. I wish I had written it. 
 
 BEL. It is worth a whole poem.
 
 102 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 PHIL. But do you, like me, thoroughly understand the 
 wit of it ? 
 
 ARM. and BEL. Oh! Oh! 
 PHIL. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say. 
 Although another should take the fever's part, pay no 
 attention; laugh at the gossips. 
 
 Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say, 
 Whate'er men say, whate'er men say. 
 
 This whatever men say, says a great deal more than it 
 seems. I do not know if every one is like me, but I discover 
 in it a hundred meanings. 
 
 BEL. It is true that it says more than its size seems to 
 imply. 
 
 PHIL, (to TRISSOTIN). But when you wrote this charm- 
 ing whate'er men say, did you yourself understand all its 
 energy ? Did you realize all that it tells us '? And did you 
 then think that you were writing something so witty ? 
 
 TRISS. Ah! ah! 
 
 ARM. I have likewise the inyrate in my head, this 
 ungrateful, unjust, uncivil fever that ill-treats people who 
 entertain her. 
 
 PHIL. In short, both the stanzas are admirable. Let us 
 come quickly to the triplets, I pray. 
 
 ARM. Ah! once more, whate'er men say, I beg. 
 
 TRISS. Drive forth that foe, whate'er men say, 
 
 PHIL., ARM., and BEL. Whatever men say ! 
 
 TRISS. From out your chamber, decked so gay, 
 
 PHIL., ARM., and BEL. Chamber decked so gay ! 
 
 TRISS. Where, ingrate vile, with murderous knife, 
 
 PHIL., ARM., and BEL. That ingrate fever! 
 
 TRISS. Bold she assails your lovely life. 
 
 PHIL. Your lovely life ! 
 
 ARM. and BEL. Ah! 
 
 TRISS. What ! reckless of your ladyhood, 
 
 Still fiercely seeks to shed your blood, 
 
 PHIL., ARM., and BEL. Ah!
 
 Molilre. 103 
 
 TRISS. And day and night to work you harm. 
 
 When to the baths sometime you've brought her, 
 No more ado, with your own arm 
 Whelm her and drown her in the water. 
 
 PHIL. Ah ! It is quite overpowering. 
 
 BEL. I faint. 
 
 ABM. I die from pleasure. 
 
 PHIL. A thousand sweet thrills seize one. 
 
 ABM. When to the baths sometime you've brought her, 
 
 BEL. No more ado, with your own arm 
 
 PHIL. Whelm herand drown her in the water. 
 With your own arm, drown her there in the baths. 
 
 ARM. In your verses we meet at each step with charming 
 beauty. 
 
 BEL. One promenades through them with rapture. 
 
 PHIL. One treads on fine things only. 
 
 ABM. They are little lanes all strewn with roses. 
 
 TRISS. Then, the sonnet seems to you 
 
 PHIL. Admirable, new; and never did any one make any 
 thing more beautiful. 
 
 BEL. "(to HENHIETTE). What! my niece, you listen to 
 what has been read without emotion! You play there but a 
 sorry part! 
 
 HEN. We each of us play the best part we can, my aunt; 
 and to be a wit does not depend on our will. 
 
 TRISS. My verses, perhaps, are tedious to you. 
 
 HEN. 2&*-do not-Ksten. QJ^ 
 
 PHIL. Ah ! Let us hear the epigram. 
 
 But our readers, we think, will consent to spare 
 the epigram. They will relish, however, a fragment 
 taken from a subsequent part of the same protracted 
 scene. The conversation has made the transition 
 from literary criticism to philosophy, in Moliere's 
 time a fashionable study rendered such by the con-
 
 104 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 temporary genius and fame of Descartes. Armande 
 resents the limitations imposed upon her sex : 
 
 ARM. It is insulting our sex too grossly to limit our 
 intelligence to the power of judging of a skirt, of the make 
 of a garment, of the beauties of lace, or of a new brocade. 
 
 BEL. We must rise above this shameful condition, and 
 bravely proclaim our emancipation. 
 
 TBISS. Every one knows my respect for the fairer sex, and 
 that, if I render homage to the brightness of their eyes, I also 
 honor the splendor of their intellect. 
 
 PHIL. And our sex does you justice in this respect: but 
 we will show to certain minds who treat us with proud con- 
 tempt, that women also have knowledge; that, like men, 
 they can hold learned meetings regulated, too, by better 
 rules; that they wish to unite what elsewhere is kept apart, 
 join noble language to deep learning, reveal nature's laws by 
 a thousand experiments; arid, on all questions proposed, 
 admit every party, and ally themselves to none. 
 
 TBISS. For order, I prefer peripateticism. 
 
 PHIL. For abstractions, I love platonism. 
 
 ARM. Epicurus pleases me, for his tenets are solid. 
 
 BEL. I agree with the doctrine of atoms ; but I find it 
 difficult to understand a vacuum, and I much prefer subtile 
 matter. 
 
 TBISS. I quite agree with Descartes about magnetism. 
 ARM. I like his vortices. 
 
 PHIL. And I, his falling worlds. 
 
 ARM. I long to see our assembly opened, and to distin- 
 guish ourselves by some great discovery. 
 
 TBISS. Much is expected from your enlightened knowl- 
 edge, for nature has hidden few things from you. 
 
 PHIL. For my part, I have, without boasting, already 
 made one discovery; I have plainly seen men in the moon. 
 
 BEL. I have not, I believe, as yet quite distinguished 
 men, but I have seen steeples as plainly as I see you.
 
 Moliere. 105 
 
 ARM. In addition to natural philosophy, we will dive into 
 grammar, history, verse, ethics, and politics. 
 
 PHIL. I find in ethics charms which delight my heart; 
 it was formerly the admiration of great geniuses: but I give 
 the preference to the Stoics, and I think nothing so grand as 
 their founder. 
 
 " Les Pre"cieuses Ridicules" is an earlier and 
 lighter treatment of the same theme. The object of 
 ridicule in both these pieces was a lapsed and degen- 
 erate form of what originally was a thing worthy of 
 respect, and even of praise. At the Hotel de Ram- 
 bouillet, conversation was cultivated as a fine art. 
 There was, no doubt, something overstrained in the 
 standards which the ladies of that circle enforced. 
 Their mutual communication was all conducted in a 
 peculiar style of language, the natural deterioration 
 of which was into a kind of euphuism, such as Eng- 
 lish readers will remember to have seen exemplified 
 in Walter Scott's Sir Piercie Shufton These iadks 
 called each other, with demonstrative fondness, " Ma 
 pr6cieuse." Hence at last the term pr6c>'ense as a 
 designation of ridicule. Madame de Se'vigne' was 
 a precieuse. But she, with many of her peers, was 
 too rich in sarcastic common sense to be a pr&cieuse 
 ridicule Moliere himself, thrifty master of policy 
 that he was, took pains to explain that he did not 
 satirize the real thing, but only the affectation. 
 
 k< Tartuffe, or the Impostor," is perhaps the most 
 celebrated of all Moliere's plays. Scarcely comedy, 
 scarcely tragedy, it partakes of both characters. 
 8
 
 106 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Like tragedy, serious in purpose, it has a happy 
 endiug like comedy. Pity and terror are absent; 
 or, if not quite absent, these sentiments are present 
 raised only to a pitch distinctly below the tragic. 
 Indignation is the chief passion excited, or detesta- 
 tion, perhaps, rather than indignation. This feeling 
 is provided at last with its full satisfaction in the 
 condign punishment visited on the impostor. 
 
 The original "Tartuffe," like the most of Mo- 
 liere's comedies, is written in rhymed verse. We 
 could not, with any effort, make the Elnglish-readiug 
 student of Moliere sufficiently feel how much is lost 
 when the form is lost which the creations of this 
 great genius took, in their native French, under his 
 own master hand. A satisfactory metrical render- 
 ing is out of the question. The sense, at least, if 
 not the incommunicable spirit, of the original is 
 very well given in Mr. C. H. Wall's version, which 
 we use. 
 
 The story of " Tartuffe " is briefly this: Tar- 
 tuffe, the hero, is a pure villain. He mixes no 
 adulteration of good in his composition. He is hy- 
 pocrisy itself, the strictly genuine article. Tartuffe 
 has completely imposed upon one Orgon, a mau of 
 wealth and standing. Orgon, with his wife, and 
 with his mother, in fact, believes in him absolutely. 
 These people have received the canting rascal into 
 their house, and are about to bestow upon him their 
 daughter in marriage. The following scene from 
 act first shows the skill with which Moliere could
 
 Moliere. 107 
 
 exhibit, in a few strokes of bold exaggeration, the 
 infatuation of Orgon's regard for Tartuffe. Orgon 
 has been absent from home. He returns, and meets 
 C16ante, his brother, whom, in his eagerness, he 
 begs to excuse his not answering a question just 
 addressed to him : 
 
 ORGOIT (to CLtAXTE). Brother, pray excuse me: you 
 will kindly allow me to allay my anxiety by asking news of 
 the family. ( To DORINE, a maid-serxant.) Has every thing 
 gone on well these last two days ? What has happened ? 
 How is everybody ? 
 
 DOB. The day before yesterday our mistress was very 
 feverish from morning to night, and suffered from a most 
 extraordinary headache. 
 
 ORG. And Tartuffe ? 
 
 DOR. Tartuffe ! He is wonderfully well, stout and fat, 
 with blooming cheeks and ruddy lips. 
 
 ORG. Poor man ! 
 
 DOR. In the evening she felt very faint, and the pain in 
 her head was so great that she could not touch any thing at 
 supper. 
 
 ORG. And Tartuffe ? 
 
 DOR. He ate his supper by himself before her, and very 
 devoutly devoured a brace of partridges, and half a leg of 
 mutton hashed. 
 
 ORG. Poor man ! 
 
 DOR. She spent the whole of the night without getting 
 one wink of sleep : sbe was very feverish, and we had to sit 
 up with her until the morning. 
 
 ORG. And Tartuffe ? 
 
 DOR. Overcome by a pleasant sleepiness, he passed from 
 the table to his room, and got at once into his warmed bed, 
 where he slept comfortably till the next morning. 
 
 OEG. Poor man !
 
 108 Classic French Course in ^English. 
 
 DOR. At last yielding to our persuasions, she consented 
 to be bled, and immediately felt relieved. 
 
 OKG. And Tartuffe ? 
 
 DOR. He took heart right valiantly, and fortifying his 
 soul against all evils, to make up for the blood which our 
 lady had lost, drank at breakfast four large bumpers of wine. 
 
 ORG. Poor man ! 
 
 DOR. Now, at last, they are both well; and I will go and 
 tell our lady how glad you are to hear of her recovery. 
 
 Tartuffe repays the trust and love of his benefac- 
 tor by making improper advances to that benefac- 
 tor's wife. Orgon's son, who does not share his 
 father's confidence in Tartuffe, happens to be an 
 unseen witness of tho man's infamous conduct. He 
 exposes the hypocrite to Orgon, with the result of 
 being himself expelled from the house for his pains ; 
 while Tartuffe, in recompense for the injury done to 
 his feelings, is presented with a gift-deed of Orgou's 
 estate. But now Orgon's wife contrives to let her 
 husband see and hear for himself the vileness of 
 Tartuffe. This done, Orgon confronts the villain, 
 and, with just indignation, orders him out of his 
 house. Tartuffe reminds Orgon that the shoe is on 
 the other foot ; that he is himself now owner there, 
 and that it is Orgon, instead of Tartuffe, who must 
 go. Orgon has an interview with his mother, who is 
 exasperatingly sure still that Tartuffe is a maligned 
 good man : 
 
 MADAME PERNELLE. I can never believe, my son, that 
 he would commit so base an action. 
 OBG. What ?
 
 Muliere. 109 
 
 PER. Good people are always subject to envy. 
 
 ORG. What do you mean, mother ? 
 
 PER. That you live after a strange sort here, and that 
 I am but too well aware of the ill will they all bear him. 
 
 ORG. What has this ill will to do with what I have just 
 told you ? 
 
 PER. I have told it you a hundred times when you were 
 young, that in this world virtue is ever liable to persecution, 
 and that, although the envious die, envy never dies. 
 
 ORG. But what has this to do with what has happened 
 to-day? 
 
 PER. They have concocted a hundred foolish stories 
 against him. 
 
 ORG. I have already told you that I saw it all myself. 
 
 PER. The malice of evil-disposed persons is very great. 
 
 ORG. You would make me swear, mother! I tell you 
 that I saw his audacious attempt with my own eyes. 
 
 PEK. Evil tongues have always some venom to pour 
 forth; and here below, there is nothing proof against them. 
 
 OUG. You are maintaining a very senseless argument. 
 I saw it, I tell you, saw it with my own eyes! what you 
 can call s-a-w, saw! Must I din it over and over into your 
 ears, and shout as loud as half a dozen people ? 
 
 PER. Gracious goodness! appearances of ten deceive us ! 
 We must not always judge by what we see. 
 
 ORG. I shall go mad! 
 
 PER. We are by nature prone to judge wrongly, and 
 good is often mistaken for evil. 
 
 ORG. I ought to look upon his desire of seducing my 
 wife as charitable ? 
 
 PER. You ought to have good reasons before you accuse 
 another, and you should have waited till you were quite 
 sure of the fact. 
 
 ORG. Heaven save the mark ! how could I be more sure ? 
 I suppose, mother, I ought to have waited till you will 
 make me say something foolish.
 
 110 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 PER. In short, his soul is possessed with too pure a 
 zeal ; and I cannot possibly conceive that he would think of 
 attempting what you accuse him of. 
 
 ORG. If you were not my mother, I really don't know 
 what I might now say to you, you make me so savage. 
 
 The short remainder of the scene has for its im- 
 portant idea, the suggestion that under the existing 
 circumstances some sort of peace ought to be 
 patched up between Orgon and Tartuffe. Mean- 
 time one LOYAL is observed coming, whereupon the 
 fourth scene of act fifth opens : 
 
 LOY. (to DORINE at the farther part of the stage). Good- 
 day, my dear sister; pray let me speak to your master. 
 
 DOR. He is with friends, and I do not think he can see 
 any one just now. 
 
 LOY. I would not be intrusive. 1 feel sure that he will 
 find nothing unpleasant in my visit: in fact, I come for 
 something which will be very gratifying to him. 
 
 DOR. What is your name ? 
 
 LOY. Only tell him that I come from Mr. Tartuffe, fcr 
 his benefit. 
 
 DOR. (to ORGON). It is a man who comes in a civil way 
 from Mr. Tartuffe, on some business which will make you 
 glad, he says. 
 
 CLE. (to ORGON). You must see who it is, and what the 
 man wants. 
 
 ORG. (to CLE"ANTE). He is coming, perhaps, to settle 
 matters between us in a friendly way. How, in this case, 
 ought I to behave to him ? 
 
 CLE. Don't show any resentment, and, if he speaks of 
 an agreement, listen to him. 
 
 LOY. (to ORGON). Your servant, sir! May heaven pun- 
 ish whoever wrongs you ! and may it be as favorable to you, 
 sir, as I wish!
 
 Moliere. Ill 
 
 ORG. (aside to CL^ANTK). This pleasant beginning 
 agrees with my conjectures, and argues some sort of recon- 
 ciliation. 
 
 LOY. All your family was always dear to me, and I 
 served your father. 
 
 OKG. Sir, I am sorry and ashamed to say that I do not 
 know who you are, neither do I remrinber your name. 
 
 LOY. My name is Loyal ; I was born in Normandy, and 
 am a royal bailiff in spite of envy. For (he last forty years 
 I have had the good fortune to fill the office, thanks to 
 Heaven, w r ith great credit; and I come, sir, with your leave, 
 to serve you the writ of a certain order. 
 
 ORG. What ! you are here 
 
 LOY. Gently, sir, I beg. It is merely a summons, a 
 notice for you to leave this place, you and yours; to take 
 away all your goods and chattels, and make room for others, 
 without delay or adjournment, as hereby decreed. 
 
 ORG. I! leave this place ? 
 
 LOY. Yes, sir; if you please. The house incontestably 
 belongs, as you are well aware, to the good Mr. Tartuffe. 
 He is now lord and master of your estates, according to a 
 deed I have in my keeping. It is in due form, and cannot 
 be challenged. 
 
 DAMIS (to MR. LOYAL). This great impudence is, in- 
 deed, worthy of all admiration. 
 
 LOY. (to DAMIS). Sir, I have nothing at all to do with 
 you. (Pointing to ORGON. ) My business is with this gen- 
 tleman. He is tractable and gentle, and knows too well the 
 duty of a gentleman to try to oppose authority. 
 
 ORG. But 
 
 LOY. Yes, sir: I know that you would not, for any 
 thing, show contumacy; and that you will allow me, like a 
 reasonable man, to execute the orders I have received. . . . 
 
 The scene gives in conclusion some spirited by- 
 play of asides and interruptions from indignaut mem-
 
 112 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 bers of the family. Then follows scene fifth, one 
 exchange of conversation from which will sufficiently 
 indicate the progress of the plot : 
 
 ORG. Well, mother, you see whether I am right; and you 
 can judge of the rest by the writ. Do you at last acknowl- 
 edge his rascality ? 
 
 PER. I am thunderstruck, and can scarcely believe my 
 eyes and ears. 
 
 The next scene introduces Valere, the noble lover 
 of that daughter whom the infatuated father was 
 bent on sacrificing to Tartu fife. Valere comes to 
 announce that Tartuffe, the villain, has accused Or- 
 gon to the king. Orgon must fly. Valere offers 
 him his own carriage and money, will, in fact, 
 himself keep him company till he reaches a place of 
 safety. As Orgon, taking hasty leave of his family, 
 turns to go, he is encountered by the following 
 scene will show whom : 
 
 TAR. (stopping ORGON^). Gently, sir, gently; not so fast, 
 I beg. You have not far to go to find a lodging, and you are 
 a prisoner in the king's name. 
 
 ORG. Wretch ! you had reserved this shaft for the last; 
 by it you finish me, and crown all your perfidies. 
 
 TAR. Your abuse has no power to disturb me, and I 
 know how to suffer every thing for the sake of Heaven. 
 
 CLE. Your moderation is really great, we must acknowl- 
 edge. 
 
 DA. How impudently the infamous wretch sports with 
 Heaven I 
 
 TAR. Your anger cannot move me. I have no other 
 wish but to fulfil my duty.
 
 Moliere. 113 
 
 MARIANNE. You may claim great glory from the per- 
 formance of this duty: it is a very honorable employment 
 for you. 
 
 TAIL The employment cannot be otherwise than glorl 
 ous, when it comes from the power that sends me here. 
 
 OKG. But do you remember that my charitable hand, 
 ungrateful scoundrel, raised you from a state of misery ? 
 
 TAB. Yes, I know what help I have received from you; 
 but the interest of my king is my first duty. The just obli- 
 gation of this sacred duty stifles in my heart all other claims; 
 and I would sacrifice to it friend, wife, relations, and myself 
 with them. 
 
 ELMIRE. The impostor! 
 
 DOR. With what treacherous cunning he makes a cloak 
 of all that men revere ! . . . 
 
 TAR. (to the OFFICER). I beg of you, sir, to deliver me 
 from all this noise, and to act according to the orders you 
 have received. 
 
 OFFICER. I have certainly put off too long the discharge 
 of my duty, and you very rightly remind me of it. To execute 
 my order, follow me immediately to the prison in which a 
 place is assigned to you. 
 
 TAR. Who ? I, sir ? 
 
 OFFICER. Yes, you. 
 
 TAR. Why to prison ? 
 
 OFFICER. To you I have no account to render. ( To OR- 
 GOX.) Pray, sir, recover from your great alarm. We live 
 under a king [Louis XIV.] who is an enemy to fraud, a king 
 who can read the heart, and whom all the arts of impostors 
 cannot deceive. His great mind, endowed with delicate dis- 
 cernment, at all times sees things in their true light. ... 
 He annuls, by his sovereign will, the terms of the contract by 
 which you gave him [Tartuffe] your property. He moreover 
 forgives you this secret offence in which you were involved 
 by the flight of your friend. This to reward the zeal which 
 you once showed for him In maintaining his rights, and to
 
 114 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 prove that his heart, when it is least expected, knows how 
 to recompense a good action. Merit with him is never lost, 
 and he remembers good better than evil. 
 
 DOK. Heaven be thanked! 
 
 PER. All ! I breathe again. 
 
 EL. What a favorable end to our troubles! 
 
 MAK. Who would have foretold it ? 
 
 OUG. (to TAKTUFFE, as the OFFICER leads him off). Ah, 
 wretch! now you are 
 
 Tartuffe thus disposed of, the play promptly ends, 
 with a vanishing glimpse afforded us of a happy 
 marriage in prospect for Valere with the daughter. 
 
 Moliere is said to have had a personal aim in 
 drawing the character of Tartuffe. This, at least, 
 was like Dante. There is not much sweet laughter 
 in such a comedy. But there is a power that is 
 dreadful. 
 
 Each succeeding generation of Frenchmen supplies 
 its bright and ingenious wits who produce comedy. 
 But as there is no second Shakspeare, so there is 
 but one Moliere.
 
 Pascal. 115 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PASCAL. 
 1623-1662. 
 
 PASCAL'S fame is distinctly the fame of a man of 
 genius. He achieved notable things. But it is 
 what he might have done, still more than what he 
 did, that fixes his estimation in the world of mind. 
 Blaise Pascal is one of the chief intellectual glories 
 of France. 
 
 Pascal, the boy, had a strong natural bent toward 
 mathematics. The story is that; his father, in order 
 to turn his sou's whole force on the study of lan- 
 guages, put out of the lad's reach all books treating 
 his favorite subject. Thus shut up to his own 
 resources, the masterful little fellow, about his 
 eighth year, drawing charcoal diagrams on the floo'r, 
 made perceptible progress in working out geometry 
 for himself. At sixteen he produced a treatise on 
 conic sections that excited the wonder and incredu- 
 lity of Descartes. Later, he experimented in ba- 
 rometry, and pursued investigations in mechanics. 
 Later still, he made what seemed to be approaches 
 toward Newton's binomial theorem. 
 
 Vivid religious convictions meantime deeply 
 affected Pascal's mind. His health, never robust, 
 began to give way. His physicians prescribed
 
 116 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 mental diversion, and forced him into society. That 
 medicine, taken at first with reluctance, proved dan- 
 gerously delightful to Pascal's vivacious and suscep- 
 tible spirit. His pious sister Jacqueline warned her 
 brother that he was going too far. But he was still 
 more effectively warned by an accident, in which he 
 almost miraculously escaped from death. With- 
 drawing from the world, he adopted a course of 
 ascetic practices, in which he continued till he died 
 in his thirty-ninth year. He wore about his waist an 
 iron girdle armed with sharp points ; and this he 
 would press smartly with his elbow when he detected 
 himself at fault in his spirit. 
 
 Notwithstanding what Pascal did or attempted, 
 worthy of fame, in science, it was his fortune to 
 become chiefly renowned by literary achievement. 
 His, in fact, would now be a half-forgotten name if 
 he had not written the "Provincial Letters" and 
 the "Thoughts." 
 
 The " Provincial Letters " is an abbreviated title. 
 The title in full originally was, " Letters written 
 by Louis de Montalte to a Provincial, one of his 
 friends, and to the Reverend Fathers, the Jesuits, 
 on the subject of the morality and the policy of 
 those Fathers." 
 
 Of the "Provincial Letters," several English 
 translations have been made. No one of these that 
 we have been able to find, seems entirely satisfac- 
 tory. There is an elusive quality to Pascal's style, 
 and in losing this you seem to lose something of
 
 Pascal. 117 
 
 Pascal's thought. For with Pascal the thought and 
 the style penetrate each other inextricably and 
 almost indistinguishably. You cannot print a smile, 
 an inflection of the voice, a glance of the eye, a 
 French shrug of the shoulders. And such modula- 
 tions of the thought seem everywhere to lurk in the 
 turns and phrases of Pascal's inimitable French. 
 To translate them is impossible. 
 
 Pascal is beyond question the greatest modern 
 master of that indescribably delicate art in expres- 
 sion, which, from its illustrious ancient exemplar, 
 has received the name of the Socratic irony. With 
 this fine weapon, in great part, it was, wielded like a 
 magician's invisible wand, that Pascal did his mem- 
 orable execution on the Jesuitical system of morals 
 and casuistry, in the "Provincial Letters." In 
 great part, we say ; for the flaming moral earnestness 
 of the man could not abide only to play with his 
 adversaries, to the end of the famous dispute. His 
 lighter cimeter blade he flung aside before he had 
 done, and, toward the last, brandished a sword that 
 had weight as well as edge and temper. The skill 
 that could halve a feather in the air with the sword 
 of Saladin was proved to be also strength that could 
 cleave a suit of mail with the brand of Richard the 
 Lion-hearted. 
 
 It is universally acknowledged, that the French 
 language has never in any hands been a more 
 obedient instrument of intellectual power than it 
 was in the bauds of Pascal. He is rated the earli-
 
 118 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 est writer to produce what may be called the final 
 French prose. " The creator of French style," 
 Villem'ain boldly calls him. Pascal's style remains 
 to this day almost perfectly free from adhesions of 
 archaism in diction and in construction. Pascal 
 showed, as it were at once, what the French lan- 
 guage was capable of doing in response to the 
 demands of a master. It was the. joint achievement 
 of genius, of taste, and of skill, working together in 
 an exquisite balance and harmony. 
 
 But let us be entirely frank. The "Provincial Let- 
 ters " of Pascal are now, to the general reader, not so 
 interesting as from their fame one would seem enti- 
 tled to expect. You cannot read them intelligently 
 without considerable previous study. You need to 
 .have learned, imperfectly, with labor, a thousand 
 things that every contemporary reader of Pascal 
 perfectly knew, as if by simply breathing, the ne- 
 cessary knowledge being then, so to speak, abroad in 
 the air. Even thus, you cannot possibly derive that 
 vivid delight from perusing in bulk the " Provincial 
 Letters" now, which the successive numbers of the 
 series, appearing at brief irregular intervals, commu- 
 nicated to the eagerly expecting French public, at a 
 time when the topics discussed were topics of a pres- 
 ent and pressing practical interest. Still, with what- 
 ever disadvantage unavoidably attending, we must 
 give our readers a taste of the quality of Pascal's 
 " Provincial Letters." 
 
 We select a passage at the commencement of the
 
 Pascal. 119 
 
 Seventh Letter. "We use the translation of Mr. 
 Thomas M'Crie. This succeeds very well in con- 
 veying the sense, though it necessarily fails to convey 
 either the vivacity or the eloquence, of the incompar- 
 able original. The first occasion of the " Provincial 
 Letters" was a championship proposed to Pascal 
 to be taken up by him on behalf of his beleaguered 
 and endangered friend Arnauld, the Port-Royalist. 
 (Port Royal was a Roman-Catholic abbey, situated 
 some eight miles to the south-west of Versailles, and 
 therefore not ver}* remote from Paris.) Arnauld 
 was " for substance of doctrine " really a Calvinist, 
 though he quite sincerely disclaimed being such ; and 
 it was for his defence of Calvinism (under its ancient 
 form of Augustiuianism) that he was threatened, 
 through Jesuit enmity, with condemnation for heret- 
 ical opinion. The problem was to enlist the senti- 
 ment of general society in his favor. The friends 
 in council at Port Royal said to Pascal. " You must 
 do this." Pascal said, " I will try." In a few 
 days, the first letter of a series destined to such 
 fame, was submitted for judgment to Port Royal 
 and approved. It was printed anonymously. The 
 success was instantaneous and brilliant. A second 
 letter followed, and a third. Soon, from strict per- 
 sonal defence of Arnauld, the writer went on to take 
 up a line of offence and aggression. He carried the 
 war into Africa. He attacked the Jesuits as teachers 
 of immoral doctrine. 
 
 The plan of these later letters was, to have a Paris
 
 120 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 gentleman write to a friend of his in the country (the 
 " provincial "), detailing interviews held by him with 
 a Jesuit priest of the city. The supposed Parisian 
 gentleman, in his interviews with the supposed Jesuit 
 father, affects the air of a very simple-hearted seeker 
 after truth. He represents himself as, by his inno- 
 cent-seeming docility, leading his Jesuit teacher on 
 to make the most astonishingly frank exposures of 
 the secrets of the casuistical system held and taught 
 by his order. 
 
 The Seventh Letter tells the story of how Jesuit 
 confessors were instructed to manage their penitents 
 in a matter made immortally famous by the wit and 
 genius of Pascal, the matter of " directing the inten- 
 tion. ' ' There is nothing in the ' ' Provincial Letters ' ' 
 better suited than this at the same time to interest 
 the general reader, and to display the quality of these 
 renowned productions. (We do not scruple to change 
 our chosen translation a little, at points where it 
 seems to us susceptible of some easy improvement.) 
 Remember it is an imaginary Parisian gentleman 
 who now writes to a friend of his in the country : 
 
 " You know," he said, "that the ruling passion of per- 
 sons in that rank of life [the rank of gentleman] is ' the point 
 of honor,' which is perpetually driving them into acts of vio- 
 lence apparently quite at variance with Christian piety; so 
 that, in fact, they would be almost all of them excluded from 
 our confessionals, had not our fathers relaxed a little from 
 the strictness of religion, to accommodate themselves to the 
 weakness of humanity. Anxious to keep on good terms, both 
 with the gospel, by doing their duty to God, and with the
 
 Pascal 121 
 
 men of the world, by showing charity to their neighbor, they 
 needed all the wisdom they possessed to devise expedients for 
 so nicely adjusting matters as to/ permit these gentlemen to 
 adopt the methods usually resorted to for vindicating their 
 honor without wounding their consciences, and thus recon- 
 cile things apparently so opposite to each other as piety and 
 the point of honor.". . . 
 
 " I should certainly [so replies M. Montalte, with the 
 most exquisite irony couched under a cover of admiring sim- 
 plicity], I should certainly have considered the thing per- 
 fectly impracticable, if I had not known, from what I have 
 seen of your fathers, that they are capable of doing with ease 
 what is impossible to other men. This led me to anticipate 
 that they must have discovered some method for meeting the 
 difficulty, a method which I admire, even before knowing 
 it, and which I pray you to explain to me." 
 
 " Since that is your view of the matter," replied the monk, 
 " I cannot refuse you. Know, then, that this marvellous 
 principle is our grand method of directing the intention 
 the importance of which, in our moral system, is such, that 
 I might almost venture to compare it with the doctrine of 
 probability. You have had some glimpses of it in passing, 
 from certain maxims which I mentioned to you. For exam- 
 ple, when I was showing you how servants might execute 
 certain troublesome jobs with a safe conscience, did you not 
 remark that it was simply by diverting their intention from 
 the evil to which they were accessory, to the profit which 
 they might reap from the transaction ? Now, that is what 
 ws call directing the intention. You saw, too, that, M r ere it 
 not for a similar divergence of the mind, those who give 
 money for benefices might be downright simoniacs. But I 
 will now show you this grand method in all its glory, as it 
 applies to the subject of homicide, a crime which it justifies 
 in a thousand instances, in order that, from this startling 
 result, you may form an idea of all that it is calculated to 
 effect." 
 
 9
 
 122 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 " I foresee already," said I, " that, according to this mode, 
 every thing will be permitted: it will stick at nothing." 
 
 " You always fly from the one extreme to the other," re- 
 plied the monk ; " prithee avoid that habit. For just to 
 show you that we are' far from permitting every thing, let 
 me tell you that we never suffer such a thing as a formal in- 
 tention to sin, with the sole design of sinning ; and, if any 
 person whatever should persist in having no other end hut 
 evil in the evil that he does, we break with him at once :'such 
 conduct is diabolical. This holds true, without exception of 
 age, sex, or rank. But when the person is not of such a 
 wretched disposition as this, we try to put in practice our 
 method of directing the intention, which consists in his pro- 
 posing to himself, as the end of his actions, some allowable 
 object. Not that we do not endeavor, as far as we can, to 
 dissuade men from doing things forbidden ; but, when we can- 
 not prevent the action, we at least purify the motive, and thus 
 correct the viciousness of the mean by the goodness of the 
 end. Such is the way in which our fathers have contrived to 
 permit those acts of violence to which men usually resort in 
 vindication of their honor. They have no more to do than 
 to turn off their intention from the desire of vengeance, 
 which is criminal, and direct it to a desire to defend their 
 honor, which, according to us, is quite warrantable. And 
 in this way our doctors discharge all their duty towards God 
 and towards man. By permitting the action, they gratify 
 the world; and by purifying the intention, they give satis- 
 faction to the gospel. This is a secret, sir, which was 
 entirely unknown to the ancients ; the world is indebted for 
 the discovery entirely to our doctors. You understand it 
 now, I hope?" 
 
 " Perfectly," was my reply. " To men you grant the 
 outward material effect of the action, and to God you give 
 the inward and spiritual movement of the intention ; and, 
 by this equitable partition, you form an alliance between the 
 laws of God and the laws of men. But, my dear sir, to be
 
 Pascal. 123 
 
 frank with you, I can hardly trust your premises, and I sus- 
 pect that your authors will tell another tale." 
 
 "You do me injustice," rejoined the monk ; " I advance 
 nothing but what I am ready to prove, an. I that by such a 
 rich array of passages, that altogether their number, their 
 authority, and their reasonings, will fill you with admira- 
 tion. To show you, for example, the alliance which our 
 fathers have formed between the maxims of the gospel and 
 those of the world, by thus regulating the intention, let me 
 refer you to Reginald. (In praxi., liv. xxi., num. 62, p. 260.) 
 [These, and all that follow, are verifiable citations from real 
 and undisputed Jesuit authorities, not to this day repudiated 
 by that order.] ' Private persons are forbidden to avenge 
 themselves ; for St. Paul says to the Romans (ch. 12th), 
 "Recompense to no man evil for evil;" and Ecclesiasticus 
 says (ch. 28th), "He that taketh vengeance shall draw on 
 himself the vengeance of God, and his sins will not be for- 
 gotten." Besides all that is said in the gospel about forgiv- 
 ing offences, as in the 6th and 18th chapters of St. Matthew.' " 
 
 " Well, father, if after that, he [Reginald] says any thing 
 contrary to the Scripture, it will, at least, not be from lack 
 of scriptural knowledge. Pray, how does he conclude ? " 
 
 "You shall hear," he said. "From all this it appears 
 that a military man may demand satisfaction on the spot 
 from the person who has injured him not, indeed, with 
 the intention of rendering evil for evil, but with that of pre- 
 serving his honor non ut malum pro malo reddat, sed itt 
 conservat honor em. See you how carefully, because the 
 Scripture condemns it, they guard against the intention of 
 rendering evil for evil ? This is what they will tolerate on 
 no account. Thus Lessius observes (De Just., liv. ii., c. 9, 
 d. 12, n. 79), that, ' If a man has received a blow on the face, 
 he must on no account have an intention to avenge himself ; 
 but he may lawfully have an intention to avert infamy, and 
 may, with that view, repel the insult immediately, even at 
 the point of the sword etiam cum gladio.' So far are w
 
 124 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 from permitting any one to cherish the design of taking ven- 
 geance on his enemies, that our fathers will not allow any 
 even to wish their death by a movement of hatred. ' If 
 your enemy is disposed to injure you,' says Escobar, ' you 
 have no right to wish his death, by a movement of hatred ; 
 though you may, with a view to save yourself from harm.' 
 So legitimate, indeed, is this wish, with such an intention, 
 that our great Hurtado de Mendoza says that ' we may pray 
 God to visit with speedy death those who are bent on persecut- 
 ing us, if there is no other way of escaping from it.' " (In 
 his book, De Spe, vol. ii., d. 13, sec. 4, 48.) 
 
 " May it please your reverence," said I. " the Church has 
 forgotten to insert a petition to that effect among her 
 prayers." 
 
 " They have not put every thing into the prayers that 
 one may lawfully ask of God," answered the monk. "Be- 
 sides, in the present case, the thing was impossible, for this 
 same opinion is of more recent standing than the Breviary. 
 You are not a good chronologist, friend. But, not to wander 
 from the point, let me request your attention to the following 
 passage, cited by Diana from Gaspar Hurtado (De Sub. 
 Pecc., diff. 9 ; Diana, p. 5 ; tr. 14, r. 99), one of Escobar's 
 four-and-twenty fathers : ' An incumbent may, without any 
 mortal sin, desire the decease of a life-renter on his benefice, 
 and a son that of his father, and rejoice when it happens ; 
 provided always it is for the sake of the profit that is to 
 accrue from the event, and not from personal aversion. ' " 
 
 " Good," cried I. " That is certainly a very happy hit, 
 and I can easily see that the doctrine admits of a wide appli- 
 cation. But yet there are certain cases, the solution of 
 which, though of great importance for gentlemen, might 
 present still greater difficulties." 
 
 "Propose such, if you please, that we may see," said the 
 monk. 
 
 "Show me, with all your directing of the intention," re- 
 turned I, " that it is allowable to fight a dueL"
 
 Pascal 125 
 
 " Our great Hurtado de Mendoza," said the father, " will 
 satisfy you on that point in a twinkling. ' If a gentleman,' 
 says he, in a passage cited by Diana, ' who is challenged to 
 fight a duel, is well known to have no religion, and if the 
 vices to which he is openly and unscrupulously addicted, are 
 such as would lead people to conclude, in the event of his 
 refusing to fight, that he is actuated, not by the fear of God, 
 but by cowardice, and induce them to say of him that he was 
 a hen, and not a man yaliina, et non vir ; in that case he 
 may, to save his honor, appear at the appointed spot not, 
 indeed, with the express intention of fighting a duel, but 
 merely with that of defending himself, should the person 
 who challenged him come there unjustly to attack him. His 
 action in this case, viewed by itself, will be perfectly indiffer- 
 ent ; for what moral evil is there in one's stepping into a 
 field, taking a stroll in expectation of meeting a person, and 
 defending one's self in the event of being attacked ? And 
 thus the gentleman is guilty of no sin whatever ; for in fact, 
 it cannot be called accepting a challenge at all, his intention 
 being directed to other circumstances, and the acceptance of 
 a challenge consisting in an express intention to fight, 
 which we are supposing the gentleman never had.' " 
 
 The humorous irony of Pascal, in the " Provincial 
 Letters," plays like the diffusive sheen of an aurora 
 borealis over the whole surface of the composition. 
 It does not often deliver itself startlingly in sudden 
 discharges as of lightning. You need to school your 
 sense somewhat, not to miss a fine effect now and 
 then. Consider the broadness and coarseness in 
 pleasantry, that, before Pascal, had been common, 
 almost universal, in controversy, and you will better 
 understand what a creative touch it was of genius, 
 of feeling, and of taste, that brought into literature
 
 126 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 the far more than Attic, the ineffable Christian, 
 purity of that wit and humor in the " Provincial Let- 
 ters " which will make these writings live as long ae 
 men anywhere continue lo read the productions of 
 past ages. Erasmus, perhaps, came the nearest of 
 all modern predecessors to anticipating the purified 
 pleasantry of Pascal. 
 
