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A CENTUEY OF FRENCH POETS 



A CENTURY 
OF FRENCH POETS 

BEING A SELECTION ILLUSTRATING 
THE HISTORY OF FRENCH POETRY 
DURING THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS 

With an Introduction, Biographical and Critical Notices 

of the Writers Represented, a Summary of the Rules 

of French Versification, and a Commentary, by 

FKANCIS YVON ECCLES 



LONDON 

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO LTD 

1909 



AU POETE 
AUGUSTE ANGELLIEK 



PREFACE 

This book has been a long while making for a task not 
apparently so arduous. It was more than once laid down 
and taken up again, at long intervals, and no doubt the 
result on this account and others will show disparity and 
incoherence. My choice of French poetry was already 
settled — but for about a dozen pieces added since — when 
the very liberal Anthology of M. Walch, Les Poetes Gontem- 
porains, appeared, which with its supplementary volume, 
devoted to the earlier part of the last century, covers the 
whole of the same period. A good many of the poems I 
had selected may be read there; but I did not think it 
necessary to modify my list in consequence, because this is 
a compilation intended for English readers and accompanied 
by whatever I could offer as a help to their enjoyment. 

Though a fair proportion of the very finest French verse 
written in the century, as far as I can judge, is included 
there is so much else of interest coming far short of that 
superlative that I would rather call this a Chrestomathy (if 
the word were less pedantic) than an Anthology proper. My 
plan was to cull, among the works of some forty poets — not 
necessarily all the best, but each representing a phase in the 
later poetical development of France — such examples as 
should convey a just notion of their peculiar qualities and 
of their range. For this reason I have found no place for 
some better poets than Millevoye, Delavigne, Laprade and 
even Sully-Prudhomme ; and I have passed by many 



viii A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

reputed masterpieces, not of course as soaring above the 
ordinary level of their authors, but because they did not 
appear to illustrate an authentic manner or to furnish a 
contributory type. 

I hope this book, for all its defects, will be useful to serious 
students of French literature who may be glad to have in a 
single volume a body of verse exemplifying broadly the 
poetical variety of a teeming age ; and also that it may help 
to correct a prejudice and to excite an interest among a 
larger class of English people who, however familiar with 
French fiction and memoirs, have somehow neglected the 
admirable poets of modern France. With very different 
sorts of readers in view, I have run the risk of taking now 
too much knowledge and now too much ignorance for 
granted. Many of the notes are rudimentary and some, I 
dare say, will be found irrelevant. As for the Introduction, 
I began it with the object of asserting, in a few paragraphs, 
the existence of a continuous and venerable French tradi- 
tion in poetry, a rich patrimony which men of the nine- 
teenth century have improved incalculably; but I soon 
found myself launched unawares upon a more formidable 
scheme of survey. The thing, I feel, is dull and dispropor- 
tionate ; it may strike others as superficial and pretentious 
also ; and perhaps the necessity for condensation has betrayed 
me into an abuse of what is rather pompously called ' the 
allusive method.' But there are some definitions which may 
shorten the foreigner's approach to the heart of French 
poetry, and some confident judgments upon famous names 
which the general reader may be tempted at any rate to 
test — by turning to their works. 

Both in the Introduction and the Commentary, as well as 
in the criticism appended to the notices on various poets, I 
have insisted a good deal upon versification; and I have 



PREFACE ix 

inserted a short account of measure, rime and rhythm in 
French poetry. If so much space allotted to a technical 
subject needs justifying, I can only say that nothing, to my 
mind, accounts so well for the poor reputation of French 
poetry in England as the assumption that (unlike the Greek 
and Latin) it can be approached and appreciated without the 
most distant notions of its prosody. 

I wish to thank my friend Mr. Belloc for his advice, and 
above all for the kindly spur he has so insistently applied to 
this undertaking. The idea of the book, or of some such 
book, was his ; and it is quite certain that it would never 
have got finished if his interest had not been proof against 
my laches. 

F. Y. E 

April 1909. 



CONTENTS 

AN INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY ON THE DEVELOP- 
MENT OF FRENCH POETEY . 

TEXT, WITH BIOGEAPHICAL AND CRITICAL 
NOTICES :— 



Charles Millevoye : Notice 


67 


1. La Chute des Feuilles 


68 


Pieeee- Jean de Bebangee : Notice 


70 


2. Ma Vocation .... 


71 


3. Le Petit Homme Eouge . 


73 


4. Les Bohemiens .... 


74 


5. Le Vieux Caporal 


77 


Casimie Delavigne : Notice 


79 


6. La Devastation du Musee et des Monuments 


80 


7. La Villa Adrienne 


83 


Makceline Desboedes-Valmoee : Notice . 


85 


8. L'Attente .... 


85 


Alphonse de Lamaetine : Notice 


88 


9. L'Isolement .... 


93 


10. Le Soir ..... 


94 


11. L'Enthousiasme .... 


96 


12. Le Lac ..... 


99 


13. Eh 1 qui m'emportera ... 


101 


14. L'Hymne de la Nuit 


102 


15. Beaute", secret d'en haul ... 


105 


Alfred de Vigny : Notice 


107 


16. Le Cor 


109 


17. La Maison du Berger 


112 


18. La Mort du Loup 


116 



Xll 



A CENTUEY OF FRENCH POETS 





PAGE 


Victor Hugo : Notice . 


119 


19. Mazeppa ....•• 


126 


20. Parfois, lorsque tout dort .... 


130 


21. Guitare ...-•■ 


130 


22. La Coccinelle . 


133 


23. Le Eouet d'Omphale . 


134 


24. Soir ...... 


134 


25. Trois Ans apres . . . • 


136 


26. gouffre 1 . . . . 


140 


27. France, ct, I'heure oil tu te prosternes ... 


141 


28. Oh / je sais qu'ils feront des mensonges ... 


142 


29. Le Chasseur Noir . 


143 


30. Gros Temps la Nuit . 


145 


31. La Terre : Hymne . . . . 


148 


32. Booz Endormi . 


151 


33. Cassandre .... 


154 


34. La Chanson de Joss . 


155 


35. EcritenExil . 


157 


36. La Chanson de Fantiue . 


157 


37. A la Belle Impeiieuse . 


158 


38. Premier Janvier ... 


159 


39. Choses du Soir . 


159 


40. Chanson dAutrefois 


161 


Gerard de Nerval : Notice 


163 


41. Fantaisie ..... 


164 


42. El Desdichado .... 


165 


Emile Deschamps : Notice 


166 


43. A quelques Poetes 


167 


44. Nizza ..... 


K 168 


Charles-August™ Sainte-Beuve : Notice 


169 


45. Pensee dAutomne 


. 171 


46. A David ..... 


. 172 


47. Dans ce cabriolet de place .... 


. 173 


Alfred de Musset : Notice 


. 175 


48. Ballade a la Lune 


. 178 


49. Chanson ..... 


. 181 


50. Chanson ..... 


. 182 



CONTENTS 






xiii 


PAGE 


51. La Nuit de Decembre ... 183 


52. Tristesse . 






189 


53. Sur une Morte . 






190 


54. Chanson . 






191 


Theophile Gautier : Notice 






192 


55. Choc de Cavaliers 






194 


56. Barcarolle 






195 


57. Don Juan 






196 


58. Ribeira . 






199 


59. La Melodie et l'Accompagnement 




201 


60. Variations sur le Carnaval de Venise 




202 


Auguste Barbier : Notice 




207 


61. Prologue . 






208 


62. La Curee 






208 


63. Titien . 






212 


Auguste Brizeux : Notice 






213 


64. Marie 






214 


65. Invocation 






216 


Josephin Soulary : Notice 






218 


66. Primula Veris 






219 


Victor de Laprade : Notice 






220 


67. La Mort d'un ChSne 






221 


Theodore de Banville : Notice 






227 


68. Sous Bois 








228 


69. Nous n'irons plus au bois 








229 


70. Ballade de Victor Hugo 








229 


71. La Montagne : Pantoum 








230 


72. Mourir, Dormir . 






232 


Louis Bouilhet : Notice . 






. 233 


73. La Colombe 








. 234 


Leoonte de Lisle : Notice 








. 237 


74. Les Hurleurs 








. 240 


75. Les Montreurs 








. 241 


76. La Chute des Etoiles 








. 242 


77. Les Plaintes du Cyclope 








. 243 



XIV 



A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 











PAGE 


78. Midi 245 


79. Sacra Fames 








. 246 


80. Le Sacre de Paris 








. 247 


Charles Baudelaire : Notice 








. 251 


81. Preface . 








. 255 


82. J'avme le souvenir . . . 








. 256 


83. Parfum Exotique 








. 258 , 


84. Une Charogne 








. 258 { 


85. Le Beau Navire . 








260 ] 


86. L'Irreparable 








261 


87. Le Vin de l'Assassin 








263/ 


88. La Beatrice 








26# 


Leon Dierx : Notice 








266 


89. Journee d'Hiver . 








266 


A. Sully- Prtjdhomme : Notice 








267 


90. LeVaseBrise . 








268 


91. Voix de la Terre . 








269 


Paul Verlaine : Notice . 








270 


92. Resignation 








271 


93. Mon K§ve Familier 








272 


94. Bon chevalier masque . . 








272 


95. Beauti des femmes . . . 








273 


96. J^coutez la chanson . . . 








274 


Francois Coppee : Notice 








275 


97. A une Tulipe 








276 


98. Une Aumone 








277 


Jose-Maria de Heredia : Notice 






278 


99. Antoine et CleopHtre 






279 


100. LeLit . 








279 


St£phane Mallarm£ : Notice 








281 \ 
283 ' 


101. Les FenStres 








102. Sonnet . 








284 


Jean Kichepin : Notice . 








285l^ 


103. Le Dernier Ocean 








286 


104. Begard de Pauvre 








286 



CONTENTS 



xv 



Emile Vebhaeeen: Notice 


PAGE 

288 


105. Le Glaive 


. 290 


106. An Nord 


. 290 


107. Le Bazar 


. 292 


108. Celui qui me lira .... 


. 294 


109. Les Tours au Bord de la Mer 


. 295 


Jean Moeeas : Notice 


. 298 


110. Elegie .... 


. 299 


111. Stances : Tu souffres tons les maux . . 


. 300 


112. Je vous entends glisser . . . 


301 


Jules Lafoegue : Notice . 


. 302 


113. Complainte de l'Oubli des Morts 


. 303 


114. Dialogue 


. 304 


Henei de Regniee : Notice 


. 306 


115. Apparition 


. 307 


116. Odelette 


. 308 


117. LaColline 


. 309 


118. La Menace 


310 


Feancis Viele-Geiffin : Notice . 


. 312 


119. Bonde Finale . 


. 313 


120. La Partenza, xiii.-xv. 


. 315 


Gustave Kahn : Notice . 


. 316 


121. Quand le roi vint a sa tour 


. 317 


122. Image . . . . . 


. 318 


Albeet Samain : Notice . . . . 


. 319 


123. Musique sur l'Eau 


. 321 


124. Automne . . . . 


. 322 


125. Veillfe . 


. 322 


126. Soir de Printemps 


. 323 


127. Mon enfance captive ... 


. 324 


Paul Foet : Notice .... 


. 325 


128. Ballades . . . . 


. 326 


129. Vision du Crepuscule . 


. 327 



XVI 



A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 





PAGE 


Charles Guerin : Notice . 


. 330 


130. Le sombre del lacte 


. 331 


Auguste Angellier : Notice 


. 334 


131. La Grgle 


. 335 


132. L'Habitude 


. 336 



NOTES 



337 



APPENDIX: Some Eemarks on Measure, Eime, and 

Rhythm in French Poetry . . .381 



INDEX 



395 



AN INTKODUCTOEY ESSAY ON 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEENCH POETEY 

' The French literature,' wrote the prince of English rhetori- 
cians, glancing carelessly across the Channel in the year 
1821, that marvellous year for English poetry — ' the French 
literature is now in the last stage of phthisis, dotage, palsy, 
or whatever image will best express the most abject state of 
senile — (senile ? no ! of anile) — imbecility. Its constitution, 
as you well know, was in its best days marrowless and with- 
out nerve, — its youth without hope, and its manhood without 
dignity.' 

Discharged in the visible dawn of a period incomparably 
fertile among the French in all the forms of imaginative 
writing, this volley of resonant claptrap would hardly be 
worth repeating merely to show a wide rent in the scholar's 
gown which De Quincey wore with so assured a grace, nor 
even because it would be difficult to meet in our language 
with a more forcible assertion of the common attitude 
towards the literature, and especially the poetry, of France. 
But it contains a shred of truth, which at its date was fresh 
and valuable. In the score of lean years with which the 
century opens, something that had been young, that had 
been ripe, and which had still the name of French literature 
allowed it, was lying parched and shrivelled upon its death- 
bed. To suppose that this gasping veteran, whose life had 
been artificially prolonged until it was become a burden, was 
the founder of his family, to miss the glimmer of a likeness 
on his dull, sunken features with a virile and imperishable 
race, is a more deplorable impertinence than to be confident 
he could have no such heir as the eager and reckless child in 
brave apparel, whose adventurous vigour, seeming to belie 
his birth, was to enhance so splendidly a half-forgotten lustre. 



2 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Great Frenchmen of the nineteenth century have often 
claimed a right to choose their ancestors ; but the line 
is unbroken. Michelet's magnificent formula — 'La France 
a fait la France' — is as profoundly true in letters as in 
politics: the development of French 5 poetry, which particu- 
larly concerns us, has been continuous ; not progressive in 
every sense, but continuous ; there is not a link in the chain 
wanting. Where the stream of song rises no one knows — it 
may be followed for nine hundred years. As well might we 
date the beginnings of English History from the battle of 
Waterloo as suppose that the spirit of poetry was born in 
France when the long agony of classicism ended and the 
sons of Revolution woke the land with the sound of the horn 
in the woods at morning. 

And yet, so absolute is the lyrical supremacy of the last 
age there that whatever was accomplished in that kind before 
might well seem only a prelude or a promise. Such an 
efflorescence, bursting the more suddenly at last for a long 
and secret saturation of the soil, is not to be explained : we 
only affirm it by saying that a few great men, and many ex- 
ceptionally endowed, then gave their energies to poetry. For 
if the artistic aptitudes of a race and of its speech — the in- 
fallible reflexion of a race — are never permanently modified 
unless by conquest, it is the apparition of genius that from 
time to time reveals them fully. They are barren at moments 
of convulsion, in ages of extreme lassitude and of little men ; 
in others fashion, the pride of perfect imitation, starving 
certain faculties to glut the rest, inflicts a onesided — at first 
sometimes a salutary — discipline upon the formal conditions 
of the effort to create. 

But a dozen masterpieces would suffice to prove an abiding 
possibility. 

I 

The French have made poetry from the first, with the 
same instrument, with a conception of rhythm and harmony 
essentially unchanging — and the particular autonomy of so 
many temperaments and tones and aspirations only gives 
breadth and colour to the impression of unity which results 



INTRODUCTION 3 

from their array. If we go back to the start of that long 
period in which all but the entire imaginative literature of 
Western Europe either belonged to them, or bore witness 
to the restlessness of their blood and the attraction of their 
delectable tongue, at the very gates of that age-long dominion 
we find the most constant moulds of French verse, with some 
constitutional virtues of French art, and the instincts and 
ideals to which this people is perpetually returning, already 
manifest in three anonymous poems composed, or re-com- 
posed, during the eleventh century — and that is full two 
hundred years before the land was welded into one polity 
again, and longer still before the idiom of the Royal Demesne 
had evicted its near neighbours of the langue d'o'il. 1 One is 
the humble and infinitely gracious life of Saint Alexis, which 
exalts without false pity, or a perfunctory word that would 
cheapen their price, the rare sacrifice of our affections to the 
service of God. 2 Another is the great epic of Christendom, 
the Song of Roland, of honour, of fraternity, and the pride 
of being few against a host and caring only 'that gentle 
France may take no shame through us.' In the third, 
called the Pilgrimage of Charlemagne to Jerusalem, which 
scholars place in time between these two, gleams the double 
edge of a native irony, half conscious, probing the glory of a 
caste and finding something hollow there — and with it 
appears that sovereign vehicle of French poetry, the Alex- 
andrine. 3 They are diverse in origin, worlds apart in feeling 
— but remember that the same land was to produce both 

1 It is well known that French Is the dialect of the Duchy of France, 
which only gradually established its pre-eminence over the Picard (with 
Walloon), the Champenois, the Burgundian (with the Lorrain between 
them), the Norman and the Poitevin — these last the two forms of French 
which made English what it is. Oil (hoc Mud) was ' yes ' in them all, as 
oc was ' yes ' in the dialects of Southern France which we call generically 
Provencal (Gascon, Limousin, Catalan and the speech of the old Roman 
Provincia). 

2 ' The impudence even of a Frenchman would not dare to connect the 
sanctities of religious feeling with any book in his language,' says De 
Quincey pleasantly in the same essay— as if he had never heard of Francois 
de Sales, of Bossuet, of Polyeucte or Athcdie or even of Calvin's Institution ! 

s A century earlier than Alixandre, the popular epic of Lambert le Tors 
and Alexandre de Bernay which gave the verse its name. 



4 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Joan the warrior-saint and La Pucelle, the brilliant libel of 
Voltaire ! They have all three in common a humanity which 
tends to neglect everything on earth but human life ; a bias 
of interest that ever shuns the unsociable theme; a sane 
precision and tenacity of sensuous apprehension, reproduc- 
ing each event in its real order and without method hitting 
the mark of a rigorous composition ; that sort of probity 
which abhors inorganic ornament and clouds of speech, and 
forbids the irrelevant irruption of the dreamer into the tale 
of his dream; continuity, the instinct which sustains one 
pitch, one gait, and powerfully helps illusion ; — and a rhythm 
above all, a rhythm clear, robust, and supple, that to this day 
commands the native voice. 

The pomp and subtlety of the classical measures feebly 
perpetuated by the gaunt bookishness of cloisters, the dying 
echo of the swinging choruses (so much more Roman !) that 
the legionaries shouted on the solid roads, had mingled with 
indigenous relics, some stubborn obsession of the Gaulish 
ear, to cast and sanction younger forms. The language") 
itself, with its scrupulous articulation, its habit of just equi- \ 
poise and contempt for stresses that are not significant, not/ 
dictated by the mind, — its inward harmony, which relies on]) 
uniformity of movement towards an ideal point (fixed by a h 
suspension of the sense or an anticipation of the ear), laid y 
the foundations of their theory : — a tale of syllables which 
must be exact; in the long lines an interruption — and a 
respite for the voice — at a settled place where thoughts 
have converged with some intensity ; another at the end to 
mark the measure ; lastly, a recurrence of the final sounds. 

The poems I have spoken of were stories, not what we 
call songs. Saint Alexis 1 was written and read ; the others 
and the whole innumerable class of poems recording heroic 
feats, and afterwards adventures in love as well as war, were 
composed for recitation— in ' fyttes ' containing (down to a 
certain period in the history of narrative poetry) a variable 

1 The poem is in assonance, not rime; but it is arranged in regular 
stanzas of five lines. Assonance is the repetition of a vowel-sound rime 
the repetition of a vowel-sound and any consonant sounds that may follow. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

number of lines strung together by the exact repetition of a 
vowel. It is a pedant's assumption that assonance is older 
than rime, and gradually became rime. Very likely they 
existed side by side, appropriated to distinct needs, from the 
r first. Rime in French verse and assonance, if sometimes 
\ they have degenerated into toys, did not aim principally at 
\a childish titillation of the ear : they were two ways of rein- 
forcing in a language of variable accentuation that con- 
sciousness of a regular return without which verse, in 
Europe, is not verse. For compositions uniform in measure, 
in which the succession of yoked lines might be prolonged 
at the discretion (or according to the resources) of the poet, 
assonance, striking the ear so often, was enough: it was 
enough, besides, to sustain the minstrel's memory, while the 
difference of a tone perhaps in his monotonous psalmody, 
gave salience to the last strong syllable of each line. Rime, 
which we find developed at a date even earlier than that of 
Saint Alexis and the Pilgrimage in their definitive form, 1 
may very well have been preferred, even at first, for lyrics in 
the proper sense. 

What were the lyrics of this early time ? Learned men 
can tell us. They have shown that in the heyday of epical 
creation, the French love-song, made (like the first epics) 
for the whole people, but the solace and delight especially of 
women, flourished all over the north. Little is left but 
names. From scarce fragments, from many burdens that 
have survived to grace the lyrics of later days, from the 
songs of other countries — Italy, Germany, Spain — on which 
French models then exercised an appreciable influence, it 
may be conjectured that the lyrical output in this first age 
was rich, of delicate workmanship, extremely varied in form, 
and not devoid of sincerity and tenderness, but not very 
personal, tending often to dramatise a scanty assortment of 
situations, and seldom or never reflecting the absorption or 
the spiritual violence of passion. For the love of woman 

1 The fragment of an Alexandre by Alberio de Besangon (eleventh cen- 
tury) is in stanzas of octosyllables which unquestionably are intended to 
rime, and generally do. 



6 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

that fills a life, that feeds upon itself, the communion of 
predestined souls, the subtle draught which turns to ecstasy 
or madness, we must look to the narrative poems of the next 
age, that violent youth of stone-building Europe which fell 
to musing for a while on Celtic visions of the world and the 
strange beauty of their Pagan symbols, and sometimes (as in 
French versions of Tristan and Isolt) x made them seem its 
own. The phase was short : French art took what it could 
assimilate, and rejected the rest. Neither its fundamental 
lucidity, its rude health, nor its conception of inanimate 
nature as above all a source of metaphors, was modified by 
contact with kindred but less disciplined peoples. 

A more dangerous infection came from the South, which 
the Crusades and the two Courts of Queen Eleanor 2 re- 
vealed in its seductive radiance and nimbleness to the hard- 
living nobles of Maine and Anjou, Picardy and England. 
While the feudal idea froze and became mechanical and 
barren, and what had been the national epic turned 
gradually to heartless spinning of wonders and compliant 
genealogies, the French lyric, steeped in the refinement of 
Provence and Aquitaine, lent itself humbly to the elaborate 
rhetoric, the shallow multiplicity of trifling variations, all 
the erotic and oftener Platonio casuistry of the troubadours. 
It was a period of essential triviality out of which, however, 
French verse was to emerge more agile and more buoyant, 
able therefore to carry, later on, a more solid cargo with 
the better grace. Among the courtly poets a few names 
(Blondel, Conon de B6thune, King Tybalt of Navarre, Gace 
Brusle) have floated down to us, the names of diligent crafts- 
men, inexhaustible weavers of rimes and riddles ; — for their 
appeal, superficially to the senses, is really to an intellectual 

1 Beroul's, and that of Thomas (an Anglo-French poem), are the best known : 
neither is complete. We have lost the Tristan of Chretien de Troyes, the 
most famous of those trouvires who treated by preference ' la matiere de 
Bretagne ' — a prolix and minute narrator, but a delicate maker of verse. 

2 Eleanor of Aquitaine (heiress of a line of twelve great counts) divorced 
from King Lewis the Seventh, married our Henry in. and brought him most 
of the west of France as a dowry. Her daughters were the Countesses of 
Champagne and of Blois, both brilliant patronesses of the courtly poets. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

acuteness that has patience for the formalism of hypothetical 
passions. And the dependence of gallantry upon dialectic 
at this period is illustrated even by a poem apparently so 
distant in its inspiration from the mellifluous debates of 
courtly triflers as the famous Roraaunt of the Rose. 
Guillaume de Lorris intends his part (the better) in that 
prodigious allegory for a pleasant manual of the amorous 
code, while in fact he draws his matter, the interplay of 
abstractions which his robust and delicate talent often con- 
trives to colour with life, from the psychology of the schools. 
It marks the shifting of poetical interest from castles to 
walled towns, that Jean de Meung, his verbose and encyclo- 
paedic successor, whose virtue consists in his irrelevance, 
should have addressed a public accustomed to misogynous 
diatribes and the abuse of idle magnates and covetous 
monks. Not the courts, indeed, but cities where the mental 
energy of the race accumulated, supply the rare oases in a 
great waste of insignificance. Arras, in the busy, fertile and 
quarrelsome North, could boast of Jean Bodel, a man of 
parts who tried his hand at every sort of writing, Adam le 
Bossu or Adam de la Hale, the hardly less versatile author 
of Robin et Marion, which is a lyrical diversion of prime 
quality cast in dialogue. And a far greater man than either, 
Rutebeuf, is a Parisian from Champagne. Mtutebeuf, a master 
of deep and sounding satire who saw the seamy side of Saint 
Lewis's reign, an artist who commanded the resources of a 
language still in flux, used rime unfalteringly and invented 
durable measures, maybe called the first excellent French poet 
whose name we possess ; the first at least who made poetry 
with his heart, out of his faith, his failures and follies, and 
pity for himself and all the world. A sort of minstrel by trade, 
dependent on the great who were even then tiring of their 
fine-spun amorists, and forced sometimes to hire out his real 
piety to their compunctions (if it is true that Thdophile, a 
masterpiece of the religious drama, and the admirable life of 
S. Mary of Egypt, were written for patrons), he is the earliest 
articulate type of the literary proletariat in Paris. Unclassed, 
he had something for all the classes in the realm. His code 



8 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

is chivalrous, his vision mystical ; but by his rich laugh, his 
grasp on palpable realities and turn for moralising, he 
adheres to the ' burgess literature,' and is near its favourite 
purveyors — the chroniclers of Reynard the Fox, the authors 
of the Fabliaux, 1 who had never a Boccaccio nor a Chaucer 
among them (though in a sense both spring from them), 
but who, besides standing at the head of a fine tradition, 
and expressing in the frank irreverence of their salted 
imaginations something elemental in the national temper, 
do now and again attain the perfection of narrative by the 
thrift and haste and vivacity of their speech. 

Rutebeuf in the thirteenth century beacons to Francois 
Villon in the fifteenth, with only the nicker of sundry rush- 
lights searching the gloomy tract between them, except 
where, close behind Villon but just off the spiritual highway, 
Duke Charles of Orleans irradiates the sum of many nothings 
with a retrospective glow. With the long list of versifiers 
who bear witness to the decomposition of mediaeval society, 
the science of language and the history of manners are 
principally concerned : their best perhaps might furnish out 
a score of pages that should contain only deft and pointed 
and melodious lines. It is enough to name Guillaume de 
Machaut, who could play the perfect suitor according to 
ancestral rules, but is reputed for having inaugurated the 
new manner consisting in an exact replenishment of 
rhythmical honeycombs from a store of indifferent words; 
Froissart, as empty and graceful in rime as he is rough and 
pithy in prose; Eustache des Champs, so grave, abundant 
and sententious ; the pettifogging Coquillart, Alain Chartier 
whom a queen kissed and his compeers valued for learning 
and prudent counsel, and Christine de Pisan, an amiable 
bluestocking and excellent Frenchwoman in spite of her 
Italian birth. For all these and their satellites, and all 
their line, the Meschinots and Molinets and Cretins, which 
lasted well into the sixteenth century, the great affair 
apparently was to deliver poetry from the scandal of frivolity 

1 It is hopeleHs to try to restore the real French form of the word fableau, 
which the dialectical fabliau has long since ousted. 



INTRODUCTION 9 

and the reproach of being easy. In general they are more 
sincere than the courtiers before them, in so far as their 
matter is of larger — sometimes indeed of national — interest. 
Prodigal of fine bookish maxims as their predecessors were 
full of precious sentiments, several of them display the 
genuine though confused and patchy erudition achieved 
with an abortive revival of learning under the elder Valois. 
They are disputatious and didactic, in an age when ver- 
nacular prose already offered a more effective vehicle for 
wisdom and enquiry. They are hypnotised by the example 
of sustained personifications left by Guillaume de Lorris and 
Jean de Meung : visions and allegories are an indispensable 
part of their stock-in-trade. As for their form, they have 
exchanged the sane if often childish joy in free invention 
for the pride of a complicated framework — the bare ribs of 
a starved and juiceless poetry. 

Tradition is a slippery word : but it is doing no injustice 
to Charles of Orleans, the ineffectual hope of a national 
royalty, the not inconsolable prisoner of Windsor and 
Groombridge, and a prince, when all is said, too suave and 
too placable for honour, to describe his work and influence, 
which deviate from the larger destinies of French literature, 
as a return essentially to the refined tradition of the twelfth 
and thirteenth conturies. To be sure he is a master of the 
fixed forms elaborated by more recent generations, and 
three quarters of his matter is an analysis of fashionable 
metaphor, a perfunctory attempt to galvanise the soulless 
abstractions which fascinated his times. But he is no 
preacher, his subtleties are all sentimental, his verbal con- 
scientiousness revolts against the servile excellence accessible 
to the machinery of iteration, and in a word his work is 
aristocratic in the most familiar sense. What is entirely 
his own is the fluid sweetness-, the disencumbered gait, 
the nonchaloir which history reads tragically, a delicious 
language, unpedantic, personal in its novelties and archaisms, 
and so perfectly apt to evoke the fugitive vision of happy 
glades and silver brooks — but especially his fortunate gift 
of lighting upon themes to which their very echo lends an 



10 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

adventitious value, the illusion of a melancholy meaning. 
Remembering that his mother was a Visconti of Milan, and 
that his son was to lead a French host into Italy, we think 
of him too readily as a precursor of the French Renaissance. 
He is much more truly, by virtue of his lovable shallowness, 
detachment and vague, fanciful gallantry, the last of the 
feudal patron-poets, and assuredly the worthiest. After him 
the Southern fever, which had survived the lancet of the 
Albigensian wars, made no more distinguished efforts, in the 
guise of chivalry, to capture the national genius. 

Villon may very probably have been an occasional client 
of the Duke's. Why does he seem not thirty or forty, but 
hundreds of years nearer to us ? Because, for one thing, he 
was so much more frankly the child of his own moment, 
engrossed by the actuality of fugitive, intensely real im- 
pressions, and alive through them. In the lurid twilight 
into which he was born, to hob and nob with death had a 
delirious fascination for the haggard fancy of men; and 
even the sane and lusty spirit of this wastrel, tramp, 
chamberer and cut-throat riming under the shadow of the 
scaffold, was harried by churchyard thoughts and haunted 
with the palpable image of decay, so that his verse, for all 
its vitality and fragrance, shares the sinister obsession of a 
hopeless people, tossed between hunger and pestilence and 
guile and rapine. He transcends it : the peculiar resonance 
Villon lends to the natural man's outcry at the menace of 
decrepitude and extinction, is not merely an effect of the 
precision with which his exasperated senses perceive their 
very horror : his certitude of the common doom is the more 
acute for the yearnings of a wistful imagination excited by 
illustrious names and condemned to feed on its own hunger. 
' Et mourut Paris et Helene. . . .' Their place knows them 
no more. Where are Flora and stout Charlemagne ? x The 

1 Villon knew well enough where. If what follows seems a little fanciful, 
what shall be said of those who insist on reading the rhetorical question 
in the famous Ballade as a sort of confession of unfaith ? The poet, like 
everybody else, believed in heaven, hell, purgatory and limbo : he would 
hardly otherwise have addressed his dubiety to the Mother of God : ' oil 
Bont-ele, Vierge souveraine t ' 



INTRODUCTION 11 

bodies of exquisite women and valiant men have made the 
passage we must make. And Villon, while he revives one 
of the eternal commonplaces of all poetry, touches for the 
first time that modern chord of a nostalgic regret for the 
antiquity of the ancients, and because the past is past. 

The man was an imperfect artist, writing disjoin tedly, 
using a hieratic framework, mixing the gross and the 
grotesque with the poignant everywhere. But his power to 
express himself once and for all is equal to the new and 
extreme exigencies of a boundless candour. Of one French 
measure at least, the ancient octosyllable, he discovered for 
himself all the deep resources ; and whoever compares the 
Grant Testament with Hugo's Songs of the Streets and the 
Woods will grant that the virtuosity of the modern master 
goes no further than Villon's in varying the speed and shift- 
ing the pauses. He knew also the need of varying the pace 
of thought, the value of alternate leisureliness and density. 
He is the first French poet with whom imagery, the giving 
a sensuous form to ideas, is spontaneous and not a device of 
rhetoric. Finally none had possessed before him that sure 
sense of the prestige of words, and perpetual spring of verbal 
invention, of which perhaps it is a condition that the speech 
shall be already venerable, and still changing rapidly. 

For us, Villon is both the capital figure among the elder 
poets of his race, and the head of an illustrious line : for his 
contemporaries he was a disreputable exception. His com- 
rades and successors, the canting rhymsters of the ' repues 
franches,' were only capable of repeating the trivial acces- 
sories of his personal and lonely song ; and the considerable 
interval between his day and Marot's is filled with the turgid 
emptiness of an effete chivalry, the slender versified garrulity 
of selfish and earthly-minded citizens. Meantime the nation 
slowly shook off its nightmare, and its fits of falling sickness 
were followed by the distemper of a second adolescence. 
The desire of knowledge was rekindled in men of books; 
Burgundy, spared by alliance with the English invaders, had 
kept alive the tradition of an indigenous manner in sculp- 
ture and painting, and now transmitted beyond her borders 



12 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

the secret of a deliberate grace of line, an Attic sobriety and 
luminous decision of gesture which are the household virtues 
of the Primitifs ; in Burgundy too, and Artois and Picardy 
and the Walloon country, music was born again ; the Paris 
students learned Greek; French farce, in this the age of 
decadence for the grave religious drama, gave its master- 
pieces to holiday crowds in the great cities ; French prose 
was acquiring coherence, proportions and ductility, and 
the spoils of Roman eloquence had fairly begun to fill the 
gaps of language which a larger way of living and thinking 
made apparent. But in the midst of this native ferment 
there was an almost absolute stagnation of French poetry, 
gravelled by fashion and authority. Men were still wanting ; 
and when men came who dared confide in tbe vigour of their 
temperaments, yet skilful and scrupulous to give a durable 
form to their impressions and reflexions, a mighty impulse 
from without had in some sort diverted the stream. 

II 

The revival of learning in France began without Italian 
intervention and, before it affected at all profoundly the 
currents of the French literature, it was become a European 
thing, and the apocalypse of a scholar's paradise had lit up 
all the West. It is true that, when French artists went to 
school to the ancients, they saw the paragon of docility in a 
living people ; and it is at least a colourable opinion that, at 
the Renaissance, the infant arts of France were strangled by 
the silken cords of a foreign enchantress. Yet it is certain 
that poetry, at any rate, lay bemused ; the best hope of its 
awakening was in the general spirit of expectancy and rest- 
lessness ; and it was precisely an effect of that spirit which 
brought the warlike part of the nation, the most alert and 
the best able to determine a change of direction in art and 
in the arts of life, into immediate contact with the sudden 
and versatile genius of Italy, at a moment when all the 
adornments of a delicate prosperity were doing homage to 
the memories of her ancient pride refreshed. And, for a 



INTRODUCTION 13 

little, the sunlight dazzled the northern eyes : at a nod of 
the heiress, all the Gothic past seemed to be violently can- 
celled. 

The continuity of the French prose literature was rescued 
by the prodigious diversity and freedom of Rabelais, who 
touches Commynes with one elbow and Amyot and Mon- 
taigne with the other. In verse Clement Marot is a frail 
link between the starkness of Villon and the reasoned force 
of the French classics. Yet it may be said that if divine 
tempests of passion had raged within him and the fire of 
his imagination had been greater instead of less than his 
ease and his delight in melting syllables, the French lyric 
might never have swerved from its straight course, thanks 
to the steadiness of his example ; for (though he fought for 
King Francis beyond the Alps) he is very little Italianate, 
and his substantial qualities are all homely. Fortune made 
Marot the poet of a court tinged with an alien politeness ; 
where the adulterate valour of a windy Amadis passed for 
the mirror of Frankish heroism ; but where also, for the first 
time, there was a zest for prompt and lively talk. He 
sprang from those rhdtoriqueurs who had amused the 
solemn leisure of Queen Anne of Brittany ; but, somehow, 
he escaped their pedantry. He used a succulent and hearty 
speech, loved and ' emended ' Villon, and while reflecting 
the idle humours of a domesticated baronage, and even 
while playing (to his disgrace and danger) with the edged 
tools of fashionable dissent, kept the tone of a sober looker- 
on, and held uppermost all the while that Gaulish joviality 
and bantering prudence which are the lining, as it were, of 
the French gravity and rashness. The old national fabulists 
live again in him, and for Voiture and La Fontaine, for 
Regnier and Moliere, for Gresset too and Voltaire, he incar- 
nated what was best worth preserving, or what could still be 
understood, in the spirit of the sixteenth century, which to 
more modern eyes he represents so meagrely. His ear was 
nice, he had an ingenuous grace, rapidity and buoyancy in 
telling a plain story, a sound idea of being perspicuous and 
terse; and if the lyric sense be denied him because his 



14 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

temperament was sober and his soul essentially frivolous, 
then let Martial and Herrick and Anacreon and Prior be 
called no true poets. 1 

"We come to what is more characteristic — the generous 
adventure of the Pleiad, 2 and the glory of Ronsard. That 
splendid episode produced in France a richer, ampler and 
more delightful poetry than any the Middle Ages had con- 
ceived; yet it was an episode in some degree unfortunate 
for the lyrical development. By their precipitate attempt 
to rival Grreece and Rome with a monument of verse reared 
in a day upon their models, the heroes of the French 
Renaissance gave a singular bias to their art ; and the suc- 
ceeding age, in which the discipline of antiquity was accepted 
mainly through its affinities with the native intelligence, 
and its example scrupulously accommodated to the wants 
of the French genius, avenged too cruelly upon the lyrical 
idea that debauch of an unsociable enthusiasm. 

The enterprise which Pierre de Ronsard, weaned by a 
merciful infirmity from the life of courts and reading Greek 
under Daurat at the College de Coqueret, confided to his 
comrade Baif; the hope the pensive Du Bellay cherished in 
well- watered Anjou, and proclaimed in his spirited Defense 
et Illustration de la Langue francoyse, was the conception of 
an exalted patriotism — nothing less than to endow their 
country with a fame in letters comparable to the fame of 
the ancient Republics and of living Italy. Full of Pindar 
and Horace and Petrarch, they had confidence not alone in 

1 'The French Poete Marot (if he be worthy of the name of a poete)' is 
Spenser's expression : but Spenser by his close relations with the Pleiad- 
he translated Du Bellay and imitated Baif— was committed to the disparage- 
ment of the elder writer. 

8 The school, in its first militant phase, was called 'La Brigade. 5 The 
seven stars of the poetical firmament were Ronsard and Antoine de Baif • 
then Joachim du Bellay ; Jodelle, the tragic poet ; Remy Belleau, Jean 
Daurat (Auratus) the Hellenist, and Pontus de Thyard of Lyons. I have 
omitted purposely all reference to the relations (still in dispute) between 
the Pleiad and the Lyonnese Platonists— Maurice Sceve, the overrated 
Louise Labe, and their group. The influence of the Pleiad upon the lyrical 
poets of the English Renaissance has recently been recognised by English 
criticism. 



INTRODUCTION 15 

the efficacity of their learning and the strength of their own 
vocation, but in the magnanimity of their race and the 
aptitude of their mother tongue. Pedants might aspire to 
emulate the athletic accomplishments of Secundus and 
Sannazar, and allege the poverty of French to excuse their 
slothful prejudice. The old Roman writers, instead of using 
Greek in despair at the inadequacy of Latin for certain 
purposes of literature, had deliberately forged for themselves 
a worthier instrument by analogy with the Greek. It was 
for French poets to enrich French similarly. Neither Du 
Bellay nor Ronsard himself recommended an arbitrary 
multiplication of words : their theory of coinage was cautious 
enough, and their practice in many cases fortunate. But 
they erred by taking the indigence of the language too 
readily for granted, as if, because Marot's talent was content 
with a few words, it was the want of words that had strait- 
ened it. And if it was inevitable, and in a measure salutary, 
at this stage, that the language should be crammed with 
more ink-horn elements than it could possibly digest, cer- 
tainly the poets of the Pleiad were tempted to prolixity by 
the very abundance of their material, and, what is worse, their 
example spread the mischievous superstition of synonyms, 
and the heresy of a distinct poetical vocabulary. 

Time has approved at almost every point Ronsard's treat- 
ment of the national prosody. He left it to Antoine de 
Ba'if to make abortive experiments with quantitative verse : 
his own precepts, so far from being revolutionary, did little 
more than define and sanction the better practice of his 
immediate predecessors. Thus, he forbade certain laxities 
of rime and deprecated the cacophonous clash of vowels, 
settled the alternation of masculine and feminine endings, 
decreed the elision of a mute following a sonorous vowel, 
and insisted on closing the half line with a strong syllable 
in the Alexandrine, which it is one of his notable achieve- 
ments to have restored — especially in lyrical strophes of 
various measures — to the place of honour it had lost since 
Rutebeuf. It is true the Alexandrine of the Pleiad had not 
yet acquired the stability of a real unit ; a certain envy of 



16 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

the Virgilian amplitude fretting at the limits of a measure 
numerically shorter than the hexameter, and of which the 
rhythmical elasticity was still to discover, may account for 
the frequent overflow of Ronsard's periods, which too often 
efface the terminal accent to emphasise the bisection of the 
line. And his choice of the short-breathed decasyllable for 
his unlucky epic La Franciade, shows clearly enough how 
little he had divined the resources and the dignity of that 
magnificent type. But without him would the Alexandrine 
have survived at all ? 

Ronsard is the author of the French ode — of the name 
and of the thing. Allured at first by the Pindaric divisions, 
strophe and antistrophe and epode, he came to see the 
futility of those appellations, and retained only the essential 
conception of one poem with several parts converging to a 
climax. He is a great master of movement. The very 
notions of design, structure, composition, were new to his 
contemporaries, and for the first time the French lyric 
gained noble proportions in his hands. A sounder know- 
ledge of mediaeval poetry has reduced the number of 
structural inventions which can be ascribed to Ronsard — 
and still he remains the most fertile inventor in the whole 
history of French poetry. He gaye the name of Ode only 
to his longer lyrics, high of purpose, mainly objective in 
theme and essentially religious in tone and feeling: in 
reality most of the love-poems, the small delicate master- 
pieces on which his fame now rests, are also Odes. It is 
in these that his ardent and fastidious personality is most 
clearly expressed. In these especially he invokes the com- 
panionship of the inanimate, and ransacks earth and heaven 
for fair similitudes. There he confides most constantly in 
his own nature, and relents a little from the disastrous 
habit of mythological allusions, in which no doubt a 
superstitious reverence for antiquity is involved, but which 
also presents the exceptional case (Andre Chenier's is per- 
haps the only French parallel) of a Christian imagination 
really peopled with pagan forms by the force of a sympa- 
thetic assimilation. 



INTRODUCTION 17 

The brevity of life, and the moral ancient poets drew 
from it— the urgency of filling the fugitive moments with 
our essential selves — is one of his characteristic themes. 
Another, its counterpart and complement, is the impotence 
of envious time. No poet can ever have carried with him 
a more absorbing ideal of fame than Ronsard. Queens and 
cardinals and (what was more to him) his peers and 
scholars promised him immortality : but for him, as for 
Milton, the glory of which he felt serenely sure was 
mystical, independent of all praise. Without false shame, 
he sang of it constantly, thinking less of his own person 
than of his illustrious tribe. For it is this after all which, 
more than his positive achievement, makes Ronsard stand 
out among the poets of France — that he lifted his art, once 
and for all, out of the domesticity in which it languished, 
and proclaimed the poet his own tyrant, with a royal 
conscience to guard and govern his inspiration. In his view 
facility and servility were one : hence his disdain for Marot's 
unstudied lightness, the milk-and-honey of Saint-Gelais, 
the laureate of a chivalrous revival- — though he could be 
just to both upon occasion : hence too, in part, his deliberate 
rejection of those pleasant toys, ballades, rondeaux, chants 
royaux, which threatened the freedom and the seriousness 
of poets with their quaint rigidity. 

Instead of these he brought into French poetry the 
real kinds — or what seemed such — into which the Greeks 
and Romans had distributed all metrical composition, only 
excepting the Italian sonnet from his proscription of ' fixed 
forms.' He aspired to universal prowess, and Victor Hugo 
alone, of all French poets, can be said to have succeeded 
in such diverse undertakings as Ronsard. He failed 
disastrously with his Franciade, partly because he wanted 
the genius of sustained narration, partly because he had 
not access to the genuine matter of French epic and was 
easily seduced by the prestige of a bookish argument. 
But love, landscape and the praise of noble men are not all 
the stuff of Ronsard's finest work: he shared the public 
solicitude, and (not to speak of the famous ode to Michel 

B 



18 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

de L'H6pital) his Discows are among the loftiest and the 
sagest appeals for humanity and concord that issued from 
the national side in the religious struggles. 

His towering figure dwarfs his comrades — Du Bellay, 
the tender and spontaneous elegiac with a yein of satire, 
and a master of the sonnet; Remy Belleau, an exquisite 
craftsman; the learned Baif, the philosophical Pontus 
de Thyard ; Etienne Jodelle, who inaugurated French 
tragedy, but a better poet than dramatist. Their aims were 
Ronsard's : they had little of his force ; nothing majestic in 
their defiance of sobriety blinds us to the fundamental 
weakness of the school. And when a generation has passed, 
and Desportes appears, sugared and precious, there is an 
end of high ambitions, and the fester of Italianism lies 
open. Those Danaan gifts of the Renaissance, the curiosity 
of life and the theory of beauty, came charged with dangers 
for the poise of the French mind. It had not to acquire 
the notion of humanity, and the new learning diffused 
through Christendom furnished that notion with a store of 
concrete applications to a distant age and other races, so 
like and so unlike us. But Italy had set up an equivocal 
ideal of the homo maxvme homo, and the universal man 
was conceived not as a norm but as a rarity; by her 
example that craving to multiply the particular existence 
which is the principle of artistic effort as of most other 
activities confounded art with accomplishments and 
aristocracy with vocation. It was a gain to French poetry 
that aesthetic emotion should be perceived as the specific 
criterion of perfect work, that form should be recognised 
as logically distinct from matter, and the legitimate object 
of a method deducible from the study of great models : 
to mistake a logical for a real distinction and adopt the 
Transalpine ' indifference to the content ' was, for the lesser 
disciples of Ronsard, to condemn themselves to laborious 
sterility or histrionic postures. 

If Desportes, by his mannered prettiness and conceits 
and obscurity, accentuates the original vice of a brilliant 
school, there are two poets somewhat loosely adhering to it 



INTRODUCTION 19 

in the next generation whose virile temperaments found 
expression in unexampled works. Agrippa d'Aubigne\ a 
Huguenot captain, wrote voluminously both prose and 
verse, in the intervals of fighting for religious freedom 
and the dismemberment of his country; his humorous 
Faeneste is forgotten, but the fame of Les Tragicques has 
(almost in our times) revived. The poem belongs to the 
fiercest period of the civil wars, though it was not 
published before the first years of the seventeenth century, 
which saw the final ruin of the protestant feudalism. It 
is long, loosely constructed, tedious in parts; d'Aubigne's 
Alexandrine is, like Ronsard's, a shifting entity ; and there 
are quagmires of finical phrase in the masterpiece, which 
remind his readers that the old fanatic had served his 
poetical apprenticeship as a purveyor of gallantries. But 
the rhythm has a prodigious energy, the vivid scenes of 
conspiracy and slaughter burn our eyes as we read, the 
comminatory parts are pitched in a key of Hebraical 
solemnity : Les Tragicques is a monument of lyrical satire 
which stood alone in the language until the exile of 
Victor Hugo produced Les Chdtiments, and is hardly to 
be matched in ours for the sonorous vehemence of its 
invective, though we have Milton's thunderous verse and 
scurrilous prose, and the sardonical fury of Absalom and 
Achitophel. 

Mathurin Regnier is a satirist of another sort. His 
erudition — for he knew the Romans by heart — and his 
colour bind him to the Pleiad: his racy freshness, zest, 
agility, the conspicuous power in him of seeming simple, 
and the continual surprise of an expression startlingly 
right, carry us back not merely to Marot but to Villon too. 
Moliere inherited his vein and his diction, and the prose of 
Saint- Simon more than a hundred years later had the 
same vivacity and savour in a similar enterprise. This 
scandalous churchman (he was incorrigibly profligate) 
chastised folly without zeal, by the malice of keen senses 
and the tenacity of a sensuous memory which revived the 
very looks and tones and gestures of men, but also by the 



20 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

integrating force of an intelligence which could gather 
into types the particular bugbears of his sane humanity. 

It was perhaps as the nephew of Desportes that Regnier 
felt obliged to break a lance with the implacable critic of 
his relative, by way of defending the fame of Ronsard: 
in any case it was a strange and deplorable confusion of 
issues which pitted so national a talent against the man 
who did more than any one else to consummate a national 
reformation in the matter of poetry. 

Francois de Malherbe was a Norman gentleman who 
spent bis life in hard campaigning of one sort or another : 
in youth he drew the sword for his faith and the integrity 
of the kingdom, and ended as the champion of the 
French idiom in its purity, and of the literary conscience. 
He wrote a very few thousand lines of verse ; and of that 
little some is in the worst taste of the times, stilted and 
decorative and grossly Italianate. How he was converted 
is not known, but in middle age, or rather later, he formed 
a new manner, from which conceits are not entirely absent, 
but which is in the main the perfect model of sententious 
eloquence. There was no exuberance in his talent : half a 
dozen topics, chosen for their common interest and 
developed broadly, in concise and solid formulas, sufficed 
him; and he took only a few, and the most compact and 
sober, of Ronsard's strophes for his moulds. With these, 
and the grave and confident tone of a robust frankness, a 
reasonable stoicism, he achieved two or three masterpieces 
which teach the meaning of orderly and true expression. 
But his precepts, formal and informal, were even more 
valuable than his example. They result from an intolerant 
contempt for waste material, and a conception eminently 
social of his art. The chaotic affluence of Ronsard's 
vocabulary did not charm him : it wanted a standard, and 
it provoked redundance. He tilted against the Gascon 
brogue of King Henry's court, and referred a dispute over 
a common word to the porters of the hay-market, thus 
signifying his confidence in the usage of the Parisis, that 
cradle of the language. He sought to restore its gristle 



INTRODUCTION 21 

by an extreme condensation, that is, by requiring that not 
a syllable should be used for ornament, but that a man 
should set down only what he meant. Malherbe was not 
insensible to the sonorous virtues of speech, but he under- 
stood by harmony a continual propriety of expression, and 
a connection of parts which the reason can appreciate. To 
eliminate caprice and chasten personality seemed to him a 
necessary aim of the poetical discipline. He never thought 
of poetry as anything else but a form of talk invested with 
a traditional prestige, by which the particular mind trans- 
lates for the general the accumulated sagacity of ages. 
But he laboured to make it as definite a form as possible, 
and that is the whole gist of his riders upon the prosodical 
legislation of the Pleiad — that the voice should halt where 
the sense is consummated, and that rime should be 
always strenuous, never slovenly. In striving to impose 
these principles, he took for his models those of the 
Romans whose accent is most reasonable and whose labour 
is most cunning ; but it may be said of him that through 
the Romans he discovered virtues latent in the national 
literature, though already manifest in French building : 
economy, balance, a clearness which is not only (like 
plain English) practical, but logical also, and exacts an 
evident, a definite relation of units in a group; but 
especially the adjustment of proportions to the human 
scale. 

The development of the classical ideal in French art and 
principally in letters was the work of no single intelligence. 
Ronsard, it has been said justly, belongs to the prehistoric 
age of classicism, the age of individual experiment. Malherbe 
did all one man could do half consciously to conciliate the 
aesthetic scruple, the breadth and serious enthusiasms of 
the sixteenth century, its learning and luxurious disdain, 
with those gregarious instincts, that sobriety and aversion 
to whatever is esoteric and disorderly, that preference of 
discourse over ejaculation, which are the perpetual guardians 
of the French tradition. Descartes, after him, presents 
truth not as a professional pursuit, but as the object of our 



22 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

common reason, and lays the foundation of a psychology 
which is to be the occupation of a century. The elder 
Balzac takes up French prose at the point where Montaigne 
had left it, and gives it equality and cadence. Vaugelas, 
the grammarian from Savoy, reveals that sort of purity in 
the form of words and structure of phrase which only a 
passionate attachment to idiom can attain. But in the 
formation of a national taste not inferior to the master- 
pieces of the century, French society itself— a recent thing 
— directly co-operated. There was indeed a stage when 
those celebrated gatherings at the Hotel de Rambouillet 
and other great houses threatened to frustrate, or at least 
pervert, the enterprise of Malherbe. When fine ladies 
leagued with professed wits undertook to humanise the 
fierce energy of a rude, full-blooded, turbulent nobility 
disused to all the graces by the civil wars, it is no wonder 
they overshot the mark of the urbane in their terror of 
boorishness and insulsity. It was at first an intercourse of 
violent natures newly ambitious to assert themselves in a 
spiritual sphere, and ready to lend the exaggerated import- 
ance of a contest to everything spoken : there was no room 
for pointless talk ; and periphrastical inventions became at 
once a protest against crudity, the jargon of a caste, and the 
opportunity of a vehement egoism transplanted from camps 
and cabinets to drawing-rooms and bedsides. Delight in 
verbalisms, and a rage for recondite allusions and allegorical 
politeness were fostered by the vogue of a new Italianism 
which set in with the brilliant pastorals of Marino and 
Guarini, and complicated by a very superficially Spanish 
strain of strutting and fantastical extravagance. Malherbe 
himself did not quite escape these modish taints ; nor later 
did the magnificent Corneille. They were not (any more 
than our Euphuists, our 'metaphysical school' of poetry) 
symptoms of a decadence, but on the contrary the accidents 
of an effort, which at last succeeded, to soften the manners 
of a robustious generation. The settlement of the kingdom, 
the disgrace of a clique, a general reaction against the 
exotic, the widening of French society, are some of the 



INTRODUCTION 23 

obvious causes which gradually threw off the poison of a 
tortured manner, the manner of Astraea and the Pastor 
Fido, and prepared a saner public to laugh with Moliere at 
the provincial counterfeit of Parisian affectations, and at the 
pestilent female pedantry which appeared afterwards as a 
by-blow of the same spirit. But this must be remembered 
to the credit of the prdcieuses, that their aims, the constitu- 
tion of a cultivated nucleus, the purgation of the language 
by the test of usage rather than by the tyranny of peda- 
gogues, were infinitely respectable; and that it is in great 
measure owing to their intervention that in the age in which 
the French mind yielded not absolutely its greatest, but 
assuredly its most original contribution to European letters, 
the tone of discourse, civil, unstilted and conciliatory, pre- 
vailed; and that from then till now the relation of the 
written to the spoken language has, upon the whole, been 
constantly closer than in the case of any other modern 
idiom. 

The lessons of Malherbe anticipated the consolidation of 
a fastidious public, secured against the charms of an exces- 
sive personal adventure in poetry by the ascertainment of 
its true intellectual bench-marks. But, in the first half of 
the seventeenth century, the immediate influence of society 
upon lyricism was almost entirely pernicious. There were 
men of talent among the ' bedside poets ' : Vincent Voiture, 
the spoilt child of a sphere above his birth, displays here 
and there an amplitude worthy of a higher ambition than 
to be the most facile, the most ' natural ' model of an 
artificial style; Sarrazin's witty triolets have an inimitable 
finish; the trifling fancy of Benserade is often exquisite. 
But neither they, nor Theophile de Viau nor Saint-Amant 
— two writers who had certainly a spark of genius, and by 
no means depended upon the humours of fashion for their 
themes, however disastrously both were in different ways 
contaminated by its jargon — are of a calibre to make any one 
regret the victory of reason over temperament. Theophile, 
a loose liver and loose talker caught, perhaps unjustly, in 
the web of heresy, possessed what Malherbe wanted — a 



24 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

teeming invention, spontaneity, a rich (and not impure) 
vocabulary; and such of his serious pieces as the Epistle 
written in exile to King Lewis the Thirteenth and the Odes 
against Winter and to Solitude show him capable of an 
impressive sincerity. Saint-Amant, a pensioner of queens 
and one of the hardest drinkers of his time, wrote plentifully 
and most unequally, but with extraordinary mastery of rime, 
variety, and power of sensuous presentment. A sneer of 
Boileau's turned his heroical Moyse Sauve into a byword 
for inflation and absurdity : it is a poor epic, wanting 
enthusiasm, coherence, simplicity ; yet it contains many 
passages of indisputable grace and vigour ; and among the 
shorter poems of Saint-Amant several are remarkable for 
the full flavour and extreme vitality and faithfulness of the 
descriptions, a sensitive ponderation of sounds, a delightful 
comic sense and abundance of unused metaphors. But in 
Theophile and Saint-Amant alike the artistic outlay is too 
often disproportionate to the occasion, details are too con- 
spicuous in a hazy plan ; and they paid especially too heavy 
a concession to the imported taste for bombastic mannerism, 
strained figures, and the frivolous equivocations our Cowley 
called 'jests for Dutch men and English boys,' to deserve 
any credit for having vindicated the rights of subjective 
inspiration against an ' art made tongue-ty'd by authority.' 

Meanwhile Maynard, Malherbe's best scholar, who left 
some fine examples of a Roman gravity and chastity of 
form, vainly denounced the idols of his contemporaries ; and 
if the soldier dilettante Racan (to whom we owe the valuable 
life of Malherbe) had less reason to complain of an ungrate- 
ful public, it was doubtless the conventional mundane form 
of his dramatic idylls — bergeries — which captured attention, 
rather than the odes and sonnets in which he approved his 
discipleship — a real discipleship, however obscured by the 
vagaries of a mutinous negligence, which his happy gift 
was genuine enough in small undertakings to afford. The 
definite acceptance of ideals which inevitably sacrificed some 
lyrical sources to the common interests of literature, was 
delayed even after Corneille, whose voice is often the voice 



INTRODUCTION 25 

of a Malherbe less jejune and more aspiring, fixed with his 
politic masterpieces the characteristic type of French tragedy 
—a crisis of issues all moral, all internal, in natures soberly 
differenced from the race, a crisis provoked by the simplest 
and fewest outward agencies and compressed within the 
straitest bounds of space and time and logical progression. 