 It will be interesting and instructive to see Pascal's 
 own statement of his reasons for adopting the ban- 
 tering style which he did in the " Provincial Letters," 
 as well as of the sense of responsibilitj- to be faithful 
 and fair, under which he wrote. Pascal says : 
 
 I have been asked why I employed a pleasant, jocose, and 
 diverting style. I reply ... I thought it a duty to write so 
 as to be comprehended by women and men of the world, 
 that they might know the danger of their maxims and prop- 
 ositions which were then universally propagated. ... I 
 have been asked, lastly, if I myself read all the books which 
 I quoted. I answer, No. If I had done so, I must have 
 passed a great part of my life in reading very bad books; 
 but I read Escobar twice through, and I employed some of 
 my friends in reading the others. But I did not make use 
 of a single passage without having myself read it in the 
 book from which it is cited, without having examined the 
 subject of which it treats, and without having read what 
 went before and followed, so that I might run no risk of 
 quoting an objection as an answer, which would have been 
 blameworthy and unfair. 
 
 Of the wit of the " Provincial Letters," their wit 
 and their controversial effectiveness, the specimens 
 given will have afforded readers some approximate
 
 Pascal. 127 
 
 idea. We must denj- ourselves the gratification of 
 presenting a brief passage, which we had selected 
 and translated for the purpose, to exemplify from 
 the same source Pascal's serious eloquence. It was 
 Voltaire who said of these productions : fct Moliere's 
 best comedies do not excel them in wit, nor the 
 compositions of Bossuet in sublimity." Something 
 of Bossuet's sublimity, or of a sublimity perhaps 
 finer than Bossuet's, our readers will discover in 
 titatious to follow from the " Thoughts." 
 
 Pascal's " Thoughts," the printed book, has a 
 remarkable history. It was a posthumous publica- 
 tion. The author died, leaving behind him a con- 
 siderable number of detached fragments of compo- 
 sition, first jottings of thought on a subject that had 
 long occupied his mind. These precious manuscripts 
 were almost undecipherable. The writer had used 
 for his purpose any chance scrap of paper, old 
 wrapping, for example, or margin of letter, that, at 
 the critical moment of happy conception, was nearest 
 his hand. Sentences, words even, were often left 
 unfinished. There was no coherence, no sequence, 
 no arrangement. It was, however, among his friends 
 perfectly well understood that Pascal for years had 
 meditated a work on religion designed to demon- 
 strate the truth of Christianity. For this he had 
 been thinking arduously. Fortunately he had even, 
 in a memorable conversation, sketched his project 
 at some length to his Port Royal friends. With so 
 much, scarcely more, in the way of clew, to guide
 
 128 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 their editorial work, these friends prepared and 
 issued a volume of Pascal's "Thoughts." With 
 the most loyal intentions, the Port-Royalists un- 
 v/isely edited too much. They pieced out incom- 
 pletenesses, they provided clauses or sentences of 
 connection, they toned down expressions deemed 
 too bold, they improved Pascal's style ! After 
 having suffered such things from his friends, the 
 posthumous Pascal, later, fell into the hands of an 
 enemy. The infidel Condorcet published an edition 
 of the "Thoughts." Whereas the Port-Royalists 
 had suppressed to placate the Jesuits, Condorcet 
 suppressed to please the " philosophers." Between 
 those on the one side, and these on the other, Pascal's 
 " Thoughts " had experienced what might well have 
 killed any production of the human mind that could 
 die. It was not till near the middle of the present 
 century that Cousin called the attention of the 
 world to the fact that we had not yet, but that 
 we still might have, a true edition of Pascal's 
 "Thoughts." M. Faugere took the hint, and con- 
 sulting the original manuscripts, preserved in the 
 national library at Paris, produced, with infinite 
 editorial labor, almost tr,-o hundred years after the 
 thinker's death, the first satisfactory edition of Pas- 
 cal's "Thoughts." Since Faugore. M. Havet has 
 also published an edition of Pascal's works entire, 
 by him now first adequately annotated and explained. 
 The arrangement of the " Thoughts " varies in 
 order, according to the varying judgment of editors
 
 Pascal 129 
 
 We use, for our extracts, a current translation, which 
 we modify at our discretion, by comparison of the 
 original text as given in M. Havet's elaborate work. 
 Our first extract is a passage in which the writer 
 supposes a sceptic of the more shallow, trifling sort, 
 to speak. This sceptic represents his own state of 
 mind in the following strain as of soliloquy : 
 
 ' I do not know who put me into the world, nor what the 
 world is, nor what I ain myself. I am in a frightful igno- 
 rance of all things. I do not know what my body is, what 
 my senses are, what my soul is, and that very part of me 
 which thinks what I am saying, which reflects upon every 
 thing and upon itself, and is no better acquainted with itself 
 than with any thing else. I see these appalling spaces of 
 the universe which enclose me, and I find myself tethered 
 in one corner of this immense expansion without knowing 
 why I am stationed in this place rather than in another, or 
 why this moment of time which is given me to live is as- 
 signed me at this point rather than at another of the whole 
 eternity that has preceded me, and of that which is to fol- 
 low me. 
 
 ' I see nothing but infinities on every side, which enclose 
 me like an atom, and like a shadow which endures but for 
 an instant, and returns no more. 
 
 ' All that I kuo\v, is that I am soon to die; but what I am 
 most ignorant of, is that very death which I am unable to 
 avoid. 
 
 ' As I know not whence I came, so I know not whither I 
 go; and I know only, that in leaving this world I fall for- 
 ever either into nothingness or into the hands of an angry 
 God, without knowing which of these two conditions is to 
 be eternally my lot. Such is my state, full of misery, of 
 weakness, and of uncertainty. 
 
 ' And from all this I conclude, that I ought to pass all the
 
 130 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 days of my life without a thought of trying to learn what 
 is to befall me hereafter. Perhaps in my doubts I might 
 find some enlightenment; but I am unwilling to take the 
 trouble, or go a single step in search of it; and, treating 
 with contempt those who perplex themselves with such 
 solicitude,, my purpose is to go forward without forethought 
 and without fear to try the great event, and passively to 
 approach death in uncertainty of the eternity of my future 
 condition.' 
 
 Who would desire to have for a friend a man who dis- 
 courses in this manner ? Who would select such a one for 
 the confidant of his affairs ? Who would have recourse to 
 such a one in his afflictions ? And, in fine, for what use of 
 life could such a man be destined ? 
 
 The central thought on which the projected apolo- 
 getic of Pascal was to revolve as on a pivot, is the 
 contrasted greatness and wretchedness of man, 
 with Divine Revelation, in its doctrine of a fall on 
 man's part from original nobleness, supplying the 
 needed link, and the only link conceivable, of expla- 
 nation, to unite the one with the other, the human 
 greatness with the human wretchedness. This con- 
 trast of dignity and disgrace should constantly be 
 in the mind of the reader of the "Thoughts" of 
 Pascal. It will often be found to throw a very 
 necessary light upon the meaning of the separate 
 fragments that make up the series. 
 
 We now present a brief fragment asserting, with 
 vivid metaphor, at the same time the fragility of 
 man's frame and the majesty of man's nature. 
 This is a very famous Thought :
 
 Pascal. 131 
 
 Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a 
 thinking reed. It is not necessary that the entire universe 
 arm itself to crush him. An exhalation, a drop of water, 
 suffices to kill him. But were the universe to crush him, 
 man would still be more noble than that which kills him, 
 because he knows that he is dying, and knows the advantage 
 that the universe has over him. The universe knows 
 nothing of it. 
 
 Our whole dignity consists, then, in thought. 
 
 One is reminded of the memorable saj'ing of a 
 celebrated philosopher: "In. the universe there is 
 nothing great but man ; iu man there is nothing 
 great but mind." 
 
 What a sudden, almost ludicrous, reduction in 
 scale, the greatness of Caesar, as conqueroi , is made 
 to suffer when looked at in the way in which Pascal 
 asks you to look at it in the following Thought ! 
 (Remember that Caesar, when he begaji fighting for 
 universal empire, was fifty-one years of age :) 
 
 Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to amuse himself with 
 conquering the world. This amusement was well enough 
 for Augustus or Alexander ; they were young people, whom 
 it is difficult to stop ; but Caesar ought to have been more 
 mature. 
 
 That is f.s if you should reverse the tube of your 
 telescope, with the result of seeing the object ob- 
 served made smaller instead of larger. 
 
 The following sentence might be a Maxim of 
 La Rochefoucauld. Pascal was, no doubt, a debtor 
 to him as well as to Montaigne :
 
 132 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 I lay it down as a fact, that, if all men knew what others 
 say of them, there would not be four friends in the world. 
 
 Here is one of the most current of Pascal's say- 
 ings : 
 
 Rivers are highways that move on and bear us whither 
 we wish to go. 
 
 The following "Thought" condenses the sub- 
 stance of the book proposed, into three short sen- 
 tences : 
 
 The knowledge of God without that of our misery produces 
 pride. The knowledge of our misery without that of God 
 gives despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is intermedi- 
 ate, because therein we find God and our misery. 
 
 The prevalent seeming severity and intellectual 
 coldness of Pascal's " Thoughts " yield to a touch 
 from the hea*t. and become pathetic, in such utter- 
 ances as the following, supposed to be addressed by 
 the Saviour to the penitent seeking to be saved : 
 
 Console thyself ; thou wouldst not seek me if thou hadst 
 not found me. 
 
 I thought on thee in my agony ; such drops of blood I 
 shed for thee. 
 
 It is austerity again, but not unjust austerity, that 
 speaks as follows : 
 
 Religion is a thing so great that those who would not take 
 the pains to seek it if it is obscure, should be deprived of it. 
 What do they complain of, then, if it is such that they coukl 
 find it by seeking it ?
 
 Pascal. 133 
 
 But we must take our leave of Pascal. His was 
 a suffering as well as an aspiring spirit. He suf- 
 fered because he aspired. But, at least, he did not 
 suffer long. He aspired himself 'quickly away. 
 Toward the last he wrought at a problem in his first 
 favorite study, that of mathematics, and left behind 
 him, as a memorial of his later life, a remarkable 
 result of investigation on the curve called the cycloid. 
 During his final illness he pierced himself through 
 with many sorrows, unnecessary sorrows, sorrows, 
 too, that bore a double edge, hurting not only him, 
 but also his kindred, in practising, from mistaken 
 religious motives, a hard repress km upon his natural 
 instinct to love, and to welcome love. He thought 
 that God should be all, the creature nothing. The 
 thought was half true, but it was half false. God 
 should, indeed, be all. But, hi God, the creature 
 also should be something. 
 
 In French history, we may say, in the history of 
 the world, if there are few brighter, there also are 
 few purer, fames than the fame of Pascal.
 
 134 Classic French Course in English. 
 IX. 
 
 MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 
 1626-1696. 
 
 OF Madame de Se"vigne", if it were permitted here 
 to make a pun and a paradox, one might justly and 
 descriptively say that she was not a woman of letters, 
 but only a woman of letters. For Madame de 
 Sevign^'s addiction to literature was not at all that 
 of an author by profession. She simply wrote ad- 
 mirable private letters, in great profusion, and 
 became famous thereby. 
 
 Madame de Se'vign^'s fame is partly her merit, 
 but it is also partly her good fortune. She was 
 rightly placed to be what she was. This will appear 
 from a sketch of her life, and still more from speci- 
 mens to be exhibited of her own epistolary writing. 
 
 Marie de Rabutin-Chantal was her maiden name. 
 She was born a baroness. She was married, young, 
 a marchioness. First earl} 7 left an orphan, she was 
 afterward early left a widow, not too early, how- 
 ever, to have become the mother of two children, 
 a son and a daughter. The daughter grew to be the 
 life-long idol of the widowed mother's heart. The 
 letters she wrote to this daughter, married, and living 
 remote from her, compose the greater part of that 
 Yolumiuous epistolary production by which Madame
 
 Madame de SevignS. 135 
 
 do Sevignc" becnme, without her ever aiming at such 
 a result, or probably ever thinking of it, one of the 
 classics of the French language. 
 
 Madame de Se'vigne' was wealthy as orphan 
 heiress, and she should have been wealthy as widow. 
 But her husband was profligate, and he wasted her 
 substance. She turned out to be a thoroughly 
 capable woman of affairs who managed her property 
 well. During her long and stainless widowhood 
 her husband fell in a shameful duel when she was 
 but twenty-five years old, and she lived to be 
 seventy she divided her time between her estate. 
 The Roctas, in Brittany, and her residence in Paris. 
 This period was all embraced within the protracted 
 reign of Louis XIV., perhaps, upon the whole, the 
 most memorable age in the history of France. 
 
 Beautiful, and, if not brilliantly beautiful, at 
 least brilliantly witty, Madame de Se'vigne was 
 virtuous in that chief sense of feminine virtue 
 amid an almost universal empire of profligacy around 
 her. Her social advantages were unsurpassed, and 
 her social success was equal to her advantages. She 
 had the woman courtier's supreme triumph in being 
 once led out to dance by the king her own junior 
 by a dozen years no vulgar king, remember, but 
 the '' great ' ' Louis XIV. Her cynical cousin, himself 
 a writer of power, who had been repulsed in dishon- 
 orable proffers of love by the young marchioness 
 during the lifetime of her husband, we mean Count 
 Bussy, says, in a scurrilous work of his, that Ma-
 
 186 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 dame cle Sd-vigne remarked, cm returning to her seat 
 after her dancing-bout with the king, that Louis pos- 
 sessed great qualities, and would certainly obscure 
 the lustre of all his predecessors. " I could not 
 help laughing in her face," the ungallant cousin 
 declared, " seeing what had produced this pane- 
 gyric." Probably, indeed, the young woman w;is 
 pleased. But, whatever may have been her fan Us 
 or her follies, nothing can rob Madame de ScVignd- 
 of the glory that is hers, in having been strong 
 enough in womanly and motherly honor to preserve, 
 against many dazzling temptations, amid general 
 bad example, and even under malignant aspersions, 
 a chaste and spotless name. When it is added, that, 
 besides access to the royal court itself, this gifted 
 woman enjoyed the familiar acquaintance of La 
 Rochefoucauld and other high-bred wits, less famous, 
 not a few, enough will have been said to show 
 tfrat her position was such as to give her talent its 
 best possible chance. The French history of tht. 
 times of Louis XIV. is hinted in glimpses the most 
 vivid and the most suggestive, throughout the whole 
 series of the letters. 
 
 We owe it to our readers (and to Madame de 
 Sevigne" no less) first of all to let them see a speci- 
 men o' the affectionate adulation that this French 
 woman of rank and of fashion, literally in almost 
 every letter of hers, effuses on her daughter, a 
 daughter who, by the way, seems very languidly to 
 have responded to such demonstrations :
 
 Madame de S6vign. 137 
 
 THE ROCKS, Sunday, June 28, 1671. 
 
 You have amply made up to me my late losses ; I hava 
 received two letters from you which have filled me with 
 transports of joy. The pleasure I take in reading them is 
 beyond all imagination. If I have in any way contributed 
 to the improvement of your style I did it in the thought that 
 I was laboring for the pleasure of others, not for my own. 
 But Providence, who has seen fit to separate us so often, 
 and to place us at such immense distances from each other, 
 has repaid me a little for the privation in the charms of 
 your correspondence, and still more in the satisfaction you 
 express in your situation, anJ the beauty of your castle; you 
 represent it to me with an air of grandeur and magnificence 
 that enchants me. I once saw a similar account of it by 
 the first Madame de Grignan; but I little thought at that 
 time, that all these beauties were one day to be at your 
 command. I am very much obliged to you for having 
 given me so particular an account of it. If I could be tired 
 in reading your letters, it would not only betray a very 
 bad taste in me, but would likewise show that I could 
 have very little love or friendship for you. Divest yourself 
 of the dislike you have taken to circumstantial details. 
 I have often told you, and you ought yourself to feel the 
 truth of this remark, that they are as dear to us from those 
 we love, as they are tedious and disagreeable from others. 
 If they are displeasing to us, it is only from the indifference 
 we feel for those who write them. Admitting this observa- 
 tion to be true, I leave you to judge what pleasure yours 
 afford me. It is a fine thing, truly, to play the great lady, 
 as you do at present. 
 
 Conceive the foregoing multiplied by the whole 
 number of the separate letters composing the cor- 
 respondence, and you will have no exaggerated idea 
 of the display that Madame de Sevigne makes of her 
 10
 
 138 Classic French Course in Englitth. 
 
 regard for her daughter. This regard was a passion, 
 morbid, no doubt, by excess, and, even at that, ex- 
 travagantly demonstrated ; but it was fundamentally 
 sincere. Madame de SeVigne idealized her absent 
 daughter, and literally " loved but only her." We 
 need not wholly admire such maternal affection. 
 But we should not criticise it too severely. 
 
 We choose next a marvellously vivid '* instanta- 
 neous view," iu words, of a court afternoon and 
 evening at Versailles. This letter, too, is addressed 
 to the daughter Madame de Grignan, by her mar- 
 ried name. It bears date, ''Paris, Wednesday, 
 29th July." The year is 1676, and the writer is 
 just fifty : 
 
 I was at Versailles last Saturday with the Villarses. ... 
 At three the king, the queen, Monsieur [eldest brother to the 
 king], Madame [that brother's wife], Mademoiselle [that 
 brother's eldest unmarried daughter], and every thing else 
 which is royal, together with Madame de Montespan |the 
 celebrated mistress of the king] and train, and all the 
 courtiers, and all the ladies, all, in short, which consti- 
 tutes the court of France, is assembled in the beautiful 
 apartment of the king's, which you remember. All is fur- 
 nished divinely, all is magnificent. Such a thing as heat is 
 unknown ; you pass from one place to another without the 
 slightest pressure. A game at reversis [the description is of 
 a gambling scene, in which Dangeau figures as a cool and 
 skilful gamester] gives the company a form and a settlement. 
 The king and Madame de Montespan keep a bank together ; 
 different tables are occupied by Monsieur, the queen, and 
 Madame de Soubise, Dangeau and party, Langlee and party. 
 Everywhere you see heaps of louis d'ors ; they have no other
 
 Madame de S6vign. 139 
 
 counters. I saw Dangeau play, and thought what fools we 
 all were beside him. He dreams of nothing hut what con- 
 cerns the game ; he wins where others lose ; he neglects 
 nothing, profits by every thing, never has his attention 
 diverte.l ; iu short, his science bids defiance to chance. Two 
 hundred thousand francs in ten days, a hundred thousand 
 crowns in a month, these are the pretty memorandums he 
 puts down in his pocket-book. He was kind enough to say 
 that I was partners with him, so that I got an excellent seat. 
 I made my obeisance to the king, as you told me ; and he 
 relumed it as if I had been young and handsome. . . . The 
 dake said a thousand kinJ things without minding a word 
 he uttered. Marshal de Lorges attacked me in the name of 
 the Chevalier de Grignan ; in short, ttitti qitanti [the whole 
 company]. You know what it is to get a word from every- 
 body you meet. Madame de Montespan talked to me of 
 Bourbon, and asked me how I liked Vichi, and whether the 
 place did me good. She said that Bourbon, instead of curing 
 a pain in one of her knees, injured both. . . . Her size 
 is reduced by a good half, and yet her complexion, her eyes, 
 and her lips, are as fine as ever. She was dressed all in 
 French point, her hair in a thousand ringlets, the two side 
 ones hanging low on her cheeks, black ribbons on her head, 
 pearls (the same that belonged to Madame del'Hopital), the 
 loveliest diamond earrings, three or four bodkins nothing 
 else on the head ; in short, a triumphant beauty, worthy the 
 admiration of all the foreign ambassadors. She was accused 
 of preventing the whole French nation from seeing the king ; 
 she has restored him, you see, to their eyes ; and you cannot 
 conceive the joy it has given all the world, and the splendor 
 it has thrown upon the court. This charming confusion, 
 without confusion, of all which is the most select, continues 
 from three till six. If couriers arrive, the king retires a 
 moment to read the despatches, and returns. There is 
 always some music going on, to which he listens, and which 
 has an excellent effect. He talks with such of the ladies as
 
 140 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 are accustomed to enjoy that honor. ... At six the car- 
 riages are at the door. The king is in one of them with 
 Madame de Montespan, Monsieur and Madame de Thianges, 
 and honest d' Heudicourt in a fool's paradise on the stool. 
 You know how these open carriages are made ; they do not 
 sit face to face, but all looking the same way. The queen 
 occupies another with the princess ; and the rest come flock- 
 ing after, as it may happen. There are then gondolas on 
 the canal, and music ; and at ten they come back, and then 
 there is a play ; and twelve strikes, and they go to supper ; 
 and thus rolls round the Saturday. If I were to tell you 
 how often you were asked after, how many questions were 
 put to me without waiting for answers, how often I neg- 
 lected to answer, how little they cared, and how much less 
 I did, you would see the inlqua corle [wicked court] before 
 you in all its perfection. However, it never was so pleasant 
 before, and everybody wishes it may last. 
 
 There is your picture. Picture, pure and simple, 
 it is comment none, least of all, moralizing com- 
 ment. The wish is sighed by "everybody," that 
 such pleasant things may " last." Well, they did 
 last the writer's time. But meanwhile the French 
 revolution was a-preparing. A hundred years later 
 it will come, with its terrible reprisals. 
 
 We have gone away from the usual translations 
 to find the foregoing extract in an article published 
 forty years ago and more, in the " Edinburgh Re- 
 view." Again we draw from the same source 
 this time, the description of a visit paid by a com- 
 pany of grand folks, of whom the writer of the letter 
 was one, to an iron-foundery :
 
 Madame de StvignS. 141 
 
 FRIDAY, 1st Oct. (1G77). 
 
 Yesterday evening at Cone, we descended into a veritable 
 hell, the true forges of Vulcan. Eight or ten Cyclops were 
 at work, forging, not arras for ^Eneas, but anchors for ships. 
 You never saw strokes redoubled so justly, nor with so 
 admirable a cadence. We stood in the middle of four fur- 
 naces ; and the demons came passing about us, all melting 
 in sweat, with pale faces, wild-staring eyes, savage mus- 
 taches, and hair long and black, a sight enough to frighten 
 less well-bre 1 folks than ourselves. As for me, I could not 
 comprehend the possibility of refusing any thing which these 
 gentlemen, in their hell, might have chosen to exact. We 
 got out at last, by the help of a shower of silver, with which 
 we took care to refresh their souls, and facilitate our exit. 
 
 Once more : 
 
 PARIS, 29th November (1679). 
 
 I have been to the wedding of Madame de Louvois. How 
 shall I describe it ? Magnificence, illuminations, all France, 
 dresses all gold and brocade, jewels, braziers full of fire, and 
 stands full of flowers, confusions of carriages, cries out of 
 doors, lighted torches, pushings back, people run over; in 
 short, a whirlwind, a distraction ; questions without an- 
 swers, compliments without knowing what is said, civilities 
 without knowing who is spoken to, feet entangled in trains. 
 From the midst of all this, issue inquiries after your health, 
 which not being answered as quick as lightning, the 
 inquirers pass on, contented to remain in the state of igno- 
 rance and indifference in which they [the inquiries] were 
 made. O vanity of vanities ! Pretty little De Mouchy has 
 had the small-pox. O vanity, et cajtera ! 
 
 Yet again. The gay writer has been sobered, 
 perhaps hurt, by a friend's frankly writing to her, 
 *' You are old." To her daughter :
 
 142 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 So you were struck with the expression of Madame de la 
 Fayette, blended with so much friendship. 'Twas a truth, 
 1 own, which 1 ought to have borne in mind; and yet 1 
 must confess it astonished me, for I do not yet perceive in 
 myself any such decay. Nevertheless, I cannot help making 
 many reflections and calculations, and I find the conditions 
 of life hard enough. It seems to me that I have been 
 dragged, against my will, to the fatal period when old age 
 must be endured ; I see it ; I have come to it ; and I 
 would fain, if I could help it, not go any farther; not ad- 
 vance a step more in the road of infirmities, of pains, of 
 losses of memory, of disfigurement* ready to do me outrage; 
 and I hear a voice which says, " You must go on in spite of 
 yourself ; or, if you will not go on, you must die;" and 
 this is another extremity from which nature revolts. Such 
 is the lot, however, of all who advance beyond middle life. 
 What is their resource ? To think of the will of God and 
 of universal law. and so restore reason to its place, and be 
 patient. Be you, then, patient accordingly, my dear child, 
 and let not your affection soften into such tears as reason 
 must condemn. 
 
 She dates a letter, and recalls that the day was 
 the anniversary of an event in her life : 
 
 PARIS, Friday, Feb. 5, 1672. 
 This day thousand years I was married. 
 
 Here is a passage with power in it. The great war 
 minister of Louis has died. Madame de 8eVign6 
 was now sixty-five years old. The letter is to her 
 cousin Coulanges : 
 
 I am so astonished at the news of the sudden death of M. 
 de Louvois, that I am at a loss how to speak of it. Dead, 
 however, he is, this great minister, this potent being, who
 
 Madame de Stvigne. 143 
 
 occupied so great a place; whose me (le moi), as M. Nicole 
 says, had so wide a dominion; who was the centre of so 
 many orbs. What affairs had he not to manage! what 
 designs, what projects, what secrets! what interests to 
 unravel, what wars to undertake, what intrigues, what 
 noble games at chess to play and to direct ! Ah ! my God, 
 grant me a little time; I want to give check to the Duke of 
 Savoy checkmate to the Prince of Orange. No, no, you 
 shall not have a moment, not a single moment. Are events 
 like these to be talked of ? Not they. We must reflect 
 upon them in our closets. 
 
 A glimpse of Bourdaloue : 
 
 Ah, that Bourdaloue! his sermon on the Passion was, 
 they say, the most perfect thing of the kind that can be 
 imagined; it was the same he preached last year, but 
 revised and altered with the assistance of some of his 
 friends, that it might be wholly inimitable. How can one 
 love God, if one never hears him properly spoken of ? You 
 must really possess a greater portion of grace than others. 
 
 A distinguished caterer or steward, a gentleman 
 described as possessing talent enough to have gov- 
 erned a province, commits suicide on a professional 
 point of honor : 
 
 PARIS, Sunday, April 26, 1671. 
 
 I have just learned from Moreuil, of what passed at Chan- 
 tilly with regard to poor Vatel. I wrote to you last Friday 
 that he had stabbed himself these are the particulars of 
 the affair: The king arrived there on Thursday night; the 
 walk, and the collation, which was served in a place set 
 apart for the purpose, and strewed with jonquils, were just 
 as they should be. Supper was served; but there was no 
 roast meat at one or two of the tables, on account of Vatel's
 
 144 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 having been obliged to provide several dinners more than 
 were expeotecl. This affected his spirits; and he was heard 
 to say several times, " I have lost my honor! I cannot bear 
 this disgrace!" "My head is quite bewildered,'' said he to 
 Gourville. " I have not had a wink of sleep these twelve 
 nights; I wish you would assist me in giving orders." 
 Gourville did all he could to comfort and assist him, but 
 the failure of the roast meat (which, however, did not 
 happen at the king's table, but at some of the other twenty- 
 five) was always uppermost with him. Gourville men- 
 tioned it to the prince [Conde, the great Conde", the king's 
 host], who went directly to Vatel's apartment, and said to 
 him, "Every thing is extremely well conducted, Vatel; 
 nothing could be more admirable than his Majesty's 
 supper." "Your highness's goodness," replied he, "over- 
 whelms me; I am sensible that there was a deficiency of 
 roast meat at two tables." "Not at all," said the 
 prince; "do not perplex yourself, and all will go well." 
 Midnight came; the fireworks did not succeed; they were 
 covered with a thick cloud; they cost sixteen thousand 
 francs. At four o'clock in the morning Vatel went round 
 and found everybody asleep; he met one of the under- 
 purveyors, who was just come in with only two loads of 
 fish. "What!" said he, "is this all?" "Yes, sir," 
 said the man, not knowing that Vatel had despatched other 
 people to all the seaports around. Vatel waited for some 
 time; the other purveyors did not arrive; his head grew 
 distracted; he thought there was no more fish to be had. 
 He flew to Gourville: "Sir," said he, "I cannot outlive 
 this disgrace." Gourville laughed at him. Vatel, however, 
 went to his apartment, and setting the hilt of his sword 
 against the door, after two ineffectual attempts, succeeded, 
 in the third, in forcing his sword through his heart. At 
 that instant the couriers arrived with the fish; Vatel was 
 inquired after to distribute it. They ran to his apartment, 
 knocked at the door, but received no answer ; upon which
 
 Madame de SevignS. 145 
 
 they broke it open, and found him weltering in his blood. 
 A messenger was immediately despatched to acquaint the 
 prince with what had happened, who was like a man in 
 despair. The Duke wept, for his Burgundy journey de- 
 pended upon Vatel. 
 
 The italics here are our own. We felt that we 
 must use them. 
 
 Is it not all pathetic? But how exquisitely 
 characteristic of the nation and of the times ! 
 "Poor Vatel," is the extent to which Madame de 
 Sevign6 allows herself to go in sympathy. Her 
 heart never bleeds very freely for anybody except 
 her daughter. Madame de Sevign^'s heart, indeed, 
 we grieve to fear, was somewhat hard. 
 
 In another letter, after a long strain as worldly 
 as any one could wish to see, this lively woman thus 
 touches, with a sincerity as unquestionable as the 
 levity is, on the point of personal religion : 
 
 But, my dear child, the greatest inclination I have at 
 present is to be a little religious. I plague La Mousse 
 about it every day. I belong neither to God nor to the 
 devil. I am quite weary of such a situation; though, 
 between you and me, I look upon it as the most natural one 
 in the world. I am not the devil's, because I fear God, and 
 have at the bottom a principle of religion; then, on the 
 other hand, I am not properly God's, because his law 
 appears hard and irksome to me, and I cannot bring myself 
 to acts of self-denial ; so that altogether I am one of those 
 called lukewarm Christians, the great number of which does 
 not in the least surprise me, for I perfectly understand their 
 sentiments, and the reasons that influence them. However,
 
 146 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 we are told that this is a state highly displeasing to God; if 
 so, we must get out of it. Alas ! this is the difficulty. Was 
 ever any thing so mad as I am, to be thus eternally pestering 
 you with my rhapsodies ? 
 
 Madame cle Se'vigne' involuntarily becomes a 
 maxim-maker : 
 
 The other day I made a maxim off-hand, without once 
 thinking of it; and I liked it so well that I fancied I had 
 taken it out of M. de la Rochefoucauld's. Pray tell me 
 whether it is so or not, for in that case my memory is more 
 to he praised than my judgment. I said, with all the ease 
 in the world, that " ingratitude begets reproach, as ac- 
 knowledgment begets new favors." Pray, where did this 
 come from ? Have I read it ? Did 1 dream it ? Is it my 
 own idea ? Nothing can be truer than the thing itself, nor 
 than that I am totally ignorant how I came by it. I found 
 it properly arranged in my brain, and at the end of my 
 tongue. 
 
 The partial mother lets her daughter know whom 
 the maxim was meant for. She says, "It is in- 
 tended for your brother." This young fellow had, 
 we suspect, been first earning his mother's "re- 
 proaches" for spendthrift habits, and then getting 
 more money from her by " acknowledgment." 
 
 She hears that son of hers read "some chapters 
 out of Rabelais," "which were enough," she de- 
 clares, " to make us die with laughing." " I cannot 
 affect," she says, " a prudery which is not natural 
 to me." No, indeed, a prude this woman was not. 
 She had the strong aesthetic stomach of her time. 
 It is queer to have Rabelais rubbing cheek and jowl
 
 Madame de K6v'ign. 147 
 
 with Nicole (" We are going to begin a moral treatise 
 of Nicole's "), a severe Port-Royalist, iu one and the 
 same letter. But this is French ; above all, it is 
 Madame de S6vigu6. tty the way, she and her 
 friends, first and last, " die " a thousand jolly deaths 
 " with laughing." 
 
 A contemporary allusion to "Tartuffe," with 
 more French manners implied: 
 
 The other day La Biglesse played Tartuffe to the life. 
 Being at table, she happened to tell a fib about some trifle or 
 other, which I noticed, and told her of it ; she cast her eyes 
 to the ground, and with a very demure air, " Yes, indeed, 
 madam," said she, " I am the greatest liar in the world ; I am 
 very much obliged to you for telling me of it." We all 
 burst out a-laughing, for it was exactly the tone of Tartuffe, 
 " Yes, brother. I am a wretch, a vessel of iniquity." 
 
 M. de La Rochefoucauld appears often by name 
 in the letters. Here he appears anonymously by 
 his effect : 
 
 " Warm affections are never tranquil " ; a maxim. 
 
 Not a very sapid bit of gnomic wisdom, certainly. 
 We must immediately make up to our readers, on 
 Madame de S6vign's behalf, for the insipidity of the 
 foregoing " maxim " of hers, by giving here two or 
 three far more sententious excerpts from the letters, 
 excerpts collected by another : 
 
 There may be so great a weight of obligation that there is 
 no way of being delivered from it but by ingratitude. 
 
 Long sicknesses wear out grief, and long hopes wear out 
 joy.
 
 148 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Shadow is never long taken for substance ; you must be, 
 if you would appear to be. The world is not unjust long. 
 
 Madame de Se"vign6 makes a confession, which 
 will comfort readers who ma}- have experienced the 
 same difficulty as that of which she speaks : 
 
 I send you M. de Rochefoucauld's " Maxims," revised and 
 corrected, with additions ; it is a present to you from him- 
 self. Some of them I can make shift to guess the meaning 
 of ; but there are others that, to my shame be it spoken, I 
 cannot understand at all. God knows how it will be with 
 you. 
 
 What was it changed this woman's mood to seri- 
 ous? She could not have been hearing Massillon's 
 celebrated sermon on the " fewness of the elect," for 
 Massillon was yet only a boy of nine years ; she may 
 have been reading Pascal's ''Thoughts," Pascal 
 had been dead ten years, and the " Thoughts " had 
 been published ; or she may have been listening to 
 one of those sifting, heart-searching discourses of 
 Bourdaloue, the date of her letter is March 16, 
 1672, and during the Lent of that year Bourdaloue 
 preached at Versailles, when she wrote sombrely as 
 follows : 
 
 You ask me if I am as fond of life as ever. I must own 
 to you that I experience mortifications, and severe ones too ; 
 but I am still unhappy at the thoughts of death ; I consider 
 it so great a misfortune to see the termination of all my 
 pursuits, that I should desire nothing better, if it were prac- 
 ticable, than to begin life again. I find myself engaged in a 
 scene of confusion and trouble ; I was embarked in life with-
 
 Madame de Stvignt. 149 
 
 out my own consent, and know I must leave it again ; this 
 distracts me, for how shall I leave it ? In what manner ? 
 By what door ? At what time ? In what disposition ? Am 
 I to suffer a thousand pains and torments that will make me 
 die in a state of despair ? Shall I lose my senses ? Am I to 
 die by some sudden accident ? How shall I stand with God ? 
 What shall I have to offer to him ? Will fear and necessity 
 make my peace with him ? Shall I have no other sentiment 
 but that of fear ? What have I to hope ? Am I worthy of 
 heaven ? Or have I deserved the torments of hell ? Dread- 
 ful alternative ! Alarming uncertainty ! Can there be 
 greater madness than to place our eternal salvation in un- 
 certainty ? Yet what is more natural, or can be more easily 
 accounted for, than the foolish manner in which I have spent 
 my life ? I am frequently buried in thoughts of this nature, 
 and then death appears so dreadful to me that I hate life 
 more for leading me to it, than I do for all the thorns that 
 are strewed in its way. You will ask me, then, if I would 
 wish to live forever ? Far from it ; but, if I had been con- 
 sulted, I would very gladly have died in my nurse's arms ; it 
 would have spared me many vexations, and would have in- 
 sured heaven to me at a very easy rate ; but let us talk of 
 something else. 
 
 A memorable sarcasm saved for us by Madame de 
 Sevigne', at the very close of one of her letters : 
 
 Guillenagues said yesterday that Pehsson abused the priv- 
 ilege men have of being ugly. 
 
 Readers familiar with Dickens's " Tale of Two 
 Cities," will recognize in the following narrative a 
 state of society not unlike that described by the 
 novelist as immediately preceding the French Rev- 
 olution :
 
 150 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 The Archbishop of Rheims, as he returned yesterday from 
 St. Germain, met with a curious ad venture. He drove at his 
 usual rate, like a whirlwind. If he thinks himself a great 
 man, his servants think him still greater. They passed 
 through Nanterre, when they met a man on horseback, and 
 in an insolent tone bid him clear the way. The poor man 
 used his utmost endeavors to avoid the danger that threat- 
 ened him, but his horse proved unmanageable. To make 
 short of it, the coach-and-six turned them both topsy-turvy ; 
 but at the same time the coach, too, was completely over- 
 turned. In an instant the horse and the man, instead oc 
 amusing themselves with having their limbs broken, rose 
 almost miraculously ; the man remounted, and g.illope.1 
 away, and is galloping still, for aught I know ; while the ser- 
 vants, the archbishop's coachman, and the archbishop him- 
 self at the head of them, cried out, " Stop that villain, stop 
 him ! thrash him soundly!" The rage of the archbishop 
 was so great, that afterward, in relating the adventure, he 
 said, if he could have caught the rascal, he would have broke 
 all his bones, and cut off both his ears. 
 