Ill 

In the brief Augustan period r a nice and spontaneous 
compromise almost effaced the eternal antagonism between 
the world of poets and the world outside them, by the free 
acceptance of conventional limits on one side and on the 
other by an unique alertness of the imaginative intelligence 
among the ruling class of Frenchmen. The admirable 
poetry made in the Great King's reign supposed the rigorous 
distinction of mind from matter, and dealt exclusively with 
mind ; its paramount concern being the conflict of passions, 
reason or discernment, and freewill in the social man. It 
sought to represent human truth purged of its accidents ; 
and, instead of the ideal figure summing and lighting up 
the movement of the Sixteenth Century, that creature of 
diverse aptitudes, mobile temperament, and unprejudiced 
curiosity called the complete or universal man, it sub- 
stituted, as the arbiter of its tone and language and interests, 
Vhxyn/nMe homme — the cultivated man of the world, who 
made the study of his fellow-men (or more narrowly of his 
equals) the occupation of a stately leisure, whose talk was 
mainly a ventilation of ideas, a gleaning of maxims, a 
definition of types, and whose abhorrence of obtruded per- 
sonality, intolerant of strangeness, mystery and emphasis in 
speech, proscribed the learned and the trivial jargons, terms 
of art and all that smacked of a function or a hobby or a 
trade. 
L'hcmnite homme sublimated — such was the poet of those 

1 It lies between Le Oid (1636) and the last writings of Bossuet (1704) : 
more narrowly between Pascal's Provinciates (1656) and Athalie (1691). 
King Lewis the Fourteenth succeeded in 1643 and died in 1715. 



26 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

spacious days, one who eliminated both autobiography and 
the exaltation of unconscious nature from his matter, whose 
characteristic tone was neither introspective nor ecstatic, 
but observant, conversible, even declamatory, and whose 
predilection for the general, the human, and the durable, 
shaped a speech already rich in rational elements and if 
anything deficient in the sensuous ; for he held the under- 
standing supreme, the common measure of sensations, and 
was persuaded that we become entirely articulate only by 
being a little less ourselves. And so he renounced the 
elegiac solace of intimate avowals, the direct appeal from 
sense to sense and from mood to mood, the notation of fluid 
dreams, the hoarse eloquence of a dishevelled frenzy. What 
else more necessary to the vitality of art was implicitly 
sacrificed with these things, could not be discerned before 
time had exhausted the original energy that begot the three 
great dramatic poets and the one great lyrist of the seven- 
teenth century. 1 

With a boundless sympathy, a temperament at once 
various, expansive and serene, the surest and the least 
crabbed insight into men, the readiest eyes a poet ever had, 
it was La Fontaine's feat to affirm himself wholly in the 
colour and savour and texture of style, to conciliate the 
love of art and the love of life in a playful offering of worldly 
wisdom, and to freight with a large representation of earth 
a fancy that remained aerial. To his power of illusion and 
exquisite sense of form it is certain that the shrewdness, the 
irony, the wit, a vein of discreet tenderness that runs through 
all his writings, a vision of reality singularly complete, are 
subordinate enhancements, not only in the Fables, but in 
the delicious and luxuriant comedies, and in those perfunc- 
torily licentious Gaulish Tales which are to be read (in 
something of the spirit Charles Lamb recommended to the 
spectator of our artificial comedy 2 ) as wonderful exercises 

1 The name of Segrais should no doubt come second (magno sed proximus 
intervallo) to La Fontaine's, as a bucolic poet of true but timid lyrical 
temperament. 

2 ' I am the gayer at least for it ; and I could never connect those sports 



V 



INTRODUCTION 27 

in the graces of swift narration. Like all the classics — like 
most real creators — he dispensed with the credit of inventing 
his subjects or his framework; and by these, but much 
more by the ancestral, unstratified diversity of his language, 
he is a conciliator, soldering the Middle Ages and Marot 
and Rabelais both with antiquity and with his own time. 
Its peculiar virtues were all his : the interest of character, 
the very tone of reason, the scrupulous submission to con- 
ditional truth, limpidity, discretion, detachment; especially 
he had the genius of construction — that is, skill in marshal- 
ling the parts of a subject — and the rarer genius of com- 
position, which means skill in distributing the parts of a 
poem. But his supreme originality lies in the continual 
invention of inimitable schemes, never exactly repeated, so 
supple, so delicate in their obedience to a secret rule that 
they seem the effect of blind chance or of a precarious 
power until they are studied and found to be the exact 
rhythmical equivalent of mobile sensations and an imper- 
turbable comic spirit, and an undogmatical sagacity, and 
a quiet tireless zest for life. 

The dramatists concern us here only as poets. When we 
have abstracted the splendid moral gesture of Corneille, the 
fanaticism of his puvdon&r, the casuistical basis of his keen 
dialogue, the thoughtful concentration of his busy plots, the 
poetry remains — a poetry which is the natural idiom of his 
thought, and never falters. Smoothness is not its merit, 
nor diapason, nor opulence of figures; and his manner, 
sometimes truculent and not seldom precious, yields to the 
alternative temptations of his time : but a virile energy, a 
solid eloquence which disdains extrinsic aids, and braces 
the will to heroical action by the bare presentment of 
absolute postures, a rhythm impetuous, without subtlety, 
translating the clash of minds by the eager attack of clauses 
— the brevity which resumes vital situations and digested 
truth, an easy and native pomp in the carriage of his lines — 

of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to 
imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much as 
fairyland. ' 



28 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

these things belong to Corneille, and, besides, a felicity of 
structure far surpassing his master Malherbe's, attested by 
the lyrical soliloquies of Le Cid and Polyeucte and by his 
versions from the Liturgy. 1 

The greatness of Moliere, who gathers up in himself, as 
does no other French Augustan, whatever is most univer- 
sally human in the genius of his race, might less unjustly 
be held independent of qualities in a special sense poetical. 
The steadfastness of his piercing smile is a necessary part 
of his definition, so are his resolute appeal to an almost 
inexorable sanity and the wisdom of his social sense ; the 
invention, the formative power that fused Terence and 
Scaramouch and Patelin and the deep science of scenical 
perspective controlling the revelation of his creatures in 
words and acts, the near presence of his men and women 
and their indissoluble consistency as types, his loyalty to 
the conception of comedy and to the rule of one mood, 
even while his large philosophy continually points beyond 
the limits of the comic — by all this we are first and last 
impressed, to the prejudice it may well be of the admirable 
vehicle, prose or verse. The peculiar qualities of Moliere's 
verse are vivacity and frankness. It is neither conspicuously 
sonorous nor often delicate, and negligences abound : but it 
is downright, full of pith, prompt and never halting, and 
wells free and warm from that teeming brain ; and where, 
as in that delightful Amphitryon, his fancy schematises at 
will, he almost rivals La Fontaine and shows such a tact 
and resourcefulness as no writer, not essentially a writer of 
verse, could ever call to help him. Like Regnier, artistically 
in many ways his prototype, he is steeped in idiom, so that 
his very solecisms are racier than another's regularity. And 
the style deserves to be called national. It is indeed inimit- 
ably nervous and agile and vivid, and its fundamental unity is 
apparent to us ; but it has an extraordinary range, as a style 
must have that is to contain the noble singularity of Alceste 
and Martine's rustic pertness with all that lies between; 

1 Not to speak of the improvised masque of PsycM, in which he collabo- 
rated with Moliere and the deft librettist Quinault. 



INTRODUCTION 29 

it transcends the courtly and the metropolitan; and the 
narrower taste of the time stumbled at its disparities, and 
especially at a certain preference for a popular tone which 
it discerned in him. Yet to suppose (with some modern 
critics) a sort of anti-classical protest in the great foe of 
fustian, eccentricity and the confusion of kinds, the natural, 
the reasonable and exclusively human master of 'man's 
proper faculty,' is strangely to misread Moliere. 

In the case of Racine at least no such discordancy has 
been suggested to his praise or blame: it is past doubt 
that his tragedy is quintessential, the most authentic and 
authoritative emanation of the classical French spirit, the 
sovereign equivalent in one art of a particular civilisation 
at its acme. He is not quite the greatest of French poets, 
nor even the most French, if we look for the intense 
affirmation of a characteristic drift — but simply the flower 
of the French mind. And so nicely trimmed is the balance 
of his properties that his singularity is ill to define and the 
' real kernel of his genius is the less accessible to foreigners as 
he is not one of those who thrust forward insistently some 
single aspect — even the strangest — of the national soul. To 
us Englishmen Racine appears usually as an intelligence: 
his countrymen enjoy in his poetry, principally, a delicate 
mode of violent feeling. If any virtues of Racine's stand 
out, they are economy and the sense of values. Understand 
that a poet has weighed his words and thrown no word 
away, and you read him deliberately, you raise the currency 
of his thought, the temperature of his emotion. The rust 
is washed off the old lustre of metaphors, and what seemed 
the sign only of an idea recovers the vitality of an original 
sensation. For the significance of any gesture is at once 
relative to its rarity and dependent on the quickness of a 
sympathetic attention. The English poetical tradition is 
more tumultuous, more emphatic ; and do not the French- 
men of a later day feel all the seduction of a shriller pitch, 
a wider range ? Nevertheless they retain the subtle memory 
of his atmosphere; and the redintegratio amoris which 
welcomes again and again so exquisite an example of 



30 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

measure, a reticence, a suavity, a sparing of the pathetic 
goad ever grateful to a prompt and sensitive people, is 
as a continually fresh delight (after the torrents, the forests 
and the threatening cliffs of other lands) in the pastoral 
undulations of his lie de France. 

It is a little beside the present purpose to praise the 
magnificent order of the tragic matter in Racine, his austere 
exclusion of whatever might distract a spectator from the con- 
tinuous action not of outward circumstances upon character 
but of passions alternately surging and receding and surging 
till they engulf the soul ; or to note the intensity and the 
faultlessly true expression of the great figures — Hermione 
the injured beauty, dangerous Orestes, Roxana, the victim 
Phaedra and Nero's mother and Jehoiada the implacable 
fanatic — types which allured him less it seems by their 
prestige than by their parabolical humanity, as signal 
instances of our common case. Still less pertinent would 
be any consideration of his Greek scholarship; or of the 
degree in which Port- Royal may be held responsible for 
the ' Christian fatalism ' discoverable, as some think, in his 
tragedies. But as more strictly within the poetical domain 
we may speak of his diction, the general colour of his work, 
of those sudden imaginative gusts which hardly shake the 
surface of his dialogue but leave a deep disquietude behind, 
— and above all of his verse in itself, the rich modulation 
and the cunning numbers. It is not a positive merit in 
Racine that, whether through a natural frugality or obey- 
ing the squeamishness of his society, he could contain 
himself within a very few thousand words; but it is a 
merit that he should have used them to such purpose. 
The speech of his creatures is in its elements almost the 
daily speech of well-bred people, and if that limitation 
accounts for certain minced or starchy formulas which 
afflict us now by their reiteration, yet more marvellous is 
the mastery which with materials so sober could reach and 
sustain an ideal solemnity of utterance. There is not one 
of his characters who exceeds the occasion, but also there 
are none that fall below the promise of their sounding 



INTRODUCTION 31 

names. Being a poet, not an archaeologist, he held the 
ancients rather by their sure points of likeness to us moderns 
than by their problematical diversity: it is Shakespeare's 
superiority that his Greeks and Romans are even more 
particularly Jacobean Englishmen (clowns or captains) than 
Racine's are nobles of the galleries at Versailles ; for Racine, 
like all his contemporaries, tended to eliminate particulars ; 
but he as well as Shakespeare discerned the essential matter 
— that their creatures must be brought near to us to live. 
The 'sensible critic' in Candide advises that a dramatist 
should be always a poet, but take care none of his characters 
should seem poets. Voltaire was thinking of Racine', who 
echoed many voices with one voice — the triumph of 
illusion — and had the secret of a unity of tone that was 
never inappropriate. But Racine would not have been a 
great poet if, with words that are always directly relevant, 
he had not suggested infinite horizons. Sparse perhaps 
•and uniform are the fragments he gives us wherewith to 
build a whole world of light and harmony fit to contain 
those souls of noble birth and the dignity of their conflicts 
and their anguish : but that whole world was in his mind. 

As Racine shifted the main interest from the will to the 
passions without touching the framework or altering the 
scope of French tragedy, so he multiplied the aptitudes of 
the Alexandrine, but left it mainly the Alexandrine of 
Malherbe. Typical French poets from the beginning had 
usually accounted the pleasure conveyed to the ear by the 
mere sounds within a line, as distinguished from its rhythm, 
an accessory and inferior or even meretricious recommenda- 
tion ; and they had been used to concentrate all their purely 
'musical' resources upon a rime which should strike the 
hour of a rhythmical period somewhat loudly and capture 
the mind by being at once expected and unforeseen. Racine 
possessed the instinct and the science of melody in a degree 
which has left him still without a rival : so surely did he 
play upon the degradation of the vowel scale, the kinship 
and antipathy of consonants, and so exceptional was the 
thought he bestowed upon the ill-ascertained element of 



32 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

quantity, that he could well afford to be relatively indifferent 
to the sonority of his rimes. As to rhythm, he carried the 
principle of variety to the utmost point, while obeying 
the prescription of a fixed breathing-space in the middle 
of a line: indeed, like La Fontaine and Moliere, he some- 
times (and especially in his one genial comedy) hazarded a 
rhythmical equivocation by avoiding the coincidence of a 
logical pause with that required by the habit of the French 
ear. In a word, by his sure phrasing, his perfect use of 
metrical equivalents, the varied speed, the fullness and 
continuous euphony he imparted to the great traditional 
verse, Racine attained the extreme perfection of which it 
was capable without some change of formula. And the 
Alexandrine does not contain all his art. His early lyrics 
indeed are not much more than middling ; but when in his 
prime an imperious scruple (of which no one should judge 
rashly) made profane poetry incalculably the poorer for 
his honourable retreat, he wrote some hymns which are of 
an exquisite savour, and later the choric portions of his 
sacred drama, and particularly the superb prophesyings 
of Jehoiada in his final masterpiece, show the full spread 
of his soaring genius and the whole stature of his yearning 
soul. 

There was also Nicolas Boileau. The inconsiderate but 
very explicable contempt which two or three generations of 
French poets have thrown away upon the Legislator of Par- 
nassus has altered the character of his renown without destroy- 
ing it. As a lyrist in the proper sense there is no question of 
rehabilitating him: goodwill cannot galvanise the Ode on 
the siege of Namur ; and the merits of his satire, in so far as 
it does not come under the head of criticism, may be justly 
stated in few words. He knew the town and studied the 
court, and rendered with a full flavour and the particular 
exactness of a lesser Dutch painter the outward symptoms 
of many follies that offended the sturdy and outspoken good 
sense of the cultivated juridical class. Le Lutrin, though 
less delicate and less effective than The Rape of the Lock or 
than Vert-Vert — a fairer comparison, — has humour, composi- 



INTRODUCTION 33 

tion and vitality. In default of majesty or tenderness 
Boileau's verse does not want colour (for this bookish, 
sedentary person could use his eyes) and wears at its best a 
very natural air : it is ' a friend to light,' unsurpassably con- 
cise and even pregnant ; and the rimes in general are any- 
thing but casual. But — to come to Boileau's literary doctrine 
— L'Art Podtique would not have been the complete gospel 
of poetasters for over a century, nor afterwards a red rag to 
the more aggressive sort of Romantics, if it had been con- 
sidered in its historical significance. He made turgidity 
ridiculous, drove out the foreign fashions, and wrenched the 
poetical succession from the hands of gifted amateurs when 
their jargon and their driftless experiments were mighty. 
We have lost in some degree the very associations of his 
favourite terms. ' Truth ' and beauty are one : but the truth 
is of a sort which should ' reign even in fable ' — it is there- 
fore the artistic sincerity which commands a poet to 'tell 
his readers nothing he has not told himself.' Nature could 
not mean more than human nature to his times; and all 
the teaching of Boileau goes to discourage that kind of 
eccentricity which overstrained the capacity for illusion at 
the point where it was then most sensitive — the knowledge 
of men's hearts. And when he made Reason the arbiter he 
was not depreciating sensation or strong feeling as a source 
of poetry, nor commending platitude, nor degrading poetry 
to the rank of an acquirable accomplishment, but persuading 
all who would write in verse to know their talent and not 
force it, and to remember how precarious is the charm of 
impressions which a co-ordinating principle does not present 
as objects of thought and judgment to posterity. The 
second-rate poet who thus cemented Malherbe's labour was 
devoted to his craft and its difficulties ; and he came oppor- 
tunely with his lesson — that the durable virtue of the 
ancient writers is their probity. 

It is important that this should be admitted. For 
the insufficiency of his legislation can escape no modern 
mind. Boileau's whole system is too patently inelastic, 
rhetoricianly, full of dangerous equivocations — such as the 



34 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

word agreable, which seems to confuse the aesthetic emotion 
with the satisfaction of contemplating objects pleasant in 
reality ; or the word noble, which seems to confuse magnifi- 
cence with breeding. It is noteworthy that he placed the 
mythological superstition under a religious sanction. The 
breach with the Middle Ages was indeed complete ; and it 
was the Church herself whose late-born scruples had cut off 
the Christian sources from French poets and broken the 
continuity of French tragedy. If Esther and Athalie were 
unconscious attempts to recover the tradition of the 
Mysteres, 1 here, as in other things, Racine had no successor. 
But, in one word, the counsels of Boileau are good and bad 
inextricably mingled. It is his lasting reproach that he 
offered poetical formulas only too capable of a mechanical 
application to the next age, which thought in prose. His 
best title to honour is that he gave his own age some solid 
reasons for preferring Moliere, La Fontaine, Racine, to the 
wits, the pedants and the exquisites who applauded Pradon, 
governed the Academy, and still delighted the retired 
heroines of the Fronde. 

IV 

The art of Racine, the art of La Fontaine owes much of 
its essential harmony to a certain profound disinterest. It 
was positive, therefore serene ; intense, not comprehensive ; 
it knew its frontiers, and made a common conception of the 
world, of life and its business, the basis of a patient and 
solid psychological invention. Of this detachment, this 
acquiescence, the next age was radically incapable. The 
imaginative faculties were indeed at a discount, while the 
foremost minds were chiefly engaged in disseminating a 
critical spirit, and, later, in proposing postulates of tremendous 
import to mankind — an effort favourable in the long run to 
the rebuilding of poetry on broader foundations, but imme- 

1 This breach of continuity is the great historical difference between the 
French dramatic development and ours. Max Muller would have spelt it 
M ist&re. The word does not represent, as he thought, the Latin ministerium ; 
but the idea of ' liturgical function ' is in it all the same. 



INTRODUCTION 35 

diately productive only of a literature clogged with nega- 
tions and enthralled to alien motives. Nevertheless through- 
out the space of years, notoriously ungrateful in the history 
of French poetry, which lies between the production of 
Athalie or La Fontaine's last Fables and the elegies of 
Lamartine, a superstition part academical, part worldly, and 
allied with a relative sterility, secured a kind of mechanical 
allegiance to the ideals of good writing which the men of the 
great reign had set before themselves, but which their suc- 
cessors failed to adapt to new conditions and to use as living 
principles. Therefore it is just to call this the age of the 
classical decadence. 

The poetry then made in France was in the main abstract, 
and imitative, and unskilful. The versified ideology of the 
eighteenth century was something very different from that 
chaste, candid, orderly expression of general emotions and 
heritable truths to which a pure taste, ancient models of per- 
fection and the acceptance of our reason as the ultimate and 
incorruptible tribunal had guided the masters of the seven- 
teenth. Their matter was necessarily concrete ; the nobility 
of their even tones communicated a generous exaltation 
quick to pierce the significance of moral types — the character- 
istic achievement of the French classics; their speech, 
stripped already of so many words carrying immediate and 
precise sensations with them, was still substantial, robust, 
suggestive. The contrast between the poetry of Racine's 
age and that of Voltaire's might almost be summed up, in 
this one aspect, by saying that the general was now deserted 
for the abstract, the representation of experience for the 
analysis of intellectual relations, painting for definition, the 
eloquence of eternal commonplaces for battles of syllogistic 
wit, the exploration of passions and the reconstruction of 
characters for a jingling together of mere notions and, as it 
were, an algebraical handling of disembodied qualities. This 
was the broad tendency, 1 never so despotic indeed as not to 

1 It affected the prose literature in a less degree— nearly all the vertebrate 
authors of the time are writers of prose. Lesage and Saint-Simon (who 
writes like a contemporary of the Fronde), Marivaux in his novels — for his 



36 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

admit of several exceptions, phases and degrees, but upon the 
whole common to a poetry in which the rapid defacement 
of current metaphors and the penury of new, with all the 
timid and irrelevant prejudices which fenced about a blood- 
less but patented vocabulary, more and more attenuated the 
plastic elements of style. Confined almost to the traffic of 
ideas, the French language became in the eighteenth century 
incomparably apt for that employment: a speech incisive 
and colourless, frigidly transparent, brisk and nimble rather 
than energetic, subtly discriminative but short-breathed, 
elegant in outline but devoid of unction and amplitude — in 
a word, the perfect vehicle of exact science, humanitarian 
controversy, diplomatic reports ; and for all the purposes of 
the imagination, too rare, too gaseous, too unreal. A verbal 
art aspiring to express the immaterial by signs that open 
out no avenues of sensuous memory is, if not a contradiction 
in terms, at the utmost a frail, shadowy, wire-drawn affair ; 
and such an art, in certain exquisite examples, the eighteenth 
century did actually achieve. But most often even the 
artistic intention was absent from its verse, with the creative 
gust and the hunger for perfect forms: poetry itself was 
become a sort of superstition ; and the pragmatical, the dis- 
integrating curiosity which had sapped the authority of the 
ancients and dimly perceived already a world too wide for 
the circumscriptions and tranquillity of the classical ideal, 
were impotent to renew the sources of inspiration, or even 
to break rules of which the true sanction did not touch 
these times. The poets believed it possible to reproduce by 
system the recent masterpieces they admired by habit ; their 
imitations were the more servile for being founded on 
imperfect understanding; and they still trailed after them 
the trappings of the Greek mythology without the ease of a 
familiar scholarship or the pretext of an over-scrupulous 
piety. The one serious attempt at emancipation threatened 

delicate comedy is quite bodiless— Buffon, Diderot, Beaumarchais, are the 
least abstract of eighteenth century writers ; all the imaginative vigour of 
Voltaire himself passed into certain of his prose works; and the great 
change was foreshadowed in the prose of Rousseau, and carried into the 
next period by the prose of Chateaubriand. 



INTRODUCTION 37 

the very form of verse, at the beginning of this period, upon 
the score of uselessness! Voltaire and the protests of 
fashion saved from the assaults of La Motte-Houdart what 
was in truth very little worth preserving — the prestige of a 
troublesome full-dress for ceremonious occasions, the mere- 
tricious attractions of a slender envelope for bulky pamphlets. 
No symptom of degeneracy marks the versifiers of the 
classical decadence so universally as the neglect of their 
instrument. Melody was not in them, nor any gift of 
structure ; movement they have, but without variety ; their 
rhythm is a rigid symmetry of antithetical half-lines, and the 
indigence of their perfunctory rimes is complete and shame- 
less. The poets had ceased to think in verse. 

In a broad view, nearly all the verse made in the eighteenth 

century falls under two kinds — the didactic and the trifling, 

or, if you like, the instructive and the elegant ; and perhaps 

all the exceptions to the general sterility should be assigned 

to the latter class. The period excelled, from Jean-Baptiste 

Rousseau to Lebrun and Andrieux and Chenier the younger, 

with the epigram. It offers models of neatness, niceness, 

ingenuity, wherever it is enough to scintillate without fatigue 

and without emphasis — in epistles, madrigals, compliments, 

anecdotes, and in the comic, acute or merely malicious (as 

opposed to the indignant and lyrical) satire, which aims 

only at raising against the victim 'the laughter of the 

mind.' With many of its fugitive poets, certain secondary 

traditions of the earlier seventeenth century showed a 

singular vivacity: an elegant impertinence reflected the 

revival of literary (as of political) energy in the great 

feudal class after a period of sourness and depression. One 

of its favourites, the epicurean priest Chaulieu — the easy 

and vigorous laureate of the Duchess du Maine's merry 

court at Sceaux, which balanced the morose propriety of 

Versailles in the last sad years of the old King — is 

astride between the two ages. Voltaire, as a fugitive poet, 

succeeded and far surpassed Chaulieu; the gallant Dorat 

continued Voltaire. But the most immediate success of the 

century, perhaps, was won by Gresset's unique Vert- Vert, a 

piece of very special pleasantry, rippling easily, unpretentious 



38 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

to the point of negligence, but of Attic flavour and a fresh- 
ness irresistible to Regency palates — a delicious thing in a 
little way, which foreign judges have sometimes praised 
hyperbolically for the satisfaction of acknowledging that the 
French are superior triflers. In Gresset, though he has no 
rear models, the strain of Marot reappears, run somewhat 
thin. A little of Saint-Amant again, at least the Bacchic 
part of him, filtered down to 'Le Caveau,' the famous 
' shades ' where the pontes crotUs clinked glasses — Vade, who 
brought a sort of Billingsgate into fashion for a moment, 
Panard, a direct ancestor of Beranger and author of the 
inimitable description of the Opera, and that wild quarrel- 
some Piron who wrote many things well, comedies in verse 
and prose burlesques (the delight of suburban booths) and 
the most caustic of epigrams, and jolly drinking-songs ; and 
at least one exquisite rondeau : 

' Vivent les bruns en depit des blondins ! ' 

But if the poetry intended only to amuse the public or to 
exhibit a polite accomplishment was not wholly negligible, 
it was certainly less characteristic of the age than the poetry 
of proof and disproof. Didactic verse is, of course, as legiti- 
mate as didactic prose, though now far less useful (which is 
the test), because a kind of discourse in which the argument 
makes its own measures as it proceeds, can convey know- 
ledge or opinions with greater subtlety and fullness, and the 
old advantage of verse that it is more easily remembered 
belongs to the childhood of letters and learning. This is 
why Voltaire, in his philosophical verse, only clogs the 
fluidity and honesty of his thought, and almost divests him- 
self of those capital qualities of his, irony and speed. But 
if verse were as fit as prose to thresh out difficulties and 
refute errors and instil science, didactic verse would belong 

to literature even more seldom than didactic prose only, in 

fact, when with a single purpose an author fulfilled a double 
set of conditions. 1 All that the didactic spirit accomplished 

1 Under modern conditions, the choice of verse as a medium implies that 
a writer does not care supremely for his subject in itself. Where, in all 



INTRODUCTION 39 

in eighteenth-century verse was to corrupt even those artistic 
forms which are most obviously self-sufficient, and co-operate 
with the general tendency to abstractions, the purely decora- 
tive ideal of poetry which prevailed, whether the writer were 
merely a rhetorician requiring a theme for declamation (and 
this is the case of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, who possessed 
nearly all the acquirable virtues of a poet), or one who by 
his very diverse energies was continually tempted, as Vol- 
taire was in his tragedies, to exploit his most genuine crea- 
tions in extra-literary interests. 1 His lamentable epic is 
both an exercise and a pretext. Its conception is irremedi- 
ably systematic and frigid : a few brilliant portraits, two or 
three vivacious scenes, some astute views of statecraft 
strikingly expressed, these are all its recommendations, un- 
less we add that the mere attempt to treat a living, national 
subject was a great step in a right direction. La Henri- 
ade is immensely inferior to La Pucelle ; and this is perhaps 
the place to say that that burlesque epic has the same 
qualities as the shorter Tales of Voltaire. It is very un- 
equal, and the grimace of its ricanernent libertin is dis- 
agreeable : but the zest of its narrative movement must be 
recognised, and there is a literary virtue (which Renan and 
M. Anatole France have inherited) in the effective em- 
ployment of a certain perfidious, discreet and implacable 
irony. 

A particular species of didactic verse — the descriptive 
— in which the latter half of the period was amazingly 
prolific, must be mentioned, because nowhere else is the 
indigence of imaginative resources, the timidity and levity 
of the poets so conspicuous. As they were fundamentally 

the instructive poetry of the last three centuries, is the equivalent in verse 
of Berkeley's Theory of Vision or Bossuet's sermon on Final Impenitence or 
Buffon's Natural History or Newman's Grammar of Assentt 

1 The failures of Voltaire as a tragic poet had, no doubt, many causes : 
the all-sufficient cause was a want of imagination, for which his dexterity 
in contriving stage effects, and his merely geographical enlargement of the 
traditional subjects, could not atone. But the polemical conception of some 
characters, the flatulent diatribes against priests and rulers of the people, 
were contributory disabilities. 



40 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

indifferent to their matter, had no original emotions to com- 
municate and were seldom supported by the remembrance 
of their own distinct sensuous perceptions, the one anxiety of 
the descriptive writers was to keep their diction at the 
diplomatic level while enumerating or defining, without 
choice, the contents of a drawing-room or an orchard, the 
joys of domesticity or the incidents of the chase. They are 
not for a moment to be compared with the better English 
' poets of nature ' who startled the Georgian dullness with 
their prim but charming preludes to the mighty outburst of 
our modern lyric. The insipidity of Saint-Lambert's para- 
phrase is in perfect contrast with Thomson's large harmony 
of effects and weighty manner. There is nothing of the 
humour and naturalness and sensitive colouring, the intense 
sympathy, the faithfulness of detail that make The Task 
and Table Talk delightful, to be found in L'Homme des 
Chamips or in La Pitti or in any other work of Jacques 
Delille, who held the sceptre of Voltaire until the Restora- 
tion. Nobody was smoother than Delille, nor more glib, 
nor more uniform, and that ingenuity in devising phrases 
that neither name an object (kitchen utensil or field 
flower or domestic animal) nor suggest its essence, but 
imply, if you are sharp at guessing, its intelligible notion by 
discreet allusion, as in some jeu de socieU, had in him its 
most accomplished master. The fashion of descriptive 
poetry is, however, positively interesting for this reason, 
that it was ostensibly an effort to bring poetry into contact 
with everyday life and to make it contain more things. That 
was symptomatic of the trend towards comprehensiveness ; 
and, with a little more sincerity, French verse at this stage 
might have expressed the impartial (yet genuine) curiosity 
in whatever has a character of its own, the instinctive 
realism, the diffusion of literary interest which belong, for 
instance, to the careless but nervous and expansive prose 
of Diderot. But what sincerity of expression could there 
be without the power of vision, the power of retaining 
and combining sensations, above all without a concrete 
vocabulary? As it was, there mingled with the frivolity 



INTRODUCTION 41 

and the didacticism of French verse, more especially from 
the last years of Lewis the Fifteenth to the Revolution, a 
strain of roseate and elegant philanthropy, a skin-deep, self- 
satisfied tenderness. 1 The vogue of Young's Nights and 
Gessner's Idylls, the popularity of Paul and Virginia, the 
enthusiasm which doted upon the Creole languor and the 
Parisian lubricity of M. de Parny — a poet who possessed, 
however, a particular accent, some grace of melody, and 
deserves credit for keeping alive the tradition of the strophe 
— are so many symptoms of ' a waste of feeling unemployed.' 
Vagueness in art is much the same as insincerity ; yet, as a 
body and its shadow are inseparable, it is not always possible 
to distinguish this complacent tearfulness, and all the cant 
about nature and simplicity and solitude which fed it, from 
the rare, authentic premonitions of a lyrical awakening. 
The starch and atrophy of classicism were first repudiated 
in prose — in the magnetical cadenced prose of Rousseau, 
the logician of instinct whose introspective idealism, at once 
profoundly unsociable and vehemently expansive, wrought 
miracles with a faded language long disused to express the 
correspondence between the inner and the outer world, and 
the eternal priority of the man who feels over the philosopher 
who reasons. And even Rousseau, if we can separate his 
purely literary influence from the contagion of his politics 
and the slower infiltration of his domesticity and his theism, 
caught the taste of his own and the next generation mainly 
by the elegiac strain in La Nouvelle HM&ise — a strain which 
so many reputations besides his had conspired to bring into 
the favour of drawing-rooms in the last years of the old 
monarchy. It is a strain common to prose and verse ; but 
in all essential indications of a deeper change it was natural 
that verse should lag behind Rousseau's example and later 
on behind that of Chateaubriand, whose self-centred chivalry 
reinforced the protest against the suppression of personal 
emotion with a rarer visual memory and a more generous 
gift of verbal structure, Verse, its essence being conformity, 

1 It was Mademoiselle de Lespinasse who said of Diderot, quite justly : 
* Sa sensibilite est a fleur de peau.' 



42 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

offered a specific resistance to all aesthetical adventure, it 
was the stronghold of academical taste ; and, as a vehicle 
eminently mundane in its later tradition, it was the less 
attractive to vigorous talents at a time when the serious 
issues on which the hopes of the nation hung were the 
tyrants of inspiration. The exception is Andre" Chenier. 

The ill-starred young poet x of the barbed Iambes and those 
delicious Eglogues was once claimed as a pioneer of Romance, 
but has long since recovered his true rank as a restorer of 
the classical tradition and as the one vigorous maker of 
verse with a generation in which he chimed in everything but 
his vigour. The fragments he left show a poetical ambition 
of infinite variety : what French poetry, but for his tragical 
death, had to expect from him may perhaps be better 
measured by the sketch of a Be Rerwm JSfatura, to which — 
like the insipid but scholarly Fontanes and other French- 
men of the time — he had harnessed his talents already, than 
by the civic satire to which indignation whetted him, or by 
the personal cry which his fate wrung from him at the last. 
He sang for the most part on a scale of easy rationalism and 
superficial pathos, alternately expressing a modish dalliance 
and that sanguine humanitarianism of moderate reformers 
on which the sharp sword of a people in earnest swung 
suddenly down ; but also the conscientious erudition then 
reviving, to which (more certainly than to a Greek mother) 
we owe the noble familiarity of his reproductions from 
antiquity — an Alexandrinism vivified, like that of Ronsard, 
by the experience of his own senses. Bray and the He de 
France are his Arcadia, and his nymphs have Christian names ; 
and, in spite of lapses into the dullest allegory, Andre" 
Ch&nier stands alone in the century as a poet whose 
descriptions are properly imaginative, who had, moreover, 
such skill in French verse as none had proved since Racine. 

1 Chenier's name is sometimes coupled with that of another poet who died 
young, Gilbert (1751-1780), who satirised the philosophes in somewhat 
remarkable verse, and whose swan-song {Paraphrase de plusieurs psaumes) 
happens to be in the same measure as the Iambes, though disposed in 
quatrains. 



INTRODUCTION 43 

Grace, movement, verbal invention, expressive rimes dis- 
tinguish all he wrote. He is not exempt from the vice of 
inversions, and on the other hand is sometimes irregular 
without reason, and it is too much to credit him with having 
really extended the rhythmical resources of the Alexandrine 
and shown the way to Victor Hugo ; but he never used it 
perfunctorily, and visibly took a lesson from the Greeks in 
the art of varying his periods. 1 

The pompous vacuity of Ch^nier's political odes, half 
concealed by merits of structure, serves, as well as his 
brother's hymns and tragedies and most of the other poetry 
engendered by events, to show how little the Revolution and 
the Empire availed immediately to speed on the long- 
expected spring. That time of stress held in suspense the 
hopes of disinterested art. Official encouragement urged 
some inefficient talents to heroic narrative, and historical 
accident reinforcing the prestige of Rome and Sparta revived 
a pseudo-classical poetry in its most odious forms. Ducis, 
who had adapted Shakespeare with a timidity which belied 
his real enthusiasm, gave over his efforts to put new life into 
French tragedy ; Lemercier in mock-heroic satire displayed 
more boldness than sense of form; abstract description 
emigrated with Delille and (having learned and forgotten 
nothing) returned with him; Chenedolle and Millevoye 
carried on the feeble fashion of elegant melancholy. Such 
was the state of French poetry just before the dawn; while 
in prose the work of preparation advanced with Madame 
de Stael, a poor artist but a brilliant desseminator of ideas, 
whose critical writings accustomed French minds to the 
notion of relativity in taste and recommended exotic master- 
pieces to their curiosity; but culminated with Chateau- 
briand, whose genius awoke the slumbering faculty of images, 
and, by an apology never before attempted, undermined the 
disastrous favour of indifferent mythologies and the in- 

1 Some of Chenier's alleged enjambements are merely the close of a 
parenthesis : others have an ill-considered dissonance. He was by no 
means the first to weaken, exceptionally, the ' median caesura ' ; and the 
instances of a coupe ternaire in his lines are very rare and equivocal. 



44 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

veterate disdain for some essential sources of inspiration, 
sources as rich in visions as in feeling, and at once the most 
intimate and the most national of all. 



Upon such antecedents, remote and immediate, followed 
that long spell of intense imaginative energy of which this 
book is meant to illustrate the characteristic production in 
verse. It is to be sure a subordinate, but still a conspicuous 
attraction of the French poetry made during the last three 
or four generations, that within its limits the fluctuations of 
the poetical ideal have been quick, full and conscious beyond 
any example in previous ages ; so that, whether we consider 
the relation of art to the experience of artists, or the elasticity 
of the instrument, or the alternate supremacy of one or 
other element in all verbal expression — thought, sensation, 
feeling — we shall find that the leavening mass of excellent 
poets has travelled, not illogically and at each stage with 
a spontaneous and fruitful unanimity, from one extreme to 
the other of taste and method and intention. 

The rapid determination and definite character of the 7/ 
successive movements distinguishable in the recent de- f 
velopment of the French literature must be attributed in f 
great part to the modern concentration of intellectual I 
resources, and especially to those friendships grounded upon \ 
sympathies of the brain through which common formulas 
and doctrines are most surely elaborated. Our own litera- 
ture has profited little in comparison with the French by 
such associations of groping talent : we do not owe much to 
schools of poetry and are wise perhaps to ignore them and 
to vindicate the dignity of insulated effort. But the French 
intelligence is eminently gregarious. Across the Channel, 
while the larger public remained indifferent to literary 
theory and even to poetry itself, the existence of an inner 
public relatively numerous and remarkably coherent, having 
a trained palate, strong traditions and a mobile curiosity, 
has tended to quicken aesthetical experiment, to sharpen 



INTRODUCTION 45 

the rivalry of creeds and abridge the periods of gestation in 
which fitful velleities turn into dominating principles. It 
will hardly be said that, in the last eighty years at least, 
genius in France has been sacrificed to system or sterilised by 
fashion : but these changes of direction are the more luminous 
because they have been thorough and irresistible, and 
display abundantly at one view the utmost capacity of a 
race for poetry. He who turns from the elder writers to 
those of the nineteenth century may recognise in their 
output the several drifts and predilections, the congenital 
scruples, the sudden apostasies towards alien perfections, to 
which the French mind from the Crusades to the time of 
Napoleon had all along been prone. But the waves that 
have latterly carried it this way and that have been separated 
by none of those intervals of languor and stagnation which 
attenuate the interest of the earlier centuries. 

The first, fullest and most violent of these waves is called 
Romanticism. The word romantique 1 in a literary applica- 
tion was brought into France by Madame de Stael, who, in 
her sensational and overrated work on Germany, used it 
somewhat confusedly to denote Northern literatures as 
opposed to Southern, personal as opposed to objective writ- 
ing, and poetry concerned with modern and Christian subjects 
as opposed to poetry inspired by learned and pagan tradi- 
tion. She connected it also with the legends and sentiments 
of chivalry. After various fortunes it has been long accepted 
as an inexact but serviceable name for the new and char- 
acteristic form in which the imaginative spirit, as it rose 
from its ashes, appeared invested. That spirit infinitely 
transcends Romanticism ; but in the dazzlement of his resur- 
rection, we see little else of the phoenix but his plumage. 

French poetry recovered because poets were born in 
France. What determined its common features in the first 

i In the eighteenth century it meant what is now expressed in French by 
romanesque and is still called romantic in English — an epithet of character. 
It is a derivative of roman, a word which once signified the speech of 
provincial Romans, and specifically of the Gallic provincials ; thence, any 
composition in the vernacular, and finally a story in verse or prose. 



46 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

generation is not so deep a mystery. Three factors seem 
essential : the bankruptcy of classicism ; the political con- 
vulsions of thirty years ; the influence (chiefly indirect) of 
foreign literatures. 

The romantic movement was revolutionary: that is, its 
drift was to affirm what had been denied and to deny what 
had been indolently affirmed in the sterile years which went 
\ before it. It affirmed that poetry can better dispense with 
\ opinions than fail to touch the soul; that its scope is 
/ co-extensive with the whole world sensible and intelligible ; 
, that emotion is its very air, but that its diet must needs be 
concrete — in a word, that its sovereign faculty is imagina- 
tion, that power to provoke the return of lively impressions 
made upon the sight and other senses in combinations in- 
; exhaustibly new, to quicken and humanise ideas by endowing 
them with the properties of animate beings, the loss of 
I which had been the most conclusive disability of the classical 
\ decadence. It proclaimed all subjects le gitimat e. Unison 
is a narrower ideal than harmony ; art fuses fair with foul 
and tears with laughter. Literary 'kinds' are arbitrary 
distinctions; or at least there is no natural or necessary 
connexion between a particular species of composition and a 
particular theme or tone. Literature is the expression of 
society, and therefore governed by the law of change. Peri- 
phrasis is not a grace, but a mark of impotence, and words 
which can only be replaced by phrases are good enough to 
use. The vital principles of verse — variety and order — are 
secured when a poet receives his measures and invents his 
rhythms. — In the directions indicated by some such formulas 
as these, the romantic spirit revitalised and enfranchised 
poetry, starved and hidebound as it had been for more than 
a hundred years. But indeed it was not content with re- 
pudiating Parny and Delille. It held Boileau accountable for 
Lebrun-Pindare ; and even Phedre was compromised in the 
disgrace oiZavre; for though in principle the great Augustans 
were handsomely distinguished from their degenerate succes- 
sors, the tendency of the new poets was to praise them 
obliquely for having done what they did in spite of their sub- 



INTRODUCTION 47 

serviency to the classical ideals. It was not clearly seen, or 
at least it was not constantly remembered, that (just because 
literature is the expression of society) it is by Moliere and 
Corneille and La Fontaine and Racine that those ideals are 
justified; and that the dearth of poets in the eighteenth 
century is not explained by the survival of a certain concep- 
tion of poetry, but is the very reason why the eighteenth 
century had no formulas properly its own. For between 
the favourite notions of that contradictory and half-articu- j 
late age — Progress or Perfectibility, the opposition of nature . 
and society — its general tendency to bring more and more 
things into the domain of literature, — and the old forms 
to which it clung, the old prejudices which it travestied, j 
there was a fundamental incongruity. 

We may assume that such a profound change as should 
bring poetry into line with life was sooner or later inevitable 
without the intervention of a social cataclysm or any foreign 
agency whatever. Did not the Revolution and the wars 
suspend rather than precipitate an imminent transforma- 
tion ? It is easier at any rate to feel the general analogy 
between those convulsions and Romanticism, as successive 
affirmations of French energy revived, than to point with 
any certainty to the positive influence of political vicissitudes 
upon the new poetry. Here are some of their least doubtful 
effects. By the Revolution many barriers to a social fusion 
were thrown down, the ancient provincial frontiers almost 
trodden out of knowledge, the number of readers and play- 
goers indefinitely increased, the classical system of education 
for a time disorganised. The realities of glory and peril 
fired home-keeping imaginations. An interval of conversa- 
tional anarchy broke the tradition of self-effacement and 
discretion, and men of intellect learned to balance the loss 
of patrons with the luxury of talking about themselves. 
Some persecution, the continual hasard of sudden death, the 
tremendous demonstrations of providential design, quickened 
the capacity of prayer and kindled an atmosphere favourable 
to the aesthetical theodicy of Chateaubriand. The future 
poets, 'begotten between a siege and a victory,' rocked in epical 



48 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

storms, grew up among intoxicating memories and titanic 
aspirations, hallucinated by the radiant figure of Napoleon, 
hungry for impossible adventures and solicited from their 
first lispings by the importunity of patriotic themes. 

Undoubtedly also the great upheaval helped to bring the 
French mind into closer contact with the mind of Europe. 
It was not quite as when the Valois carried home over the 
Alps a spiritual booty more precious than many kingdoms : 
yet a real if imponderable share in this other (and so 
dissimilar !) Renaissance belongs to the French eagles ; and 
its debt is still more evident to the studious wanderings of 
some French proscripts. But it is easy to overestimate the 
degree in which foreign examples impregnated French poetry 
at this critical stage. The fact is that the French have 
always, except for the brief period in which their classical 
masterpieces were making, been accessible to intellectual 
influences from abroad. Before the eighteenth century, the 
attraction was usually Southern: ever since the banished 
Huguenots founded French colonies in Prussia, England and 
the Low Countries, the new impulses have come most often 
from the North. But what distinguishes the exoticism of 
the Romantic period is not that it was particularly fertile, 
but that it was above all else dogmatic. The Romantic 
poets read Shakespeare: what they sought and found in 
him was chiefly a corroboration of their schemes for 're- 
forming' French tragedy — or, more generally, the most 
illustrious example of that comprehensiveness, that harmony 
of contrasts, that relative indifference to formal unity, which 
were notes of the new spirit. Scott and Byron in quite 
different ways confirmed Chateaubriand; so did what was 
known of Goethe; so did Macpherson's Ossian; and Schiller, 
who owes so much to Jean-Jacques, gave a sanction to his 
influence in certain directions. To the enchantment of 
distance in time and space (the picturesque view of history, 
the prestige of ruins, the joy in diversity), a Romantic 
element obviously stimulated by foreign literature as well 
as foreign travel, the French soul has always been sensitive. 
Two other elements— ' the return to Nature/ and indivi- 



; / 



INTRODUCTION- 49 

dualism — may be called foreign, in so far as the inanimate 
had never preoccupied French poets as it had English, and 
they had never understood poetry as a confession. But 
Rene is independent of Werther and of Childe Harold. 
Those two Romantic figures impressed the French imagina- 
tion profoundly, but their racial characteristics — the senti- 
mental mediocrity of the German student, the insolent 
misanthropy of the English oligarch — could not really be 
absorbed. If ' the return to Nature ' means attending to the 
beauty of landscape, or the perception of its analogies with 
the character of our passions, both are in Rousseau. There 
are faithful renderings of natural effects in Bernardin de 
Saint-Pierre. Chateaubriand is full of the genius loci. The 
conspicuous place of nature in French Romantic poets may 
almost be reduced to this — that they studied nature for the 
sake of metaphors, and that they revived an eternal common- 
place of all poetry — the contrast between its serenity and 
our agitations. Nature, for the Romantics, was still a part 
of man. 1 For that conception it was useless to go to Shelley 
or to Wordsworth. The study of the inanimate as a basis 
for interpreting the world, which is as old as Bossuet, and 
the conception of man as a part of nature, which is as old 
as Buffon, fertilised much of the French poetry in the next 
generation: but whatever it owed to foreign science upon 
that score, its debt to foreign literature is inappreciable. 
The establishment of a new principle — the principle of 

i freedom in art — was the permanent benefit of Romanticism. 

) Successive schools of French poetry have still appealed to 

'•■ this ; and it is indeed the principle of any durable vitality. 

,' In its broadest application it means, not that perfection is 
relative, but that the roads to perfection are innumerable ; 
not that there are no rules, but that the rule of rules is to 
be oneself. And this is to deny the statical conception of 

1 Anthropomorphism is of course the life of poetry : there could be no 
metaphors without it. But it may be remarked here that French art in 
general has resisted the efforts of modern thought to decentralise the 
universe. The foundation of scepticism in Prance has been consistently 
psychological : its reasK^B, that is, have been human reasons. 

D 



50 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

art in which the impotent and parasitical poets of the 
decadence took refuge. But in two points the Romantic 
vindication of artistic freedom was especially fruitful ; and 
they are of paramount importance, since they have to do with 
the formal conditions of all poetry. The age-long depres- 
sion of imaginative power, however independent of design 
or theory, had been aggravated at least by artificial impedi- 
ments to its free exercise, and especially by that parody 
of true classical ideals which eschewed not only words so 
exact as to be technical and so far less broadly human, 
but words which (in Dr. Johnson's splendid phrase) are 
simply ' level with life.' In spite of La NouveUe Hdloise 
and its impassioned landscapes, in spite of the great pre- 
cursor Chateaubriand, who, without adding overmuch to 
the speech of Bossuet, brought into French prose more 
than all the colour and cadence of the Mdvations, the 
Napoleonic versifiers had been content with a decimated 
vocabulary, insufficient to name ordinary objects without 
periphrasis — hopelessly inapt to give a body to passion, life 
to inanimate matter, to synthetise the universe by translat- 
ing simultaneous perceptions. To the young poets whose 
noviciate began with the return of the Bourbons, the bounds 
of the meagre traditional dialect appeared all at once as a 
preposterous obstacle : their emotional vigour, the pressing 
flood of their sensations surged against the dam of oli- 
garchy. The republic of words, wherein domicile and 
service confer citizenship and from which a conscientious 
distribution of labour excludes the corruption of synonyms, 
was not to be founded in a day, though the metaphorical 
faculty was reawakened and seeking its nourishment in a 
fresh study of the external world. But from the moment 
when the restraints imposed by cautious elegance and 
accepted by a sapless ideology were really felt, enfranchise- 
ment was in sight already ; and the fortunes of the language 
were committed to the guidance of men whose sure and 
curious vision, and tenacious memory for whatever had 
touched their senses or their sympathies, refused to deliver 
an unfaithful record. Their needs and their example 



INTRODUCTION 51 

recalled many ancient words from their age-long banish- 
ment, enriched the common stock from the stores of 
technical usage, broke through the arbitrary barriers which 
separated the diction of verse from the diction of imagina- 
tive prose, effaced the stigma of triviality from whole 
families of sturdy and vivid expressions disqualified for no 
better reason than that they had continued to serve the 
unsophisticated part of the nation, spread abroad the 
gospel of an exact nomenclature and restored the whole- 
some habit of regarding the individual sign and not the 
ready-made phrase as the unit of thought. So searching 
and so necessary a reform, as it was hotly resisted, did not 
triumph without some abuses and exaggerations; but the 
wonder is not that mere novelty (a notion which includes 
the strangeness of archaisms) was sometimes held by the 
reformers a sufficient title to preferment, that they some- 
times affected an ostentatious partiality towards the 
singular, the exotic, the forgotten, but that upon the whole 
the tact and learning of the leaders were as conspicuous 
as their enthusiasm ; that Victor Hugo in particular, and 
his counsellor Sainte-Beuve and his lieutenant Gautier, 
were not only rejuvenators but reconcilers, kept a deep 
respect for the traditions of written French, cared to be 
understood, and refused the easy honour of creating an 
esoteric jargon. 

The right to use every genuine word in the language on 
occasion is a fundamental condition of sincerity. But 
command of the special instrument is another. After more 
than a hundred years of mechanical exercises, the making 
of French verse definitely ceased, with the advent of 
Lamartine, to be a mere process of adjustment, and became 
once more the speaking of a mother-tongue. Lamartine 
was no metrician : he never possessed what Banville calls 
' the imagination of rime,' and in embarrassment he readily 
leaned upon the tolerated license of inversions; but his 
eloquence was of a kind which falls naturally into 
recurrent forms, and he was congenitally endowed with the 
mysterious power of using sounds to reinforce emotions, 



52 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

the instinct which seizes upon the illusory analogies of 
the ear and appropriates the sympathetic qualities of 
syllables to the matter. The elegiac smoothness, the 
celestial euphony of his song is all his own and is not, 
perhaps, a virtue which wears well; but after Lamartine 
no French poet could afford to neglect sonority. 

Lamartine's originality did not lie in his form, however, 
He was content with traditional cadences. Victor Hugo 
is the sovereign forger of rhythms, as he is the absolute 
lord of metaphors. He began as a pupil — extraordinarily 
vigorous and fluent — of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau and the 
Abbe" Delille. His formal genius ripened with the slow 
conquest of his spiritual personality, as experience 
nourished a visual memory of singular acuity, an imagina- 
tion of immense synthetic power : gradually he added new 
cadences to the old and multiplied a hundredfold the 
rhythmical resources of French verse, especially of the 
Alexandrine — still supreme throughout a century in which 
no measure has been neglected. Among lines conforming 
strictly to the classical type, with its prescribed division 
into two equal periods of sounds and therefore of sense 
(the nature of stress in French requiring the concurrence), 
he interspersed, much more liberally than the great poets 
of the seventeenth century had done, other lines in which 
the logical or grammatical coherence of the words admits 
the marking of an interruption after the sixth syllable 
but suggests its relative effacement by making it subordi- 
nate to more effective pauses within the half-lines, occurring 
here or there at the poet's discretion. This sort of equivo- 
cation, or discord, was no new thing : but its frequency was 
new. When, later, adhering still to the traditional formula 
in far the greater number of his lines, Hugo so distributed 
his phrasing in the minority that the intention of bridging 
the median interval is unmistakable, a new type of Alex- 
andrine was evolved: for the secondary groups subsisting 
now became the principal, and such a line was almost 
necessarily tripartite, and actually of shorter duration than 
the normally fourfold model of Racine. Yet, by a scruple 



INTRODUCTION 53 

which has been commonly misunderstood, Hugo continued 
in all cases to make his sixth syllable final — that is, capable 
in theory of bearing a stress; and this was not a mere 
typographical superstition, but a delicate satisfaction of the 
memory. Thus, while the habits of the French ear were 
respected, its curiosity was gratified; and the sense of 
monotony being progressive, the modification was gradual. 
The introduction of a discord prepared the way for a new 
concordance which differed from the old by making pros- 
ody obey instead of governing the purpose of the poet. 
Rhythm, in the Romantic Alexandrine, is expressive, or 
we might say realistic: since the natural expression of 
emotion tends indeed to recurrence, but to intermittent and 
complex recurrence. Hugo did not limit the operation of 
this principle to the internal economy of the line : it 
involved also a modification of the old rule that a strong 
cleavage should separate line from line, and reacted against 
the old tendency to complete the sense strictly within the 
bounds of each riming pair of lines. Not only did he 
enfranchise the elaboration of thought from the care of 
symmetry, but discreetly and occasionally he even pro- 
longed an indivisible logical (and consequently a rhyth- 
mical) period beyond the last syllable of a line, so that the 
breathing-space between two lines was suppressed. This 
sort of syncopation, together with his innovations in the 
internarrhythm, would have disconcerted the ear to the 
extent of endangering the stability of the measure itself 
if it had been frequent or arbitrary, and especially if the 
unity of the line had not been accentuated by the rime, 
which in Hugo and his followers is an element of supreme 
importance. That it should be exact was not enough : it 
must be emphatic, and difficult: it must always surpass 
the expectation of the hearer. This was to return to the 
precepts of Malherbe; but Hugo's conception of rime is 
imaginative as well as material. He conceived it as not only 
sonorous, but suggestive, symbolical — not only a bell 
which enforces the sensation of time, but a beacon to the 
vision and the understanding. And it is true that some- 



54 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

times he saw in it a mere pretext for an astonishing dis- 
play of virtuosity, a sort of goddess Fortune, a sesame where- 
with to unlock a treasury of verbal improvisation. But 
these abuses have the excuse of an exuberant genius which 
is its own tempter; and, when all is said, they are rare 
in proportion to his output. And it remains true thafj 
Hugo went to the root of poetry in discerning the mystical ] 
collaboration of a consetarated element of form (which soj 
easily degenerates into a meretricious accessory) in the 
travail of the spirit. 

The greatest of the French poets influenced the form of 
French verse in other things besides rime and rhythm — 
notably in structure ; for if he invented no new measures, 
and scarcely any new types of strophe, he carried an immense 
number of those existing already to perfection, and he 
restored the French ode by his science of composition, his 
unequalled power of varied movement and his majestic 
sense of climax. But his service to the Alexandrine (in 
which, as in other services, he had counsellors and collabo- 
rators, but no master) is such that it seemed worth while, at 
the risk of a little apparent disproportion, to describe in 
some detail its principal features. For in no other direc- 
tion did the Romantic cry for freedom, for fresh air, corrected 
by a very French instinct or scruple of continuity — for 
which the movement has received too little credit — achieve 
results at once so characteristic and so durable. 

The triumph of Romanticism was complete and short- 
lived. It was a fever, vehement and transitory; it was a 
movement, and ' a movement,' said Newman, ' is a thing 
which moves.' Victor Hugo, as also Alfred de Vigny, 
remained superior, if not indifferent, to all the literary 
movements of the century. The militant phase of his 
career as a poet is identified with Romanticism; at his 
zenith— and he was yet to rise to his full height in lyrical 
satire, in historical rhapsodies, in vast apocalyptic poems of 
a category still unnamed — his inspiration is largely objec- 
tive, and much that was vital in the later formulas is con- 
tained in him: but none contains him, nor (though his 



INTRODUCTION 55 

supremacy was undisputed) did he preside over the elabora- 
tion of any. 

It happened that the fall, in 1843, of Hugo's fine drama, 
Les Burgraves, which revealed the epic poet in him, was 
hailed as a public sign that Romanticism had lost ground ; 
and Ponsard, whose agreeable talent was essentially eclectic, 
appeared for a moment to stand for the revenge of common- 
sense over a magnificent absurdity that had held the stage 
too long. As a matter of fact, the Romantic chafm, as 
represented for example by Alfred de Musset, was just 
beginning to penetrate the most conservative element in 
France, the provincial middle-class ; and the great Romantic 
commonplaces, in a debased, conventional form, were almost 
popular. The fertile discontent, without which French 
poetry would once again have sunk into hebetude or dis- 
solved in chaos, arose among the poets themselves ; and it 
was not for some years after Les Burgraves that its results 
appeared in a fresh wave of lyrical energy. 

The charge against Romanticism of being a foreign thing 
is easily refuted. Nevertheless, that opening of the flood- 
gates to all the forms of egoism and all the curiosities of 
feeling which gave birth to a poetry as various in its interests 
as it was rich in its assemblage of temperaments, implied a 
conflict with some constitutional leanings of French art — its 
abhorrence of singularity and tumult, its incorruptible desire 
for order, for measure, for a conscientious absorption in the 
object. The autonomy of the imagination had been vindi- 
cated against the despotism of a taste and a code which 
once were held immutable : it was time to impose a new 
discipline. The next phase, though it repudiated none of 
the Romantic achievements, was reactionary as well as deri- 
vative, and in so far it interpreted the repentant sanity of 
the race, after a surfeit of rebellious splendours. 

The great militant generation of poets had brandished the 
notion of beauty self-justified in the faces of their elders, and 
had given some examples of an indestructible and flawless I 
excellence ; but in general they had seemed to prefer adven- 
ture, character, vitality, to that perfection in which formy 



56 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

and matter are one. They had measured success by the 
intensity rather than the quality of the emotions they 
excited. They had nursed the idea of inspiration as a state 
of passive receptivity ; but they had too often mistaken the 
craving to project an ideal personality for an imperious 
visitation of the muse. They had trusted in their own 
exuberance, and, disdaining to know, had asked of time and 
space nothing more than an incitement, a background, an 
embroidery. And some of them had written their lives. 

In the seventeenth century a native jealousy of the self- 
assertion which would exalt a singer above his song had 
expressed itself characteristically as a social virtue and as a 
rule of reason : it was an offence against good-breeding then 
to take the world into your confidence, and he who strove 
to communicate what made him different from other 
men was so much the less human and the less intelligible. 
Those particular sanctions were obsolete ; but the same 
instinct was still lively. It prompted the poets who 
succeeded the first champions of artistic freedom to 
propose a new ideal of serenity, of a serenity no longer 
acquiescent, no longer founded upon common certitude and 
voluntary limitations, but absolute, comprehensive, in some 
sort superhuman. Art, they thought, is a sanctuary, a 
refuge from the transient. It advances no proofs, it defends 
no persons : it imposes a transfiguration of the world. The 
creation of beautiful forms, which is a great deliberate exer- 
cise of special faculties, cannot but express the intimate 
being of an artist. His work itself is his likeness ; but his 
passions, misfortunes, ambitions, prejudices, are irrelevant. 
If he is preoccupied with the transmission of his own image, 
his hand will tremble ; and this means, not that he will be 
more sincere, but that he will be less accomplished. Fur- 
ther, to invent is not to imagine. An imagination which is 
not continually fed by reality, necessarily drops into vague- 
ness or convention — chews the cud or starves. A new 
vision of the world is the result of a steady undistracted 
gaze; and what sort of an illusion is that which a little 
experience reproves ? Your Romantic Italy is at the mercy 



INTRODUCTION 57 

of every traveller; the merest dabbler in history knows 
enough to contradict your Romantic conception of the 
Middle Ages ; and to men of the world human nature seems 
too complex for your Romantic antitheses and inconse- 
quences of character ! The poet must remain invisible and 
neutral, using his intelligence to sift and harmonise the 
chaos of sensations, not to betray the reaction of his person- 
ality upon the material life offers. 

It was the bias of the Parnassians (as the poets of this ] 
second generation were called after a famous anthology) to V 
depreciate personal emotion in poetry and to give pre- / 
eminence over other qualities to the quality of seeing true. \ 
Insensibility has been laid to their charge; and realism, i 
And it is true no doubt that the Olympian attitude attracted 
a congenital aridity in some secondary followers of Leconte 
de Lisle; while others practised the merely acquirable 
faculties of expression upon literally translating brute frag- 
ments of experience, chosen with an impartiality very near 
indifference. But the principle of self-repression, which 
enjoins the loyal presentment of objects, by no means pro- 
scribes those which our minds cannot contemplate dispas- 
sionately ; and to restore the authority of observation and 
study is not to propose the attainment of a neutral truth as 
the supreme end of art. Judged by the masterful works in 
which the leader of this school sought to reanimate the 
successive illusions of the race, the characteristic matter of 
Parnassian verse, if not directly passionate, involves the 
perpetual source of human sorrow and hope. In the mid- 
century, while determinism reigned and the conception of a 
universal flux, the aching sense of our common mutability 
had greater power to inspire than the thrills of any particular 
agitation : the staple themes of lyricism, discredited as they 
were by the romantic abuse, suffered a partial eclipse ; but 
a penetrating, if diffused, emotion clings to those inconstant 
dreams of the divine which the greatest of the Parnassians 
marshalled in a grave and elaborate procession. 

No school has ever held up a more inflexible ideal of 
autonomous beauty. Order, harmony of parts, measure, the 



58 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

absolute probity of words, sonority, salient rime, clear 
rhythmical formulas crystallising the temerities of Hugo 
and his fellows — without these the Parnassians did not con- 
ceive perfection; by these they undertook to chasten and 
to integrate their impressions of the sensible world — for 
(eliminating personal sentiment and opinion) they chose to 
concentrate the resources of expression upon the revival of 
sensations, and chiefly those of sight. Another test of 
absolute sincerity they imposed — minute attention and re- 
search — a homage to ascertainable truth which often strikes 
us as disproportionate ; and in order to escape out of them- 
selves they too readily submitted their credentials to archae- 
ology, physics and the study of comparative religions. 
Leconte's famous equivocal appeal for a partnership or a 
confusion of art and learning, 1 an unconscious threat to 
degrade poetry to the rank of a tire- woman to science, paved 
the way for a fatal usurpation ; in spite of its disdain for the 
present and the particular, its stately and arrogant aesthetics, 
Parnassianism cannot be acquitted of a certain affinity with 
that denial of all art called realism. If art, being creative, 
is necessarily a variation, a falsifying of experience, it would 
seem at first sight that the art of Parnassus should have 
been the more averse from the bare notation of experience, 
original or second-hand, as the formal and logical conditions 
it laid down were more stringent and complex and its 
material more recondite. Yet nothing, in fact, is more 
certain than that the multiplication of obstacles and delight 
in overcoming them are entirely compatible with a poetry 
of reproduction. Indeed, if several adherents of an artistic 
ideal essentially noble tended in practice to accept the mere 
imitation of nature as a sufficient motive ; if a rigorous exacti- 
tude, which in their general system had been no more than 
a precaution or a protest against the whims and blunders 
and self-absorption of the Romantics, too often remains the 
only interest of their inelective content, it may well be that, 
apart from any scientific ambition, an almost athletic crafts- 
manship disposed them to value description for its own sake. 

1 See the Preface to Poimes Antiques. 



INTRODUCTION 59 

Never before had so high a level of technical accomplish- 
ment been so commonly attained : this fact contains a warn- 
ing that the Parnassian perfection was largely mechanical 
and wanted spontaneity. The instrument was in truth not 
so supple but that our pleasure in all save the greatest poets 
of the school can be dissociated from our interest. There is 
something that the unflagging splendour of its rhythms, the 
transparency of its marble surface, its uniform movement, 
its serenity, its dazzling and well-filled pictures never 
succeed in expressing — something more essential than the 
objects and the relations of objects which it names with 
infallible precision — perhaps the very imperfection of the 
mobile and sensitive human mind. 

About the time when Victor Hugo, the prisoner of his 
renown, was giving his last energies to tedious polemics, 
French poetry took its bearings anew and began to shape 
another course. Some, who had served a zealous noviciate 
to the austere discipline of Leconte, came to believe that 
their art, encumbered with conditions and exhausted by the 
effort to reconcile comprehensiveness with finish, was drift- 
ing slowly towards the sandbank of a servile virtuosity. It 
appeared to them distinguished and unprofitable, full of 
things and empty of soul. They had dreams of an art 
more discreetly supple and less monotonously accomplished, 
entirely intimate and vital, willing to relax its grip upon the 
world outside us, to forgo its pretensions to be absolute and 
even to reject the pomp of approved harmonies, in order to 
be truer to the gaps and ellipses, the gropings and the 
embryonic velleities which are so large a part of our con- 
sciousness. After a spell of agile adventure under the 
Parnassian banner, Paul Verlaine— at heart perhaps an in- 
corrigible romantic, but a romantic purged of emphasis and 
disburdened of picturesque accessories — stripped his verse, 
at a great spiritual crisis, of rhetorical impediments to a 
self-mortifying candour, and discovered a fresh enchantment 
in that ultimate sincerity which has done with eloquence 
and the dignity of art. His gift of familiarity, which makes 
all his predecessors seem unnatural and ceremonious by 



60 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

comparison, was too singular to descend to any : at least his 
example gave a strong impulse to that recrudescence of 
individualism which is the widest possible definition of post- 
Parnassian tendencies. As a versifier he was no revolutionary, 
being mainly a respectful pupil of Victor Hugo and, it may 
be added, of Racine, but his frequent recourse to assonance 
and internal rime, his fondness for ' uneven ' measures, and 
generally for rhythms which present themselves ambiguously, 
obscured his real attitude in the eyes of contemporaries and 
successors who had not his tact and his sense of idiom to 
secure them against cacophony and solecism. 

Verlaine is familiar and exquisite. With the outwardly 
graceless and fragmentary writings of Jules Laforgue, the 
sense of revolt against erudition and ' objectivity ' and exact- 
ness becomes clearer — a double and at first sight contra- 
dictory impulse urging French art to the very frontier of 
expression and bringing into question the whole aim and 
object of speech. On the one hand, an exasperated hunger 
for the actual was ready to sacrifice the prestige of form in 
so far as that implies a certain unveracity, since it sub- 
ordinates what is personal, natural and spontaneous to the 
general or permanent or rational aspects of the universe; 
and exacted as essential to a really complete probity that 
the very lisp and stutter of the mind should figure in the 
crude notation of our briefest impressions. On the other — 
and of the many tendencies imputed to Symbolism this is 
the most characteristic — out of an acuter perception of 
what all poets have always known, that words are insufficient 
if their power is bounded by their meaning, emerged an 
audacious doctrine which branded their representative 
function as inferior, and sought to shift the poetical interest 
from what they signify to what they may suggest. In the 
Parnassian system description was paramount, and feeling 
sprang from it immediately : the emotion which Symbolism 
pursues bears no constant relation to the objects represented 
or the ideas expressed; rather it aims at the recovery of 
vanished moods by curious incantations, by the magical 
influence of verbal atmosphere. To fashion a true likeness 



INTRODUCTION 61 

of the material world it holds a vain and illusory under- 
taking : it values sights, sounds, scents and savours for their 
secret affinities with states of the soul. Like the Romantics 
themselves, the Symbolists are concerned above all with 
self-revelation ; but they would substitute for the romantic 
embellishment of passionate life the presentment of character- 
istic images more or less coherent — landscapes seen in 
dreams and desired like home — legends deformed and 
wrested from their first import — fancies which betray an 
intimate obsession and reflect a singular habit of association. 
Faith in the correspondence between sensible and spiritual 
is common to all mystics ; but it would be useless to assign 
to the French poets of to-day and yesterday a place in any 
mystical tradition. Their very starting-point is impatience 
of approved methods, the will to be oneself to the verge of 
mental insulation. Hence that scruple of sincerity which 
has applied the precept of fidelity rather to the distant 
emotional effects of sensation than to things perceived, and 
recommended, as a condition, that poetical forms should be 
improvised to suit the needs of a mood. For that is the 
general sense of a rhythmical anarchy which in the view of 
the half-lettered public at least has held the foremost place 
among competing definitions of the Symbolist movement. 
And certainly the theory of self-expression outlined here 
has an obvious leaning towards the abandonment of settled 
forms. But it is notable that the urgency of a prosodical 
reform which should abrogate such rules as had outlived 
their motives had been long apparent to poets and critics of 
very different schools; while, on the other hand, indepen- 
dently of any theory, something like a violent disruption of 
the native prosody has unquestionably been promoted of 
late years by a foreign invasion. There are aliens writing 
French at this day who have acquired every privilege of the 
French ear, but cannot enter into its prejudices ; who are 
not perpetually haunted and arrested by reproachful echoes 
of a more clearly ordered poetry, and have no persistent 
reverence for every stage of a slow development in which 
their own races had no share ; who moreover in their most 



62 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

original deviations from the normal French rhythms seem 
to be unconsciously obeying the laws of a different music — 
that which their own ancestors made with another speech. 
Accomplished as they are, they have not feared to assail the 
very citadel of French versification — rime and the enumera- 
tion of syllables ; indeed, not only the most durable part of 
the ancient system, but the sovereign principle of all Occi- 
dental verse, which is variety in recurrence, was jeopardised 
when French poets (hardly ever of authentic French race) 
began to question the necessity of rhythmical units and of 
rhythmical formulas such as the trained ear may seize and 
retain. In a word, the Symbolists conceived self-expression 
as the triumph of the arbitrary. And, if it were admitted 
that by exacting from themselves a continual effort of formal 
invention minutely equivalent to the play of the individual 
mind they have, for the first time perhaps since verse was 
verse, raised it to an austere disdain for all that is merely 
mechanism, processes, decoration, they would still be charge- 
able with a strange ignorance of that which the very medium 
implies, its fundamental dependence upon a habit of the 
ear ; — nay, of that universal requirement of all art, that it 
should translate solitary impressions into common forms. 
For what are rhythmical intentions which do not command 
the voice and which no inveterate expectations help us to 
interpret ? 

That is not, of course, the only obscurity that shrouds the 
characteristic productions of the school It was very well to 
abandon description for its own sake : a graver insignificance 
than that of the lesser Parnassians results from a fastidious 
search for unsuspected affinities between the subtle motions 
of the heart and the changing face of the world. All nature, 
let us grant, is a symbol. But how often, in the poetry of 
the symbolists, the pretext for an analogy appears frivolous 
or, for want of a sufficient initiative, remains simply imper- 
ceptible to us who have not shared the fugitive experience 
that suddenly suggested it ! Bewildered by the choice of 
purposes, one may well hesitate whether to regard their 
esoteric language as an algebra designed by the private 



INTRODUCTION 63 

economy of incommunicable minds, or as a mere accompani- 
ment to melodies unheard, a more or less eloquent and 
engaging testimony to a new despair of words. 1 

Rapidly invasive and not endemical merely — for with less 
concentration than in France the same or a like impulse has 
been felt all over Europe — these tendencies have quickened, 
or complicated at the least, some rare poetical temperaments, 
to say nothing of the groping or insincere vocations which 
the doctrine of symbolism has flattered and its vogue 
accredited. The pure Symbolist perhaps is indiscoverable. 
And where the enthronement of mood and the exclusive 
pursuit of the subconscious and the ineffable, the deliberate 
instability of structure, measure and rhythm, the raising into 
a system of those discreet occasional effects which poets 
before this time had drawn from the casual and secret 
memories of words enhancing their own value — wherever 
these things have been as tyrannous in practice as in 
precept, they have produced as yet nothing full, nothing 
whole, nor majestic nor even faultless; little enough that 
by virtues of a subtler kind atones for the want of order 
and light. Yet they are the notes of much that is 
charming, strange and generous in recent French poetry ; 
and its immediate destiny is largely in the hands of 
poets whose beginnings were absorbed in the Symbolist 
campaign and who have outlived the crude and pro- 
vocative stage, to reveal by their personal effort an un- 
explored capacity in this instrument for rendering certain 
half-tones of sentiment, a day-dream tenderness, a diffused 
nostalgia, desires without a name and sorrows older than 
they. 

But whatever the positive achievements of a school already 
in dissolution, they are not the measure of the interest and 
the hopes that lie in a phase very evidently transitional — a 
phase of readjustment or renovation, of experiments made 
not as usual behind the scenes, but defiantly in the full glare 

1 So in the drama of a prose Symbolist, M. Maeterlinck, dialogue — 
intentionally trivial and incoherent — often does no more than punctuate the 
dumb eloquence of internal action. 



64 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

of the footlights. 1 There is no room to enlarge upon the 
connection between that postulate of the symbolists, that it 
is we who make the world, and what philosophers call 
subjective idealism; nor upon that notion of convertible 
sensations (colours, sounds and odours interchanging) to 
which we may trace certain favourite effects of theirs ; nor 
upon the abundant material they bring to illustrate the 
interdependence of the arts — a commonplace since Diderot 
— by a musical conception, succeeding the plastic conception 
of poetry. 2 But in the general history of art, symbolism is 
inseparable from a salutary vindication of the eternal 
instinct which seeks to give a meaning to our perceptions, 
and of the right to make nature itself the mirror of a more 
authentic personality than any record of doings and suffer- 
ings or any formulation of opinions can reveal. It has been 
an assertion, however eccentric, of the human and spiritual 
interest which the ideal of a scientific neutrality had thrown 
for a moment into the shade. 3 Its excesses, which are 
evident, are the excesses of an intense individualism : its 
obscurity is that of men who will only speak their own lan- 
guage, and its very formlessness, born of continual improvisa- 
tion and the contempt for ritual, is a sort of emancipation. 
And this curious and in some degree chaotic adventure has 
furnished, at any rate, a striking testimony to the poetical 
vitality of the French, at the close of a century so eminently 
fertile in poets. 

In the dawn of another, we may already see emerging 
once more the native qualities of finish, directness, com- 
position, measure, chastened emotion, blent — in the works 

1 Mallarme (referring mainly to the technical side of the movement) noted 
that ' la retrempe, d'ordinaire cachee, s'exerce publiquement, par le recours 
a de delicieux a-peu-pres. ' 

2 I am not thinking here of the closer attention paid by some of the 
recent poets to the expressive value of sounds; but if poetry has been 
diverted from its representation of objects to the suggestion of trains of 
feeling and the effacement of matter, this may be called a musical direction 
(in spite of ' programme music '). 

3 It is -worth noting that Villiers de l'lsle-Adam, one of the initiators, 
whose reputation, however, rests mainly upon his prose masterpieces — 
spent his fine gift of irony on what he called la banqueroute de la science. 



INTRODUCTION 65 

of some repentant Symbolists — with an added sensitiveness 
and suppleness, a richer gift of tears, a greater intimacy. If 
this is a reaction, it contains no hint of tedium and implies 
no languid repetition of old formulas. It may be that 
before long the oscillations of many centuries are to 
subside into an equilibrium of those eternal elements — 
thought, sensibility, imagination — which have struggled 
hitherto, and most fiercely in the period I am to illustrate, 
for the exclusive direction of French poetry. But this 
survey must not end with a prediction: its aim has been 
attained if I have been able to put forward a notion of the 
French poetical tradition, and of its wealth, so far definite 
that those who shall peruse the following examples may be 
tempted to verify it and, in any case, may give to the 
French poetry made in the last few generations its place, a 
splendid place, in a continuous development which has 
been proceeding for more than eight hundred years, and 
is proceeding still. 



CHAELES MILLEVOYE 

• 1782-1816 

Millevoye was born at Abbeville in Picardy of poor parents who 
died young, and after a sickly and studious childhood worked in a 
lawyer's office and at a bookseller's. Academic honours came to him 
early, and a poem on the passage of Mount St. Bernard by the French 
troops was substantially rewarded ; but it was his elegiac verse which 
won the applause of society. A disappointed affection and a rather 
brilliant and feverish way of life defrayed by Imperial munificence 
helped to ruin a feeble constitution. He went to Italy, but felt 
himself inferior to the task of writing an epic on Napoleon's victorious 
campaigns in that country ; returned and married, lost his eyesight, 
and lived a short while longer in complete retirement. 

The other poets of the First Empire (Andrieux, the author of ' Le 
Meunier Sans-Souci,' belongs rather to the preceding period) are 
entirely forgotten : Millevoye keeps a certain historical interest, if 
nothing more, as the most complete and gifted representative of the 
sentimentalists who. are a real link between the Classical decadence 
and the Eomantic dawn. By his elegance (which is genuine), the 
timidity of his vocabulary and his somewhat invertebrate rhythms, 
he belongs wholly to the first ; but when all is said, a vague and 
lymphatic plaintiveness aspiring to find an accomplice in ' nature ' is 
at least part of the dross of Lamartine — and all of Millevoye that 
need concern us. Not but that he tried many strains — the heroic 
even, and the exotic ; but he never achieved anything so characteristic 
or in a sense more perfect than the following piece, of which, with 
the irresolution of a transitional poet, he gave several improved 
versions, and which has been cruelly described as ' la Marseillaise des 
melancoliques.' 

Millevoye's works are to be found in the BibliotMque Charpentier. 



67 



68 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



La Chute des Feuilles 

De la d^pouille de nos bois 

L'automne avait jonche" la terre; 

Le bocage etait sans mystere, 

Le rossignol etait sans voix. 

Triste et mourant, a son aurore, 5 

Un jeune malade, a pas lents, 

Parcourait une fois encore 

Le bois cher a ses premiers ans. 

' Bois que j'aime, adieu ! je succombe. 

Votre deuil a pr£dit mon sort, 10 

Et dans cbaque feuille qui tombe 

Je lis un presage de mort. 

Fatal oracle d'Epidaure, 

Tu m'as dit : " Les feuilles des bois 

A tes yeux jauniront encore, 15 

Et c'est pour la derniere fois. 

La nuit du tr£pas t'environne ; 

Plus pale que la pale automne, 

Tu t'inclines vers le Tombeau. 

Ta jeunesse sera fl^trie 20 

Avant l'herbe de la prairie, 

Avant le pampre du coteau." 

Et je meurs ! De sa froide haleine 

Un vent funeste m'a touchy, 

Et mon biver s'est approche" 25 

Quand mon printemps s'ecoule a peine. 

Arbuste en un seul jour d^truit, 

Quelques fleurs faisaient ma parure ; 

Mais ma languissante verdure 

Ne laisse apres elle aucun fruit. 30 

Tombe, tombe, feuille 6pbemere ! 

Voile aux yeux ce triste cbemin, 

Cache au d^sespoir de ma mere 

La place ou je serai demain. 



CHARLES MILLEVOYE 69 

Mais vers la solitaire allee 3s 

Si mon amante desolee 

Venait pleurer quand le jour fuit, 

Eveille par un linger bruit 

Mon ombre un instant consolee.' 

II dit, s'eloigne . . . et sans retour. 4 o 

La derniere feuille qui tombe 

A signale son dernier jour. 

Sous le chene on creusa sa tombe. 

Mais ce qu'il aimait ne vint pas 

Visiter la pierre isolee ; 45 

Et le patre de la vallee 

Troubla seul du bruit de ses pas 

Le silence du mausolee.' 



70 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



PIERRE-JEAN DE BERANGER 

1780-1857 

His origin was humble, in spite of the 'noble particle,' the incon- 
gruity of which suggested one of his best songs. Born in Paris in 
1780, he received a summary education, and for many years earned 
an insufficient livelihood as a clerk. His first literary efforts were 
encouraged by Lucien Bonaparte (the sincere Kepublican of his 
family), who on retiring to Bome placed his salary as a member of 
the Institute at the disposal of the young poet. Before Napoleon 
fell, Beranger had written Le roi tf'Yvetot and other songs now 
almost equally celebrated ; but it was the Bestoration which made 
him famous by the matchless opportunities it offered to light satire 
by its petty tyrannies, its affectations and the essentially unnational 
basis on which it rested ; and the touch of scandal which has sealed 
so many reputations in French poetry was not long wanting, for the 
poet was twice imprisoned for seditious libel, once in 1822 and for a 
longer period in 1828, when a delightful satire, Le Sacre de Charles 
le Simple, and L'Ange Gardien, a piece of rather mild Voltairianism, 
gave offence to Church and State. The revolution of July avenged 
and exalted him ; but Beranger's ' liberal bonapartism ' did not 
disarm during the reign of Louis-Philippe, and in 1847 he foretold 
in his most spirited verse the cataclysm which was to shake so many 
thrones in Europe. His last years were easy and honoured, and 
when he died the Second Empire tried to take official possession of 
his fame by giving him a public funeral — logically, no doubt, for the 
songs of B eranger had contributed as powerfully as Hugo's odes or 
the history of M. Thiers to build up the Napoleonic legend, and 
thereby provide a popular sanction for the Coup d'etat. 

The French song, bacchic, amorous or political, was several hundred 
years old when Beranger, ignorant of its remoter traditions but 
inheriting a great share in the native instincts which created it, gave 
new life to a form of poetry which, more than any other that survives, 
is fitted to express what may be called the Sancho Panza side of the 
French temperament : for the ideal Frenchman contains Don Quixote 
along with his squire. Many of Beranger's contemporaries made 
extravagant claims for his lyrical talent : after half a century and 



PIERRE- JEAN DE BERANGER 71 

more it is not easy to do him bare justice. For one thing, we are 
indifferent to the idols and bugbears of that day ; and for another, 
we read instead of singing him. Wilhem and the rest of his musical 
collaborators are almost forgotten, and (tenth-rate composers as they 
were) this is a loss for Beranger. It was often said foolishly that he 
raised the song to the rank of an Ode : his real merit is that he saw 
the importance of the dramatic element in a sort of verse which is 
nothing if it does not suggest action. His typical song is a dialogue, 
even when one of the parties is suppressed ; and something is going 
forward before our eyes and we are impelled to intervene. Move- 
ment, facile enthusiasm, an undeniable dexterity in the combination 
of his measures, a knack of unforgettable refrains — this is almost the 
sum of his qualities. Beranger is an artist in the narrow sense — a 
writer who perfectly understood how to contrive particular effects — 
and in no other. He is full of the old Adam of the eighteenth 
century, with his odds and ends of mythology, his abstract words, 
the poverty of his rimes and, above all, with the gay but prudent 
materialism which is essential to him. To his credit be it said, he 
was a patriot without an afterthought ; his tolerance is not assumed ; 
singing not exactly for the people but (like Mr. Kipling) for the man 
in the street, he did really feel sometimes for the outcast of cities 
and highways ; and if in the evil days of the Kestoration it was 
Courier, the scholar-husbandman, who wielded what Mr. Meredith 
calls finely the sword of common-sense, Beranger was the more 
effective, being the less sophisticated, champion of free speech • and 
in so far his attitude is not unheroical. 

The principal collections of Beranger's Chansons appeared in 1815, 
1821, 1828, 1831, 1847. There are several editions, more or less 
complete. 



II 

Ma Vocation 

Air : Attendez-moi sous I'orme. 



Jete" sur cette boule, 
Laid, chetif et souffrant ; 
Etouffe dans la foule, 
Faute d'etre assez grand ; 



72 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Une plainte touchante s 

De ma bouche sortit ; 

Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, 

Chante, pauvre petit ! (Bis.) 

Le char de l'opulence 

M'eclabousse en passant ; 10 

J'eprouve l'insolence 

Du riche et du puissant ; 

De leur morgue tranchante 

Rien ne nous garantit. 

Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, is 

Chante, pauvre petit ! 

D'une vie incertaine 

Ayant eu de l'eflroi, 

Je rampe sous la chaine 

Du plus modique emploi. 20 

La liberte m'enchante, 

Mais j'ai grand appetit. 

Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, 

Chante, pauvre petit ! 

L' Amour, dans ma d&resse, 25 

Daigna me consoler ; 

Mais avec la jeunesse 

Je le vois s'envoler. 

Pres de beaute touchante 

Mon cceur en vain patit. 3 o 

Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, 

Chante, pauvre petit ! 

Chanter, ou je m'abuse, 

Est ma t&che ici-bas. 

Tous ceux qu'ainsi j'amuse s 

Ne m'aimeront-ils pas ? 

Quand un cercle m'enchante, 

Quand le vin divertit, 

Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, 

Chante, pauvre petit ! ^ 



PIERRE-JEAN DE BERANGER 73 

in 
Le Petit Homme Rouge 

Air : C'est le gros Thomas. 
Foin des mecontents ! 
Comme balayeuse on me loge, 

Depuis quarante ans, 
Dans le chateau, pres de l'horloge. 

Or, mes enfants, sachez s 

Que la, pour mes p^ches, 
Du coin d'ou le soir je ne bouge, 
J'ai vu le petit homme rouge. 
Saints du paradis, 
Priez pour Charles dix. 10 

Vous figurez-vous 
Ce diable habille d'ecarlate ? 
Bossu, louche et roux, 
Un serpent lui sert de cravate. 

II a le nez crochu ; 15 

II a le pied fourchu ; 
Sa voix rauque, en chantant, presage 
Au chateau grand remu-menage. 
Saints du paradis, 
Priez pour Charles dix. 20 

Je le vis, helas ! 
En quatre-vingt-douze apparaitre. 

Nobles et prelats 
Abandonnaient notre bon maitre. 

L'homme rouge venait as 

En sabots, en bonnets. 
M'endormais-je un peu sur ma chaise, 
II entonnait la Marseillaise. 
Saints du paradis 
Priez pour Charles dix. 30 

J'eus a balayer ; 
Mais lui bient6t par la gouttiere 

Revint m'effrayer 
Pour ce bon monsieur Robespierre. 



74 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Lors il etait poudre, 35 

Parlait mieux qu'un cure, 
Ou, comme riant de lui-meme, 
Chantait l'hymne a Ylttre supreme. 
Saints du paradis, 

Priez pour Charles dix. 4° 

Depuis la terreur 
Plus n'y pensais, lorsque sa vue 

Du bon Empereur 
M'annon9a la chute imprevue. 

En toque il avait mis 45 

Vingt plumets ennemis, 
Et chantait au son d'une vielle 
Vive Hervri Quatre ! et GabrieUe. 
Saints du paradis, 
Priez pour Charles dix. so 

Soyez done instruits, 
Enfants, mais qu'ailleurs on l'ignore, 

Que depuis trois nuits 
L'homme rouge apparalt encore. 

Criant d'un air moqueur, 55 

II chante comme au chceur, 
Baise la terre, et puis ensuite 
Met un grand chapeau de jesuite. 
Saints du paradis, 
Priez pour Charles dix. 60 

IV. 

Les Bohemiens 

Am : Mori pW m'a donni un mart. 

Sorciers, bateleurs ou iilous, 
Reste immonde 
D'un ancien monde ; 
Sorciers, bateleurs ou filous, 
Gais bohemiens, que voulez-vous s 



PIEKRE-JEAN DE BERANGER 75 

D'ou nous venons ? Ton n'en sait rien. 
L'hirondelle 
D'ou nous vient-elle ? 
D'oii nous venons ? Ton n'en sait rien. 
Ou nous irons, le sait-on bien ? 10 

Sans pays, sans prince et sans lois, 
Notre vie 
Doit faire envie ; 
Sans pays, sans prince et sans lois, 
L'homme est heureux un jour sur trois. 15 

Tous independants nous naissons, 
Sans 6glise 
Qui nous baptise ; 
Tous independants nous naissons, 
Au bruit du fifre et des chansons. 20 

Nos premiers pas sont degages, 
Dans ce monde 
Ou l'erreur abonde ; 
Nos premiers pas sont degages 
Du vieux maillot des prejug^s. 25 

Au peuple, en butte a nos larcins, 
Tout grimoire 
En peut faire accroire ; 
Au peuple, en butte a nos larcins, 
II faut des sorciers et des saints. 30 

Trouvons-nous Plutus en chemin, 
Notre bande 
Gaiement demands ; 
Trouvons-nous Plutus en chemin, 
En chantant nous tendons la main. 3s 

Pauvres oiseaux que Dieu benit, 
De la ville 
Qu'on nous exile ; 
Pauvres oiseaux que Dieu benit, 
Au fond des bois pend notre nid. 40 



76 A CENTURY OP FRENCH POETS 

A tatons 1' Amour, chaque nuit, 
Nous attelle 
Tous pele-mele ; 
A tatons l'Amour, chaque unit, 
Nous attelle au char qu'il conduit. 45 

Ton ceil ne peut se detacher, 
Philosophe 
De mince etoffe ; 
Ton ceil ne peut se detacher 
Du vieux coq de ton vieux clocher. 50 

Voir, c'est avoir. Allons courir ! 
Vie errante 
Est chose enivrante. 
Voir, c'est avoir. Allons courir ! 
Car tout voir, c'est tout conquerir. 55 

Mais a l'homme on crie en tout lieu, 
Qu'il s'agite 
Ou croupisse au glte ; 
Mais a l'homme on crie en tout lieu : 
' Tu nais, bonjour ; tu meurs, adieu.' 60 

Quand nous mourrons, vieux ou bambin, 
Homme ou femme 
A Dieu soit notre ame ! 
Quand nous mourrons, vieux ou bambin, 
On vend le corps au carabin. 65 

Nous n'avons done, exempts d'orgueil, 
De lois vaines, 
De lourdes chalnes : 
Nous n'avons done, exempts d'orgueil, 
Ni berceau, ni toit, ni cercueil. 70 

Mais, croyez-en notre gaiete, 
Noble ou pretre, 
Valet ou maltre : 
Mais, croyez-en notre gaiete, 
Le bonheur, c'est la libertd 7S 



PIERRE-JEAN DE BERANGER 77 

Oui, croyez-en notre gaiete, 
Noble ou pretre, 
Valet ou maitre ; 
Oui, croyez-en notre gaiete, 
Le bonheur, c'est la liberte. 80 



Le Vieux Caporal 

Air du Vilain ou de Ninon chez Madame de Sivigni. 

En avant ! partez, camarades, 

L'arme au bras, le fusil charge. 

J'ai ma pipe et vos embrassades ; 

Venez me dormer mon conge\ 

J'eus tort de vieillir au service ; 5 

Mais pour vous tous, jeunes soldats, 

J'etais un pere a l'exercice. (Bis.) 

Consents, au pas ; 

Ne pleurez pas ; 

Ne pleurez pas ; 10 

Marchez au pas, 
Au pas, au pas, au pas, au pas ! 

Un morveux d'officier m'outrage ; 

Je lui fends ! ... II vient d'en guerir. 

On me condamne, c'est l'usage : 15 

Le vieux caporal doit mourir. 

Pousse d'humeur et de rogomme, 

Rien n'a pu retenir mon bras. 

Puis, moi, j'ai servi le grand homme. 

Consents, au pas, etc. 20 

Consents, vous ne troquerez gueres 
Bras ou jambe contre une croix. 
J'ai gagne la mienne a ces guerres 
Ou nous bousculions tous les rois. 



78 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Chacun de vous payait a boire 25 

Quand je racontais nos combats. 
Ce que c'est pourtant que la gloire ! 
Consents, au pas, etc. 

Robert, enfant de mon village, 
Retourne garder tes moutons. 30 

Tiens, de ces jardins vois l'ombrage: 
Avril fleurit mieux nos cantons. 
Dans nos bois souvent des l'aurore 
J'ai deniche' de frais appas . . . 
Bon Dieu ! ma mere existe encore ! 35 

Consents, au pas, etc. 

Qui la-bas sanglote et regarde ? 

Eh ! c'est la veuve du tambour. 

En Russie, a l'arriere-garde, 

J'ai porte" son fils nuit et jour. 40 

Comme le pere, enfant et femme 

Sans moi restaient sous les frimas. 

Elle va prier pour mon ame. 

Consents, au pas, etc. 

Morbleu ! ma pipe s'est 6teinte. 45 

Non, pas encore . . . Allons, tant mieux ! 

Nous allons entrer dans l'enceinte ; 

9a, ne me bandez pas les yeux. 

Mes amis, fache" de la peine ; 

Surtout, ne tirez pas trop bas ; S o 

Et qu'au pays Dieu vous ramene ! (Bis.) 

Consents, au pas ; 

Ne pleurez pas, 

Ne pleurez pas ; 

Marchez au pas, ss 

Au pas, au pas, au pas, au pas ! 



CASIMIR DELAVIGNE 79 

CASIMIK DELAVIGNE 

1793-1843 

The son of a shipowner at Le Havre, Delavigne was educated in 
Paris, began versifying early, and had hardly left school when he 
competed with all the poetasters in France for official recognition by 
a poem on the birth of the King of Eome, which Napoleon rewarded 
with a post in the Civil Service. But his name was unknown to the 
public until the appearance, after Waterloo, of the first Messeniennes 
(the title was borrowed from the civil wars of ancient Greece), which 
expressed sincerely, within the limits of a superannuated rhetoric and 
a cautious temper, the indignation of a people bidden to forget its 
glories and applaud its own defeat. These classical odes immediately 
won an admiration which was almost a national gratitude. The 
collection was swollen in the years which followed by a considerable 
number of other poems suggested by events of the day — the death of 
the Emperor, the Greek War of Independence, the funeral of General 
Foy; — and the revolution in 1830, with similar crises in other parts 
of Europe, inspired the bulk of the later volume called Chants 
Populaires. Derniers Chants, lyrics and stories from Italy, where 
he travelled extensively, show another side of his poetical talent. 
But Delavigne is remembered particularly as a dramatist, and among 
his dramatic works it is not so much the once famous VSpres Sicili- 
ennes or the melodrama Louis XL, as his witty and elegant comedies 
(L'L^cole des Vieillards, La Parisiewne, La Popularite) which 
deserve to live. His personal character did not want dignity — as a 
poet of the opposition he refused a pension from Charles the Tenth. 
He had material independence, precarious health, lived much in the 
south, and died comparatively young at Lyons. 

The young writers of the 'twenties grouped round the eclectic 
Nodier included Delavigne's among the romantic reputations ; but it 
has long been recognised that, if in many of his plays he accepted 
certain innovations of the time, as a poet he has nothing in common 
with his younger contemporaries except, it may be, a loftier ideal of 
the poet's function, and, when his subject moves him, a somewhat 
greater energy of expression, than belonged to the preceding period. 
He had little originality, but a timid reverence for academical 
models, and his conception of the Ode is in essentials that of 



80 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

J.-B. Rousseau. His vocabulary is less infested by abstractions than 
that of the eighteenth-century poets in general, his rimes have more 
force and spontaneity ; but he is addicted to periphrasis, shares the 
mythological superstition and is incapable of sustained passion, 
though not of a certain vehemence. The merit of composition, the 
science of transitions, smoothness and taste may be conceded to him, 
and he knew his language well. 

VI 

La Devastation du Musee et des Monuments 

La sainte v6rite" qui m'^chauffe et m'inspire 
Ecarte et foule aux pieds les voiles imposteurs : 
Ma muse de nos rnaux fletrira les auteurs, 

Dusse-je voir briser ma lyre 
Par le glaive insolent de nos lib^rateurs. s 

Ou vont ces chars pesants conduits par leurs cohortes ? 
Sous les voutes du Louvre ils marchent a pas lents : 

Us s'arretent devant ses portes ; 
Viennent-ils lui ravir ses sacres ornements ? 

Muses, penchez vos tetes abattues : 10 

Du siecle de L6on les chefs-d'oeuvre divins 
Sous un ciel sans clarte" suivront les froids Germains ; 
Les vaisseaux d' Albion attendent nos statues. 

Des profanateurs inhumains 
Vont-ils an6antir tant de veilles savantes ? 15 

Porteront-ils le fer sur les toiles vivantes 

Que Raphael anima de ses mains ? 

Dieu du jour, Dieu des vers, ils brisent ton image. 
C'en est fait : la victoire et la divinity 

Ne couronneront plus ton visage m 

D'une double immortality. 
C'en est fait : loin de toi jette un arc inutile. 
Non, tu n'inspiras point le vieux chantre d'Achille ; 
Non, tu n'es pas le dieu qui vengea les neuf Sceurs 

Des fureurs d'un monstre sauvage, 2S 

Toi qui n'as pas un trait pour venger ton outrage 

Et terrasser tes ravisseurs. 



CASIMIR DELAVIGNE 81 

Le deuil est aux bosquets de Guide. 

Muet, pale et le front baisse, 

L' Amour, que la guerre intimide, 30 

Eteint son flambeau renvers6. 

Des Graces la troupe legere 

L'interroge sur ses douleurs : 

II leur dit en versant des pleurs : 

' J'ai vu Mars outrager ma mere.' 35 

Je crois entendre encore les clameurs des soldats 

Entrainant la jeune immortelle : 
Le fer a inutile" ses membres delicats ; 
Helas, elle semblait, et plus cbaste et plus belle, 

Cacher sa honte entre leurs bras. 4 o 

Dans un fort pris d'assaut, telle une vierge en larmes, 
Aux yeux des forcenes dont l'insolente ardeur 
Dechira les tissus qui derobaient ses charmes, 

Se voile encor de sa pudeur. 

Adieu, debris fameux de Grece et dAusonie, 45 

Et vous, tableaux errants de climats en climats ; 
Adieu, Correge, Albane, immortal Phidias ! 
Adieu, les arts et le genie ! 

Noble France, pardonne ! A tes pompeux travaux, 

Aux Pujet, aux Lebrun, ma douleur fait injure. 50 

David a ramene son siecle a la Nature : 

Parmi ses nourrissons il compte des rivaux . . . 

Laissons-la s'elever, cette ecole nouvelle ! 

Le laurier de David de lauriers entomb, 

Fier de ses rejetons, enfante un bois sacre 55 

Qui protege les arts de son ombre eternelle. 

Le marbre anime parle aux yeux : 

Une autre Venus plus fticonde, 

Pres d'Hercule victorieux, 

Etend son flambeau sur le monde. 60 



82 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Ajax, de son pied furieux, 

Insulte au not qui se retire ; 

L'ceil superbe, un bras dans les cieux, 

II s'elance, et je l'entends dire : 

' J'echapperai malgre" les dieux.' 65 

Mais quels monceaux de morts ! que de spectres livides ! 
lis tombent dans Jaffa ces vieux soldats francais 
Qui re>eillaient naguere, au bruit de leurs succes, 
Les siecles entasses au fond des Pyramides. 

Ah ! fuyons ces bords meurtriers ! 70 

D'ou te vient, Austerlitz, l'dclat qui t'environne ? 
Qui dois-je couronner du peintre ou des guerriers? 
Les guerriers et le peintre ont droit a, la couronne. 
Des chefs-d'oeuvre francais naissent de toutes parts ; 
lis surprennent mon cceur a d'invincibles charmes : 75 
Au Deluge, en tremblant, j'applaudis par mes larmes; 

Didon enchante mes regards ; 

Versant sur un beau corps sa clarte" caressante 
A travers le feuillage un faible et doux rayon 

Porte les baisers d'une amante 80 

Sur les levres d'Endymion ; 
De son flambeau vengeur Nemesis m'epouvante ; 
Je fr6mis avec Phedre, et n'ose interroger 
L'accuse dedaigneux qui semble la juger. 
Je vois L^onidas. courage ! 6 patrie ! 85 

Trois cents heros sont morts dans ce detroit fameux : 
Trois cents ! quel souvenir ! . . . Je pleure . . . et je m'^crie : 
Dix-huit mille Francais ont expire comme eux ! 

Oui : j'en suis fier encor : ma patrie est l'asile, 

Elle est le temple des beaux arts : 

A l'ombre de nos etendarts, 
lis reviendront ces dieux que la fortune exile. 

L'6tranger, qui nous trompe, 6crase impunement 

La justice et la foi sous le glaive etouffees ; 

II ternit pour jamais sa splendour d'un moment ; 9S 

II triomphe en barbare et brise nos trophees : 



90 



CASIMIR DELAVIGNE 83 

Que cet orgueil est miserable et vain ! 
Croit-il aneantir tous nos titres de gloire ? 
On peut les effacer sur le marbre ou l'airain ; 
Qui les effacera du livre de l'histoire ? too 

Ah ! tant que le soleil luira sur vos etats, 
II en doit eclairer d'imperissables marques : 
Comment disparaitront, 6 superbes monarques, 
Ces champs ou les lauriers croissaient pour nos soldats ? 
Allez, detruisez done tant de cites royales 105 

Dont les clefs d'or suivaient nos pompes triomphales ; 

Comblez ces fleuves ecumants 
Qui nous ont oppose d'impuissantes barrieres ; 
Aplanissez ces monts dont les rochers fumants 

Tremblaient sous nos foudres guerrieres. no 

Voila nos monuments : e'est la que nos exploits 
Redoutent peu l'orgueil d'une injuste victoire : 
Le fer, le feu, le temps plus puissant que les rois 

Ne peut rien contre leur memoire. 

[Messdniennes. 

VII 

La Villa Adrienne 

Rome 
En paix sous les ombrages 
Du palais d'Adrien, 
Errez, buffle sauvage ; 
Cfear n'en saura rien. 

Plus de gardes fideles 5 

Au seuil de ces vergers ! 
lis n'ont pour sentinelles 
Que les chiens des bergers. 

Mais ce palais superbe, 

Quel bois peut le cacher ? 10 

— Passant, plus loin, sous l'herbe, 

C'est la qu'il faut chercher. 

Merci, merci, vieux patre ! 

Et ces marbres epars, 

Quels sont-ils ? — Au theatre, 15 

La loge des Cesars. 



84 A CENTUKY OF FRENCH POETS 

— Mais de leurs bains antiques 
Ou trouvez les debris ? 

— Parmi ces mosai'ques, 

Ou boivent mes brebis. 20 

— En quel lieu sur l'arene 
Luttaient les chars rivaux ? 
— Ou tu vois dans la plaine 
Courir ces deux chevreaux. 

— De Tempe" quels bocages 25 
Ont porte le doux nom ? 

— Tempe n'a plus d'ombrages ; 
Mais c'^tait la, dit-on. 

— L'Alphee au moins serpente 

Entre ces deux coteaux ? 30 

— Non ; je m'assieds et chante 
Ou serpentaient ses eaux. 

Grece, qu'un frais bocage 

Ici vit refleurir, 

Meme dans ton image 3S 

Tu devais done mourir. 

Non, tu n'as plus d'asile : 
Le lierre en ces vallons 
A tes dieux qu'on exile 
Offre seul des festons. 



De ta noble poussiere 
Ses rameaux sont amis ; 
Mais il n'est que le lierre 
De fidele aux debris. 

Prends ce faible salaire, 
Berger, e'est moins que rien : 
Prends, et bois pour me plaire 
A Cesar Adrien. 



40 



45 



[Pohmes et Ballades sur Vltalie. 



MAROELINE DESBORDES-VALMORE 85 



MARCELINE DESBOBDES-VALMOKE 

1786-1859 

Marceline Desboedes was born at Douai two or three years before 
the Revolution, by which her father, an ecclesiastical and heraldic 
artist, lost his patrons. Misfortune and poverty clouded her child- 
hood. When she was fourteen, her mother, hoping to mend the 
family fortunes, sailed with Marceline for Guadeloupe, where a 
relative was settled : they found the island in a blaze of insurrection, 
the cousin fled ; and Madame Desbordes soon succumbed to yellow 
fever, leaving the girl to find her way back alone. When, a little 
later, it was necessary to earn her living, as she could sing and had 
a graceful person, she turned to the stage : but the loss of her voice 
interrupted her career, and it was to console herself that she began 
to rime untaught. She had already married Valmore the actor when, 
in 1818, she was persuaded to publish a small volume, Megies et 
Romances, which was well received and followed by Megies et poesies 
nouvelles in 1825. The rest of her life was uneventful : it was filled 
by her children, to whom she was devoted, her poetry, and her 
friends, among whom she counted some of the famous writers of 
her time. 

Madame Desbordes- Valmore is not only the most feminine of 
women poets in the nineteenth century. She is the first in time of 
the personal lyrists of France, and the first to express passion. 
Tenderness, delicacy, spontaneity are the notes of all her writing ; 
and in spite of her negligences, she sometimes finds perfect expression 
by her instinct of harmony and the force of her absolute sincerity. 

Her later volumes are: Fleurs, 1834; Pauvres Flews, 1839; 
Bouquets et Prieres, 1843. — (Euvres Completes, 2 vols. Paris : 
Lemerre. 

VIII 
L'Attente 

II m'aima. C'est alors que sa voix adoree 
M'eveilla tout entiere, et m'annonca l'amour ! 
Comme la vigne aimante en secret attiree 
Par l'ormeau caressant, qu'elle embrasse a son tour, 



86 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Je l'aimai ! D'un sourire il obtenait mon ame. 5 

Que ses yeux etaient doux ! que j'y lisais d'aveux ! 
Quand il briilait mon cceur d'une si tendre flamme, 
Comment, sans me parler, me disait-il : ' Je veux ! ' 
toi qui m'enchantais, savais-tu ton empire ? 
L'eprouvais-tu, ce mal, ce bien dont je soupire ? 10 

Je le crois : tu parlais comme on parle en aimant, 
Quand ta boucbe m'apprit je ne sais quel serment. 
Qu'importent les serments ? Je n'^tais plus moi-meme, 
J'&ais toi. J'ecoutais, j'imitais ce que j'aime ; 
Mes levres, loin de toi, retenaient tes accents, 15 

Et ta voix dans ma voix troublait encor mes sens. 
Je ne l'imite plus; je me tais, et mes larmes 
De tous mes biens perdus ont expie les charmes. 
Attends-moi, m'as-tu dit : j'attends, j'attends tou- 

jours ! 
L'6te\ j'attends de toi la grace des beaux jours ; 20 

L'biver aussi, j'attends ! Fixee a ma fenStre, 
Sur le chemin desert je crois te reconnaitre; 
Mais les sentiers rompus ont em-aye tes pas : 
Quand ton cceur me cherchait, tu ne les voyais 

pas. 
Ainsi le temps prolonge et nourrit ma souffrance : 25 
Hier, c'est le regret ; demain, c'est l'esperance. 
Chaque desir trahi me rend a la douleur, 

Et jamais, jamais au bonheur ! 
Le soir, a l'horizon, ou s'egare ma vue, 
Tu m'apparais encore, et j'attends malgre moi : 3 o 

La nuit tombe . . . ce n'est plus toi ; 

Non ! c'est le songe qui me tue. 
II me tue, et je l'aime ! et je veux en gemir ! 
Mais sur ton cceur jamais ne pourrai-je dormir 
De ce sommeil profond qui rafraicb.it la vie ? 3S 

Le repos sur ton cceur, c'est le ciel que j'envie ! 
Et le ciel irrite met l'absence entre nous. 
Ceux qui le font parler me l'ont dit a moi-mSme : 

II ne veut pas qu'on aime ! 
Mon Dieu, je n'ose plus aimer qu'a vos genoux. 4 o 



MAKCELINE DESBORDES-VALMORE 87 

Qu'ai-je dit ? Notre amour, c'est le ciel sur la terre. 
II tut, j'en crois mon cceur, effraye" d'un remords, 
Comme la vie, involontaire, 
Inevitable, helas ! comme la mort. 
J'ai goute cet amour: j'en pleure les delices. 45 

Cher amant ! quand mon sein palpita sous ton sein, 

Nos deux ames 6taient complices, 
Et tu gardas la mienne, heureuse du larcin. 
Oh ! ne me la rends plus ! que cette ame enchalnee : 

Triste et passionn^e, 5° 

Heureuse de se perdre et d'errer apres toi, 
Te cherche, te rappelle et t'entraine vers moi. 

[Mdgies. 



88 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



ALPHONSE DE LAMAKTINE 

1790-1869 

The father of Lamartine was a younger son of an old Burgundy 
family married to the daughter of an ex-comptroller in the household 
of Duke Philippe-Egalite — a good country gentleman who somehow 
fell into a revolutionary gaol not long after the poet's birth at M&con, 
and was only delivered by the fall of Eobespierre. Alphonse and 
his sisters grew up at Milly in idyllic surroundings : Madame de 
Lamartine was a tender mother, deeply pious and a little romantic. 
His schoolmasters were the Fathers of the Faith at Belley. After 
leaving school, he spent four years at home in fruitful idleness, 
nursing a passion for the country, writing verses every day, reading 
the Bible, Tasso, Petrarch, Eacine, J.-J. Kousseau, Parny, Bernardin 
de Saint-Pierre and MacPherson's Ossian : the influence of all these 
is discoverable in his writings. y 

In 1811 Lamartine's parents sent him to recover in Italy from a 
disappointed fancy : he visited the great cities, but stayed longest in 
and near Naples, where the episode happened which the tale of 
Graziella records with, perhaps, some unconscious injustice to his 
own character. He came back and was well received in Paris 
drawing-rooms ; then, on the first return of Lewis xvm., obtained 
a commission in the Body-Guard. It was disbanded during the 
Hundred Days, and the young ensign did not serve again. 

At Aix-les-Bains in 1816 he met Madame Charles, the wife of a 
well-known scientist — the Julie of RaphaM and the original Elvire of 
his early poetry, though he gave the same name to other shapes. 
The romantic friendship with this lady ripened in Paris in 1817 ; her 
death in the following year was an ineffaceable sorrow. The lyrics 
directly inspired by this affection are unquestionably the happiest 
and the most sincere in the little volume, Meditations poMques et 
religiewes, which took the French public by storm on its appearance 
at the beginning of 1820. It was as sudden and as significant a 
triumph as Byron's had been ; — and the French poet's fame was won 
by his first effort ! The most practical result was a diplomatic post, 
which had been his ambition for some time. With his marriage — 
his wife was an Englishwoman, Miss Birch — and a considerable 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 89 

inheritance from an uncle, Lamartine's good fortune, at the age of 
thirty, seemed complete. 

He went as attache to Naples, as secretary of embassy to London, 
thence to Florence, where he represented his country in the Minister's 
absence, and found leisure to swell the proportions of his first book 
and to prepare two others — a hasty paraphrase from the Phaedo, La 
Mart de Socrate, and a second series of Miditations, which was well 
received, though it could not startle the world like its predecessor ; 
and when Charles the Tenth succeeded his brother, Lamartine did 
homage with Le Chant du Sacre — in which an unlucky allusion to 
the regicide vote of Egalitd embroiled the poet for ever (the point 
has some historical importance) with the future King of the French. 
Another poem published almost at the same time, in 1825, and 
occasioned by the death of Byron, Le Dernier Chant du Pelerinage 
d'Harold, contained a casual reflexion upon the Italian people which 
gave great f offence : the upshot was a duel with a Tuscan officer. 
Lamartine became an Academician in 1829 ; he published his 
Harmonies poitiques in 1830; and, on the fall of King Charles, very 
honourably threw up his diplomatic prospects. 

Having vainly sought election to Parliament, Lamartine started 
with his wife and daughter for the East. This pilgrimage, which 
included Athens, Lebanon, the Holy Land, Damascus, Baalbek, and 
Constantinople, was accomplished under comfortable and even 
sumptuous conditions, which contrasted with the hardships of 
Chateaubriand's wanderings; and the book which narrates it is, in 
spite of fine passages, extremely inferior to the great ItvnAraire. 
On the way, at Beyrout, the poet's daughter died — a terrible blow ; 
and in his absence he was returned to the Chamber as deputy for 
Bergues. 

He very quickly won a reputation as an orator ; but his part in 
politics was a modest one for several years. He began by supporting 
Louis-Philippe's government ; was, like the great majority of French- 
men, gradually estranged by the irksome and unimaginative system 
it pursued ; and became a political personage only on the eve of the 
King's dethronement. During this period poetry had become a 
secondary occupation : yet it was while he was making his mark in 
the Chamber that he wrote and published his two great narrative 
poems, fragments of a tremendous project — Jocelyn (1835) and La 
Chute d'un Ange (very ill received in 1838), as wellj as another 
volume of lyrics, Recueillements poitiques (1839). This was his last 



90 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

book of poetry. The upheaval of 1848 gave him, largely through 
the mutual jealousy of rival democrats, a place in the Provisional 
Government which his towering eloquence, courage and presence of 
mind made instantly predominant. As minister for foreign affairs 
in a government he had joined without positive ^Republican convictions, 
Lamartine, during several weeks, incarnated the spirit of the Re- 
public in the minds of his countrymen. This is not the place to 
examine his political career, or the question whether the disquieting 
vagueness of his formulas, his vanity and ignorance of men, had as 
much to do with his sudden eclipse as the defection of colleagues 
and the persistency of a popular tide which noble words could not 
permanently stem. With the joumees de juin his authority 
crumbled : within a year he was merely a private member. The 
authors of the coup d'etat did not even think it necessary to molest 
him : at the establishment of the new Empire he retired from politics 
altogether. 

He had published an Histoire des Girondins, compiled chiefly at 
second hand, just before the Revolution ; in the year of his failure, 
1849, he showed a strange contempt for timeliness with the succes- 
sive appearance of his Confidences, Graziella, Raphael, three books 
of indiscreet and self - complacent autobiography. Henceforth, 
though a few more strophes fell from him, his publications were all 
to be prose, and not even imaginative prose. He had always been 
extravagant and careless, had run through his own fortune and his 
wife's and his considerable earnings from literature. Politics com- 
pleted his financial ruin ; and the rest of his life offers the depressing 
spectacle of a great man eking out a bare subsistence in old age 
by literary drudgery. Lamartine's History of the Kestoration, his 
History of the Turkish Empire, his Life of Cicero, his Cowrs famUier 
de litterature, are much better forgotten, as they are. It was only 
by the humiliating acceptance of a handsome grant from the Imperial 
government that his last years were freed from sordid embarrassment. 
Having lived long in comparative seclusion, he died almost un- 
lamented, save by the peasantry of Saint-Point, his last home. 