 If such things were done by the aristocracy 
 and the spiritual aristocracy at that! in the green 
 tree, what might not be expected in the dry? 
 The writer makes no comment draws no moral. 
 "Adieu, my dear, delightful child. I cannot ex- 
 press my eagerness' to see you," are her next words. 
 She rattles along, three short sentences more, and 
 finishes her letter. 
 
 We should still not have done with these letters, 
 were we to go on a hundred pages, or two hundred, 
 farther. Readers have already seen truly what 
 Madame de Se"vign6 is. They have only not seen 
 fully all that she is. And that they would not see
 
 Corneille. 151 
 
 short of reading her letters entire. Horace Wai- 
 pole aspired to do in English for his own time some- 
 thing like what Madame de Sevigne' had done in 
 French for hers. In a measure he succeeded. The 
 difference is, that he was imitative and affected, 
 where she was original and genuine. 
 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu must, of course, 
 also be named, as, by her sex, her social position, 
 her talent, and the devotion of her talent, an Eng- 
 lish analogue to Madame de S^vigne". But these 
 comparisons, and all comparison, leave the French 
 woman without a true parallel, alone in her rank, 
 the most famous letter-writer in the world. 
 
 X. 
 
 CORNEILLE. 
 16O6-1684. 
 
 THE two great names in French tragedy are Cor 
 neille and Racine. French tragedy is a very 
 different affair from either modern tragedy in Eng- 
 lish or ancient tragedy in Greek. It comes nearer 
 being Roman epic, such as Lucan wrote Roman 
 epic, dramatized. 
 
 Drama is everywhere and always, and this from 
 the nature of things, a highly conventional literary
 
 152 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 form. But the convention under which French 
 tragedy should be judged differs, on the one hand, 
 from that which existed for Greek tragedy, and, on 
 the other hand, from that existing for the English. 
 The atmosphere of real life present in English 
 tragedy is absent in French. The quasi-supernatural 
 religious awe that reigned over Greek tragedy, French 
 tragedy does not affect. You miss also in French 
 tragedy the severe simplicity, the self-restraint, the 
 statuesque repose, belonging to the Greek model. 
 Loftiness, grandeur, a loftiness somewhat strained, 
 a grandeur tending to be tumid, an heroic tone sus- 
 tained at sacrifice of ease and nature such is the 
 element in which French tragedy lives and flourishes. 
 You must grant your French tragedists this their 
 conventional privilege, or you will not enjoy them. 
 You must grant them this, or you cannot understand 
 them. Resolve that you will like grandiloquence, 
 requiring only that the grandiloquence be good, and 
 on this condition we can promise that you will be 
 pleased with Corneille and Racine. In fact, our 
 readers, we are sure, will find the grandiloquence of 
 these two tragedy-writers so very good that a little 
 will suffice them. 
 
 Voltaire in his time impressed himself strongly 
 enough on his countrymen to get accepted by his 
 own generation as an equal third in tragedy with 
 Corneille and Racine. There was then a French 
 triumvirate of tragedists to be paralleled with the tri- 
 umvirate of the Greeks. Corueiile was JEschylus ;
 
 Corneille. 153 
 
 Racine was Sophocles ; and, of course, Euripides 
 had his counterpart iu Voltaire. Voltaire lias since 
 descended from the tragic throne, and that neat 
 symmetry of trine comparison is spoiled.' There is, 
 however, some trace of justTce in making Corneille 
 as related to Racine resemble .TEschylus as related 
 to Sophocles. Corneille was first, more rugged, 
 loftier ; Racine was second, more polished, more 
 severe in taste. Racine had, too, in contrast with 
 Corneille, more of the Euripidean sweetness. In 
 fact, La Bruyere's celebrated comparison of the two 
 Frenchmen made, of course, before Voltaire 
 yoked them, Corneille with Sophocles, Racine with 
 Euripides. 
 
 It was perhaps not without its influence on the 
 style of Corneille, that a youthful labor of his in 
 authorship was to translate, wholly or partially, the 
 " Pharsalia " of Lucan. Corneille always retained 
 his fondness for Lucan. This taste on his part, and 
 the rhymed Alexandrines in which he wrote tragedy, 
 may together help account for the hyper-heroic style 
 which is Corneille's great fault. A lady criticised 
 his tragedy, "The Death of Pompey," by saying: 
 " Very fine, but too many heroes in it.*' Corneille's 
 tragedies generally have, if not too many heroes, at 
 least too much hero, in them. Concerning the his- 
 torian Gibbon's habitual pomp of expression, it was 
 once wittily said that nobody could possibly tell the 
 truth in such a style as that. It would be equally 
 near the mark if we should say of Corneille's chosen 
 11
 
 154 Classic French Course in 
 
 mould of verse, that nobody could possibly be simple 
 and natural in that. Moliere's comedy, however, 
 would almost confute us. 
 
 Pierre C%rneille was born in Rouen. He studied 
 law, and he was admitted to practice as an advocate, 
 like Moliere ; but, like Moliere, he heard and he 
 heeded an inward voice summoning him away from 
 the bar to the stage. Corneille did not, however, 
 like Moliere, tread the boards as an actor. He had 
 a lively sense of personal dignity. He was eminently 
 the " lofty, grave tragedian," in his own esteem. 
 "But I am Pierre Corneille notwithstanding," he 
 self-respectingly said once, when friends were regret- 
 ting to him some deficiency of grace in his personal 
 carnage. One can imagine him taking off his hat 
 to himself with unaffected deference. 
 
 But this serious genius began dramatic composi- 
 tion with writing comedy. He made several experi- 
 ments in this kind with no commanding success ; 
 but at thirty he wrote the tragedy of " The Cid," and 
 instantly became famous. His subsequent plays 
 were chiefly on classical subjects. The subject of 
 " The Cid " was drawn from Spanish literature. This 
 was emphatically what has been called an " epoch- 
 making " production. Richelieu's "Academy," at 
 the instigation, indeed almost under the dictation, 
 of Richelieu, who was jealous of Corneille, tried to 
 write it down. They succeeded about as Balaam suc- 
 ceeded in prophesying against Israel. " The Cid " 
 triumphed over them, and over the great minister.
 
 Corneille. 155 
 
 It established not only Coraeille's fame, but his 
 authority. The man of genius taken alone, proved 
 stronger than the men of taste taken together. 
 
 For all this, however, our readers would hardly 
 relish "The Cid." Let us go at once to that tra- 
 gedy of Corneille's which, by the general consent of 
 French critics, is the best work of its author, the 
 " Polyeuctes." The following is the rhetorical cli- 
 max of praise in which Gaillaid, one of the most 
 enlightened of Corneille's eulogists, arranges the 
 different masterpieces of his author: "'The Cid' 
 raised Corneille above his rivals ; the ' Horace ' and 
 the 'Cinna' above his models; the ' Polyeuctcs ' 
 above himself." This tragedy will, we doubt not, 
 prove to our readers the most interesting of all the 
 tragedies of Corneille. 
 
 " The great Corneille " to apply the traditionary 
 designation which, besides attributing to our trage- 
 dian his conceded general eminence in character 
 and genius, serves also to distinguish him by merit 
 from his younger brother, who wrote very good 
 tragedy was an illustrious figure at the Hotel de 
 Rambouillet, that focus of the best literary criticism 
 in France. Corneille reading a play of his to the 
 coterie of wits assembled there under the presidency 
 of ladies whose eyes, as in a kind of tournament of 
 letters, rained influence on authors, and judged the 
 prize of genius, is the subject of a striking picture 
 by a French painter. Corneille read "Polyeuctes" 
 at the Hotel de Rambouillet, and that awful court
 
 156 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 decided against the play. Corneille, like Michel 
 Angelo, had to a good degree the courage of his own 
 productions ; but, in the face of adverse decjsion 
 so august on his work, he needed encouragement, 
 which happily he did not fail to receive, before he 
 would allow his kt Poly euctes " to be represented. 
 The theatre crowned it with the laurels of victory. It 
 thus fell to Corneille to triumph successively, single- 
 handed, over two great adversary courts of critical 
 appreciation, the Academy of Richelieu and the 
 not less formidable Hotel dc Rambouillet. 
 
 The objection raised by the Hotel de Rambouillet 
 against the " Polyeuctes " was that it made the stage 
 encroach on the prerogative of the pulpit, and 
 preach instead of simply amusing. And, indeed, 
 never, perhaps, since the Greek tragedy, was the 
 theatre made so much to serve the solemn purposes 
 of religion. (We except the miracle and passion 
 plays and the mysteries of the middle ages, as not 
 belonging within the just bounds of a comparison 
 like that now made.) Corneille's final influence 
 was to elevate and purify the French theatre. In 
 his early works, however, he made surprising con- 
 cessions to the lewd taste in the drama that he found 
 prevailing when he began to write. With whatever 
 amount of genuine religious scruple affecting his 
 conscience, on that point we need not judge the 
 poet, Corneille used, before putting them on the 
 stage, to take his plays to the "Church," that 
 is, to the priestly hierarchy who constituted the
 
 Corneille. 157 
 
 "Church," that they might be authoritatively 
 judged as to their possible influence on the cause of 
 Christian truth. 
 
 In the " Polyeuctes," the motive is religion. Poly- 
 euctes is an historic or traditional saint of the Roman- 
 Catholic church. His conversion from paganism is 
 the theme of the play. Polyeuctes has a friend 
 Nearchus who is already a Christian convert, and 
 who labors earnestly to make Polyeuctes a proselyte 
 to the faith. Polyeuctes has previously married 
 a noble Roman lady, daughter of Felix, governor 
 of Armenia, in which province the action of the 
 story occurs. (The persecuting Emperor Decius is 
 on the throne of the Roman world.) Paulina is 
 the daughter's name, Paulina married Polyeuctes 
 against her own choice, for she loved Roman Severus 
 better. Her father had put his will upon her, and 
 Paulina had filially obeyed in marrying Polyeuctes. 
 Such are the relations of the different persons of 
 the drama. It will be seen that there is ample room 
 for the play of elevated and tragic passions. Pau- 
 lina, in fact, is the lofty, the impossible, ideal of 
 wifely and daughterly truth and devotion. Pagan 
 though she is, she is pathetically constant, both to 
 the husband that was forced upon her, and to the 
 father that did the forcing ; while still she loves, 
 and cannot but love, the man whom, in spite of her 
 love for him, she, with an act like prolonged sui- 
 cide, stoically separates from her torn and bleeding 
 heart.
 
 158 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 But Severus on his part emulates the nobleness 
 of the woman whom he vainly loves. Learning the 
 true state of the case, he rises to the height of his 
 opportunity for magnanimous behavior, and bids 
 the married pair be happy iu a long life together. 
 
 A change in the situation occurs, a change due to 
 the changed mood of the father, Felix. Felix learns 
 that Severus is high in imperial favor, and he wishes 
 now that Severus, instead of Polyeuctes, were his 
 son-in-law. A decree of the emperor makes it pos- 
 sible that this preferable alternative may yet be 
 realized. For the emperor has decreed that Chris- 
 tians must be persecuted to the death, and Polyeuctes 
 has been baptized a Christian though of this Felix 
 will not hear till later. 
 
 A solemn sacrifice to the gods is to be celebrated 
 in honor of imperial victories lately won. Felix 
 sends to summon Polyeuctes, his son-in-law. To 
 Felix's horror, Polyeuctes, with his friend Nearchus, 
 coming to the temple, proceeds in a frenzy of 
 enthusiasm to break and dishonor the images of the 
 gods, proclaiming himself a Christian. In obedience 
 to the imperial decree, Nearchus is hurried to execu- 
 tion, in the sight of his friend, while Polyeuctes is 
 thrown into prison to repent and recant. 
 
 ' Now is my chance,' muses Felix. ' I dare not 
 disobey the emperor, to spare Polyeuctes. Besides, 
 with Polyeuctes once out of the way, Severus and 
 Paulina may be husband and wife.' 
 
 Polyeuctes in prison hears that his Paulina is
 
 Corneille. 159 
 
 coming to see him. With a kind of altruistic noble- 
 ness which seems contagious in this play, Polyeuctes 
 resolves that Severus shall come too, and he will 
 resign his wife, soon to be a widow, to the care of 
 his own rival, her Roman lover. First, Polyeuctes 
 and Paulina are alone together Polyeuctes having, \ 
 before she arrived, fortified his soul for the conflict 
 'vith her tears, by singing in his solitude a song of 
 high resolve and of anticipative triumph over his 
 temptation. 
 
 The scene between Paulina, exerting all her power 
 to detach Polyeuctes from what she believes to be 
 his folly, and Polyeuctes, on the other hand, rapt 
 to the pitch of martyrdom, exerting all his power 
 to resist his wife, and even to convert her this 
 scene, we say, is full of noble height and pathos, 
 as pathos and height were possible in the verse 
 which Corneille had to write. Neither struggler in 
 this tragic strife moves the other. Paulina is with- 
 drawing when Severus enters. She addresses her 
 lover severely, but Polyeuctes intervenes to defend 
 him. In a short scene, Polyeuctes, by a sort of last 
 will and testament, bequeaths his wife to his rival, 
 and retires with his guard. Now, Severus and Pau- 
 lina are alone together. If there was a trace of the 
 false heroic in Polyeuctes 's resignation of his wife 
 to Severus, the effect of that is finely counteracted 
 by the scene which immediately follows between 
 Paulina and Severus. Severus begins doubtfully, 
 staggering, as it were, to firm posture, while he
 
 160 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 speaks to Paulina. He expresses amazement at the 
 conduct of Polyeuctes. Christians certainly deport 
 themselves strangely, he says. He at length finds 
 himself using the following lover-like language : 
 
 As for me, had my destiny become a little earlier propi- 
 tious and honored my devotion by marriage with you, I 
 should have adored only the splendor of your eyes; of them 
 I should have made my kings; of them I should have made 
 my gods; sooner would I have been reduced to dust, sooner 
 would I have been reduced to ashes, than 
 
 tf 
 
 But here Paulina interrupts, and Severus is not 
 permitted to finish his protestation. Her reply is 
 esteemed, and justly esteemed, one of the noblest 
 things in French tragedy a French critic would 
 be likely to say, the very noblest in tragedy. She 
 says : 
 
 Let us break off there; I fear listening too long; I fear 
 lest this warmth, which feels your first fires, force on some 
 sequel unworthy of us both. [Voltaire, who edited Cor- 
 neille with a feeling of freedom toward a national idol 
 comparable to the sturdy independence that animated John- 
 son in annotating Shakspeare, says of " This warmth which 
 feels your first fires and which forces on a sequel " : " That is 
 badly written, agreed; but the sentiment gets the better 
 of the expression, and what follows is of a beauty of 
 which there had been no example. The Greeks were frigid 
 declaimers in comparison with this passage of Corneille."] 
 Severus, learn to know Paulina all in all. 
 
 My Polyeuctes touches on his last hour; he has but a 
 moment to live; you are the cause of this, though innocently 
 so. I know not if your heart, yielding to your desires, may 
 have dared build any hope oil his destruction; but know
 
 Corneille. 161 
 
 that there is no death so cruel that to it with firm brow I 
 would not bend my steps, that there are in hell no horrors 
 that I would not endure, rather than soil a glory so pure, 
 rather than espouse, after his sad fate, a man that was in 
 any wise the cause of his death; and if you suppose me of a 
 heart so little sound, the love which I had for you would all 
 turn to hate. You are generous; be so even to the end. 
 My father is in a state to yield every thing to you; he fears 
 you; and I further hazard this saying, that, if he destroys my 
 husband, it is to you that he sacrifices him. Save this un- 
 happy man, use your influence in his favor, exert yourself to 
 become his support. I know that this is much that I ask; 
 but the greater the effort, the greater the glory from it. To 
 preserve a rival of whom you are jealous, that is a trait of 
 virtue which appertains only to you. And if your renown 
 is not motive sufficient, it is much that a woman once so 
 well beloved, and the love of whom perhaps is still cap.ible 
 of touching you, will owe to your great heart the dearest 
 possession that she owns; remember, in short, that you are 
 Severus. Adieu. Decide with yourself alone whafc you 
 ought to do; if you are not such as I dare hope that you are, 
 then, in order that I may continue to esteem you, I wish 
 not to know it. 
 
 Voltaire, as editor and commentator of Corneflle, 
 is freezingly cold. It is difficult not to feel that at 
 heart he was unfriendly to the great tragedist's 
 farne. His notes often are remorselessly gram- 
 matical. " This is not French ; " " This is not the 
 right word ; " " According to the construction, this 
 should mean so and so according to the sense, it 
 must mean so and so;" ''This is hardly intelligi- 
 ble ; " " It is a pity that such or such a fault should 
 mar these fine verses ; " " An expression for comedy
 
 162 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 rather than tragedy," are the kind of remarks with 
 which Voltaire chills the enthusiasm of the reader. 
 It is useless, however, to deuy that the criticisms 
 thus made are many of them just. Corneille does 
 not belong to the class of the " faultily faultless " 
 writers. 
 
 Severus proves equal to Paulina's noble hopes of 
 him. With a great effort of self-sacrifice, he re- 
 solves to intercede for Polyeuctes. This is shown 
 in an interview between Severus and his faithful 
 attendant Fabian. Fabian warns him that he ap- 
 peals for Polyeuctes at his own peril. Severus 
 loftily replies (and here follows one of the most 
 lauded passages in the play) : 
 
 Tljat advice might be good for some common soul. 
 Though he [the Emperor Decius] holds in his hands my 
 life and my fortune, I am yet Severus; and all that mighty 
 power is powerless over my glory, and powerless over my 
 duty. Here honor compels me, and I will satisfy it; whether 
 fate afterward show itself propitious or adverse,, perishing 
 glorious I shall perish content. 
 
 I will tell thee further, but under confidence, the sect of 
 Christians is not what it is thought to be. They are hated, 
 why I know not; and I see Decius unjust only in this 
 regard. From curiosity I have sought to become acquainted 
 with them. They are regarded as sorcerers taught from 
 hell; and, in this supposition, the punishment of death is 
 visited on secret mysteries which we do not understand. 
 But Eleusinian Ceres and the Good Goddess have their 
 secrets, like those at Rome and in Greece; still we freely 
 tolerate everywhere, their god alone excepted, every kind of 
 god; all the monsters of Egypt have their temples in Home;
 
 Corneille. 103 
 
 our fathers, at their will, made a god of a man; and, their 
 blood in our veins preserving their errors, we fill heaven 
 with all our emperors; but, to speak without disguise of 
 deifications so numerous, the effect is very doubtful of such 
 metamorphoses. 
 
 Christians have but one God, absolute master of all, 
 whose mere will does whatever he resolves; but, if I may 
 venture to say what seems to me true, our gods very often 
 agree ill together; and, though their wrath crush me before 
 your eyes, we have a good many of them for them to be 
 true gods. Finally, among the Christians, morals are pure, 
 vices are hated, virtues flourish ; they offer prayers on be- 
 half of us who persecute them; and, during all the time 
 since we have tormented them, have they ever been seen 
 mutinous ? Have they ever been seen rebellious ? Have our 
 princes ever had more faithful soldiers ? Fierce in war, 
 they submit themselves to our executioners; and, lions in 
 combat, they die like lambs. I pity them too much not to 
 defend them. Come, let us find Felix; let us commune 
 \vith his son-in-law; and let us thus, with one single action, 
 gratify at once Paulina, and my glory, and my com- 
 passion. 
 
 Such is the high heroic style in which pagan 
 Severus resolves and speaks. And thus the fourth 
 act ends. 
 
 Felix makes a sad contrast with the high-hearted- 
 ness which the other characters, most of them, 
 display. He is base enough to suspect that Severus 
 is base enough to be false and treacherous in his 
 act of intercession for Polyeuctes. He imagines he 
 detects a plot against himself to undermine him 
 with the emperor. Voltaire criticises Corneille for 
 giving this sordid character to Felix. He thinks
 
 164 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 the tragedist might better have let Felix be actuated 
 by zeal for the pagan gods. The mean selfishness 
 that animates the governor, Voltaire regards as 
 below the right tragic pitch. It is the poet him- 
 self, no doubt, with that high Roman fashion of his, 
 who, unconsciously to the critic, taught him to make 
 the criticism. 
 
 Felix summons Polyeuctes to an interview, and 
 adjures him to be a prudent man. Felix at length 
 says, "Adore the gods, or die." ''I am a Chris- 
 tian," simply replies the mart}*r. " Impious ! Adore 
 them, I bid you, or renounce life." (Here again 
 Voltaire offers one of his refrigerant criticisms : 
 *' Renounce life does not advance upon the meaning 
 of die; when one repeats the thought, the expres- 
 sion should be strengthened.'.') Paulina meantime 
 has entered to expostulate with Polyeuctes and with 
 her father. Polyeuctes bids her, ' Live with Sev- 
 erus.' He says he has revolved the subject, and he 
 is convinced that another love is the sole remedy 
 for her woe. He proceeds in the calmest manner 
 to point out the advantages of the course recom- 
 mended. Voltaire remarks, justly, we are bound 
 to say, that these maxims are here somewhat 
 revolting ; the martyr should have had other things 
 to say. On Felix's final word, ' Soldiers, execute 
 the order that I have given," Paulina exclaims, 
 "Whither are you taking him?" "To death," 
 says Felix. "To glory," says Polyeuctes. "Ad- 
 mirable dialogue, and always applauded," is Vol- 
 taire's note on this.
 
 Corneille. 165 
 
 The tragedy does not end with the martyrdom of 
 Polycuctcs. Paulina becomes a Christian, but re- 
 mains pagan enough to call her father ik barbarous " 
 ia acrimoniously bidding him finish his work by put- 
 ting his daughter rJso to death. Scverus reproaches 
 Felix for his cruelt}", and threatens him with his own 
 enmity. Felix undergoes instantaneous conversion, 
 a miracle of grace which, under the circumstances 
 provided by Corneille, we may excuse Voltaire for 
 laughing at. Paulina is delighted ; raid Scverus 
 asks, " Who would not be touched by a spectacle 
 so tender? " 
 
 The tragedy thus comes near ending happily 
 enough to be called a comedy. 
 
 Such as the foregoing exhibits him, is Corneille, 
 the father of French tragedy, where at his best ; 
 where at his worst, he is something so different that 
 you would hardly admit him to be the same man. 
 For never was genius more unequal in different 
 manifestations of itself, than Corueille in his dif- 
 ferent works. Moliero is reported to have said that 
 Corneille had a familiar, or a fairy, that came to him 
 at times, and enabled him to write sublimely ; but 
 that, when the poet was left to himself, he could write 
 as poorly as another man. 
 
 Corneille produced some thirty-three dramatic 
 pieces in all, but of these not more than six or 
 seven retain their place on the French stage. 
 
 Besides his plays, there is a translation in verse 
 by him of the ' ' Imitation of Christ ; ' ' there are
 
 166 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 metrical versions of a considerable number of the 
 Psalms ; there are odes, madrigals, sonnets, stan- 
 zas, addresses to the king. Then there are dis- 
 courses in prose on dramatic poetry, on tragedy, 
 and on the three unities. Add to these, elaborate 
 appreciations by himself of a considerable number 
 of his own plays, prefaces, epistles, arguments to 
 his pieces, and you have, what with the notes, the 
 introductions, the eulogies, and other such things 
 that the faithful French editor knows so well how 
 to accumulate, matter enough of Corneille to swell 
 out eleven, or, in one edition, that issued under 
 Napoleon as First Consul, even twelve, handsome 
 volumes of his works. 
 
 Corneille and Bossuet together constitute a kind 
 of rank by themselves among the Dii Majores of 
 the French literary Olympus. 
 
 XL 
 
 RACINE. 
 1639-1699. 
 
 JEAN RACINE was Pierre Corneille reduced to rule. 
 The younger was to the elder somewhat as Sophocles 
 or Euripides was to ^Eschylus, as Virgil was to 
 Lucretius, as Pope was to Dryden. Nature was
 
 Racine. 167 
 
 more in Corneille, art was more in Racine. Cor- 
 neille was a pathfinder in literature. He led the 
 
 . way, even for Moliere, still more for Racine. But 
 Racine was as much before Corneille in perfection 
 of art, as Corneille was before Racine in audacity 
 of genius. Racine, accordingly, is much more even 
 and uniform than Corneille. Smoothness, polish, 
 ease, grace, sweetness, these, and monotony in 
 these, are the mark of Racine. But if there is, 
 
 ' in the latter poet, less to admire, there is also less 
 to forgive. His taste and his judgment were surer 
 than the taste and the judgment of Corneille. He 
 enjo}'ed, moreover, an inestimable advantage in the 
 life-long friendship o'f the great critic of his time, 
 Boileau. Boileau was a literary conscience to Ra- 
 cine. He kept Racine constantly spurred to his 
 best endeavors in art. Racine was congratulating 
 himself to his friend on the ease with which he pro- 
 duced his verse. " Let me teach you to produce 
 easy verse with difficulty," was the critic's admi- 
 rable reply. Racine was a docile pupil. He became 
 as painstaking an artist in verse as Boileau would 
 have him. 
 
 It will always be a matter of individual taste, and 
 of changing fashion in criticism, to decide which of 
 the two is, on the whole, to be preferred to the 
 other. Racine eclipsed Corneille in vogue during 
 the lifetime of the latter. Corneille's old age was, 
 perhaps, seriously saddened by the consciousness, 
 which he could not but have, of being retired from
 
 168 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 the place of ascendency once accorded to him over 
 all. His case repeated the fortune of ^Eschylus in 
 relation to Sophocles. The eighteenth century, 
 taught by Voltaire, established the precedence of 
 Racine. But the nineteenth century has restored 
 the crown to the brow of Corneille. To such mu- 
 tations is subject the fame of an author. 
 
 Jean Racine was early left an orphan. His grand- 
 parents put him, after preparatory training at an- 
 other establishment, to school at Port Royal, where 
 during three years he had the best opportunities of 
 education that the kingdom afforded. His friends 
 wanted to make a clergyman of him ; but the pref- 
 erences of the boy prevailed, and he addicted him- 
 self to literature. The Greek tragedists became 
 familiar to him in his youth, and their example in 
 literary art exercised a sovereign influence over 
 Racine's development as author. It pained the 
 good Port-Royalists to see their late gifted pupil, 
 now out of their hands, inclined to write plays. 
 Nicole printed a remonstrance against the theatre, 
 in which Racine discovered something that he took 
 to slant anonymousl}* at himself. He wrote a spirited 
 reply, of which no notice was taken by the Port- 
 Royalists. Somebody, however, on their behalf, 
 rejoined to Racine, whereupon the young author 
 wrote a second letter to the Port-Royalists, which 
 he showed to his friend Boilean. "This may do 
 credit to your head, but it will do none to your 
 heart," was that faithful mentor's comment, in
 
 Racine. 69 
 
 returning the document. Racine suppressed his 
 second letter, and did his best to recall the first. 
 But he went on in his course of writing for the 
 stage. 
 
 The " Thebaid " was Racine's first tragedy, at 
 least his first that attained to the honor of being 
 represented. Moliere brought it out in his theatre, 
 the Palais Royal. His second tragedy, the "Alex- 
 ander the Great," was also put into the hands of 
 Moliere. 
 
 This latter play the author took to Corneille to 
 get his judgment on it. Corneille was thirty-three 
 years the senior of Racine, and he was at this time 
 the undisputed master of French tragedy. "You 
 have undoubted talent for poetry for tragedy, not ; 
 try your hand in some other poetical line," was Cor- 
 neille's sentence on the unrecognized young rival, 
 who was so soon to supplant him in popular favor. 
 
 The "Andromache" followed the "Alexander," 
 and then Racine did try his hand in another poetical 
 line; for he wrote a comedy, his only one, "The 
 Suitors," as is loosely translated " Les Plaideurs." 
 a title which has a legal, and not an amorous, mean- 
 ing. This play, after it. had at first failed, Louis 
 XIV. laughed into court favor. It became thence- 
 forward a great success. It still keeps its place on 
 the stage. It is, however, a farce, rather than a 
 comedy. 
 
 We pass over now one or two of the subsequent 
 productions of Racine, to mention next a play of 
 12
 
 170 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 his which had a singular history. It was a fancy of 
 the brilliant Princess Henriette (that same daughter 
 of English Charles I., Bossuet's funeral oration on 
 whom, presently to be spoken of, is so celebrated) 
 to engage the two great tragedists, Corneille and 
 Kacine, both at once, in labor, without their mutual 
 knowledge, upon the same subject, a subject 
 which she herself, drawing it from the histor}* of 
 Tacitus, conceived to be eminently fit for tragical 
 treatment. Corneille produced his "Berenice," 
 and Racine his "Titus and Berenice." The prin- 
 cess died before the two plays which she had inspired 
 were produced ; but, when they were produced, Ra- 
 cine's work won the palm. The rivalry created a 
 bitterness between the two authors, of which, natu- 
 rally, the defeated one tasted the more deeply. An 
 ill-considered pleasantry, too, of Racine's, in making, 
 out of one of Corneille's tragic lines in his " Cid," 
 a comic line in "The Suitors," hurt the old man's 
 pride. That pride suffered a worse hurt still. The 
 chief Parisian theatre, completely occupied with the 
 works of his victorious rival, rejected tragedies 
 offered by Corneille. 
 
 Still, Racine did not have things all his own way. 
 Some good critics considered the rage for this 
 younger dramatist a mere passing whim of fashion. 
 These Madame de Sevigne was of them stood 
 by their "old admiration," and were true to Cor- 
 neille. 
 
 A memorable mortification and chagrin for our
 
 Racine. 171 
 
 poet was now prepared by his enemies he seems 
 never to have lacked enemies with lavish and 
 elaborate malice. Racine had produced a play from 
 Euripides, the " Phaedra," on which he had nn- 
 stintingly bestowed his best genius and his best art. 
 It was contrived that another poet, one Pradon, 
 should, at the self-same moment, have a play rep- 
 resented on the sdf-sarne subject. At a cost of 
 many thousands of dollars, the best seats at Racine's 
 theatre were all bought by his enemies, and left 
 solidly vacant. The best seats at Pradon 's theatre 
 were all bought by the same interested parties, and 
 duly occupied with industrious and zealous applaud- 
 ers. This occurred at six successive representa- 
 tions. The result was the immediate apparent 
 triumph of Pradou over the humiliated Racine. 
 Boileau in vain bade his friend be of good cheer, 
 and await the assured reversal of the verdict. 
 Racine was deeply wounded. 
 
 This discomposing experience of the poet's, joined 
 with conscientious misgivings on his part 'as to the 
 propriety of his course in writing for the stage, led 
 him now, at the early age of thirty-eight, to renounce 
 tragedy altogether. His son Louis, from whose 
 life of Racine we have chiefly drawn our material 
 for the present sketch, conceives this change in his 
 father as a profound and genuine religious conver- 
 sion. Writers whose spirit inclines them not to 
 relish a condemnation such as seems thus to be 
 reflected on the theatre, take a less charitable
 
 172 Classic French Course in .English. 
 
 + 
 
 view of the change. They account for it as a 
 reaction of mortified pride. Some of them go so 
 far as grouudlessly to impute sheer hypocrisy to 
 Racine. 
 
 A long interval of silence, on Racine's part, had 
 elapsed, when Madame de Maintenon, the wife of 
 Louis XIV., asked the unemployed poet to prepare 
 a sacred play for the use of the high-born girls 
 educated under her care at St. Cyr. Racine con- 
 sented, and produced his kt Esther." This achieved 
 a prodigious success ; for the court took it up, and 
 an exercise written for a girls' school became the 
 admiration of a kingdom. A second similar play 
 followed, the ' k Athaliah," the last, and, by gen- 
 eral agreement, the most perfect, work of its author. 
 We thus reach that tragedy of Racine's which both 
 its fame and its character dictate to us as the one 
 by eminence to be used here in exhibition of the 
 quality of this Virgil among tragedists. 
 
 Our readers may, if they please, refresh their 
 recollection of the history on which the drama is 
 founded by perusing Second Kings, chapter eleven, 
 and Second Chronicles, chapters twenty-two and 
 twenty-three. Athaliah, whose name gives its title 
 to the tragedy, was daughter to the wicked king, 
 Ahab. She reigns as queen at Jerusalem over the 
 kingdom of Judah. To secure her usurped position, 
 she had sought to kill all the descendants of King 
 David, even her own grandchildren. She had suc- 
 ceeded, but not quite. Young Joasli escaped, to
 
 Racine. 173 
 
 be secretly reared in the temple by the high priest. 
 The final disclosure of this hidden prince, and his 
 coronation as king in place of usurping Athaliah, 
 destined to be fearfully overthrown, and put to death 
 in his name, afford the action of the play. Action, 
 however, there is almost none in classic French 
 tragedy. The tragic drama is, with the French, as 
 it was with the Greeks, after whom it was framed, 
 merely a succession of scenes in which speeches are 
 made by the actors. Lofty declamation is always 
 the character of the play. In the "Athaliah," as 
 in the " Esther," Racine introduced the feature of 
 the chorus, a restoration which had all the effect 
 of an innovation. The chorus in " Athaliah " con- 
 sisted of Hebrew virgins, who, at intervals marking 
 the transitions between the acts, chanted the spirit 
 of the piece in its successive stages of progress 
 toward the final catastrophe. The "Athaliah" is 
 almost proof against technical criticism. It is 
 acknowledged to be, after its kind, a nearly ideal 
 product of art. 
 
 There is a curious story about the fortune of this 
 piece with the public, that will interest our readers. 
 The first success of "Athaliah " was not great. In 
 fact, it was almost a flat failure. But a company of 
 wits, playing at forfeits somewhere in the countiy, 
 severely sentenced one of their number to go by 
 himself, and read the first act of " Athaliah." The 
 victim went, and did not return. Sought at length, 
 be was found just commencing a second perusal of
 
 174 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 the play entire. He reported of it so enthusiasti- 
 cally, that he was asked to read it before the com- 
 pany, which he did, to their delight. This started 
 a reaction in favor of the condemned play, which 
 soon came to be counted the masterpiece of its 
 author. 
 
 First, in specimen of the choral feature of the 
 drama, we content ourselves with giving a single cho- 
 rus from the " Athaliah." This we turn into rhyme, 
 clinging pretty closely all the way to the form of the 
 original. Attentive readers may, in one place of our 
 rendering, observe an instance of identical rhyme. 
 This, in a piece of verse originally written in English, 
 would, of course, be a fault. In a translation from 
 French, it may pass for a merit ; since, to judge from 
 the practice of the national poets, the French ear 
 seems to be even better pleased with such strict identi- 
 ties of sound, at the close of corresponding lines, than 
 it is with those definite mere resemblances to which, 
 in English versification, rhymes are rigidly lim- 
 ited. Suspense between hope and dread, dread 
 preponderating, is the state of feeling represented 
 in the present chorus. Salomith is the leading 
 singer : 
 
 SALOMITH. 
 
 The Lord hath deigned to speak, 
 But what he to his prophet now hath shown 
 Who unto us will make it clearly known ? 
 
 Arms he himself to save us, poor and weak ? 
 
 Arms he himself to have us overthrown ?
 
 Racine. 175 
 
 THE WHOLE CHOBUS. 
 
 promises ! O threats ! O mystery profound ! 
 What woe, what weal, are each in turn foretold ? 
 
 How can so much of wrath be found 
 So much of love to enfold ? 
 
 A VOICE. 
 
 Zion shall be no more; a cruel flame 
 Will all her ornaments devour. 
 
 A SECOND VOICE. 
 
 God shelters Zion; she has shield and tower 
 In His eternal name. 
 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 
 1 see her splendor all from vision disappear. 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 I see on every side her glory shine more clear. 
 
 FIKST VOICE. 
 Into a deep abyss is Zion sunk from sight. 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 Zion lifts up her brow amid celestial light. 
 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 What dire despair! 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 
 What praise from every tongue ! 
 
 FIRST VOICE. 
 What cries of grief ! 
 
 SECOND VOICE. 
 
 What songs of triumph" sung!
 
 176 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 A THIRD VOICE. 
 
 Cease we to vex ourselves ; our God, one day, 
 Will this great mystery make clear. 
 
 ALL THREE VOICES. 
 Let xis his wrath revere, 
 While on his love, no less, our hopes we stay. 
 
 The catastrophe is reached in the coronation of 
 little Joash as king, and in the destruction of usurp- 
 ing and wicked Athaliah. Little Joash, by the wa}-, 
 with his rather precocious wisdom of reply, derived 
 to himself, for the moment, a certain factitious in- 
 terest, from the resemblance, meant by the poet to 
 be divined by spectators, between him and the little 
 Duke of Burgundy, Louis XIV. 's grandson, then 
 of about the same age with the Hebrew boy, and 
 of high reputation for mental vivacity. 
 
 The scene in which the high priest, Jehoiada, for 
 the first time discloses to his , foster-son, Joash, the 
 hitter's royal descent from David, and his true heir- 
 ship to the throne of Judah, will serve sufficiently 
 to exhibit what maturity of modest and pious wis- 
 dom the dramatist attributes to this Hebrew boy of 
 nine or ten years. Nine or ten years of age Racine 
 makes Joash, instead of seven, as Scripture, inter- 
 preted without violence, would make him. The lad 
 has had his sage curiosity excited by seeing prepa- 
 rations in progress for some important ceremonial. 
 That ceremonial is his own coronation, but he does 
 not guess the secret. Nay, he has just touchingly
 
 Racine. 177 
 
 asked his foster-mother, observed by him to be in 
 tears : 
 
 What pity touches you ? Is it that in a holocaust to be 
 this day offered, I, like Jephtha's daughter in other times, 
 must pacify by my death the anger of the Lord ? Alas, a 
 son has nothing that does not belong to his father! 
 
 The discreet foster-mother refers the lad to her 
 husband, Jehoiada, now approaching. Joash rushes 
 into the arms of the high priest, exclaiming, "My 
 father!" "Well, my son?" the high- priest re- 
 plies. " What preparations, then, are these? " asks 
 Joash. The high priest bids him prepare himself 
 to listen and learn, the time being now come for 
 him to pay his debt to God : 
 
 JOASH. I feel myself ready, if he wishes it, to give to 
 him my life. 
 