It is not difficult to explain why Lamartine's fine achievement in 
poetry is still so commonly exaggerated. He is without doubt the 
most poetical of French poets — that is, the personality his writings 
reflect answers most completely to the expectations popularly attached 
to the name. And if the tears of his readers were the one measure 
of a poet's powers, and his capacity to communicate his own emotions 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 91 

sufficed, how few could even be called his rivals ! \ His example per- 
manently raised the temperature of the French lyric to a fervour it 
had hardly known, and vindicated at a blow the immeasurable 
superiority of passion to opinion as the stuff of poetry. With the 
appearance of Les Meditations, the conception of nature as the 
witness, accomplice and consoler of human vicissitudes, and of poetry 
as the sacred tongue of personal confidences, won a victory the more 
easy as the themes and the emotional quality of the volume were 
singularly apt to flatter the taste of the cultivated Eestoration public, 
fresh from admiring the chlorotic melancholy of Millevoye, the 
delicious artlessness of Marceline Desbordes. The vague but persistent 
rapture of a religion without definite faith, beginning and ending in 
wonder, the sighs of a love-laden memory, and all the circumstances 
of a picturesque and premature despair, offered a rich pasturage for 
exceptional gifts — melody, an intonation unhesitatingly true, the 
instinct of the sublime, above all amplitude and eloquence. Lamar - 
tine's early poetry shines with the transparent sincerity of unconscious 
egoism : the lyrical collections which followed were recommencements 
or expatiations inevitably less spontaneous. On the other hand they 
are frequently superior in craftsmanship, a thing which the poet (with 
quite as much candour as fatuity) all his life professed to disdain. 
Emulation rather than self-criticism had braced the languor of his 
lines and lent more intensity to his vision of the outer world. ' Les 
Preludes ' in the second series of Meditations written in friendly 
rivalry with the author of Les Orientates, and the greater number of 
poems in Les Harmonies, certainly excel the pieces with which he first 
won fame in point of technical accomplishment. In the latter collec- 
tion, too, he shows himself the master of his thoughts and capable of 
severer composition : the expression has acquired density without 
losing its inimitable grace. Les Becueillements marked no further 
progress in these respects ; but perhaps he never wrote finer verses 
than the great lyrical interlude ' Les Laboureurs ' in Jocelyn. As a 
whole that story is more notable as being one of the very few poems 
of epical proportions undertaken by modern French poets than for its 
construction, which is diffuse, or its psychology, which is feeble and 
indeed absurd, or its actual execution, too frequently lymphatic and 
negligent. Complete in itself and founded it is supposed on the 
confidences of a country priest, the poet's friend and neighbour, 
Jocelyn was intended by Lamartine for nothing more than one episode 
in a vast plan — the history of two lovers, a son of heaven and a 



92 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

daughter of man, carried on from age to age of human development 
by the machinery of metempsychosis. La Chute d'un Ange was 
another episode in the same plan, never completed : a poem more 
evidently a fragment, and bearing more exasperating signs of distrac- 
tion in its notorious lapses of rime, but in many ways far finer than 
Jocelyn, more vigorous in conception, abounding in splendid descrip- 
tive passages, and breathing a really epical spirit. A certain similarity 
in design which connects La Chute d'un Ange with Vigny's Eloa on 
one hand, and on the other with the posthumous and fragmentary 
masterpiece of Hugo, La Fin de Satan, has been often noticed. 

Lamartine, a man of real and multifarious genius, wanted the 
scruple of artistic perfection, the spirit of artistic devotion : that is 
his irremediable shortcoming as a poet. He held that poetry is not 
an exacting vocation, but an occasional expansion, depending for its 
sincerity upon spasmodic and involuntary inspiration ; and it happened 
that the character of his gifts and of his limitations gave an apparent 
justification to that view. He is the poet of superb improvisations. 
His originality lay wholly in the intensity with which he could 
translate his moods, not at all in the force of an imagination which 
could provoke, prolong and govern them. His imagery is habitually 
hazy ; the very formula of his metaphors is successive : he felt, and 
then he sought a sensible interpretation of his thought. He had no 
part in the exploration of rhythms or the renovation of the language, 
though he showed himself supple enough to assimilate, when he chose, 
the conquests of his contemporaries on the technical side of his art ; 
but his authentic vocabulary, largely abstract, is no younger than that 
of Kousseau, and his handling of the Alexandrine is usually more 
timid than Eacine's. He had, however, a wonderfully delicate ear, 
and was incapable of cacophony. Monotony, in a particular sense, is 
an essential part of his charm : he had movement without variety ; 
and he is a master of periods rather than of rhythms. — Finally, this 
praise belongs to the poetry of Lamartine, that it creates its own 
atmosphere and imposes the momentary illusion by which genius 
appears to us as a quality of the heart. 

The poetry of Lamartine is best read in the edition published by 
Felix Juven, Paris. His complete works, except the Cours familier 
de Litterature, were comprehended in forty volumes published in 
1860-63. A volume of Poesies ine'dites was brought out by his 
disciple, Victor de Laprade. 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 93 

IX 

L'ISOLEMENT 

Souvent sur la montagne, a l'ombre du vieux chine, 
Au coucher du soleil, tristement je m'assieds ; 
Je promene au hasard mes regards sur la plaine, 
Dont le tableau changeant se deroule a mes pieds. 

Ici gronde le fleuve aux vagues ecumantes ; 5 

II serpente, et s'enfonce en un lointain obscur ; 
La le lac immobile 6tend ses eaux dormantes 
Ou l'etoile du soir se leve dans l'azur. 

Au sommet de ces monts couronnes de bois sombres, 
Le crepuscule encor jette un dernier rayon ; 10 

Et le char vaporeux de la reine des ombres 
Monte, et blanchit deja les bords de l'horizon. 

Cependant, s'elancant de la fleche gothique, 

Un son religieux se repand dans les airs : 

Le voyageur s'arrete, et la cloche rustique is 

Aux derniers bruits du jour mele les saints concerts. 

Mais a ces deux tableaux mon ame indifferente 
N'eprouve devant eux ni charme ni transports ; 
Je contemple la tiare ainsi qu'une ombre errante : 
Le soleil des vivants n'echauffe pas les morts. ao 

De colline en colline en vain portant ma vue, 
Du sud a l'aquilon, de l'aurore au couchant, 
Je parcours tous les points de l'immense etendue 
Et je dis : ' Nulle part le bonheur ne m' attend.' 

Que me font ces vallons, ces palais, ces chaumieres, 25 
Vains objets dont pour moi le charme est envole ? 
Fleuves, rochers, forets, solitudes si cheres, 
Un seul etre vous manque, et tout est depeuple ! 



94 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Que le tour du soleil ou commence ou s'acheve, 
D'un ceil indifferent je le suis dans son cours ; 30 

En un ciel sombre ou pur qu'il se couche ou se leve, 
Qu'importe le soleil ? je n'attends rien des jours. 

Quand je pourrais le suivre en sa vaste carriere, 
Mes yeux verraient partout le vide et les deserts : 
Je ne desire rien de tout ce qu'il eclaire ; 35 

Je ne demande rien a l'immense univers. 

Mais peut-etre au dela des bornes de sa sphere, 

Lieux ou le vrai soleil Eclaire d'autres cieux, 

Si je pouvais laisser ma depouille a la terre, 

Ce que j'ai tant reve" paraitrait a mes yeux ! 40 

La, je m'enivrerais a la source ou j 'aspire ; 
La, je retrouverais et l'espoir et l'amour. 
Et ce bien id^al que toute ame desire, 
Et qui n'a pas de nom au terrestre sejour ! 

Que ne puis-je, porte sur le char de l'Aurore, 45 

Vague objet de mes vceux, m'elancer jusqu'a toi ! 
Sur la terre d'exil pourquoi reste-je encore ? 
II n'est rien de commun entre la terre et moi. 

Quand la feuille des bois tombe dans la prairie, 
Le vent du soir s'eleve et l'arrache aux vallons ; 5° 

Et moi, je suis semblable a la feuille fletrie: 
Emportez-moi comme elle, orageux aquilons ! 

[Premieres MdtMtations jpoetiques. 

x 

Le Soik 

Le soir ramene le silence. 
Assis sur ces rochers deserts, 
Je suis dans le vague des airs 
Le char de la nuit qui s'avance 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 95 

Venus se leve a l'horizon ; 5 

A mes pieds l'etoile amoureuse 
De sa lueur mysterieuse 
Blanchit les tapis de gazon. 

De ce Mtre au feuillage sombre 

J'entends frissonner les rameaux : 10 

On dirait autour des tombeaux 

Qu'on entend voltiger une ombre. 

Tout a coup, detache des cieux, 

Un rayon de l'astre nocturne, 

Glissant sur mon front taciturne, 15 

Vient mollement toucher mes yeux. 

Doux reflet d'un globe de flamme, 
Charmant rayon, que me veux-tu ? 
Viens-tu dans mon sein abattu 
Porter la lumiere a mon ame ? 20 

Descends-tu pour me reveler 
Des mondes le divin mystere, 
Oes secrets caches dans la sphere 
Ou le jour va te rappeler ? 

Une secrete intelligence 25 

T'adresse-t-elle aux malheureux ? 
Viens-tu, la nuit, briller sur eux 
Comme un rayon de l'esperance ? 

Viens-tu devoiler l'avenir 

Au cceur fatigue qui l'implore ? 3° 

Rayon divin, es-tu l'aurore 

Du jour qui ne doit pas finir ? 

Mon cceur a ta clart6 s'enflamme, 

Je sens des transports inconnus, 

Je songe a ceux qui ne sont plus : 35 

Douce lumiere, es-tu leur ame ? 



96 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Peut-Stre ces manes heureux 

Glissent ainsi sur le bocage. 

Enveloppe de leur image 

Je crois me sentir plus pres d'eux ! 40 

Ah ! si c'est vous, ombres cheries, 
Loin de la foule et loin du bruit, 
Revenez ainsi chaque nuit 
Vous meler a mes reveries. 

Ramenez la paix et l'amour 45 

Au sein de mon ame epuisee, 

Comme la nocturne rosee 

Qui tombe apres les feux du jour. 

Venez ! . . . mais des vapeurs funebres 
Montent des bords de l'horizon : so 

Elles voilent le doux rayon 
Et tout rentre dans les tenebres. 

[Premihres Meditations podtiques. 

XI 

L'Enthousiasme 

Ainsi, quand l'aigle du tonnerre 

Enlevait Ganymede aux cieux, 

L'enfant, s'attacbant a la terre, 

Luttait contre l'oiseau des dieux ; 

Mais entre ses serres rapides 5 

L'aigle, pressant ses flanes timides, 

L'arracbait aux champs paternels ; 

Et, sourd a la voix qui l'implore, 

II le jetait, tremblant encore, 

Jusques aux pieds des immortels. 10 

Ainsi quand tu fonds sur mon ame, 
Enthousiasme, aigle vainqueur, 
Au bruit de tes ailes de flamme 
Je fremis d'une sainte horreur ; 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 97 

Je me d^bats sous ta puissance, 15 

Je fuis, je crains que ta presence 

N'aneantisse un cceur mortel. 

Comme un feu que la foudre allume, 

Qui ne s'^teint plus, et consume 

Le bucher, le temple et l'autel. 20 

Mais a l'essor de la pensde 

L'instinct des sens s'oppose en vain : 

Sous le dieu mon ame oppressed 

Bondit, s'elance, et bat mon sein. 

La foudre en mes veines circule : 25 

Etonne du feu qui me brule, 

Je l'irrite en le combattant, 

Et la lave de mon genie 

D^borde en torrents d'harmonie, 

Et me consume en s'^chappant. 30 

Muse, contemple la victime ! 

Ce n'est plus ce front inspire, 

Ce n'est plus ce regard sublime 

Qui lancait un rayon sacre" : 

Sous ta devorante influence 35 

A peine un reste d'existence 

A ma jeunesse est ecbappe. 

Mon front, que la paleur efface 

Ne conserve plus que la trace 

De la foudre qui m'a frappe\ 40 

Heureux le poete insensible ! 

Son luth n'est point baigne de pleurs ; 

Son entbousiasme paisible 

N'a point ces tragiques fureurs. 

De sa veine feconde et pure 45 

Coulent, avec nombre et mesure, 

Des ruisseaux de lait et de miel ; 

Et ce pusillanime Ieare, 

Trabi par l'aile de Pindare 

Ne retombe jamais du ciel. 5° 

Q 



98 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Mais nous, pour embraser les ames, 

II faut bruler, il faut ravir 

Au ciel jaloux ses triples flammes : 

Pour tout peindre, il faut tout sentir. 

Foyers brulants de la lumiere, ss 

Nos co3urs de la nature entiere 

Doivent concentrer les rayons ; 

Et Ton accuse notre vie ! 

Mais ce flambeau qu'on nous envie 

S'allume au feu des passions. 60 

Non, jamais un sein pacifique 

N'enfanta ces divins elans, 

Ni ce desordre sympatbique 

Qui soumet le monde a nos chants. 

Non, non, quand l'Apollon d'Homere, 65 

Pour lancer ses traits sur la terre, 

Descendait des sommets d'Eryx, 

Volant aux rives infernales, 

II trempait ses armes fatales 

Dans les eaux bouillantes du Styx. 70 

Descendez de l'auguste cime 

Qu'indignent de l&ches transports ! 

Ce n'est que d'un lutb magnanime 

Que partent les divins accords. 

Le cceur des enfants de la lyre 75 

Ressemble au marbre qui soupire 

Sur le sepulcre de Memnon : 

Pour lui donner la voix et l'ame, 

II faut que de sa chaste flamme 

L'oeil du jour lui lance un rayon. 80 

Et tu veux qu'eveillant encore 

Des feux sous la cendre couverts, 

Mon reste d'ame s'e>apore 

En accents perdus dans les airs ! 

La gloire est le reve d'une ombre ; 85 

Elle a trop retranche" le nombre 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 99 

Des jours qu'elle devait charmer. 
Tu veux que je lui sacrifie 
Ce dernier souffle de rua vie ! 
Je veux le garder pour aimer. 90 

[Premieres Meditations po&iques. 



XII 

Le Lac 

Ainsi, toujours pousses vers de nouveaux rivages, 
Dans la nuit eternelle emportes sans retour, 
Ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l'ocean des ages 
Jeter l'ancre un seul jour ? 

O lac ! l'annee a peine a fini sa carriere, 5 

Et pres des flots cheris qu'elle devait revoir, 
Eegarde ! je viens seul m'asseoir sur cette pierre 
Ou tu la vis s'asseoir ! 

Tu mugissais ainsi sous ces roches profondes ; 
Ainsi tu te brisais sur leurs flancs dechires ; 10 

Ainsi le vent jetait l'ecume de tes ondes 
Sur ses pieds adores. 

Un soir, t'en souvient-il ? Nous voguions en silence ; 
On n'entendait au loin, sur l'onde et sous les cieux, 
Que le bruit des rameurs qui frappaient en cadence 15 
Tes flots harmonieux. 

Tout a coup des accents inconnus a le terre 

Du rivage charm6 frapperent les echos ; 

Le flot fut attentif, et la voix qui m'est chere 

Laissa tomber ces mots : 20 

' O temps, suspends ton vol ! et vous, heures propices, 

Suspendez votre cours ! 
Laissez-nous savourer les rapides delices 

Des plus beaux de nos jours ! 



100 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

' Assez de malheureux ici-bas vous implorent : 25 

Coulez, coulez pour eux ; 
Prenez avec leurs jours les soins qui les de>orent; 

Oubliez les heureux. 

' Mais je demande en vain quelques moments encore, 

Le temps m'echappe et fuit ; 30 

Je dis a cette nuit : " Sois plus lente " ; et l'aurore 
Va dissiper la nuit. 

' Aimons done, aimons done ! de l'heure fugitive 

Hatons-nous, jouissons ! 
L'homme n'a point de port, le temps n'a point de rive ; 35 

II coule, et nous passons ! ' 

Temps jaloux, se peut-il que ces moments d'ivresse, 
Ou l'amour a longs flots nous versa le bonheur, 
S'envolent loin de nous de la mSme vitesse 

Que les jours de malheur ? 40 

He quoi ! n'en pourrons-nous fixer au moins la trace ? 
Quoi ! passes pour jamais ? quoi ! tout entiers perdus ? 
Ce temps qui les donna, ce temps qui les efface, 
Ne nous les rendra plus ? 



Eternite, n6ant, passed sombres abimes, 
Que faites-vous des jours que vous engloutissez ? 
Parlez : nous rendrez-vous ces extases sublimes 
Que vous nous ravissez ? 

O lac ! rochers muets ! grottes ! foret obscure ! 
Vous que le temps £pargne ou qu'il peut rajeunir, 
Gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature, 
Au moins le souvenir ! 



45 



5° 



Qu'il soit dans ton repos, qu'il soit dans tes orages, 
Beau lac, et dans l'aspect de tes riants coteaux, 
Et dans ces noirs sapins, et dans ces rocs sauvages 55 

Qui pendent sur tes eaux ! 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 101 

Qu'il soit dans le zephyr qui fremit et qui passe, 
Dans les bruits de tes bords par tes bords rep6t6s, 
Dans l'astre au front d'argent qui blanchit ta surface 

De ses molles elartes ! 60 

Que le vent qui gemit, le roseau qui soupire, 
Que les parfums legers de ton air embaume, 
Que tout ce qu'on entend, Ton voit ou Ton respire, 
Tout dise : ' lis ont aime ! ' 

[Premilres Meditations podtiques. 

XIII 

Eh ! qui m'emportera sur des flots sans rivages ? 

Quand pourrai-je, la nuit, aux elartes des orages, 

Sur un vaisseau sans mats, au gre des aquilons, 

Fendre de l'Oc^an les liquides vallons, 

M'engloutir dans leur sein, m'elancer sur leurs cimes, 5 

Rouler avec la vague au fond des noirs ablmes, 

Et, revomi cent fois par les gouffres amers, 

Flotter comme l'ecume au vaste sein des mers ? 

D'effroi, de volupte, tour a tour ^perdue, 

Cent fois entre la vie et la mort suspendue, 10 

Peut-etre que mon ame, au sein de ces horreurs, 

Pourrait jouir au moins de ses propres terreurs, 

Et, pre"te a s'abimer dans la nuit qu'elle ignore, 

A la vie un moment se reprendrait encore, 

Comme un homme, roulant des sommets d'un rocher, 15 

De ses bras tout sanglants cherche a s'y rattacher. 

Mais toujours repasser par une m§me route, 

Voir ses jours epuises s'^couler goutte a goutte ; 

Mais suivre pas a pas dans l'immense troupeau 

Ces generations, inutile fardeau, 20 

Qui meurent pour mourir, qui v^curent pour vivre, 

Et dont chaque printemps la terre se delivre, 

Comme dans nos forets le cMne avec me'pris 

Livre au vent des hivers ses feuillages fletris ; 

Sans regrets, sans espoir, avancer dans la vie 25 

Comme un vaisseau qui dort sur une onde assoupie ; 



102 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Sentir son ame, us6e en impuissant effort, 
Se ronger lentement sous la rouille du sort ; 
Penser sans d^couvrir, aspirer sans atteindre ; 
Briller sans eclairer, et palir sans s'eteindre ; 30 

Helas ! tel est mon sort et celui des humains ; 
Nos peres ont passe" par les memes chemins ; 
Charges du meme sort, nos fils prendront nos places ; 
Ceux qui ne sont pas nes y trouveront leurs traces. 
Tout s'use, tout perit, tout passe : mais, helas ! 35 

Excepte les mortels, rien ne change ici-bas. 

[Les Prdudes. 

XIV 

L'Hymne de la Nuit 

Le jour s'6teint sur tes collines, 
terre ou languissent mes pas ! 
Quand pourrez-vous, mes yeux, quand pourrez-vous, helas ! 
Saluer les splendeurs divines 
Du jour qui ne s'eteindra pas ? 5 

Sont-ils ouverts pour les tenebres 

Ces regards alt6res du jour ? 
De son eclat, 6 Nuit ! a tes ombres funebres 

Pourquoi passent-ils tour a tour ? 

Mon ame n'est pas lasse encore 10 

D'admirer l'oeuvre du Seigneur ; 
Les elans enflammes de ce sein qui 1'adore 

N'avaient pas epuise mon coeur ! 

Dieu du jour ! Dieu des nuits ! Dieu de toutes les heures ! 
Laisse-moi m'envoler sur les feux du soleil ! 15 

Ou va vers l'occident ce nuage vermeil ? 
II va voiler le seuil de tes saintes demeures 
Ou l'oeil ne connalt plus la nuit ni le sommeil ! 
Cependant ils sont beaux a l'oeil de l'esperance 
Ces champs du firmament ombrages par la nuit ; 20 

Mon Dieu ! dans ces deserts mon ceil retrouve et suit 
Les miracles de ta presence. 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 103 

Ces choeurs etincelants que ton doigt seul conduit, 

Ces oceans d'azur ou leur foule s'elance, 

Ces fanaux allumes de distance en distance, 25 

Cet astre qui parait, cet astre qui s'enfuit, 

Je les comprends, Seigneur ! tout chante, tout m'instruit 

Que rabime est comble par ta magnificence, 

Que les cieux sont vivants, et que ta providence 

Remplit de sa vertu tout ce qu'elle a produit ! 30 

Ces flots d'or, d'azur, de lumiere, 
Ces mondes n^buleux que l'oeil ne compte pas, 

O mon Dieu, c'est la poussiere 

Qui s'eleve sous tes pas ! 

O Nuits, deroulez en silence 35 

Les pages du livre des cieux ; 

Astres, gravitez en cadence 

Dans vos sentiers harinonieux ; 

Durant ces heures solennelles, 

Aquilons, repliez vos ailes, 4° 

Terre, assoupissez vos echos ; 

Etends tes vagues sur les plages, 

O mer ! et berce les images 

Du Dieu qui t'a donne tes flots. 

Savez-vous son nom ? La nature 45 

Eeunit en vain ses cent voix, 

L'etoile a l'etoile murmure : 

Quel Dieu nous imposa nos lois ? 

La vague a la vague demande : 

Quel est celui qui nous gourmande ? 5° 

La foudre dit a l'aquilon : 

Sais-tu comment ton Dieu se nomme ? 

Mais les astres, la terre et l'homme 

Ne peuvent achever son nom. 

Que tes temples, Seigneur, sont etroits pour mon ame ! 55 
Tombez, murs impuissants, tombez ! 



104 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Laissez-moi voir ce ciel que vous me derobez ! 

Architecte divin, ses d6mes sont de flamme ? 

Que tes temples, Seigneur, sont etroits pour mon ame ! 

Tombez, murs impuissants, tombez ! 60 

Voila le temple ou tu resides ! 

Sous la voute du firmament 

Tu ranimes ces feux rapides 

Par leur eternel mouvement ! 

Tous ces enfants de la parole, 65 

Balances sur leur double pole, 

Nagent au sein de tes clartes 

Et des cieux ou leurs feux palissent 

Sur notre globe ils reflechissent 

Des feux a toi-meme empruntes ! 7 o 

L'Oc^an se joue 

Aux pieds de son Roi ; 

L'aquilon secoue 

Ses ailes d'effroi ; 

La foudre te loue 7S 

Et combat pour toi ; 

L' Eclair, la tempete, 

Couronnent ta tete 

D'un triple rayon ; 

L'aurore t'admire, 80 

Le jour te respire, 

La nuit te soupire, 

Et la terre expire 

D'amour a ton nom ! 

Et moi, pour te louer, Dieu des soleils, que suis-je ? 85 

Atome dans Pimmensit6, 
Minute dans l'eternite, 
Ombre qui passe et qui n'a plus ete, 
Peux-tu m'entendre sans prodige ? 
Ah ! le prodige est ta bont^ ! go 

Je ne suis rien, Seigneur, mais ta soif me devore ; 

L'homme est neant, mon Dieu, mais ce neant t'adore, 
II s'eleve par son amour ; 



ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE 105 

Tu ne peux mepriser l'insecte qui t'honore, 

Tu ne peux repousser cette voix qui t'implore, 95 

Et qui vers ton divin sejour, 

Quand l'ombre s'evapore, 

S'eleve avec l'aurore, 

Le soir gemit encore, 

Renait avec le jour. 100 

Oui, dans ces champs d'azur que ta splendeur inonde, 

Ou ton tonnerre gronde, 

Ou tu veilles sur moi, 
Ces accents, ces soupirs animus par la foi 
Vont chercher, d'astre en astre, un Dieu qui me reponde, 105 
Et d'echos en echos, comme des voix sur l'onde 

Roulant de monde en monde 

Retentir jusqu'a toi. 

[ffa/rmonies poitiques. 

xv 

Beaute, secret d'en haut, rayon, divin embleme, 

Qui sait d'ou tu descends ? qui sait pourquoi Ton t'aime, 

Pourquoi l'ceil te poursuit, pourquoi le cceur aimant 

Se precipite a toi comme un fer a l'aimant, 

D'une invincible etreinte a ton ombre s'attache, 5 

S'embrase a ton approehe et meurt quand on l'arrache ? 

Soit que, comme un premier ou cinquieme element, 

Repandue ici-bas et dans le firmament, 

Sous des aspects divers ta force se devoile, 

Attire nos regards aux rayons de l'etoile, 10 

Aux mouvements des mers, a la courbe des cieux, 

Aux flexibles ruisseaux, aux arbres gracieux ; 

Soit qu'en traits plus parlants sous nos yeux imprimee, 

Et frappant de ton sceau la nature anim^e, 

Tu donnes au lion l'eirroi de ses regards, is 

Au cheval l'ondoiement de ses longs crins epars, 

A l'aigle l'envergure et l'ombre de ses ailes, 

Ou leurs enlacements au cou des tourterelles ; 

Soit enfin qu'eclatant sur le visage humain, 

Miroir de ta puissance, abrege de ta main, 20 



106 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Dans les traits, les couleura dont ta main le d&sore, 

Au front d'homme ou de femme, ou Ton te voit Colore, 

Tu jettes ce rayon de grace et de fierte 

Que l'ceil ne peut fixer sans en etre humecte : 

Nul ne sait ton secret, tout subit ton empire ; 25 

Toute ame a ton aspect ou s'ecrie ou soupire, 

Et cet elan, qui suit ta fascination, 

Semble de notre instinct la revelation. 

Qui sait si tu n'es pas en effet quelque image 

De Dieu meme, qui perce a travers ce nuage ? 3° 

Ou si cette ame, a qui ce beau corps fut donne, 

Sur son type divin ne l'a pas faconne ; 

Sur la beaute supreme, ineffable, infinie, 

N'en a pas modele la charmante harmonie ; 

Ne s'est pas en naissant, par des rapports secrets, 35 

Approprie sa forme et compose ses traits, 

Et dans cette splendeur que la forme revele 

Ne nous dit pas aussi : ' L'habitante est plus belle ' ? 

Nous le saurons un jour, plus tard, plus haut. Pour moi, 

Dieu seul m'en est temoin et lui seul sait pourquoi ; 4° 

Mais, soit que la beaute" brille dans la nature, 

Dans les cieux, dans une herbe, ou sur une figure, 

Mon cceur, ne pour l'amour et l'admiration, 

Y vole de lui seul comme l'ceil au rayon, 

La couve d'un regard, s'y delecte et s'y pose, 45 

Et toujours de soi-meme y laisse quelque chose, 

Et mon ame allumee y jette tour a tour 

Une ^tincelle ou deux de son foyer d' amour. 

Je me suis reproche souvent ces sympathies, 

Trop soudaines en moi, trop vivement senties ; so 

Ces instincts du coup d'ceil, ces premiers mouvements, 

Qui d'une impression me font des sentiments. 

Je me suis dit souvent : ' Dieu peut-§tre condamne 

Ces penchants ou du cceur la flamme se profane ; 

Mais, helas ! malgre" nous l'ceil se tourne au flambeau. 55 

Est-ce un crime, 6 mon Dieu, de trop aimer le beau ? ' 

[Jocelyn : Troisieme epoque. 



ALFRED DE VIGNY 107 



ALFKED DE VIGNY 

1797-1863 

The events of his life are soon told. Count Alfred de Vigny was 
born at Loches in Touraine ; he came of a military family whose 
historical consequence he was disposed to overrate. At the first 
Eestoration he received a commission in the Gendarmes Kouges, was 
transferred the next year to the Foot Guards, and served until 1828. 
His first handful of verses appeared just before the Odes of Hugo, 
with whom Vigny, as a member of Nodier's cenacle, was for some 
years on familiar terms. Later, Auguste Barbier was perhaps his 
only intimate friend ; for his reserve was almost proverbial. Eloa 
dates from 1824; other poems were published in 1826, and a 
collective volume with three parts (Livre Mystique ; Livre Antique ; 
Livre Moderne) in 1837. The other works published in his lifetime 
were written in prose : the more important are the fine romantic 
drama Chatterton (1835) and the ripe, pensive studies of character 
called Servitude et Grandeur militaires (1835), the fruit of his 
experience as a soldier in time of peace. Vigny's other plays and 
the novels Cinq-Mars and Stello, are far inferior. He married an 
Englishwoman : it seems it was not a happy marriage. In 
1846 he was elected to the Academy, and after the upheaval of 1848 
he had — like other poets — a moment of political ambition and 
unsuccessfully sought election to the Assembly. He passed the 
rest of his days in almost complete retirement ; and left the splendid 
poetry of his middle age — Les Destinees — as well as a curious diary, 
behind him in manuscript. 

Notwithstanding the immediate success of Eloa and Chatterton, 
Vigny's rare and inexpansive genius was imperfectly recognised while 
he lived. Baudelaire alone excepted, he is the loneliest of the great 
French poets ; and the dignity of his life, outwardly so tranquil, 
offers no temptation to found upon an unedifying legend a worship 
essentially unintelligent and insincere. His poetry is small in 
quantity : its subjectivity lies deep and is not tuned to elegy. He 
helped little to orchestrate the great romantic commonplaces. Keen 
and steady as was his gaze into the future of society, public zeal 
scarcely inspired him, nor the prestige of distant lands, nor 



108 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

archaeology; and though much that he wrote is flawless and a 
careful reading of his earliest poems reveals a freer handling of the 
Alexandrine than might be expected from their date, it is not as an 
initiator of new rhythms that any part of his glory was won. 
Sharing with his fellows of the Komantic revival a new breadth and 
freedom in the choice of themes, a new sincerity of inspiration and 
responsiveness to the impressions of the visible world, a relative 
indifference to the psychological interest, he is distinguished from 
most of them by the classical virtues of sobriety and calm and by a 
strong consistency of thought. His original temperament, possibly 
reinforced by the accidents of life, gave to all he wrote the bias of 
a Lucretian despair, an unemphatic but by no means impassive 
scepticism ; but it was a lucid reason that governed its expression in 
poems, mainly narrative, of which the interest centres upon a type 
or an emblem of transience or of fortitude, some vision of 
deep significance for the religion of honour and the sense of 
solitude, firmly perceived and strikingly presented. 

His habit of seizing upon clear moral emblems and analogies for 
their help to an indirect self-revelation is not quite the symbolism of 
the Symbolists, some of whom have hailed Alfred de Vigny as an 
ancestor. But what may be called the constant mystical element in 
great poetry, the power to enhance the merely representative effects 
of words so that their passage leaves a track of dim implicit associa- 
tions behind them, belongs to him in a very rare degree. And it 
may be that this gradual charm of his verses adds to their gravity 
of carriage and tends to insulate beauties that are hardly to be 
appreciated without pauses for reflexion. Movement at least is not 
a characteristic quality of Vigny's, though such a spirited story 
as that of La Frdgate ' la Serieuse ' has rapidity enough. There is 
nothing clamorous or garish in his diction, no tumult of sensations, 
no confused opulence of imagery ; but a thrifty exactitude by which 
he excelled at all periods, in Maise or Le DUuge no less than in La 
Colere de Samson or Le Mont des Oliviers, in evoking wide un- 
chequered prospects with a few firm strokes. 

Eclipsed by his great contemporaries, Vigny had every right to 
assert his priority in some fresh fields of poetry which they made 
illustrious. He may have owed a little in the way of a suggestion 
to the author of Cain and Manfred, with whom he ,had no general 
affinity : but Eloa bears an evident relation to La Chute d'un Ange ; 
with the very conception of the poeme — the long lyrical narrative — 



ALFRED DE VIGNY 109 

he set a thoughtful example ; and it seems more than likely that the 
mere plan of his earlier work set Hugo upon the task of proving 
with La Legende des Steele* that the French have after all la tite 
epique. Nor is Leconte de Lisle without some obligations to the 
poet who embodied a consistent philosophy in plastic and strenuous 
forms. It is to the credit of a later generation that justice has 
been done at last to the disinterested and lovable austerity of Vigny, 
his intellectual flame, the strange and alluring resonance of his 
reluctant avowals. 

The poetry of Alfred de Vigny is contained in a single volume 
(Calmann Levy ; Lemerre.) 

XVI 
Le Coe 



J'aime le son du cor, le soir, au fond des bois, 
Soit qu'il chante les pleurs de la biche aux abois, 
Ou l'adieu du chasseur que l'echo faible accueille, 
Et que le vent du nord porte de feuille en feuille. 

Que de fois, seul, dans l'ombre a minuit demeure, 5 

J'ai souri de l'entendre, et plus souvent pleure ! 
Car je croyais oulr de ces bruits prophetiques 
Qui precedaient la mort des paladins antiques. 

O montagne d'azur ! 6 pays adore ! 

Rocs de la Frazona, cirque du Marbore, 10 

Cascades qui tombez des neiges entrainees 

Sources, gaves, ruisseaux, torrents des Pyrenees. 

Monts geles et fleuris, trdne des deux saisons, 
Dont le front est de glace et le pied de gazons ! 
C'est la qu'il faut s'asseoir, e'est la qu'il faut entendre 15 
Les airs lointains d'un cor melancolique et tendre. 

Souvent un voyageur, lorsque l'air est sans bruit, 
De cette voix d'airain fait retentir la nuit ; 
A ses chants cadences autour de lui se mele 
L'harmonieux grelot du jeune agneau qui bele. 20 



110 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Une biche attentive, au lieu de se cacher, 
Se suspend immobile au sommet du rocher, 
Et la cascade unit, dans une chute immense, 
Son eternelle plainte aux chants de la romance. 

Ames des chevaliers, revenez-vous encor ? 25 

Est-ce vous qui parlez avec la voix du cor ? 
Roncevaux ! Roncevaux ! dans ta sombre valine 
L'ombre du grand Roland n'est done pas consolee ! 



i! 



11 

Tous les preux 6taient morts, mais aucun n'avait fui. 
II reste seul debout, Olivier pres de lui : 30 

L'Afrique sur le mont l'entoure et tremble encore. 
' Roland, tu vas mourir, rends-toi,' criait le More ; 

' Tous tes pairs sont couches dans les eaux des torrents.' 
II rugit comme un tigre, et dit : ' Si je me rends, 
Africain, ce sera lorsque les Pyrenees 3S 

Sur l'onde avec leurs corps rouleront entramees.' 

' — Rends-toi done,' repond-il, ' ou meurs, car les voila.' 

Et du plus haut des monts un grand rocher roula. 

II bondit, il roula jusqu'au fond de 1'abime, 

Et de ses pins, dans l'onde, il vint briser la cime. 40 

' Merci,' cria Roland ; ' tu m'as fait un chemin.' 
Et jusqu'au pied des monts le roulant d'une main, 
Sur le roe affermi comme un g^ant s'elance, 
Et, pr§te a fuir, l'arm^e a ce seul pas balance. 



m 

Tranquilles cependant, Charlemagne et ses preux 45 

Descendaient la montagne et se parlaient entre eux. 
A l'horizon deja, par leurs eaux signalees 
De Luz et d'Argeles se montraient les valines. 



ALFRED DE VIGNY 111 

L'arm^e applaudissait. Le luth du troubadour 
S'accordait pour chanter les saules de l'Adour ; 50 

Le vin francais coulait dans la coupe etrangere ; 
Le soldat, en riant, parlait a la bergere. 

Roland gardait les monts ; tous passaient sans effroi. 
Assis nonchalamment sur un noir palefroi 
Qui marchait rev^tu de housses violettes, 5S 

Turpin disait, tenant les saintes amulettes : 

' Sire, on voit dans le ciel des nuages de feu ; 
Suspendez votre marche ; il ne faut tenter Dieu. 
Par monsieur Saint Denis, certes ce sont des ames 
Qui passent dans les airs sur ces vapeurs de flammes. 60 

' Deux Eclairs ont relui, puis deux autres encor.' 
Ici Ton entendit le son lointain du cor. 
L'empereur etonne, se jetant en arriere, 
Suspend du destrier la marche aventuriere. 

' Entendez-vous ? ' dit-il. — ' Oui, ce sont des pasteurs 65 
Rappelant les troupeaux epars sur les hauteurs,' 
Repondit l'archeveque, ' ou la voix etouffSe 
Du nain vert Oberon, qui parle avec sa fee.' 

Et l'empereur poursuit ; mais son front soucieux 

Est plus sombre et plus noir que l'orage des cieux. 7 o 

II craint la trahison, et, tandis qu'il y songe 

Le cor eclat et meurt, renait et se prolonge. 

' Malheur ! c'est mon neveu ! malheur ! car, si Roland 
Appelle a son secours, ce doit etre en mourant. 
Arriere, chevaliers, repassons la montagne ! 75 

Tremble encor sous nos pieds, sol trompeur de l'Espagne !' 

iv 

Sur le plus haut des monts s'arrStent les chevaux ; 
L'ecume les blanchit ; sous leurs pieds, Roncevaux 
Des feux mourants du jour a peine se colore — 
A l'horizon lointain fuit l'etendard du More. 80 



112 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

' Turpin, n'as-tu rien vu dans le fond du torrent ? ' 

— ' J'y vois deux chevaliers : l'un mort, l'autre expirant. 

Tous deux sont ecrases sous une roche noire ; 

Le plus fort, dans sa main, eleve un cor d'ivoire, 

Son ame en s'exhalant nous appela deux fois.' 85 



Dieu, que le son du cor est triste au fond des bois ! 

[Poemes : le livre Moderne. 
Ji!crit a Pau, en 1825. 

XVII 

La Maison du Berger 



Si ton coeur, gemissant du poids de notre vie, 

Se traine et se d£bat comme un aigle bless6, 

Portant comme le mien, sur son aile asservie, 

Tout un monde fatal, ^crasant et glace ; 

S'il ne bat qu'en saignant par sa plaie immortelle, 5 

S'il ne voit plus l'amour, son etoile fidele, 

Eclairer pour lui seul l'horizon efface ; 

Si ton ame enchainee, ainsi que Test mon time, 

Lasse de son boulet et de son pain amer, 

Sur sa galere en deuil laisse tomber la rame, 10 

Penche sa tete pale et pleure sur la mer, 

Et, cherchant dans les flots une route inconnue, 

Y voit, en frissonnant, sur son epaule nue, 

La lettre sociale ecrite avec le fer ; 

Si ton corps, fremissant des passions secretes, 15 

S'indigne des regards, timide et palpitant ; 

S'il chercbe a sa beauts de profondes retraites 

Pour la mieux derober au profane insultant ; 

Si ta levre se seche au poison des mensonges, 

Si ton beau front rougit de passer dans les songes 20 

D'un impur inconnu qui te voit et t'entend, 



ALFRED DE VIGNY 113 

Pars courageusement, laisse toutes les villes ; 

Ne ternis plus tes pieds aux poudres du cheniin, 

Du haut de nos pensers vois les cites serviles 

Comme les rocs fatals de l'esclavage humain. 25 

Les grands bois et les champs sont de vastes asiles, 

Libres comme la mer autour des sombres lies. 

Marche a travers les champs une fleur a la main. 

La Nature t'attend dans un silence austere ; 

L'herbe eleve a tes pieds son nuage des soirs, 30 

Et le soupir d'adieu du soleil a la terre 

Balance les beaux lis comme des encensoirs. 

La foret a voile ses colonnes profondes, 

La montagne se cache, et sur les pales ondes 

Le saule a suspendu ses chastes reposoirs. 35 

Le crepuscule ami s'endort dans la vallee, 

Sur l'herbe d'emeraude et sur Tor du gazon, 

Sous les timides joncs de la source isolee 

Et sous le bois reveur qui tremble a l'horizon, 

Se balance en fuyant dans les grappes sauvages, 40 

Jette son manteau gris sur le bord des rivages, 

Et des fleurs de la nuit entr'ouvre la prison. 

II est sur ma montagne une epaisse bruyere 

Ou les pas du chasseur ont peine a se plonger, 

Qui plus haut que nos fronts leve sa tete altiere, 45 

Et garde dans la nuit le patre et l'etranger. 

Viens y cacher l'amour et ta divine faute ; 

Si l'herbe est agitee ou n'est pas assez haute, 

J'y roulerai pour toi la Maison du Berger. 

Elle va doucement avec ses quatre roues, 50 

Son toit n'est pas plus haut que ton front et tes yeux ; 

La couleur du corail et celle de tes joues 

Teignent le char nocturne et ses muets essieux. 

Le seuil est parfume, Palcove est large et sombre, 

Et, la, parmi les fleurs, nous trouverons dans l'ombre, 55 

Pour nos cheveux unis, un lit silencieux. 

H 



114 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Je verrai, si tu veux, les pays de la neige, 

Ceux ou l'astre amoureux devore et resplendit, 

Ceux que heurtent les vents, ceux que la neige assiege, 

Ceux ou le p61e obscur sous sa glace est maudit. 60 

Nous suivrons du hasard la course vagabonde. 

Que m'importe le jour ? que m'importe le monde ? 

Je dirai qu'ils sont beaux quand tes yeux l'auront dit. 

Que Dieu guide a son but la vapeur foudroyante 

Sur le fer des chemins qui traversent les monts, 65 

Qu'un ange soit debout sur sa forge bruyante, 

Quand elle va sous terre ou fait trembler les ponts 

Et, de ses dents de feu, devorant ses chaudieres, 

Transperce les cties et saute les rivieres, 

Plus vite que le cerf dans l'ardeur de ses bonds ! 70 

Oui, si l'ange aux yeux bleus ne veille sur sa route, 

Et le glaive a la main ne plane et la defend, 

S'il n'a compte les coups du levier, s'il n'ecoute 

Chaque tour de la roue en son cours triomphant, 

S'il n'a l'oeil sur les eaux et la main sur la braise, 75 

Pour jeter en eclats la magique fournaise, 

II suffira toujgurs du caillou d'un enfant. 

Sur le taureau de fer qui fume, souffle et beugle, 

L'homme a monte trop t6t. Nul ne connait encor 

Quels orages en lui porte ce rude aveugle, 80 

Et le gai voyageur lui livre son tresor ; 

Son vieux pere et ses fils, il les jette en otage 

Dans le ventre brulant du taureau de Cartbage, 

Qui les rejette en cendre aux pieds du dieu de l'or. 

Mais il faut triompher du temps et de l'espace, 85 

Arriver ou mourir. Les marchands sont jaloux. 
L'or pleut sous les charbons de la vapeur qui passe, 
Le moment et le but sont l'univers pour nous. 
Tous se sont dit : ' Allons ! ' mais aucun n'est le maitre 
Du dragon mugissant qu'un savant a fait naitre ; 90 

Nous nous sommes joues a plus fort que nous tous. 



ALFRED DE VIGNY 115 

Eh bien, que tout circule et que les grandes causes 

Sur des ailes de feu lancent les actions, 

Pourvu qu'ouverts toujours aux genereuses choses 

Les chemins du vendeur servent les passions. 95 

Beni soit le Commerce au hardi caducee, 

Si l'Amour que tourmente une sombre pensee 

Peut franchir en un jour deux grandes nations. 

Mais, a moins qu'un ami menace dans sa vie 

Ne jette, en appelant, le cri du desespoir, 100 

Ou qu'avec son clairon la France nous convie 

Aux fetes du combat, aux luttes du savoir ; 

A moins qu'au lit de mort une mere eploree 

Ne veuille encor poser sur sa race adoree 

Ces yeux tristes et doux qu'on ne doit plus revoir, 105 

Evitons ces chemins. — Leur voyage est sans graces, 

Puisqu'il est aussi prompt, sur ses lignes de fer, 

Que la fleche lancee a travers les espaces 

Qui va de Tare au but en faisant siffler l'air. 

Ainsi jetee au loin, l'humaine creature no 

Ne respire et ne voit, dans toute la nature, 

Qu'un brouillard etouffant que traverse un Eclair. 

On n'entendra jamais piaffer sur une route 

Le pied vif du cheval sur les paves en feu : 

Adieu, voyages lents, bruits lointains qu'on ^coute, 115 

Le rire du passant, les retards de l'essieu, 

Les detours imprevus des pentes variees, 

Un ami rencontre, les heures oubli^es, 

L'espoir d'arriver tard dans un sauvage lieu. 

La distance et le temps sont vaincus. La science 120 
Trace autour de la terre un chemin triste et droit. 
Le Monde est retreci par notre experience 
Et l'equateur n'est plus qu'un anneau trop etroit. 
Plus de hasard. Chacun glissera sur sa ligne 
Immobile au seul rang que le depart assigne, 125 

Plonge dans un calcul sUencieux et froid. 



116 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Jamais la Reverie amoureuse et paisible 

N'y verra sans horreur son pied blanc attache ; 

Car il faut que ses yeux sur chaque objet visible 

Versent un long regard, comme un fleuve epanche ; 130 

Qu'elle interroge tout avec inquietude, 

Et, des secrets divins se faisant une etude, 

Marche, s'arrete et marche avec le col penche. 

[Les Destindes. 

XVIII 

La Mort dtJ Loup 



Les nuages couraient sur la lune enflammee 

Comme sur l'incendie on voit fuir la fumee, 

Et les bois etaient noirs jusques a l'horizon. 

Nous marchions, sans parler, dans l'humide gazon, 

Dans la bruyere epaisse et dans les hautes brandes, s 

Lorsque, sous des sapins pareils a ceux des Landes, 

Nous avons apercu les grands ongles marques 

Par les loups voyageurs que nous avions traques. 

Nous avons ecoute, retenant notre haleine 

Et le pas suspendu. — Ni le bois ni la plaine 10 

Ne poussaient un soupir dans les airs ; seulement 

La girouette en deuil criait au firmament ; 

Car le vent, eleve, bien au-dessus des terres, 

N'effleurait de ses pieds que les tours solitaires, 

Et les chenes d'en bas, contre les rocs penches, 15 

Sur leurs coudes semblaient endormis et couches. 

Rien ne bruissait done, lorsque, baissant la tete, 

Le plus vieux des chasseurs qui s'6taient mis en quite 

A regard^ le sable en s'y couchant ; bientot 

Lui que jamais ici Ton ne vit en defaut, 20 

A declare tout bas que ces marques recentes 

Annoncaient la demarche et les griffes puissantes 

De deux grands loups-cerviers et de deux louveteaux. 

Nous avons tous alors prepare nos couteaux, 



ALFRED DE VIGNY 117 

Et, cachant nos fusils et leurs lueurs trop blanches, 25 

Nous allions pas a pas en ecartant les branches. 

Trois s'arrgtent, et moi, cherchant ce qu'ils voyaient, 

J'apercois tout a coup deux yeux qui flamboyaient, 

Et je vois au dela quatre formes legeres 

Qui dansaient sous la lune au milieu des bruyeres, 30 

Comme font chaque jour, a grand bruit sous nos yeux, 

Quand le maitre revient, les l^vriers joyeux. 

Leur forme etait semblable et semblable la danse ; 

Mais les enfants du Loup se jouaient en silence, 

Sachant bien qu'a deux pas, ne dormant qu'a demi, 35 

Se couche dans ses murs l'homme leur ennemi. 

Le pere etait debout, et plus loin, contre un arbre, 

Sa louve reposait comme celle de marbre 

Qu'adoraient les Romains, et dont les flancs velus 

Couvaient les demi-dieux Remus et Romulus. 40 

Le Loup vient et s'assied, les deux jambes dressees, 

Par leurs ongles crochus dans le sable enfoncees. 

II est juge" perdu, puisqu'il £tait surpris, 

Sa retraite couple et tous ses chemins pris ; 

Alors il a saisi, dans sa gueule brulante, 45 

Du chien le plus hardi la gorge pantelante, 

Et n'a pas desserr6 ses machoires de fer, 

Malgre nos coups de feu qui traversaient sa chair, 

Et nos couteaux aigus qui, comme des tenailles, 

Se croisaient en plongeant dans ses larges entrailles, 50 

Jusqu'au dernier moment ou le chien (Strangle^ 

Mort longtemps avant lui, sous ses pieds a roule. 

Le Loup le quitte alors et puis il nous regarde. 

Les couteaux lui restaient au flanc jusqu'a la garde, 

Le clouaient au gazon tout baigne" dans son sang ; 55 

Nos fusils l'entouraient en sinistre croissant. 

II nous regarde encore, ensuite il se recouche, 

Tout en 16chant le sang repandu sur sa bouche, . 

Et, sans daigner savoir comment il a peri, 

Refermant ses grands yeux, meurt sans jeter un cri. 60 



118 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



11 



J'ai repose mon front sur mon fusil sans poudre, 

Me prenant a penser, et n'ai pu me r6soudre 

A poursuivre la Louve et ses fils, qui, tous trois, 

Avaient voulu l'attendre, et, comme je le crois, 

Sans ses deux louveteaux, la belle et sombre veuve 65 

Ne l'eut pas laiss6 seul subir la grande epreuve ; 

Mais son devoir etait de les sauver, afin 

De pouvoir leur apprendre a bien souffrir la faim, 

A ne jamais entrer dans le pacte des villes 

Que l'homme a fait avec les animaux serviles, 70 

Qui chassent devant lui, pour avoir le coucber, 

Les premiers possesseurs du bois et du rocher. 



111 

Helas ! ai-je pens6, malgre ce grand nom d'Hommes, 

Que j'ai honte de nous, d6biles que nous sommes ! 

Comment on doit quitter la vie et tous ses maux, 75 

C'est vous qui le savez, sublimes animaux ! 

A voir ce que Ton fut sur terre et ce qu'on laisse, 

Seul le silence est grand ; tout le reste est faiblesse. 

— Ab ! je t'ai bien compris, sauvage voyageur, 

Et ton dernier regard m'est all6 jusqu'au cceur ! 80 

II disait : ' Si tu peux, fais que mon ame arrive, 

A -force de rester studieuse et pensive, 

Jusqu'a ce baut degre de stolque fierte 

r ' Vnaissant dans les bois, j'ai tout d'abord monte. 

nir, pleurer, prier, est egalement lacbe. 85 

us energiquement ta longue et lourde tache 
Dans la voie oil le sort a voulu t'appeler, 
Puis, apres, comme moi, souffre et meurs sans parler.' 

[Les Destinies, 

]Wit au chateau de M * * *. 
1843. 



VICTOR HUGO 119 



VICTOR HUGO 

1802-1885 

Victok-Marie Hugo, of whose full and brilliant life only a meagre 
sketch will be expected here, was the third child of a soldier of for- 
tune who served with distinction in the Kevolutionary wars, in Italy, 
and in Spain — where he enjoyed the confidence of Joseph Bonaparte. 
The poet thought his family noble on his father's side : we only know 
that hia grandfather was a joiner in Nancy, and that for two genera- 
tions before the Hugos had been husbandmen in Lorraine. His 
mother, a Voltairian and a Eoyalist, was the daughter of a Nantes 
shipowner. 

He was born at Besangon, and saw Elba and Corsica, Italy and 
Spain in his childhood : his only settled home was a house with a 
wild garden which had been part of the Feuillantine convent in the 
south of Paris. Victor and his brother Eugene had a desultory and 
broken, but comprehensive schooling. Their first master, in Paris, 
was an ex-Oratorian, but they learned more by devouring a circulat- 
ing library ; for a little while they were at the Nobles' college in 
Madrid ; and after Napoleon's fall they were sent by General Hugo 
(who had separated from his wife) to a boarding-school in Paris, 
where they both made verses, and Victor tragedies. He took part, 
from the age of fifteen, in Academic competitions with some success ; 
printed in 1819 an ultra-Eoyalist satire on the telegraph; founded in 
the same year, with his brother, a sort of literary supplement to the 
Conservateur of Chateaubriand — his idol in letters andyl politics at 
this stage ; — and a little volume of Odes and other poems, including 
effusions on the death of the Duke de Berri and the bir-^Oof^the 
Duke de Bordeaux, appeared in 1822. A little later he wao v juried 
(after a long and troubled courtship) to Adele Foucher, the ; e'' Lghter 
of an old War Office friend of his family. Another periodical, La 
Muse frangaise, was started by Hugo and other young men in 1823, 
and became the organ of new tendencies in literature, as Charles 
Nodier's rooms at the Arsenal Library were their first debating 
club. 

The success of the first Odes was mainly political : for us their 
chief merit is their fluency. The Ballads which accompanied 



120 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

additional odes published in 1826 are not only remarkable for com- 
mand of rime and variety of measures but for the rather crude and 
puerile attempt to naturalise a poetry of popular magic latterly re- 
vived in the North of Europe, and (what is more interesting) to turn 
to account some forgotten native elements of an analogous character. 
Cromwell followed, Hugo's first, unplayed and unplayable drama, 
with its rash but most stimulating preface, which denned certain 
cardinal doctrines of the younger school (all subjects are in them- 
selves legitimate ; it is better to be complete than to be perfect ; 
character is the paramount element of beauty ; contrary moods may 
be associated in one work), and made it impossible for the rising 
poet to maintain the attitude of ostensible neutrality in the quarrel 
between Classics and Eomantics which he had begun by affecting. 

From this point his poetical career falls into three periods. In 
the first, eclipsing Vigny and rivalling Lamartine by the loud and 
sometimes scandalous triumph of his dramas, his fiction and his 
lyrics, he captained the fight for artistic freedom and did more than 
any other Frenchman to effect a necessary revolution in the poetical 
vocabulary and in poetical forms ; and under him Sainte-Beuve and 
Gautier, the two Deschamps and Barbier and Brizeux, Soulary and 
the mutinous young recruit Alfred de Musset carried the Eomantic 
banner to victory. — It opens in 1829 with Les Orientates, pictures of 
a fabulous East ingenuously but intensely imagined, sincerely con- 
ventional and revealing a palette of extraordinary opulence, as well 
as an experimental suppleness with rhythms wherein the coming 
transformation of the Alexandrine was implicit already. Four 
successive volumes of lyrical poetry marked the stages in his progress 
from virtuosity to genuine self-expression. The familiar tone pre- 
vails in Les Feuilles d'Automne ; Les Chants du Crepmcule and Les 
Voix Inte'rieures contain several of his stately national odes, as well 
as some poems which record a growing preoccupation with the ideas 
of God, immortality, progress, and a few discreet tributes to her who 
inspired the most durable and absorbing of his irregular affections. 
These elements, with much self-doubt, resentment at hostile criticism, 
changes and waverings in religious and political belief, are all to be 
found in Les Rayons et les Ombres and in that considerable portion 
of the posthumous collection Toute la Lyre which belongs to these 
fruitful years. In prose, his two imaginative pamphlets directed 
against the death penalty appeared in 1829, and a year later Notre- 
Bame de Paris, a masterpiece for which two juvenile adventures in 



VICTOR HUGO 121 

fiction had not prepared his public : it remains the supreme type of 
the purely romantic novel in France, more memorable as a piece of 
splendid prose and for its vivid emblematical portraiture of fifteenth 
century Paris than for interest of character or coherence of plot. But 
it was his dramas that brought him most celebrity : Marion 
Delorme (suppressed for a little by the thin-skinned government of 
Charles x.), Hernani, whose name has now the legendary glory of a 
battle and a victory in art, the stirring tragi-comedy Ruy Bias, — 
and Lucrece Borgia and Angela in prose. Unflagging beauty of style 
alone lifts these dramas out of the class of historical melodrama to 
which undoubtedly their prototype — the Henri III. of Dumas — 
belongs. Constructive skill, passages of real pathetic force, an incom- 
parable vigour balance, perhaps, the psychological poverty, the 
irrelevant tirades, the false emphasis and perverse situations which 
are their manifest weakness. — During this period, Victor Hugo's 
rather superficial Catholicism degenerated into a vague inexacting 
theism ; and he lost his attachment for the elder Bourbons. The 
July Monarchy gave him a seat in the House of Peers and he had 
much personal intercourse with Louis-Philippe, though, early in the 
reign, the poet was already a theoretical Kepublican. 

A second period, the most glorious, may be dated between 1843 
and 1870. In the spring of the former year, Les Burgraves, a 
drama full of epical intention, was produced and fell immediately 
before the efforts of a clique. Hugo renounced the stage, and he 
was consoling himself by travel in the Pyrenees when, in May, the 
news reached him that his daughter Leopoldine, recently married to 
a brother of the poet Auguste Vacquerie, had been drowned with her 
husband while boating on the Seine. This was the greatest sorrow 
of his life, and its effect upon his poetry was as profound as that 
of Arthur Hallam's death upon the genius of Tennyson. Hugo's 
In Memoriam is contained in Les Contemplations — the very finest 
assuredly of his lyrical works — of which the first part was already 
written at this time, but which saw the light many years later. 
Between 1843 and 1853 he published nothing but a book of travel 
and a pamphlet, and it was civic indignation, not personal bereave- 
ment, that caused him to break silence with Les Chdtiments. 
Towards the end of Louis-Philippe's reign he began to play a con- 
siderable part in politics, tending more and more towards the extreme 
Left. Under the Bepublic he was returned to the Legislative 
Assembly : his old worship of Napoleon and the Prince-President's 



122 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

well-known interest in Utopian theories made the Elysee, for a little 
while, attractive to him. The ' crime of December ' was a rude 
awakening. Hugo was one of those who resisted its consequences 
to the last, and his own part in this crisis, though doubtleBS not so 
conspicuous as he fancied, was certainly creditable to his patriotism 
and his personal courage. When the last barricade had been stormed 
and a price was put upon his head, Hugo escaped to Brussels, where 
many other notable recalcitrants assembled, and soon after crossed the 
Channel, a prescript. First Jersey and then Guernsey was the home 
of his exile, which lasted (for he refused to benefit by an amnesty) 
until the fall of the Empire. Here, having shaken off the mere 
trappings of Eomance, he rose above all schools and produced, one 
after another, his least contestable masterpieces. Les Chdtiments 
revived the grand manner of ancient lyrical satire ; in Les Contempla- 
tions, he blends reminiscence with fantasy, and the consummate ex- 
pression of grief and resignation with visions of terror and beatitude ; 
the first series of La Ligende des Siecles attains the highest reach of 
French verse and suffices to affirm the capacity of the modern French 
for heroical poetry ; and in the marvellously skilful Chansons des Bues 
et des Bois he seems a giant at play. Besides these he wrote in the 
same period much at least of the poetry published after his death, 
and, in particular, most or all of the two pendants, as we have 
them, to the Ligende — the fragmentary Fin de Satan, and Dieu, the 
imaginative confession of successive creeds. In exile, too, he finished 
and produced the humane, enthralling, absurd and unique prose epic 
of our times, Les Misirables ; and he wrote Les Travailleurs de la 
Mer and L'Homme qui rit, and the swollen preface to his son's 
translation of Shakespeare, which teems with enthusiasm and error, 
critical perversities, flashes of insight and splendid irrelevance. 

At the news of Sedan and the ' days of September,' Victor Hugo 
returned to Paris. He stood the siege, contributed to the national 
defence the proceeds of his Histoire d?wt Crime, and was elected to 
the Assembly which sat at Bordeaux. He voted against the peace 
and resigned his seat, and after the Commune, which he disapproved 
and excused, did his best to mitigate the horrors of retaliation. 

He had overrated his political authority : indeed the next few 
years he passed in comparative neglect. But his fame had long been 
universal : the heart of Paris warmed towards the master of all who 
wrote in the French tongue, the irreducible foe of tyranny, who had 
suffered and endured ; — his old age knew the solace of popular esteem, 



VICTOR HUGO 123 

and his life ended in apotheosis. Factions and sects' made use of his 
name and of his pen, and much of his last writing is diminished for 
us by the vein of peevish and verbose and almost puerile invective 
which he indulged, and by an increasing tendency to facile improvisa- 
tion. But his mastery of rhythm and language never grew less, and 
among the works produced in this final period of his long career are 
several volumes which may almost rank with his best achievement. 
L' Annie Terrible, his memorable tribute to the War and the Com- 
mune, was followed by a book of poetry consecrated to his tenderness 
for the children of his dead son Charles. A second and a third series 
of La Legende des Siecles are full of magnificent pages, though upon 
the whole inferior to the first. All the great sources of his inspira- 
tion enrich Les Quatre Vents de V Esprit, and especially the heroical. 
A last drama, Torquemada, and a last historical novel, the admirable 
Quatre-vingt-treize, must be added to the list. 

Victor Hugo died in May 1885 at the age of eighty-three ; he was 
mourned by a whole nation. Sixteen volumes in prose and verse — 
memoirs, correspondence, juvenilia, criticism, and much splendid 
poetry — have been filled by the writing he left behind him. Not 
even Toute la Lyre could add to his glory. A last book of verse 
appeared in time for the impressive celebration of his centenary. 

The most fragmentary judgment upon Victor Hugo must at least 
endeavour to present him not only as the prince of French poets in 
his time but as one of the very greatest of all poets ; — and it is well 
to forget for a little that he was, incidentally, so much besides. In 
a certain sense his writings, outside poetry, and even the notable acts 
by which he asserted his personality in real life, being uniformly 
governed by the same necessities of his imagination, may be called 
redundant — not because with unequal success he essayed every form 
of composition and took several parts as a public man, but because 
with a genius too stupendously synthetic and too exclusively creative 
to be truly versatile, he added nothing durable to his greatness by ap- 
parently respecting the modern categories into which the organisation 
of knowledge has carved out the ancient kingdom of poetry. ' II a 
su transmuer la substance de tout en substance poeiique,' said Leconte 
de Lisle. But Hugo did not always resist the temptation to show 
himself in attitudes which challenge approval upon alien grounds ; so 
that it has often seemed reasonable and almost relevant to reproach 
this supreme lyrist with not being a systematic ' thinker ' or a fully 
instructed and impartial chronicler or an incontrovertible apologist : 



124 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

for, especially in the poetry of his old age, the frequent assumption 
of a didactic or rather a polemical tone makes us forget that fortunate 
inaptness for abstractions which should have secured him against all 
criticism that is not poetical criticism. Yet upon the whole an 
instinct surer than the sense of his limitations served him even in 
what may be called without disrespect his aberrations, and made 
every theme yield its utmost value to that faculty of words and that 
faculty of vision which are the promontories of Hugo's incomparable 
genius. 

He contains (he is perhaps the only modern writer who contains) 
the whole of a living language. Encyclopaedic in his range, his 
power of assimilation, Hugo is supreme among the canonised writers 
of the world in his absolute command over the resources of his 
tongue, which he rejuvenated and reconciled with its past. He is 
the greatest rhetorician who ever lived, unapproached in the art of 
amplifying, in the sense of climax, and also a master of composition. 
When he chose, he could be measured and graceful; he is always 
verbally perspicuous and logical. That presence of mind or instinct 
of verbal association which is perhaps the ultimate secret of fecundity 
was at once his strength and his weakness. Words had a mysterious 
power over him : he is sometimes visibly the bondsman of irresistible 
suggestions in sound, and the prestige of certain syllables often 
betrayed him into digressive apostrophes and irrelevant illustration. 

Of verse he is the absolute sovereign, the indefatigable forger of 
rhythms, the magical equilibrist, the constantly fortunate manipulator 
of rime. What he did for French verse has been indicated elsewhere 
in this volume : it is enough to repeat that he made it obedient to all 
the motions of the mind, and that he reinforced the pleasures of habit 
and concord with those which variance and surprise can give to the 
ear. In the gift of structure and inventiveness he is only matched 
by Ronsard. 

In the breadth, clearness and tenacity of his vision (his other 
senses were less keen) lies the secret of his imaginative audacity. 
He gave wings to qualities, a human heart to the inanimate, and 
expressed no idea without metaphor. Other poets have described 
myths, interpreted and retold them ; Hugo is a mythologist, whose 
art repeats and illustrates the obscure anthropomorphous processes 
we impute to the collective mind of primitive peoples. 

His creations are all emblems, and governed by overwhelming 
impressions of contrast. He handles individual men with as great a 



VICTOR HUGO 



125 



vivifying power as natural forces, but in general without that respect 
for proportion, that complete sympathy and that taste for diversity 
which are conditions of psychological truth. His special kingdom is 
not made of the love of men and women ; and he is sparing of con- 
fession — the characteristic resource of moderns. He is the poet 
of pity, still more the poet of terror earthly and spectral ; the poet 
of childhood and the sea; a masterly painter of war, havoc and 
confusion. 

All tones are his, but especially a tone of inexorable majesty and 
solemnity. Hugo has little humour, but much wit — of a curious, 
original sort. Emphasis is his constant enemy : it was occasionally 
Shakespeare's. For the rest, he is not a philosopher, but he interests 
philosophers. No poet in his century, or any century of our era, 
threw more ideas into circulation by giving them a sensuous shape 
and a voice to enchant and to haunt the memory of men. 

A fine edition of Victor Hugo's works, produced by the Imprimerie 
Nationale, is not yet complete. The edition definitive contains all 
that was published in his lifetime : it exists in two sizes : the text is 
not free from occasional blunders. The following is a list of his 
works in verse : 



Lyrical. 
Odes, 1822. 
Odes et Ballades, 1826. 
Les Orientales, 1829. 
Les Feuilles d'Automne, 1831. 
Les Chants du Crepuscule, 1835. 
Les Voix Interieures, 1837. 
Les Kayons et les Ombres, 1841. 
Les Chatiments, 1853. 
Les Contemplations, i. ii. 1856. 
La Legende des Siecles, i. 1859. 
Chansons des Eues et des Bois, 

1864. 
L'Ann&s Terrible, 1873. 
L'Art d'etre Grand-pere, 1877. 
La Legende des Siecles, ii. 1877. 
Le Pape. 

La Piti6 Supreme. 
L'Ane. 



Les quatre Vents de l'Esprit, 1881. 
La Legende des Siecles, iii. 1883. 

Posthumous. 
La Fin de Satan. 
Dieu. 

Toute la Lyre, i. ii. iii. 
Derniere Gerbe, 1902. 

Drama. 
Cromwell, 1827. 
Marion Delorme, 1829 (1831). 
Hernani, 1830. 
Le Boi s'amuse, 1832. 
Ruy Bias, 1838. 
Les Burgraves, 1843. 
Torquemada. 

Posthumous. 
Theatre en Libert^. 
Amy Robsart. 
Les Jumeaux. 



126 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

XIX 

Mazeppa 



Ainsi, quand Mazeppa, qui rugit et qui pleure, 

A vu ses bras, ses pieds, ses flancs qu'un sabre effleure, 

Tous ses membres lies 
Sur un fougueux cheval, nourri d'herbes marines, 
Qui fume, et fait jaillir le feu de ses narines s 

Et le feu de ses pieds ; 

Quand il s'est dans ses nceuds roule comme un reptile, 
Qu'il a bien rejoui de sa rage inutile 

Ses bourreaux tout joyeux, 
Et qu'il retombe enfin sur la croupe farouche, 10 

La sueur sur le front, l'ecume dans la bouche 

Et du sang dans les yeux ; 

Un cri part, et soudain voila que par la plaine 
Et l'homme et le cheval, emportes, hors d'haleine, 

Sur les sables mouvants, is 

Seuls, emplissant de bruit un tourbillon de poudre 
Pareil au noir nuage ou serpente la foudre, 

Volent avec les vents ! 

lis vont. Dans les vallons comme un orage ils passent, 
Comme ces ouragans qui dans les monts s'entassent, 20 

Comme un globe de feu ; 
Puis deja ne sont plus qu'un point noir dans la brume, 
Puis s'effacent dans l'air comme un flocon d'ecume 

Au vaste ocean bleu. 

Ils vont. L'espace est grand. Dans le desert immense, 25 
Dans l'horizon sans fin qui toujours recommence, 

Ils se plongent tous deux. 
Leur course comme un vol les emporte, et grands chenes, 
Villes et tours, monts noirs lies en longues chaines, 

Tout chancelle autour d'eux. 30 



VICTOR HUGO 127 

Et, si l'infortune\ dont la tete se brise, 
Se debat, le cheval, qui devance la brise, 

D'un bond plus enraye" 
S'enfonce au desert vaste, aride, infranchissable, 
Qui devant eux s'&end, avec ses plis de sable, 35 

Comme un manteau raye. 

Tout vacille et se peint de couleurs inconnues : 
II voit courir les bois, courir les larges nues, 

Le vieux donjon detruit, 
Les monts dont un rayon baigne les intervalles ; 40 

II voit ; et les troupeaux de fumantes cavales 

Le suivent k grand bruit ! 

Et le ciel, ou deja les pas du soir s'allongent, 
Avec ses oceans de nuages ou plongent 

Des nuages encor, 45 

Et son soleil qui fend leurs vagues de sa proue, 
Sur son front ebloui tourne comme une roue 

De marbre aux veines d'or ! 

Son ceil s'egare et luit, sa chevelure traine, 

Sa tete pend ; son sang rougit la jaune arene, 50 

Les buissons epineux ; 
Sur ses membres gonfles la corde se replie, 
Et comme un long serpent resserre et multiplie 

Sa morsure et ses nceuds. 

Le cheval, qui ne sent ni le mors ni la selle, 55 

Toujours fuit, et toujours son sang coule et ruisselle, 

Sa chair tombe en lambeaux ; 
Helas ! voici deja qu'aux cavales ardentes 
Qui le suivaient, dressant leurs crinieres pendantes, 

Succedent les corbeaux ! 60 

Les corbeaux, le grand due a l'ceil rond, qui s'effraie, 
L'aigle enure" des champs de bataille, et l'orfraie, 

Monstre au jour inconnu, 
Les obliques hiboux, et le grand vautour fauve, 
Qui fouille au flanc des morts, ou son cou rouge et chauve 65 

Plonge comme un bras nu ! 



128 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Tous viennent elargir la funebre volee ; 
Tous quittent pour le suivre et l'yeuse isolee 

Et les nids du manoir. 
Lui, sanglant, eperdu, sourd a leurs cris de joie, 70 

Demands en les voyant : Qui done la-bas deploie 

Ce grand eventail noir ? 

La nuit descend lugubre, et sans robe etoilee. 
L'essaim s'acharne, et suit, tel qu'une meute ailee, 

Le voyageur fumant. 75 

Entre le ciel et lui, comme un tourbillon sombre, 
II les voit, puis les perd, et les entend dans l'ombre 

Voler confusement. 

Enfin, apres trois jours d'une course insensee, 

Apres avoir francbi fleuves a l'eau glac^e, 80 

Steppes, forets, deserts, 
Le cbeval tombe aux cris de mille oiseaux de proie, 
Et son ongle de fer sur la pierre qu'il broie 
Eteint ses quatre eclairs. 

Voila l'infortune, gisant, nu, miserable, 85 

Tout tacbete de sang, plus rouge que l'erable 

Dans la saison des fleurs. 
Le nuage d'oiseaux sur lui tourne et s'arrete ; 
Maint bee ardent aspire a ronger dans sa tete 

Ses yeux brides de pleurs. 90 

Et bien ! ce condamne qui burle et qui se traine, 
Ce cadavre vivant, les tribus de l'Ukraine 

Le feront prince un jour. 
Un jour, semant les cbamps de morts sans sepultures, 
II dedommagera par de larges patures 95 

L'orfraie et le vautour. 

Sa sauvage grandeur naitra de son supplice. 
Un jour, des vieux betmans il ceindra la pelisse, 

Grand a l'ceil ebloui ; 
Et, quand il passera, ces peuples de la tente, 100 

Prosternes, enverront la fanfare eclatante 

Bondir autour de lui ! 



VICTOR HUGO 129 



11 

Ainsi, lorsqu'un mortel, sur qui son dieu s'etale, 
S'est vu lier vivant sur ta croupe fatale, 

Genie, ardent coursier, 105 

En vain il lutte, helas ! tu bondis, tu l'emportes 
Hors du monde r£el, dont tu brises les portes 

Avec tes pieds d'acier ! 

Tu franchis avec lui deserts, cimes chenues 

Des vieux monts, et les mers, et par-dela les nues, no 

De sombres regions ; 
Et mille impurs esprits que ta course reveille, 
Autour du voyageur, insolente merveille, 

Pressent leurs legions ! 

II traverse d'un vol, sur tes ailes de flamme, n S 

Tous les champs du possible, et les mondes de l'ame, 

Boit au fleuve kernel ; 
Dans la nuit orageuse ou la nuit 6toilee 
Sa chevelure, aux crins des cometes melee, 

Flamboie au front du ciel. 120 

Les six lunes d'Herschel, l'anneau du vieux Saturne, 
Le p6le, arrondissant une aurore nocturne 

Sur son front boreal, 
II voit tout : et pour lui ton vol, que rien ne lasse, 
De ce monde sans borne a chaque instant deplace 125 

L'horizon ideal. 

Qui peut savoir, hormis les demons et les anges, 
Ce qu'il souffre a te suivre, et quels eclairs Granges 

A ses yeux reluiront, 
Comme il sera brule" d'ardentes 6tincelles, I3 o 

Helas ! et dans la nuit combien de froides ailes 

Viendront battre son front ? 



130 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

II crie epouvante\ tu poursuis implacable. 
Pale, epuise\ beant, sous ton vol qui l'accable 

II ploie avec effroi ; 13s 

Chaque pas que fcu fais semble creuser sa tombe. 
Enfin le terme arrive . . . il court, il vole, il tombe, 
Et se releve roi ! 

[Les Orientales. 
Mad 1828. 

XX 

Parfois, lorsque tout dort,je m'assieds plein de joie 

Sous le dome etoile' qui sur nos fronts flamboie ; 

J'ecoute si d'en haut il tombe quelque bruit ; 

Et l'beure vainement me frappe de son aile 

Quand je contemple, emu, cette fete 6ternelle 5 

Que le ciel rayonnant donne au monde la nuit ! 

Souvent alors j'ai cru que ces soleils de flamme 

Dans ce monde endormi n'echauffaient que mon ame ; 

Qu'a les comprendre seul j'^tais pr6destin6 ; 

Que j'6tais, moi, vaine ombre obscure et taciturne, 10 

Le roi mysterieux de la pompe nocturne ; 

Que le ciel pour moi seul s'etait illumine' ! 

[Les Feuilles d'Automne. 



XXI 

GUITARE 

Gastibelza, l'homme a la carabine, 

Chantait ainsi : 
' Quelqu'un a-t-il connu dona Sabine ? 

Quelqu'un d'ici ? 
Dansez, chantez, villageois ! la nuit gagne 

Le mont Falu. 1 — 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

Me rendra fou ! 

1 Le mont Falii. Prononoer mont Falou. 



VICTOR HUGO 131 

' Quelqu'un de vous a-t-il connu Sabine, 

Ma senora ? 10 

Sa mere etait la vieille maugrabine 

D'Antequera, 
Qui chaque nuit criait dans la Tour-Magne 

Comme un hibou . . . — 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 15 

Me rendra fou. 

1 Dansez, chantez ! Des biens que l'heure envoie 

II faut user. 
Elle etait jeune et son ceil plein de joie 

Faisait penser. — 20 

A ce vieillard qu'un enfant accompagne 

Jetez un sou ! . . . — 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

Me rendra fou. 

' Vraiment, la reine eut pres d'elle 6te laide 25 

Quand, vers le soir, 
Elle passait sur le pont de Tolede 

En corset noir. 
Un chapelet du temps de Charlemagne 

Ornait son cou . . . — 3 o 

Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

Me rendra fou. 

' Le roi disait, en la voyant si belle, 

A son neveu : 
— Pour un baiser, pour un sourire d'elle, 35 

Pour un cheveu, 
Infant don Ruy, je donnerais l'Espagne 

Et le Perou !— 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

Me rendra fou. 40 

' Je ne sais pas si j'aimais cette dame, 

Mais je sais bien 
Que, pour avoir un regard de son ame, 

Moi, pauvre chien, 



132 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

J'aurais gaiment passe dix ans au bagne 45 

Sous le verrou . . . — 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

Me rendra fou. 

' Un jour d'ete que tout etait lumiere, 

Vie et douceur, 5° 

Elle s'en vint jouer dans la riviere 

Avec sa sceur. 
Je vis le pied de sa jeune compagne 

Et son genou . . . — 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 55 

Me rendra fou. 

' Quand je voyais cette enfant, moi le patre 

De ce canton, 
Je croyais voir la belle Cleopatre, 

Qui, nous dit-on, 60 

Menait Cesar, empereur d'Allemagne, 

Par le licou . . . — 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

Me rendra fou. 

' Dansez, chantez, villageois, la nuit tombe. 65 

Sabine, un jour, 
A tout vendu, sa beaute de colombe, 

Et son amour, 
Pour l'anneau d'or du comte de Saldagne, 

Pour un bijou . . . — 70 

Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

Me" rendra fou. 

' Sur ce vieux banc souffrez que je m'appuie, 

Car je suis las. 
Avec ce comte elle s'est done enfuie ! 

Enfuie, helas ! 
Par le chemin qui va vers la Cerdagne, 

Je ne sais ou . . . — 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

Me rendra fou. 80 



75 



VICTOR HUGO 133 

' Je la voyais passer de ma demeure, 

Et c'6tait tout. 
Mais a present je m'ennuie a toute heure, 

Plein de dugout, 
Reveur oisif, l'ame dans la campagne, 65 

La dague au clou . . . — 
Le vent qui vient a travers la montagne 

M'a rendu fou ! ' 

[Les Rayons et les Ombres. 
14 mars 1837. 



XXII 

La Coccinelle 

Elle me dit : Quelque chose 
Me tourmente. Et j'apercus 
Son cou de neige, et, dessus, 
Un petit insecte rose. 

J'aurais du, — mais, sage ou fou, 5 

A seize ans on est farouche, — 
Voir le baiser sur sa bouche 
Plus que l'insecte a son cou. 

On eut dit un coquillage ; 

Dos rose et tache de noir. 10 

Les fauvettes pour nous voir 

Se penchaient dans le feuillage. 

Sa bouche fraiche etait la ; 

Je me courbai sur la belle, 

Et je pris la coccinelle; is 

Mais le baiser s'envola. 

— Fils, apprends comme on me nomme, 
Dit l'insecte du ciel bleu : 
Les betes sont au bon Dieu, 
Mais la b^tise est a l'homme. 20 

[Les Contemplations, i. 
Paris, mat 1830. 



134 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

XXIII 

Le Rouet d'Omphale 

II est dans ratrium, le beau rouet d'ivoire. 

La roue agile est blanche, et la quenouille est noire ; 

La quenouille est d'ebene incruste de lapis. 

II est dans ratrium sur un riche tapis. 

Un ouvrier d'Egine a seulpte sur la plinthe 5 

Europe, dont un dieu n'ecoute pas la plainte. 

Le taureau blanc l'emporte. Europe, sans espoir, 

Crie, et, baissant les yeux, s'epouvante de voir 

L'ocean monstrueux qui baise sep pieds roses. 

Des aiguilles, du fil, des boites demi-closes, 10 

Les laines de Milet, peintes de pourpre et d'or, 
Emplissent un panier pres du rouet qui dort. 

Cependant, odieux, effroyables, enormes, 

Dans le fond du palais, vingt fantomes difformes, 

Vingt monstres tout sanglants, qu'on ne Voit qu'a demi, is 

Errent en foule autour du rouet endormi ; 

Le lion nemeen, l'hydre affreuse de Lerne, 

Cacus, le noir brigand de la noire eaverne, 

Le triple Geryon, et les typbons des eaux 

Qui le soir a grand bruit soufflent dans les roseaux. 20 

De la massue au front tous ont l'empreinte horrible, 

Et tous, sans approcher, rddant d'un air terrible, 

Sur le rouet, ou pend un fil souple et lie, 

Fixent de loin dans l'ombre un oeil humilie. 

[Les Oontemplations, i. 

XXIV 

Soir 

Dans les ravins la route oblique 
Fuit. — II voit luire au-dessus d'eux 
Le ciel sinistre et metallique 
A travers des arbres hideux. 



VICTOR HUGO 135 

Des etres rddent sur les rives ; 5 

Le nenuphar nocturne ecldt ; 
Des agitations furtives 
Courbent Therbe, rident le flot. 

Les larges estompes de l'ombre, 

Melant les lueurs et les eaux, 10 

Ebauchent dans la plaine sombre 

L'aspect monstrueux du chaos. 

Voici que les spectres se dressent. 

D'ou sortent-ils ? que veulent-ils ? 

Dieu ! de toutes parts apparaissent 15 

Toutes sortes d'affreux profils ! 

II marche. Les heures sont lentes. 

II voit la-haut, tout en marchant, 

S'allumer ces pourpres sanglantes, 

Splendeurs lugubres du couchant. 20 

Au loin une cloche, une enclume, 
Jettent dans l'air leurs faibles coups. 
A ses pieds flotte dans la brume 
Le paysage immense et doux. 

Tout s'eteint. L'horizon recule. 25 

II regarde en ce lointain noir 
Se former dans le crepuscule 
Les vagues figures du soir. 

La plaine, qu'une brise effleure, 

Ajoute, ouverte au vent des nuits, 30 

A la solennite de l'heure 

L'apaisement de tous les bruits. 

A peine, tenebreux murmures, 

Entend-on, dans l'espace mort, 

Les palpitations obscures 3s 

De ce qui veille quand il dort. 



136 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Les broussailles, les gres, les ormes, 

Le vieux saule, le pan de mur, 

Deviennent les contours difformes 

De je ne sais quel monde obscur. 4° 

L'insecte aux nocturnes elltres 
Iniite le cri des sabbats. 
Les etangs sont comme les vitres 
Par ou Ton voit le ciel d'en bas. 

Par degres, monts, forets, cieux, terre, 45 

Tout prend l'aspect terrible et grand 
D'un monde entrant dans un mystere, 
D'un navire dans l'ombre entrant. 

[Toute la Lyre, i. 

xxv 

Trois Ans APR&S 

II est temps que je me repose ; 
Je suis terrasse par le sort. 
Ne me parlez pas d'autre chose 
Que des t^nebres ou Ton dort ! 

Que veut-on que je recommence ? 5 

Je ne demande desormais 

A la creation immense 

Qu'un peu de silence et de paix ! 

Pourquoi m'appelez-vous encore ? 

J'ai fait ma tache et mon devoir. 10 

Qui travaillait avant l'aurore 

Peut s'en aller avant le soir. 

A vingt ans, deuil et solitude ! 

Mes yeux, baisses vers le gazon, 

Perdirent la douce habitude is 

De voir ma mere a la maison. 



VICTOR HUGO 137 

Elle nous quitta pour la tombe ; 

Et vous savez bien qu'aujourd'hui 

Je cherche, en cette nuit qui tombe, 

Un autre ange qui s'est enfui ! 20 

Vous savez que je desespere, 
Que ma force en vain se defend, 
Et que je souffre comme pere, 
Moi qui souffris tant comme enfant ! 



Mon ceuvre n'est pas terminee, 25 

Dites-vous. Comme Adam banni, 
Je regarde ma destinee 
Et je vois bien que j'ai fini. 

I/humble enfant que Dieu m'a ravie 

Rien qu'en m'aimant savait m'aider. 30 

C'^tait le bonheur de ma vie 

De voir ses yeux me regarder. 

Si ce Dieu n'a pas voulu clore 

L'ceuvre qu'il me fit commencer, 

S'il veut que je travaille encore, 35 

II n'avait qu'a me la laisser ! 

II n'avait qu'a me laisser vivre 

Avec ma fille a mes cotes, 

Dans cette extase ou je m'enivre 

De mysterieuses clartes ! 40 

Ces clartes, jour d'une autre sphere, 
Dieu jaloux, tu nous les vends ! 
Pourquoi m'as-tu pris la lumiere 
Que j'avais parmi les vivants ? 

As-tu done pense, fatal maitre, 45 

Qu'a force de te contempler, 
Je ne voyais plus ce doux dtre, 
Et qu'il pouvait bien s'en aller ? 



138 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

T'es-tu dit que l'homme, vaine ombre, 
Helas, perd son huinanite 5° 

A trop voir cette splendeur sombre 
Qu'on appelle la verite ? 

Qu'on peut le frapper sans qu'il souffre, 

Que son coeur est mort dans l'ennui, 

Et qu'a force de voir le gouffre, ss 

II n'a plus qu'un abime a lui ? 

Qu'il va, stoifque, ou tu l'envoies, 

Et que desormais, endurci, 

N'ayant plus ici-bas de joies, 

II n'a plus de douleurs aussi ? 60 

As-tu pense qu'une ame tendre 
S'ouvre a toi pour se mieux fermer, 
Et que ceux qui veulent comprendre 
Finissent par ne plus aimer ? 

O Dieu ! vraiment, as-tu pu croire 65 

Que je prel^rais, sous les cieux, 
L'effrayant rayon de ta gloire 
Aux douces lueurs de ses yeux ? 

Si j'avais su tes lois moroses, 

Et qu'au mSme esprit enchante 70 

Tu ne donnes point ces deux choses, 

Le bonheur et la verity, 

Plutot que de lever tes voiles, 

Et de chercher, coeur triste et pur, 

A te voir au fond des etoiles, 75 

Dieu sombre d'un monde obscur, 

J'eusse aime mieux, loin de ta face, 

Suivre, heureux, un etroit chemin, 

Et n'etre qu'un homme qui passe 

Tenant son enfant par la main ! 80 



VICTOR HUGO 139 

Maintenant, je veux qu'on me laisse ! 
J'ai fini ! le sort est vainqueur. 
Que vient-on rallumer sans cesse 
Dans l'ombre qui m'emplit le coeur ? 

Vous qui me parlez, vous me dites 85 

Qu'il faut, rappelant ma raison, 
Guider les foules decrepites 
Vers les lueurs de l'horizon ; 

Qu'a l'heure ou les peuples se levent, 

Tout penseur suit un but profond ; 90 

Qu'il se doit a tous ceux qui revent, 

Qu'il se doit a tous ceux qui vont ; 

Qu'une ame, qu'un feu pur anime, 

Doit hater, avec sa clarte, 

L'epanouissement sublime 95 

De la future humanite" ; 

Qu'il faut prendre part, cceurs fideles, 

Sans redouter les oceans, 

Aux fetes des choses nouvelles, 

Aux combats des esprits geants ! 100 

Vous voyez des pleurs sur ma joue, 
Et vous m'abordez mecontents, 
Comme par le bras on secoue 
Un homme qui dort trop longtemps. 

Mais songez a ce que vous faites 105 

Helas ! cet ange au front si beau, 
Quand vous m'appelez a vos fetes, 
Peut-etre a froid dans son tombeau. 

Peut-etre, livide et palie, 

Dit-elle dans son lit ^troit : no 

— Est-ce que mon pere m'oublie 

Et n'est plus la, que j'ai si froid ? 



140 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Quoi! lorsqu'a peine je resiste 

Aux choses dont je me souviens, 

Quand je suis brise, las et triste, 115 

Quand je l'entends qui me dit : Viens ! 

Quoi ! vous voulez que je souhaite, 

Moi, plie - par un coup soudain, 

La rumeur qui suit le poete, 

Le bruit que fait le paladin ! 120 

Vous voulez que j 'aspire encore 
Aux triomphes doux et dores ! 
Que j'annonce aux dormeurs l'aurore ! 
Que je crie : Allez ! esperez ! 

Vous voulez que, dans la mel6e, 125 

Je rentre ardent parmi les forts, 

Les yeux a la voute 6toilee... — 

Oh ! l'herbe 6paisse ou sont les morts ! 

[Les Contemplations, ii- 
10 novembre 1846. 



XXVI 

O gouffre ! Fame plonge et rapporte le doute. 

Nous entendons sur nous les heures, goutte a goutte, 

Tomber comme l'eau sur les plombs ; 
L'homme est brumeux, le monde est noir, le ciel est sombre, 
Les formes de la nuit vont et viennent dans l'ombre ; 5 

Et nous, pales, nous contemplons. 

Nous contemplons l'obscur, l'inconnu, l'invisible. 
Nous sondons le r£el, l'id6al, le possible, 

L'Stre, spectre toujours present. 
Nous regardons trembler l'ombre ind£termin6e. 10 

Nous sommes accoudes sur notre destined, 

L'ceil fixe et l'esprit fr^missant. 



VICTOR HUGO 141 

Nous epions des bruits dans ces vides funebres, 
Nous ecoutons le souffle, errant dans les tenebres, 

Dont frissonne l'obscurite' ; is 

Et, par moments, perdus dans les nuits insondables, 
Nous voyons s'eclairer de lueurs formidables 

La vitre de l'6temite\ 

[Les Gontem/plations, ii. 
Marine Terrace, septembre 1853. 

XXVII 

France, a l'heure ou tu te prosternes, 
Le pied d'un tyran sur le front, 
La voix sortira des cavernes, 
Les encham^s tressailleront. 

Le banni, debout sur la greve, s 

Contemplant l'6toile et le flot, 
Comme ceux qu'on entend en r§ve, 
Parlera dans l'ombre tout haut ; 

Et ses paroles qui menacent, 

Ses paroles dont l'eclair luit, 10 

Seront comme des mains qui passent 

Tenant des glaives dans la nuit. 

Elles feront fr£mir les marbres 

Et les monts que brunit le soir ; 

Et les chevelures des arbres i 5 

Frissonneront sous le ciel noir. 

Elles seront l'airain qui sonne, 

Le cri qui cbasse les corbeaux, 

Le souffle inconnu dont frissonne 

Le brin d'herbe sur les tombeaux ; 20 

Sur les races qui se transforment, 
Sombre orage, elles planeront ; 
Et si ceux qui vivent s'endorment, 
Ceux qui sont morts s'eveilleront. 

[Les Ch&timents. 
Jersey, aoDi 1853. 



142 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

XXVIII 

i 

Oh ! je sais qu'ils feront des mensonges sans nombre 
Pour s'evader des mains de la verite" sombre ; 
Qu'ils nieront, qu'ils diront : ce n'est pas moi, c'est lui ! 
Mais, n'est-il pas vrai, Dante, Eschyle, et vous, prophetes ? 

Jamais, du poignet des poetes, 5 

Jamais, pris au collet, les malfaiteurs n'ont fui. 
J'ai ferme sur ceux-ci mon livre expiatoire ; 

J'ai mis des verrous a Phistoire ; 

L'histoire est un bagne aujourd'hui. 

Le poete n'est plus l'esprit qui reve et prie ; 10 

II a la grosse clef de la conciergerie. 
Quand ils entrent au greffe, ou pend leur chaine au clou, 
On regarde le prince aux poches, comme un drole, 

Et les empereurs a l'epaule ; 
Macbeth est un escroc, C^sar est un filou. i 5 

Vous gardez des forcats, 6 mes strophes ail^es ! 

Les Calliopes etoilees 

Tiennent des registres d'ecrou. 

ii 

O peuples douloureux, il faut bien qu'on vous venge ! 
Les rh&eurs froids m'ont dit : Le poete, c'est l'ange ; 20 

II plane, ignorant Fould, Magnan, Morny, Maupas ; 
II contemple la nuit sereine avec delices . . . — 

Non, tant que vous serez complices 
De ces crimes hideux que je suis pas a pas, 
Tant que vous couvrirez ces brigands de vos voiles, 25 

Cieux azures, soleils, etoiles, 

Je ne vous regarderai pas ! 

Tant qu'un gueux forcera les bouches a se taire, 
Tant que la liberte" sera couchee a terre 
Comme une femme morte et qu'on vient de noyer, 30 

Tant que dans les pontons on entendra des rales, 
J'aurai des clartes sepulcrales 



VICTOR HUGO 143 

Pour tous ces fronts abjects qu'un bandit fait ployer. 
Je crierai : Leve-toi, peuple ! ciel, tonne et gronde ! 

La France, dans sa nuit profonde, 3S 

Verra ma torche flamboyer ! 



in 

Ces coquins vils qui font de la France une Chine, 

On entendra mon fouet claquer sur leur echine. 

lis chantent : Te Deum, je crierai : Memento t 

Je fouaillerai les gens, les faits, les noms, les titres, 40 

Porte-sabres et porte-mitres ; 
Je les tiens dans mon vers comme dans un etau. 
On verra choir surplis, epaulettes, bre>iaires, 

Et Cesar, sous mes etrivieres, 

Se sauver, troussant son manteau ! 45 

Et les champs, et les pres, le lac, la fleur, la plaine, 
Les nuages pareils a des flocons de laine, 
L'eau qui fait frissonner l'algue et les goemons, 
Et l'enorme ocean, hydre aux ^cailles vertes, 

Les forets de rumeurs couvertes, 50 

Le phare sur les flots, l'6toile sur les monts, 
Me reconnaitront bien et diront a voix basse : 

C'est un esprit vengeur qui passe, 

Chassant devant lui des demons ! 

[Les Ghdtiments. 
Jersey, novembre 1852. 



XXIX 

Le Chasseur Noir 

— Qu'es-tu, passant ? Le bois est sombre, 
Les corbeaux volent en grand nombre, 

II va pleuvoir. 

— Je suis celui qui va dans l'ombre, 

Le chasseur noir ! 



144 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Les feuilles des bois, du vent remuees, 

Sifflent ... on dirait 
Qu'un sabbat nocturne emplit de hu^es 

Toute la f oret ; 
Dans une clairiere au sein des nu^es 10 

La lune apparait. 

Chasse le daim, chasse la biche, 

Cours dans les bois, cours dans la friche, 

Voici le soir. 
Chasse le czar, chasse l'Autriche, 15 

chasseur noir ! 

Les feuilles des bois — 

II tonne, il pleut, c'est le deluge. 
Le renard fuit, pas de refuge 

Et pas d'espoir ! 20 

Chasse l'espion, chasse le juge, 

O chasseur noir ! 

Les feuilles des bois — 

Tous les demons de Saint Antoine 
Bondissent dans la folle avoine 

Sans t'emouvoir ; 
Chasse l'abbe, chasse le moine, 

chasseur noir ! 

Les feuilles des bois — 

Chasse les ours ! ta nieute jappe. 30 

Que pas un sanglier n'6chappe ! 

Fais ton devoir ! 
Chasse C6sar, chasse le pape, 

chasseur noir ! 



»s 



Les feuilles des bois — 

Le loup de ton sentier s'ecarte. 
Que ta meute a sa suite parte ! 

Cours ! fais-le choir ! 
Chasse le brigand Bonaparte, 

chasseur noir ! 



35 



40 



VICTOR HUGO 145 

Les feuilles des bois, du vent remuees, 

Tombent ... on dirait 
Que le sabbat sombre aux rauques huees 

A fui la foret ; 
Le clair chant du coq perce les nuees ; 45 

Ciel ! l'aube apparait ! 

Tout reprend sa force premiere. 
Tu redeviens la France altiere, 

Si belle a voir, 
L'ange blanc vetu de lumiere, 50 

O chasseur noir ! 

Les feuilles des bois, du vent remuees, 

Tombent ... on dirait 
Que le sabbat sombre aux rauques huees 

A fui la foret ; 55 

Le clair chant du coq perce les nuees ; 
Ciel ! l'aube apparait ! 

[Les Ghdtvments. 
Jersey, septembre 1853. 



XXX 

Gros Temps la Nuit 

Le vent hurle, la rafale 
Sort, ruisselante cavale, 

Du gouffre obscur 
Et, hennissant sur l'eau bleue 
Des crins epars de sa queue 

Fouette l'azur. 

L'horizon, que l'onde encombre, 
Serpent, au bas du ciel sombre 

Court tortueux ; 
Toute la mer est difforme ; 
L'eau s'emplit d'un bruit enorme 

Et monstrueux. 



146 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Le flot vient, s'enfuit, s'approche, 
Et bondit comme la cloche 

Dans le clocher, is 

Puis tombe, et bondit encore ; 
La vague immense et sonore 

Bat le rocher. 

L'ocean frappe la terre. 

Oh ! le forgeron mystere, *> 

Au noir manteau, 
Que forge-t-il dans la brume, 
Pour battre une telle enclume 

D'un tel marteau ? 

L'hydre ecaillee a l'ceil glauque 25 

Se roule sur le flot rauque 

Sans frein ni mors ; 
La tempete maniaque 
Remue au fond du cloaque 

Les os des morts. 30 

La mer chante un chant barbare. 
Les marins sont a la barre, 

Tout ruisselants ; 
L'eclair sur les promontoires 
Eblouit les vagues noires 35 

De ses yeux blancs. 

Les marins qui sont au large 
Jettent tout ce qui les charge, 

Canons, ballots ; 
Mais le flot gronde et blaspheme. 40 

— Ce que je veux, c'est vous-meme, 

O matelots ! 

Le ciel et la mer font rage. 
C'est la saison, c'est l'orage, 

C'est le climat. 45 

L'ombre aveugle le pilote. 
La voile en haillons grelotte 

Au bout du mat. 



VICTOR HUGO 147 

Tout se plaint, Pancre a la proue, 

La vergue au cable, la roue so 

Au cabestan. 
On croit voir, dans l'eau qui gronde, 
Comme un mont roulant sur l'onde, 

Leviathan. 

Tout prend un hideux langage ; 5S 

Le roulis parle au tangage, 

La hune au foe. 
L'un dit : — L'eau sombre se leve. 
L'autre dit : — Le hameau reve 

Au chant du coq. 60 

C'est un vent de l'autre monde 
Qui tourmente l'eau profonde 

De tout c6te, 
Et qui rugit dans l'averse ; 
L'eternite bouleverse 65 

L'immensite. 

C'est fini ! la cale est pleine. 
Adieu, maison, verte plaine, 

Atre empourpre ! 
L'homme crie : 6 providence ! 7 o 

La mort aux dents blanches danse 

Sur le beaupre. 

Et dans la sombre melee 
Quelque fee echevelee, 

Urgel, Morgan, 75 

A travers le vent qui souffle, 
Jette en riant sa pantoufle 

A l'ouragan. 

[Toute la Lyre, i. 
2fevrier 1854. 



148 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

XXXI 

La Terre: Hymne 

Elle est la terre, elle est la plaine, elle est le champ. 
Elle est chere a tous ceux qui sement en marchant; 

Elle offre un lit de mousse au patre ; 
Frileuse, elle se chauffe au soleil eternel, 
Rit, et fait cercle avec les planetes du ciel s 

Comme des sceurs autour de l'atre. 

Elle aime le rayon propice aux bles mouvants, 
Et l'assainissement formidable des vents, 

Et les souffles, qui sont des lyres, 
Et l'eclair, front vivant qui, lorsqu'il brille et fuit, 10 
Tout ensemble epouvante et rassure la nuit 

A force d'effrayants sourires. 

Gloire a la terre ! Gloire a l'aube ou Dieu paratt ! 
Au fourmillement d'yeux ouverts dans la foret, 

Aux fleurs, aux nids que le jour dore ! 15 

Gloire au blanchissement nocturne des sommets ! 
Gloire au ciel bleu qui peut, sans s'epuiser jamais, 

Faire des depenses d'aurore ! 

La terre aime ce ciel tranquille, egal pour tous, 

Dont la serenite ne depend pas de nous, 20 

Et qui mele a nos vils desastres, 
A nos deuils, aux eclats de rires effrontes, 
A nos mSchancetes, a nos rapiditfe, 

La douceur profonde des astres. 

La terre est calme aupres de l'ocean grondeur ; 25 

La terre est belle ; elle a la divine pudeur 

De se cacher sous les feuillages ; 
Le printemps son amant vient en mai la baiser ; 
Elle envoie au tonnerre altier pour l'apaiser 

La fum^e humble des villages. 30 



35 



VICTOR HUGO 149 

Ne frappe pas, tonnerre. lis sont petits, ceux-ci. 
La terre est bonne ; elle est grave et severe aussi ; 

Les roses sont pures comme elle ; 
Quiconque pense, espere et travaille lui plait, 
Et l'innocence offerte a tout homme est son lait, 

Et la justice est sa mamelle. 

La terre cache l'or et montre les moissons ; 
Elle met dans le flanc des fuyantes saisons 

Le germe des saisons prochaines, 
Dans l'azur les oiseaux qui chuchotent : aimons ! 40 
Et les sources au fond de l'ombre, et sur les monts 

L'immense tremblement des chenes. 

L'harmonie est son ceuvre auguste sous les cieux ; 
Elle ordonne aux roseaux de saluer, joyeux 

Et satisfaits, l'arbre superbe ; 45 

Car l'equilibre, c'est le bas aimant le haut ; 
Pour que le cedre altier soit dans son droit, il faut 

Le consentement du brin d'herbe. 

Elle 6galise tout dans la fosse, et confond 

Avec les bouviers morts la poussiere que font 50 

Les C6sars et les Alexandres ; 
Elle envoie au ciel Tame et garde Panimal ; 
Elle ignore, en son vaste effacement du mal, 

La difference de deux cendres. 

Elle paie a chacun sa dette, au jour la nuit, 55 

A la nuit le jour, l'herbe aux rocs, aux fieurs le fruit ; 

Elle nourrit ce qu'elle cree, 
Et l'arbre est confiant quand rhomme est incertain ; 
confrontation qui fait honte au destin, 

grande nature sacree ! 60 

Elle fut le berceau d'Adam et de Japhet, 

Et puis elle est leur tombe ; et c'est elle qui fait 

Dans Tyr qu'aujourd'hui Ton ignore, 
Dans Sparte et Rome en deuil, dans Memphis abattu, 
Dans tous les lieux ou l'homme a parl6, puis s'est tu, 65 

Chanter la cigale sonore. 



150 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Pourquoi ? Pour consoler les sepulcres dormants. 
Pourquoi ? Parce qu'il faut faire aux ecroulements 

Succeder les apotheoses, 
Aux voix qui disent Non les voix qui disent Oui, 70 
Aux disparitions de l'homme evanoui 

Le chant mysterieux des choses. 

La terre a pour amis les moissonneurs ; le soir, 
Elle voudrait chasser du vaste horizon noir 

L'apre essaim des corbeaux voraces, 75 

A l'heure ou le bceuf las dit : Rentrons maintenant ; 
Quand les bruns laboureurs s'en reviennent trainant 

Les socs pareils a des cuirasses. 

Elle enfante sans fin les fleurs qui durent peu ; 

Les fleurs ne font jamais de reproches a Dieu ; 80 

Des chastes lys, des vignes mures, 
Des myrtes frissonnant au vent, jamais un cri 
Ne monte vers le ciel venerable, attendri 

Par l'innocence des murmures. 

Elle ouvre un livre obscur sous les rameaux £pais ; 85 
Elle fait son possible, et prodigue la paix 

Au rocher, a l'arbre, a la plante, 
Pour nous eclairer, nous, fils de Cham et d'Hermes, 
Qui sommes condamnes a ne lire jamais 

Qu'a de la lumiere tremblante. 90 

Son but, c'est la naissance et ce n'est pas la mort ; 
C'est la bouche qui parle et non la dent qui mord ; 

Quand la guerre infame se rue 
Creusant dans l'homme un vil sillon de sang baigne, 
Farouche, elle detourne un regard indigne 95 

De cette sinistre charrue. 

Meurtrie, elle demande aux hommes : A quoi sert 
Le ravage ? Quel fruit produira le desert ? 

Pourquoi tuer la plaine verte ? 
Elle ne trouve pas utiles les mechants, 100 

Et pleure la beaut6 virginale des champs 

Deshonores en pure perte. 



VICTOR HUGO 151 

La terre fut jadis Ceres, Alma Ceres, 

Mere aux yeux bleus des bles, des pres et des forets ; 

Et je Ten tends qui dit encore : 105 

Fils, je suis Demeter, la d^esse des dieux ; 
Et vous me batirez un temple radieux 

Sur la colline Callichore. 

[La Ldgende des Siecles. 

XXXII 

Booz Endormi 

Booz s'etait couche de fatigue accable" ; 
II avait tout le jour travaille dans son aire, 
Puis avait fait son lit a sa place ordinaire ; 
Booz dormait aupres des boisseaux pleins de ble. 

Ce vieillard possedait des champs de bles et d'orge ; 5 
II etait, quoique riche, a la justice enelin ; 
II n'avait pas de fange en l'eau de son moulin, 
II n'avait pas d'enfer dans le feu de sa forge. 

Sa barbe 6tait d'argent comme un ruisseau d'avril. 
Sa gerbe n'etait point avare ni haineuse ; 10 

Quand il voyait passer quelque pauvre glaneuse : 
— Laissez tomber expres des epis, disait-il. 

Cet homme marchait pur loin des sentiers obliques, 
Ve"tu de probity candide et de lin blanc ; 
Et, toujours du cote des pauvres ruisselant, 15 

Ses sacs de grains semblaient des fontaines publiques. 

Booz etait bon mattre et fidele parent ; 

II £tait g^nereux, quoiqu'il fut econome ; 

Les femmes regardaient Booz plus qu'un jeune homme, 

Car le jeune homme est beau, mais le vieillard est grand. 20 

Le vieillard, qui revient vers la source premiere, 
Entre aux jours eternels et sort des jours changeants; 
Et Ton voit de la flamme aux yeux des jeunes gens, 
Mais dans l'ceil du vieillard on voit de la lumiere. 



152 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Done, Booz dans la nuit dormait parmi les siens ; 25 
Pres des meules, qu'on eut prises pour des decombreg, 
Les moissonneurs couches faisaient des groupes sombres; 
Et ceci se passait dans des temps tres anciens. 

Les tribus d'Israel avaient pour chef un juge ; 
La terre, ou l'homme errait sous la tente, inquiet 30 
Des empreintes de pieds de geants qu'il voyait, 
Etait encor mouillee et molle du deluge. 



Conime dormait Jacob, comme dormait Judith, 
Booz, les yeux fermes, gisait sous la feuillee ; 
Or, la porte du ciel s'etant entre-b&illee 35 

Au-dessus de sa tete, un songe en descendit. 

Et ce songe 6tait tel, que Booz vit un chine 

Qui, sorti de son ventre, allait jusqu'au ciel bleu ; 

Une race y montait comme une longue chame ; 

Un roi chantait en bas, en haut mourait un dieu. 4 o 

Et Booz murmurait avec la voix de l'ame : 
' Comment se pourrait-il que de moi ceci vlnt ? 
Le chiftre de mes ans a passe quatrevingt, 
Et je n'ai pas de fils, et je n'ai plus de femme. 

' Voila longtemps que celle avec qui j'ai dormi, 45 

O Seigneur ! a quitte ma couche pour la votre, 
Et nous sommes encor tout meles l'un a l'autre, 
Elle a demi vivante et moi mort a demi. 

' Une race naitrait de moi ! Comment le croire ? 
Comment se pourrait-il que j'eusse des enfants ? 50 

Quand on est jeune, on a des matins triomphants, 
Le jour sort de la nuit comme d'une victoire ; 

' Mais, vieux, on tremble ainsi qu'a l'hiver le bouleau ; 
Je suis veuf, je suis seul, et sur moi le soir tombe, 
Et je courbe, 6 mon Dieu ! mon &me vers la tombe, ss 
Comme un bceuf ayant soif penche son front vers l'eau.' 



VICTOR HUGO 153 

Ainsi parlait Booz dans le reve et l'extase, 
Tournant vers Dieu ses yeux par le sommeil noyes ; 
Le cedre ne sent pas une rose a sa base, 
Et lui ne sentait pas une femme a ses pieds. 60 

Pendant qu'il sommeillait, Ruth, une moabite, 
S'etait couched aux pieds de Booz, le sein nu, 
Esperant on ne sait quel rayon inconnu, 
Quand viendrait du r^veil la lumiere subite. 

Booz ne savait point qu'une femme etait la, 65 

Et Ruth ne savait point ce que Dieu voulait d'elle. 
Un frais parfum sortait des touffes d'asphodele ; 
Les souffles de la nuit flottaient sur Galgala. 

L'ombre etait nuptiale, auguste et solennelle ; 
Les anges y volaient sans doute obscurement, 70 

Car on voyait passer dans la nuit, par moment, 
Quelque chose de bleu qui paraissait une aile. 

La respiration de Booz qui dormait 
Se melait au bruit sourd des ruisseaux sur la mousse. 
On etait dans le mois ou la nature est douce, 75 

Les collines ayant des lys sur leur sommet. 

Ruth songeait et Booz dormait ; l'herbe etait noire ; 
Les grelots des troupeaux palpitaient vaguement ; 
Une immense bonte tombait du firmament ; 
C'etait l'heure tranquille ou les lions vont boire. 80 

Tout reposait dans Ur et dans Jerimadeth ; 
Les astres emaillaient le ciel profond et sombre ; 
Le croissant fin et clair parmi ces fleurs de l'ombre 
Brillait a l'occident, et Ruth se demandait, 

Immobile, ouvrant l'ceil a moitie sous ses voiles, 85 

Quel dieu, quel moissonneur de l'eternel ete 
Avait, en s'en allant, negligemment jete 
Cette faucille d'or dans le champ des etoiles. 

[La Ligende des Siecles. 



154 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POET.5 

XXXIII 

Cassandre 
Argos. La cov/r d/ii palais. 

CASSANDRE, SWT VM char. CLYTEMNESTRE. LE CH(EUR. 

Le Chceur. Elle est fille de roi. — Mais sa ville est en cendre. 

Elle a droit a ce char et n'en veut pas descendre. 

Depuis qu'on l'a saisie, elle n'a point parle\ 

Le marbre de Syrta, la neige de Thule 

N'ont pas plus de froideur que cette apre captive. 5 

Elle est a l'avenir formidable attentive. 

Elle est pleine d'un dieu redoutable et muet ; 

Le sinistre Apollon d'Ombos, qui remuait 

Dodone avec le souffle et Thebe avec la lyre, 

Mele une clarte sombre a son morne delire. 10 

Elle a la vision des choses qui seront ; 

Un reflet de vengeance est deja sur son front ; 

Elle est princesse, elle est pythie, elle est pretresse, 

Elle est esclave. Etrange et lugubre d^tresse ! 

Elle vient sur un char, etant fille de roL 15 

Le peuple, qui regarde aller, pales d'effroi, 

Les prisonniers pieds nus qu'on chasse a coups de lance, 

Et qui rit de leurs cris, a peur de son silence. 
(Le char s'arrete.) 
Clyte. Femme, a pied ! Tu n'es pas ici dans ton pays. 
Le Chceur. Allons, descends du char, c'est la reine, obeis. 20 
Clyte. Crois-tu que j'ai le temps de t'attendre a la porte? 

Hate-toi. Car bientot il faut que le roi sorte. 

Peut-etre entends-tu mal notre langue d'ici ? 

Si ce que je te dis ne se dit pas ainsi 

Au pays dont tu viens et dont tu te separes, 25 

Parle en signes alors, fais comme les barbares. 
Le Chceur. Si Ton parlait sa langue, on saurait son secret. 

On sent en la voyant ce qu'on 6prouverait 

Si Ton venait de prendre une bete farouche. 



VICTOR HUGO 155 

Clyte. Je ne lui parle plus. L'horreur ferme sa bouche. 30 
Triste, elle songe a Troie, au ciel jadis serein. 
Elle ne prendra pas l'habitude du frein 
Sans le couvrir longtemps d'une sanglante ecume. 

(Glytemnestre sort.) 
Le Chcetjr. Cede au destin. Crois-moi. Je suis sans 
amertume. 
Descends du char. Recois la chaine a ton talon. 35 

Cassandre. Dieux ! Grands dieux ! Terre et ciel ! Apollon ! 

Apollon ! 
Apollon Loxias (dans I'ombre). Je suis la. Tu vivras, afin 
que ton ceil voie 
Le flamboiement d'Argos plein des cendres de Troie. 

[La Legende des Siecles. 

xxxiv 

La Chanson de Joss 

' Si tu veux, faisons un r&ve. 
Montons sur deux palefrois; 
Tu m'emmenes, je t'enleve. 
L'oiseau cbante dans les bois. 

' Je suis ton maitre*et ta proie ; s 

Partons, c'est la fin du jour ; 
Mon cheval sera la joie, 
Ton cheval sera l'amour. 

' Nous ferons toucher leurs tetes ; 
Les voyages sont ais£s. 1° 

Nous donnerons a ces betes 
Une avoine de baisers. 

' Viens ! nos doux chevaux mensonges 
Frappent du pied tous les deux, 
Le mien au fond de mes songes, 15 

Et le tien au fond des cieux. 



156 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

' Un bagage est necessaire ; 
Nous emporterons nos vceux, 
Nos bonheurs, notre misere, 
Et la fleur de tes cheveux. 2° 

' Viens, le soir brunit les ehenes, 
Le moineau rit ; ce moqueur 
Entend le doux bruit des chaines 
Que tu in' as mises au cceur. 

' Ce ne sera point ma faute 25 

Si les for§ts et les monts, 
En nous voyant cote a c6te, 
Ne murmurent pas : Aimons ! 

' Viens, sois tendre, je suis ivre. 
les verts taillis mouill^s ! 30 

Ton souffle te fera suivre 
Des papillons reveilles. 

' L'envieux oiseau nocturne, 
Triste, ouvrira son ceil rond ; 
Les nymphes, penchant leur urne, 35. 

Dans les grottes souriront, 

' Et diront : " Sommes-nous folles ! 
" C'est Leandre avec Hero ; 
" En ecoutant leurs paroles 
" Nous laissons tomber notre eau." 40 

' Allons-nous-en par l'Autriche. 
Nous aurons l'aube a nos fronts ; 
Je serai grand, et toi riche, 
Puisque nous nous aimerons. 

' Allons-nous-en par la terre, 45 

Sur nos deux chevaux charmants, 
Dans l'azur, dans le mystere, 
Dans les eblouissements ! 



VICTOR HUGO 157 

' Nous entrerons a l'auberge, 
Et nous palrons l'hdtelier 5 o 

De ton sourire de vierge, 
De mon bonjour d'ecolier. 

' Tu seras dame, et moi comte ; 
Viens, mon cceur s'epanouit, 
Viens, nous conterons ce conte 55 

Aux 6toiles de la nuit.' 

[La Ltgende des Siecles : Eviradnus. 
xxxv 

Ecrit en Exil 

L'beureux n'est pas le vrai, le droit n'est pas le nombre ; 

Un vaincu toujours triste, un vainqueur toujours sombre, 

Le sort n'a-t-il done pas d'autre oscillation ? 

Toujours la meme roue et le meme Ixion ! 

Qui que vous soyez, Dieu vers qui tout nous ramene, 5 

Si le faible souffrait en vain, si Tame humaine 

N'etait qu'un grain de cendre aux ouragans jete, 

Je serais mecontent de votre immensite ; 

II faut, dans l'univers fatal, et pourtant libre, 

Aux ames l'equite comme aux cieux l'equilibre ; 10 

J'ai besoin de sentir de la justice au fond 

Du gouffre ou l'ombre avec la clarte se confond ; 

J'ai besoin du mecbant mal a l'aise, et du crime 

Retombant sur le monstre et non sur la victime ; 

Un Cain triompbant importune mes yeux ; 15 

J'ai besoin, quand le mal est puissant et joyeux, 

D'un certain grondement la-baut, et de l'entree 

Du tonnerre au-dessus de la tete d'Atree. 

[La L6gende des Siecles. 

xxxvi 

La Chanson de Fantine 

Nous acheterons de bien belles choses 
En nous promenant le long des faubourgs. 
Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses, 
Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours. 



158 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

La vierge Marie aupres de mon poele s 

Est venue hier en manteau brod6, 

Et m'a dit : — Voici, cache sous mon voile, 

Le petit qu'un jour tu m'as demande. — 

Courez a la ville, ayez de la toile, 

Achetez un fil, achetez un de. 10 

Nous acheterons de bien belles choses 
En nous promenant le long des faubourgs. 

Bonne sainte Vierge, aupres de mon poele 

J'ai mis un berceau de rubans orne ; 

Dieu me donnerait sa plus belle etoile, is 

J'aime mieux l'enfant que tu m'as donne. 

— Madame, que faire avec cette toile ? 

— Faites un trousseau pour mon nouveau-ne. 

Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses, 

Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours. 20 

Lavez cette toile. — Ou ? — Dans la riviere. 

Faites-en, sans rien gater ni salir, 

Une belle jupe avec sa brassiere, 

Que je veux broder et de fleurs emplir. 

— L'enfant n'est plus la, madame, qu'en faire ? 25 

— Faites-en un drap pour m'ensevelir. 

Nous acheterons de bien belles choses 

En nous promenant le long des faubourgs. 

Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses, 

Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours. 30 

[Les Misdrables : Fantine. 

XXXVII 

A La Belle Imp^eieuse 



L'amour, panique 
De la raison, 
Se communique 
Par le frisson. 