 JEHOIADA. You have often heard read the history of 
 our kings. Do you remember, my son, what strict laws a 
 king worthy of the crown ought to impose upon himself ? 
 
 JOASH. A wise and good king, so hath God himself de- 
 clared, puts not his reliance upon riches and gold; he fears 
 the Lord his God, has ever before him his precepts, his 
 laws, his judgments severe, and does not with unjust bur- 
 dens overwhelm his brethren. 
 
 F^nelon had already been two years preceptor to 
 the Duke of Burguncty when this tragedy was writ- 
 ten. It is impossible not to feel that Racine must 
 have had that prince in mind when he put into the 
 mouth of young Joash sentiments so likely to have
 
 178 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 been instilled into the heart of his royal pupil, the 
 great king's grandson, by such a preceptor as Fene- 
 lon. How could the selfish old monarch of France 
 contrive to avoid recognizing his own portrait, sug- 
 gested by contrast in that description of the good 
 king from the lips. of little Joash? Racine was here 
 treading on treacherous ground. He will presently 
 find his footing quite give way under him, to let 
 him down into the " horrible pit" of disgrace with 
 his king. This not, however, in the present play. 
 
 The tragedist has generously bestowed upon 
 wicked Queen Athaliah a certain loftiness of spirit 
 which, in its display in the final catastrophe, almost re- 
 deems her to admiration, if not to sympathy. There 
 is nothing in the play more nearly sublime in decla- 
 mation than the final speech in which Athaliah greets 
 her own doom, and blasphemously forecasts, for 
 young King Joash, a future of apostasy from God. 
 With tliis admirable piece of rhetoric, resembling a 
 burst of blasphemy from Satan in " Paradise Lost," 
 so far as French poetry ma}' be allowed to resemble 
 English, we conclude our representation of Racine. 
 Athaliah has now just heard the announcement of 
 things that assure her of the overthrow of her 
 usurpation. She expresses herself in a speech, the 
 first words of which were, no doubt, designed by the 
 poet to recall the celebrated traditional exclamation 
 of Julian the Apostate, uttered at a moment of 
 irretrievable disaster to his impious hopes, "0 
 Galilean, thou hast conquered ! " as follows :
 
 Racine. 179 
 
 God of the Jews, 'tis thou that dost prevail! 
 
 Ay, it is Joash; all without avail 
 
 Seek I to cheat myself with other thought: 
 
 I know the wound my weapon on him wrought; 
 
 I see his father Ahaziah's face; 
 
 Naught hut brings back to mo that hated race. 
 
 David doth triumph, Ahab only fall, 
 
 Unpitying God, thou only hast done all! 
 
 "Tis thou that flattering me to hope in vain 
 
 For easy vengeance, o'er and o'er again 
 
 Hast with myself myself embroiled anew, 
 
 Now pangs of conscience rousing, not a few, 
 
 Now dazzling me with thy rich treasures rare, 
 
 Which I to burn or pillage did not dare. 
 
 Let him, then, reign, this son, thy care, thy toil, 
 
 And, so to signalize his new-got spoil, 
 
 Let him into my bosom plunge the knife, 
 
 And take with filial hand his mother's life. 
 
 Hearken what wish for him she dying breathes 
 
 Wish ? nay, what hope, assured hope, bequeaths, 
 
 That, disobedient, proud, rebellious, he, 
 
 Faithful to Ahab's blood received from me, 
 
 To his grandfather, to his father, like, 
 
 Abhorrent heir of David, down may strike 
 
 Thy worship and thy fane, avenger fell 
 
 Of Athaliah, Ahab, Jezebel! 
 
 With words thus rendered into such English verse 
 as we could command for the purpose, Athaliah 
 disappears from the stage. Her execution follows 
 immediately. This is not exhibited, but is announced 
 with brief, solemn comment from Jehoiada. And 
 so the tragedy ends. 
 
 The interest of the piece, to the modern reader, 
 is by no means equal to its fame. One reproaches
 
 180 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 one's self, but one yawns in conscientiously perusing 
 it. Still, one feels the work of the author to be 
 irreproachably, nay, consummately, good. But 
 fashions in taste change ; and we cannot hold our- 
 selves responsible for admiring, or, at any rate, for 
 enjoying, according to the judgment of other races 
 and of former generations. It is so, with grave 
 concurrence, we say It is a great classic, worthy 
 of the praise that it receives. We are glad that we 
 have read it ; and, let us be candid, equally glad 
 that we have not to read it again. 
 
 As has already been intimated, Racine, after 
 " Athaliah," wrote tragedy no more. He ceased 
 to interest himself in the fortune of his plays. His 
 sou Louis, in his Life of his father, testifies that he 
 never heard his father speak in the family of the 
 dramas that he had written. His theatrical triumphs 
 seemed to afford him no pleasure. He repented of 
 them rather than gloried in them. 
 
 While one need not doubt that this regret of 
 Racine's for the devotion of his powers to the pro- 
 duction of tragedy, was a sincere regret of his con- 
 science, one may properly wish that the regret had 
 been more heroic. The fact is, Racine was some- 
 what feminine in character as well as in genius. 
 He could not beat up with stout heart undismayed 
 against an adverse wind. And the wind blew ad- 
 verse at length to Racine, from the principal quarter, 
 the court of Versailles. From being a chief favorite 
 with his sovereign, Racine fell into the position of
 
 Racine. 181 
 
 an exile from the royal presence. The immediate 
 occasion was one honorable rather than otherwise 
 to the poet. 
 
 In conversation with Madame de Maintenon, 
 Racine had expressed views on the state of France 
 and on the duties of a king to his subjects, which 
 so impressed her mind that she desired him to 
 reduce his observations to writing, and confide them 
 to her, she promising to keep them profoundly secret 
 from Louis. But Louis surprised her with the manu- 
 script in her hand. Taking it from her, he read in 
 it, and demanded to know the author. Madame de 
 Maiuteuon could not finally refuse to tell. " Does 
 M. Racine, because he is a great poet, think that 
 he knows every thing?" the despot angrily asked. 
 Louis never spoke to Racine again. The distressed 
 and infatuated poet still made some paltry request 
 of the king, to experience the humiliation that he 
 invoked. His request was not granted. Racine 
 wilted, like a tender plant, under the sultry frown 
 of his monarch. He could not rally. He soon 
 after died, literally killed by the mere displeasure 
 of one man. Such was the measureless power 
 wielded by Louis XIV. ; such was the want of virile 
 stuff in Racine. A spirit partly kindred to the tra- 
 gedist, Archbishop Fnelon, will presently be shown 
 to have had at about the same time a partly similar 
 experience.
 
 182 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 XII. 
 
 BOSSUET: 1627-1704; BOURDALOUE : 1632- 
 1704; MASSILLON: 1663-1742. 
 
 WE group three names in one title, Bossuet, Bour- 
 daloue, Massillon, to represent the pulpit oratois of 
 France. There are other great names, as Fle'chier, 
 with Claude and Saurin, the last two, Protestants 
 both, but the names we choose are the greatest. 
 
 Bossuet's individual distinction is, that he was a 
 great man as well as a great orator ; Bourdaloue's, 
 that he was priest-and-preacher simply ; Massillon 's, 
 that his sermons, regarded quite independently of 
 their subject, their matter, their occasion, regarded 
 merely as masterpieces of pure and classic style, 
 became at once, and permanently became, a part of 
 French literature. 
 
 The greatness of Bossuet is an article in the 
 French national creed. No Frenchman disputes it ; 
 no Frenchman, indeed, but proclaims it. Protestant 
 agrees with Catholic, infidel with Christian, at least 
 i.i this. Bossuet, twinned here with Corueille, is to 
 the Frenchman, as Milton is to the Englishman, his 
 synonym for sublimity. Eloquence, somehow, seems 
 a thing too near the common human level to answer 
 fulh' the need that Frenchmen feel in speaking of 
 Bossuet. Bobsuet is not eloquent, he is sublime.
 
 Bossuet. 183 
 
 That in French it is in equal part oratory, while in 
 English it is poetry almost alone, that supplies in 
 literature its satisfaction to the sentiment of the 
 sublime, very well represents the difference in genius 
 between the two races. The French idea of poetry 
 is eloquence ; and it is eloquence carried to its height, 
 whether in verse or in prose, that constitutes for the 
 Frenchman sublimity. The difference is a difference 
 of blood. English blood is Teutonic in base, and 
 the imagination of the Teuton is poetic. French 
 blood, iu base, is Celtic ; and the imagination of the 
 Celt is oratoric. 
 
 Jacques Benigne Bossuet was of good bourgeois, 
 or middle-class, stock. He passed a well-ordered 
 and virtuous youth, as if in prophetic consistency 
 with what was to be his subsequent career. He was 
 brought forward while a young man in the Hotel 
 de Rambouillet, where, on a certain occasion, he 
 preached a kind of show sermon, under the auspices 
 of his admiring patron. In due time he attracted 
 wide public attention, not merely as an eloquent 
 orator, but as a profound student and as a powerful 
 controversialist. His character and influence be- 
 came in their maturity such, that La Bruj-ere nptly 
 called him a " Father of the Church." " The Cor- 
 neille of the pulpit," was Henri Martin's charac- 
 terization and praise. A third phrase, " the eagle 
 of Meaux," has passed into almost an alternative 
 name for Bossuet. He soared like an eagle in his 
 eloquence, and he was bishop of Meaux.
 
 184 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Bossnet and Louis XIV. were exactl} 7 suited to 
 each other, in the mutual relation of subject and 
 sovereign. Bossuet preached sincerely as every- 
 body knows Louis sincerely practised the doctrine 
 of the divine right of kings to rule absolutely. But 
 the proud prelate compromised neither his own dig- 
 nity nor the dignity of the Church iu the presence 
 of the absolute monarch. 
 
 Bossuet threw himself with great zeal, and to pro- 
 digious effect, into the controversy against Protes- 
 tantism. His " History of the Variations of the 
 Protestant Churches," in two good volumes, was 
 one of the mightiest pamphlets ever written. As 
 tutor to the Dauphin (the king's eldest son), he 
 produced, with other works, his celebrated " Dis- 
 course on Universal Histoiy." 
 
 In proceeding now to give, from the three great 
 preachers named in our title, a few specimen pas- 
 sages of the most famous pulpit oratory in the world, 
 we need to prepare our readers against a natural 
 disappointment. That which they are about to see 
 has nothing in it of what will at first strike them as 
 brilliant. The pulpit eloquence of the Augustan 
 age of France was distinctly " classic," and not at 
 all " romantic," in style. Its character is not ornate, 
 but severe. There is little rhetorical figure in it, 
 little of that " illustration " which our own different 
 national taste is accustomed to demand from the 
 pulpit. There is plenty of white light, "dry light" 
 and white, for the reason ; but there is almost no
 
 Bossuet. 185 
 
 bright color for the fancy, and, it must be added, 
 not a great deal of melting warmth for the heart. 
 
 The funeral orations of Bossuet are generally es- 
 teemed the masterpieces of this orator's eloquence. 
 He had great occasions, and he was great to match 
 them. Still, readers might easily be disappointed in 
 perusing a funeral oration of Bossuet's. The dis- 
 course -will generally be found to deal in common- 
 places of description, of reflection, and of sentiment. 
 Those commonplaces, however, are often made very 
 impressive by the lofty, the magisterial, the imperial, 
 manner of the preacher in treating them. "We ex- 
 hibit a specimen, a single specimen only, and a 
 brief one, in the majestic exordium to the funeral 
 oration on the Princess Henrietta of England. 
 
 This princess was the last one left of the children 
 of King Charles I. of England. Her mother's death 
 her mother was of the Erench house of Bourbon 
 had occurred but a short time before, and Bossuet 
 had on that occasion pronounced the eulog}'. The 
 daughter, scarcely returned to France from a secret 
 mission of state to England, the success of which 
 made her an object of distinguished regard at Ver- 
 sailles, suddenly fell ill and died. Bossuet was 
 summoned to preach at her funeral. (We have not 
 been able to find an English translation of Bossuet, 
 and we accordingly make the present transfer from 
 French ourselves. We do the same, for the same 
 reason, in the case of Massillon. In tlie case of 
 Bourdaloue, we succeeded in obtaining a printed 
 13
 
 186 Classic French Course in EnglitTi. 
 
 translation which we could modify to suit our pur- 
 pose.) Bossuet : 
 
 It was then reserved for my lot to pay this funereal trib- 
 ute to the high and potent princess, Henrietta of England, 
 Duchess of Orleans. She whom 1 had seen so attentive 
 while I was discharging a like office for the queen her 
 mother, was so soon after to be the subject of a similar dis- 
 course, and my sad voice was predestined to this melancholy 
 service. O vanity !O nothingness! O mortals! ignorant of 
 their destiny! Ten months ago, would she have believed 
 it ? And you, my hearers, would you have thought, while 
 she was shedding so many tears in this place, that she was 
 so soon to assemble you here to deplore her own loss ? O 
 princess ! the worthy object of the admiration of two great 
 kingdoms, was it not enough that England should deplore 
 your absence, without being yet further compelled to deplore 
 your death ? France, who with so much joy beheld you 
 again, surrounded with a new brilliancy, had she not in 
 reserve other pomps and other triumphs for you, returned 
 from that famous voyage whence you had brought hither so 
 much glory, and hopes so fair ? " Yanity of vanities; all is 
 vanity." Nothing is left for me to say but that; that is the 
 only sentiment which, in presence of so strange a casualty, 
 grief so well-grounded and so poignant, permits me to in- 
 dulge. Xor have I explored the Iloly Scriptures in order to 
 find therein some text which I might apply to this princess ; 
 I have taken, without premeditation and without choice, 
 the first expression presented to me by the Preacher, with 
 whom vanity, although it has been so often named, is yet, 
 to my mind, not named often enough to suit the purpose 
 that I have in view. I wish, in a single misfortune, to 
 lament all the calamities of the human race, and in a single 
 death to exhibit the death and the nothingness of all human 
 greatness. This text, which suits all the circumstances and 
 all the occurrences of our life, becomes, by a special adapted-
 
 Bossuet. 187 
 
 ness, appropriate to my mournful theme; since never were 
 the vanities of the earth either so clearly disclosed or so 
 openly confounded. No, after what we have just seen, 
 health is but a name, life is but a dream, glory is but a 
 shadow, charms and pleasures are but a dangerous diversion. 
 Every thing is vain within us, except the sincere acknowl- 
 edgment made before God of our vanity, and the fixed judg- 
 ment of the mind, leading us to despise all that we are. 
 
 But did I speak the truth ? Man, whom God made in his 
 own image, is he but a shadow ? That which Jesus Christ 
 came from heaven to earth to seek, that which he deemed that 
 he could, without degrading himself, ransom with his own 
 blood, is that a mere nothing ? Let us acknowledge our mis- 
 take; surely this sad spectacle of the vanity of things human 
 was leading us astray, and public hope, baffled suddenly by 
 the death of this princess, was urging us too far. It must 
 not be permitted to man to despise himself entirely, lest he, 
 supposing, in common with the wicked, that our life is but a 
 game in which chance reigns, take his way without rule and 
 without self-control, at the pleasure of his own blind wishes. 
 It is for this reason that the Preacher, after having com- 
 menced his inspired production by the expressions which I 
 have cited, after having filled all its pages with contempt for 
 things human, is pleased at last to show man something 
 more substantial, by saying to him, " Fear God, and keep 
 his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For 
 God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret 
 thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Thus 
 every thing is vain in man, if we regard what he gives to the 
 world; but, on the contrary, every thing is important, if we 
 consider what he owes to God. Once again, every thing is 
 vain in man, if we regard the course of his mortal life; but 
 every thing is of value, every thing is important, if we con- 
 template the goal where it ends, and the account of it whicb 
 he must render. Let us, therefore, meditate to-day, in pres- 
 ence of this altar and of this tomb, the first and the last
 
 188 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 utterance of the Preacher; of which the one shows the 
 nothingness of man, the other establishes his greatness. 
 Let this toinb convince us of our nothingness, provided that 
 this altar, where is daily offered for us a Victim of price so 
 great, teach us at the same time our dignity. The princess 
 whom we weep shall be a faithful witness, both of the one 
 and of the other. Let us survey that which a sudden death 
 has taken away from her ; let us survey that which a holy 
 death has bestowed upon her. Thus shall we learn to de- 
 spise that which she quitted without regret, in order to 
 attach all our regard to that which she embraced with so 
 much ardor, when her soul, purified from all earthly senti- 
 ments, full of the heaven on whose border she touched, saw 
 the light completely revealed. Such are the truths which I 
 have to treat, and which I have deemed worthy to be pro- 
 posed to so great a prince, and to the most illustrious assem- 
 bly in the world. 
 
 It will be felt how removed is the foregoing from 
 any thing like an effort, on the preacher's part, to 
 startle his audience with the far-fetched and unex- 
 pected. It must, however^ be admitted that Bossuet 
 was not always as, of our Webster, it has well been 
 said that he always was superior to the tempta- 
 tion to exaggerate an occasion by pomps of rhetoric. 
 Bossuet was a great man, but he was not quite great 
 enough to be wholly free from pride of self-con- 
 sciousness in matching himself as orator against 
 " the most illustrious assembly in the world." 
 
 The ordinary sermons of Bossuet are less read, 
 and they less deserve perhaps to be read, than those 
 of Bourdaloue and Massillon.
 
 Bourdaloue. 189 
 
 BOURDALOTJE was a voice. He was the voice of 
 one crying, not in the wilderness, but amid the homes 
 and haunts of men, and, by eminence, in the court 
 of the most powerful and most splendid of earthly 
 monarchs. He was a Jesuit, one of the most de- 
 voted and most accomplished of an order filled with 
 devoted and accomplished men. It belonged to his 
 Jesuit character and Jesuit training, that Bourdaloue 
 should hold the place that he did as ever-successful 
 courtier at Versailles, all the while that, as preacher, 
 he was using the " holy freedom of the pulpit " to 
 launch those blank f ulminations of his at sin in high 
 places, at sin even in the highest, and all the briefer 
 while that, as confessor to Madame de Maintenon, 
 he was influencing the policy of Louis XIV. 
 
 No scandal of any sort attaches to the reputation 
 of Louis Bourdaloue. He was a man of spotless 
 fame, unless it be a spot on his fame that he could 
 please the most selfish of sinful mouarchs well enough 
 to be that monarch's chosen preacher during a longer 
 time than any other pulpit orator whatever was tol- 
 erated at Versailles. He is described by all who 
 knew him as a man of gracious spirit. If he did 
 not reprobate and denounce the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, that was rather of the age than of 
 Bourdaloue. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, in a remarkably sympathetic appre- 
 ciation of Bourdaloue, free, contrary to the critic's 
 wont, from hostile insinuation even, regards it as 
 part of the merit of this preacher that there is, and
 
 190 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 that there can be, no biography of him. His public 
 life is summed up in simply saying that he was a 
 preacher. During thirty-four laborious and fruitful 
 years he preached the doctrines of the Church ; 
 and this is the sole account to be given of him, 
 except, indeed, that in the confessional he was, 
 all that time, learning those secrets of the human 
 heart which he used to such effect in composing his 
 sermons. He had very suave and winning ways 
 as confessor, though he enjoined great strictness as 
 preacher. This led a witty woman of his time to 
 say of him : ' ' Father Bourdaloue charges high in 
 the pulpit, but he sells cheap in the confessional." 
 How much laxity he allowed as confessor, it is, of 
 course, impossible to say. But his sermons remain 
 to show that, though indeed he was severe and high 
 in requirement as preacher, he did not fail to soften 
 asperity by insisting on the goodness, while he 
 insisted on the awfulness, of God. Still, it cannot 
 be denied, that somehow the elaborate compliments 
 which, as an established convention of his pulpit, 
 he not infrequently delivered to Louis XIV., tended 
 powerfully to make it appear that his stern denun- 
 ciation of sin, which at first blush might seem 
 directly levelled at the king, had in reality no appli- 
 cation at all, or but the very gentlest application, to 
 the particular case of his Most Christian Majesty. 
 
 We begin our citations from Bourdaloue with an 
 extract from a sermon of his on "A Perverted 
 Conscience." The whole discourse is one well
 
 Bourdaloue. 191 
 
 worth the study of any reader. It is a piece of 
 searching psychological analysis, and pungent appli- 
 cation to conscience. Bourdaloue, in his sermons, 
 has always the air of a man seriously iutent on pro- 
 ducing practical results. There are no false motions. 
 Every swaying of the preacher's weapon is a blow, 
 and every blow is a hit. There is hardly another 
 example in homiletic literature of such compactness, 
 such solidity, such logical consecutiveness, such co- 
 gency, such freedom from surplusage. Tare and tret 
 are excluded. Every thing counts. You meet with 
 two or three adjectives, and you at first naturally 
 assume, that, after the usual manner of homilists, 
 Bourdaloue has thrown these in without rigorously 
 definite purpose, simply to heighten a general effect. 
 Not at all. There follows a development of the 
 preacher's thought, constituting virtually a distinct 
 justification of each adjective employed. You soon 
 learn that there is no random, no waste, in this 
 man's words. But here is the promised extract 
 from the sermon on "A Perverted Conscience." 
 In it Bourdaloue depresses his gun, and discharges 
 it point-blank at the audience before him. You can 
 almost imagine you seethe ranks of "the great" 
 laid low. Alas ! one fears that, instead of biting 
 the dust, those courtiers, with the king in the midst 
 of them to set the example, only cried bravo in their 
 hearts at the skill of the gunner : 
 
 I have said more particularly that in the world in which 
 you live, I mean the court, the disease of a perverted con-
 
 192 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 science is far more common, and far more difficult to be 
 avoided ; and I am sure that in this you will agree with me. 
 For it is at the court that the passions bear sway, that 
 desires are more ardent, that self-interest is keener, and 
 that, by infallible consequence t , self-blinding is more easy, 
 and consciences, even the most enlightened and the most 
 upright, become gradually perverted. It is at the court that 
 the goddess of the world, I mean fortune, exercises over the 
 minds of men, and in consequence over their consciences, a 
 more absolute dominion. It is at the court that the aim to 
 maintain one's self, the impatience to raise one's self, the 
 frenzy to push one's self, the fear of displeasing, the desire 
 of making one's self agreeable, produce consciences, which 
 anywhere else would pass for monstrous, but which, finding 
 themselves there authorized by custom, seem to have acquired 
 a right of possession and of prescription. People, from 
 living at court, and from no other cause than having lived 
 there, are filled with these errors. Whatever uprightness of 
 conscience they may have brought thither, by breathing its 
 air and by hearing its language, they are habituated to 
 iniquity, they come to have less horror of vice, and, after 
 having long blamed it, a thousand times condemned it, they 
 at last behold it with a more favorable eye, tolerate it, 
 excuse it; that is to say, without observing what is happen- 
 ing, they make over their consciences, and, by insensible 
 steps, from Christian, which they were, by little and little 
 become quite worldly, and not far from pagan. 
 
 What could surpass the adaptedness of such 
 preaching as that to the iieed of the moment for 
 which it was prepared ? And how did the libertine 
 French monarch contrive to escape the force of truth 
 like the following, with which the preacher immedi- 
 ately proceeds?
 
 Bourdaloue. 193 
 
 You would say, and it really seems, that for the court, 
 there are other principles of religion than for the rest of the 
 world, and that the courtier has a right to make for himself 
 a conscience different in kind and in quality from that of 
 other men ; for such is the prevailing idea of the matter, 
 an idea well sustained, or rather unfortunately justified, by 
 experience. . . . Nevertheless, my dear hearers, St. Paul 
 assures us, that there is but one God and one faith; and 
 woe to the man who dividing ITiin, this one God, shall 
 represent Him as at court less an enemy to human trans- 
 gressions than He is outside of the court ; or, severing this 
 one faith, shall suppose it in the case of one class more 
 indulgent than in the case of another. 
 
 Bourdaloue, as Jesuit, could not but feel the 
 power of Pascal in his "Provincial Letters," con- 
 stantly undermining the authority of his order. His 
 preaching, as Sainte-Beuve well says, may be con- 
 sidered to have been, in the preacher's intention, 
 one prolonged confutation of Pascal's immortal in* 
 dictment. We borrow of Saiute-Beuve a short 
 extract from Bourdaloue' s sermon on slander, 
 which may serve as an instance to show with what 
 adroitness the Jesuit retorted anonymously upon 
 the Janseuist : 
 
 Behold one of the abuses of our time. Means have been 
 found to consecrate slander, to change it into a virtue, and 
 even into one of the holiest virtues that means is, zeal for 
 the glory of God. . . . We must humble those people, is the 
 cry; and it is for the good of the Church to tarnish their 
 reputation and to diminish their credit. That idea becomes, 
 as it were, a principle; the conscience is fashioned accord- 
 ingly, and there is nothing that is not permissible to a.
 
 194 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 motive so noble. You fabricate, you exaggerate, you give 
 things a poisonous taint, you tell but half the truth ; you 
 make your prejudices stand for indisputable facts; you spread 
 abroad a hundred falsehoods; you confound what is indi- 
 vidual with what is general; what one man has said that is 
 bad, you pretend that all have said ; and what many have 
 said that is good, you pretend that nobody has said; and all 
 that, once again, for the glory of God. For such direction 
 of the intention justifies all that. Such direction of the in- 
 tention will not suffice to justify a prevarication, but it is 
 more than sufficient to justify calumny, provided only you 
 are convinced that you are serving God thereby. 
 
 In conclusion, we give a passage or two of Bourda- 
 loue's sermon on "An Eternity of Woe." Stanch 
 orthodoxy the reader will find here. President Ed- 
 wards's discourse, " Sinners in the Hands of an 
 Angry God," is not more unflinching. But what a 
 relief of contrasted sweetness does Bourdaloue in- 
 terpose in the first part of the ensuing extract, to 
 set off the grim and grisly horror of that which is to 
 follow ! We draw, for this case, from a translation, 
 issued in Dublin under Roman-Catholic auspices, of 
 select sermons by Bourdaloue. The translator, 
 throughout his volume, has been highly loyal in 
 spirit toward the great French preacher ; but this 
 has not prevented much enfeebling by him of the 
 style of his original : 
 
 There are some just, fervent, perfect souls, who, like chil- 
 dren in the house of the Heavenly Father, strive to please 
 and possess him. in order only to possess and to love him; 
 and who, incessantly animated by this unselfish motive,
 
 Bourdaloue. 195 
 
 fnviolably adhere to his divine precepts, and lay it down as 
 a rigorous and unalterable rule, to obey the least intimation 
 of bis will. They serve him with an affection entirely filial. 
 But there are also dastards, worldlings, sinners, terrestrial 
 and sensual men, who are scarcely susceptible of any other 
 impressions than those of the judgments and vengeance 
 of God. Talk to them of his greatness, of bis perfections, of 
 his benefits, or even of his rewards, and they will hardly 
 listen to you; and, if they are prevailed upon to pay some 
 attention and respect to your words, they will sound in 
 their ears, but not reach their hearts. . . . Therefore, to 
 move them, to stir them up, to awaken them from the 
 lethargic sleep with which they are overwhelmed, the thun- 
 der of divine wrath and the decree that condemns them to 
 eternal flames must be dinned into their ears: " Depart from 
 me, ye accursed, into everlasting fire" (Matt. xxv.). Make 
 them consider attentively, and represent to them with all 
 tlie force of grace, the consequences and horror of this 
 word " eternal." . . . 
 
 It is not imagination, it is pure reason and intelli- 
 gence, that now in Bourdaloue goes about the busi- 
 ness of impressing the thought of the dreadfulness 
 of an eternity of woe. The effect produced is not 
 that of the lightning-flash suddenly revealing the 
 jaws agape of an unfathomable abyss directly before 
 you. It is rather that of stead}', intolerable press- 
 ure gradually applied to crush, to annihilate, the 
 soul : 
 
 . . . Struck with horror at so doleful a destiny, I apply 
 to this eternity ail the powers of my mind; I examine and 
 scrutinize it in all its parts; and I survey, as it were, its 
 whale dimensions. Moreover, to express it in more lively 
 colors, and to represent it in my mind more conformably to
 
 196 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 the senses and the human understanding, I borrow com- 
 parisons from the Fathers of the Church, and I make, if I 
 may so speak, the same computations. I figure to myself 
 all the stars of the firmament; to this innumerable multi- 
 tule I add all the drops of water in the bosom of the ocean; 
 and if this be not enough, I reckon, or at least endeavor to 
 reckon, all the grains of sand on its shore. Then I interro- 
 gate myself, I reason with myself, and I put to myself the 
 question If I had for as many ages, and a thousand times 
 as many, undergone torments in that glowing fire which is 
 kindled by the breath of the Lord in his anger to take 
 eternal vengeance, would eternity be at an end ? No ; and 
 why ? Because it is eternity, and eternity is endless. To 
 number up the stars that shine in the heavens, to count the 
 drops of water that compose the sea, to tell the grains cf 
 sand that lie upon the shore, is not absolutely impossible; 
 but to measure in eternity the number of days, of years, of 
 nges, is what cannot be compassed, because the clays, the 
 years, and the ages are without number; or, to speak more 
 properly, because in eternity there are neither days, nor 
 years, nor ages, but a single, endless, infinite duration. 
 
 To this thought I devote my mind. I imagine I see and 
 rove through this same eternity, and discover no end, but 
 find it to be always a boundless tract. I imagine the wide 
 prospect lies open on all sides, and encompasseth me around ; 
 that if I rise up, or if I sink down, or what way soever 
 I turn my eyes, this eternity meets them; and that after a 
 thousand efforts to get forward, I have made no progress, 
 but find it still eternity. I imagine that after long revolu- 
 tions of time, I behold in the midst of this eternity a damned 
 soul, in the same state, in the same affliction, in the same 
 misery still; and putting myself mentally in the place of 
 this soul, I imagine that in this eternal punishment I feel 
 myself continually devoured by that fire which nothing 
 extinguishes; that I continually shed those floods of tears 
 which nothing can dry up; that I am continually gnawed
 
 Massillon. 197 
 
 by the worm of conscience, which never dies; that I con- 
 tinually express my despair and anguish by that gnashing 
 of teeth, and those lamentable cries, which never can move 
 the compassion of God. This idea of myself, this represen- 
 tation, amazes and terrifies me. My whole body shudders, 
 I tremble with fear, I am filled with horror, I have the sam<! 
 feelings as the royal prophet, when he cried, "Pierce thou 
 my flesh with thy fear, for I am afraid of thy judgments." 
 
 That was a touching tribute from the elder to the 
 younger tribute touching, whether wrung, per- 
 force, from a proudly humble, or freely offered by 
 a simply magnanimous, heart when, like John the 
 Baptist speaking of Jesus, Bourdaloue, growing 
 old, said of Massillon, enjoying his swiftly crescent 
 renown : " He must increase, and I must decrease." 
 It was a true presentiment of the comparative for- 
 tune of fame that impended for these two men. It 
 was not, however, in the same path, but in a diffei'- 
 ent, that Massillon outran Bourdalone. In his own 
 sphere, that of unimpassioned appeal to reason and 
 to conscience, Bourdaloue is still without a rival. 
 No one else, certainly, ever earned, so well as he, 
 the double title which his epigrammatic countrymen 
 were once fond of bestowing upon him, "The 
 king of preachers, and the preacher of kings." 
 
 JEAN BAPTISTE MASSILLON became priest by his 
 own internal sense of vocation to the office, against 
 the preference of his family that he should become, 
 like his father, a notary. He seems to have been 
 by nature sincerely modest in spirit. He had to be
 
 198 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 forced into the publicity of a preaching career at 
 Paris. His ecclesiastical superior peremptorily re- 
 quired at his hands the sacrifice of his wish to be 
 obscure. He at once filled Paris with his fame. 
 The inevitable consequence followed. He was sum- 
 moned to preach before the king at Versailles. 
 Here he received, as probably he deserved, that 
 celebrated compliment in epigram, from Louis XIV. : 
 "In hearing some preachers, I feel pleased with 
 them ; in hearing you, I feel displeased with my- 
 self." 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that Massillon 
 preached like a prophet Nathan saying to King 
 David, "Thou art the man;" or like a John the 
 Baptist saying to King Herod, "It is not lawful 
 for thee to have her; " or like a John Knox de- 
 nouncing Queen Mary. Massillon, if he was stern, 
 was suavely stern. He complimented the king. 
 The sword with which he wounded was wreathed 
 deep with flowers. It is difficult not to feel that 
 some unspoken understanding subsisted between 
 the preacher and the king, which permitted the king 
 to separate the preacher from the man when Mas- 
 sillon used that great plainness of speech to his 
 sovereign. The king did not, however, often invite 
 this master of eloquence to make the royal con- 
 science displacent with itself. Bourdaloue was osten- 
 sibly as outspoken as Massillon ; but somehow that 
 Jesuit preacher contented the king to be his hearer 
 during as many as ten annual seasons, against the
 
 Massillon. 199 
 
 one or two only that Massillon preached at court 
 before Louis. 
 
 The work of Massillon generally judged, though 
 according to Sainte-Beuve not wisely judged, to IKJ 
 his choicest, is contained in that volume of his 
 which goes by the name of ' Le Petit Careme," 
 literally, "The Little Lent," a collection of ser- 
 mons preached during a Lent before the king's great- 
 grandson and successor, youthful Louis XV. These 
 sermons especially have given to their author a 
 fame that is his by a title perhaps absolutely unique 
 in literature. We know no other instance of a 
 writer, limited in his production strictly to sermons, 
 who holds his place hi the first rank of authorship 
 simply by virtue of supreme mastership in literary 
 style. 
 
 Still, from the text of his printed discourses, 
 admirable, exquisite, ideal compositions in point of 
 form as these are, it will be found impossible to 
 conceive adequately the living eloquence of Massil- 
 lon. There are interesting traditions of the effects 
 produced by particular passages of particular ser- 
 mons of his. When Louis XIV. died, Massillon 
 preached his funeral sermon. He began with that 
 celebrated single sentence of exordium which, it is 
 said, brought his whole audience, by instantaneous, 
 simultaneous impulse, in a body to their feet. The 
 modern reader will experience some difficult}' in 
 comprehending at once why that perfectly common- 
 place-seeming expression of the preacher should
 
 200 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 have produced an effect so powerful. The element 
 of the opportune, the apposite, the fit, is always 
 great part of the secret of eloquence. Nothing 
 more absolutely appropriate can be conceived than 
 was the sentiment, the exclamation, with which 
 Massillon opened that funeral sermon. The image 
 and symbol of earthly greatness, in the person of 
 Louis XIV., had been shattered under the touch 
 of iconoclast death. "God only is great!" said 
 the preacher ; and all was said. Those four short 
 words had uttered completely, and with a simplicity 
 incapable of being surpassed, the thought that 
 usurped every breast. It is not the surprise of 
 some striking new thought that is the most eloquent 
 thing. The most eloquent thing is the surprise of 
 that one word, suddenly spoken, which completely 
 expresses some thought, present already and upper- 
 most, but silent till now, awaiting expression, in a 
 multitude of minds. This most eloquent thing it 
 was which, from Massillon's lips that day, moved 
 his susceptible audience to rise, like one man, and 
 bow in mute act of submission to the truth of his 
 words. The inventive and curious reader may exer- 
 cise his ingenuity at leisure. He will strive in vain 
 to conceive any other exordium than Massillon's 
 that would have matched the occasion presented. 
 
 There is an admirable anecdote of the pulpit, 
 which though since often otherwise applied had, 
 perhaps, its first application to Massillon. Some 
 one congratulating the orator, as he came down
 
 Massillon. 201 
 
 from his pulpit, on the eloquence of the sermon just 
 preached, that wise self-knower fenced by replying, 
 " Ah, the devil has already apprised me of that ! " 
 The recluse celibate preacher was one day asked 
 whence he derived that marvellous knowledge which 
 he displayed of the passions, the weaknesses, the 
 follies, the sins, of human nature. " From my 
 own heart,' 1 was his reply. Source sufficient, per- 
 haps ; but from the confessional, too, one may con- 
 fidently add. 
 
 There is probably no better brief ,* quotable pas- 
 sage to represent Massillon at his imaginative highest 
 in eloquence, than that most celebrated one of all, 
 occurring toward the close of his memorable sermon 
 on the " Fewness of the Elect." The effect at- 
 tending the delivery of this passage, on both of 
 the two recorded occasions on which the sermon was 
 preached, is reported to have been remarkable. 
 The manner of the orator downcast, as with the 
 inward oppression of the same solemnity that he, 
 in speaking, cast like a spell on the audience in- 
 definitely heightened the magical power of the awful 
 conception excited. Not Bourduloue himself, with 
 that preternatural skill of his to probe the conscience 
 of man to its innermost secret, could have exceeded 
 the heart-searching rigor with which, in the earlier 
 pait of the discourse, Massillon had put to the rack 
 the quivering consciences of his hearers. The ter- 
 rors of the Lord, the shadows of the world to come, 
 were thus already on all hearts. So much as this, 
 14
 
 202 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Bourdaloue, too, with his incomparable dialectic, 
 could have accomplished. But there immediately 
 follows a culmination in power, such as was dis- 
 tinctly beyond the height of Bourdaloue. Genius 
 must be superadded to talent if you would have the 
 supreme, either in poetry or in eloquence. There 
 was an extreme point in Massillon's discourse at 
 which mere reason, having done, and done terribly, 
 its utmost, was fain to confess that it could not go 
 a single step farther. At that extreme point, sud- 
 denly, inexhaustible imagination took up the part of 
 exhausted reason. Reason had made men afraid ; 
 imagination now appalled them. Massillou said: 
 
 I confine myself to you, my brethren, who are gathered 
 here. I speak no longer of the rest of mankind. I look at 
 you as if you were the only ones on the earth; and here 
 is the thought that seizes me, and that terrifies me. I make 
 the supposition that this is your last hour, and the end of 
 the world; that the heavens are about to open above your 
 heads, that Jesus Christ is to appear in his glory in the 
 midst of this sanctuary, and that you are gathered here only 
 to wait for him, and as trembling criminals on whom is to 
 be pronounced either a sentence of grace or a decree of eter- 
 nal death. For, vainly do you flatter yourselves; you will 
 die such in character as you are to-day. All those impulses 
 toward change with which you amuse yourselves, you will 
 amuse yourselves with them down to the bed of death. Such 
 is the experience of all generations. The only thing new 
 you will then find in yourselves will be, perhaps, a reckoning 
 a trifle larger than that which you would to-day have to ren- 
 der; and according to what you would be if you were this 
 moment to be judged, you may almost determine what will 
 befall you at the termination of your life.
 