VICTOR HUGO 159 

Laissez-moi dire, s 

N'accordez rien. 
Si je soupire, 
Chantez, c'est bien. 

Si je demeure 

Triste, a vos pieds, 10 

Et si je pleure, 

C'est bien, riez. 

Un homme semble 

Souvent trompeur. 

Mais si je tremble, is 

Belle, ayez peur. 

[Chansons des Rues et des Bois. 

xxxviri 
1 E " Janvier 

Enfants, on vous dira plus tard que le grand-pere 
Vous adorait ; qu'il fit de son mieux sur la terre, 
Qu'il eut fort peu de joie et beaucoup d'envieux, 
Qu'au temps ou vous etiez petits il etait vieux, 
Qu'il n'avait pas de mots bourrus ni d'airs moroses, 5 
Et qu'il vous a quittes dans la saison des roses ; 
Qu'il est mort, que c'etait un bonhomme clement ; 
Que dans l'hiver fameux du grand bombardement 
II traversait Paris tragique et plein d'epees 
Pour vous porter des tas de jouets, des poupees, 10 

Et des pantins faisant mille gestes bouffons ; 
Et vous serez pensifs sous les arbres profonds. 

[L'Annee Terrible. 
xxxix 
Choses du Soie 

Le brouillard est froid, la bruyere est grise ; 
Les troupeaux de boeufs vont aux abreuvoirs ; 
La lune, sortant des nuages noirs 
Semble une clarte qui vient par surprise. 



160 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus ou, 5 

Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 

Le voyageur marche et la lande est brune ; 

Une ombre est derriere, une ombre est devant ; 

Blancheur au couchant, lueur au levant ; 

Ici crepuscule, et la clair de lune. 10 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus oil, 
Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 

La sorciere assise allonge sa lippe ; 

L'araignee accroche au toit son filet ; 

Le lutin reluit dans le feu follet i S 

Comme un pistil d'or dans une tulipe. 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus ou, 
Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 

On voit sur la mer des chasse-marees ; 

Le naufrage guette un mat frissonnant ; 20 

Le vent dit : domain ! l'eau dit : maintenant ! 

Les voix qu'on entend sont d^sesperees. 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus ou, 
Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 

Le coche qui va d'Avranche a Fougere 25 

Fait claquer son fouet comme un vif eclair ; 
Voici le moment ou flottent dans l'air 
Tous ces bruits confus que l'ombre exagere. 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus ou, 
Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 



3° 



Dans les bois profonds brillent les flambees ; 
Un vieux cimetiere est sur un sommet ; 
Ou Dieu trouve-t-il tout ce noir qu'il met 
Dans les cceurs brises et les nuits tombees ? 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus ou, 
Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 



3S 



VICTOR HUGO 161 

Des flaques d'argent tremblent sur les sables ; 

L'orfraie est au bord des talus crayeux ; 

Le patre, a travers le vent, suit des yeux 

Le vol monstrueux et vague des diables. 40 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus ou, 
Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 

Un panache gris sort des cheminees ; 

Le bucheron passe avec son fardeau ; 

On entend, parmi le bruit des cours d'eau, 45 

Des fremissements de branches trainees. 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus ou, 
Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 

La faim fait rSver les grands loups moroses ; 

La riviere court, le nuage fuit ; 50 

Derriere la vitre ou la lampe luit, 

Les petits enfants ont des tetes roses. 

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus ou, 
Maitre Yvon soufflait dans son biniou. 

[L'Art d'etre Grand~pere. 

XL 

Chanson d'Autrefois 

Jamais elle ne raille, 
Etant un calme esprit ; 
Mais toujours elle rit. — 
Voici des brins de mousse avec des brins de paille ; 

Fauvette des roseaux, s 

Fais ton nid sur les eaux. 

Quand sur la clarte' douce 
Qui sort de tes beaux yeux, 
On passe, on est joyeux. — 
Voici des brins de paille avec des brins de mousse ; 10 
Martinet de l'azur, 
Fais ton nid dans mon mur. 



162 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Dans l'aube avril se mire, 
Et les rameaux fleuris 
Sont pleins de petits cris.— - i 5 

Voici de ton regard, voici de ton sourire ; 
Amour, 6 doux vainqueur, 
Fais ton nid dans mon cceur. 

[Les Quatre Vents de V Esprit, iii. 



GEEARD DE NERVAL 163 



GEKARD DE NERVAL 

1808-1855 

G^rakd Labeunie, who adopted the name de Nerval, was the son 
of an army surgeon : it was one of Ms delusions that his father was 
Napoleon. He was born in Paris and brought up by an uncle at 
Ermenonville : a desultory education ended at the Lyc6e Charlemagne. 
Before he left school young Gerard was an author, having published, 
under the title of Napoleon, ou la France guerriere, some worthless 
patriotic rhapsodies, followed shortly by a bundle of political satires 
which are not much more estimable. His serious work began with 
a translation of Faust (1828) which Goethe admired, and some lyrical 
fragments of which were used by Berlioz for his great work. A 
book of versions from German poets appeared two years later. 

About this time a hopeless passion for an actress, Jenny Colon, 
drove him abroad. He wandered for some years in Italy, Germany, 
and the Levant; and this obscure period of a driftless life, if not 
immediately fertile, seems to contain the secret of his most fortunate 
inspiration. In 1841 he became insane, and it is doubtful whether 
he ever recovered perfectly, though his most productive period dates 
from that year. He wrote much for the press, collaborating with his 
schoolfellow Gautier in dramatic criticism, and reproducing scenes 
of Oriental life. Les Illumines, a volume of curious studies on 
Cagliostro and other famous occultists, was published in 1852, and 
in 1854 appeared his finest prose work, Les Filles du Feu. Early in 
the year 1855, Gerard's body was found hanging to an iron grating 
in a vile alley near the Chatelet. It is not quite certain whether he 
killed himself. 

Aur&ia — the story of his madness — and La Boheme Galante were 
published after his death : so was his finest poetry. As a poet he 
had given little to the world in his maturity ; and though the inner 
public had always appreciated his subtle and vivacious prose, he did 
not live to enjoy the fame of those enthralling and rhapsodical 
romances Les Filles du Feu, the most delightful of which is Sylvie, 
a masterpiece at once fantastical and idyllic, interspersed with lovely 
fragments of folksong from the Valois. Most of Gerard's poetry is 
third-rate : but his translations from the German give him a special 



164 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

place beside Emile Deschamps in the Komantic movement, and 
above all the six sonnets called Les Chimeres, with Les Cydalises and 
Vers Bore's and Le Christ aux Olives, rank him among the entirely 
original and accomplished poets of his age. A quite exceptional and 
irrational enchantment lurks in the dark syllables of Les Chimeres. 
Apart from the appreciable beauty of their form — and externally 
they are pellucid as running water — these sonnets glow with the 
prestige of unaccountable associations and of names august, mysterious 
and potent, successive and distant influences brought together in a 
dream of sound. Gerard de Nerval is not the founder of modern 
Symbolism ; but it needed perhaps the recent exploration of the 
incantatory virtue which is the sovereignty of words, to reveal the 
significance of this curious and unfortunate poet. 

(Euvres Completes: Paris, Calmann Levy, 1877. M. Remy de 
Gourmont has written a charming prefatory note for a small separate 
edition of the Chime'res, published by the Sociiti du Mereure de 
France. 

XLI 

Fantaisie 

II est un air pour qui je donnerais 
Tout Rossini, tout Mozart et tout Weber ; 
Un air tres-vieux, languissant et funebre, 
Qui pour moi seul a des charmes secrets. 

Or chaque fois que je viens a l'entendre, s 

De deux cents ans mon ame rajeunit : 
C'est sous Louis treize . . . et je crois voir s'^tendre 
Un coteau vert que le couchant jaunit ; 

Puis un chateau de brique a coins de pierre, 

Aux vitraux teints de rougeatres couleurs, 10 

Ceint de grands pares, avec une riviere 

Baignant ses pieds, qui coule entre des fleurs ; 

Puis une dame a sa haute fenetre 
Blonde aux yeux noirs, en ses habits anciens . . . 
Que, dans une autre existence peut-etre, i S 

J'ai deja vue ! — et dont je me souviens ! 

1831. 



GERARD DE NERVAL 165 

XLII 

El Desdichado 

Je suis le tenebreux, — le veuf, — l'inconsole, 
Le prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie : 
Ma seule dtoile est morte, — et mon luth constelle 
Porte le soleil noir de la M4lancolie. 

Dans la nuit du tombeau, toi qui m'as console, 5 

Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d'ltalie, 
La,flev/r qui plaisait tant a mon cceur desole 
Et la treille ou le pampre a la rose s'allie. 

Suis-je Amour ou Phebus ? . . . Lusignan ou Biron ? 
Mon front est rouge encor du baiser de la reine ; 10 
J'ai reve dans la grotte ou nage la syrene . . . 

Et j'ai deux fois vainqueur traverse l'Acheron 
Modulant tour a tour sur la lyre d'Orphee 
Les soupirs de la sainte et les cris de la tee. 

[Les Chimeres. 
1853. 



166 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

emile deschamps 

1791-1871 

Born at Bourges, the son of a public servant, he spent most of his 
long and uneventful life as a clerk in the Treasury. His first 
published poem, La Paix Conquise, dates from 1812, and is quite 
uninteresting : in the next few years he made a certain reputation 
as a writer of agreeable comedies ; but it was not until 1828 that 
Emile Deschamps took rank as a romantic lyrist with the collection 
called Hbwdes Francaises et Mranglres. He had belonged to the 
movement from the first, was one of the founders, in 1823, of La 
Muse Francaise, and the Preface to his poems was recognised as the 
most important manifesto in favour of the new ideals, after the 
Preface to Cromwell, and far more conciliatory and more practical 
than that famous piece of writing. Deschamps never, perhaps, 
justified the promise of the Etudes in so far as original poetry is 
concerned. The by-paths throughout his career attracted him most. 
As a verse translator he did valuable work, collaborating with Vigny 
in a paraphrase of Borneo and Juliet (1829), turning Macbeth into a 
French tragedy which is, at any rate, an immense advance upon the 
timid adaptations made before him, and rendering a considerable num- 
ber of German lyrics. He wrote also the libretti of several operas 
(collaborating notably with Meyerbeer and with the great Berlioz) ; but 
the attempt to ennoble so poor a trade was above or beneath his 
ingenuity and taste. He excelled in vers de circonstance, and 
frittered away much of his talent in compliments. The friend and 
almost the rival, for a moment, of the great poets of his generation, 
Deschamps lived to be almost forgotten, in spite of his versatile 
industry, and his alert interest in the development of French poetry 
in the hands of younger writers whom his modesty led him to praise 
somewhat indiscriminately. He spent his last years, appropriately, 
at Versailles. 

As a poet, Emile Deschamps possesses, in default of more com- 
manding characteristics, an unfailing grace, suppleness, the habit of 
concrete expression and a real facility in riming. Passion and mystery 
are almost absent from his sunny verse, but that his sensibility was 
more than skin-deep such a heartrending piece as ' Morte pour leur 



EMILE DESCHAMPS 167 

f aire plaisir ' is proof enough. He is very French ; yet no member 
of the Romantic group represents more abundantly than he that 
curiosity which looked beyond the frontier for the refreshment of 
French poetry — a real, though overestimated element in determin- 
ing ;the movement. His masterly imitation of the Spanish 
Romancero had a distinct and lasting influence in this direction. 
And it must not be forgotten that he shares with Vigny the distinc- 
tion of having introduced the long lyrical narrative — poeme — into 
France. 

Fjmile Deschamps had a brother, Antony (1800-1869), who was 
also a poet of some note, and is best known for his translation of 
the Divine Comedy. He had indeed, of the two, the stronger 
personality ; but his original work, elegiac and satirical, is clouded 
by the mental disease which afflicted his life, and is too often verbose 
and only spasmodically excellent. 

The works of Emile Deschamps have been collected into six 
volumes, with a Preface by Theophile Gautier. 

XLIII 
A QUELQUES PoETES 

Quelque chose qui jette en mon coeur agite 
Un saint etonnement que rien ne peut distraire, 
C'est un sonnet de Tasse a Camoens, son frere, 
Son rival d'infortune et d'immortalite : 

J'y vois que, sur un ton de calme dignite 5 

lis parlaient de leur muse, a l'aile temeraire, 
De triomphes divins, de sceptre litteraire, 
Comme deux rois, traitant de leur autorite. 

Pourtant la destinee etait loin d'etre bonne 

Au cygne de Ferrare, a l'aigle de Lisbonne ; 10 

Tous deux se repondaient au fond d'un hdpital ! 

Avec l'amour ingrat et la gloire muette 

La faim les a tues, ces dieux ! — Et maint poete 

Se plaint, chez Tortoni, que son astre est fatal ! 

[Ultudes frangaises et dtrangeres. 



168 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



XLIV 
NlZZA 

Nizza, je puis sans peine 
Dans les beautes de Gene, 
Trouver plus douce reine, 

Mais 
Plus beaux yeux, jamais. 

Tu peux trouver sans peine, 
Plus haut seigneur dans Gene 
Pour te nommer sa reine, 

Mais 
Plus d'amour, jamais. 

Tu peux, avec tes charmes, 
Remplir mon cceur d'alarmes, 
Et le noyer de larmes, 

Mais 
Le changer, jamais ! 

Je puis, mourant d'alarmes, 
Les yeux bruits de larmes 
Maudire un jour tes charmes, 

Mais 
T'oublier, jamais! 

[Mvdes frcmgaisea et dtrcmgeres. 



CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE 169 
CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE 

1804-1869 

Sainte-Betjve won his rank as a great French man of letters by 
criticism — that is, by literary and historical portraits, the analysis of 
temperaments and the reconstruction of characters, for -which upon 
the whole he cared more deeply than for art : the History of Portt- 
Eoyal (1840-1848) and the vast collection of weekly articles — Lundis 
— contributed from 1849 onwards to Le Constitutionnel and Le 
Monitew, are the achievements by which he is universally remem- 
bered. But he was also a poet : a little of his verse is exquisite, 
most of it is very interesting, and the diversity of the lyrical revival 
would be most inadequately presented without some example of his 
restless and inquisitive talent. 

He was born of a Picard family at Boulogne, had a classical educa- 
tion and studied for a doctor] but he was already unusually well 
equipped for letters at the age of twenty, when, abandoning medicine, 
he found work on Le Globe, almost the only liberal paper disposed 
to treat the new poets sympathetically. Through the editor he met 
Victor Hugo, and a strong friendship sprang up between them. A 
wider, or at least a more systematic reader than any member of the 
cinacle, Sainte-Beuve in his early enthusiasm was impressed by the 
necessity of finding ancestors for the new Pleiad, and a superfluous 
anxiety to justify the revival historically was the underlying motive 
of his first book, Tableau de la Pofoie frangaise au XVIme. siecle, 
which appeared in 1828 and helped to resuscitate the older literature 
neglected for two hundred years. It is difficult to appreciate the 
reality of Sainte-Beuve's influence upon Hugo and the rest as a 
scholar, as an expert in points of poetical craftsmanship, as a free- 
thinker and a liberal : but undoubtedly he did them and a bewildered 
public an important service by defining and propagating the ideals of 
the first Bomantic generation ; and later he increased the debt as a 
critic of the foibles and exaggerations which clogged the movement, 
once it had grown self-conscious. Meanwhile he emulated the talent 
of his friends. Joseph Delorme, a book of prose and verse mingled, 
revealed a poet rather accomplished than spontaneous, a careful 
craftsman and a curious psychologist. Les Consolations (1830), more 



170 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

frankly, perhaps more vulgarly Komantic in tone, and Pensees d'Ao&i 
(1837) with Notes et Sonnets complete the published 1 contribution of 
Sainte-Beuve to the poetry of his times. 

Sainte-Beuve was a man of books and also a man of pleasure. He 
had many friends and was capable of generous actions; but he 
showed himself often jealous and rancorous. His life had no great 
vicissitudes, but was marked by a certain number of sensational 
incidents— a duel with his old master Dubois in 1830; the obscure 
but at any rate discreditable quarrel with Hugo; ruptures and 
reconcilements with this editor and that j and his political equivoca- 
tions sometimes gave scandal, as when, having rallied after a Re- 
publican youth to the ' party of order ' and accepted a professorship 
from the Empire, he was hooted by the Paris students and compelled 
to resign his chair. His reception at the Academy in 1844, when it 
fell to Hugo to welcome him and both behaved (after their estrange- 
ment) with remarkable courtesy, was in its day a notable event. 
Sainte-Beuve had charge of the Mazarine Library from 1840 to 1848, 
lectured abroad at Lausanne and Liege, was made Professor of Latin 
Poetry at the Sorbonne and of French Literature at the Normal 
School ; and in 1861 he was nominated to the Senate, but quarrelled 
noisily with the government later on, though, like many writers of 
anti-dynastic sympathies, he frequented the salon of the Princess 
Mathilde Bonaparte. 

Sainte-Beuve has well described the poetry of Joseph Delorme as 
' des peintures d'analyse sentimentale et des paysages de petite dimen- 
sion.' He knew and often imitated certain English poets — Young, 
Crabbe, Southey, Wordsworth — and caught from them a taste for 
homely descriptions, a quiet and pensive manner ; and perhaps they 
fortified his habits of introspection. All his poetry is the poetry of 
one in whom a sympathetic or even a pathological curiosity aspires 
to replace creative power. It is the poetry also of a profound sceptic, 
though we owe Port-Royal to a phase of deep if rather morbid 
interest in the phenomenon of faith — and to the personal influence 
of Lamennais. 

The poetry of Sainte-Beuve was collected into one volume in 1840. 

1 A book called Le Livre d Amour, poems inspired by Sainte-Beuve's 
passion for Madame Victor Hugo, was printed for him but never published. 
A recent biographer has largely excerpted the copy in the National Library. 
See, on thiB subject, M. G. Michaut's study Le Livre d' Amour de Sainte- 
Beuve (Paris : Fontemoing, 1905.) 



CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE 171 

XLV 

Pensee d'Atttomne 

Jardin du Luxembourg, novembre. 

Au declin de l'automne, il est souvent des jours 

Ou l'annee, on dirait, va se tromper de cours. 

Sous les grands marronniers, sous les platanes jaunes, 

Sous les pales rideaux des saules et des aunes, 

Si par un levant pur ou par un beau couchant 5 

L'on passe, et qu'on regarde aux arbres, tout marchant, 

A voir sur un ciel blanc les noirs reseaux des branches, 

Et les feuilles a jour, aux inegales tranches, 

Greuses par le milieu, les deux bords en croissants, 

Figurer au soleil mille bourgeons naissants ; 10 

Dans une vapeur bleue, a voir tous ces troncs d'arbre 

Nager confusement avec leurs dieux de marbre, 

Et leur cime monter dans un azur si clair ; 

A sentir le vent frais qui parfume encor l'air, 

On oublie a ses pieds la pelouse fletrie, 15 

Et la branche tombee et la feuille qui crie ; 

Trois fois, pres de partir, un charme vous retient, 

Et Ton dit : ' N'est-ce pas le printemps qui revient 

Avant la fin du jour il est encore une heure, 

Ou, pelerin lasse qui touche a sa demeure, 20 

Le soleil au penchant se retourne pour voir, 

Malgre tant de sueurs regrettant d'etre au soir; 

Et, sous ce long regard ou se mele une larme, 

La nature confuse a pris un nouveau charme ; 

Elle hesite un moment, comme dans un adieu ; 25 

L'horizon a l'entour a rougi tout en feu ; 

La fleur en tressaillant a recu la rosee ; 

Le papillon revole a la rose baisee, 

Et foiseau chante au bois en ramage brillant : 

' N'est-ce pas le matin ? n'est-ce pas l'Orient ? ' 30 

Oh ! si pour nous aussi, dans cette vie humaine, 
II est au soir une heure, un instant qui ramene 



172 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Les amours du matin et leur volage essor, 

Et la fraiche rosee, et les nuages d'or ; 

Oh ! si le cceur, repris aux pensers de jeunesse 35 

(Comme s'il esperait, helas ! qu'elle renaisse), 

S'arrlte, se releve avant de defaillir, 

Et s'oublie un seul jour a rever sans vieillir, 

Jouissons, jouissons de la douce journee 

Et ne la troublons pas, cette heure fortunee ; 40 

Car l'hiver pour les champs n'est qu'un bien court sommeil ; 

Chaque matin au ciel reparait le soleil ; 

Mais qui sait si la tombe a son printemps encore, 

Et si la nuit pour nous rallumera l'aurore ? 

[Joseph Delorme. 

XLVI 

A David, Statuaire 
(Sur une Statue d'Enfant.) 

Divini opus Alcimedonlia. — Virgile. 

L'enfant ayant apercu 

(A l'insu 
De sa mere, a peine absente) 
Pendant au premier rameau 

De l'ormeau 5 

Une grappe murissante ; 

L'enfant, a trois ans venu, 

Fort et nu, 
Qui jouait sur la belle herbe, 
N'a pu, sans vite en vouloir, 10 

N'a pu voir 
Briller le raisin superbe. 

II a couru ! ses dix doigts 

A la fois, 
Comme autour d'une corbeille, 15 

Tirent la grappe qui rit 

Dans son fruit. 
Buvez, buvez, jeune abeille ! 



CHARLES-AUGUSTIN SAINTE-BEUVE 173 

La grappe est un peu trop haut ; 

Done il faut 20 

Que l'enfant hausse sa levre. 
Sa levre au fruit deja prend, 

II s'y pend, 
II y pend comme la chevre. 

Oh ! comme il pousse en dehors 25 

Tout son corps, 
Petit ventre de Silene, 
Reins eambres, plus fiechissants 

En leur sens 
Que la vigne qu'il ramene. 30 

A deux mains le grain foule 

A coule ; 
Douce liqueur etrangere ! 
Tel, plus jeune, il embrassait 

Et pressait 35 

La mamelle de sa mere. 

Age heureux et sans soupcon ! 

Au gazon 
Que vois-je ? un serpent qui glisse, 
Le m6me serpent qu'on dit 4 o 

Qui mordit, 
Proehe d'Orphee, Eurydice. 

Pauvre enfant ! son pied leve 

L'a sauve* ; 
Rien ne l'avertit encore. — ■ 45 

C'est la vie avec son dard 

Tot ou tard ! 
C'est l'avenir ! qu'il l'ignore ! 

\Pens6es d'Ao4t. 

XL VII 

Dans ce cabriolet de place j'examine 

L'homme qui me conduit, qui n'est plus que machine, 



174 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Hideux, a barbe epaisse, a longs cheveux colles : 

Vice et vin et sommeil chargent ses yeux soules. 

Comment l'homme peut-il ainsi tomber ? pensais-je. s 

— Mais Toi, qui vois si bien le mal a son dehors, 

La crapule poussee a l'abandon du corps, 

Comment tiens-tu ton ame au dedans ? Souvent pleine 

Et chargee, es-tu prompt a la mettre en haleine ? 

Le matin, plus soigneux que l'homme d'a-c6te, 10 

La laves-tu du songe epais ? et degoute, 

Le soir, la laves-tu du jour gros de poussiere ? 

Ne la laisses-tu pas sans bapt^me et priere 

S'engourdir et croupir, conime ce conducteur 

Dont l'immonde sourcil ne sent pas sa moiteur ? 15 

[Pensdes d'Aotfbt. 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 175 



ALFKED DE MUSSET 

1810-1857 

Alfred de Mtxsset, who was born in Paris, was well descended, of 
an old family long settled in the VendSmois, and had literature in the 
blood. Colin Muset the trouvere may or may not have been among his 
ancestors, but Konsard's Cassandre certainly was, as well as a kinsman 
of Joachim du Bellay ; his father, a civil servant, was known as the 
biographer and editor of J.-J. Rousseau and had written novels and 
books of travel besides ; his old cousin the Marquis de Musset-Cogners, 
and his mother's father and brother, were all people of taste and 
attainments ; — and they were all eighteenth century people, sceptical, 
indulgent and polite. In Alfred a congenital tendency to hysteria 
showed itself early ; but his childhood was particularly happy, and he 
won many distinctions at the College Henri Quatre, where the eldest 
son of the future King of the French was among his friends. His 
greatest friend through life was his elder brother Paul. As he grew 
up, he suffered more severely than most from the occasional hypo- 
chondria of immaturity, a common distemper aggravated, among the 
ardent and melancholy French youth of that generation, by the effects 
of a sceptical education and, perhaps, the depression following the 
tragical close of a brilliant age ; and also, in his singular case, by 
precocious debauchery and especially by early symptoms of that 
alcoholism which was to be the great curse of his career. 

While reading ostensibly for the bar and, a little later, playing 
with the study of medicine, young Musset, inflamed by Chehier, 
Lamartine, and Byron, had begun to versify. He was not quite 
eighteen when his first verses, purely imitative, were printed in a 
provincial paper, and he had already been introduced to the cinacle and 
its master by his schoolfellow Paul Foucher, the brother of Madame 
Victor Hugo. It was as the Benjamin of the Romantic family that 
he produced Contes d'Espagne et d'ltalie at the very end of the year 
1829 : but the book, which scandalised old-fashioned readers by its frank 
diction and the insolence of frequent enjambements as well as by a 
somewhat puerile parade of Byronic cynicism (for Mardoche is, 
superficially at least, in the manner of Beppo and Don Juan), 
shocked the school of Hugo and Sainte-Beuve by a poverty of rime 



176 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

which was partly a deliberate assertion of independence in questions 
of form. On the whole, however, this first volume, which reflects a 
petulant, careless, amorous and charming personality, was well 
received. Les Matrons du Feu, especially, was appreciated as that 
sparkling comedy deserved, and Musset was presently invited to 
write for a Paris theatre. He gave it one piece in 1830 ; but La 
Nuit Venitienne (in prose) was an utter failure ; and thenceforward 
he abandoned — not drama, but — the stage. Two out of three poems 
which filled his next volume were written in dramatic form. The 
longer of them, La Coupe et les Lewes, though unequal, incoherent 
and manifestly unplayable, has fine impassioned outbursts, and the 
allegorical conception which gives it a sort of unity — the cup of pure 
happiness dashed from the lips of a sensualist by the fatality of 
sensualism — is sincere and profoundly personal. A quoi rdvent les 
jeunes files is an engaging little play woven round a motive which 
M. Eostand's Romanesques recalls ; and the spirited, if licentious and 
drif tless, story of Nainouna has a conquering suppleness of movement. 
The year 1833 brought into the world the most Romantic of 
Musset's heroes, the sinister and sermonical Jacques Holla. It saw 
also the first act of an episode in the poet's life over which no doubt 
too much ink has been spilled — to little purpose, since after George 
Sand's calumnious Mile et Lwi and Paul de Musset's hasty Lui et Elle, 
and Mme. Louise Colet's novel on the same theme, and the indiscre- 
tions of a dozen friends and the conjectures of as many biographers, 
and even after the publication of the letters which passed between 
the poet and the author of Indiana, there is much that still defies 
the most morbid and even the most legitimate curiosity in the case. 
It is enough to say that, having won (without anything of a siege) 
that part of Mme. Dudevant's affections which was just then dispos- 
able, Alfred de Musset accompanied her to Italy ; that at Venice he 
quickly tired out her patience by his eccentricities — which included 
drunken bouts— while she enraged him by her strict attention to the 
business of authorship; that he fell dangerously ill and she, while 
nursing him (whether any deceit was practised upon the sick man or 
no), fell presently in love with his Venetian doctor. They agreed to 
part and Musset, now convalescent, returned to Paris; but George 
Sand and the physician followed before many months, and an 
equivocal situation threatening a redintegratio amoris, in which 
Pagello grew gradually aware that he was playing a ridiculous 
personage, was prolonged with alternations of storm and calm until — 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 177 

in May 1835 — these astonishing lovers had discovered for the third 
or fourth time a fundamental incongruity of temperament. The 
unedifying story ends with Mme. Dudevant's return to her home in 
Berry. 

It was, beyond all doubt, that one of Musset's many adventures 
of the heart (not to speak of mere caprices, which were numberless) 
which left the most enduring and the bitterest impression ; but it is 
no less certain that his genius was not, as has sometimes been hastily 
supposed, ruined by the experience. The next few years were the 
most fruitful in his life. His greatest lyrical effort — the four Nuits 
— his elegy on the Malibran, the famous lines to Lamartine, and 
many others of his best personal poems, the most Attic of his prose 
tales, and several of the immortal prose comedies which as much as 
his poetry must count among the literary glories of that age — all 
this and much of lesser consequence was produced between 1835 
and 1842. 

From this date onwards his production slackened, though it can 
hardly be said that the quality of his infrequent writing deteriorated ; 
and there is little more to tell about his life, which was almost 
divided between a sick-bed and the haunts of deleterious pleasure. 
Of his relations with Eachel, the Princess Bolgiojoso and other 
notable women there is no need to speak. He had other friends who 
clung to him. He had moments of natural gaiety, fits of hysterical 
despair and some velleities of religion ; certain public successes partly 
consoled him for the consciousness of a decline. His delicate, 
fantastic, tender and witty prose comedies were rescued from oblivion 
by the actress Mme. Allan in 1847 and, one after another, won 
greater popularity than belongs perhaps to any other Eomantic 
dramas. He was elected to the Academy in 1852. His death was 
almost unnoticed. 

If the rank of Alfred de Musset among the greater French poets of 
the last century is still uncertain, it is not that his positive merits — of 
which the chief is certainly the gift of tears — are ever seriously 
disputed. He is eminently a poet of disillusion : it was Flaubert who 
said — 'La desillusion est le propre des faibles.' Transparent spon- 
taneity is his inalienable charm ; and if, in elegy at least, it is almost 
sufficient to communicate personal emotion and principally the dear 
pains of memory, not even Lamartine is his superior as an elegiac poet. 
But every one will not accept the poetic condensed in the famous line — 

Le melodrama est bon oil Margot a pleure, 

M 



178 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

which indeed contains a denial that the quality of emotion matters. 
As an artist he has many obvious disabilities. He is not one of those 
who lived (in the words of Leconte de Lisle) in constant communion 
with the sensible world : imagery is not the very stuff of his style. 
His verse is agile and various, but wants plenitude, amplitude and 
continuity; he disdained the element of rime, and his rhythmical 
originality is almost bounded by 'overflowing' phrases interposed 
with more boldness than significance. Composition is a quality which 
his longer poems scarcely show. But in story, epistle and light satire 
Musset is the only representative in his age of a traditional elegance, 
vivacity and Atticism. He excels in the tone of conversation, and 
his familiarity with Mathurin Begnier and La Fontaine and the 
stories of Voltaire stood him in good stead. But taste, sense, wit 
were innate in him. After his nonage he openly dissociated himself 
from the extravagances and even from the glorious conquests of 
Bomanticism. There was in Musset a classicist, born out of due 
time, even though no poet among his contemporaries is more patheti- 
cally subjective. 

A complete edition of the works of Alfred de Musset is in course 
of publication (Paris : Gamier) : the editor is the well - known 
biographer M. Edmond Bire. 

XLVIII 

Ballade a la Lune 

C'etait, dans la nuit brune, 
Sur le clocher jauni, 

La lune, 
Comme un point sur un i. 

Lune, quel esprit sombre s 

Promene au bout d'un fil, 

Dans l'ombre, 
Ta face et ton profil ? 

Es-tu l'ceil du ciel borgne ? 

Quel oherubin cafard 10 

Nous lorgne 
Sous ton masque blafard ? 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 179 

N'es-tu rien qu'une boule ? 
Qu'un grand faucheux bien gras 

Qui roule is 

Sans pattes et sans bras ? 

Es-tu, je t'en soupconne, 
Le vieux cadran de fer 

Qui sonne 
L'heure aux damnes d'enfer ? 20 

Sur ton front qui voyage 
Ce soir ont-ils compte 

Quel age 
A leur eternity ? 

Est-ce un ver qui te ronge, 25 

Quand ton disque noirci 

S'allonge 
En croissant r^treci ? 

Qui t'avait eborgnee 

L'autre nuit ? T'etais-tu 30 

Cognee 
A quelque arbre pointu ? 

Car tu vins, pale et morne, 
Coller sur mes carreaux 

Ta corne, 35 

A travers les barreaux. 

Va, lune moribonde, 
Le beau corps de Phoebe 

La blonde 
Dans la mer est tombe. 4° 

Tu n'en es que la face, 
Et deja, tout ride, 

S'efiace 
Ton front depossede. 



180 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Rends-nous la chasseresse 4S 

Blanche, au sein virginal, 

Qui presse 
Quelque cerf matinal ! 

Oh ! sous le vert platane, 

Sous les frais coudriers, 5° 

Diane, 
Et ses grands levriers ! 

Le chevreau noir qui doute, 
Pendu sur un rocher, 

L'ecoute, ss 

L'ecoute s'approcher. 

Et, suivant leurs curees, 
Par les vaux, par les bles, 

Ses prees, 
Ses chiens s'en sont alias. 6a 

Oh ! le soir, dans la brise, 
Phceb6, sceur d' Apollo, 

Surprise 
A l'ombre, un pied dans l'eau ! 

Phcebe qui, la nuit close, 65 

Aux levres d'un berger 

Se pose, 
Comma un oiseau leger. 



Lune, en notre m&noire, 
De tes belles amours 

L'histoire 
T'embellira toujours. 

Et toujours rajeunie, 
Tu seras du passant 

Benie, 
Pleine lune ou croissant. 



70 



75 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 181 

T'aimera le vieux patre 
Seul, tandis qu'a ton front 

D'albatre 
Ses dogues aboieront. 80 

T'aimera le pilote 

Dans son grand batiment 

Qui flotte 
Sous le clair firmament, 

Et la fillette preste 85 

Qui passe le buisson, 

Pied leste 
En chantant sa chanson. 

Comme un ours a la chalne, 

Toujours sous tes yeux bleus 90 

Se tralne 
L'Ocean montueux. 

Et, qu'il vente ou qu'il neige, 
Moi-m^me, ehaque soir, 

Que fais-je, 95 

Venant ici m'asseoir ? 

Je viens voir a la brune 
Sur le clocher jauni 

La lune 
Comme un point sur un i. 100 

[Premidres poesies. 

XLIX 

Chanson 

J'ai dit a mon cceur, a mon faible cceur : 
N'est-ce point assez d'aimer sa maitresse ? 
Et ne vois-tu pas que changer sans cesse, 
C'est perdre en desirs le temps du bonheur ? 



182 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

II m'a repondu : Ce n'est point assez 5 

Ce n'est point assez d'aimer sa maitresse : 
Et ne vois-tu pas que changer sans cesse 
Nous rend doux et chers les plaisirs passes ? 

J'ai dit a mon cceur, a mon faible coeur : 
N'est-ce point assez de tant de tristesse ; 10 

Et ne vois-tu pas que changer sans cesse 
C'est a chaque pas trouver la douleur ? 

II m'a repondu : Ce n'est point assez, 

Ce n'est point assez de tant de tristesse ; 

Et ne vois-tu pas que changer sans cesse 1$ 

Nous rend doux et chers les chagrins passes ? 

[Premieres poesies. 



L 

Chanson 

A Saint-Blaise, a la Zuecca, 
Vous etiez, vous 6tiez bien aise 

A Saint-Blaise. 
A Saint-Blaise, a la Zuecca, 

Nous 6tions bien la. 

Mais de vous en souvenir 
Prendrez-vous la peine ? 
Mais de vous en souvenir 
Et d'y revenir. 

A Saint-Blaise, a la Zuecca, 
Dans les pr6s fleuris cueillir la verveine. 
A Saint-Blaise, a la Zuecca 
Vivre et mourir la ! 

[Poesies Nouvelles. 
"Venise, 3 fivrier 1838. 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 183 

LI 

La Nuit DE D^CEMBRE 
LE POETE 

Du temps que j'^tais ecolier, 

Je restais un soir a veiller 

Dans notre salle solitaire. 

Devant ma table vint s'asseoir 

Un pauvre enfant vetu de noir, 5 

Qui me ressemblait comme un frere. 

Son visage etait triste et beau : 

A la lueur de mon flambeau, 

Dans mon livre ouvert il vint lire. 

II pencha son front sur ma main, 10 

Et resta jusqu'au lendemain, 

Pensif, avec un doux sourire. 

Comme j'allais avoir quinze ans, 

Je marchais un jour, a pas lents, 

Dans un bois, sur une bruyere. 15 

Au pied d'un arbre vint s'asseoir 

Un jeune bomme vStu de noir, 

Qui me ressemblait comme un frere. 

Je lui demandai mon chemin ; 

II tenait un luth d'une main, 20 

De l'autre, un bouquet d'eglantine. 

II me fit un salut d'ami, 

Et, se d^tournant a demi, 

Me montra du doigt la colline. 

A l'age ou Ton croit a l'amour, 25 

J'^tais seul dans ma cbambre un jour, 

Pleurant ma premiere misere. 

Au coin de mon feu vint s'asseoir 

Un Stranger vetu de voir, 

Qui me ressembla comme un frere. 30 



184 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

II 6tait morne et soucieux : 

D'une main il montrait les cieux, 

Et de l'autre il tenait un glaive. 

De ma peine il semblait souffrir, 

Mais il ne poussa qu'un soupir, 35 

Et s'evanouit comme un r§ve. 

A l'age ou Ton est libertin, 

Pour boire un toast en un festin, 

Un jour je soulevai mon verre. 

En face de moi vint s'asseoir 40 

Un convive v§tu de noir, 

Qui me ressemblait comme un frere. 

II secouait sous son manteau 

Un haillon de pourpre en lambeau. 

Sur sa t6te un myrte sterile, 45 

Son bras maigre cherchait le mien, 

Et mon verre, en touchant le sien, 

Se brisa dans ma main debile. 

Un an apres, il etait nuit, 

J'etais a genoux pres du lit so 

Ou venait de mourir mon pere. 

Au chevet du lit vint s'asseoir 

Un orphelin vetu de noir, 

Qui me ressemblait comme un frere. 

Ses yeux 6taient noyes de pleurs ; 55 

Comme les anges de douleurs, 

II etait couronn^ d'epine ; 

Son luth a terre 6tait gisant, 

Sa pourpre de couleur de sang, 

Et son glaive dans sa poitrine. 60 

Je m'en suis si bien souvenu 

Que je l'ai toujours reconnu 

A tous les instants de ma vie. 

C'est une etrange vision ; 

Et cependant, ange ou demon, 65 

J'ai vu partout cette ombre amie. 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 185 

Lorsque plus tard, las de souffrir, 

Pour renaltre ou pour en finir, 

J'ai voulu m'exiler de France ; 

Lorsqu' impatient de marcher 7 o 

J'ai voulu partir, et chercher 

Les vestiges d'une esperance ; 

A Pise au pied de l'Apennin ; 

A Cologne, en face du Rkin ; 

A Nice, au penchant des vallees ; 75 

A Florence, au fond des palais ; 

A Brigues, dans les vieux chalets ; 

Au sein des Alpes desolees ; 

A G€nes, sous les citronniers ; 

A Vevey, sous les verts pommiers ; 80 

Au Havre, devant l'Atlantique ; 

A Venise, a l'affreux Lido, 

Ou vient sur l'herbe d'un tombeau 

Mourir la pale Adriatique ; 

Partout ou, sous ces vastes cieux, 85 

J'ai lasse mon coeur et mes yeux, 

Saignant d'une eternelle plaie ; 

Partout ou le boiteux Ennui, 

Trainant ma fatigue apres lui, 

M'a promene sur une claie ; 90 

Partout ou, sans cesse altere 

De la soif d'un monde ignore 

J'ai suivi l'ombre de mes songes ; 

Partout ou, sans avoir vecu, 

J'ai revu ce que j'avais vu, 95 

La face humaine et ses mensonges ; 

Partout ou, le long des chemins, 

J'ai pose mon front sur mes mains 

Et sanglote' comme une femme ; 

Partout ou j'ai, comme un mou ton 100 

Qui laisse sa laine au buisson, 

Senti se denuer mon ame ; 



186 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Partout oil j'ai voulu dormir, 

Par tout ou j'ai voulu mourir, 

Partout ou j'ai touch*} la terre, 105 

Sur ma route est venu s'asseoir 

Un malheureux vetu de noir, 

Qui me ressemblait comme un frere. 

Qui done es-tu, toi que dans cette vie 

Je vois toujours sur mon chemin ? no 

Je ne puis croire, a ta melancolie, 

Que tu sois mon mauvais Destin. 
Ton doux souris a trop de patience, 

Tes larmes ont trop de pitie. 
En te voyant, j'aime la Providence. 115 

Ta douleur meme est sceur de ma souflrance ; 

Elle resemble a l'amitie\ 

Qui done es-tu ? — Tu n'es pas mon bon ange ; 

Jamais tu ne viens m'avertir. 
Tu vois mes maux (e'est une chose Strange !) 120 

Et tu me regardes soufirir. 
Depuis vingt ans tu marches dans ma voie, 

Et je ne saurais t'appeler. 
Qui done es-tu, si e'est Dieu qui t'envoie ? 
Tu me souris sans partager ma joie, 125 

Tu me plains sans me consoler ! 

Ce soir encor je t'ai vu m'apparaltre ; 

C'^tait par une triste nuit. 
L'aile des vents battait a ma fenetre ; 

J'&ais seul, courb6 sur mon lit. 130 

J'y regardais une place cherie, 

Tiede encor d'un baiser brulant : 
Et je songeais comme la femme oublie, 
Et je sentais un lambeau de ma vie 

Qui se d&shirait lentement. 135 

Je rassemblais des lettres de la veille, 
Des cheveux, des debris d'amour. 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 187 

Tout ce passe me criait a l'oreille 

Ses kernels serments d'un jour. 
Je contemplais ces reliques sacrees, 140 

Qui me faisaient trembler la main : 
Larmes du cceur par le coeur de\or6es, 
Et que les yeux qui les avaient pleurees 

Ne reconnaltront plus demain ! 

J'enveloppais dans un morceau de bure 14s 

Ces ruines des jours heureux. 
Je me disais qu'ici-bas ce qui dure, 

C'est une meche de cheveux. 
Comme un plongeur dans une mer profonde, 

Je me perdais dans tant d'oubli. 150 

De tous c6t6s j'y retournais la sonde, 
Et je pleurais seul, loin des yeux du monde, 

Mon pauvre amour enseveli. 

J'allais poser le sceau de cire noire 

Sur ce fragile et cher tresor. 155 

J'allais le rendre, et, n'y pouvant pas croire, 

En pleurant j'en doutais encor. 
Ah ! faible femme, orgueilleuse insensee, 

Malgre toi tu t'en souviendras ! 
Pourquoi, grand Dieu ! mentir a sa pens^e ? 160 

Pourquoi ces pleurs, cette gorge oppressed, 

Ces sanglots, si tu n'aimais pas ? 

Oui, tu languis, tu souffres et tu pleures ; 

Mais ta chimere est entre nous. 
Eh bien, adieu ! Vous compterez les heures 165 

Qui me s6pareront de vous. 
Partez, partez, et dans ce cceur de glace 

Emportez l'orgueil satisfait. 
Je sens encor le mien jeune et vivace, 
Et bien des maux pourront y trouver place 170 

Sur le mal que vous m'avez fait. 



188 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Partez, partez ! la Nature immortelle 

N'a pas tout voulu vous donner. 
Ah ! pauvre enfant, qui voulez etre belle, 

Et ne savez pas pardonner ! 175 

Allez, allez, suivez la destinee ; 

Qui vous perd n'a pas tout perdu. 
Jetez au vent notre amour consumed ; — 
Eternel Dieu ! toi que j'ai tant aim£e, 

Si tu pars, pourquoi m'aimes-tu ? 180 

Mais tout a coup j'ai vu dans la nuit sombre 

Une forme glisser sans bruit. 
Sur mon rideau j'ai vu passer une ombre ; 

Elle vient s'asseoir sur mon lit. 
Qui done es-tu, morne et pale visage, 185 

Sombre portrait v§tu de noir ? 
Que me veux-tu, triste oiseau de passage ? 
Est-ce un vain r§ve ? est-ce ma propre image 

Que j'apercois dans ce miroir ? 

Qui done es-tu, spectre de ma jeunesse, 190 

Pelerin que rien n'a lasse ? 
Dis-moi pourquoi je te trouve sans cesse 

Assis dans l'ombre ou j'ai passe\ 
Qui done es-tu, visiteur solitaire, 

H6te assidu de mes douleurs 1 195 

Qu'as-tu done fait pour me suivre sur terre ? 
Qui done es-tu, qui done es-tu, mon frere, 

Qui n'apparais qu'au jour des pleurs ? 

La Vision 

— Ami, notre pere est le tien. 

Je ne suis ni l'ange gardien 

Ni le mauvais destin des homines. 

Ceux que j'aime, je ne sais pas 

De quel c6t6 s'en vont leurs pas 5 

Sur ce peu de fange ou nous sommes. 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 189 

Je ne suis ni dieu ni demon, 

Et tu m'as nomme par mon nom, 

Quand tu m'as appele ton frere ; 

Ou tu vas, j'y serai toujours, 10 

Jusques au dernier de tes jours, 

Oil j'irai m'asseoir sur ta pierre. 

Le ciel m'a confie ton cceur. 

Quand tu seras dans la douleur, 

Viens a moi sans inquietude, i 5 

Je te suivrai sur le chemin ; 

Mais je ne puis toucher ta main ; 

Ami, je suis la Solitude. 

[Podsies Nouvelles. 
Novembre 1835. 

LII 

Teistesse 

J'ai perdu ma force et ma vie, 
Et mes amis et ma gaite ; 
J'ai perdu jusqu'a la fierte 
Qui faisait croire a mon genie. 

Quand j'ai connu la Verite, s 

J'ai cru que c'etait une amie ; 
Quand je l'ai comprise et sentie, 
J'en etais deja degoute. 

Et pourtant elle est eternelle, 

Et ceux qui se sont passes d'elle JO 

Ici-bas ont tout ignore. 

Dieu parle, il faut qu'on lui reponde. 
Le seul bien qui me reste au monde 
Est d'avoir quelquefois pleure. 

Bury, 14 jum 1840. j 



190 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

LIII 

SUR UNE MOETE 

Elle etait belle, si la Nuit 
Qui dort dans la sombre chapelle 
Ou Michel- Ange a fait son lit, 
Immobile, peut etre belle. 

Elle etait bonne, s'il suffit s 

Qu'en passant la main s'ouvre et donne, 
Sans que Dieu n'ait rien vu, rien dit, 
Si Tor sans pitie fait I'aumdne. 

Elle pensait, si le vain bruit 

D'une voix douce et cadencee, 10 

Comme le ruisseau qui gemit, 

Peut faire croire a la pensee. 

Elle priait, si deux beaux yeux, 

Tantot s'attachant a la terre, 

Tantot se levant vers les cieux, i S 

Peuvent s'appeler la priere. 

Elle aurait souri, si la fleur 

Qui ne s'est point epanouie 

Pouvait s'ouvrir a la fralcheur 

Du vent qui passe et qui l'oublie. 20 

Elle aurait pleure, si sa main, 
Sur son cceur froidement posee, 
Eut jamais dans l'argile humain 
Senti la celeste rosee. 

Elle aurait aime, si l'orgueil, 25 

Pareil a la lampe inutile 

Qu'on allume pres d'un cercueil, 

N'eut veill£ sur son cceur sterile. 



ALFRED DE MUSSET 191 

Elle est morte et n'a point vecu. 

Elle faisait semblant de vivre. 30 

De ses mains est tombe" le livre 

Dans lequel elle n'a rien lu. 

Octobre 1842. 

LIV 

Chanson 

Quand on perd, par triste occurrence, 

Son esp^rance 

Et sa gaite, 
Le remede au melancolique, 

C'est la musique 5 

Et la beaute. 

Plus oblige et peut davantage 

Un beau visage 

Qu'un homme arme, 
Et rien n'est meilleur que d'entendre 10 

Air doux et tendre 

Jadis aime ! 



192 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

THEOPHILE GAUTIER 

1811-1872 

He was a Southerner, born at Tarbes at the foot of the Pyrenees, 
but brought up partly in Paris, where, at the Lycde Charlemagne, 
Gerard de Nerval was his schoolfellow, with others who were to make 
a mark in letters. Poetry was not young Gautier's first ambition : 
for two years he worked in a studio, but discovered in time that his 
talent for painting was secondary. He showed some verses to Petrus 
Borel, who praised them and introduced him to the author of Let 
Orientales. A little later came the battle of Hernani, in which the 
green silk and crimson velvet of Thdophile Gautier, the most ardent 
of volunteers, did legendary service as emblems of revolt. His first 
book of poetry followed in the same year, at the moment of the July 
Revolution. Albertus, ' legende theologique ' (1833), attracted more 
attention by its Gothic gruesomeness and agile irony. About the 
same time he rallied in prose, with abundance of good humour, the 
foibles of a merely snobbish and shallow Romanticism : the book 
was called Les Jeune-France, after a sect or confraternity to which he 
had himself adhered, with the wilder fledglings of that enthusiastic 
time. His next work was the audaciously conceived and brilliantly 
executed novel, Mademoiselle de Maupin which, with its petulant 
preface, caused some scandal on its appearance in 1835. Another 
romance, Fortwnio, dates from 1838 ; and to the same year belongs 
La Comedie de la Mort, a work which marks the culmination of his 
first poetical period. From this time onward, much of Gautier's time 
and energy was absorbed by travel and journalism. Tras los Monies 
(1839), as well as the poetry called Espana, came of his wanderings 
across the Pyrenees; other delightful volumes of prose registered, 
between 1845 and 1870, his impressions of Turkey, Italy, Russia, 
Germany. At the same time he contributed all sorts of imaginative 
articles to reviews and newspapers, passed several yearly Salons in 
review, and from 1845 onward his dramatic criticism enlivened Le 
Monitewr and Le Journal Officiel. His most ephemeral work was 
always indefatigable, inventive, curious, often illuminating and never 
dull. And all the time he was producing durable art. In several 
romances, of which Le Roman de la Momie (1856) is the best known, 



THEOPHILE GAUTIER 193 

he rivalled M^rimee and anticipated Flaubert by using a considerable 
archaeology as the handmaid of imagination. His last book of 
poetry, £maux et Camees, in which the old Romantic exuberance of 
colour, restlessness and extravagance of posture are replaced by a 
delicate irony, the exactitude of a miniaturist, and a wonderful 
ingenuity in varying the effects of a single measure, was published 
in 1852. With Jettatura (1857) and the fine picaresque romance 
Le Capitaine Fracasse (1863), the tale of hi3 notable writings is 
complete. His dramatic compositions, comedies, caprices, and ballets 
are inferior; Le Pierrot Posthume (1845) is perhaps the most dis- 
tinguished of them. 

Gautier cared nothing for politics ; he had] a family to keep ; and 
it seems unjust to reproach him with servility towards the govern- 
ment of December. He could never be seduced, at any rate, from 
his allegiance to his master Hugo. The Princess Mathilde, a friend 
to so many writers and artists whom nobody could call 'official,' 
made him her librarian : the fall of the Empire ruined him. He set 
to work courageously to retrieve his fortunes after the Commune, 
but overwork and disappointment had worn him out. He died in 
1872, mourned by a host of friends. 

Through an unusual acuity of some faculties and an unusual 
obtuseness of others, Gautier is the poet of his time who concerned 
himself most exclusively with appearances. His sphere is the visible, 
which he renders with equal opulence and precision. He is certainly 
not a realist ; between the object and the representation, not thought 
nor passion, but the aesthetic emotion always intervened. His crea- 
tions are as real as a picture ; and indeed the much-misused com- 
pound, 'word-painting,' might have been invented for Gautier. He 
saw life as a work of art, sumptuously framed : his philosophy (if the 
word is not quite absurd in this application) might be summed up 
best in the virtit, of the Italian Renaissance. He defined himself 
' un homme pour qui le monde ext^rieur existe.' Another dictum, 
less well-known, ought to be quoted beside this : ' Je mange tous les 
jours un bifteck bien saignant.' It was in part his robust good 
sense which foresaw so early the eventual bankruptcy of Romanticism 
pure and simple ; in part also an ineradicable respect for the classical 
virtues — order, measure, clearness, serenity. In a sense fimaux 
et Camees bridge the gulf between Les Orientates and Poemes 
Antiques. 

Gautier worshipped his art and its instrument. With his devotion 

N 



194 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

to the concrete, he is one of those who did most to renew the lan- 
guage ; if his rhythmical sense was not strikingly original, his verse 
is nearly always irreproachable in form. Like all excellent craftsmen, 
he loved obstacles for their own sake, and no poet pursued perfection 
with more severity. It was these qualities which gave him so great 
an influence over his younger contemporaries and provoked Baude- 
laire's famous dedication, ' au poete impeccable, au parf ait magicien-es- 
lettres franchises.' 

Most of Theophile Gautier's poetry has been published in several 
editions. It fills three volumes of Lemerre's Petite Bibliothique 
Litteraire. 



LV 

Choc de Cavaliers 

Hier il m'a semble (sans doute j'Stais ivre) 
Voir sur l'arche d'un pont un choc de cavaliers 
Tout cuirasses de fer, tout inibriques de cuivre, 
Et caparaconnes de harnais singuliers. 

Des dragons accroupis grommelaient sur leurs casques, 5 
Des Meduses d'airain ouvraient leurs yeux hagards 
Dans leurs grands boucliers aux ornements fantasques, 
Et des nceuds de serpents 6caillaient leurs brassards. 

Par moments, du rebord de l'arcade g6ante, 

Un cavalier blesse perdant son point d'appui, 10 

Un cheval effare tombait dans l'eau beante, 

Gueule de crocodile entr'ouverte sous lui. 

C'elait vous, mes desirs, c'6tait vous, mes pensees, 

Qui cherchiez a forcer le passage du pont, 

Et vos corps tout meurtris sous leurs armes fauss^es is 

Dorment ensevelis dans le gouffre profond. 

[Poesies Diverses. 



THEOPHILE GAUTIER 195 



LVI 

Barcarolle 

' Dites, la jeune belle ! 
Ou voulez-vous aller ? 
La voile ouvre son aile, 
La brise va souffler ! 

' L'aviron est d'ivoire, 5 

Le pavilion de moire, 

Le gouvernail d'or fin ; 

J'ai pour lest une orange, 

Pour voile une aile d'ange, 

Pour mousse un seraphin. 10 

' Dites, la jeune belle ! 
Ou voulez-vous aller ? 
La voile ouvre son aile, 
La brise va souffler ! 

' Est-ce dans la Baltique, 15 

Sur la mer Pacifique, 

Dans l'lle de Java ? 

Ou bien dans la Norvege, 

Cueillir la fleur de neige, 

Ou la fleur d'Angsoka ? 20 

' Dites, la jeune belle ! 
Ou voulez-vous aller ? 
La voile ouvre son aile, 
La brise va souifler ! ' 

— ' Menez-moi,' dit la belle, 25 

'A la rive fidele 

Ou Ton aime toujours.' 

— ' Cette rive, ma chere, 

On ne la connait guere 

Au pays des amours.' 30 

[Podsies Diverges. 



196 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

LVII 

Don Juan 

Heureux adolescents dont le cceur s'ouvre a peine 
Comme une violette a la premiere haleine 

Du printemps qui sourit, 
Ames couleur de lait, frais buissons d'aub6pine 
Ou, sous le pur rayon, dans la pluie argentine 5 

Tout gazouille et neurit ; 

O vous tous qui sortez des bras de votre mere 
Sans connaitre la vie et la science amere, 

Et qui voulez savoir, 
Poetes et r§veurs ! plus d'une fois sans doute, 10 

Aux lisieres des bois, en suivant votre route 

Dans la rougeur du soir, 

A l'heure encbanteresse ou sur le bout des branches 
On voit se becqueter les tourterelles blanches 

Et les bouvreuils au nid, i S 

Quand la nature lasse en s'endormant soupire, 
Et que la feuille au vent vibre comme une lyre 

Apres le cbant fini ; 

Quand le calme et l'oubli viennent a toutes choses, 

Et que le sylpbe rentre au pavilion des roses 20 

Sous les parfums plie" ; 
Emus de tout cela, plein d'ardeurs inquietes, 
Vous avez souhaite" ma liste et mes conquetes ! 

Vous m'avez envie" 

Les festins, les baisers sur les epaules nues, 25 

Toutes ces voluptes a votre age inconnues, 

Aimable et cher tourment ! 
Zerline, Elvire, Anna, mes Romanies j abuses, 
Mes beaux lis d' Albion, mes braves Andalouses, 

Tout mon troupeau charmant. 30 



THEOPHILE GAUTIER 197 

Et vous vous etes dit par la voix de vos ames ; 

' Comment faisais-tu done pour avoir plus de femmes 

Que n'en a le sultan ? 
Comment faisais-tu done, malgre verrous et grilles, 
Pour te glisser au lit des belles jeunes filles, 3S 

Heureux, heureux Don Juan ! 

' Conquerant oublieux, une seule de celles 

Que tu n'inscrivais pas, une entre tes moins belles, 

Ta plus modeste fleur, 
Oh ! combien et longtemps nous l'eussions adoree, 40 
Elle aurait embelli, dans une urne dor6e, 

L'autel de notre cceur. 

Elle aurait parfume, cette humble violette, 
Dont sous l'herbe ton pied a fait ployer la tete, 

Notre pale printemps ; 45 

Nous l'aurions recueillie, et de nos pleurs trempee, 
Cette etoile aux yeux bleus, dans le bal echappee 

A tes doigts inconstants. 

' Adorables frissons de l'amoureuse fievre, 

Ramiers qui descendez du ciel sur une levre, 50 

Baisers acres et doux, 
Chutes du dernier voile, et vous, cascades blondes, 
Cheveux d'or inondant un dos brun de vos ondes, 

Quand vous connaitrons-nous ? ' 

Enfants, je les connais tous, ces plaisirs qu'on reve. ss 
Autour du tronc fatal l'antique serpent d'Eve 

Ne s'est pas mieux tordu ; 
Aux yeux mortels, jamais dragon a tete d'homme 
N'a d'un plus vif 4clat fait reluire la pomme 

De l'arbre defendu. 60 

Souvent, comme des nids de fauvettes farouches, 
Tout prets a s'envoler, j'ai surpris sur des bouches 

Des nids d'aveux tremblants ; 
J'ai serre dans mes bras de ravissants fant6mes, 
Bien des vierges en fleur m'ont verse les purs baumes 65 

De leurs calices blancs. 