 Massillon. 203 
 
 Now I ask you, and. I ask it smitten with terror, not 
 separating in this matter my lot from yours, and putting 
 myself into the same frame of mind into which I desire you 
 to come, I ask you, then, If Jesus Christ were to appear in 
 this sanctuary, in the midst of this assembly, the most illus- 
 trious in the world, to pass judgment on us, to draw the 
 dread line of distinc;icn between the goats and the sheep, 
 do you believe that the majority of all of us who are here 
 would be set on his right hand ? Do you believe that things 
 would even be equal ? Nay, do you believe there would be 
 found so many as the ten righteous men whom anciently the 
 Lord could not find in five whole cities ? I put the question 
 to you, but you know not; I know not myself. Thou only, 
 O my God, knowest those that belong to thee! But if we 
 know not those who belong to him, at least we know that 
 sinners do not belong to him. Now, of what classes of per- 
 sons do the professing Christians in this assembly consist ? 
 Titles and dignities must be counted for naught; of these 
 you shall be stripped before Jesus Christ. Who make up 
 this assembly ? Sinners, in great number, who do not wish 
 to be converted; in still greater number, sinners who would 
 like it, but who put off their conversion; many others who 
 would be converted, only to relapse into sin ; finally, a mul- 
 titude who think they have no need of conversion. You 
 have thus made up the company of the reprobate. Cut off 
 these four classes of sinners from this sacred assembly, for 
 they will be cut off from it at the great day ! Stand forth 
 now, ye righteous ! where are you ? Kemnant of Israel, pass 
 to the right hand ! True wheat of Jesus Christ, disengage 
 yourselves from this chaff, doomed to the fire ! O God ! where 
 are thine elect ? and what remains there for thy portion ? 
 
 Brethren, our perdition is well-nigh assured, and we do 
 not give it a thought. Even if in that dread separation 
 which one day shall be made, there were to be but a single 
 sinner out of this* assembly found on the side of the repro- 
 bate, and if a voice from heaven should come to give us
 
 204 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 assurance of the fact in this sanctuary, without pointing out 
 the person intended, who among us would not fear that he 
 might himself be the wretch ? Who among us would not 
 at once recoil upon his conscience, to inquire whether his 
 sins had* not deserved that penalty ? Who among us would 
 not, seized with dismay, ask of Jesus Christ, as did once the 
 apostles, " Lord, is it I ? " 
 
 What is there wanting in such eloquence as the 
 foregoing? Wherein lies its deficiency of power to 
 penetrate and subdue? Voltaire avowed that he 
 funnel the sermons of Massillon to be among " the 
 most agreeable books we have in our language. I 
 love," he went on, " to have them read to me at 
 table." There are things in Massillon that Voltaire 
 should not have delighted to read, or to hear .read, 
 things that should have made him wince and revolt, 
 if they did not make him yield and be converted. 
 Was there fault in the preacher? Did he preach 
 with professional, rather than with personal, zeal? 
 Did his hearers feel themselves secretly acquitted 
 by the man, at the self-same moment at which they 
 were openly condemned by the preacher? It is im- 
 possible to say. But Massillon's virtue was not 
 lofty and regal ; however it may have been free from 
 just reproach. He was somewhat too capable of 
 compliance. He was made bishop of Clermont, and 
 his promotion cost him the anguish of having to 
 help consecrate a scandalously unfit candidate as 
 archbishop of Cambray. Massillon's, however, is 
 a fair, if not an absolutely spotless, fame. Hierarch
 
 Ftnelon. 205 
 
 as he was, and orthodox Catholic, this most elegant 
 of eloquent orators had a liberal strain in his blood 
 which allied him politically with the " philosophers " 
 of the time succeeding. He, with Fnelon, and 
 perhaps with Racine, makes seem less abrupt the 
 transition in France from the age of absolutism to 
 the age of revolt and final revolution. There is 
 distinct advance in Massillon, aud advance more 
 than is accounted for by his somewhat later time, 
 toward the easier modern spirit in church and in 
 state, from the high, unbending austerity of that 
 antique pontiff and minister, Bossuet. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 FENELON. 
 1651-1715. 
 
 IF Bossuet is to Frenchmen a synonym for sub- 
 limity, no less to them is Fnelon a synonym for 
 saintliness. From the French point of view, one 
 might say, " the sublime Bossuet," " the saintly 
 F6nelon," somewhat as one says, "the learned Sel- 
 den," "the judicious Hooker." It is as much a 
 French delight to idealize Fenelon an archangel 
 Raphael, affable and mild, as it is to glorify Bossuet 
 a Michael in majesty and power.
 
 206 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 But saintliness of character was in Fe'nelon com- 
 mended to the world by equal charm of person and 
 of genius. The words of Milton describing Eve 
 might be applied, with no change but that of gen- 
 der, to Fe'nelon. both the exterior and the interior 
 man : 
 
 Grace was in all his steps, heaven in his eye, 
 In every gesture dignity and love. 
 
 The consent is general among those who saw 
 Fe'nelon, and have left behind them their testimony, 
 that alike in person, in character, and in genius, he 
 was such as we thus describe him. 
 
 Twice, in his youth, he was smitten to the heart 
 with a feeling of vocation to be a missionary. Both 
 times he was thwarted by the intervention of friends. 
 The second time, he wrote disclosing his half- 
 romantic aspiration in a glowing letter of confidence 
 ana friendship to Bossuet, his senior by many years, 
 but not yet become famous. Young Fnelon's friend 
 Bossuet was destined later to prove a bitter antago- 
 nist, almost a personal foe. 
 
 Until he was forty-two years old, Francois Fe'ne- 
 lon lived in comparative retirement, nourishing his 
 genius with study, with contemplation, with choice 
 society. He experimented in writing verse. Not 
 succeeding to his mind, he turned to prose composi- 
 tion, and leading the way, in a new species of 
 literature, for Rousseau, for Chateaubriand, for 
 Lamartine, and for many others, to follow, went on
 
 FSnelon. 207 
 
 writing what, in ceasing to be verse, did not cease 
 to be poetry. 
 
 The great world will presently involve Fenelon in 
 the currents of history. Louis XIV., grown old, 
 and become as selfishly greedy now of personal sal- 
 vation as all his life he has been selfishly greedy of 
 personal glory, seeks that object of his soul by 
 serving the church in the wholesale conversion of 
 Protestants. He revokes the Edict of Nantes, which 
 had secured religious toleration for the realm, and 
 proceeds to dragoon the Huguenots into conformity 
 with the Roman-Catholic church. The reaction in 
 public sentiment against such rigors gi'ew a cry that 
 had to be silenced. Feuelon was selected to visit 
 the heretic provinces, and win them to willing sub- 
 mission. He stipulated that every form of coercion 
 should cease, and went to conquer all with love. 
 His success was remarkable. But not even Fenelon 
 quite escaped the infection of violent zeal for the 
 Church. It seems not to be given to any man to 
 rise wholly superior to the spirit of the world in 
 which he lives. 
 
 The lustre of Fenelon's name, luminous from the 
 triumphs of his mission among the Protestants, was 
 sufficient to justify the choice of this man, a man 
 both by nature and by culture so ideally formed for 
 the office as was he, to be tutor to the heir pro- 
 spective of the French monarchy. The Duke of 
 Burgundy, grandson to Louis XIV., was accord- 
 ingly put under the charge of Fenelon to be trained
 
 208 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 for future kingship. Never, probably, in the his- 
 tory of mankind, has there occurred a case in which 
 the victory of a teacher could be more illustrious 
 than actually was the victory of Fenelon as teacher 
 to this scion of the house of Bourbon. We shall 
 be giving our readers a relishable taste of St. Simon, 
 the celebrated memoir-writer of the age of Louis 
 XIV., if out of the portrait in words, drawn by him 
 from the life, of Fenelon's princely pupil, we trans- 
 fer here a few strong lines to our pages. St. Simon 
 says : 
 
 In the first place, it must be said that Monseigneur the 
 Duke of Burgundy had by nature a most formidable dispo- 
 sition. He was passionate to the extent of wishing to dash 
 to pieces his clocks when they struck the hour which called 
 him to what he did not like, and of flying into the utmost 
 rage against the rain if it interfered with what he wanted to 
 do. Resistance threw him into paroxysms of fury. I speak 
 of what I have often witnessed in his early youth. More- 
 over, an ungovernable impulse drove him into whatever 
 indulgence, bodily or mental, was forbidden him. His sar- 
 casm was so much the more cruel as it was witty and 
 piquant, and as it seized with precision upon every point 
 open to ridicule. All this was sharpened by a vivacity of 
 body and of mind that proceeded to the degree of impetuosity, 
 and that during his early days never permitted him to learn 
 any thing except by doing two things at once. Every form 
 of pleasure he loved with a violent avidity, and all this with 
 a pride and a haughtiness impossible to describe; danger- 
 ously wise, moreover, to judge of men and things, and to 
 detect the weak point in a train of reasoning, and to reason 
 himself more cogently and more profoundly than his teach- 
 ers. But at the same time, as soon as his passion was spent,
 
 Ftnelon. 209 
 
 reason resumed her sway; lie felt his faults, he acknowledged 
 them, and sometimes with such chagrin that his rage was 
 rekindled. A mind lively, alert, penetrating, stiffening 
 itself against obstacles, excelling literally in every thing. 
 The prodigy is, that in a very short time piety and grace 
 made of him a different being, and transformed faults so 
 numerous and so formidable into virtues exactly opposite. 
 
 St. Simon attributes to Fenelon "every virtue 
 under heaven ; " but his way was to give to God 
 rather than to man the praise of the remarkable 
 change which, during Fe'nelon's charge of the Duke 
 of Burgundy, came over the character of the prince. 
 
 The grandfather survived the grandson ; uud it 
 was never put to the stern proof of historical ex- 
 periment, whether Fenelon had indeed turned out 
 one Bourbon entirely different from all the other 
 members, earlier or -later, of that royal line. 
 
 Before, however, the Duke of Burgundy was thus 
 snatched away from the perilous prospect of a 
 throne, his beloved teacher was parted from him, 
 not indeed by death, but by what, to the archbishop's 
 susceptible and suffering spirit, was worse than death, 
 by " disgrace." The disgrace was such as has 
 ever since engaged for its subject the interest, the 
 sympathy, and the admiration, of mankind. Fene- 
 lon lost the royal favor. That was all, for the 
 piesent, but that was much. He was banished 
 from court, and he ceased to be preceptor to the 
 Duke of Burgundy. The king, in signal severity, 
 used his own hand to strike F^uelon's name from
 
 210 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 the list of the household of his grandson and heir. 
 The archbishop for F6uelou had previously been 
 made archbishop of Cambray returned into his 
 diocese as into au exile. But his cup of humiliation 
 was by no means full. Bossuet will stain his own 
 glory by following his exiled former pupil and 
 friend, with hostile pontifical rage, to crush him in 
 his retreat. 
 
 The occasion was a woman, a woman with the 
 charm of genius and of exalted character, a Chris- 
 tian, a saint, but a mystic it was Madame Guyon. 
 Madame Guyon taught that it was possible to love 
 God for himself alone, purely and disinterestedly. 
 Fenelou received the doctrine, and Madame Guyon 
 was patronized by Madame de Mainteuon. Bossuet 
 scented heresy. He was too much a " natural man " 
 to understand Madame Guyon. The king was like 
 the prelate, his minister, in spirit, and in consequent 
 incapacity. It was resolved that Fnelon must con- 
 demn Madame Guyon. But F^nelon would not. 
 He was very gentle, very conciliatory, but in fine 
 he would not. Controversy ensued, haughty, magis- 
 terial, domineering, on the part of Bossuet ; on the 
 part of Fnelon, meek, docile, suasive. The world 
 wondered, and watched the duel. Fnelon finally 
 did what king James's translators misleadingly 
 make Job wish that his adversary had done, he 
 wrote a book, "The Maxims of the Saints." In 
 this book, he sought to show that the accepted, and 
 even canonized, teachers of the Church had taught
 
 Ftnelon. 211 
 
 the doctrine for which, in his own case and in the 
 case of Madame Guy on, condemnation was now 
 invoked. Bossuet was pope at Paris ; and he, in 
 full presence, denounced to the monarch the heresy 
 of F6nelon. At this moment of crisis for Fenelon, 
 it happened that news was brought him of the burn- 
 ing of his mansion at Cambray with all his books 
 and manuscripts. It will always be remembered 
 that Fe'nelon only said : t; It is better so than if it 
 had been the cottage of a poor laboring-man." 
 
 Madame de Maintenon, till now his friend, with 
 perfectly frigid facility separated herself from the 
 side of the accused. The controversy was carried 
 to Rome, where at length Fe'nelon's book was con- 
 demned, condemned mildly, but condemned. The 
 pope is saul to have made the remark that Fenelon 
 erred by loving God too much, and Fe'nelon's an- 
 tagonists by loving their fellow-man too little. 
 Fenelon bowed to the authority of the Church, and 
 meekly in his own cathedral confessed his error. 
 It was a logical thing for him, as loyal Catholic, to 
 do ; and he did it with a beautiful grace of humility. 
 The Protestant spirit, however, rebels on his behalf, 
 and finds it difficult even to admire the manner in 
 which was done by him a thing that seems so unfit 
 to have been done by him at all. Bossuet did not 
 long survive his inglorious triumph over so much 
 sanctity of personal character, over so much difficult 
 and beautiful height of doctrinal and practical in- 
 struction to virtue. F6nelon seems to have been
 
 212 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 reported as preaching a funeral sermon on the dead 
 prelate. " I have wept and prayed," he wrote to a 
 friend, " for this old instructor of my youth ; but it 
 is not true that I celebrated his obsequies in my 
 cathedral, and preached his funeral sermon. Such 
 affectation, you know, is foreign to my nature." 
 The iron must have gone deep, to wring from that 
 gentle bosom even so much cry as this of wounded 
 feeling. 
 
 It is hard to tell what might now have befallen 
 Fe"nelon, in the way of good fortune, he might 
 even have been recalled to court, and re-installed 
 in his office of tutor to the prince, had not a sin- 
 ister incident, not to have been looked for, at an 
 inopportune moment occurred. The " Telemachus " 
 appeared in print, and kindled a sudden flame of 
 popular feeling which instantly spread in universal 
 conflagration over the face of Europe. This com- 
 position of Fe"nelon's the author had written to 
 convey, under a form of quasi-poetical fiction, les- 
 sons of wisdom in government to the mind of his 
 royal pupil. The existence of the manuscript book 
 would seem to have been intended to be a secret 
 from the king, indeed, from almost every one, 
 except the pupil himself for whose use it was made. 
 But a copyist proved false to his trust, and furnished 
 a copy of "Telemachus " to a printer in Holland, 
 who lost no time in publishing a book so likely to 
 sell. But the sale of the book surpassed all expec- 
 tation. Holland not only, but Belgium, Germany,
 
 Ftnelon. 213 
 
 France, and England multiplied copies, as fast as 
 they could ; still, Europe could not get copies as fast 
 as it wanted them. 
 
 The secret of such popularity did not lie simply in 
 the literary merits of " Telemachus." It lay more in 
 a certain interpretation that the book was supposed to 
 bear. " Telemachus " was understood to be a covert 
 criticism of Louis XIV., and of the principle of 
 absolute monarchy embodied in him. This imputed 
 intention of the book could not fail to become known 
 at Versailles. The result, of course, was fatal, 
 and finally fatal,- to the prospects, whatever these 
 may have been, of Fenelou's restoration to favor at 
 court. The archbishop thenceforward was left to 
 do in comparative obscurity the duties of his episco- 
 pal office in his diocese of Cambray. He devoted 
 himself, with exemplary and touching fidelity, to the 
 interests of his flock, loving them and loved by them, 
 till he died. It was an entirely worthy and ade- 
 quate employment of his powers. The only abate- 
 ment needful from the praise to be bestowed upon 
 his behavior in this pastoral relation is, that he 
 suffered himself sometimes to think of his position 
 as one of "disgrace." His reputation meantime 
 for holy character and conduct was European. His 
 palace at Cambray, hospitably open ever to the 
 resort of suffering need, indeed almost his whole 
 diocese, lying on the frontier of France, was, by 
 mutual consent of contending armies, treated in war 
 as a kind of mutual inviolable ground, invested with
 
 214 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 privilege of sanctuary. It was an instructive example 
 of the serene and beautiful ascendency sometimes 
 divinely accorded to illustrious personal goodness. 
 
 There had been a moment, even subsequently to 
 the affair of the " Telemachus " publication, when 
 it looked as if, after long delay, a, complete worldly 
 triumph for Fnelon was assured, and was near. 
 The father of the Duke of Burgundy died, and 
 nothing then seemed to stand between Fenelon' s 
 late pupil and the throne, nothing but the preca- 
 rious life of an aged monarch, visibly approaching 
 the end. The Duke of Burgundy, through all 
 changes, had remained unchangingly fast in his 
 affectionate loyalty to Fenelon. Sternly forbidden, 
 by the jealous and watchful king, his grandfather, 
 to communicate with his old teacher, he yet had 
 found means to send to Fenelon, from time to time, 
 reassuring signals of his trust and his love. Fene- 
 lon was now, in all eyes, the predestined prime' 
 minister of a new reign about to commence. Through 
 devoted friends of h'.._ own, near to the person of the 
 prince at court, Fenelon sent minutes of advice to 
 his pupil, which outlined a whole beneficent policy 
 of liberal monarchical rule. A new day seemed 
 dawning for France. The horrible reaction of the 
 Regency and of Louis XV. might, perhaps, have 
 been averted, and, with that spared to France, the 
 Revolution itself might have been accomplished with- 
 out the Revolution. But it was not to be. The 
 Duke of Burgundy first buried his wife, and then,
 
 Fenelon. 215 
 
 within a few days, followed her himself to the 
 grave. He died sincerely rejoicing that God had 
 taken him awa} r from the dread responsibility of 
 reigning. 
 
 "All my ties are broken," mourned Fenelon; 
 " there is no longer any thing to bind me to the 
 earth." In truth, the teacher survived his pupil but 
 two or three years. When he died, his sovereign, 
 gloomy with well-grounded apprehension for the 
 future of his realm, said, with tardy revival of rec- 
 ognition for the virtue that had perished in Fenelon : 
 "Here was a man who could have served us well 
 under the disasters- by which my kingdom is about 
 to be assailed ! ' ' 
 
 Fenelon 's literaiy productions are various ; but 
 they all have the common character of being works 
 written for the sake of life, rather than for the sake 
 of literature. They were inspired each by a practi- 
 cal purpose, and adapted each to a particular occa- 
 sion. His treatise on the "Education of Girls" 
 was written for the use of a mother who desired 
 instruction on the topic from Fenelon. His argu- 
 ment on the " Being of a God " was prepared as a 
 duty of his preceptorship to the prince. But the 
 one book of Fenelon which was an historical event 
 when it appeared, and which stands an indestructible 
 classic in literature, is the " Telemachus." It re- 
 mains for us briefly to give some idea of this book. 
 
 The first thing to be said is, that those are n".io- 
 taken who suppose themselves to have obtained a
 
 216 Classic French Course in English* 
 
 true idea of " Tclemachus " from having partly 
 read it at school, as an exercise in French. The 
 essence of the work lies beyond those few opening 
 pages to which the exploration of school-boys and 
 school-girls is generally limited. This masterpiece 
 of Fenelon is much more than a charming piece of 
 romantic and sentimental poetry in prose. It is 
 a kind of epic, indeed, like the " Odyssey," only 
 written in rhythmical prose instead of rhythmical 
 verse; but, unlike the "Odyssey," it is an idyllic 
 epic written with an ulterior purpose of moral and 
 political didactics. It was designed as a manual of 
 instruction, instruction made delightful to a prince, 
 to inculcate the duties incumbent on a sovereign. 
 Telemachus, our readers will remember, was the 
 son of Ulysses. Fenelon's story relates the adven- 
 tures encountered by Telemachus, in search for his 
 father, so long delayed on his return from Troy to 
 Ithaca. Telemachus is imagined by Fenelon to be 
 attended by Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, masked 
 from his recognition, as well as from the recog- 
 nition of others, under the form of an old man. 
 Minerva, of course, constantly imparts the wisest 
 counsel to young Telemachus, who has his weak- 
 nesses, as had the young Duke of Burgundy, but 
 who is essentially well-disposed, as Fenelon hoped 
 his royal pupil would finally turn out to be. Nothing 
 can exceed the urbanity and grace with which the 
 delicate business is conducted by Fenelon, of teach- 
 ing a bad prince, with a very bad example set him
 
 Ftnelon. 217 
 
 by his grandfather, to be a good king. The style 
 in which the story is told, and in which the advice 
 is insinuated, is exquisite, is beyond praise. The 
 *' soft delicious " stream of sound runs on, as from 
 a fountain, and like " linked sweetness long drawn 
 out." Never had prose a flow of melody more lus- 
 cious. It is perpetual ravishment to th? ear. The 
 invention, too, of incident is fruitful, while the land- 
 scape and coloring are magical for beauty. We give 
 a few extracts, to be read with that application to 
 Louis XIV., and the state of France, in mind, which, 
 when the book was first printed, gave it such an 
 exciting interest in the eyes of Europe. Tele- 
 machus, after the manner of ^Eneas to Queen Dido, 
 is relating to the goddess Calypso, into whose island 
 he has come, the adventures that have previously 
 befallen him. He says that he, with Mentor (Mi- 
 nerva in disguise), found himself in Crete. Mentor 
 had been there before, and was ready to tell Tele- 
 mackus all about the country. Telemachus was 
 naturally interested to learn respecting the Cretan 
 monarchy. Mentor, he says, informed him as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 The king's authority over the subject is absolute, but the 
 authority of the law is absolute over him. His power to do 
 good '13 unlimited, but he is restrained from doing ovil. The 
 laws have put the people into his hands, as the most valuable 
 deposit, upon condition that he shall treat them as his chil- 
 dren. It is the intent of the law that the wisdom and equity 
 of one man shall be the happiness of many, and not that the 
 wretchedness and slavery of many should gratify the pride 
 15
 
 218 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 and luxury of one. The king ought to possess nothingmore 
 than the subject, except what is necessary to alleviate the 
 fatigue of his station, and impress upon the minds of the 
 people a reverence of that authority by which the laws are 
 executed. Moreover, the king should indulge himself less, 
 as well in ease as in pleasure, and should be less disposed to 
 the pomp and the pride of life than any other man. He 
 ought not to be distinguished from the rest tf mankind 
 by the greatness of his wealth, or the vanity of his enjoy- 
 ments, but by superior wisdom, more heroic virtue, and more 
 splendid glory. Abroad he ought to be the defender of his 
 country, by commanding her armies; and at home the judge 
 of his people, distributing justice among them, improving 
 their morals, and increasing their felicity. It is not for him- 
 self that the gods have intrusted him with royalty. He- is 
 exalted above individuals, only that he may be the servant 
 of the people. To the public he owes all his time, all his 
 attention, and all his love; he deserves dignity only in pro- 
 portion as he gives up private enjoyments for the public 
 good. 
 
 Pretty sound doctrine, the foregoing, on the sub- 
 ject of the duties devolving on a king. The 
 " paternal " idea, to be sure, of government is in it ; 
 but there is the idea, too, of limited or constitutional 
 monarchy. The spirit of just and liberal political 
 thought had, it seems, not been wholly extinguished, 
 even at the court, by that oppression of mind an 
 oppression seldom, if ever, in human history ex- 
 ceeded which was enforced under the unmitigated 
 absolutism of Louis XIV. The literature that, with 
 Montesquieu, Voltaire, Eousseau, the Enc} T clopae- 
 dists, prepared the Revolution, had already begun 
 virtually to be written when F^nelon wrote his
 
 FSnelon. 219 
 
 u Telemachus." It is easy to see why the fame of 
 Fnelon should by exception have been dear even 
 to the hottest infidel haters of that ecclesiastical 
 hierarchy to which the archbishop of Cambray him- 
 self belonged. This lover of liberty, this gentle 
 rebuker of kings, was of the free-thinkers, at least 
 in the sympathy of political thought. Nay, the 
 Revolution itself is foreshown in a remarkable 
 glimpse of conjectural prophecy which occurs in the 
 "Telemachus." Idomeneus is a headstrong king, 
 whom Mentor is made by the author to reprove and 
 instruct, for the Duke of Burgundy's benefit. To 
 Idomeneus a character taken, and not implausibly 
 taken, to have been suggested to Fe'nelon by the 
 example of Louis XIV. to this imaginary counter- 
 part of the reigning monarch of France, Mentor 
 holds the following language. How could the sequel 
 of Bourbon despotism in France a sequel sus- 
 pended now for a time, but two or three generations 
 later to be dreadfully visited on the heirs of Louis 
 XIV. have been more truly foreshadowed ? The 
 "Telemachus: "- 
 
 Remember, that the sovereign who is most absolute is 
 always least powerful; he seizes upon all, and his grasp 
 is ruin. He is, indeed, the sole proprietor of whatever his 
 state contains ; but, for that reason, his state contains noth- 
 ing of value: the fields are uncultivated, and almost a desert; 
 the towns lose some of their few inhabitants every day; and 
 trade every day declines. The king, who must cease to be a 
 king when he ceases to have subjects, and who is great only 
 in virtue of his people, is himself insensibly losing his
 
 220 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 character and his power, as the number of his people, from 
 whom alone both are derived, insensibly diminishes. His 
 dominions are at length exhausted of money and of men : 
 the loss of men is the greatest and the most irreparable he 
 can sustain. Absolute power degrades every subject to a 
 slave. The tyrant is nattered, even to an appearance of 
 adoration, and every one trembles at the glance of his eye ; 
 but, at the least revolt, this enormous power perishes by its 
 own excess. It derived no strength from the love of the 
 people; it wearied and provoked all that it could reach, and 
 rendered every individual of the state impatient of its con- 
 tinuance. At the first stroke of opposition, the idol is 
 overturned, broken to pieces, and trodden under foot. Con- 
 tempt, hatred, fear, resentment, distrust, and every other 
 passion of the soul, unite against so hateful a despotism. 
 The king who, in his vain prosperity, found no man b' id 
 enough to tell him the truth, in his adversity finds no man 
 kind enough to excuse his faults, or to defend him against 
 his enemies. 
 
 So much is perhaps enough to indicate the politi- 
 cal drift of the " Telemachus." That drift is, in- 
 deed,, observable everywhere throughout the book. 
 
 We conclude our exhibition of this fine classic, 
 by letting Fuelon appear more purely now in his 
 character as dreamer and poet. Young Prince Tel- 
 emachus has, Ulysses-like, and ^Eneas-like, his 
 descent into Hades. This incident affords Fe'nelon 
 opportunity to exercise his best powers of awful and 
 of lovely imagining and describing. Christian ideas 
 are, in this episode of the "Telemachus," superin- 
 duced upon pagan, after a manner hard, perhaps, to 
 reconcile with the verisimilitude required by art, but 
 at least productive of very noble and very beautiful
 
 FSnelon. 221 
 
 results. First, one glimpse of Tartarus as conceived 
 by Fenelon. It is the spectacle of kings who on 
 earth abused their power, that Telemachus is be- 
 holding : 
 
 Telemachus observed the countenance of these criminals 
 to be pale and ghastly, strongly expressive of the torment 
 they suffered at the heart. They looked inward with a self- 
 abhorrence, now inseparable from their existence. Their 
 crimes themselves had become their punishment, and it 
 was not necessary that greater should be inflicted. They 
 haunted them like hideous spectres, and continually started 
 up before them in all their enormity. They wished for a 
 second death, that might separate them from these minis- 
 ters of vengeance, as the first had separated their spirits 
 from the body, a death that might at once extinguish all 
 consciousness and sensibility. They called upon the depths 
 of hell to hide them from the persecuting beams of truth, in 
 impenetrable darkness ; but they are reserved for the cup of 
 vengeance, which, though they drink of it forever, shall be 
 ever full. The truth, from which they fled, has overtaken 
 them, an invincible and unrelenting enemy. The ray which 
 once might have illuminated them, like the mild radiance 
 of the clay, now pierces them like lightning, a fierce and 
 fatal fire, that, without injury to the external parts, infixes 
 a burning torment at the heart. By truth, now an avenging 
 flame, the very soul is melted like metal in a furnace; it 
 dissolves all, but destroys nothing; it disunites the first 
 elements of life, yet the sufferer can never die. He is, as it 
 were, divided against himself, without rest and without 
 comfort; animated by no vital principle, but the rage that 
 kindles at his ow T n misconduct, and the dreadful madness 
 that results from despair. 
 
 If the " perpetual feast of nectared sweets " that 
 the ''Telemachus" affords, is felt at times to be
 
 222 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 almost cloying, it is not, as our readers have now 
 seen, for want of occasional contrasts of a bitter- 
 ness sufficiently mordant and drastic. But the 
 didactic purpose is never lost sight of by the author. 
 Here is an aspect of the Elysium found b} T Telema- 
 chus. How could any thing be more delectably 
 conceived and described ? The translator, Dr. 
 Hawkesworth, is animated to an English style that 
 befits the sweetness of his original. The " Telema- 
 chus:" 
 
 In this place resided all the good kings who had wisely 
 governed mankind from the beginning of time. They were 
 separated from the rest of the just; for, as wicked princes 
 suffer more dreadful punishment than other offenders in 
 Tartarus, so good kings enjoy infinitely greater felicity than 
 other lovers of virtue, in the fields of Elysium. 
 
 Telemachus advanced towards these kings, whom he found 
 in groves of delightful fragrance, reclining upon the downy 
 turf, where the flowers and herbage were perpetually re- 
 newed. A thousand rills wandered through these scenes of 
 delight, and refreshed the soil with a gentle and unpolluted 
 wave; the song of innumerable birds echoed in the groves. 
 Spring strewed the ground with her flowers, while at the 
 same time autumn loaded the trees with her fruit. In this 
 place the burning heat of the dog-star was never felt, and 
 the stormy north was forbidden to scatter over it the frosts 
 of winter. Neither War that thirsts for blood, nor Envy that 
 bites with an envenomed tooth, like the vipers that are 
 wreathed around her arms, and fostered in her bosom, nor 
 Jealousy, nor Distrust, nor Fears, nor vain Desires, invade 
 these sacred domains of peace. The day is here without 
 end, and the shades of night are unknown. Here the bodies 
 of the blessed are clothed with a pure and lambent light, as
 
 Ftnelon. 223 
 
 with a garment. This light does not resemble that vouch- 
 safed to mortals upon earth, which is rather darkness visible; 
 it is rather a celestial glory than a light an emanation 
 that penetrates the grossest body with more subtilety than 
 the rays of the sun penetrate the purest crystal, which rather 
 strengthens than dazzles the sight, and diffuses through the 
 soul a serenity which no language can express. By this 
 ethereal essence the blessed are sustained in everlasting life; 
 it pervades them; it is incorporated with them, as food with 
 the mortal body; they see it, they feel it, they breathe it, 
 and it produces in them an inexhaustible source of serenity 
 and joy. It is a fountain of delight, in which they are 
 absorbed as fishes are absorbed in the sea; they wish for 
 nothing, and, having nothing, they possess all things. This 
 celestial light satiates the hunger of the soul ; every desire 
 is precluded; and they have a fulness of joy which sets 
 them above all. that mortals seek with such restless ardor, 
 to fill the vacuity that aches forever in their breast. All 
 the delightful objects that surround them are disregarded ; 
 for their felicity springs up within, and, being perfect, can 
 derive nothing from without. So the gods, satiated with 
 nectar and ambrosia, disdain, as gross and impure, all the 
 dainties of the most luxurious table upon earth. From 
 these seats of tranquillity all evils fly far away; death, 
 disease, poverty, pain, regret, remorse, fear, even hope, 
 which is sometimes not less painful than fear itself, ani- 
 mosity, disgust, and resentment can never enter there. 
 
 The leaden good sense of Louis XIV. pronounced 
 Fe"nelon the "most chimerical" man in France. 
 The Founder of the kingdom of heaven would have 
 been a dreamer, to this most worldly-minded of 
 4i Most Christian " monarchs. Bossuet, who, about 
 to die, read something of Fe'nelon's " Telemachus," 
 said it was a book hardly serious enough for a
 
 224 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 clergyman to write. A more serious book, whether 
 its purpose be regarded, or its undoubted actual 
 influence in moulding the character of a prospective 
 ruler of France, was not written by any clergyman 
 of Fe"nelon's or Bossuet's time. 
 
 Fe"nelon was an eloquent preacher as well as an 
 elegant writer. His influence exerted in both the 
 two functions, that of the writer and that of the 
 preacher, was powerfully felt in favor of the free- 
 dom of nature in style as against the conventionality 
 of culture and art. He insensibly helped on that 
 reform from a too rigid classicism which in our day 
 we have seen pushed to its extreme in the exaggera- 
 tions of romanticism. Few wiser words have ever 
 been spoken on the subject of oratory, than are to 
 be found in his " Dialogues on Eloquence." 
 
 French literature, unfortunately, is on the whole 
 such in character as to need all that it can show, to 
 be cast into the scale of moral elevation and purity. 
 Fnelon alone is, in quantity as in quality, enough, 
 not indeed to overcome, but to go far toward over- 
 coming, the perverse inclination of the balance.
 
 Montesquieu. 225 
 
 XIV. 
 
 MONTESQUIEU. 
 1689-1755. 
 
 To Montesquieu belongs the glory of being the 
 founder, or inventor, of the philosophy of history. 
 Bossuet might dispute this palm with him ; but Bos- 
 suet, in his " Discourse on Universal History," only 
 exemplified the principle which it was left to Mon- 
 tesquieu afterward more consciously to develop. 
 
 Three books, still living, are associated with the 
 name of Montesquieu, "The Persian Letters," 
 " The Greatness and the Decline of the Romans," 
 and "The Spirit of Laws." "The Persian Let- 
 ters " are a series of epistles purporting to be written 
 by a Persian sojourning in Paris and observing the 
 manners and morals of the people around him. The 
 idea is ingenious ; though the ingenuhy, we suppose, 
 was not original with Montesquieu. Such letters 
 afford the writer of them an admirable advantage 
 for telling satire on contemporary follies. This 
 production of Montesquieu became the suggestive 
 example to Goldsmith for his " Citizen of the 
 World ; or, Letters of a Chinese Philosopher." AVc 
 shall have here no room for illustrative citations 
 from Montesquieu's "Persian Letters."
 
 226 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 The second work, that on the "Greatness and 
 the Decline of the Romans," is less a history than 
 a series of essays on the history of Rome. It is 
 brilliant, striking, suggestive. It aims to be philo- 
 sophical rather than historical. It deals in bold 
 generalizations. The spirit of it is, perhaps, too 
 constantly and too profoundly hostile to the Ro- 
 mans. Something of the ancient Gallic enmity 
 as if a derivation from that last and noblest of the 
 Gauls, Vercingetorix seems to animate the French- 
 man in discussing the character and the cai'eer of 
 the great conquering nation of autiquit}'. The crit- 
 ical element is the clement chiefly wanting to make 
 Montesquieu's work equal to the demands of mod- 
 ern historical scholarship. Montesquieu was, how- 
 ever, a full worth}' forerunner of the philosophical 
 historians of to-day. We give a single extract in 
 illustration, an extract condensed from the chap- 
 ter in which the author analyzes and expounds the 
 foreign policy of the Romans. The generalizations 
 are bold and brilliant, too bold, probably, for strict 
 critical truth. (We use, for our extract, the recent 
 iranslation by Mr. Jehu Baker, who enriches his 
 /olume with original notes of no little interest and 
 value.) Montesquieu : 
 
 This body [the Roman Senate] erected itself into a tri- 
 bunal for the judgment of all peoples, and at the end^ of 
 every war it decided upon the punishments and the recom- 
 penses which it conceived each to be entitled to. It took 
 away parts of the lands of the conquered states, in order to
 
 Montesquieu. 227 
 
 bestow them upon the allies of Rome, thus accomplishing 
 two objects at once, attaching to Rome those kings of 
 whom she had little to fear and much to hope, and weaken- 
 ing those of whom she had little to hope and all to fear. 
 
 Allies were employed to make war upon an enemy, but 
 the destroyers were at^pnce destroyed in their turn. Philip 
 was beaten with the half of the ^Etolians, who were im- 
 mediately afterwards annihilated for having joined them- 
 selves to Antiochus. Antiochus was beaten with the help 
 of the Rhodians, who, after having received signal rewards, 
 were humiliated forever, under the pretext that they had 
 requested that peace might be made with Perseus. 
 
 When they had many enemies on hand at the same time, 
 they accorded a truce to the weakest, which considered itself 
 happy in obtaining such a respite, counting it for much to 
 be able to secure a postponement of its ruin. 
 
 When they were engaged in a great war, the senate af- 
 fected to ignore all sorts of injuries, and silently awaited 
 the arrival of the proper time for. punishment; w r hen, if it 
 saw that only some individuals were culpable, it refused to 
 punish them, choosing rather to hold the entire nation as 
 criminal, and thus reserve to itself a useful vengeance. 
 
 As they inflicted inconceivable evils upon their enemies, 
 there were not many leagues formed against them ; for those 
 who were most distant from danger were not willing to draw 
 nearer to it. The consequence of this was, that they were 
 rarely attacked; whilst, on the other hand, they constantly 
 made war at such time, in such manner, and against such 
 peoples, as suited their convenience; and, among the many 
 nations which they assailed, there were very few that would 
 not have submitted to every species of injury at their hands 
 if they had been willing to leave them in peace. 
 
 It being their custom to speak always as masters, the am- 
 bassadors whom they sent to nations which had not yet felt 
 their power were certain to be insulted; and this was an 
 infallible pretext for a new war.
 
 228 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 As they never made peace in good faith, and as, with the 
 design of universal conquest, their treaties were, properly 
 speaking, only suspensions of war, they always put condi- 
 tions in them which began the ruin of the states which 
 accepted them. They either provided that the garrisons of 
 strong places should be withdrawn, d> that the number of 
 troops should be limited, or that the horses or the elephants 
 of the vanquished party should be delivered over to them- 
 selves ; and if the defeated people was powerful on sea, they 
 compelled it to burn its vessels, and sometimes to remove, 
 and occupy a place of habitation farther inland. 
 
 After having, destroyed the armies of a prince, they ruined 
 his finances by excessive taxes, or by the imposition of a 
 tribute under pretext of requiring him to pay the expenses 
 of the war, a new species of tyranny, which forced the van- 
 quished sovereign to oppress his own subjects, and thus to 
 alienate their affection. 
 
 When they granted peace to a king, they took some of his 
 brothers or children as hostages. This gave them the means 
 of troubling his kingdom at their pleasure. If they held the 
 nearest heir, they intimidated the possessor; if only a prince 
 of a remote degree, they used him to stir up revolts against 
 the legitimate ruler. 
 
 Whenever any people or prince withdrew their obedience 
 from their sovereign, they immediately accorded to them the 
 title of allies of the Roman people, and thus rendered them 
 sacred and inviolable; so that there was no king, however 
 great he might be, who could for a moment be sure of his 
 subjects, or even of his family. 
 
 Although the title of Roman ally was a species of servi- 
 tude, it was, nevertheless, very much sought after; for the 
 possession of this title made it certain that the recipients of 
 it would receive injuries from the Romans only, and there 
 was ground for the hope that this class of injuries would be 
 rendered less grievous than they would otherwise be. 
 
 Thus, there was no service which nations and kings were
 
 Montesquieu. 229 
 
 not ready to perform, nor any humiliation which they did 
 not submit to, in order to obtain this distinction. . . . 
 
 These customs were not merely some particular facts 
 which happened at hazard. They were permanently estab- 
 lished principles, as may be readily seen; for the maxims 
 which the Romans acted upon against the greatest powers 
 were precisely those which they had employed in the begin- 
 ning of their career against the small cities which sur- 
 rounded them. . . . 
 
 But nothing served Rome more effectually than the re- 
 spect which she inspired among all nations. She immedi- 
 ately reduced kings to silence, and rendered them as dumb. 
 With the latter, it was not a mere question of the degree of 
 their power: their very persons were attacked. To risk a 
 war with Rome was to expose themselves to captivity, to 
 death, and to the infamy of a triumph. Thus it was that 
 kings, who lived in pomp and luxury, did not dare to look 
 with steady eyes upon the Roman people, and, losing cour- 
 age, they hoped, by their patience and their obsequiousness, 
 to obtain some postponement of the calamities with which 
 they were menaced. 
 
 The " Spirit of Laws " is probably to be consid- 
 ered the masterpiece of Montesquieu. It is our 
 duty, however, to say, that this work is quite differ- 
 ently estimated by different authorities. By some, 
 it is praised in terms of the highest admiration, as a 
 great achievement in wide and wise political or ju- 
 ridical philosophy. By others, it is dismissed very 
 lightly, as the ambitious, or, rather, pretentious, 
 effort of a superficial man, a showy mere sciolist. 
 It acquired great contemporary fame, both at home 
 and abroad. It was promptly translated into 
 English, the translator earning the merited compli-
 
 230 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 ment of the author's own hearty approval of his 
 work. Horace Walpole, who was something of a 
 Gallomaniac, makes repeated allusion to Montes- 
 quieu's "Spirit of Laws," in letters of his written 
 at about the time of the appearance of the book. 
 But Walpole's admiring allusions themselves contain 
 evidence that admiration equal to his own of the 
 work that he praised, was by no means universal in 
 England. 
 
 The general aspect of the book is that of a com- 
 position meant to be luminously analyzed and ar- 
 ranged. Divisions and titles abound. There are 
 thirty-one "books" ; and each book contains, on the 
 average, perhaps about the same number of chapters. 
 The library edition, in English, consists of two vol- 
 umes, comprising together some eight hundred open 
 pages, in good-sized type. The books and chapters 
 are therefore not formidably long. The look of the 
 work is as if it were readable ; and its character, on 
 the whole, corresponds. It would hardly be French, 
 if such were not the case. Except that Montes- 
 quieu's " Spirit of Laws " is, as we have indicated, 
 a highly organized, even an over-organized, book, 
 which, by emphasis, Montaigne's " Essays " is not, 
 these two works may be said, in their contents, 
 somewhat to resemble each other. Montesquieu is 
 nearly as discursive as Montaigne. He wishes to 
 be philosophical, but he is not above supplying his 
 reader with interesting historical instances. 
 
 We shall not do better, in giving our readers a
 
 Montesquieu. 281 
 
 comprehensive idea of Montesquieu's " Spirit of 
 Laws," than to begin by showing them the titles 
 of a number of the books : 
 
 Book I. Of Laws in General. Book II. Of Laws Directly 
 Derived from the Nature of Government. Book III. Of the 
 Principles of the Three Kinds of Government. Book IV. 
 That the Laws of Education ought to be Relative to the 
 Principles of Government. Book V. That the Laws given 
 by the Legislator ought to be Relative to the Principle of 
 Government. Book VI. Consequences of the Principles 
 of Different Governments with Respect to the Simplicity of 
 Civil and Criminal Laws, the Form of Judgments, and the 
 Inflicting of Punishments. Book VII. Consequences of the 
 Different Principles of the Three Governments with Respect 
 to Sumptuary Laws, Luxury, and the Condition of Women. 
 Book VIII. Of the Corruption of the Principles of the Three 
 Governments. Book XIV. Of Laws as Relative to the 
 Nature of the Climate. 
 
 The philosophical aim and ambition of the author 
 at once appear in the inquiry which he institutes for 
 the three several animating principles of the three 
 several forms of government respectively distin- 
 guished by him ; namely, democracy (or republican- 
 ism), monarchy, and despotism. What these three 
 principles are, will be seen from the following state- 
 ment : "As virtue is necessary in a republic, and 
 in monarchy, honor, so fear is necessary in a despotic 
 government." The meaning is, that in republics, 
 virtue possessed by the citizens is the spring of 
 national prosperity ; that under a monarchy, the 
 desire of preferment at the hands of the sovereign
 
 232 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 is what quickens men to perform services to the 
 state ; that despotism thrives by fear inspired in 
 the breasts of those subject to its sway. 
 
 To illustrate the freely discursive character of the 
 work, we give the whole of chapter sixteen there 
 are chapters still shorter in Book VII. : 
 
 AN EXCELLENT CUSTOM OF THE SAMNITES. 
 
 The Samnites had a custom which in so small a republic, 
 and especially in their situation, must have been productive 
 of admirable effects. The young people were all convened 
 in one place, and their conduct was examined. He that 
 was declared the best of the whole assembly, had leave given 
 him to take which girl he pleased for his wife; the second 
 best chose after him, and so on. Admirable institution! 
 The only recommendation that young men could have on 
 this occasion, was their virtue, and the service done their 
 country. He who had the greatest share of these endow- 
 ments, chose which girl he liked out of the whole nation. 
 Love, beauty, chastity, virtue, birth, and even wealth itself, 
 were all, in some measure, the dowry of virtue. A nobler 
 and grander recompense, less chargeable to a petty state, 
 and more capable of influencing both sexes, could scarce be 
 imagined. 
 
 The Samnites were descended from the Lacedsemonians; 
 and Plato, whose institutes are only an improvement of 
 those of Lycurgus, enacted nearly the same law. 
 
 The relation of the foregoing chapter to the sub- 
 ject indicated in the title of the book, is sufficiently 
 obscure and remote, for a work like this purporting 
 to be philosophical. What relation exists, seems to 
 be found in the fact that the Samnite custom
 
 Montesquieu. 233 
 
 described tends to produce that popular virtue by 
 which republics flourish. But the information, at 
 all events, is curious and interesting. 
 
 The following paragraphs, taken from the second 
 chapter of Book XIV. , contain in germ nearly the 
 whole of the philosophy underlying M. Taine's 
 essays on the history of literature : 
 
 OF THE DIFFERENCE OF MEN IN DIFFERENT CLIMATES. 
 
 A cold air constringes the extremities of the external 
 fibres of the body; tbis increases their elasticity, and favors 
 the return of the blood from the extreme parts to the heart. 
 It contracts those very fibres; consequently it increases also 
 their force. On the contrary, a warm air relaxes and 
 lengthens the extremes of the fibres; of course it diminishes 
 their force and elasticity. 
 
 People are therefore more vigorous in cold climates. Here 
 the action of the heart and the reaction of the extremities 
 of the fibres are better performed, the temperature of the 
 humors is greater, the blood moves freer towards the heart, 
 and reciprocally the heart has more power. This superiority 
 of strength must produce various effects; for instance, a 
 greater boldness, that is, more courage ; a greater sense of 
 superiority, that is, less desire of revenge; a greater opinion 
 of security, that is, more frankness, less suspicion, policy 
 and cunning. In short, this must be productive of very 
 different tempers. Put a man into a close, warm place, and, 
 for the reasons above given, he will feel a great faintness. 
 If under this circumstance you propose a bold enterprise to 
 him, I believe you will find him very little disposed towards 
 it; his present weakness will throw him into a despondency; 
 he will be afraid of every thing, being in a state of total in- 
 capacity. The inhabitants of warm countries are, like old 
 men, timorous; the people in cold countries are, like young 
 men, brave. 
 16
 
 234 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 In the following extract, from chapter five, Book 
 XXIV., the climatic theory is again applied, this 
 time to the matter of religion, in a style that makes 
 one think of Buckle's " History of Civilization : " 
 
 When the Christian religion, two centuries ago, became 
 unhappily divided into Catholic and Protestant, the people 
 of the north embraced the Protestant, and those south ad- 
 hered still to the Catholic. 
 
 The reason is plain : the people of the north have, and 
 will forever have, a spirit of liberty and independence, which 
 the people of the south have not; and therefore, a religion 
 which has no visible head, is more agreeable to the inde- 
 pendency of the climate, than that which has one. 
 
 Climate is a "great matter" with Montesquieu. 
 In treating of the subject of a state changing its 
 religion, he says : 
 
 The ancient religion is connected with the constitution of 
 the kingdom, and the new one is not; the former agrees 
 with the climate, and very often the new one is opposite 
 to it. 
 
 For the Christian religion, Montesquieu professes 
 profound respect, rather as a pagan political phi- 
 losopher might do, than as one intimately acquainted 
 with it by a personal experience of his own. His 
 spirit, however, is humane and liberal. It is the 
 spirit of Montaigne, it is the spirit of Voltaire, 
 speaking in the idiom of this different man, and of 
 this different man as influenced by his different cir- 
 cumstances. Montesquieu had had practical proof
 
 Montesquieu. 235 
 
 of the importance to himself of not offending the 
 dominant hierarchy. 
 
 The latter part of "The Spirit of Laws " contains 
 discussions exhibiting no little research on the part 
 of the author. There is, for one example, a discus- 
 sion of the course of commerce in different ages of 
 the world, and of the influences that have wrought 
 from time to time to bring about the changes occur- 
 ring. For another example, there is a discussion 
 of the feudal system. 
 
 Montesquieu was an admirer of the English con- 
 stitution. His work, perhaps, contains no extended 
 chapters more likely to instruct the general reader 
 and to furnish a good idea of the writer's genius and 
 method, than the two chapters chapter six, Book 
 XI., and chapter twenty-seven, Book XIX. in 
 \\hich the English nation and the English form of 
 government are sympathetically described. We sim- 
 ply indicate, for we have no room to exhibit, these 
 chapters. Voltaire, too, expressed Montesquieu's 
 admiration of English liberty and English law. 
 
 On the whole, concerning Montesquieu it may 
 justly be said, that of all political philosophers, he, 
 if not the profouudest, is at least one <of the most 
 interesting ; if not the most accurate and critical, at 
 least one of the most brilliant and suggestive. 
 
 As to, Montesquieu the man, it is perhaps suffi- 
 cient to say that he seems to have been a very good 
 type of the French gentleman of quality. An in- 
 teresting story told by Sainte-Beuve reveals, if true,
 
 236 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 a side at once attractive and repellent of his per- 
 sonal character. Montesquieu at Marseilles em- 
 ployed a young boatman, whose manner and speech 
 indicated more cultivation than was to have been 
 looked for in one plying his vocation. The phi- 
 losopher learned his history. The youth's father 
 was at the time a captive in one of the Barbary 
 States, and this son of his was now working to earn 
 money for his ransom. The stranger listened ap- 
 parently unmoved, and went his wa}*. Some months 
 later, home came the father, released he knew not 
 how, to his surprised and overjoyed family. The 
 son guessed the secret, and, meeting Montesquieu 
 a year or so after in Marseilles, threw himself in 
 grateful tears at his feet, begged the generous bene- 
 factor to reveal his name and to come and see the 
 family he had blessed. Montesquieu, calmly ex- 
 pressing himself ignorant of the whole business, 
 actually shook the young fellow off, and turned 
 awa}' without betraying the least emotion. It was 
 not till after the cold-blooded philanthropist's death 
 that the fact came out. 
 
 A tranquil, happy temperament was Montes- 
 quieu's. He would seem to have come as near as 
 any one ever did to being the natural master of his 
 part in life. But the world was too much for him, 
 as it is for all at last. Witness the contrast of 
 these two different sets of expressions from his pen. 
 In earlier manhood he says :
 
 Montesquieu. 237 
 
 Study has been for me the sovereign remedy for all the 
 dissatisfactions of life, having never had a sense of chagrin 
 that an hour's reading would not dissipate. I wake in the 
 morning with a secret joy to behold the light. I behold 
 the light with a kind of ravishment, and all the rest of the 
 day I am happy. 
 
 Within a few years of his death, the brave, cheer- 
 ful tone had declined to this : 
 
 I am broken down with fatigue; I must repose for the 
 rest of my life. 
 
 Then further to this : 
 
 I have expected to kill myself for the last three months, 
 finishing an addition to my work on the origin and changes 
 of the French civil law. It will take only three hours to 
 read it; but, I assure you, it has been such a labor to me, 
 that my hair has turned white under it all. 
 
 Finally it touches nadir : 
 
 It [his work] has almost cost me my life; I must rest; I 
 can work no more. 
 
 My candles are all burned out ; I have set off all my car- 
 tridges. 
 
 When Montesquieu died, only Diderot, among 
 Parisian men of letters, followed him to his tomb.
 
 238 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 XV. 
 
 VOLTAIRE. 
 1694-1778. 
 
 BY the volume and the variety, joined to the un- 
 failing brilliancy, of his production ; by his prodigious 
 effectiveness ; and by his universal fame, Voltaire 
 is undoubtedly entitled to rank first, with no fellow, 
 among the eighteenth-century literary men, not 
 merely of France, but of the world. He was not a 
 great man, he produced no single great work, 
 but he must nevertheless be pronounced a great 
 writer. There is hardly any species of composition 
 to which, in the long course of his activity, he did 
 not turn his talent. It cannot be said that he suc- 
 ceeded splendidly in all ; but in some he succeeded 
 splendidly, and he failed abjectly in none. There 
 is not a great thought, and there is not a flat expres- 
 sion, in the whole bulk of his multitudinous and 
 multifarious works. Read him wherever you will, 
 in the ninety-seven volumes (equivalent, probably, 
 in the aggregate, to three hundred volumes like the 
 present) which, in one leading edition, collect his pro- 
 ductions, you may often find him superficial, you 1 
 may often find him untrustworthy, you will certainly 
 often find him flippant, but not less certainly you.
 
 Voltaire. 239 
 
 v n never find him obscure, and you will never find 
 him dull. The clearness, the vivacity, of this man's 
 mind were something almost preternatural. So, too, 
 were his readiness, his versatility, his audacity. He 
 had no distrust of himself, no awe of his fellow- 
 men, no reverence for God, to deter him from any 
 attempt with his pen, however presuming. If a 
 state ode were required, it should be ready to order 
 at twelve to-morrow ; if an epic'poern to be classed 
 with the "Iliad" and the '^Eueid " the " Henri- 
 ad e " was promptly forthcoming, to answer the de- 
 mand. He did not shrink from flouting a national 
 idol, b.y freely finding fault with Corneille ; and he 
 lightly undertook to extinguish a venerable form of 
 Christianity, simply with pricks, innumerably re- 
 peated, of his tormenting pen. 
 
 A very large part of the volume of Voltaire's 
 production consists of letters, written by him to cor- 
 respondents perhaps more numerous, and more vari- 
 ous in rank, from kings on the throne down to 
 scribblers in the garret, than ever, in any other case, 
 exchanged such communications with a literary man. 
 Another considerable proportion of his work in lit- 
 erature took the form of pamphlets, either anony- 
 mously or pseudonymously published, in which this 
 master-spirit of intellectual disturbance and ferment 
 found it convenient, or advantageous, or safe, to 
 promulge and propagate his ideas. A shower of 
 such publications was incessantly escaping from Vol- 
 taire's pen. More formal and regular, more con-
 
 240 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 fessedly ambitious, literary essays of his, were poems 
 in every kind, heroic, mock-heroic, lyric, elegiac, 
 comic, tragic, satiric, historical and biographical 
 monographs, and tales or novels of a peculiar class. 
 Voltaire's poetry does not count for very much 
 now. Still, its first success was so great that it will 
 always remain an important topic in literary history. 
 Besides this, it really is, in some of its kinds, 
 remarkable work. Voltaire's epic verse is almost 
 an exception, needful to be made, from our assertion 
 that this author is nowhere dull. k ' The Henriade" 
 comes dangerously near that mark. It is a tasteless 
 reproduction of Lucan's faults, with little repro- 
 duction of Lucan's virtues. Voltaire's comedies 
 are bright and witty, but they are not laughter-pro- 
 voking ; and they do not possess the elemental and 
 creative character of Shakspeare's or Molidre's 
 work. His tragedies are better ; but they do not 
 avoid that cast of mechanical which seems neces- 
 sarily to belong to poetry produced by talent, 
 however consummate, unaccompanied with genius. 
 Voltaire's histories are luminous and readable nar- 
 ratives, but they cannot claim either the merit of 
 critical accuracy or of philosophic breadth and 
 insight. His letters would have to be read in con- 
 siderable volume in order to furnish a full satis- 
 factory idea of the author. His tales, finally, afford 
 the most available, and, on the whole, likewise, the 
 best, means of coming shortly and easily at a knowl- 
 edge of Voltaire.
 
 Voltaire. 241 
 
 Among Voltaire's tales, doubtless the one most 
 eligible for use, to serve our present purpose, is his 
 ' Candide." This is a nondescript piece of fiction, 
 the design of which is, by means of a narrative of 
 travel and adventure, constructed without much 
 regard to the probability of particular incidents, to- 
 set forth, in the characteristic mocking vein of Vol- 
 taire, the vanity and misery of mankind. The 
 author's invention is often whimsical enough ; but it 
 is constantly so read}-, so reckless, and so abundant, 
 that the reader never tires, as he is hurried ceaselessly 
 forward from change to change of scene and cir- 
 cumstance. The play of wit is incessant. The 
 style is limpidity itself. Your sympathies are never 
 painfully engaged, even in recitals of experience 
 that ought to be the most heart-rending. There is 
 never a touch of noble moral sentiment, to relieve 
 the monotony of mockery that lightly laughs at you, 
 and tantalizes you, page after page, fiom the begin- 
 ning to the end of the book. The banter is not 
 good-natured ; though, on the other hand, it cannot 
 justly be pronounced ill-natured ; and it is, in final 
 effect upon the reader's mind, bewildering and de- 
 pressing in the extreme. Vanity of vanities, all is 
 vanity, such is the comfortless doctrine of the 
 book. The apples are the apples of Sodom, every- 
 where in the world. There is no virtue anywhere, 
 no good, no happiness. Life is a cheat, the love of 
 life is a cruelty, and beyond life there is nothing. 
 At least, there is no glimpse given of any compen-
 
 242 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 mating future reserved for men, a future to redress 
 the balance of good and ill experienced here and 
 now. Faith and hope, those two eyes of the soul, 
 are smilingly quenched in their sockets ; and you 
 are left blind, in a whirling world of darkness, with 
 a whirling world of darkness before you. 
 
 Such is " Candide." We select a single passage 
 for specimen. The passage we select is more nearly 
 free than almost any other passage as long, in this 
 extraordinary romance, would probably be found, 
 from impure implications. It is, besides, more 
 nearly serious in apparent motive, than is the gen- 
 eral tenor of the production. Here, however, as 
 elsewhere, the writer keeps carefully down his 
 mockiug-mask. At least, you are left tantalizingly 
 uncertain all the time how much the grin you face 
 is the grin of the man, and how much the grin of a 
 visor that he wears. 
 
 Candide, bfee hero, is a young fellow of ingenuous 
 character, brought successively under the lead of 
 several different persons wise in the ways of the 
 world, who act toward him, each in his turn, the 
 part of "guide, philosopher, and friend." Cau- 
 dide, with such a mentor bearing the name Martin, 
 has now arrived at Venice. Candide speaks : 
 
 " I have heard great talk of the Senator Pococurante", who 
 lives in that fine house at the Brenta, where they say he 
 entertains foreigners in the most polite manner. They pre- 
 tend this man is a perfect stranger to uneasiness." "I 
 should be glad to see so extraordinary a being," said Martin.
 
 Voltaire. 243 
 
 Candide thereupon sent a messenger to Signor Pococurante", 
 desiring permission to wait on him the next day. 
 
 Candide and his friend Martin went into a gondola on the 
 Brenta, and arrived at the palace of the noble Pococurante" : 
 the gardens were laid out in elegant taste, and adorned with 
 fine marble statues; his palace was built after the most 
 approved rules of architecture. The master of the house, 
 who was a man of sixty, and very rich, received our two 
 travellers with great politeness, but without much ceremony, 
 which somewhat disconcerted Candide, but was not at all 
 displeasing to Martin. 
 
 As soon as they were seated, two very pretty girls, neatly 
 dressed, brought in chocolate, which was extremely well 
 frothed. Candide could not help making encomiums upon 
 their beauty and graceful carriage. " The creatures are 
 well enough," said the senator. " I make them my com- 
 panions, for I am heartily tired of the ladies of the town, 
 their coquetry, their jealousy, their quarrels, their humors, 
 their meannesses, their pride, and their folly. I am weary 
 of making sonnets, or of paying for sonnets to be made, on 
 them; but, after all, these two girls begin to grow very 
 indifferent to me." 
 
 After having refreshed himself, Candide walked into a 
 large gallery, where he was struck with the sight of a fine 
 collection of paintings. "Pray," said Candide, "by what 
 master are the two first of these ? " " They are Raphael's," 
 answered the senator. " I gave a great deal of money for 
 them seven years ago, purely out of curiosity, as they were 
 said to be the finest pieces in Italy : but I cannot say they 
 please me ; the coloring is dark and heavy ; the figures do not 
 swell nor come out enough; and the drapery is very bad. 
 In short, notwithstanding the encomiums lavished upon 
 them, they are not, in my opinion, a true representation of 
 nature. I approve of no paintings but where I think I be- 
 hold Nature herself; and there are very few, if any, of that 
 kiad to be met with. I have what is called a fine collection, 
 but I take no manner of delight in them."
 
 244 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 While dinner was getting ready, Pococurante ordered a 
 concert. Candide praised the music to the. skies. "This 
 noise," said the noble Venetian, " may amuse one for a 
 little time; but if it was to last above half an hour, it would 
 grow tiresome to everybody, though perhaps no one would 
 care to own it. Music is become the art of executing what 
 is difficult; now, whatever is difficult cannot be long 
 pleasing. 
 
 "I believe I might take more pleasure in an opera, if 
 they had not made such a monster of that species of dra- 
 matic entertainment as perfectly shocks me; and I am 
 amazed how people can bear to see wretched tragedies set 
 to music, where the scenes are contrived for no other pur- 
 pose than to lug in, as it were by the ears, three or four 
 ridiculous songs, to give a favorite actress an opportunity of 
 exhibiting her pipe. Let who will or can die away in rap- 
 tures at the trills of a eunuch quavering the majestic part 
 of Caesar or Cato, and strutting in a foolish manner upon 
 the stage. For my part, I have long ago renounced these 
 paltry entertainments, which constitute the glory of modern 
 Italy, and are so dearly purchased by crowned heads." 
 Candide opposed these sentiments, but he did it in a dis- 
 creet manner. As for Martin, he was entirely of the old 
 senator's opinion. 
 
 Dinner being served up, they sat down to table, and after a 
 very hearty repast, returned to the library. Candide, observ- 
 ing Homer richly bound, commended the noble Venetian's 
 taste. " This," said he," is a book that was once the delight 
 of the great Pangloss, the best philosopher in Germany." 
 " Homer is no favorite of mine," answered Pococurante" 
 very coolly. "I was made to believe once that I took a 
 pleasure in reading him; but his continual repetitions of 
 battles must have all such a resemblance with each other; 
 his gods that are forever in a hurry and bustle, without ever 
 doing any thing; his Helen, that is the cause of the war, 
 and yet hardly acts in the whole performance; his Troy,
 
 Voltaire. 245 
 
 that holds out so long without being taken; in short, all 
 these things together make the poem very insipid to me. I 
 have asked some learned men whether they are not in reality 
 as much tired as myself with reading this poet. Those who 
 spoke ingenuously assured me that he had made them fall 
 asleep, and yet that they could not well avoid giving him a 
 place in their libraries; but that it was merely as they would 
 do an antique, or those rusty medals which are kept only 
 for curiosity, and are of no manner of use in commerce." 
 
 " But your excellency does not surely form the same 
 opinion of Virgil?" said Candide. "Why, I grant," re- 
 plied Pococurante, " that the second, third, fourth, and sixth 
 books of his ' ^Eneid ' are excellent ; but as for his pious 
 JEneas, his strong Cloanthus, his friendly Achates, his boy 
 Ascanius, his silly King Latinus, his ill-bred Amata, his 
 insipid Lavinia, and some other characters much in the 
 same strain, I think there cannot in nature be any thing 
 more flat and disagreeable. I must confess I prefer Tasso 
 far beyond him; nay, even that sleepy tale-teller Ariosto." 
 
 " May I take the liberty to ask if you do not receive great 
 pleasure from reading Horace?" said Candide. " There 
 are maxims in this writer," replied Pococurante", " from 
 whence a man of the world may reap some benefit ; and the 
 short measure of the verse makes them more easily to be 
 retained in the memory. But I see nothing extraordinary 
 in his journey to Brundusium, and his account of his bad 
 dinner; nor in his dirty, low quarrel between one Rupilius, 
 whose words, as he expresses it, were full of poisonous filth ; 
 and another, whose language was dipped in vinegar. His 
 indelicate verses against old women and witches have fre- 
 quently given me great offence; nor can I discover the great 
 merit of his telling his friend Maecenas, that, if he will but 
 rank him in the class of lyric poets, his lofty head shall 
 touch the stars. Ignorant readers are apt to advance every 
 thing by the lump in a writer of reputation. For my part, 
 I read only to please myself. I like nothing but what makes
 
 246 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 for ray purpose." Candide, who had been brought up with 
 a notion of never making use of his own judgment, was 
 astonished at what he heard ; but Martin found there was a 
 good deal of reason in the senator's remarks. 
 
 " Oh, here is a Tully !" said Candide; " this great man, I 
 fancy, you are never tired of reading." "Indeed, I never 
 read him at all," replied Pococurante. "What a deuce is 
 it to me whether he pleads for Rabirius or Cluentius ? I try 
 causes enough myself. 1 had once some liking to his philo- 
 sophical works; but when I found he doubted of every 
 thing, I thought I knew as' much as himself, and had no 
 need of a guide to learn ignorance." 
 
 " Ha! " cried Martin, " here are fourscore volumes of the 
 'Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences;' perhaps there may 
 be something curious and valuable in this collection." 
 " Yes," answered Pococurante ; " so there might, if any one 
 of these compilers of this rubbish had only invented the art 
 of pin-making. But all these volumes are filled with mere 
 chimerical systems, without one single article conducive to 
 real utility." 
 
 " I see a prodigious number of plays," said Candide, " in 
 Italian, Spanish, and French." "Yes," replied the Vene- 
 tian; "there are, I think, three thousand, and not three 
 dozen of them good for any thing. As to those huge vol- 
 umes of divinity, and those enormous collections of sermons, 
 they are not all together worth one single page of Seneca; 
 and I fancy you will readily believe that neither myself nor 
 any one else ever looks into them." 
 
 Martin, perceiving some shelves filled with English books, 
 said to the senator, " I fancy that a republican must be 
 highly delighted with those books, which are most of them 
 written with a noble spirit of freedom." "It is noble to 
 write as we think," said Pococurante"; "it is the privilege 
 of humanity. Throughout Italy we write only what we do 
 not think; and the present inhabitants of the country of 
 the Caesars and Antoninuses dare not acquire a single idea
 
 Voltaire. 247 
 
 without the permission of a father Dominican. I should 
 he enamoured of the spirit of the English nation did it not 
 utterly frustrate the good effects it would produce hy pas- 
 sion and the spirit of party." 
 
 Candide, seeing a Milton, asked the senator if he did not 
 think that author a great man. " Who ! " said Pococurante 
 sharply. "That barbarian, who writes a tedious commen- 
 tary, in ten books of rambling verse, on the first chapter of 
 Genesis! That slovenly imitator of the Greeks, who dis- 
 figures the creation by making the Messiah take a pair of 
 compasses from heaven's armory to plan the world; whereas 
 Moses represented the Deity as producing the whole uni- 
 verse by his fiat! Can I think you have any esteem fora 
 writer who has spoiled Tasso's hell and the devil; who 
 transforms Lucifer, sometimes into a toa;l, and at others 
 into a pygmy; who makes him say the same thing over again 
 a hundred times; who metamorphoses him into a school- 
 divine; and who, by an absurdly serious imitation of 
 Ariosto's comic invention of fire-arms, represents the devils 
 and angels cannonading each other in heaven ! Neither I, 
 nor any other Italian, can possibly take pleasure in such 
 melancholy reveries. But the marriage of Sin and Death, 
 and snakes issuing from the womb of the former, are enough 
 to make any person sick that is not lost to all sense of deli- 
 cacy. This obscene, whimsical, and disagreeable poem met 
 with the neglect that it deserved at its first publication; and 
 I only treat the author now as he was treated in his own 
 country by his contemporaries." 
 
 Candide was sensibly grieved at this speech, as he had a 
 great respect for Homer, and was very fond of Milton. 
 "Alas!" said he softly, to Martin, "I am afraid this man 
 holds our German poets in great contempt." "There 
 would be no such great harm in that," said Martin. " Oh, 
 what a surprising man! " said Candide to himself. " What 
 a prodigious genius is this Pococurante ! Nothing can please 
 him."
 
 248 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 After finishing their survey of the library they went down 
 into the garden, whenCaiidide commended the several beau- 
 ties that offered themselves to his view. "I know nothing 
 upon earth laid out in such bad taste," said Pococurante; 
 " every thing about it is childish and trifling; but I shall 
 have another laid out to-morrow upon a nobler plan." 
 
 As soon as our two travellers had taken leave of his excel- 
 lency, "Well," said Candide to Martin, "I hope you will 
 own that this man is the happiest of all mortals, for he is 
 above everything he possesses." "But do you not see," 
 answered Martin, " that he likewise dislikes every thing he 
 possesses ? It was an observation of Plato long since, that 
 those are not the best stomachs that reject, without distinc- 
 tion, all sorts of aliments." " True," said Candide; " but 
 still, there must certainly be a pleasure in criticising every 
 thing, and in perceiving faults where others think they see 
 beauties." " That is," replied Martin, " there is a pleasure 
 in having no pleasure." " Well, well," said Candide, "I 
 find that I shall be the only happy man at last, when I am 
 blessed with the sight of my dear Cunegund." " It is good 
 to hope," said Martin. 
 
 The single citation preceding sufficiently exempli- 
 fies, at their best, though at their worst, not, the style 
 and the spirit of Voltaire's "Candide;" as his 
 "Candide" sufficiently exemplifies the style and 
 the spirit of the most characteristic of Voltaire's 
 writings in general. " Pococurantism " is a word, 
 now not uncommon in English, contributed by Vol- 
 taire to the vocabulary of literature. To readers of 
 the foregoing extract, the sense of the term will not 
 need to be explained. We respectfully suggest to 
 our dictionary-makers, that the fact stated of its 
 origin in the "Candide" of Voltaire would be in-
 
 Voltaire. 249 
 
 terostlng and instructive to man}". Voltaire coined 
 the name, to suit the character of his Venetian gen- 
 tleman, from two Italian words which mean together 
 " little-caring." Signer Pococurante 1 is the immor- 
 tal type of men that have worn out their capacity 
 of fresh sensation and enjoyment. 
 
 It was a happy editorial thought of Mr. Henry 
 Morley, in his cheap library, now issuing, of standard 
 books for the people, to bind up Johnson's " Ras- 
 selas " in one volume with Voltaire's "Candide," 
 The two stories, nearly contemporaneous in their 
 production, off era stimulating contrast in treatment, 
 at the hands of two sharply contrasted writers, of 
 much the same subject, the unsatisfactoriness of 
 the world. 
 
 Mr. John Morley, a very different writer and a 
 very different man from his namesake just men- 
 tioned, has an elaborate monograph on Voltaire in 
 a volume perhaps twice as large as the present. 
 This work claims the attention of all students 
 desirous of exhaustive acquaintance with its sub- 
 ject. Mr. John Morley writes in sympathy with 
 Voltaire, so far as Voltaire was an enemy of the 
 Christian religion ; but in antipathy to him, so far 
 as Voltaire fell short of being an atheist. A simi- 
 lar sympathy, limited by a similar antipathy, is 
 observable in the same author's still more extended 
 monograph on Rousseau. It is only in his two 
 volumes on " Diderot and the Encyclopaedists," that 
 Mr. Morley find* himself able to write without 
 17
 
 250 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 reserve in full moral accord with the men whom he 
 describes. Of course, in all these books the biog- 
 rapher and critic feels, as Englishman, obliged to 
 concede much to his English audience, in the way 
 of condemning impurities in his authors. The con- 
 cession thus made is made with great adroitness of 
 manner, the writer's aim evidently being to imply 
 that his infidels and atheists, if they are somewhat 
 vicious in taste, had the countenance of good Chris- 
 tian example or parallel for all the lapses they show. 
 Mr. Morley wishes to be fair, but his atheist zeal 
 overcomes him. This is especially evident in his 
 work on " Diderot and the Encyclopaedists," where 
 his propagandist desire to clear the character of his 
 hero bribes him once and again to unconscious false 
 dealing. In his "Voltaire," and in his "Rous- 
 seau," Mr. Morley is so lofty in tone, expressing 
 himself against the moral obliquities of the men 
 with whom he is dealing, that often you feel the 
 ethic atmosphere of the books to be pure and bracing, 
 almost beyond the standard of biblical and Chris- 
 tian. But in his " Diderot and the Encyclopaedists," 
 such fine severity is conspicuously absent. Mr. 
 Morley is so deeply convinced that atheism is what 
 we all most need just now, that when he has not 
 halting mere infidels, like Voltaire and Rousseau 
 but good thorough-going atheists, like Diderot and 
 his fellows, to exhibit, he can hardly bring himself 
 to injure their exemplary influence with his readers, 
 by allowing to exist any damaging flaws in their 
 character.
 
 Voltaire, 251 
 
 Even in Voltaire and Rousseau, but particularly 
 in Voltaire, Mr. Morley, though his sympathy with 
 these writers is, as we have said, not complete, finds 
 far more to praise than to blame. To this eager 
 apostle of atheism, Voltaire was at least on the right 
 road, although he did, unfortunately, stop short of 
 the goal. His influence was potent against Chris- 
 tianity, and potent it certainly was not against 
 atheism. Voltaire might fre.ely be lauded as on 
 the whole a mighty and a beneficent liberalizer of 
 thought. 
 
 And we, we who are neither atheists nor deists 
 let us not deny to Voltaire his just meed of praise. 
 There were streaks of gold in the base alloy of that 
 character of his. He burned with magnanimous 
 heat against the hideous doctrine and practice of 
 ecclesiastical persecution. Carlyle says of Voltaire, 
 that he "spent his best efforts, and as many still 
 think, successfully, in assaulting the Christian re- 
 ligion." This, true though it be, is liable to be 
 falsely understood. It was not against the Chris- 
 tian religion, as the Christian religion really is, but 
 rather against the Christian religion as the Roman 
 hierarchy misrepresented it, that Voltaire ostensi- 
 bly directed his efforts. " You are right," wrote 
 he to his henchman D'Alembert, in 1762, u in assum- 
 ing that I speak of superstition only ; for as to the 
 Christian religion, I respect it and love it, as you 
 do." This distinction of Voltaire's, with whatever 
 degree of simple sincerity on his part made, ought
 
 252 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 to be remembered in his favor, when his memorable 
 motto, " Ecra.wz I'lnfdme," is interpreted and ap- 
 plied. He did not mean Jesus Christ by V Inf&me ; 
 he did not mean the Christian religion by it ; he did 
 not even mean the Christian Church by it ; he meant 
 the oppressive despotism and the crass obscurantism 
 of the Roman-Catholic hierarchy. At least, this is 
 what he would have said that he meant, what in 
 fact he substantially did say that he meant, when in- 
 cessantly reiterating, in its various forms, his watch- 
 word, "-Ecrasez Vlnffane," ^Ecrasons I'Infdme," 
 "Crush the wretch ! " " Let us crush the wretch ! " 
 His blows were aimed, perhaps, at " superstition ; " 
 but they really fell, in the full half of their effect, 
 on Christianity itself. Whether Voltaire regretted 
 this, whether he would in his heart have had. it 
 otherwise, may well, in spite of any protestation 
 from him of love for Christianity, be doubted. Still, 
 it is never, in judgment of Voltaire, to be forgotten 
 that the organized Christianity which he confronted, 
 was in large part a system justly hateful to the true 
 and wise lover whether of God or of man. That 
 sj'stem he did well in fighting. Carnal indeed were 
 the weapons with which he fought it ; and his victory 
 over it was a carnal victory, bringing, on the whole, 
 but slender net advantage, if any such advaetage 
 at all v to the cause of final truth and light. The 
 French Revolution, with its excesses and its hor- 
 rors, was perhaps the proper, the legitimate, the 
 necessary, fruit of resistance such as was Voltaire's.,
 
 Voltaire. 253 
 
 in fundamental spirit, to the evils in church and in 
 state against which he conducted so gallantly his 
 life-long campaign. 
 