198 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Pour en avoir le mot, courtisanes rusees, 
J'ai pressed sous le fard, vos levres plus us6es 

Que le gres des chemins. 
Egouts impurs ou vont tous les ruisseaux du monde, 70 
J'ai plonge" sous vos flots; et toi, debauche immonde, 

J'ai vu tes lendemains. 

J'ai vu les plus purs fronts rouler apres l'orgie, 
Parmi les flots de vin, sur la nappe rougie, 

J'ai vu les fins de bal 75 

Et la sueur des bras, et la paleur des tetes 
Plus mornes que la Mort sous leurs boucles defaites 

Au soleil matinal. 

Comme un mineur qui suit une veine infeeonde, 

J'ai fouille nuit et jour l'existence profonde 80 

Sans trouver le filon ; 
J'ai demande la vie a l'amour qui la donne, 
Mais vainement; je n'ai jamais aime" personne 

Ayant au monde un nom. 

J'ai brule plus d'un cceur dont j'ai foule' la cendre, 85 
Mais je restai toujours, comme la salamandre, 

Froid au milieu du feu. 
J'avais un ideal frais comme la rosee, 
Une vision d'or, une opale irisee 

Par le regard de Dieu ; 90 

Femme comme jamais sculpteur n'en a p^trie, 
Type r^unissant Cleopatre et Marie, 

Grace, pudeur, beaute ; 
Une rose mystique, ou nul ver ne se cache ; 
Les ardeurs du volcan et la neige sans tache 95 

De la virginite ! 

Au carrefour douteux, Y grec de Pythagore, 
J'ai pris la branche gauche, et je chemine encore 

Sans arriver jamais. 
Trompeuse Volupte, c'est toi que j'ai suivie ! 100 

Et peut-fetre, 6 Vertu ! l'enigme de la vie, 

C'est toi qui le savais. 



THEOPHILE GAUTIEE 199 

Que n'ai-je, comme Faust, dans ma cellule sombre, 
Contemple sur le mur la tremblante penombre 

Du microcosme d'or ! 105 

Que n'ai-je, feuilletant cabales et grimoires, 
Aupres de mon fourneau, passe les heures noires 

A chercher le tresor ! 

J'avais la tete forte, et j'aurais lu ton livre 

Et bu ton vin amer, Science, sans etre ivre no 

Comme un jeune ecolier ! 
J'aurais contraint Isis a relever son voile, 
Et du plus haut des cieux fait descendre l'etoile 

Dans mon noir atelier. 

N'ecoutez pas l'Amour, car c'est un mauvais maitre ; 115 
Aimer, c'est ignorer, et vivre, c'est connaitre. 

Apprenez, apprenez ; 
Jetez et rejetez a toute heure la sonde, 
Et plongez plus avant sous cette mer profonde 

Que n'ont fait nos alnes. 120 

Laissez Leviathan souffler par ses narines, 
Laissez le poids des mers au fond de vos poitrines 

Presser votre poumon. 
Eouillez les noirs ecueils qu'on n'a pu reconnaltre, 
Et dans son coffre d'or vous trouverez peut-etre 125 

L'anneau de Salomon ! 

[La Com6die de la Mori, vii. 

LVIII 

Eibeiea 

II est des cceurs epris du triste amour du laid. 
Tu fus un de ceux-la, peintre a la rude brosse 
Que Naple a salue du nom d'Espagnolet. 

Rien ne put amollir ton aprete feroce, 

Et le splendide azur du ciel italien 5 

N'a laisse nul reflet dans ta peinture atroce. 



200 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Chez toi, Ton voit toujours le noir Valencien, 
Paysan hasardeux, mendiant Equivoque, 
More que le bapteme a peine a fait chretien. 

Comme un autre le beau, tu cherches ce qui choque : 10 
Les martyrs, les bourreaux, les gitanos, les gueux 
Etalant un ulcere a cote" d'une loque ; 

Les vieux au chef branlant, au cuir jaune et rugueux, 

Versant sur quelque Bible un not de barbe grise, 

Voila ce qui convient a ton pinceau fougueux. 15 

Tu ne d^daignes rien de ce que Ton meprise ; 
Nul haillon, Ribeira, par toi n'est rebute : 
Le vrai, toujours le vrai, c'est ta seule devise ! 

Et tu sais revetir d'une etrange beaute 

Ces trois monstres abjects, effroi de l'art antique, 20 

La Douleur, la Misere et la Caducite. 

Pour toi pas d'Apollon, pas de Venus pudique ; 
Tu n'admets pas un seul de ces beaux r§ves blancs 
Tailles dans le paros ou dans le pentelique. 

II te faut des sujets sombres et violehts 2s 

Ou l'ange des douleurs vide ses noirs calices, 
Ou la haehe s'emousse aux billots ruisselants. 

Tu sembles enivre par le vin des supplices, 

Comme un C^sar romain dans sa pourpre insulte, 

Ou comme un victimaire apres vingt sacrifices. 30 

Avec quelle furie et quelle volupte, 

Tu retournes la peau du martyr qu'on ecorche, 

Pour nous en faire voir l'envers ensanglante ! 

Aux pieds des patients comme tu mets la torche ! 

Dans le flanc de Caton comme tu fais crier 

La plaie, affreuse bouche ouverte comme un porche 

D'ou te vient, Ribeira, cet instinct meurtrier ? 
Quelle dent t'a mordu, qui te donne la rage, 
Pour tordre ainsi l'espece humaine et la broyer ? 



1! 



35 



THEOPHILE GAUTIER 201 

Que t'a done fait le monde, et, dans tout ce carnage, 40 
Quel ennemi secret de tes coups poursuis-tu ? 
Pour tant de sang verse quel etait done l'outrage ? 

Ce martyr, e'est le corps d'un rival abattu ; 

Et ce n'est pas toujours au cceur de Prometh^e 

Que fouille l'aigle fauve avec son bee pointu. 45 

De quelle ambition du ciel precipice, 

De quel espoir traine" par des coursiers sans frein, 

Ton ame de demon etait- elle agitee ? 

Qu'avais-tu done perdu pour etre si chagrin ? 

De quels amours tournes se composaient tes haines 50 

Et qui jalousais-tu, toi, peintre souverain ? 

Les plus grands cceurs, helas ! ont les plus grandes peines ; 
Dans la coupe profonde il tient plus de douleurs ; 
Le ciel se venge ainsi sur des gloires humaines. 

Un jour, las de l'horrible et des noires couleurs, 55 

Tu voulus peindre aussi des corps blancs comme neige, 
Des anges souriants, des oiseaux et des fleurs, 

Des nymphes dans les bois que le satyre assiege, 

Des amours endormis sur un sein fremissant, 

Et tous ces frais motifs chers au moelleux Correge ; 60 

Mais tu ne sus trouver que du rouge de sang, 
Et quand du haut des cieux, apportant l'aureole, 
Sur le front de tes saints l'ange de Dieu descend, 

En d^tournant les yeux, il la pose et s'envole ! 

[Espafia. 
Madrid, 1844. 

LIX 

La M^lodie et l'Accompagnement 

La beaute, dans la femme, est une melodie 
Dont la toilette n'est que raecompagnement. 
Vous avez la beaute. — Sur ce motif charmant, 
A chercher des accords votre gout s'etudie : 



202 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Tant6t c'est un corsage a la coupe hardie 5 

Qui s'applique au contour, comme un baiser d'amant ; 
Tantot une dentelle au feston ^cumant 
Une fleur, un bijou qu'un reflet incendie. 

La gaze et le satin ont des soirs triomphants ; 

D'aUtres fois une robe, avec deux plis de moire, 10 

Aux epaules vous met deux ailes de victoire. 

Mais de tous ces atours, ajust^s ou bouffants, 

Orchestre accompagnant votre grace supreme, 

Le cceur, comme d'un air, ne retient que le theme ! ' 

[Podsies Nouvelles. 
23 avril 1869. 

LX 

Variations sue le Cabnaval de Venise 



Dans la Rue 

II est un vieil air populaire 
Par tous les violons racle, 
Aux abois des chiens en colere 
Par tous les orgues nasille. 

Les tabatieres a musique 5 

L'ont sur leur repertoire inscrit ; 
Pour les serins il est classique, 
Et ma grand'mere, enfant, l'apprit. 

Sur cet air, pistons, clarinettes, 

Dans les bals aux poudreux berceaux, 10 

Font sauter commis et grisettes, 

Et de leurs nids fuir les oiseaux. 

La guinguette, sous la tonnelle 

De houblon et de chevrefeuil, 

Fete, en braillant la ritournelle, 15 

Le gai dimanche et l'argenteuil. 



THEOPHILE GAUTIER 203 

L'aveugle au basson qui pleurniche, 

L'ecorche en se trompant de doigts ; 

La s^bile aux dents, son caniche 

Pres de lui le grogne a mi-voix. 20 

Et les petites guitaristes, 
Maigres sous leurs minces tartans, 
Le glapissent de leurs voix tristes 
Aux tables des cafes chantants. 

Paganini, le fantastique, 25 

Un soir, comme avec un crochet, 
A ramasse" le theme antique 
Du bout de son divin archet. 



Sv/r les Lagwnes 

Tra la, tra la, la, la, la laire ! 

Qui ne connait pas ce motif ? 30 

A nos mamans il a su plaire, 

Tendre et gai, moqueur et plain tif: 

L'air du Carnaval de Venise 

Sur les canaux jadis chants, 

Et qu'un soupir'de folle brise 35 

Dans le ballet a transports ! 

II me semble, quand ou le joue 

Voir glisser dans son bleu sillon 

Une gondole avec sa proue 

Faite en manche de violon. 4° 

Sur une gamme chromatique, 

Le sein de perles ruisselant, 

La Venus de lAdriatique 

Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc. 



204 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Les d6mes, sur l'azur des ondes 43 

Suivant la phrase au pur contour, 
S'enflent comme des gorges rondes 
Que souleve un soupir d amour. 

L'esquif aborde et me depose, 

Jetant son amarre au pilier, 50 

Devant une fa9ade rose, 

Sur le marbre d'un escalier. 

Avec ses palais, ses gondoles, 

Ses mascarades sur la mer, 

Ses doux chagrins, ses gaites folles, 55 

Tout Venise vit dans cet air. 

Une frele corde qui vibre 

Refait sur un pizzicato, 

Comme autrefois joyeuse et libre, 

La ville de Canaletto ! 60 

iii 

Carnaval 

Venise pour le bal s'habille. 
De paillettes tout £toile, 
Scintille, fourmille et babille 
Le carnaval bariole. 

Arlequin, negre par son masque, 65 

Serpent par ses mille couleurs, 
Rosse d'une note fantasque 
Cassandre son souffre-douleurs. 

Battant de l'aile avec sa manche 

Comme un pingouin sur un ecueil, 70 

Le blanc Pierrot, par une blanche, 

Passe la tete et cligne l'oeil. 

Le Docteur bolonais rabache 
Avec la basse aux sous traines ; 
Polichinelle, qui se fache, 7 s 

Se trouve une croche pour nez. 



THEOPHILE GAUTIER 205 

Heurtant Trivelin qui se mouche 

Avec un trille extravagant, 

A Colombine Scaramouche 

Rend son eventail ou son gant. s 

Sur une cadence se glisse 
Un domino ne laissant voir 
Qu'un malin regard en coulisse 
Aux paupieres de satin noir. 

Ah ! fine barbe de dentelle 85 

Que fait voler un soufile pur, 
Cet arpege m'a dit : C'est elle ! 
Malgr6 tes reseaux, j'en suis sur, 

Et j'ai reconnu, rose et fraiche, 

Sous l'affreux profil de carton, go 

Sa levre au fin duvet de p6che, 

Et la mouche de son menton. 

iv 

Clair de Lune sentimental 

A travers la folle risee 

Que Saint-Marc renvoie au Lido, 

Une gamme monte en fus£e, 9S 

Comme au clair de lune un jet d'eau . . 

A l'air qui jase d'un ton bouffe 

Et secoue au vent ses grelots, 

Un regret, ramier qu'on etouffe, 

Par instant mele ses sanglots. 100 

Au loin, dans la brume sonore 
Comme un reve presque efface, 
J'ai revu, pale et triste encore, 
Mon vieil amour de l'an passe\ 

Mon ame en pleurs s'est souvenu 105 

De l'avril, ou, guettant au bois 

La violette a sa venue, 

Sous l'herbe nous melions nos doigts . . . 



206 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Cette note de chanterelle, 

Vibrant comme l'harmoniea, no 

C'est la voix enfantine et grele, 

Fleche d'argent qui me piqua. 

Le son en est si faux, si tendre, 

Si moqueur, si doux si cruel, 

Si froid, si brulant, qu'a l'entendre 115 

On ressent un plaisir mortel, 

Et que mon cceur, comme la voute 

Dont l'eau pleure dans un bassin, 

Laisse tomber goutte par goutte 

Ses larmes rouges dans son sein. 120 

Jovial et melancolique, 
Ah ! vieux theme du carnaval, 
Ou le rire aux larmes replique, 
Que ton charme m'a fait de mal ! 

[ISmaux et Camies. 



AUGUSTE BARBIER 207 



AUGUSTE BARBIEB 

1805-1882 

He was by birth a Parisian, the son of a lawyer, and was bred for 
the law. But the Eomantic fever laid hold on him, and he had 
begun to rime and to frequent the society of poets before the 
Bourbons were overthrown in 1830. In that crisis he saw with 
disgust the indecent adulation of the victorious people by men who, 
having thriven under the Kestoration, were now anxious not only to 
keep their own, but to share the plunder of fallen power. La Curee, 
first printed in La Revue de Paris in 1830, expressed with a vigour 
which has no parallel between D'Aubign6's Tragicques and Hugo's 
Chdtiments, and in the form consecrated by Andre 1 Chenier, the 
indignant contempt of a patriot gifted with the historical imagination. 
It is, with La Popularite and an anti-Napoleonic satire, L'Idole, the 
poem which keeps the name of Barbier illustrious : but it is easier 
to explain than to excuse the injustice by which his subsequent work 
has been generally ignored. Travel in Italy, where his friend 
Brizeux accompanied him, and sincere communion with the* artists 
and poets of Italy, inspired the chaste and delicate poetry assembled 
under the title II Pianto : he saw England, observed the peculiar 
inequalities of English society and condemned them in the poignant 
but desultory and perhaps jaundiced poem Lazare. In all his poetry 
a classical sense of the gravity of words, and a passion that finds its 
own rhythms, strike every attentive reader. Barbier wrote, besides 
poems, some not very distinguished novels and tales ; he translated 
from the English Julius Caesar and The Antient Mariner ; and with 
L. de Wailly he supplied the libretto of Berlioz's fine opera Benvenuto 
Cellini, The latter part of his life was almost unproductive. 

The principal poetry of Auguste Barbier is to be found in one 
volume (Lemerre). A volume of Poesies Posthumes was published in 
1884. lambes appeared in 1831; II Pianto, Lazare in 1833; 
Chants civils et religieux in 1841 ; Rimes hiraiqu.es in 1843 ; Silves 
in 1864 ; Satires in 1865. 



208 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

LXI 
PROLOGUE 

On dira qu'a plaisir je m'allume la joue; 

Que mon vers aime a vivre et ramper dans la boue ; 

Qu'imitant Diogene au eynique manteau, 

Devant tout monument je roule mon tonneau ; 

Que j'insulte aux grands noms, et que ma jeune plume 5 

Sur le peuple et les rois frappe avec amertume : 

Que me font, apres tout, les vulgaires abois 

De tous les charlatans qui donnent de la voix, 

Les marcbands de pathos et les faiseurs d'emphase, 

Et tous les baladins qui dansent sur la phrase ? 10 

Si mon vers est trop cru, si sa bouche est sans frein, 

C'est qu'il sonne aujourd'hui dans un siecle d'airain. 

Le cynisme des moeurs doit salir la parole, 

Et la haine du mal enfante l'hvperbole. 

Or done, je puis braver le regard pudibond : 15 

Mon vers rude et grossier est honnete homme au fond. 

[Les larnbes. 

LXII 

La Curee 
i 

Oh ! lorsqu'un lourd soleil chauffait les grandes dalles 

Des ponts et de nos quais deserts, 
Que les cloches hurlaient, que la grele des balles 

Sifflaient et pleuvaient par les airs ; 
Que dans Paris entier, comme la mer qui monte, 5 

Le peuple souleve grondait, 
Et qu'au lugubre accent des vieux canons de fonte 

La Marseillaise repondait, 
Certes on ne voyait pas, comme au jour ou nous sommes, 

Tant d'uniformes a la fois ; 10 

C'etait sous des haillons que battaient les coeurs d'hommes ; 

C'&ait alors de sales doigts 



AUGUSTE BARBIER 209 

Qui ehargeaient les mousquets et renvoyaient la foudre ; 

C'etait la bouche aux vils jurons 
Qui machait la cartouche, et qui, noire de poudre, is 

Criait aux citoyens : Mourons ! 



11 

Quant a tous ces beaux fils aux tricolores flammes, 

Au beau linge, au frac elegant, 
CesTiommes en corset, ces visages de femmes, 

H^ros du boulevard de Gand, 20 

Que faisaient-ils, tandis qu'a travers la mitraille, 

Et sous le sabre detest^, 
La grande populace et la sainte canaille 

Se ruaient a rimmortalite" ? 
Tandis que tout Paris se jonchait de rnerveilles, 25 

Ces messieurs tremblaient dans leur peau, 
Pales, suant la peur, et la main aux oreilles, 

Accroupis derriere un rideau. 

iii 

C'est que la Liberte n'est pas une comtesse 

Du noble faubourg Saint-Germain, 3 o 

Une femme qu'un cri fait tomber en faiblesse, 

Qui met du blanc et du carmin : 
C'est une forte femme aux puissantes mamelles, 

A la voix rauque, aux durs appas, 
Qui, du brun sur la peau, du feu dans les prunelles, 35 

Agile et marchant a grands pas, 
Se plait aux cris du peuple, aux sanglantes melees, 

Aux longs roulements des tambours, 
A l'odeur de la poudre, aux lointaines volees 

Des cloches et des canons sourds ; 40 

Qui ne prend ses amours que dans la populace, 

Qui ne prete son large flanc 
Qu'a des gens forts comme elle, et qui veut qu'on l'embrasse 
Avec des bras rouges de sang. 

o 



210 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



IV 

C'est la vierge fougueuse, enfant de la Bastille, 45 

Qui jadis, lorsqu'elle apparut 
Avec son air hardi, ses allures de fille, 

Cinq ans mit tout le peuple en rut ; 
Qui, plus tard, entonnant une marche guerriere, 

Lasse de ses premiers amants, 5° 

Jeta la son bonnet, et devint vivandiere 

D'un capitaine de vingt ans : 
C'est cette femme enfin, qui, toujours belle et nue 

Avec l'echarpe aux trois couleurs, 
Dans nos murs mitrailles tout a coup reparue, 55 

Vient de secher nos yeux en pleurs, 
De remettre en trois jours une haute couronne 

Aux mains des Francais souleves, 
D'ecraser une armee et de broyer un tr6ne 

Avec quelques tas de paves. 60 



Mais, 6 honte ! Paris, si beau dans sa colere ; 

Paris, si plein de majeste 
Dans ce jour de tempete ou le vent populaire 

Deracina la royaute ; 
Paris, si magnifique avec ses funerailles, 65 

Ses debris d'hommes, ses tombeaux, 
Ses chemins depaves et ses pans de murailles 

Troues comme de vieux drapeaux : 
Paris, cette cite de lauriers toute ceinte, 

Dont le monde en tier est jaloux, 70 

Que les peuples emus appellent tous la sainte, 

Et qu'ils ne nomment qu'a genoux ; 
Paris n'est maintenant qu'une sentine impure, 

Un egout sordide et boueux, 
Ou mille noirs courants de limon et d'ordure 75 

Viennent trainer leurs flots honteux ; 



AUGUSTE BARBIER 211 

Un taudis regorgeant de faquins sans courage, 

D'effrontes coureurs de salons, 
Qui vont de porte en porte, et d'etage en etage, 

Gueusant quelques bouts de galons ; 80 

Une halle cynique aux clameurs insolentes, 

Ou chacun cherche a dechirer 
Un miserable coin de guenilles sanglantes 

Du pouvoir qui vient d'expirer. 

vi 

Ainsi, quand desertant sa bauge solitaire, 85 

Le sanglier, frappe de mort, 
Est la, tout palpitant, etendu sur la terre 

Et sous le soleil qui le mord ; 
Lorsque, blanchi de bave et la langue tiree, 

Ne bougeant plus en ses liens, 9 o 

II meurt, et que la trompe a sonne la curee 

A toute la meute des chiens, 
Toute la meute, alors, comme une vague immense, 

Bondit ; alors chaque matin 
Hurle en signe de joie, et prepare d'avance 95 

Ses larges crocs pour le festin ; 
Et puis vient la cobue, et les abois feroces 

Roulent de vallons en vallons ; 
Chiens courants et limiers, et dogues, et molosses, 

Tout s'elance, et tout crie : Allons ! too 

Quand le sanglier tombe et roule sur l'arene, 

Allons, allons ! les chiens sont rois ! 
Le cadavre est a nous ; payons-nous notre peine, 

Nos coups de dents et nos abois. 
Allons ! nous n'avons plus de valet qui nous fouaille 105 

Et qui se pende a notre cou : 
Du sang chaud, de la chair, allons, faisons ripaille, 

Et gorgeons-nous tout notre soul ! 
Et tous, comme ouvriers que Ton met a la tache, 

Fouillent ses flancs a plein museau, no 

Et de l'ongle et des dents travaillent sans relache, 

Car chacun en veut un morceau ; 



212 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Car il faut au chenil que chacun d'eux revienne 

Avec un os demi-rong4 
Et que trouvant au seuil son orgueilleuse chienne, 115 

Jalouse et le poil allonge, 
II lui montre sa gueule encor rouge, et qui grogne, 

Son os dans les dents arrete, 
Et lui crie, en jetant son quartier de charogne : 

' Voici ma part de royaute ! ' «o 

[Les Iambes. 
Aotit 1830. 

LXIII 

TlTIEN 

Quand l'art italien comme un fleuve autrefois 
S'en venait a passer par une grande ville, 
Ce n'etait pas alors une eau rare et sterile, 
Mais un fleuve puissant a la superbe voix. 

II allait inondant les palais jusqu'aux toits, 5 

Les domes suspendus par une main debile ; 

II refletait partout dans son cristal mobile 

Le manteau bleu des cieux et la pourpre des rois ; 

Puis avec majeste sur la vague aplanie 

II emportait alors un homme de genie, 10 

Un grand Venitien, a 1'enorme cerveau ; 

Et prenant avec lui sa course vagabonde, 

II le roulait un siecle au courant de son onde, 

Et ne l'abandonnait qu'aux serres d'un fleau. 

[II Pianto. 



AUGUSTE BRIZEUX 213 



AUGUSTE BEIZEUX 

1803-1858 

It is said that the family of Brizeux, long settled in Brittany, was 
remotely of Irish origin. The poet, the son of a former naval surgeon, 
was born at Lorient. His first master was the rector of the little 
parish of Arzanno, near Quimperle ; and he continued his education 
at Vannes, and at Arras. A short comedy in verse, Racine, written 
in collaboration with P. Busoni (the future editor of Casanova) and 
produced at the Theatre Frangais in 1827, was followed four years 
later by an idyllic rhapsody — Marie. In 1834, between two visits 
to Italy in company with his lifelong friend Auguste Barbier, he 
lectured as Ampere's substitute at the Marseilles Athenaeum on the 
history of French poetry. Italian art and the Italian poetry strongly 
influenced Brizeux's talent, particularly on its formal side. While in 
Italy he began, and finished in France, a prose translation of the 
Divine Comedy which has still a considerable reputation. In 1841 
appeared Les Ternaires, a lyrical volume inspired wholly by his 
travels : the obscure title was afterwards changed to La Fleur d'Or. 
But Brittany claimed him. At Lorient in 1844 Brizeux brought out 
a little book of rimes in Breton, Telen Arvor (La Harpe d'Armorique), 
which was followed by a collection of proverbs also in the Celtic 
tongue of the Peninsula and called Fumez Breiz (Sagesse de Bretagne),. 
The Breton rimes of Brizeux became really popular and, years after, 
Breton minstrels would recite them as their own ! 

Les Bretons (1845) is his greatest work, more robust than Marie, 
fusing many idylls in an epical plan, and shows all the soul of his 
native province in the story of everyday lives. The poem was 
immediately famous, praised by Vigny and Hugo and, through their 
efforts, 'crowned' by the French Academy. In 1847 Brizeux started 
on his last journey to Italy and stayed there two years in a time of 
revolution and turmoil. He produced nothing more until 1855, when 
a book of Italian idylls, Histoires Poetiques, appeared. A diffuse and 
rather forbidding disquisition in three books on the sources of inspira- 
tion and the function of poetry, was his last work in verse. In 1858, 
his lungs being affected, he was ordered to the South, and was over- 



214 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

taken by his last illness at Montpellier. At the public expense, his 
body was taken back to Brittany, and buried beside the Elle\ 

Brizeux had dreamed of rehandling la matiere de Bretagne in the 
old epical spirit and with the resources of modern archaeology, of 
reviving all the heroic and religious history of Armorica from pagan 
times in a vast cyclic work. A long life would hardly have sufficed ; 
for in the latter part of his career the fastidious scruples of his artistic 
conscience, a mania for excessive concision, threatened to desiccate 
his talent, and he had lost all that generous fluidity of style which is 
so large a part of his charm in his happier early work. The achieve- 
ment of Brizeux is, however, very memorable. No French poet had 
deliberately devoted gifts of a high order to the interpretation of a 
race. His 'local patriotism' is neither factitious nor complacent. 
His tone is always completely appropriate to his subject. His 
humble creatures have the dignity of symbols and keep their own 
reality. Brizeux paints in the ancient manner, broadly, and with a 
noble economy. He is simple without an effort, which is the only 
way to be simple ; and his tenderness has not a false note. Un- 
fortunately, his talent wanted energy, and he became a victim of that 
dissatisfaction without which there is no art, but which easily 
degenerates into impotence when it is not controlled by self-know- 
ledge and a certain fixity of ideals. 

QSuvres poitiques. £ vols. (Lemerre.) 

LXIV 

Marie 

Du bois de Ker-Mel6 jusqu'au moulin de Teir, 
J'ai passe tout le jour sur le bord de la mer, 
Respirant sous les pins leur odeur de resine, 
Poussant devant rnes pieds leur feuille lisse et fine, 
Et d'instants en instants, par-dessus Saint-Michel 5 

Lorsqu' eclatait le bruit de la barre d'Enn-Tell, 
M'arretant pour entendre : au milieu des bruyeres, 
Carnac m'apparaissait avec toutes ses pierres, 
Et parmi les men-hir erraient comme autrefois 
Les vieux guerriers des clans, leurs pretres et leurs rois. 10 
Puis, je marchais encore au hasard et sans regie. 
C'est ainsi que, faisant le tour d'un champ de seigle, 



AUGUSTE BRIZEUX 215 

Je trouvai deux enfants couches au pied d'un houx, 

Deux enfants qui jouaient, sur le sable, aux cailloux ; 

Et soudain, dans mon coeur cette vie innocente, 15 

Qu'une image bien chere a mes yeux represente, 

O Mai ! si fortement s'est mise a revenir, 

Qu'il m'a fallu cbanter encor ce souvenir. 

Dans ce sombre Paris, toi que j'ai tant revee, 

Vois ! comme en vos vallons mon cceur t'a retrouvee ! 20 

A l'age qui pour moi fut si plein de douceurs, 

J'avais pour Stre aime trois cousines (trois sceurs) ; 

Elles venaient souvent me voir au presbytere ; 

Le nom qu'elles portaient alors, je dois le taire : 

Toutes trois aujourd'hui marchent le front voile, 25 

Une pres de Morlaix et deux a Kemperle" ; 

Mais je sais qu'en leur cloltre elles me sont fideles, 

Elles ont prie Dieu pour moi qui parle d'elles. 

Chez mon ancien cure, l'ete, d'un lieu voisin 

Elles venaient done voir l'ecolier leur cousin ; 30 

Prenaient, en me parlant, un langage de meres ; 

Ou bien, selon leur age et le mien, moins severes, 

S'informaient de Marie, objet de mes amours, 

Et si, pour l'embrasser, je la suivais toujours; 

Et comme ma rougeur montrait assez ma flamme, 33 

Ces soeurs, qui sans piti6 jouaient avec mon ame, 

Curieuses aussi, resolurent de voir 

Celle qui me tenait si jeune en son pouvoir. 

A l'heure de midi, lorsque de leur village 

Les enfants accouraient au bourg, selon l'usage, 40 

Les voila, de s'asseoir, en riant, toutes trois, 

Devant le cimetiere, au dessous de la croix ; 

Et quand au catechisme arrivait une fille, 

Rouge sous la chaleur et qui semblait gentille, 

Comme il en venait tant de Ker-barz, Ker-balve, 45 

Et par tous les sentiers qui vont a Ti-neve, 

Elles barraient la route, et par plaisanterie 

Disaient en soulevant sa coiffe : ' Es-tu Marie ? ' 



216 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Or celle-ci passait avec Joseph Daniel ; 

Elle entendit son nom, et vite, grace au ciel ! 5° 

Se sauvait, quand Daniel, comme une biche fauve, 

La poursuivit, criant : ' Voici Mai' qui se sauve ! ' 

Et, sautant par-dessus les tombes et leurs morts, 

Au detour du clocher la prit a bras-le-corps : 

Elle se debattait, se cachait la figure ; ss 

Mais cbacun dcarta ses mains et sa coiffure ; 

Et les yeux des trois sceurs s'ouvrirent pour bien voir 

Cette grappe du Scorf, cette fleur de ble" noir. 

[Mcvrie. 

LXV 

Invocation 

II est au fond des bois, il est une peuplade 

Ou, loin de ce siecle malade, 
Souvent je viens errer, moi, po,ete nomade. 

La, tout m'attire et me sourit, 
La seve de mon cceur s'epanche, et mon esprit s 

Comme un arbuste refleurit. 

Sous ces bois primitifs que le vent seul ravage, 

Je sens eclore, a chaque ombrage, 
Un vers franc impregn6 d'une senteur sauvage. 

Devant mon regard enchant6, 10 

Jeunes filles, enfants empourpres de sante, 
Passent dans leur virginite. 

J'aide dans les sillons le soc opini&tre ; 

Pasteur, je chante avec le p§,tre ; 
La fileuse m'endort, le soir, au coin de l'atre. 15 

Puis, des l'aube, je vois les jeux 
De l'oiseau qui sautille entre les pieds des boeufs, 
Et pres des sources pond ses oeufs. 



AUGUSTE BBJZEUX 217 

O chere solitude ! — Et pourtant, je le jure, 

Arts elegants, bronze, peinture, 20 

Je vous aime, rivaux de cette apre nature ! 

Helas ! me preservent les cieux 
De vous nier jamais, symboles radieux, 
Charmes de l'esprit et des yeux ! 

Et si, vivant d'oubli dans cette humble Cornouaille, 25 

J'entends vos clameurs de bataille, 
Heros et saints martyrs du monde, je tressaille ! 

Mais, 6 calme riant des bois, 
Eevenez dans mon cceur, adoueissez ma voix, 

Faites aimer ce que je vois. 30 

C'est la de tous mes vers la pieuse demande : 

Esprits des champs et de la lande, 
Versez en moi la paix pour que je la repande ! 

[Histoires Podtiques. 



218 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

JOSfiPHIN SOULARY 

1815-1891 

Joseph (otherwise Josephin) Soulaey came of a family which had 
borne in Genoa the name of Solari, but had been settled in Lyons 
and connected with its silk industry for several generations. His 
schooling was brief, for at fifteen he was rated in a marching regi- 
ment as an 'enfant de troupe.' He served till 1836, and his first 
verses in a provincial paper were signed ' Soulary, grenadier.' But 
his health broke down, and civil employment was found for him in 
Ms native city, a clerkship at the Prefecture du Rhone which he 
kept for thirty years and then exchanged for the post of librarian to 
the Art Gallery of Lyons. These occupations left him leisure for 
what he loved best, writing poetry. His first collection of verses 
appeared in 1838 ; it was his Sonnets humoristiques (1858) which 
made him as famous in the capital as in his native city, and won 
him the friendship of his great contemporaries. 

Soulary's is a delicate and engaging gift. He had no rival as a 
sonneteer in his lifetime ; and even since the appearance of M. de 
Heredia, the consummate lapidary, who unquestionably excels Mm 
in generosity of rhythm and in economy of material, the charm of 
Soulary's sonnets remains fresh and inimitable as a smile. In his 
supple hands the same form lent itself with equal felicity to a con- 
siderable variety of themes and moods : he is playful and pensive, 
allegorical or familiar, tells a dream or evokes a woman's grace or 
extracts the moral of an anecdote with the same effect of spontaneity 
and always with a sovereign elegance.* Though the fascination of 
the sonnet form possessed him, and obviously governed his adven- 
tures into the field of structural invention, his achievements in 
longer lyrics and even in narrative poetry are by no means negligible. 
Such a piece as ' Urt Songe ' may fairly be called a masterpiece, for 
its emotional quality and vividness no less than for the perfect poise 
and melody of the strophes. He was least happy perhaps in the 
verse inspired by the events of 1870-1871 : indignation seemed to 
stifle his natural voice ; but he was capable of fine efforts of satire, 
as 'Le Eeactionnaire ' attests. He wrote one comedy, Un grand 
homme qu'on attend. 

The principal volumes of Soulary's poetry published in his lifetime 



JOStfPHIN SOULARY 219 

are : A travers champs (1838), Les rfphe'meres (two series : Lyons 1846, 
1857) ; Sonnets humoristiques (1858), Hives d' Escarpolette (1862) ; 
Sonnets, pohmes et poesies (1864) ; Les Diables bleus (1870). — There 
is a collective edition in three volumes published by Lemerre. 

LXVI 
Primula Veeis 
Que tout cceur aimant soit aime ! 
Du bonheur feconde semence, 
Le desir a partout germe" ; 
La saison des baisers commence. 
La saison des baisers commence ; 5 

Pour calmer le sang enflamme 
Qui fait battre 1'artere immense, 
Agitez le thyrse embaume. 
Agitez le thyrse embaume 

Dont l'odeur grise l'mnocence ; io 

Dompt^s par le sceptre charme\ 
Les dieux memes sont en demence ! 

Que tout cceur aimant soit aime ! 

La saison des baisers commence ; 

Agitez le thyrse embaume, 15 

Les dieux memes sont en demence ! 

Les dieux memes sont en demence, 
L' Amour s'offre tout desarme, 
Agitez le thyrse embaume' ! 

Agitez le thyrse embaume 20 

Sur le front de l'adolescence ; 
La saison des baisers commence. 

La saison des baisers commence ; 
Pour qu'il en soit beaucoup seme, 
Que tout cceur aimant soit aime ! 25 

Pour qu'il en soit beaucoup seme 
Sur le front de l'adolescence 
L' Amour s'offre tout desarme. 

[Sonnets Humoristiques. 



220 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



VICTOR DE LAPEADE 

1812-1883 

Pierre-Marie- Victor Richard de Laprade, the son of a well-known 
physician, was born at Montbrison, but brought up at Lyons, and 
passed almost all his life there. He was nominally a barrister when 
he published his first poetry, Les Parfums de Madeleine. Four 
years later, in 1841, he made some stir with the long poem Psyche', 
an evangelical re-setting of the beautiful Greek allegory. After Odes 
et Poemes (1844), which are largely inspired by the Scriptures and 
contain some of his finest work, Laprade was sent by the Govern- 
ment upon a literary mission to Italy, and on his return was appointed 
professor of French literature at the University of Lyons. 

Poemes e'vangeliques (1852) and Symphonies (1855) prepared the 
way for his election to the French Academy : in 1858 he succeeded 
Musset, who had said of him : ' If M. de Laprade is a poet, I am 
none.' Idylles Mro'iques appeared in the same year. In 1861 
Laprade gave great offence to the Imperial Government by a satire 
on ' official ' poets — Les Muses d'etat. The newspaper in which it 
appeared was threatened with suspension, and the poet himself driven 
from his chair at Lyons. Just before the Empire fell it was offered 
him again by M. Einile Ollivier, and declined. Pernette, published 
in 1868, is another 'heroic idyll,' a story of the Napoleonic wars 
which describes the effect of foreign invasion in reconciling a dis- 
affected peasantry to conscription : appearing on the eve of the war 
with Prussia, it has a certain prophetic interest. After the Peace, 
Laprade was elected to the Assembly as Deputy for the Bhone. He 
voted with the Right, but took no part in debate, and was frequently 
absent through ill-health. He resigned his seat in 1873 and about 
the same time published Poemes civiques, a collection of patriotic 
poems which includes the well-known satire, ' Gretchen.' Le Livre 
d'un Pere (1878), perhaps his most attractive book, was his last pub- 
lication in verse. He had written considerably in prose also — chiefly 
on educational subjects. L' Education homicide (1867), and two 
treatises on the feeling for nature among the ancients and among the 
moderns, are his principal prose works. 



VICTOR DE LAPRADE 221 

Laprade's place in French poetry is hardly settled. With various 
gifts, he is essentially a moralist. Grave, eloquent, sonorous at its 
best, his verse does not always give an impression of spontaneity ; 
and he is voluminous and singularly unequal, like Wordsworth, with 
whom he has a certain affinity, not in style nor in positive beliefs, 
but in his general attitude towards the inanimate. Nature supplied 
him inexhaustibly with emblems of moral virtue, and appears in his 
characteristic poetry as the great consoler, the monitress and the wise 
nurse of human efforts. He strove, with moderate success perhaps, 
to reconcile a certain pantheism with a severe type of liberal Catholi- 
cism. His satire is heavy but not ineffective. Accidentally asso- 
ciated with Le Pamasse, though he had little enough in common 
with its leaders, Laprade always avoided the Eomantic exaggeration 
of personality ; but he professed himself a disciple of Lamartine, and 
shared his master's aversion for literary poetry. He has Lamartine's 
negative quality of imprecision : he is more laborious and more 
correct. That he wants the wings and the infinite capacity for 
melody needs no saying. 

The Poetical Works of Laprade are in Lemerre's Collection (six 
volumes). 

LXVII 
La Mort d'un Chene 



Quand l'homme te frappa de sa lache cogn6e, 
roi qu'hier le mont portait avec orgueil, 
Mon &me, au premier coup, retentit indignee, 
Et dans la forgt sainte il se fit un grand deuil. 

Un murmure eclata sous ses ombres paisibles ; 
J'entendis des sanglots et des bruits menacants : 
Je vis errer des bois les notes invisibles, 
Pour te defendre, helas ! contre l'homme impuissants. 

Tout un peuple effraye partit de ton feuillage, 
Et mille oiseaux chanteurs, troubles dans leurs amours, 
Planerent sur ton front comme un pale nuage, 
Percant de cris aigus tes gemissements sourds. 



222 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Le flot triste hesita dans 1'urne des fontaines, 

Le haut du mont trembla sous les pins chancelants, 

Et l'aquilon roula dans les gorges lointaines is 

L' echo des grands soupirs arraches a tes flancs. 

Ta chute laboura, comme un coup de tonnerre, 

Un arpent tout entier sur le sol paternel ; 

Et quand son sein meurtri recut ton corps, la terre 

Eut un rugissement terrible et solennel : 20 

Car Cybele t'aimait, toi l'aine" de ses chines, 
Comme un premier enfant que sa mere a nourri ; 
Du plus pur de sa seve elle abreuvait tes veines, 
Et son front se levait pour te faire un abri. 

Elle entoura tes pieds d'un long tapis de mousse, 25 

Ou toujours en avril elle faisait germer 
Pervenche et violette a l'odeur fraiche et douce, 
Pour qu'on choislt ton ombre et qu'on y Tint aimer. 

Toi, sur elle epanchant cette ombre et tes murmures, 
Oh ! tu lui payais bien ton tribut filial ! 30 

Et chaque automne a flots versait tes feuilles mures, 
Comme un manteau d'hiver, sur le coteau natal. 

La terre s'enivrait de ta large harmonie ; 

Pour parler dans la brise, elle a cree les bois : 

Quand elle veut gemir d'une plainte infinie, 35 

Des cMnes et des pins elle emprunte la voix. 

Cybele t'amenait une immense famille ; 

Chaque branche portait son nid ou son essaim ; 

Abeille, oiseau, reptile, insecte qui fourmille, 

Tous avaient la pature et l'abri dans ton sein. 40 

Ta chute a disperse tout ce peuple sonore ; 
Mille etres avec toi tombent aneantis ; * 

A ta place, dans l'air, seuls voltigent encore 
Quelques pauvres oiseaux qui cherchent leurs petits. 



VICTOR DE LAPRADE 223 

Tes rameaux ont broy6 des troncs deja robustes ; 45 

Autour de toi la mort a fauche largement. 

Tu gis sur un monceau de chenes et d'arbustes ; 

J'ai vu tes verts cheveux palir en un moment. 

Et ton eternite" pourtant me semblait sure ! 

La terre te gardait des jours multiplies ... s ° 

La seve afflue encor par l'horrible blessure 

Qui dessecha le tronc separe de ses pieds. 

Oh ! ne prodigue plus la seve a ces racines, 

Ne verse pas ton sang sur ce fils expire, 

Mere ! garde-le tout pour les plantes voisines ; S s 

Le ch6ne ne boit plus ce breuvage sacre. 

Dis adieu, pauvre chene, au printemps qui t'enivre : 

Hier, il t'a pare de feuillages nouveaux ; 

Tu ne sentiras plus ce bonheur de revivre : 

Adieu, les nids d'amour qui peuplaient tes rameaux ! 60 

Adieu, les noirs essaims bourdonnant sur tes branches, 
Le frisson de la feuille aux caresses du vent, 
Adieu, les frais tapis de mousse et de pervenches 
Ou le bruit des baisers t'a rejoui souvent ! 

chene ! je comprends ta puissante agonie ! 65 

Dans sa paix, dans sa force, il est dur de mourir ; 
A voir crouler ta tete au printemps rajeunie, 
Je devine, 6 geant ! ce que tu dois souffrir. 

Ainsi jusqu'a ses pieds l'homme t'a fait descendre ; 
Son fer a depece les rameaux et le tronc ; 70 

Cet etre harmonieux sera fumee et cendre 
Et la terre et le vent se le partageront ! 

Mais n'est-il rien de toi qui subsiste et qui dure ? 

Ou s'en vont ces esprits d'ecorce recouverts ? 

Et n'est-il de vivant que l'immense nature, 75 

Une au fond, mais s'ornant de mille aspects divers ? 



224 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Quel qu'il soit, cependant, ma voix b^nit ton 6tre 
Pour le divin repos qu'a tes pieds j'ai goute. 
Dans un jeune univers, si tu dois y renaitre, 
Puisses-tu retrouver la force et la beauts ! 80 

Car j'ai pour les forets des amours fraternelles ; 
Poete vetu d'ombre, et dans la paix revant, 
Je vis avec lenteur, triste et calme, et, comme elles, 
Je porte haut ma tete, et chante au moindre vent. 

Je crois le bien au fond de tout ce que j'ignore ; 85 

J'espere malgre" tout, mais nul bonheur humain : 
Comme un che"ne immobile, en mon repos sonore, 
J'attends le jour de Dieu qui nous luira demain. 

En moi de la foret le calme s'insinue ; 

De ses arbres sacrds, dans l'ombre enseveli, 90 

J'apprends la patience aux hommes inconnue, 

Et mon cceur apaise vit d'espoir et d'oubli. 

Mais l'homme fait la guerre aux forets pacifiques ; 
L'ombrage sur les monts recule chaque jour; 
Rien ne nous restera des asiles mystiques 95 

Ou l'ame va cueillir la pens^e et l'amour. 

Prends ton vol, 6 mon cceur ! la terre n'a plus d'ombres, 
Et les oiseaux du ciel, les reves infinis, 
Les blanches visions qui cherchent les lieux sombres, 
Bientdt n'auront plus d'arbre ou deposer leurs nids. 100 

La terre se depouille et perd ses sanctuaires ; 
On chasse des vallons ses hotes merveilleux. 
Les dieux aimaient des bois les temples s^culaires ; 
La hache a fait tomber les chenes et les dieux. 

Plus d'autels, plus d'ombrage et de paix abritee, 105 

Plus de rites sacres sous les grands domes verts ! 
Nous 16guons a nos fils la terre devast^e ; 
Car nos peres nous ont legu6 des cieux deserts. 



VICTOR DE LAPRADE 225 



11 

Ainsi tu gemissais, poete, ami des chenes, 
Toi qui gardes encor le culte des vieux jours. no 

Tu vois l'homnie altere" sans ombre et sans fontaines ; 
Va ! l'antique Cybele enfantera toujours ! 

Leve-toi ! c'est assez pleurer sur ce qui tombe ; 

La lyre doit savoir predire et consoler ; 

Quand l'esprit te conduit sur le bord de la tombe, 115 

De vie et d'avenir c'est pour nous y parler. 

Crains-tu de voir tarir la seve universelle, 

Parce qu'un chene est mort et qu'il etait geant ? 

poete ! ame ardente en qui l'amour ruisselle, 

Organe de la vie, as-tu peur du neant ? 120 

Va ! l'ceil qui nous rechauffe a plus d'un jour a luire ; 

Le grand semeur a bien des graines a semer, 

La nature n'est pas lasse encor de produire : 

Car, ton cceur le sait bien, Dieu n'est pas las d'aimer. 

Tandis que tu gemis sur cet arbre en ruines, 125 

Mille germes la-bas, deposes en secret, 

Sous le regard de Dieu, veillent dans ces collines, 

Tout prets a s'elancer en vivante foret. 

Nos fils pourront aimer et r6ver sous leurs d6mes ; 
Le poete adorer la nature et cbanter ! 130 

Dans l'ombreux labyrinthe ou tu vois des fantomes, 
Un ideal plus pur viendra les visiter. 

Croissez sur nos debris, croissez, forets nouvelles ! 
Sur vos jeunes bourgeons nous verserons nos pleurs; 
D'avance je vous vois, plus fortes et plus belles, 13s 

Faire un plus doux ombrage a des hotes meilleurs. 

Vous n'abriterez plus de sanglants sacrifices ; 
L'age emporte les dieux ennemis de la paix, 
Aux chants, aux jeux sacres, vos sejours sont propices; 
Votre mousse aux loisirs offre des lits epais. 140 

p 



226 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Ne penche plus ton front sur les choses qui meurent ; 
Tourne au levant tes yeux, ton cceur a l'avenir. 
Les arbres sont tombes, mais les germes demeurent ; 
Tends sur ceux qui naitront tes bras pour les b^nir. 

Poete aux longs regards, vois les races futures, 145 

Vois ces bois merveilleux a l'horizon eclos ; 
Dans ton sein prophetique ecoute les murmures ; 
Ecoute ! au lieu d'un bruit de fer et de sanglots, 

Sur des coteaux baignes par des clartes sereines 

Ou des peuples joyeux semblent se reposer, 150 

Sous les chenes 6mus, les hetres et les fr^nes, 

On dirait qu'on entend un immense baiser. 

[Odes et Poemes. 



THEODORE DE BANVILLE 227 

THEODORE DE BANVILLE 

1823-1891 

Banville was the son of a naval officer and was born at Moulins, 
but became a Parisian very early. His life (of which his writings 
tell us next to nothing) was tranquil and happy. He had frail health, 
domestic virtues, endeared himself to the best of his contemporaries ; 
and he was a man of real piety, and (to complete his figure) a famous 
epicure. 

Les Cariatides, his first volume of poetry, dates from 1842. The 
great poets of the first Romantic generation were revising their 
formulas and enlarging their horizon. The poetry of archangelical 
rebellion and distinguished melancholy had spent itself : there had 
been a surfeit of unchastened personalities ; the day was past for 
Gothicism and Orientalism, the exotic vogue of northern mists and 
Mediterranean moons. Banville made his first athletic essays and 
earned Baudelaire's comparison with the infant Hercules at a moment 
of transition. The poetry which should shake thrones and foresee 
millenniums, or carry the conquests of the historical spirit into the 
domain of the imagination and fix in marmorean forms the transience 
of our illusions, was as yet hardly promised. Banville had no 'mission,' 
not even an attitude, only a tone ; but with a gay and yet austere devo- 
tion to the art of making verse he conceived the possibility of carrying 
the development of a magnificent instrument one step farther. Upon 
the recent claim for freedom his precocious virtuosity superimposed a 
classical worship of correctness : in his hands the reforms which had 
seemed audacious a few years back passed into the stage of dogma. 
This is his only link with the Parnassians : for it was by the fortune of 
an even temper and without any pretension to the tranquillity of science 
that he showed himself truly impassive, serene as the ancient gods 
whose train, said Gautier, he brought back into the Romantic Burg. 

Banville's is a poetry of fantastic and delicious variations. It is 
not true that he is insensible ; but for the power to sustain himself 
he depends singularly little upon what is outside the actual material 
he worked with. The patriotic desire to hearten the defence of Paris 
made him think of writing Idylles prussiennes : the inspiration of 
the book, from strophe to strophe, is purely verbal. Still more 
evidently verbal is the inspiration of the quite delightful Odes 
Funambulesqwes, which their esoteric and modish allusions make it 



228 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

less easy for us to appreciate to-day : their atticism, their comic 
elegance resides entirely in the rimes. 

The all-sufficiency of Eime, the brilliant paradox he maintained in 
his petulant and incomplete but valuable Traits, was after all only 
a violent assertion of that pre-established and miraculous accord 
between sense and sound in which every poet must necessarily con- 
fide ; and if with Banville ' the imagination of the ear ' was in some 
degree an idiosyncrasy, there are many pages in the same short work 
which sufficiently dispose of the view that his conception of his art 
left the spiritual elements out of account. 

Once his limitations are recognised, Banville's achievement appears 
considerable — even in point of variety, for his comedies (Fsope, 
Grmgoire) have a singular grace, and it is in them perhaps that a 
certain affinity with La Fontaine's temperament best appears. It is 
a real merit of Banville's to have appreciated the fabulist, as a poet, 
better than any one else in the century. Another, not a great one, is 
the example he set in reviving the ' fixed forms ' of an earlier poetry ; 
and yet another that, for all the amusing intolerance and assumed 
finality of his technical theories, he really foresaw the necessity of 
farther reforms tending to make the modern ear the sole arbiter of 
poetical practice. 

In a word, the form of verse interested him profoundly : a really 
scrupulous craftsmanship is not so common ; and the name of poet 
can be denied to Theodore de Banville only when the word has lost a 
good half of its associations. 

The principal volumes of Banville's poetry are : — Les Cariatides 
(1842); Les Stalactites (1846); Odelettes (1856); Odes Funam- 
bulesques (1857, 1869); Les Exiles (1866); Idylles prussiennes 
(1871) ; Princesses (1874) ; Trente-six Ballades joyeuses (1875) ; Nous 
Tous (1884); Sonnailles et Clochettes (1890); Dans la Fournaise 
(1892). His Petit Traite de Poesie francaise appeared in 1872. 
The works of Banville are published by Lemerre and by Charpentier. 

LXVIII 

Sous Bois 

A travers le bois fauve et radieux, 
Recitant des vers sans qu'on les en prie, 
Vont, couverts de pourpre et l'orfevrerie, 
Les Comediens, rois et demi-dieux. 



THEODORE DE BANVILLE 229 

Herode brandit son glaive odieux ; s 

Dans les oripeaux de la broderie, 

Cleopatre brille en jupe fleurie 

Comme resplendit un paon couvert d'yeux. 

Puis, tout flamboyants sous les chrysolithes, 

Les bruns Adonis et les Hyppolytes 10 

Montrent leurs arcs d'or et leurs peaux de loups. 

Pierrot s'est charge de la dame-jeanne. 
Puis apres eux tous, d'un air triste et doux 
Viennent en r^vant le Poete et l'Ane. 

[Les Gariatides. 
26 Janvier 1842. 

LXIX 

Nous n'irons plus au bois, les lauriers sont coupes. 
Les Amours aux bassins, les Naiades en groupe 
Voient reluire au soleil en cristaux decoupes 
Les flots silencieux qui coulaient de leur coupe. 
Les lauriers sont coupes, et le cerf aux abois 5 

Tressaille au son du cor ; nous n'irons plus au bois. 
Ou des enfants joueurs riait la folle troupe 
Parmi les lys d'argent aux pleurs du ciel trempes, 
Voici l'herbe qu'on fauche et les lauriers qu'on coupe. 
Nous n'irons plus au bois, les lauriers sont coupes. 10 

[Les Stalactites. 
Novembre 1845. 

LXX 

Ballade de Victor Hugo, 

Pere de tous les Rimeurs 

En ce temps dedaigneux, la Rime 
A force amants et chevaliers. 
Ces chanteurs, pour qu'on les imprime, 
Accourent chez nos hoteliers 



230 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

De Voyron, pays des toiliers, s 

D'Auch, de Nuits, de Gap et de Lille, 
Et nous en avons par milliers, 
Mais le pere est la-bas, dans Me. 

Les uns devant le mont sublime 

Batissent de grands escaliers 10 

Qui vont jusqu'a la double cime ; 

Ceux-la, comme des oiseliers, 

Prennent des rhythmes singuliers, 

Ou rejoignent l'abbe Delille 

Par le chemin des ecoliers ; is 

Mais le pere est la-bas, dans l'lle. 

D'autres encor tiennent la lime ; 

D'autres, s'adossant aux piliers, 

Heurtent la sottise unanime 

De leurs fronts, comme des beliers : 20 

D'autres, effrayant les geoliers 

Du grand cri de Rouget de l'lsle, 

Brisent nos fers et nos colliers ; 

Mais le pere est la-bas, dans l'lle. 

Envoi 

Gautier parmi ces joailliers 25 

Est prince, et Leconte de Lisle 
Forge Tor dans ses ateliers ; 
Mais le pere est la-bas, dans l'ile. 

[Trente-six Ballades joyeuses. 



AoU 1869. 



LXXI 

La Montagne 

Pantov/m, 

Sur les bords de ce not celeste 
Mille oiseaux chantent, querelleurs. 
Mon enfant, seul bien qui me reste, 
Dors sous ces branches d'arbre en fleurs. 



THEODORE DE BANVILLE 231 

Mille oiseaux chantent, querelleurs ; s 

Sur la riviere un cygne glisse. 

Dors sous ces branches d'arbre en fleurs, 

toi ma joie et mon delice ! 

Sur la riviere un cygne glisse 

Dans les feux du soleil couchant. 10 

toi ma joie et mon delice, 

Endors-toi, berce par mon chant ! 

Dans les feux du soleil couchant 
Le vieux mont est brillant de neige. 
Endors-toi, berce par mon chant, is 

Qu'un dieu bienveillant te protege ! 

Le vieux mont est brillant de neige, 

A ses pieds l'ebenier neurit. 

Qu'un dieu bienveillant te protege ! 

Ta petite bouche sourit. 20 

A ses pieds l'ebenier neurit, 

De brillants metaux le recouvrent. 

Ta petite bouche sourit, 

Pareille aux corolles qui s'ouvrent. 

De brillants metaux le recouvrent, 25 

Je vois luire des diamants. 
Pareille aux corolles qui s'ouvrent, 
Ta levre a des rayons charm ants. 

Je vois luire des diamants 

Sur la montagne enchanteresse. 30 

Ta levre a des rayons charmants : 

Dors, qu'un r§ve heureux te caresse ! 



1! 



Sur la montagne enchanteresse 

Je vois des topazes de feu. 

Dors, qu'un songe heureux te caresse, 35 

Ferme tes yeux de lotus bleu ! 



232 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Je vois des topazes de feu 

Qui chassent tout songe funeste. 

Ferme tes yeux de lotus bleu 

Sur les bords de ce not celeste ! 4° 

[Petit TraiU de Poisie frcvncaise. 

LXXII 
MOURIR, DORMIR 

II boite affreusement, ce vieux cheval de fiacre. 

Ses yeux tout grands ouverts ont des blancbeurs de nacre. 

II voudrait se coucher, dormir ; il ne peut pas. 

Sur le pave glissant il bute a cbaque pas. 

II resseinble a ces morts qu'on traine sur des claies ; 5 

Ses jambes et ses flancs sont tout couverts de plaies ; 

Sa bouche molle et noire est gonflee en dedans. 

Tragique, il mord le vide avec ses longues dents, 

Tandis que le cocber l'injurie et le fouaille, 

Et cbaque fois dechire une nouvelle entaille, 10 

Gros bomme rouge, avec des gaites de noceur. 

En quelque borrible songe il voit l'equarrisseur ; 

Alors, comme il trebuche, accable par ce re've, 

Bien vite, a coups de fouet son bourreau le releve. 

Allons, bue ! Eh ! va done, carcan ! va done, cbabut ! 15 

Eb ! va done, president, carcasse ! Gamahut ! 

Sur le cheval, en proie aux angoisses dernieres, 

Le fouet, ivre et feroce, enleve des lanieres. 

Ce pauvre Stre perclus, battu, martyrise, 

Que tourmente un rayon de soleil irise, 20 

Cet affame qui n'a pas eu d'avoine, en somme 

N'est qu'une rosse. II est malheureux comme un homme. 

[Da/ns la Fowmaise. 
Mercredi, 12 jammer 1887. 