 But though we thus bring in doubt the work of 
 Voltaire, both as to the purity of its motive, and as 
 to the value of its fruit, we should wrong our sense 
 of justice to ourselves if we permitted our readers 
 to suppose us blind to the generous things that this 
 arch-infidel did on behalf of the suffering and the 
 oppressed. Voltaire more than once wielded that 
 pen of his, the most dreaded weapon in Europe, like 
 a knight sworn to take on himself the championship 
 of the forlornest of causes. There is the historic 
 case of Jean Galas at Toulouse, Protestant, an old 
 man of near seventy, broken on the wheel, as sus- 
 pected, without evidence, and against accumulated 
 impossibilities, of murdering his own son, a young 
 man of about thirty, by hanging him. Voltaire 
 took up the case, and pleaded it to the common 
 sense, and to the human feeling, of France, with 
 immense effectiveness. It is, in truth, Voltaire's 
 advocacy of righteousness, in this instance of in- 
 credible wrong, that has made the instance itself 
 immortal. His part in the case of Galas, though 
 the most signal, is not the only, example of Vol- 
 taire's literary knighthood. He hated oppression, 
 and he loved liberty, for himself and for all men, 
 with a passion as deep and as constant as any pas- 
 sion of which nature had made Voltaire capable. If 
 the liberty that he loved was fundamentally liberty
 
 254 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 as against God no less than as against men, and if 
 the oppression that he hated was fundamentally the 
 oppression of being put under obligation to obey 
 Christ as lord of life and of thought, this was some- 
 thing of which, probably, Voltaire never had a 
 clear consciousness. 
 
 We have now indicated what was most admirable 
 in Voltaire's personal character. On the whole, he 
 was far from being an admirable man. He was 
 vain, he was shallow, he was frivolous, he was de- 
 ceitful, he was voluptuous, he fawned on the great, 
 he abased himself before them, he licked the dust 
 on which they stood. "Trajan, est-il content?" 
 (" Is Trajan satisfied? ") this, asked, in nauseous 
 adulntion, and nauseous self-abasement, by Vol- 
 taire of Louis XV., so little like Trajan in charac- 
 ter is monumental. The occasion was the produc- 
 tion of a piece of Voltaire's written at the instance 
 of Louis XV. 's mistress, the infamous Madame de 
 Pompadour. The king, for answer, simply gorgon- 
 ized the poet with a stony Bourbon stare. 
 
 But, taken altogether, Voltaire's life was a great 
 success. He got on in the world, was rich, was 
 fortunate, was famous, was gay, if he was not 
 happy. He had his friendship with the great 
 Frederick of Prussia, who filled for his false French 
 flatterer a return cup of sweetness, cunningly mixed 
 with exceeding bitterness. His death was an appro- 
 priate coup de thedtre, a felicity of finish to such a 
 life, quite beyond the reach of art. He came back
 
 Rousseau. 255 
 
 to Paris, whence he had been an exile, welcomed 
 with a triumph transcending the triumph of a con- 
 queror. They made a great feast for him, a feast 
 of flattery, in the theatre. The old man was drunk 
 with delight. The delight was too much for him. 
 It literally killed him. It was as if a favorite 
 actress should be quite smothered to death on the 
 stage, under flowers thrown in excessive profusion 
 at her feet. 
 
 Let Carlyle's sentence be our epigraph on Vol- 
 taire : 
 
 " No great Man. . . . Found always at the top, 
 less by power in swimming than by lightness in 
 floating." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ROUSSEAU. 
 1712-1778. 
 
 THERE are two Rousseaus in French literature. 
 At least, there was a first, until the second effaced 
 him, and became the only. 
 
 We speak, of course, in comparison, and hyper- 
 bolically. J. B. Rousseau is still named as a lyric 
 poet of the time of Louis XIV. But when Rous- 
 seau, without initials, is spoken of, it is always 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau that is meant.
 
 256 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau is perhaps the most 
 squalid, as it certainly is oue of the most splendid, 
 among French literary names. The squalor belongs 
 chiefly to the man, but the splendor is wholly the 
 writer's. There is hardly another example in the 
 AV oriel's literature of a union so striking of these 
 opposites. 
 
 Rousseau's life he has himself told, in the best, 
 the worst, and the most imperishable, of his books, 
 the " Confessions." This book is oue to which the 
 adjective charming attaches, in a peculiarly literal 
 sense of the word. The spell, however, is repellent 
 as well as attractive. But the attraction of the style 
 asserts and pronounces itself only the more, in 
 triumph over the much there is in the matter to dis- 
 gust and revolt. It is quite the most offensive, and 
 it is well-nigh the most fascinating, book that we 
 know. 
 
 The " Confessions " begin as follows : 
 
 I purpose an undertaking that never had an example, 
 and whose execution never will have an imitator. I would 
 exhibit to my fellows a man in all the truth of nature, and 
 that man myself. 
 
 Myself alone. I. know my own heart, and I am ac- 
 quainted with men. I am made unlike any one I have ever 
 seen, I dare believe unlike any living being. If no better 
 than, I am at least different from, others. Whether nature 
 did well or ill in breaking the mould wherein I was cast, can 
 be oetermined only after having read me. 
 
 Let the last trumpet sound when it will, I will come, with 
 this book in my hand, and present myself before the Sever-
 
 Rousseau. 257 
 
 eign Jutlga. I will boldly proclaim: Thus have I acted, 
 thus have I thought, such was I. With equal frankness 
 have I disclosed the goo.l and the evil. I have omitted 
 nothing bad, added nothing good ; and if I have happened 
 to make use of some unimportant ornament, it has, in every 
 case, been simply for the purpose of filling up a void oc- 
 casioned by my lack of memory. I may have taken for 
 granted as true what I knew to be possible, never what I 
 kneAv to be false. Such as I was, I have exhibited myself, 
 despicable and vile, when so; virtuous, generous, sublime, 
 when so. I have unveiled my interior being, such as Thou, 
 Eternal Existence, hast beheld it. Assemble around me the 
 numberless throng of my fellow-mortals ; let them listen to 
 my confessions, let them blush at my depravities, let them 
 shrink appalled at my miseries. Let each of them, in his 
 turn, with equal sincerity, lay bare his heart at the foot of 
 thy throne, and then let a single one tell thee, if he dare, 
 I was better than that man. 
 
 Notwithstanding our autobiographer's disavowal 
 of debt to example for the idea of his "Confes- 
 sions," it seems clear that Montaigne here was at 
 least inspiration, if not pattern, to Rousseau. But 
 Rousseau resolved to do what Montaigne had done, 
 more ingenuously and more courageously than Mon- 
 taigne had done it. This writer will make himself 
 his subject, and then treat his subject with greater 
 frankness than any man before him ever used about 
 himself, or than any man after him would ever use. 
 lie undoubtedly succeeded in his attempt. His 
 frankness, in fact, is so forward and eager, that it is 
 probably even inventive of things disgraceful to him- 
 self. Montaigne makes great pretence of telling his
 
 258 Classic French Course in English, 
 
 own faults, but you observe that he generally chooses 
 rather amiable faults of his own to tell. Rousseau's 
 morbid vulgarity leads him to disclose traits in 
 himself, of character or of behavior, that, despite 
 whatever contrary wishes on your part, compel your 
 contempt of the man. And it is for the man who 
 confesses, almost more than for the man who is 
 guilty, that 3^011 feel the contempt. 
 The " Confessions " proceed : 
 
 I was born at Geneva, in 1712, of Isaac Rousseau and 
 Susannah Bernard, citizens. ... I came into the world 
 weak and sickly. I cost my mother her life, and my birth 
 was the first of my misfortunes. 
 
 I never learned how my father supported his loss, but I 
 know that he remained ever after inconsolable. . . . "When 
 he used to say to me, " Jean Jacques, let us speak of your 
 mother," my usual reply was, " Well, father, we'll cry, 
 then," a reply which would instantly bring the tears to his 
 eyes. "Ah!" he would exclaim with agitation, "give me 
 her back, console me for her loss, fill up the void she has left 
 in my soul. Could I love thee thus wert thou but my son? " 
 Forty years after having lost her he expired in the arms of 
 a second wife, but with the name of the first on his lips, 
 and her image engraven on his heart. 
 
 Such were the authors of my being. Of all the gifts 
 Heaven had allotted them, a feeling heart was the only one 
 I had inherited. While, however, this had been the source 
 of their happiness, it became the spring of all my misfor- 
 tunes. 
 
 " A feeling heart ! " That expression tells the 
 literary secret of Rousseau. It is hardly too much 
 to say that Rousseau was the first French writer to
 
 Rousseau. 259 
 
 write with his heart ; but heart's blood was the ink 
 in which almost every word of Rousseau's was writ- 
 ten. This was the spring of his marvellous power. 
 Rousseau : 
 
 My mother had left a number of romances. These father 
 and I betook us to reading during the evenings. At first 
 the sole object was, by means of entertaining books, to im- 
 prove me in reading; but, ere long, the charm became so 
 potent, that we read turn about without intermission, and 
 passed whole nights in this employment. Never could we 
 break up till the end of the volume. At times my father, 
 hearing the swallows of a morning, would exclaim, quite 
 ashamed of himself, "Come, let's to bed; I'm more of a 
 child than you are! " 
 
 The elder Rousseau was right respecting himself. 
 And such a father would almost necessarily have 
 such a child. Jean Jacques Rousseau is .to be 
 judged tenderly for his faults. What birth and 
 what breeding were his! The "Confessions" go 
 
 I soon acquired, by this dangerous course, not only an 
 extreme facility in reading and understanding, but, for my 
 age, a quite unprecedented acquaintance with the passions. 
 I had not the slightest conception of things themselves, at 
 a time when the whole round of sentiments was already 
 perfectly familiar to me. I had apprehended nothing I 
 had felt all. 
 
 Some hint now of other books read by the boy :
 
 260 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 With the summer of 1719 the romance-reading termi- 
 nated. . . . "The History of the Church and Empire" by 
 Lesueur, Bossuet's "Dissertation on Universal History," 
 Plutarch's "Lives," Nani's "History of Venice," Ovid's 
 "Metamorphoses," "La Bruyere," Fontenelle's "Worlds," 
 his " Dialogues of the Dead," and a few volumes of Moliere, 
 were transported into my father's shop; and I read them to 
 him every day during his work. For this employment I 
 acquired a rare, and, for my age, perhaps unprecedented, 
 taste. Plutarch especially became my favorite reading. The 
 pleasure which I found in incessantly reperusing him, cured 
 me in some measure of the romance madness ; and I soon 
 came to prefer Agesilaus, Brutus, and Aristides, to Oronda- 
 tes, Artemenes. and Juba. From these interesting studies, 
 joined to the conversations to which they gave rise with my 
 father, resulted that free, republican spirit, that haughty 
 and untamable character, fretful of restraint or subjection, 
 which has tormented me my life long, and that in situations 
 the least suitable for giving it play. Incessantly occupied 
 with Rome and Athens, living, so to speak, with their great 
 men, born myself the citizen of a republic [Geneva], the son 
 of a father with whom patriotism was the ruling passion, I 
 caught the flame from him I imagined myself a Greek 
 or a Roman, and became the personage whose life I was 
 reading. 
 
 On such food of reading and of reverie, young 
 Rousseau's imagination and sentiment battened, 
 while his reason and his practical sense starved 
 and died within him. Unconsciously thus iu part 
 was formed the dreamer of the "fioiile" and of 
 "The Social Contract." Another glimpse of the 
 home-life if home-life such experience can be 
 called of this half-orphan, homeless Genevan 
 boy :
 
 JRntsseau. 261 
 
 I had a brother, my elder by seven years. . . . He fell 
 into the ways of debauchery, even before he was old enough 
 to be really a libertine. ... I remember once when my 
 father was chastising him severely and in auger, that I im- 
 petuously threw myself between them, clasping him tightly. 
 I thus covered him with my body, receiving the blows that 
 were aimed at him; and I held out so persistently in this 
 position, that whether softened by my cries and tears, or 
 fearing that I should- get the worst of it, my father was 
 forced to forgive him. In the end my brother turned out 
 so bad that he ran away and disappeared altogether. 
 
 It is pathetic Rousseau's attempted contrast 
 following, between the paternal neglect of his older 
 brother and the paternal indulgence of himself : 
 
 If this poor lad was carelessly brought up, it was quite 
 otherwise with his brother. . . . My desires were so little 
 excited, and so little crossed, that it never came into my 
 head to have any. I can solemnly aver, that, till the time 
 when I was bound to a master, I never kn*w what it was 
 to have a whim. 
 
 Poor lad! "Never knew what it was to have 
 a whim!" It well might be, however his boy's 
 life all one whim uncrossed, unchecked ; no con- 
 trast of saving restraint, to make him know that he 
 was living by whim alone! The "Confessions" 
 trul}* say : 
 
 Thus commenced the formation or the manifestation in 
 me of that heart at once so haughty and so tender, of that 
 effeminate and yet unconquerable character which, ever 
 vacillating between courage and weakness, Between virtue
 
 262 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 and yielding to temptation, has all along set me in contra- 
 diction to myself, and has resulted in my failing both ot 
 abstinence and enjoyment, both of prudence and pleasure. 
 
 The half-orphan becomes orphan entire, not by 
 the death, but by the withdrawing, of the father. 
 That father, having been accused of a misdemeanor, 
 "preferred," Rousseau somewhat vaguely says, 
 "to quit Geneva for the remainder of his life, 
 rather than give up a point wherein honor and lib- 
 erty appeared to him compromised." Jean Jacques 
 was sent to board with a parson, who taught him 
 Latin, and, along with Latin, supplied, Rousseau 
 scornfully says, " all the accompanying mass of 
 paltry rubbish styled education." He adds : 
 
 The country was so entirely new to me, that I could never 
 grow weary in my enjoyment of it; and I acquired so strong 
 a liking for it, that it has never become extinguished. 
 
 Young Jean Jacques was at length apprenticed 
 to an engraver. He describes the contrast of his 
 new situation and the effect of the contrast upon 
 his own character and career : 
 
 I learned to covet in silence, to dissemble, to dissimulate, 
 to lie, and at last to steal, a propensity for which I had 
 never hitherto had the slightest inclination, and of which 
 I have never since been able quite to cure myself. . . . 
 
 My first theft was the result of complaisance, but it 
 opened the door to others which had not so laudable a 
 motive.
 
 Rousseau. 263 
 
 My master had a journeyman named M. Verrat. . . . 
 [lie] took it into his head to rob his mother of some of her 
 early asparagus and sell it, converting the proceeds into 
 some extra good breakfasts. As he did not wish to expose 
 himself, and not being very nimble, he selected me for this 
 expedition. . . . Long did I stickle, but he persisted. I 
 never could resist kindness, so I consented. I went every 
 morning to the garden, gathered the best of the asparagus, 
 and took it to "the Molard," where some good creature, 
 perceiving that I had just been stealing it, would insinuate 
 that little fact, so as to get it the cheaper. In my terror I 
 took whatever she chose to give me, and carried it to M. 
 Verrat. 
 
 This little domestic arrangement continued for several 
 days before it came into my head to rob the robber, and 
 tithe M. Verrat for the proceeds of the asparagus. ... I 
 thus learned that to steal was, after all, not so very terrible 
 a thing as I had conceived, and ere long I turned this dis- 
 covery to so good an account, that nothing I had an inclina- 
 tion for could safely be teft within my reach. . . . 
 
 And now, before giving myself over to the fatality of my 
 destiny, let me, for a moment, contemplate what would 
 naturally have been my lot had I fallen into the hands of a 
 better master. Nothing was more agreeable to my tastes, 
 nor better calculated to render me happy, than the calm and 
 obscure condition of a good artisan, more especially in cer- 
 tain lines, such as that of an engraver at Geneva. ... In 
 my native country, in the bosom of my religion, of my 
 family, and my friends, I should have led a life gentle an.l 
 uncheckered as became my character, in the uniformity of 
 a pleasing occupation and among connections dear to my 
 heart. I should have been a good Christian, a good citizen, 
 a goo 1 father, a good friend, a good artisan, and a good 
 man in every respect. I should have loved my station; it 
 m.iy bo I should have been an honor to it: and after having 
 pasr.ed an obscure and simple, though even and happy, L'fo,
 
 264 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 I should peacefully have departed in the bosom of my kin- 
 dred. Soon, it may be, forgotten, I should at least have 
 been regretted as long as the remembrance of me survived. 
 Instead of this . . . what a picture am I about to draw ! 
 
 Thus ends the first book of the " Confessions." 
 The picture Rousseau is " about to draw " has in 
 it a certain Madame de Warens for a principal fig- 
 ure. (Apprentice Jean Jacques has left his master, 
 and entered on a vagabond life.) This Iad3 r is a 
 character very difficult for us Protestant Americans 
 in our contrasted society to conceive as real or as 
 possible. She kept a house of, what shall we call 
 it? detention, for souls doubtfully in the way of 
 being reclaimed from Protestant error into the 
 bosom of the Roman-Catholic Church. She was 
 herself a Roman-Catholic convert from Protestant- 
 ism. She had forsaken a husband, not loved, and 
 was living on a bounty from King Victor Amadeus 
 of Sardinia. For Annecy, the home of Madame de 
 Warens, our young Jean Jacques, sent thither by a 
 Roman-Catholic curate, sets out on foot. The dis- 
 tance was but one day's walk ; which one day's 
 walk, however, the humor of the wanderer stretched 
 into a saunter of three daj's. The man of fifty- 
 four, become the biographer of his own youth, finds 
 no loathness of self-respect to prevent his detailing 
 the absurd adventures with which he diverted him- 
 self on the way. For example : 
 
 Not a country-seat could I see, either to the right or left, 
 without ,'ioin^ after the adventure which I was certain
 
 Rousseau. 265 
 
 awaited me. I could not muster courage to enter the man- 
 sion, nor even to knock, for I was excessively timid ; but I 
 sang beneath the most inviting window, very much aston- 
 ished to find, after wasting my breath, that neither lady 
 nor miss made her appearance, attracted by the beauty of 
 my voice, or the spice of my songs, seeing that I knew 
 some capital ones that my comrades had taught me, and 
 which I sang in the most admirable manner. 
 
 Rousseau describes the emotions he experienced 
 in his first meeting with Madame de Warens : 
 
 I had pictured to myself a grim old devotee M. de 
 Pontverre's " worthy lady " could, in my opinion, be none 
 other. But IQ, a countenance beaming with charms, beau- 
 tiful, mild blue eyes, a complexion of dazzling fairness, the 
 outline of an enchanting neck ! Nothing escaped the rapid 
 glance of the young proselyte ; for that instant I was hers, 
 sure that a religion preached by such missionaries could not 
 fail to lead to paradise! 
 
 This abnormally susceptible youth had remark- 
 able experiences, all within his own soul, during his 
 sojourn, of a few days only, on the present occasion, 
 under Madame de Warens' s hospitable roof. These 
 experiences, the autobiographer, old enough to call 
 himself " old dotard," has, nevertheless, not grown 
 wise enough to be ashamed to be very detailed and 
 psychological fn recounting. It was a case of pre- 
 cocious love at first sight. One could afford to laugh 
 at it as ridiculous, but that it had a sequel full of 
 sin and of sorrow. Jean Jacques was now for- 
 warded to Turin, to become inmate of a sort of 
 charity school for the instruction of catechumens. 
 The very day after he started on foot, his father, 
 18
 
 266 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 with a friend of his, readied Anneey on horseback, 
 .in pursuit of the truant boy. They might easily 
 have overtaken him, but they let him go his way. 
 Rousseau explains the case on behalf of his father 
 as follows : 
 
 My father was not only an honorable man, but a person 
 of the most reliable probity, and endowed with one of those 
 powerful minds that perform deeds of loftiest heroism. I 
 may add, he was a good father, especially to me. Tenderly 
 did he love me, but he loved his pleasures also; and, since 
 our living apart, other ties had, in a measure, weakened his 
 paternal affection. He had married again, at Nyon; and 
 though his wife was no longer of an age to present me with 
 brothers, yet she had connections; another family-circle was 
 thus formed, other objects engrossed his attention, and the 
 new domestic relations no longer so frequently brought back 
 the remembrance of me. My father was growing old, and 
 had nothing on which to rely for the support of his declin- 
 ing years. My brother and I had something coming to us 
 from my mother's fortune; the interest of this my father 
 was to receive during our absence. This consideration did 
 not present itself to him directly, nor did it stand in the way 
 of his doing his duty; it had, however, a silent, and to him- 
 self imperceptible, influence, and at times slackened his zeal, 
 which, unacted upon by this, would have been carried much 
 farther. This, I think, was the reason, that, having traced 
 me as far as Anneey, he did not follow me to Chamber!, 
 where he was morally certain of overtaking me. This will 
 also explain why, in visiting him many times after my 
 flight, I received from him on every occasion a father's kind- 
 ness, though unaccompanied by any very pressing efforts to 
 retain me. 
 
 Rousseau's filial regard for his father was pecul- 
 iar. It did not lead him to hide, it only led him
 
 267 
 
 to account for, his father's sordidness. The son 
 generalized and inferred a moral maxim for the con- 
 duct of life from this behavior of the father's, a 
 maxim, which, as he thought, had done him great 
 good. He says : 
 
 This conduct on the part of a father of whose affection 
 and virtue I have had so many proofs, has given rise within 
 me to reflections on my own character which have not a 
 little contributed to maintain my heart uncorrupted. I have 
 derived therefrom this great maxim of morality, perhaps 
 the only one of any use in practice; namely, to avoid such 
 situations as put our duty in antagonism with our interest, 
 or disclose our own advantage in the misfortunes of another, 
 certain that in such circumstances, however sincere the love 
 of virtue we bring with us, it will sooner or later, and 
 whether we perceive it or not, become weakened, and we 
 shall come to be unjust and culpable in our acts without 
 having ceased to be upright and blameless in our intentions. 
 
 The fruitful maxim thus deduced by Rousseau, 
 he thinks he tried faithfully to put in practice. 
 With apparent perfect assurance concerning him- 
 self, he says : 
 
 I have sincerely desired to do what was right. I have, 
 with all the energy of my character, shunned situations 
 which set my interest in opposition to the interest of another, 
 thus inspiring me with a secret though involuntary desire 
 prejudicial to that man. 
 
 Jean Jacques at Turin made speed to convert 
 himself, by the abjurations required, into a pretty 
 good Catholic. 'He was hereon free to seek his
 
 268 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 fortune in the Sardinian capital. This he did by 
 getting successively various situations in service. 
 In one of these he stole, so he tells us, a piece of 
 ribbon, which was soon found in his possession. 
 He said a maid-servant, naming her, gave it to him. 
 The two were confronted with each other. In spite 
 of the poor girl's solemn appeal, Jean Jacques per- 
 sisted in his lie against her. Both servants were 
 discharged. The autobiographer protests that he 
 has suffered much remorse for this lie of his to the 
 harm of the innocent maid. He expresses confident 
 hope that his suffering sorrow, already experienced 
 on this behalf, will stand him in stead of punishment 
 that might be his due in a future state. Remorse 
 is a note in Rousseau that distinguishes him from 
 Montaigne. Montaigne reviews his own life to live 
 over his sins, not to repent of them. 
 
 The end of several vicissitudes is, that young 
 Rousseau gets back to Madame de Warens. She 
 welcomes him kindly. He says : 
 
 From the first day, the most affectionate familiarity sprang 
 up between us, and that to the same degree in which it con- 
 tinued during all the rest of her life. Petit Child was 
 my name, Maman Mamma hers; and Petit and Maman 
 we remained, even when the course of time had all but 
 effaced the difference of our ages. These two names seem 
 to me marvellously well to express our tone towards each 
 other, the simplicity of our manners, and, more than all, the 
 relation of our hearts. She was to me the tenderest of 
 mothers, never seeking her own pleasure, but ever my wel- 
 fare ; and if the senses had any thing to do with my attach-
 
 Mousseau. 269 
 
 ment for her, it was not to change its nature, but only to 
 render it more exquisite, and intoxicate me with the charm 
 of having a young and pretty mamma whom it was delight- 
 ful forme to caress. I say quite literally, to caress; for it 
 never entered into her head to deny me the tenderest mater- 
 nal kisses and endearments, nor into my heart to abuse 
 them. Some may say that, in the end, quite other relations 
 subsisted between us. I grant it; but have patience, I 
 cannot tell every thing at once. 
 
 With Madame de Warens, Rousseau's relations, 
 as is intimated above, became licentious. This 
 continued until, after an interval of years (nine 
 years, with breaks) , in a fit of jealousy he forsook 
 her. Rousseau's whole life was a series of self- 
 indulgences, grovelling, sometimes, beyond what is 
 conceivable to any one not learning of it all in detail 
 from the man's own pen. The reader is fain at 
 last to seek the only relief possible from the sicken- 
 ing story, by flying to the conclusion that Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau, with all his genius, was wanting 
 in that mental sanity which is a condition of com- 
 plete moral responsibility. 
 
 We shall, of course, not follow the "Confessions " 
 through their disgusting recitals of sin and shame. 
 We should do wrong, however, to the literary, and 
 even to the moral, character of the work, were we 
 not to point out that there are frequent oases of 
 sweetness and beaut}' set in the wastes of incred- 
 ible foulness which overspread so widely the pages 
 of Rousseau's ' Confessions." Here, for exam- 
 ple, is an idyll of vagabondage that might almost
 
 270 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 rnake one willing to play tramp one's self, if one by 
 so doing might have such an experience : 
 
 I remember, particularly, having passed a delicious night 
 without the city on a road that skirted the Rhone or the 
 Saone, for I cannot remember which. On the other side 
 were terraced gardens. It had been a very warm day; the 
 evening was charming; the dew moistened the faded grass; 
 a calm night, without a breeze; the air was cool without 
 being cold; the sun in setting had left crimson vapors in the 
 sky, which tinged the water with its roseate hue, while the 
 trees along the terrace were filled with nightingales gushing 
 out melodious answers to each other's song. I walked along 
 in a species of ecstasy, giving up heart and senses to the 
 enjoyment of the scene, only slightly sighing with regret at 
 enjoying it alone. Absorbed in my sweet reverie, I pro- 
 longed my walk far into the night, without perceiving that 
 I was -wearied out. At length I discovered it. I lay volup- 
 tuously down on the tablet of a sort of niche or false door 
 sunk in the terrace wall. The canopy of my couch was 
 formed by the over-arching boughs of the trees; a nightingale 
 sat exactly above me; its song lulled me to sleep; my slum- 
 ber was sweet, and my awaking still more so. It was broad 
 day; my eyes, on opening, fell on the water, the verdure, and 
 the admirable landscape spread out before me. I arose and 
 shook off dull sleep; ancl, growing hungry, 1 gayly directed 
 my steps towards the city, bent on transforming two pieces 
 <le six blancn that I had left, into a good breakfast. I was 
 so cheerful that I went singing along the whole way. 
 
 This happy-go-lucky, vagabond, grown-up child, 
 this sentimentalist of genius, had now and then dif- 
 ferent experiences, experiences to which the re- 
 flection of the man grown old attributes important 
 influence on the formation of his most controlling
 
 Rousseau. 271 
 
 One day, among others, having purposely turned aside to 
 get a closer view of a spot that appeared worthy of all 
 admiration, I grew so delighted with it, and wandered round 
 it so often, that I at length lost myself completely. After 
 several hours of useless walking, weary and faint with hun- 
 ger and thirst, I entered a peasant's hut which did not pre- 
 sent a very promising appearance, but it was the only one I 
 saw around. I conceived it to be here as at Geneva and 
 throughout Switzerland, where all the inhabitants in easy 
 circumstances are in the situation to exercise hospitality. I 
 entreated the man to get me some dinner, offering to pay 
 for it. He presented me with some skimmed milk and 
 coarse barley bread, observing that that was all he had. I 
 drank the milk with delight, and ate the bread, chaff and 
 all; but this was not very restorative to a man exhausted 
 with fatigue. The peasant, who was watching me narrowly, 
 judged of the truth of my story by the sincerity of my appe- 
 tite. All of a sudden, after having said that he saw perfectly 
 well that I was a good and true young fellow that did not 
 come to betray him, he opened a little trap-door by the side 
 of his kitchen, went down and returned a moment after- 
 wards with a good brown loaf of pure wheat, the remains cf 
 a toothsome ham, and a bottle of wine, the sight of which 
 rejoiced my heart more than all the rest. To these he 
 added a good thick omelette, and I made such a dinner as 
 none but a walker ever enjoyed. When it came to pay, lo! 
 his disquietude and fears again seized him; he would none of 
 my money, and rejected it with extraordinary manifestations 
 of disquiet. The funniest part of the matter was, that I 
 could not conceive what he was afraid of. At length, with 
 fear and trembling, he pronounced those terrible words, 
 Commissioners and Cellar-rats. He gave me to understand 
 that he concealed his wine because of the excise, and his 
 bread on account of the tax, and that he was a lost man if 
 they got the slightest inkling that he was not dying of hunger. 
 Every thing he said to me touching this matter, whereof,
 
 272 Classic French Course in JZnglish. 
 
 indeed, I had not the slightest idea, produced an impression 
 on me that can never be effaced. It became the germ of 
 that inextinguishable hatred that afterwards sprang up in 
 my heart against the vexations to which these poor people 
 are subject, and against their oppressors. This man, though 
 in easy circumstances, dared not eat the bread he had gained 
 by the sweat of his brow, and could escape ruin only by 
 presenting the appearance of the same nu'sery that reigned 
 around him. 
 
 A hideously false world, that world of French 
 society was, in Rousseau's time. The falseness was 
 full ripe to be laid bare by some one ; and Rous- 
 seau's experience of life, as well as his temperament 
 and his genius, fitted him to do the work of expos- 
 ure that he did. What we emphatically call char- 
 acter was sadly wanting in Rousseau how sadly, 
 witness such an acted piece of mad folly as the 
 following : 
 
 I, without knowing aught of the matter, . . . gave myself 
 out for a [musical] composer. Nor was this all: having 
 been presented to M. de Freytorens, law-professor, who 
 loved music, and gave concerts at his house, nothing would 
 do but I must give him a sample of my talent; so I set about 
 composing a piece for his concert quite as boldly as though 
 I had really been an adept in the science. I had the con- 
 stancy to work for fifteen days on this fine affair, to copy it 
 fair, write out the different parts, and distribute them with 
 as much assurance as though it had been a masterpiece of 
 harmony. Then, what will scarcely be believed, but which 
 yet is gospel truth, worthily to crown this sublime produc- 
 tion, I lacked to the en;! thereof a pretty minuet which was 
 then having a run on the streets. , . . I gave it as my own
 
 Rousseau. 273 
 
 just as resolutely as though I had been speaking to inhabit- 
 ants of the moon. 
 
 They assembled to perform my piece. I explain to each 
 the nature of the movement, the style of execution, and the 
 relations of the parts I was very full of business. For 
 five or six minutes they were tuning; to me each minute 
 seemed an age. At length, all being ready, I rap with a 
 handsome paper bdton on the leader's desk the five or six 
 beats of the "Make ready." Silence is made I gravely 
 set to beating time they commence! No, never since 
 French operas began, was there such a charivari heard. 
 Whatever they might have thought of my pretended talent, 
 the effect was worse than they could possibly have imagined. 
 The musicians choked with laughter; the auditors opened 
 their eyes, and would fain have closed their ears. But that 
 was an impossibility, My tormenting set of symphonists, 
 who seemed rather to enjoy the fun, scraped away with a 
 din sufficient to crack the tympanum of one born deaf. I 
 had the firmness to go right ahead, however, sweating, it is 
 true, at every pore, but held back by shame ; not daring to 
 retreat, and glued to the spot. For my consolation I heard 
 the company whispering to each other, quite loud enough for 
 it to reach my ear: "It is not bearable!" said one. "What 
 music gone mad! " cried another. " What a devilish din! " 
 added a third. Poor Jean Jacques, little dreamed you, in 
 that cruel moment, that one day before the King of France 
 and all the court, thy sounds would excite murmurs of sur- 
 prise and applause, and that in all the boxes around thee 
 the loveliest ladies would burst forth with, " What charming 
 sounds! what enchanting music! every strain reaches the 
 heart!" 
 
 But what restored every one to good humor was the 
 minuet. Scarcely had they played a few measures than I 
 heard bursts of laughter break out on all hands. Even- one. 
 congratulated me on my fine musical taste; they assure:! me 
 that this minuet would make me spoken about, and that I
 
 274 Classic French' Course in English. 
 
 merited the loudest praises. I need not attempt depicting 
 my agony, nor own that I well deserved it. 
 
 Readers have now had an opportunity to judge for 
 themselves, by specimen, of the style, both of the 
 writer and of the man Jean Jacques Rousseau. 
 The writer's style they must have felt, even through 
 the medium of imperfect anonymous translation, to 
 be a charming one. If they have felt the style of 
 the man to be contrasted, as squalor is contrasted 
 with splendor, that they must not suppose to be a 
 contrast of which Jean Jacques himself, the con- 
 fessor, was in the least displacently conscious. Far 
 from it. In a later part of his "Confessions," a 
 part that deals with the author as one already now 
 acknowledged a power in the world of letters, though 
 with all his chief works still to write, Rousseau 
 speaks thus of himself (he was considering at the 
 time the ways and means available to him of obtain- 
 ing a livelihood) : 
 
 I felt that writing for bread would soon have extinguished 
 my genius, and destroyed my talents, which were less in my 
 pen than in my heart, and solely proceeded from an elevated 
 and noble manner of thinking. ... It is too difficult to 
 think nobly when we think for a livelihood. 
 
 Is not that finely said? And one need not doubt 
 that it was said with perfect sincerity. For our 
 own part, paradoxical though it be to declare it, we 
 are wholly willing to insist that Rousseau did think
 
 Rousseau. 275 
 
 on a lofty plane. The trouble with him was, not 
 that he thus thought with his heart, rather than with 
 his head, which, however, he did, but that he 
 thought with his heart alone, and not at all with 
 his conscience and his will. In a word, his thought 
 was sentiment rather than thought. He was a senti- 
 mentalist instead of a thinker. One illustration of 
 the divorce that he decreed for himself, or rather 
 for we have used too positive a form of expression 
 that he allowed to subsist, between sentiment 
 and conduct, will suffice. It was presently to be 
 his fortune, as author of a tract on education (the 
 " fimile"), to change the habit of a nation in the 
 matter of nurture for babes. French mothers of 
 the higher social class in Rousseau's time almost 
 universally gave up their infants to be nursed at 
 alien bosoms. Rousseau so eloquently denounced 
 the unnaturaluess of this, that from his time it be- 
 came the fashion for French mothers to suckle their 
 children themselves. Meantime, the preacher him- 
 self of this beautiful humanity, living in unwedded 
 union with a woman (not Madame de Warens, but a 
 woman of the laboring class, found after Madame de 
 Warens was abandoned), sent his illegitimate chil- 
 dren, against the mother's remonstrance, one after 
 another, to the number of five, to be brought up un- 
 known at the hospital for foundlings ! He tells the 
 story himself in his "Confessions." Tips course 
 on his owii part he subsequently laments with many 
 tears and many self-upbraidings. But these, alas,
 
 276 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 he intermingles with self-justifications, nearly as 
 many, so that at last it is hard to say whether the 
 balance of his judgment inclines for or against him- 
 self in the matter. A paradox of inconsistencies 
 and self-contradictions, this man, a problem iu 
 human character, of which the supposition of partial 
 insanity in him, long working subtly in the blood, 
 seems the only solution. The occupation finally 
 adopted by Rousseau for obtaining subsistence, was 
 the copying of music. It extorts from one a meas- 
 ure of involuntary respect for Rousseau, to see 
 patiently toiling at this slavish work, to earn its 
 owner bread, the same pen that had lately set all 
 Europe in ferment with the " fimile " and " The So- 
 cial Contract." 
 
 From Rousseau's " Confessions," we have not 
 room to purvey further. It is a melancholy book, 
 written under monomaniac suspicion on the part of 
 the author that he was the object of a wide-spread 
 conspiracy against his reputation, his peace of mind, 
 and even his life. The poor, shattered, self-con- 
 sumed sensualist and sentimentalist paid dear in the 
 agonies of his closing years for the indulgences of 
 an unregulated life. The tender-hearted, really 
 affectionate and loyal, friend came at length to live 
 in a world of his own imagination, full of treachery 
 to himself. David Hume, the Scotchman, tried to 
 befriend him ; but the monomaniac was incapable of 
 being befriended. Nothing could be more pitiful 
 than were the decline and the extinction that
 
 Rousseau. 277 
 
 occurred of so much brilliant genius, and so much 
 lovable character. It is even doubtful whether 
 Rousseau did not at last take his own life. The 
 voice of accusation is silenced, iu the presence of 
 an earthly retribution so dreadful. One may not 
 indeed approve, but one may at least be free to pity, 
 more than he blames, in judging Rousseau. 
 
 Accompanyiug, and in some sort complementing, 
 the "Confessions," are often published several 
 detached pieces called "Reveries," or "Walks." 
 These are very peculiar compositions, and very 
 characteristic of the author. They are dreamy 
 meditations or reveries, sad, even sombre, in spirit, 
 but " beautiful exceedingly," in form of expression. 
 Such works as the " Rene" " of Chateaubriand, 
 works but too abundant since in French literature, 
 must all trace their pedigree to Rousseau's " Walks." 
 We introduce two specimen extracts. The shadow 
 of Rousseau's monomania will be felt thick upon 
 them : 
 
 It is now fifteen years since I have been in this strange 
 situation, which yet appears to me like a dream; ever im- 
 agining that, disturbed by indigestion, I sleep uneasily, but 
 shall soon awake, freed from my troubles, but surrounded 
 by my friends. . . . 
 
 How could I possibly foresee the destiny that awaited 
 me ? . . . Could I. if in my right senses, suppose that one 
 day, the man I was, and yet remain, should be taken, with- 
 out any kind of doubt, for a monster, a poisoner, an assas- 
 sin, the horror of the human race, the sport of the rabble, 
 my only salutation to be spit upon, and that a whole genera-
 
 278 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 tion would unanimously amuse themselves in burying me 
 alive ? When this strange revolution first happened, taken 
 by unawares, I was overwhelmed with astonishment ; my 
 agitation, my indignation, plunged me into a delirium, 
 which ten years have scarcely been able to calm : during 
 this interval, falling from error to error, from fault to fault, 
 and folly to folly, I have, by my imprudence, furnished the 
 contrivers of my fate with instruments, which they have 
 artfully employed to fix it without resource. . . . 
 
 Every future occurrence will be immaterial to me ; I have 
 in the world neither relative, friend, nor brother ; I am on 
 the earth as if I had fallen into some unknown planet ; if 
 I contemplate any thing around me, it is only distressing, 
 heart-rending objects ; every thing I cast my eyes on conveys 
 some new subject either of indignation or affliction ; I will 
 endeavor henceforward to banish from my mind all painful 
 ideas which unavailingly distress me. Alone for the rest of 
 my life, I must only look for consolation, hope, or peace in 
 my own breast; and neither ought nor will, henceforward, 
 think of any thing but myself. It is in this state that I re- 
 turn to the continuation of that severe and just examination 
 which formerly I called my Confessions ; I consecrate my 
 latter days to the study of myself, and to the preparation of 
 that account which I must shortly render up of my actions. 
 I resign my thoughts entirely to the pleasure of conversing 
 with my own soul ; that being the only consolation that 
 man cannot deprive me of. If by dint of reflection on my 
 internal propensities, I can attain to putting them in better 
 order, and correcting the evil that remains in me, these 
 meditations will not be utterly useless ; and though I am 
 accounted worthless on earth, shall not cast away my latter 
 days. The leisure of my daily walks has frequently been 
 tilled with charming contemplations, which I regret having 
 forgot ; but I will write down those that occur in future ; 
 then, every time I read them over, I shall forget my misfor-
 
 Rousseau. 279 
 
 tunes, disgraces, and persecutors, in recollecting and con- 
 templating the integrity of my own heart. 
 
 Rousseau's books in general are now little read. 
 They worked their work, and ceased. But there are 
 in some of them passages that continue to live. 
 Of these, perhaps quite the most famous is the 
 " Savoyard Curate's Confession of Faith," a docu- 
 ment of some length-, incorporated into the " fimile." 
 This, taken as a whole, is the most seductively elo- 
 quent argument against Christianity that perhaps 
 ever was written. It contains, however, concessions 
 to the sublime elevation of Scripture and to the 
 unique virtue and majesty of Jesus, which are often 
 quoted, and which will bear quoting here. The 
 Savoyard Curate is represented speaking to a young 
 friend as follows : 
 
 I will confess to you further, that the majesty of the 
 Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the 
 gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse the works of 
 our philosophers with all their pomp of diction ; how mean, 
 how contemptible, are they, compared with the Scripture ! 
 Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime 
 should be merely the work of man ? Is it possible that the 
 Sacred Personage, whose history it contains, should be him- 
 self a mere man ? Do we find that he assumed the tone of 
 an enthusiast or ambitious sectary ? What sweetness, what 
 purity, in his manners ! What an affecting gracefulness in 
 his delivery ! What sublimity in his maxims ! What pro- 
 found wisdom in his discourses ! What presence of mind, 
 what subtilty, what truth, in his replies ! How great the 
 command over his passions ! Where is the man, where the
 
 280 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 philosopher, who could so live and die, without weakness 
 and without ostentation ? When Plato described his imagi- 
 nary good man loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet mer- 
 iting the highest reward of virtue, lie described exactly the 
 character of Jesus Christ : the resemblance was so striking 
 that all the Fathers perceived it. 
 
 What prepossession, what blindness, must it be to compare 
 the son of Sophroniscus to the Son of Mary ! What an in- 
 finite disproportion there is between them ! Socrates, dying 
 without pain or ignominy, easily supported his character to 
 the last ; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned 
 his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with 
 all his wisdom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. 
 He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, how- 
 ever, had before put them in practice ; he had only to say 
 what they had done, and reduce their examples to precepts. 
 Aristides had been just before Socrates defined justice ; 
 Leonidas gave up his life for his country before Socrates de- 
 clared patriotism to be a duty ; the Spartans were a sober 
 people before Socrates recommended sobriety ; before he had 
 even defined virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. But 
 where could Jesus learn, among his compatriots, that pure 
 and sublime morality of which he only has given us both 
 precept and example ? The greatest wisdom was made 
 known amidst the most bigoted fanaticism, and the simpli- 
 city of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people 
 on the earth. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophiz- 
 ing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could 
 be wished for ; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst of ago- 
 nizing pains, abused, insulted, cursed by a whole nation, is 
 the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiv- 
 ing the cup of poison, blessed indeed the weeping execu- 
 tioner who administered it ; but Jesus, in the midst of 
 excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. 
 Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, 
 the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. Shall we
 
 Rousseau. 281 
 
 suppose the evangelic history a mere fiction ? Indeed, my 
 friend, it bears not the marks of fiction ; on the contrary, 
 the history of Socrates, which nobody pre5umes to doubt, is 
 not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a suppo- 
 sition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty without removing it ; 
 it is more inconceivable that a number of persons should 
 agree to write such a history, than that one only should fur- 
 nish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable 
 of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in 
 the gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and 
 inimitable that the inventor would be a more astonishing 
 character than the hero. 
 
 So far in eloquent ascription of incomparable ex- 
 cellence to the Bible and to the Founder of Christi- 
 anity. But then immediately Rousseau's Curate 
 proceeds : 
 
 And yet, with all this, the same gospel abounds with 
 incredible relations, with circumstances repugnant to rea- 
 son, and which it is impossible for a man of sense either to 
 conceive or admit. 
 
 The compliment to Christianity almost convinces 
 you, until suddenly you are apprised that the au- 
 thor of the compliment was not convinced himself ! 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau, in the preface to his 
 ''Confessions," appealed from the judgment of men 
 to the judgment of God. This judgment it was his 
 habit, to the end of his days, thanks to the effect 
 of his early Genevan education, always to think of 
 as certainly impending. Let us adjourn our final 
 sentence upon him, until we hear that Omniscient 
 award. 
 19
 
 282 Classic French Course in Jnyliith. 
 XVII. 
 
 THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS. 
 
 A CEXOTAPH is a monument erected to the memory 
 of one dead, but not marking the spot in which his 
 remains rest. The present chapter is a cenotaph to 
 the French Encyclopaedists. It is in the nature of 
 a memorial of their literary work, but it will be 
 found to contain no specimen extracts from their 
 writings. 
 
 Everybody has heard of the Encyclopaedists of 
 France. Who are the\- ? They are a group of men 
 who, during the eighteenth century, associated them- 
 selves together for the production of a great work 
 to be the repository of all human knowledge, in 
 one word, of an encyclopaedia. The project was a 
 laudable one ; and the motive to it was laudable 
 in part. For there was mixture of motive in the 
 case. In part, the motive was simple desire to 
 advance the cause of human enlightenment ; in 
 part, however, the motive was desire to undermine 
 Christianity. This latter end the encyclopaedist 
 collaborators may have thought to be an indispen- 
 sable means subsidiary to the former end. They 
 probably did think so with such imperfect sincer- 
 ity as is possible to those who set themselves, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, against God. The faci
 
 The n(ydop(edif>t9, 283 
 
 is, that the Encyclopaedists came at length to be 
 nearly as much occupied in exringuishing Christian- 
 ity, as in promoting public enlightenment. They 
 went about this their task of destroying, in a way 
 as effective as has ever been devised for accomplish- 
 ing a similar work. They gave a vicious turn of 
 insinuation against Christianity to as many arti- 
 cles as possible. In the most unexpected places, 
 throughout the entire work, pitfalls were laid of 
 anti-Christian implication, awaiting the unwary feet 
 of the reader. You were nowhere sure of your 
 ground. The world has never before seen, it has 
 never seen since, an example of propagandist!! alto- 
 gether so adroit and so alert. It is not too much 
 to say further, that history can supply few instances 
 of propagandised so successful. The Encyclopae- 
 dists might almost be said to have given the human 
 mind a fresh start and a new orbit. The fresh 
 start is, perhaps, spent ; the new orbit has at length, 
 to a great extent, returned upon the old ; but it 
 holds true, nevertheless, that the Encyclopaedists of 
 France were for a time, and that not a short time, 
 a prodigious force of impulsion and direction to the 
 Occidental mind. It ought to be added that the 
 aim of the Encyclopaedists was political also, not 
 less than religious. In truth, religion and politics, 
 Church and State, in their day, and in France, were 
 much the same thing. The "Encyclopaedia" was 
 as revolutionary in politics as it was atheistic in 
 religion.
 
 284 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 The leader in this movement of insurrectionary 
 thought was Denis Diderot. Diderot (1713-1784) 
 was born to he an encyclopaedist, and a captain of 
 encyclopaedists. Force inexhaustible, and inex^ 
 haustible willingness to give out force ; unappeas- 
 able curiosity to know ; irresistible impulse to impart 
 knowledge ; versatile capacity to do every thing, car- 
 ried to the verge, if not carried beyond the verge, 
 of incapacity to do any thing thoroughly well ; 
 quenchless zeal and quenchless hope ; levitj 7 enough 
 of temper to keep its subject free from those depres- 
 sions of spirit and those cares of conscience which 
 weigh and wear on the over-earnest man ; abundant 
 physical health, gifts such as these made up the 
 manifold equipment of Diderot for rowing and steer- 
 ing the gigantic enterprise of the "Encyclopaedia" 
 triumphantly to the port of final completion, through 
 many and many a zone of stormy adverse wind and 
 sea, traversed on the way. Diderot produced no 
 signal independent and original work of his own ; 
 probably he could not have produced such a work. 
 On the other hand, it is simply just to say that 
 hardly anybody but Diderot could have achieved the 
 " Encyclopaedia." That, indeed, may be considered 
 an achievement not more to the glory, than to the 
 shame, of its author ; but whatever its true moral 
 character, in whatever proportion shameful or glori- 
 ous, it is inalienably and peculiarly Diderot's achieve- 
 ment ; at least in this sense, that without Diderot the 
 " Encyclopaedia " would never have been achieved.
 
 The Encdoycedists. 285 
 
 We have already, in discussing Voltaire, adverted 
 sufficiently to Mr. John Morley's volumes in honor 
 of Diderot and his compeers. Diderot is therein 
 ably presented in the best possible light to the 
 reader ; and we are bound to say, that, despite Mr. 
 Morley's friendly endeavors, Diderot therein appears 
 very ill. He married a young woman, whose simple 
 and touching self-sacrifice on her husband's behalf, 
 he presently requited by giving himself away, body 
 and soul, to a rival. In his writings, he is so easily 
 insincere, that not unfrequently it is a problem, even 
 for his biographer, to decide when he is .expressing 
 his sentiments truly and when not ; insomuch that, 
 once and again, Mr. Morley himself is obliged to 
 say, " This is probably hypocritical on Diderot's 
 part," or something to that effect. As for filthy 
 communication out of his mouth and from his pen, 
 not, of course, habitual, but occasional, the subject 
 will not bear more than this mention. These be thy 
 gods, Atheism ! one, in reading Mr. Morley on 
 Diderot, is tempted again and again to exclaim. 
 To offset such lowness of character in the man, it 
 must in justice be added that Diderot was, notwith- 
 standing, of a generous, uncalculating turn of mind, 
 not grudging, especially in intellectual relations, to 
 give of his best to others, expecting nothing again. 
 Diderot, too, as well as Voltaire, had his royal or 
 imperial friends, in the notorious Empress Catherine 
 of Russia, and in King Stanislaus of Poland. He 
 visited Catherine once in her capital, and was there
 
 286 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 munificently entertained by her. She was regally 
 pleased to humor this gentleman of France, permit- 
 ting him to bring down his fist in gesture violently 
 on the redoubtable royal knee, according to a pleas- 
 ant way Diderot had of emphasizing a point in 
 familiar conversation. His truest claim to praise 
 for intellectual superiority is, perhaps, that he was 
 a prolific begetter of wit in other men. 
 
 D'Alembert (Jean le Rond, 1717-1783) was 
 an eminent mathematician. He wrote especially, 
 though not at first exclusively, on mathematical 
 subjects, for the "Encyclopaedia." He was, in- 
 deed, at the outset, published as mathematical editor 
 of the work. His European reputation in science 
 made his name a tower of strength to the "Enc}"clo- 
 psedia," even after he ceased to be an editorial 
 coadjutor in the enterprise. For there came a 
 time when D'Alembert abdicated responsibility as 
 editor, and left the undertaking to fr.ll heavily on 
 the single shoulder, Atlantean shoulder it proved to 
 be, of Diderot. The celebrated " Preliminary Dis- 
 course," prefixed to the " Encyclopaedia," proceeded 
 from the hand of D'Alembert. This has always 
 been esteemed a masterpiece of comprehensive grasp 
 and lucid exposition. A less creditable contribu- 
 tion of D'Alembert's to the " Encj'clopsedia " was 
 his article on " Geneva," in the course of which, at 
 the instance of Voltaire, who wanted a chance to 
 have his plays represented in that city, he went out 
 of his way to recommend to the Genevans that they
 
 The Encyclopedists. 287 
 
 establish for themselves a theatre. This brought 
 out Rousseau in an eloquent harangue against the 
 theatre as exerting influence to debauch public 
 morals. D'Alembcrt, in the contest, did not carry 
 off the honors of the day. D'Alembert's " Eloges," 
 so called, a series of characterizations and appre- 
 ciations written by the author in his old age, of 
 members of the French Academy, enjoy deserved 
 reputation for sagacious intellectual estimate, and 
 for clear, though not supremely elegant, style of 
 composition. 
 
 Diderot and D'Alembert are the only men whose 
 names appear on the titlepage of the ' k Encyclopae- 
 dia;" but Voltaire, Rousseau, Turgot, Helvetius, 
 Duclos, Condillac, Buffon, Grimm, D'Holbach, with 
 many others whom we must not stay even to men- 
 tion, contributed to the work. 
 
 The influence of the " Enc3'clopcedia," great dur- 
 ing its day, is by no means yet exhausted. But it 
 is an influence indirectly exerted, for the kt Encyclo- 
 paedia " itself has long been an obsolete work. 
 
 There is a legal maxim that the laws are silent, 
 when a state of war exists. Certainly, amid the 
 madness of a Revolution such as, during the closing 
 years of the eighteenth century, the influence of 
 Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Encyclopaedists, with 
 Beaumarchais, reacting against the accumulated po- 
 litical and ecclesiastical oppressions of ages, precip- 
 itated upon France, it might safely be assumed 
 that letters would be silent. But the nation mean-
 
 288 Claxidc French Course in EngliJi. 
 
 time was portentously preparing material foi a litera- 
 ture which mauy wondering centuries to follow would 
 occupy themselves with writing. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 IN looking backward over the preceding pages, 
 we think of many things which we should like still 
 to say. Of these many things, we limit ourselves 
 to saying here, as briefly as we can, some four or 
 five only. 
 
 To begin with, in nearly every successive case, 
 we have found ourselves lamenting afresh that, from 
 the authors to be represented, the representative ex- 
 tracts must needs be so few and so short. We have, 
 therefore, sincerely begrudged to ourselves every 
 line of room that we felt obliged to occupy with 
 matter, preparatory, explanatory, or critical, of our 
 own. Whatever success we may have achieved in 
 fulfilling our purpose, our purpose has been to say 
 ourselves barely so much as was indispensable in 
 order finally to convey, upon the whole, to our read- 
 ers, within the allotted space, the justest and the 
 fullest impression of the selected smthors, through 
 the medium of their own quoted words. 
 
 In the second place, it was with great regret that 
 we yielded to the necessity of omitting entirely, or
 
 Epilogue. .289 
 
 dismissing with scant mention, such literary names, 
 for example, as Boileau, of the age of Louis Qua- 
 torze, and, a little later than he, Fontenelle, span- 
 ning with his century of years the space from 1657 
 to 1757, these, and, belonging to the period that 
 ushered in the Revolution, Bernardin St. Pierre, 
 the teller of the tale of " Paul and Virginia," with 
 also that hero of a hundred romantic adventures, 
 Beaumarchais, half Themistocles, half Alcibiades, 
 the author of "The Barber of Seville." The line 
 had to be drawn somewhere ; and, whether wisely or 
 not, at least thoughtfully, we drew it to run as it does. 
 
 A third, and a yet graver, occasion of regret was 
 that we must stop short on the threshold, without 
 crossing it, of the nineteenth-century literature of 
 France. With so many shining names seen just 
 ahead of us, beacon-like, to invite our advance, we 
 felt it as a real self-denial to stay our steps at that 
 point. We hope still to deal with Chateaubriand, 
 Madame de Stael, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, 
 Sainte-Beuve, Victor Hugo, and perhaps others, in 
 a future volume. 
 
 Our eye is caught with the antithetical terms, 
 "classicism" and "romanticism," occurring here 
 and there ; and the observation is forced upon us, 
 that these terms, in their mutual relation, are no- 
 where by us defined. The truth is, they scarcely, 
 as thus used, admit of hard and fast definition. It 
 is in a somewhat loose conventional sense of each 
 term, that, in late literary language, they are set
 
 290 Classic French Course in English. 
 
 off, one over against the other. They name two 
 different, but by no means necessariby antagonistic, 
 forces or tendencies in literature. Classicism stands 
 for what you might call the established order, against 
 which romanticism is a revolt. Paradoxical though 
 it be to say so, both the established order, and the 
 revolt against it, are good things. The established 
 order, which was never really any thing more or 
 less than the dominance in literature of rules and 
 standards derived through criticism from the ac- 
 knowledged best models, especially the ancient, 
 tended at last to cramp and stifle the life which it 
 should, of course, only serve to shape and conform. 
 The mould, always too narrow perhaps, but at any 
 rate grown too rigid, needed itself to be fashioned 
 anew. Fresh life, a full measure, would do this. 
 Such is the true mission of romanticism, not to 
 break the mould that classicism sought to impose 
 on literary production, but to expand that mould, 
 make it more pliant, more free. A mould, for 
 things living and growing, should be plastic in the 
 passive, as well as in the active, sense of that word, 
 should accept form, as well as give form. Ro- 
 manticism will accordingly have won its legitimate 
 victory, not when it shall have destroyed classicism 
 and replaced it, but when it shall have made classi- 
 cism over, after the law of a larger life. To risk a 
 concrete illustration among our American poets, 
 Bryant, in the perfectly self-consistent .unity of his 
 whole intellectual development, may be said to rep-
 
 Epilogue. 291 
 
 resent classicism ; while in Lowell, as Lowell ap- 
 pears in the later, more protracted, phase of his 
 genius, romanticism is represented. The " Thana- 
 topsis " of Bryant and the " Cathedral " of Lowell 
 may stand for individual examples respectively of 
 the classic and the romantic styles in poetry. Com- 
 pare these two productions, and in the difference 
 between the chaste, well-pruned severity of the one, 
 and the indulged, perhaps stimulated, luxuriance of 
 the other, you will feel the difference between classi- 
 cism and romanticism. But Victor Hugo is the 
 great recent romanticist ; and when, hereafter, we 
 come to speak somewhat at large of him, it will be 
 seasonable to enter more fully into the question of 
 these two tendencies in literature. 
 
 We cannot consent to have said here our very 
 last word, without emphasizing once again our sense 
 of the really extraordinary pervasiveness in French 
 literature of that element in it which one does not 
 like to name, even to condemn it, we mean its 
 impurity. The influence of French literary models, 
 very strong among us jnst now, must not be per- 
 mitted insensibly to pervert our own cleaner and 
 sweeter national habit and taste in this matter. 
 But we, all of us together, need to be both vigilant 
 and firm ; for the beginnings of corruption here are 
 very insidious. Let us never grow ashamed of our 
 saving Saxon shamefacedness. They may nick- 
 name it prudery, if they will ; but let us, American 
 and English, for our part, always take pride in such 
 prudery .
 
 INDEX. 
 
 [The merest approximation only can be attempted, in hinting here the 
 pronunciation of French names. In general, the French distribute the 
 accent pretty evenly among all the syllables of their words. We mark 
 an accent on the final syllable, chiefly in order to correct a natural Eng- 
 lish tendency to slight that syllable in pronunciation. In a few cases, we 
 let a well-established English pronunciation stand. N notes a peculiar 
 nasal sound, U, a peculiar vowel sound, having no equivalent in English.] 
 
 Ab'eMard (1079-1142), 6. 
 Academy, French, 10, 12, 75, 156, 
 
 287. 
 
 JSs'chy-lus, 94, 152, 166, 168. 
 JE'sop, 85. 
 Al-ci-bi'a-des, 289. 
 Alembert. See D'Alembert. 
 Al-ex-au'der (the Great), 5, 131. 
 Al-ex-an'drine, 5, 86, 153. 
 Am-y-ot' (a-me-o'), Jacques (1513- 
 
 1593), 8. 
 
 An'ge-lo, Michel, 156. 
 Ariosto, 245, 247. 
 Ar'is-tot-le, 50. 
 Ar-nauld' (ar-n6'), Antoine (1612- 
 
 1634), 119. 
 Arthur (King), 5. 
 Au'gus-tine, St., Latin Christian 
 
 Father, 83. 
 Au-gus'tus (the Emperor), 131. 
 
 Ba'con, Francis, 48, 63. 
 Ba'kcr, Jehu, 226. 
 Ba'laam, 154. 
 
 BaTzac, Jean Louis Guez de (1594- 
 
 1654) ,10, 11. 
 Beau-raar-chais', de (bo-mar-sha'), 
 
 Pierre Augustin Carou (1732- 
 
 1799), 287, 289. 
 Benedictines, 29. 
 Boi-leau'-Des-pre-aux' (bwa-lo'-da- 
 
 pra-o'), Nicolas (1636-1711), 9, 12, 
 
 14, 83, 84, 167, 168, 171, 289. 
 Bolton, A. S., 69. 
 BOS-SU-ET (bo-sii-a') , Jacques B6- 
 
 nigne (1627-1704), 11, 12, 77, 127, 
 
 166, 170, 182-188, 205, 206, 224, 225. 
 BOUR-DA-LOUE', Louis (1632- 
 
 1704), 3, 12, 77, 143, 148, 182, 185, 
 
 188, 189-197, 198, 201, 202. 
 Brook Farm, 38. 
 
 Bry'ant, William Cullen, 290, 291. 
 Buckle, Henry Thomas, 234. 
 Buffon (biif-fox'). Georges Louis 
 
 Leclerc de (1707-1788), 287. 
 Bur'gun-dy, Duke of (1682-1712), 
 
 177, 207, 208, 209, 214, 216. 
 Burke, Edmund, 48, 75. 
 
 293
 
 294 
 
 Index. 
 
 Bussy (biis-se'). Count, 135. 
 By'ron, Lord, 48. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 56, 131. 
 Calas (ca-la'), Jean, 253. 
 Calvin, John (1509-1564), 7. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 251, 255. 
 Catherine (Empress of Russia), 285. 
 Cham-fort' (shan-forO , Sebastien 
 
 Koch Nicolas (1741-1794), 85. 
 Chanson (shaN-soN'^, 5. 
 Char-le-magne' (shar-le-man') > 5. 
 Charles I. Cof England), 170, 135. 
 Charles IX. (of France), 63. 
 Cha-teau-bri-and' (sha-to-bre-au'), 
 
 Francois Auguste de (1768-1848), 
 
 3, 13, 14, 206, 277, 289. 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 5, 20. 
 " Classicism," 10, 14, 224, 289, 290. 
 Claude, Jean (1619-1687), 182. 
 Coleridge, S. T., 7, 34, 43. 
 Comines (ko-meen'), Philippe de 
 
 (1445-1509), 7, 25, 28. 
 Conde (koN-da'), Prince of, "The 
 
 Great Conde" (1621-1686), 144. 
 Condillac (koN-de-yak'), Etienne 
 
 Bonnot de (1715-1780), 287. 
 Condorcet (koN-dor-sa'), Marie 
 
 Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat de 
 
 (1743-1794), 128. 
 CORNEILLE (kor-nal'), Pierre 
 
 (1606-1684), 2, 11, 12, 16, 78, 79, 
 
 80, 151-166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 182, 
 
 183, 239. 
 
 Cotin (ko-taN'), Abbe, 100. 
 Cotton, Charles (1630-1687), 44,48. 
 Cousin (koo-zSN'), Victor (1792- 
 
 1867), 128. 
 
 D'Alembert (da-laN-ber / ) , Jean le 
 Rond (1717-1783), 13, 251, 286, 
 287. 
 
 Dante, 50, 93, 94, 114. 
 
 David (King) , 198. 
 
 Descartes (da-karf), Ren6 (1596- 
 
 1650), 11, 12, 104, 115. 
 D'Holbach (dol-baV), Paul Henri 
 
 Thyry (1723-1789), 287. 
 Dickens, Charles, 35, 149. 
 Diderot (de-dro'), Denis (1713- 
 
 1784), 13, 237, 250, 284, 285, 286, 
 
 287. 
 
 Dryden, John, 48, 166. 
 Duclos (dii-kl6')> Charles Pineau 
 
 (1704-1772), 287. 
 
 " crasee I'lnfame," 252. 
 Edinburgh Review, 140. 
 Edward (the Black Prince), 21-25. 
 Edwards, President, 194. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 49, 51, 52, 
 
 61. 
 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 18. 
 ENCYCLOPAEDISTS, 13, 218, 249, 
 
 250, 282-288. 
 Epictetus, 65. 
 Epicurus, 50. 
 Erasmus, 43, 126. 
 Euripides, 153, 166, 171. 
 
 Fabliaux (fab'le-6'). 6. 
 
 Faugere (fo-zher'), Arnaud Prosper 
 
 p810- ),128. 
 FENELON (fan-IoN'), Francois de 
 
 Saliguac de la Mothe (1651-1715), 
 
 12, 85, 177, 178, 181, 205-224. 
 Flechier ffla-she-a') , Esprit (1632- 
 
 1710), 182. 
 
 Foix (fwa), Count de, 26, 27. 
 Fontenelle (foNt-uel')> Bernard le 
 
 Bovier (1657-1757), 289. 
 Franciscans, 29. 
 Frederick (the Great), 254. 
 Friar John, 40. 
 FROISSART (frwa-sar'), Jean 
 
 (1337-1410?), 7, 18-28.
 
 Index. 
 
 295 
 
 Galllard (gil-yaK), Gabriel Henri 
 
 (1726-1806), 155. 
 Gar-gant'tia, 29, 36, 37, 39. 
 Gibbon, Edward, 153. 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 83, 225. 
 Grignan (green-yax')> Madame de, 
 
 138. 
 Grimm, Friedrich Melchior (1723- 
 
 1807), 287. 
 
 Gulliver's Travels, 37. 
 Guyon (ge-yoN'), Madame (1648- 
 
 1717) ,210. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, 18, 34. 
 
 Havet (a-va') (editor of Pascal's 
 
 works), 128, 129. 
 Htwkesworth, Dr., 222. 
 Hazlitt, W. Carew, 48. 
 Helv&ius (el-va-se-Uss'), Claude 
 
 Adrien (1715-1771), 287. 
 Henriette, Princess, 170. 
 Henry of Navarre, 63. 
 Herod (King), 198. 
 Herodotus, 7, 18. 
 Holbach. See D'Holbach. 
 Homer, 244. 
 
 Hooker (" The judicious "), 205. 
 Horace, 245. 
 Hugo (U-go')i Victor. See Victor 
 
 Hugo. 
 Hume, David, 48, 276. 
 
 Isaiah (the prophet), 94. 
 Israel, 154. 
 
 James (King) ,210. 
 
 Job, 94, 210. 
 
 John (the Baptist), 198. 
 
 John (King), 21, 22. 
 
 Johnes, Thomas, 19. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 160, 249. 
 
 Joinville (zhwaN-vel'.), Jean de 
 
 (1224P-1319?), 7. 
 Julian (the Apostate), 178. 
 
 Kant, Emmanuel, 42. 
 Knox, John, 198. 
 
 La Boetie (la bo-a-te'), Etienne 
 
 (1530-1563), 58, 59. 
 LA BRUYERE(labril-e-ye'r / ),Jean 
 
 (1646?-1696), 12, 75-81, 153. 
 LA FONTAINE (la foN-tan'), Jean 
 
 de (1621-1695), 12, 81-92. 
 Lamartine (la-mar-ten'), Alphonse 
 
 Marie Louis de (1790-1869), 14, 
 
 206, 289. 
 Langue d'oc, 4. 
 Langue <Vdil, 4. 
 Lanier, Sidney (1842-1881), 25. 
 LA ROCHEFOUCAULD (la rosh- 
 
 foo-ko'). Frangois, Due de (1613- 
 
 1680), 12, 48, 66-75, 131, 147, 148. 
 Longfellow, Henry W., 50. 
 Louis IX. (1215-1270) (St. Louis), 
 
 6,7. 
 
 Louis XI. (1423-1483), 7. 
 Louis XIII. (1601-1643), 10, 95. 
 Louis XIV. (1638-1715) (Quatorze), 
 
 10, 12, 113, 135, 136, 169, 172, 176, 
 
 181, 184, 189, 190, 198, 199, 200, 207, 
 
 208, 213, 217-219, 223, 255. 
 Louis XV. (1710-1774), 199, 214, 
 
 254. 
 Louvois (loo-vwa'), Marquis de, 
 
 142. 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, 291. 
 Lucan, 151,153,240. 
 Lucretius, 94, 166. 
 Luther, Martin, 7, 40. 
 
 Maintenon (mSN-tgh-noN'), Madame 
 de (1635-1719), 172, 181, 210, 211. 
 
 Malherbe (mal-Srb'), Francois (1555- 
 1628), 9, 10, 14. 
 
 Martin (mar-tan'), Henri (1810- ), 
 183. 
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 8, 198.
 
 296 
 
 Index. 
 
 MASSILLON (mas-se-yoN'), Jean 
 Buptiste (1663-1742), 3, 12, 148, 
 182, 185, 188, 197-205. 
 
 M'Crie, Thomas, 119. 
 
 Michael (the Archangel), 205. 
 
 Milton, John, 92, 182, 206, 247. 
 
 MOLIERE (rao-le-er') (real name, 
 Jean Baptiste Poqueliu, 1622- 
 1673), 12, 16, 83, 92-114, 127, 154, 
 165, 167, 169, 240. 
 
 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 151. 
 
 MONTAIGNE (mon-tan'), Michel 
 Eyquem de (1533-1592), 2, 7, 8, 
 44-65, 67, 75, 131, 230, 234, 257, 268. 
 
 Montespan (moN-tese-paN')> Ma- 
 dame de (1641-1707), 138, 139, 140. 
 
 MONTESQUIEU, de (moN-tes- 
 kg-uh'), Charles de Secondat 
 (1689-1755), 13, 218, 225-237. 
 
 Morley, Henry, 249. 
 
 Morley, John, 249, 251, 285. 
 
 Motteux, Peter Anthony (1660- 
 1718), 30. 
 
 Mussel (mJi-ea') (1810-1857), Al- 
 fred de, 289. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte, 13, 166. 
 Nathan (the prophet) , 198. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 115. 
 Nicole (ne k61'), Pierre (1625-1695), 
 3, 143, 147, 163. 
 
 " Obscurantism " (disposition, In 
 the sphere of the intellect, to love 
 darkness rather than light), 252. 
 
 Pan-tag'-ru-el, 29, 40, 41, 42. 
 Panurge (pa-niirzh'), 40, 41, 42. 
 PASCAL, Blaise (1623-1662), 3, 12, 
 
 48, 62, 65, 80, 115-133, 193. 
 Pascal, Jacqueline, 116. 
 Pelisson (pel-e-soN'), 149. 
 Petrarch, Francesco, 20. 
 
 Phaedrus, 85. 
 
 Plato, 50, 51, 59. 
 
 Pleiades (ple'ya-dez), 8, 10, 13. 
 
 Plutarch, 8, 48, 56. 
 
 Po-co-cu'rant-ism, 248. 
 
 Pompadour, Madame de, 254. 
 
 Pompey, 56. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 48, 166. 
 
 Poqueliu (po-ke-l&N')- See Moliere ; 
 
 94, 95. 
 
 Port Royal, 119, 127, 128, 147, 168. 
 Pradon (pra-doN'), 171. 
 Provenqal (pro-vax-sal), 4. 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus, 8. 
 
 Quentin Durward, 7. 
 
 RABELAIS (rS-bla'), Francois 
 
 (1495?-1553?), 3, 7, 28-43, 60, 65, 
 
 83, 146. 
 RACINE (ra-seen'), Jean (1639- 
 
 1699), 12, 78, 79, 80, 83, 151, 152, 
 
 153, 166-181, 205. 
 Rambouillet (rau-boo-ya'), Hotel 
 
 de, 10, 11, 12, 100, 105, 155, 156, 183. 
 Raphael (archangel), 205. 
 Retamier (ra-ka-me-a'), Madame 
 
 (1777-1849), 11. 
 
 Richard, the Lion-hearted, 117. 
 Richelieu (resh-le-uh'). Cardinal, 
 
 10,12,95,154,156. 
 Roman (ro-ma'N'), 5. 
 " Romanticism," 224, 289, 290. 
 " Romanticists," 14. 
 Ronsard (roN-sar / ), Pierre de (1524- 
 
 1585), 8,9. 
 Ronsardism, 14. 
 Rousseau (roo-so')> Jean Baptiste 
 
 (1670-1741), 255. 
 ROUSSEAU, Jean Jacques (1712- 
 
 1778), 3, 13, 14, 48, 206, 218, 249, 
 
 250, 251, 255-281, 287. 
 Ruskin, John, 73.
 
 Index. 
 
 297 
 
 Rutebeuf (rfl-te buf) (6. 1230), 
 troticere, 6. 
 
 Sabliere (sa-bll-eV), Madame de la, 
 
 83,84. 
 
 Sad (sa-se')> M. de, 65. 
 Saintsbury, George, 17, 58. 
 Sainte-Beuve (SclNt-buv'), Charles 
 
 Augustin (1804-1869), 9, 14, 189, 
 
 193, 199, 235, 289. 
 Sal'a-din (Saracen antagonist of 
 
 Richard the Lion-hearted), 117. 
 Salon (sii-loN'), 11. 
 Sand (saNd), George (Madame 
 
 Dudevant, 1804-1876), 3, 14. 
 Sum-in (so-raN'), Jacques (1677- 
 
 1730), 182. 
 "Savoyard Curate's Confession," 
 
 279. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 7, 19, 25, 105. 
 Seldeu, John (" The learned "), 205. 
 Seneca, 48, 50. 
 SKVIGN^ (sa-ven-ya'), Madame de, 
 
 Marie de Rabutin-Chautal (162(5- 
 
 1696), 11, 105, 134-151, 1TO. 
 Shakspeare, 16, 48, 63, 92, 94, 114, 
 
 160, 240. 
 Socrates (contrasted by Rousseau 
 
 with Jesus), 280, 281. 
 Sophocles, 153, 166, 168. 
 SUel-Holstein (sta-el' ol-staN*), 
 
 Anne Louise Germanic de (1766- 
 
 1817), 13, 289. 
 
 Stanislaus (King of Poland), 285. 
 St John, Bayle, 56, 58, 59. 
 St. Pierre, Jacques Henri Beruardin 
 
 de (1737-1814), 289. 
 St. Simon (se-raoN'), Louis de Rou- 
 
 vroi, Due de (1(575-1755), 208, 209. 
 Swift, Dean, 37. 
 Sw'uburue, Algernon Charles, 94. 
 
 Tacitus, 7. 
 
 Taine, II. (1828- ),233. 
 
 Tartuffe (tar tuf), 106-114, 147. 
 
 Tasso, 245, 247. 
 
 Theleme (ta-lem'), 38, 40. 
 
 Themistocles, 289. 
 
 Thibaud (te-bo'), troubadour (1201- 
 
 1253), 6. 
 Trajan, 254. 
 Troubadour, 4. 
 Trounere (troo-ver'), 5, 6. 
 Tully (Cicero), 246. 
 Turgot (tiir-go'), Anne Robert 
 
 Jacques (1727-1781), 287. 
 
 Urquhart, Sir Thomas, 30. 
 
 Van Laun, H., 17. 
 
 Vatel, 143, 144, 145. 
 
 Vauvenargues (vo-ve-narg / ), Lu 
 de Clapiers, Marquis de (1715- 
 1747), 79, 80, 81. 
 
 Vercingetorix, 226. 
 
 Victor Hugo (1802-1885), 14, 16, 94, 
 289, 291. 
 
 Villehardouin (vel-ar-doo-aN'), 
 Geoffroy (U65?-1213?), 7. 
 
 Villemain (vel-maN'), Abel Fran- 
 cois (1790-1870), 118. 
 
 Virgil, 5, 9, 81, 106, 172, 245. 
 
 Voiture (vwa-tiirO, Vincent (1598- 
 1648), 11. 
 
 VOLTAIRE (vol-teV), Fran 5 o59 
 Marie Arouet de (1694-1778), 2, 
 13, 38, 48, 68, 80, 127, 152, 153, 160, 
 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 204, 218, 234 
 235, 238-255, 285, 286, 287. 
 
 Wall, C. H., 106. 
 Walpole, Horace, 151, 230. 
 Warens (va-rau'). Madame d, 264, 
 
 265, 268, 269, 275. 
 Webster, Daniel, 188 
 Wright, Klizur, 86.
 
 Date Due 
 
 |n 
 
 A 000 922 241 5