LOUIS BOUILHET 233 



LOUIS BOUILHET 

1822-1869 

Botjilhet was born at Cany in Normandy ; and as his father, an 
army surgeon, died young of wounds received in the Russian cam- 
paign, he was brought up by his mother's father — an ancient gentle- 
man who had corresponded with the philosophes — and met his life- 
long friend Gustave Flaubert at school in Rouen. He began riming 
as a schoolboy, and afterwards, between walking the hospitals and 
coaching pupils for a living, found time to perfect his talent. He 
gave up medicine in 1845 and thenceforward devoted his life to 
poetry. A volume "of lyrics, followed by the Roman tale in verse 
called Milosnis, and Les Fossiles, a sort of scientific epic, made him 
known to a few : but as a dramatic poet he quickly won a consider- 
able reputation : his first play, Madame de Montarcy, was put on the 
stage in 1856, and seemed for the moment about to restore the popu- 
larity of the Romantic formulas. Its successors (all written in verse 
except one of the best, Faustine) were produced with various success : 
he published nothing more except dramas, but he wrote a good deal 
of other verse, which appeared posthumously xmder the title Dernieres 
Chansons. His disinterested and laborious career ended prematurely, 
just when his appointment to the charge of the public library at 
Rouen had brought him material independence. 

Bouilhet might be called a transitional Romantic. All his writings 
reflect a vigorous and naturally expansive temperament : his dramatic 
conceptions have more breadth and intensity than delicacy ; there is 
everywhere a profusion of images, of colour ; he loved the poets of 
the Renaissance and perhaps knew them better than any of his con- 
temporaries. On the other hand the severe repression of his person- 
ality, the extreme conscientiousness of his form, his erudition (he 
spent much of his time studying the Chinese language and civilisation 
with the idea of writing a novel on the Far East), a strain of Pagan 
pessimism running through his poetry, seem rather to attach him to 
the school of Leconte de Lisle. All his verse is of admirable work- 
manship. 

All Bouilhet's dramas and Les Fossiles are now somewhat difficult 



234 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

to obtain. Festons et Astragales, Melcenis and Dernieres Chansons, 
with Flaubert's memorable Preface, have recently been reprinted by 
Lemerre. 

LXXIII 

La Colombe 

Quand, chasses sans retour des temples venerables, 
Tordus au vent de feu qui soufflait du Thabor, 
Les grands Olympiens etaient si miserables 
Que les petits enfants tiraient leur barbe d'or ; 

Durant ces jours d'angoisse ou la terre etonnee 5 

Portait, comme un fardeau, l'ecroulement des cieux, 
Un seul homme, debout contre la destinee, 
Osa, dans leur detresse, avoir pitie" des dieux. 

Cetait un large front, — un Empereur, — un sage, 
Assez haut sur son trdne et sur sa volonte 10 

Pour arreter du doigt tout un siecle au passage, 
Et donner son mot d'ordre a la Divinite. 

Or, un soir qu'il marchait avec ses capitaines, 

Incline" sous ce poids de l'avenir humain, 

II apercut, au fond des brumes incertaines, 15 

Un vieux temple isole\ sur le bord d'un chemin ; 

Un vieux temple isole\ plein de mornes visages, 

Un de ces noirs d6bris, au souvenir amer, 

Qui dorment 6choues sur la greve des ages, 

Quand les religions baissent comme la mer. 20 

Le seuil croulait ; la pluie avait ronge la porte ; 
Toute la lune entrait par les tois crevasses. 
Au milieu de la route, il quitta son escorte, 
Et s'avanca, pensif, au long des murs glaces. 

Les colonnes de marbre, a ses pieds, abattues, 25 

Touchaient de toutes parts les paves precieux ; 
L'herbe haute montait au ventre des statues, 
Des cigognes revaient sur l'epaule des dieux. 



LOUIS BOUILHET 235 

Parfois, dans le silence, eclatait un bruit d'aile, 
On entendait, au loin, comme un frisson courir ; 3 o 

Et sur les grands vaincus penchant un front fidele, 
Phcebe, froide comme eux, les regardait mourir. 

Et comme il restait la, perdu dans ses pens^es, 

Des profondeurs du temple il vit se detacher, 

Avec un bruit confus de plaintes cadencees, 35 

Une lueur tremblante et qui semblait marcher. 

Cela se rapprochait et sonnait sur les dalles. 
Cetait un grand vieillard qui pleurait en chemin, 
Courbe, maigre, en haillons, et trainant ses sandales, 
Une tiare au front, une lampe a la main. 4 o 

II cachait sous sa robe une blanche colombe ; 
Dernier pretre des dieux, il apportait encor 
Sur le dernier autel la derniere hecatombe . . . 
Et l'Empereur pleura, — car son re>e etait mort ! 

II pleura jusqu'aU jour sous cette voute noire. 45 

Tu souriais, 6 Christ, dans ton paradis bleu, 
Tes cherubins chantaient sur des harpes d'ivoire, 
Tes anges secouaient leurs six ailes de feu ! 

Et du morne Empyree insultant la detresse, 

Comme au bord d'un grand lac aux flots etincelants, 50 

Dans le lait lumineux perdu par la Deesse, 

Tes martyrs couronnes lavaient leurs pieds sanglants ! 

Tu regnais, sans partage, au ciel et sur la terre : 
Ta croix couvrait le monde et montait au milieu ; 
Tout, devant ton regard, tremblait, — jusqu'a ta mere, 55 
Pale eternellement d' avoir porte son Dieu. 

Mais tu ne savais pas le mot des destinees, 

O toi qui triomphais, pres de l'Olympe mort ; 

Vois : c'est le meme gouffre . . , avant deux mille annees, 

Ton ciel y descendra, — sans le combler encor ! 60 



236 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Tu connaitras aussi, ploye" sous l'anatheme, 
La disaffection des peuples et des rois, 
Si pauvre et si perdu que tu n'auras plus meme, 
Pour t'y coucher en paix, la largeur de ta croix ! 

Ton dernier temple, 6 Christ, est froid comme une tombe; 
Ta porte n'ouvre plus sur le vaste Avenir ; 66 

Voila que le jour baisse et qu'on entend venir 
Le vieux pr§tre courbe" qui porte une colombe ! 

[Demieres Chansons. 



LECONTE DE LISLE 237 

LECONTE DE LISLE 

1818-1894 

Chakles-Makie-Rene Leconte de Lisle was born at Saint-Paul 
in the French island of Reunion, of mixed Breton and Gascon 
parentage : his mother was a niece of Parny, the elegant 
and frivolously tender poet of Lewis the Sixteenth's reign. 
He was brought up partly in the colony and partly in Brittany, 
and after leaving school spent some time in travel, being in- 
tended for a commercial career, and visited India and Madagascar 
to the incalculable advantage of a late-blossoming talent. It 
was only in 1847 that, abandoning all idea of an active occupation, 
he settled in Paris and lived there ' on privations and Greek roots,' 
acquiring the science of verse and teaching and studying ancient 
languages and civilisations. In 1848 his ardent Republicanism 
threatened to sweep him into politics, but he remained faithful to 
letters, and between that year and 1852 contributed to periodicals 
a certain number of poems which formed the nucleus of his first 
volume. The moment was unfavourable to a work so completely 
detached from the national anxieties, and Leconte's dazzling and 
scrupulous presentment of Greek and Oriental mythologies in Poemes 
Antiques drew scanty attention — less perhaps than its violent pre- 
face (withdrawn from later editions), which traversed the development 
of Western poetry for two thousand years and incautiously asserted, 
in effect, that almost all the poets since Sophocles, preoccupied with 
the expression of their own judgments, passions or misfortunes, had 
pursued a false ideal. Poemes et Poesies appeared in 1854; and in 
1859 La Revue de Paris produced the poet's curious Passion, a 
sequence intended to form the ' legend ' of an artist friend's Stations 
of the Cross : its austere beauties reflect a conscientious effort to 
assimilate a Catholic fervour notoriously antipathetic to his mind. 
The principal elements of Poemes Barbares (1862) serve the wider 
purpose of reconstructing with an erudite neutrality the forms in 
which humanity has affirmed from age to age and from clime to 
clime its inexhaustible capacity for illusion. This volume did not 
pass unappreciated; and already a group of younger writers, dis- 
posed to prize virtuosity above emotion, to envy the serenity of 



238 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

science and its contempt for the individual, had begun to look to 
Leconte de Lisle to give a new direction to French poetry. A 
poetical anthology called Le Parnasse Contemporain, due to the 
initiative of Xavier de Ricard, revealed the forces of this new move- 
ment and, though containing examples of such independent 
talents as those of Gautier and Baudelaire, as well as of old 
Romantics like the Deschamps and new Romantics like Banville, was 
in the main a homage to. the ideal of objective, learned and flawless 
verse upheld with incomparable- authority by Leconte de Lisle. 
Modest, austere and laborious as *was his life, he became towards 
the end of the second Empire a militant personality, one of the 
torchbearers — along with Flaubert and Renan — of the French 
intellectual tradition and, in the absence of Victor Hugo, by far the 
most illustrious maker of French verse. In 1861 appeared the first 
of Leconte's translations of the greatest Greek and Latin poets into 
French prose. Homer fo llowed Theocritus and the Anacreontica ; 
then came Hesiod and the07pTuc~TTymns ; tnen~3Sschyltts7"llOTace, 
Sophocles and Euripides — the last appearing in 1885. These trans- 
lations have a rare distinction and teem with happy discoveries of 
language. They do not completely satisfy critical scholarship ; they 
have, as has been said of Landor's prose, 'the beauty of death'; 
and through a curiously perverse scruple of exactness they are 
blotted (as indeed are too many of his poems) with the pedantry of 
ancient names quite literally transcribed. But the whole series 
constitutes an impressive monument of noble sympathy and strenuous 
labour and enthusiastic abnegation. 

In the events of the Terrible Year Leconte de Lisle took the part 
of a patriot and of an uncompromising Republican. In 1871 he 
issued a short Gatechisme populaire republieain which caused some 
scandal in the Assembly. He had struggled with poverty during his 
best years ; a small government pension had been granted him in 
1870 ; and in 1872 the Republic rewarded his zeal with the post of 
sub-librarian to the Senate, which gave him a modest independence. 
Between this date and his death, he wrote two lyrical dramas— Les 
firinnyes, founded on the Agamemnon and the Eumenides of 
Aeschylus, which was produced with Massenet's music in 1873 and 
warmly received, and L'ApoUonide (1888), a similar attempt to 
reconstruct the story of the Ion. Another volume, Poemes Tragiques, 
followed Poemes Antiques and Poemes Barbares in 1884 ; it was in 
no way inferior to them. Leconte de Lisle succeeded Victor Hugo 



LECONTE DE LISLE 239 

at the Academy ; and in his last tranquil years he exercised a 
discreet but real sovereignty over literary Paris, and even after the 
advent of the Symbolists his rooms in the Luxembourg were as a 
shrine and a place of pilgrimage for many a neophyte of French 
poetry. 

Leconte was in the van of the mid-century reaction against the 
purely subjective and the missionary elements of Komanticism. His 
followers gloried in a stoical or impassive attitude ; and from his 
works the record of intimate joys and sorrows, the strain of argument 
and prophecy, confidences and ejaculations, were conscientiously 
eliminated. His poetry nevertheless is not poor in emotion. If he 
could not always repress a somewhat ferocious hostility to the faith 
of his fathers — which, for example, disfigures his presentment of the 
Middle Ages — this was no doubt, from the standpoint of his austere 
theory of art, a weakness. But, apart from passages in which his 
literary paganism reinforcing the anti-clerical rancour of his time 
found passionate expression, emotions of a more general order and 
therefore consistent with the conditions he imposed upon himself, 
emanate from the characteristic motives of his greater poems. 
From that eternal source of noble song, our mortality and the 
indifference of inanimate nature, he derived the particular melancholy 
which resides in the effort to recover the sense of ruined civilisations. 
His poetry is almost a procession of the august, persuasive or 
hideous shapes with which in diverse climes and ages men have 
clothed the indomitable desire to worship; and his special pathos 
feeds upon the transience of ideals. 

He has been called an epic poet ; but even if he had possessed 
the genius of narrative and his pictures were moving rather than 
successive, the epic spirit is incompatible with an inspiration which 
depends so constantly as his upon learning. Leconte de Lisle could 
never be a popular poet, but he is a representative poet of a time 
in which the noblest minds were most busy with the restoration of 
the past and it seemed essential that art should profit by the pro- 
gress of historical studies. But his erudition never obscured his 
vision : few poets have been more completely concrete in expression 
or possessed a more generous gift of colour. 

As a maker of verse, Leconte de Lisle stood at the head of a 
school which proposed to chasten the exuberance of the preceding 
generation, and which did indeed raise the level of technical 
accomplishment considerably. Serenity and amplitude, rather than 



240 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

variety, of movement ; exactitude of diction and of rime ; sonority 
and a complete mastery of the rhythmical resources which Roman- 
ticism had added to the Alexandrine, distinguish all his writing. 
Occasionally, indeed, he overstepped the bounds which Hugo (whom 
he ever loyally owned for his master) had respected in the matter of 
the ' median caesura ' ; but his practice was ordinarily sober, with 
some indication of a classical retrogression ; — and he rarely used the 
other lyrical measures which his immediate predecessors had so 
freely explored. 

The works of Leconte de Lisle , are published by Lemerre. His 
original poetry (with some critical prose) is contained in the four 
volumes Poemes Antiques, Poemes Barbares, Poemes Tragiqwes, 
Derniers Poemes. 

LXXIV 

Les Htjrleurs 

Le soleil dans les flots avait noye ses flammes, 
La ville s'endormait aux pieds des monts brumeux. 
Sur de grand rocs laves d'un nuage ecumeux 
La mer sombre en grondant versait ses hautes lames. 

La nuit multipliait ce long gemissement. 5 

Nul astre ne luisait dans l'immensite nue ; 
Seule, la lune pale, en £cartant la nue, 
Comme une morne lampe oscillait tristement. 

Monde muet, marqu6 d'un signe de colere, 

Debris d'un globe mort au hasard disperse, 10 

Elle laissait tomber de son orbe glace 

Un reflet s^pulcral sur l'ocean polaire. 

Sans borne, assise au Nord, sous les cieux 6touffants, 
L'Afrique, s'abritant d'ombre epaisse et de brume, 
Affamait ses lions dans le sable qui fume, 15 

Et couchait pres des lacs ses troupeaux d'elephants. 

Mais sur la plage aride, aux odeurs insalubres, 
Parmi les ossements de bceufs et de chevaux, 
De maigres chiens, 6pars, allongeant leurs museaux, 
Se lamentaient, poussant des hurlements lugubres. 20 



LECONTE DE LISLE 241 

La queue en cercle sous leurs ventres palpitants, 
L'ceil dilate, tremblant sur leurs pattes febriles, 
Accroupis 9a et la, tous hurlaient, immobiles, 
Et d'un frisson rapide agit^s par instants. 

L'6cume de la mer collait sur leurs ^chines 25 

De longs poils qui laissaient les vertebres saillir ; 
Et quand les flots par bonds les venaient assaillir, 
Leurs dents blanches claquaient sous leurs rougesbabines. 

Devant la lune errante aux livides clart^s, 
Quelle angoisse inconnue, au bord des noires ondes, 30 
Faisait pleurer une ame en vos formes immondes ? 
Pourquoi gdmissiez-vous, spectres ^pouvantes ? 

Je ne sais ; mais, 6 cniens qui hurliez sur les plages, 
Apres tant de soleils qui ne reviendront plus, 
J'entends toujours, du fond de mon passe confus, 35 
Le cri d&espere" de vos douleurs sauvages ! 

[Poemes Barbares. 

LXXV 

Les Montreurs 

Tel qu'un morne animal, meurtri, plein de poussiere, 
La cnaine au cou, burlant au chaud soleil d'6te, 
Promene qui voudra son cceur ensanglante' 
Sur ton pave cynique, 6 plebe carnassiere ! 

Pour mettre un feu sterile en ton ceil hebete, s 

Pour mendier ton rire ou ta pitie grossiere, 
Dechire qui voudra la robe de lumiere 
De la pudeur divine et de la volupte. 

Dans mon orgueil muet, dans ma tombe sans gloire, 
Dusse-je m'engloutir pour l'eternite noire, 10 

Je ne te vendrai pas mon ivresse ou mon mal, 

Je ne livrerai pas ma vie a tes huees, 
Je ne cRtrfserai pas sur ton tr^teau banal 
Avec tes histrions et tes prostituees. 

[Poemes Barbares. 
Q 



242 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

LXXVI 

La Chute des Etoiles 

Tombez, 6 perles denouees, 

Piles etoiles, dans la mer. 

Un brouillard de roses nuees 

Emerge de l'horizon clair ; 

A l'Orient plein d'6tincelles s 

Le vent joyeux bat de ses ailes 

L'onde qui brode un vif eclair. 

Tombez, 6 perles immortelles, 

Pales etoiles, dans la mer. 

Plongez sous les ecumes fraicb.es io 

De l'Ocean mysterieux. 

La lumiere crible de fleches 

Le faite des monts radieux ; 

Mille et mille cris, par fusses, 

Sortent des bois lourds de rosees ; 15 

Une musique vole aux cieux. 

Plongez, de larmes arrosees, 

Dans l'Ocean mysterieux. 

Fuyez, astres melancoliques, 

Paradis lointains encor ! 20 

L'aurore aux levres metalliques 

Rit dans le ciel et prend l'essor ; 

Elle se v6t de molles flammes 

Et sur l'emeraude des lames 

Fait petiller ses gouttes d'or. 25 

Fuyez, mondes ou vont les ames, 

Paradis lointains encor ! 

Allez, etoiles, aux nuits douces, 

Aux cieux muets de l'Occident. 

Sur les feuillages et les mousses 30 

Le soleil darde un ceil ardent ; 



LECONTE DE LISLE 243 

Les cerfs, par bonds, dans les vallees, 

Se baignent aux sources troublees ; 

Le bruit des bommes va grondant. 

Allez, 6 blancbes exilees, 35 

Aux cieux muets de l'Occident. 

Heureux qui vous suit, clartes mornes, 

lampes qui versez l'oubli ! 

Comme vous, dans l'ombre sans bornes, 

Heureux qui roule enseveli ! 40 

Celui-la vers la paix s'elance : 

Haine, amour, larmes, violence, 

Ce qui fut l'bomme est aboli. 

Donnez-vous l'^ternel silence, 

lampes qui versez l'oubli ! 45 

[Poemes Barbares. 



LXXVII 

Les Plaintes du Cyclope 

Certes, il n'aimait pas a la facon des hommes, 

Avec des tresses d'or, des roses ou des pommes, 

Depuis que t'ayant vue, 6 fille de la mer, 

Le d^sir le mordit au cceur d'un trait amer. 

II t'aimait, Galatde, avec des fureurs vraies, 5 

Laissant le lait s'aigrir et secber dans les claies, 

Oubliant les brebis laineuses aux pres verts, 

Et se souciant peu de l'immense univers. 

Sans trSve ni repos, sur les algues des rives, 

II consumait sa vie en des plaintes nai'ves, 10 

Interrogeait des flots les volutes d'azur, 

Et suppliait la Nympbe au coeur frivole et dur, 

Tandis que sur sa tete, a tout vent exposed, 

Le jour versait sa flamme et la nuit sa rosee, 

Et qu'enorme, couche sur un roc 6carte, 15 

II disait de son mal la cuisante aerate" : 



244 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

— Plus vive que la chevre ou la fiere g^nisse, 

Plus blanche que le lait qui caille dans l'^clisse, 

Galatee, 6 toi dont la joue et le sein 

Sont fermes et luisants comme le vert raisin ! 20 

Si je viens a dormir aux cimes de ces roches, 

A la pointe du pied, furtive, tu m'approches ; 

Mais, sitdt que mon ceil s'entr'ouvre, en quelques bonds, 

Tu m'^chappes, cruelle, et fuis aux flots profonds ! 

Helas ! je sais pourquoi tu ris de ma priere : 25 

Je n'ai qu'un seul sourcil sur ma large paupiere, 

Je suis noir et velu comme un ours des forets, 

Et plus haut que les pins ! Mais, tel que je parais, 

J'ai des brebis par mille, et je les trais moi-meme; 

En automne, en £te\ je bois leur belle creme ; 30 

Et leur laine moelleuse, en flocons chauds et doux, 

Me revet, tout l'hiver, de l'epaule aux genoux ! 

Je sais jouer encore, 6 Pomme bien-aimee, 

De la claire syrinx, par mon souffle animee : 

Nul Cyclope, habitant Hie aux riches moissons, 35 

N'a tente jusqu'ici d'en egaler les sons. 

Veux-tu m'entendre, 6 Nymphe, en ma grotte prochaine ? 

Viens, laisse-toi charmer, et renonce a ta haine : 

Viens ! je nourris pour toi, depuis bientot neuf jours, 

Onze chevreaux tout blancs et quatre petits ours ! 40 

J'ai des lauriers en fleur avec des cypres greles, 

Une vigne, une eau vive et des figures nouvelles ; 

Tout cela t'appartient, si tu ne me fuis plus ! 

Et si j'ai le visage et les bras trop velus, 

Eh bien ! je plongerai tout mon corps dans la flamme ; 45 

Je brulerai mon ceil qui m'est cher, et mon ame ! 

Si je savais nager, du moins ! Au sein des flots 

J'irais t'offrir des lis et de rouges pavots. 

Mais, vains souhaits! J'en veux a ma mere; c'est 

elle 
Qui, me voyant en proie a cette amour mortelle, s° 

D'un recit eloquent n'a pas su te toucher. 
Vos cceurs a toutes deux sont durs comme un rocher ! 



LECONTE DE LISLE 245 

Cyelope, que fais-tu ? tresse en paix tes corbeilles ; 
Recueille en leur saison le miel de tes abeilles ; 
Coupe pour tes brebis les feuillages nouveaux, 55 

Et le temps, qui peut tout, emportera tes maux ! — 

C'est ainsi que chantait l'antique Polypheme ; 

Et son amour s'enfuit avec sa chanson meme, 

Car les Muses, par qui se tarissent les pleurs, 

Sont le remede unique a toutes nos douleurs. 60 

[Poemes Antiques. 



LXXVIII 

MIDI 

Midi, roi des etes, epandu sur la plaine, 
Tombe en nappes d'argent des hauteurs du ciel bleu. 
Tout se tait. L'air flamboie et brule sans haleine ; 
La terre est assoupie en sa robe de feu. 

L'^tendue est immense et les champs n'ont point d'ombre, 5 
Et la source est tarie ou buvaient les troupeaux ; 
La lointaine forSt, dont la lisiere est sombre, 
Dort la-bas, immobile, en un pesant repos. 

Seuls, les grands bl4s muris, tels qu'une mer doree, 

Se deroulent au loin, dedaigneux du sommeil ; 10 

Pacifiques enfants de la terre sacree, 

lis epuisent sans peur la coupe du soleil. 

Parfois, comme un soupir de leur ame brulante, 
Du sein des epis lourds qui murmurent entre eux, 
Une ondulation majestueuse et lente is 

S'eveille, et va mourir a l'horizon poudreux. 

Non loin, quelques bceufs blancs, couches parmi les herbes, 

Bavent avec lenteur sur leurs fanons epais, 

Et suivent de leurs yeux languissants et superbes 

Le songe interieur qu'ils n'achevent jamais. 20 



246 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Homme, si, le cceur plein de joie ou d'amertume, 
Tu passais vers midi dans les champs radieux, 
Fuis ! la nature est vide et le soleil consume : 
Rien n'est vivant ici, rien n'est triste ou joyeux. 

Mais si, disabuse des larmes et du rire, 25 

Altere' de l'oubli de ce monde agite, 
Tu veux, ne sachant plus pardonner ou maudire, 
Gouter une supreme et morne volupte, 

Viens ! Le soleil te parle en paroles sublimes ; 

Dans sa flamme implacable absorbe-toi sans fin ; 30 

Et retourne a pas lents vers les cites infimes, 

Le cceur trempe" sept fois dans le neant divin. 

[Poemes Antiques. 
LXXIX 

Sacba Fames 

L'immense mer sommeille. Elle hausse et balance 
Ses houles ou le ciel met d'^clatants Hots. 
Une nuit d'or emplit d'un magique silence 
La merveilleuse borreur de l'espace et des flots. 

Les deux gouffres ne font qu'un ablme sans borne 5 

De tristesse, de paix et d'eblouissement, 
Sanctuaire et tombeau, desert splendide et morne 
Ou des millions d'yeux regardent fixement. 

Tels, le ciel magnifique et les eaux venerables 
Dorment dans la lumiere et dans la majesty 10 

Comme si la rumeur des vivants miserables 
N'avait trouble jamais leur r6ve illimite. 

Cependant, plein de faim dans sa peau flasque et rude, 
Le sinistre Rddeur des steppes de la mer 
Vient, va, tourne, et, flairant au loin la solitude, 15 

Entre-baille d'ennui ses machoires de fer. 



LECONTE DE LISLE 247 

Certes, il n'a souci de l'immensite' bleue, 

Des Trois Rois, du triangle ou du long Scorpion 

Qui tord dans l'innni sa flainboyante queue, 

Ni de l'Ourse qui plonge au clair Septentrion. 20 

II ne sait que la chair qu'on broie et qu'on d^pece, 
Et, toujours absorbe dans son desir sanglant, 
Au fond des masses d'eau lourdes d'une ombre 6paisse 
II laisse errer son ceil terne, impassible et lent. 

Tout est vide et muet. Rien qui nage ou qui flotte, 25 
Qui soit vivant ou mort, qu'il puisse entendre ou voir. 
II reste inerte, aveugle, et son grele pilote 
Se pose pour dormir sur son aileron noir. 

Va, monstre ! tu n'es pas autre que nous ne sommes, 
Plus hideux, plus feroce, ou plus d6sesp6re. 30 

Console-toi ! demain tu mangeras des bommes, 
Demain par 1'homme aussi tu seras devore. 

La Faim sacree est un long meurtre legitime 
Des profondeurs de l'ombre aux cieux resplendissants, 
Et 1'homme et le requin, egorgeur ou victime 35 

Devant ta face, 6 Mort, sont tous deux innocents. 

[Poemes Tragiques. 

LXXX 

Le Sacre de Paris 



O Paris ! c'est le cent deuxieme nuit du Siege, 

Une des nuits du grand Hiver. 
Des murs a l'horizon l'ecume de la neige 

S'enfle et roule comme une mer. 

Mats sinistres dresses hors de ce not livide, 
Par endroits, du creux des vallons, 

Quelques greles clochers, tout noirs sur le ciel vide, 
S'enlevent, rigides et longs. 



248 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

La-bas, palais anciens semblables a des tombes, 

Bois, villages, jar dins, chateaux, 10 

Effondr^s, ecrases sous l'averse des bombes, 
Fument au faite des coteaux. 

Dans l'^troite tranchee, entre les parois froides, 

Le givre 6treint de ses plis blancs 
L'ceil inerte, le front bl6me, les membres roides, is 

La chair dure des morts sanglants. 

Les balles du Barbare ont troue" ces poitrines 

Et rompu ces cceurs genereux. 
La rage du combat gonfle encor leurs narines, 

lis dorment la serr^s entre eux. 20 

L'apre vent qui franchit la colline et la plaine 

Vient, charge d'execrations, 
De supremes fureurs, de vengeance et de haine, 

Heurter les sombres bastions. 

II flagelle les lourds canons, meute g^ante 25 

Qui veille allongee aux affuts, 
Et souffle par instants dans leur gueule b6ante 

Qu'il emplit d'un rale confus. 

II gronde sur l'amas des toits, neigeux d^combre, 

Sepulcre immense et deja clos, 30 

Mais d'ou montent encor, lamentables, sans nombre, 
Des murmures faits de sanglots ; 

Ou l'enfant glace" meurt aux bras des pales meres, 

Ou pres de son foyer sans pain, 
Le pere, plein d'horreur et de larmes ameres, 35 

Etreint une arme dans sa main. 



11 

Ville auguste, cerveau du monde, orgueil de l'homme, 

Ruche immortelle des esprits, 
Phare allume" dans l'ombre ou sont Athene et Rome, 

Astre des nations, Paris ! 40 



LECONTE DE LISLE 249 

nef in^branlable aux flots comme aux rafales, 

Qui, sous le ciel noir ou clement, 
Joyeuse, et d^ployant tes voiles triomphales, 

Voguais victorieusement ! 

La foudre dans les yeux et brandissant la pique, 45 

Guerriere au visage irrit6, 
Qui fis jaillir des plis de ta toge civique 

La victoire et la liberty ! 

Toi qui courais pieds nus, irresistible, agile, 

Par le vieux monde rajeuni ! 50 

Qui, secouant les rois sur leur treteau fragile, 
Chantais, ivre de rinfini ! 

Nourrice des grands morts et des vivants celebres, 

Venerable aux siecles jaloux, 
Est-ce toi qui gemis ainsi dans les tenebres 55 

Et la face sur les genoux ? 

Vois ! La horde au poil fauve assiege tes murailles ! 

Vil troupeau de sang altered 
De la sainte patrie ils mangent les entrailles, 

lis bavent sur le sol sacre ! 60 

Tous les loups d'outre-Rhin ont mele - leurs especes : 

Vandale, Germain et Teuton, 
Ils sont tous la, hurlant de leurs gueules epaisses 

Sous la laniere et le baton. 

Ils brftlent la fore% rasent la citadelle, 65 

Changent les villes en charnier ; 
Et l'essaim des corbeaux retourne a tire d'aile, 

Pour etre venu le dernier. 

iii 

O Paris, qu'attends-tu ? la famine ou la honte ? 

Furieuse et cheveux 6pars, 70 

Sous l'aiguillon du sang qui dans ton cceur remonte 

Va ! bondis hors de tes remparts ! 



250 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Enfonce cette tourbe horrible ou tu te rues, 

Frappe, redouble, saigne, mords ! 
Vide sur eux palais, maisons, temples et rues : 75 

Que les mourants vengent les morts ! 

Non, non ! tu ne dois pas tomber, Ville sacr6e, 

Com me une vietime a l'autel ; 
Non, non, non ! tu ne peux finir, desesp^ree, 

Que par un combat immortel. 80 

Sur le noir escalier des bastions qu'eventre 

Le choc rugissant des boulets, 
Lutte ! et rugis aussi, lionne au fond de l'antre, 

Dans la masure et le palais. 

Dans le carrefour plein de bris et de fumee, 85 

Sur le toit, l'Arc et le clocher, 
Allume pour mourir l'aureole enflammee 

De l'inoubliable bucher. 

Consume tes erreurs, tes fautes, tes ivresses, 

A jamais, dans ce feu si beau, 90 

Pour qu'immortellement, Paris, tu te redresses, 
Imperissable, du tombeau ; 

Pour que l'homme futur, ebloui dans ses veilles 

Par ton sublime souvenir, 
Raconte a d'autres cieux tes antiques merveilles 95 

Que rien ne pourra plus ternir ; 

Et, saluant ton nom, adorant ton genie, 

Quand il faudra rompre des fers, 
Offre ta libre gloire et ta srande agonie 

Comme un exemple a l'univers. 100 

, *S [Po&mes Tragiques. 

Janvier 1871. 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 251 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 

1821-1868 

His father was over sixty when Charles Baudelaire was born — the 
only child of a .disproportionate second marriage. The elder Baude- 
laire, who was the son of a small farmer in Champagne, had been 
well educated with a view to ordination and, after a short experience 
as an usher, had filled the post of tutor in a great family, where he 
was liberally treated and acquired fine manners and the doctrine of 
the Encyclopaedists. During the Terror he lived and supported his 
ruined patrons by giving lessons in drawing, and is said to have 
saved Condorcet from execution. He held a place in the administra- 
tion of the Senate under the Consulate and the Empire ; had painters 
and men of letters for his friends ; and died not quite six years after 
the poet's birth. 

Charles was only seven when his mother, still quite a young 
woman, married an officer, Major (afterwards General) Aupick. He 
seems to have taken real interest in his stepson ; but besides the 
natural difficulties of such a situation — for the boy had a lively 
remembrance of his own father — an insurmountable antagonism was 
bound in time to show itself between a dreamer, impatient of control 
and disdainful of success, and a man of action, ambitious, a dis- 
ciplinarian by temper and professional habit. At two public schools, 
in Lyons and Paris, young Baudelaire won prizes and a reputation 
for general ability : he left Louis-le-Grand abruptly and scandalously. 
His stepfather wished him to enter the diplomatic service : Baudelaire 
refused to do anything but write; and from 1839 to 1841 he led a 
somewhat riotous (and outwardly fruitless) life in Paris, indulging a 
hundred curiosities, among a crew of Bohemians more or less intel- 
lectual; until at last, after an open quarrel with General Aupick, 
his family, in alarm at his spendthrift idleness and the queer company 
he kept, put him on board a merchantman sailing from Bordeaux for 
the Indies under the charge of a friendly captain. It was hoped he 
might be attracted to commerce, or at least come home with a taste 
for some regular way of life ; but the ten months spent at sea and in 
some fortunate island of the tropics only dazzled and hypnotised his 
senses, and provided his enchanted memory with a refuge from the 



252 A CENTUEY OF FRENCH POETS 

real. He returned to Paris on the eve of his majority and, possessed 
of material independence, began that life of studious dissipation, of 
feverish labour without fruition, joyless vice, discontent and remorse 
and vagabondage and exasperated idealism, of which the history or 
the legend has been used too often to supply an unedifying com- 
mentary on his writings. 

Between 1842 and 1857 — the great landmark in Baudelaire's 
career — his most notable work was done in art criticism : his Salons 
of 1845 and 1846 made some stir by their qualities of definiteness, 
absolute candour, technical competence, and by their vehement praise 
of Delacroix and Haussoullier. Here and there he contributed also 
a few poems, weird Hoffiriannesque tales and literary articles to the 
reviews. A conscientious study on the 'philosophy of love' and 
several dramas (among which L'lvrogne promised to be the most 
characteristic) never got beyond the stage of fragments. From 1852 
onwards he devoted much time to the interpretation of Edgar Allan 
Poe. But before the publication of Les Flewrs du Mai Baudelaire 
was better known than his writings to literary Paris — known as a 
dandy of immaculate and imperturbable exterior, an ironist and 
mystifier in his talk, a night-bird insatiable in the pursuit of singular 
experiences, — and as the lover of a worthless and crapulous woman 
of colou r, Jeanne Duval, who made him wretched and to whomlie 
showed inexhaustible kindness. In 1848 he had thrown himself 
blindly into politics and started a ' Christian democratic ' sheet which 
lasted for a few weeks ; but a little later he accepted the manage- 
ment of a conservative paper in the provinces ! He was soon 
discharged, and from the Coup d'JStat onwards took no more interest 
in public affairs. 

In 1853 Baudelaire published his translation of The Haven, which 
had been heralded by a remarkable article on Poe's life and writings 
in La Revue de Paris ; two volumes of Poe's Tales, turned into a 
French prose which is allowed to surpass the original, were brought 
out in 1856 and 1857. In this latter year, a friend who had set up 
a publishing business in a provincial town produced Les Flewrs du 
Mai. A collection of Baudelaire's poems had been curiously expected 
by a small number of intellectual men ; the book drew praise, not 
unreserved, but warm and candid, from Hugo and Gautier, Sainte- 
Beuve and Barbey d'Aurevilly, E. Deschamps and Flaubert and 
other writers of worth : the public would probably have ignored it 
but for the prosecution of the author. The government of December 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 253 

had recently shown its solicitude for propriety in print in the matter 
of Madame Bovary : its action in Baudelaire's case was more success- 
ful and assuredly better grounded ; the six pieces ordered to be 
suppressed are by no means among the best in the volume, and the 
lubricity of two or three at least (though manifestly not of a market- 
able variety) throws their other qualities into the shade. 

For a short period Baudelaire's life now became more regular and 
his activity more fruitful. He was reconciled with his mother, 
General Aupick being dead. In spite of premature infirmities, his 
debts and the exactions of usurers, the bankruptcy of his publisher 
and the reluctance of editors to take the work of a poet who had 
appeared in the police-courts, he laboured courageously and produced 
no small quantity of prose and verse in the next four years. His 
wonderful Petits poemes en prose, familiar, metaphysical, allegorical 
and grotesque, were printed in various reviews ; he continued his 
translation of Poe, for whose hysterical genius he had so long felt a 
mysterious sympathy ; he added some exquisite pieces to Les Fleurs 
du Mai in view of a second edition which eventually appeared in 
1861 ; and he published a strange farrago called Les Paradis arti- 
ficieh in 1859, founded largely on experiments with haschisch (a 
soporific decoction of Indian hemp) and the reading of De Quincey's 
Opiwm-Eater, which he partly translated. He distinguished himself 
also as one of the earliest champions of Bichard Wagner ; became 
interested in the grim talent of the well-known draughtsman and war 
correspondent Constantin Guys; wrote some valuable papers on 
contemporary poets which, after appearing in a review, were incor- 
porated with Crepet's great historical anthology Les Poetes francais ; 
— and conceived the singular ambition of_ entering the French 
Academy. He was twice a candidate — the second time for the chair 
of Lacordaire ! — but was persuaded on each occasion to withdraw ; 
and the best result of this aberration was a brief but pleasant inter- 
course with Alfred de Vigny in his last days. 

Baudelaire's last books were translations of Poe which appeared in 
1864 and 1865. In the former year he left Paris for Brussels with 
the idea of paying his debts by profits from lectures. His success as 
a lecturer on Gautier and Delacroix was short-lived ; disagreements 
and misunderstandings with the agents left him penniless, hopeless 
and ailing. He founded new hopes on a book about Belgium, and 
took copious notes, and made many journeys up and down a country 
in which almost everything and every one exasperated him. His 



254 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

health broke down entirely ; alcohol, narcotics and moral and material 
insulation did the rest. In the spring of 1866 he had a paralytic 
stroke in a church at Namur and was taken back, henceforth speech- 
less, to Brussels. He lingered for more than a year, tenderly nursed 
by Madame Aupick, and died in a private hospital in Paris. 

The miserable life of Baudelaire does not account for the sinister 
inspiration of Les Flewrs dm, Mai. But he was born with a fatal 
avidity for sensations, and an intense consciousness of being irre- 
mediably alone. Given his genius, the infirmity of his will, an 
idealism which excluded all compromise, refused to take life as it 
came and constantly confronted his failures with an heroical second 
self, the course he ran and the poetry he made seem both to proceed 
from these two unhappy distinctions. His irony and his cynicism — 
the armour he wore against the importunity of the self-complacent 
and the temptations of an easy expansiveness — hardly detract from 
the desperate sincerity which is the final impression of his verse. 
He made himself the centre of the world ; but there was in him 
an aristocracy which forbade the mercenary sob, the disorder, the 
revolted egoism of the debased romantic temper. Baudelaire was 
besieged by images of corruption and by a vision, partly a memory, 
of some material paradise ; or rather, the sensation of death, the 
homesickness for an exotic bliss, are the poisonous excitants that 
continually sting all his faculties of perception at once — hearing, 
touch, smell as well as sight ; and this is so rare among the poets 
that his merely visual power seems by comparison ordinary. The 
interchange of sensations with which Symbolism has made us familiar 
is a very frequent process of Baudelaire's : his authority with the 
Symbolists has been immense, in some degree through a real affinity 
(a common fastidium), more perhaps by accidental associations and 
actual misunderstanding : for his genius, upon the whole, is expres- 
sive rather than suggestive — he evokes the objects of sensation by 
naming them, rather than by naming other things ; — and indeed we 
might go farther and say without much exaggeration that his art 
had many classical elements. 

His verse (if we except what Gautier called his sonnets libertms) 
is scrupulously correct. In Les Fleurs du Mai the romantic type of 
Alexandrine is frequent, but it does not prevail : the rime is more 
often curious than rich : the general effects are solidity, logic, 
amplitude, volume, density. He loved long words ; he used asson- 
ance before that subsidiary charm became common. Baudelaire 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 255 

belongs to the type of artists who conceive easily and bring forth 
with anguish. Hence a certain languor and oppressiveness, and the 
extreme importance of details : hence also, here and there, a formality 
which some critics have not hesitated to brand as prosaicism. 

Baudelaire is morbid, if excessive unhappiness is morbidity. He 
is also virile. The two things must be conciliated somehow. The 
little Baudelairiens who have an itch to seem satanic take trouble to 
be morbid and (superfluously) to be epicene. Unhappy, and virile, 
and sincere, and an artist — but no epithets will serve to draw him 
from his insulation. One thing should be added — his inspiration is 
essentially Christian : only a believer can blaspheme. 

Charles Baudelaire's works and translations fill six volumes 
(edition definitive — Calmann Levy, 1868-1870). Many prose frag- 
ments, notably two curious diaries, are to be read in M. E. Crepet's 
Baudelaire Posthume, published in 1887. The poems excluded from 
Les Fleurs du Mai have been reprinted under the title Les £paves. 

LXXXI 

Preface 

La sottise, l'erreur, le peche\ la lesine, 
Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps, 
Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords, 
Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine. 

Nos peches sont tetus, nos repentirs sont laches ; 5 

Nous nous faisons payer grassement nos aveux, 
Et nous rentrons gaiment dans le chemin bourbeux, 
Croyant par de vils pleurs laver toutes nos taches. 

Sur l'oreiller du mal c'est Satan Trismegiste 

Qui berce longuement notre esprit enchante, 10 

Et le riche metal de notre volonte 

Est tout vaporise par ce savant chimiste. 

C'est le Diable qui tient les tils qui nous remuent ! 
Aux objets repugnants nous trouvons des appas ; 
Chaque jour vers l'enfer nous descendons d'un pas, 15 
Sans horreur, a travers des tenebres qui puent. 



256 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Ainsi qu'un debauch^ pauvre qui baise et mange 

Le sein martyrise d'une antique catin, 

Nous volons au passage un plaisir clandestin 

Que nous pressons bien fort comme une vieille orange. 20 

Serr6, fourmillant, comme un million d'helminthes, 
Dans nos cerveaux ribote un peuple de Demons, 
Et, quand nous respirons, la Mort dans nos poumons 
Descend, fleuve invisible, avec de sourdes plaintes. 

Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie, 25 

N'ont pas encor brode de leurs plaisants dessins 

Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins, 

C'est que notre ame, helas ! n'est pas assez hardie. 

Mais parmi les chacals, les pantheres, les lices, 
Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents, 30 
Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants 
Dans la menagerie infame de nos vices, 

II en est un plus laid, plus m^chant, plus immonde ! 
Quoiqu'il ne pousse ni grands gestes ni grands cris, 
II ferait volontiers de la terre un debris 3S 

Et dans un baillement avalerait le monde ; 

C'est l'Ennui ! — L'ceil charge' d'un pleur involontaire, 
II r6ve d'echafauds en fumant son houka. 
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre delicat, 
— Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frere. 40 

[Spleen et IdAal. 

LXXXII 

J'aime le souvenir de ces epoques nues 

Dont Phoebus se plaisait a dorer les statues. 

Alors l'homme et la femme en leur agilit6 

Jouissaient sans mensonge et sans anxiete, 

Et, le ciel amoureux leur caressant l'echine, 4S 

Exercaient la sant6 de leur noble machine. 

Cybele alors, fertile en produits genereux, 

Ne trouvait point ses fils un poids trop onereux, 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 257 

Mais, louve au cceur gonfl6 de tendresses communes, 
Abreuvait l'univers a ces t^tines brunes. 10 

L'bomme elegant, robuste et fort, avait le droit 
D'etre fier des beautes qui le nommaient leur roi ; 
Fruits purs de tout outrage et vierges de gercures, 
Dont la chair lisse et ferme appelait les morsures ! 

Le Poete aujourd'hui, quand il veut concevoir i S 

Ces natives grandeurs, aux lieux ou se font voir 

La nudite de l'homme et celle de la femme, 

Sent un froid ten^breux envelopper son ame 

Devant ce noir tableau plein d'^pouvantenient. 

O monstruosites pleurant leur vehement ! 20 

O ridicules troncs ! torses dignes des masques ! 

pauvres corps tordus, maigres, ventrus ou flasques, 

Que le dieu de l'Utile, implacable et serein, 

Enfants, emmaillotta dans ses langes d'airain ! 

Et vous, femmes, helas ! pales avec des cierges, as 

Que ronge et que nourrit la debauche, et vous, vierges, 

Du vice maternel trainant l'h^redite 

Et toutes les hideurs de la fecondite" ! 

Nous avons, il est vrai, nations corrompues, 

Aux peuples anciens des beautes inconnues : 30 

Des visages ronges par les chancres du cceur, 

Et comme qui dirait des beautes de langueur ; 

Mais ces inventions de nos muses tardives 

N'empgcheront jamais les races maladives 

De rendre a la jeunesse un hommage profond, 35 

— A la sainte jeunesse, a l'air simple, au doux front, 

A l'ceil limpide et clair ainsi qu'une eau courante, 

Et qui va r^pandant sur tout, insouciante 

Comme l'azur du ciel, les oiseaux et les fleurs, 

Ses parfums, ses chansons et ses douces chaleurs. 40 

[Spleen et Idial. 



258 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

LXXXIII 

Parfum Exotique 

Quand, les deux yeux ferm^s, en un soir chaud d'automne, 
Je respire l'odeur de ton sein chaleureux, 
Je vois se derouler des rivages heureux 
Qu'eblouissent les feux d'un soleil monotone ; 

Une lie paresseuse ou la nature donne 
Des arbres singuliers et des fruits savoureux ; 
Des hommes dont le corps est mince et vigoureux, 
Et des femmes dont l'oeil par sa franchise 6tonne. 

Guide par ton odeur vers de charmants climats, 

Je vois un port rempli de voiles et de m&ts i 

Encor tout fatigues par la vague marine, 

Pendant que le parfum des verts tamariniers, 

Qui circule dans l'air et m'enfle la narine, 

Se mele dans mon ame au chant des mariniers. 

[Spleen et Idial. 

LXXXIV 

Une Chaeogne 

Rappelez-vous l'objet que nous vimes, mon &me, 

Ce beau matin d'^te" si doux : 
Au detour d'un sentier une charogne infame 

Sur un lit seme de cailloux, 

Les jambes en l'air, comme une femme lubrique, 

Brulante et suant les poisons, 
Ouvrait d'une facon nonchalante et cynique 

Son ventre plein d'exhalaisons. 

Le soleil rayonnait sur cette pourriture, 

Comme afin de la cuire a point, 
Et de rendre au centuple a la grande Nature 

Tout ce qu'ensemble elle avait joint ; 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 259 

Et le ciel regardait la carcasse superbe 

Comme une fleur s'epanouir. 
La puanteur 6tait si forte, que sur l'herbe i S 

Vous crutes vous evanouir. 

Les moucb.es bourdonnaient sur ce ventre putride, 
D'ou sortaient de noirs bataillons 

De larves, qui coulaient comme un epais liquide 

Le long de ces vivants haillons. 20 

Tout cela descendait, montait comme une vague, 

Ou s'elancait en petillant ; 
On eut dit que le corps, enfle d'un souffle vague, 

Vivait en se multipliant. 

Et ce monde rendait une Strange musique, 25 

Comme l'eau courante et le vent, 

Ou le grain qu'un vanneur d'un mouvement rbytbmique 
Agite et tourne dans son van. 



3° 



Les formes s'effacaient et n'6taient plus qu'un reve, 

Une 6bauche lente a venir 
Sur la toile oubli^e, et que l'artiste acheve 

Seulement par le souvenir. 

Derriere les rocbers une chienne inquiete 

Nous regardait d'un air facbe, 
Epiant le moment de reprendre au squelette 33 

Le morceau qu'elle avait lacbe. 

— Et pourtant vous serez semblable a cette ordure, 

A cette borrible infection, 
Etoile de mes yeux, soleil de ma nature, 

Vous, mon ange et ma passion ! 40 

Oui ! telle vous serez, 6 la reine des graces, 

Apres les derniers sacrements, 
Quand vous irez, sous l'berbe et les floraisons grasses, 

Moisir parmi les ossements. 



260 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Alors, 6 ma beaute ! dites a la verrnine 45 

Qui vous mangera de baisers, 
Que j'ai garde la forme et l'essence divine 

De mes amours decomposes ! 

[Spleen et Idial. 

LXXXV 

Le Beau Navire 

Je veux te raconter, 6 molle enchanteresse ! 
Les diverses beautes qui parent ta jeunesse; 

Je veux te peindre ta beaute, 
Ou l'enfance s'allie a la maturite. 

Quand tu vas balayant l'air de ta jupe large, s 

Tu fais l'effet d'un beau vaisseau qui prend le large, 

Charge* de toile, et va roulant 
Suivant un rhythme doux, et paresseux, et lent. 

Sur ton cou large et rond, sur tes epaules grasses, 

Ta tete se pavane avec d'^tranges graces ; io 

D'un air placide et triomphant 
Tu passes ton chemin, majestueuse enfant. 

Je veux te raconter, 6 molle enchanteresse ! 
Les diverses beautes qui parent ta jeunesse ; 

Je veux te peindre ta beaute, 15 

Ou l'enfance s'allie a la maturite. 

Ta gorge qui s'avance et qui pousse la moire, 
Ta gorge triomphante est une belle armoire 
Dont les panneaux bombes et clairs 
Comme les boucliers accrochent des Eclairs ; 20 

Bouchers provoquants, armes de pointes roses ! 
Armoire a doux secrets, pleine de bonnes choses, 

De vins, de parfums, de liqueurs 
Qui feraient delirer les cerveaux et les cceurs ! 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 261 

Quand tu vas balayant l'air de ta jupe large, 25 

Tu fais l'effet d'un beau vaisseau qui prend le large, 

Charge de toile, et va roulant 
Suivant un rhythme doux, et paresseux, et lent. 

Tes nobles jambes, sous les volants qu'elles cbassent, 
Tourmentent les d6sirs obscurs et les agacent, 30 

Comme deux sorcieres qui font 
Tourner un philtre noir dans un vase profond. 

Tes bras, qui se joueraient des precoces Hercules, 
Sont des boas luisants les solides emules, 

Faits pour serrer obstine^nent, 3s 

Comme pour l'imprimer dans ton cceur, ton amant. 

Sur ton cou large et rond, sur tes epaules grasses, 
Ta tete se pavane avec d'etranges graces ; 

D'un air placide et triomphant 
Tu passes ton chemin, majestueuse enfant. 40 

[Spleen et IdSal. 

LXXXVI 

L'Irr^paeable 

Pouvons-nous e^ouffer le vieux, le long Remords, 

Qui vit, s'agite et se tortille 
Et se nourrit de nous comme le ver des morts, 

Comme du chene la chenille ? 
Pouvons-nous 6touffer l'implacable Remords ? 5 

Dans quel philtre, dans quel vin, dans quelle tisane, 

Noierons-nous ce vieil ennemi, 
Destructeur et gourmand comme la courtisane, 

Patient comme la fourmi ? 
Dans quel philtre? — dans quel vin? — dans quelle tisane? 10 

Dis-le, belle sorciere, oh ! dis, si tu le sais, 

A cet esprit comble" d'angoisse 
Et pared au mourant qu'ecrasent les blesses, 

Que le sabot du cheval froisse ; 
Dis-le, belle sorciere, oh ! dis, si tu le sais, 15 



262 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

A cet agonisant que le loup deja flaire 

Et que surveille le corbeau, 
A ce soldat brise ! s'il faut qu'il desespere 

D'avoir sa croix et son tombeau ; 
Ce pauvre agonisant que deja le loup flaire ! 20 

Peut-on illuminer un ciel bourbeux et noir ? 

Peut-on deehirer des tenebres 
Plus denses que la poix, sans matin et sans soir, 

Sans astres, sans Eclairs funebres ? 
Peut-on illuminer un ciel bourbeux et noir ? 25 

L'Esperance qui brille aux carreaux de l'Auberge 

Est soufflee, est morte a, jamais ! 
Sans lune et sans rayons, trouver ou Ton heberge 

Les martyrs d'un cbemin mauvais ! 
Le Diable a tout eteint aux carreaux de l'Auberge ! 30 

Adorable sorciere, aimes-tu les damnes ? 

Dis, connais-tu l'irremissible ? 
Connais-tu le Remords, aux traits empoisonnes, 

A qui notre cceur sert de cible ? 
Adorable sorciere, connais-tu les damnes ? 35 

L'irreparable ronge avec sa dent maudite 

Notre ame, piteux monument, 
Et souvent il attaque, ainsi que le termite, 

Par la base le batiment. 
L'irreparable ronge avec sa dent maudite ! 40 



u 

J'ai vu parfois, au fond d'un theatre banal 

Qu'enflammait l'orchestre sonore, 
Une f6e allumer dans un ciel infernal 

Une miraculeuse aurore ; 
J'ai vu parfois, au fond d'un theatre banal 45 

Un etre, qui n'etait que lumiere, or et gaze, 
Terrasser Penorme Satan ; 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 263 

Mais mon cceur, que jamais ne visite l'extase, 

Est un theatre oft Ton attend 
Toujours, toujours en vain, l'Etre aux ailes de gaze, so 

[Spleen et Iddal. 

LXXXVII 

Le Vin de r Assassin 

Ma femme est morte, je suis libre ! 
Je puis done boire tout mon soul. 
Lorsque je rentrais sans un sou, 
Ses oris me d6chiraient la fibre. 

Autant qu'un roi je suis heureux ; 5 

L'air est pur, le ciel admirable . . . 
Nous avions un ete semblable 
Lorsque je devins amoureux ! 

L'horrible soif qui me decbire 

Aurait besoin pour s'assouvir 10 

D'autant de vin qu'en peut tenir 

Son tombeau ; — ce n'est pas peu dire. 

Je l'ai jetee au fond d'un puits, 

Et j'ai meme pousse sur elle 

Tous les paves de la margelle. 15 

— Je l'oublierai si je le puis ! 

Au nom des serments de tendresse 

Dont rien ne peut nous delier, 

Et pour nous r^concilier 

Comme au beau temps de notre ivresse, 20 

J'implorai d'elle un rendez-vous 

Le soir, sur une route obscure. 

Elle y vint ! — folle creature ! 

Nous sommes tous plus ou moins fous ! 

Elle etait encore jolie, 25 

Quoique bien fatigued ! et moi, 
Je l'aimai trop ! voila pourquoi 
Je lui dis : Sors de cette vie ! 



264 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Nul ne peut me comprendre. Un seul 
Parmi ces ivrognes stupides 3° 

Songea-t-il dans ses nuits morbides 
A faire du vin un linceul ? 

Cette crapule invulnerable 

Comme les machines de fer 

Jamais, ni Pete ni 1'hiver, 3S 

N'a connu l'amour veritable, 

Avec ses noirs encbantements, 
Son cortege infernal d'alarmes, 
Ses fioles de poison, ses larmes, 
Ses bruits de chaine et d'ossements ! 40 

— Me voila libre et solitaire ! 
Je serai ce soir ivre mort : 
Alors, sans peur et sans remord, 
Je me coucherai sur la terre, 

Et je dormirai comme un cbien ! 45 

Le chariot aux lourdes roues 
Charge de pierres et de boues, 
Le wagon enrage" peut bien 

Ecraser ma tete coupable 

Ou me couper par le milieu, 5° 

Je m'en moque comme de Dieu, 

Du Diable ou de la Sainte Table ! 

[Le Vin. 

lxxxviii 

La Beatrice 

Dans des terrains cendreux, calcines, sans verdure, 

Comme je me plaignais un jour a la nature, 

Et que de ma pensee, en vaguant au hasard, 

J'aiguisais lentement sur mon cceur le poignard, 

Je vis en plein midi descendre sur ma t6te s 

Un nuage funebre et gros d'une tempete, 



J 



CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 265 

Qui portait un troupeau de demons vicieux, 

Semblables a des nains cruels et curieux. 

A me considerer froidement ils se mirent, 

Et, comme des passants sur un fou qu'ils admirent, 10 

Je les entendis rire et chuchoter entre eux, 

En echangeant maint signe et maint clignement d'yeux : 

— ' Contemplons a loisir cette caricature 

Et cette ombre d'Hamlet imitant sa posture, 

Le regard indecis et les cbeveux au vent. is 

N'est-ce pas grand' pitie de voir ce bon vivant, 

Ce gueux, cet histrion en vacances, ce drole, 

Parce qu'il sait jouer artistement son r6le, 

Vouloir interesser au cbant de ses douleurs 

Les aigles, les grillons, les ruisseaux et les fleurs, 20 

Et meme a nous, auteurs de ces vieilles rubriques, 

Reciter en hurlant ses tirades publiques ? ' 

J'aurais pu (mon orgueil aussi haut que les monts 

Domine la nuee et le cri des demons) 

Detourner simplement ma tSte souveraine, 25 

Si je n'eusse pas vu parmi leur troupe obscene, 

Crime qui n'a pas fait chanceler le soleil ! 

La reine de mon cceur au regard nonpareil 

Qui riait avec eux de ma sombre detresse 

Et leur versait parfois quelque sale caresse. 3° 

[Fleurs du Mai. 



266 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

LfiON DIERX 

1838 

Boen like his master at Beunion, M. Leon Dierx received his early 
education in that island, came to Paris for higher studies, and subse- 
quently entered the Education Office. Poemes et Poesies appeared in 
1864, and he was well represented in the original Parnasse Contem- 
porain. Les Lewes Closes followed in 1867, Paroles d'un Vaincu just 
after the War, Les Amants in 1879. He has published little or no 
new poetry for some years. 

Among the less conspicuous followers of Leconte de Lisle, M. Dierx 
is distinguished as an admirable craftsman, especially ardent in the pur- 
suit of melodious effects. He has a discreet, not too impassive, personal 
manner, the gift of winning sympathy by hardly suggesting an intimate 
disquietude and disillusion stoically contained; and a voluptuous, 
a tropical languor in his interpretation of life. In the Parnassian 
group he stood near Villiers, Mallarme' and Verlaine : by several of his 
qualities as an artist, he anticipates Samain — a more effective poet. 

His complete works are in two volumes (Paris, Lemerre). 

LXXXIX 

JoURNEE D'HlVER 

Ce matin, nul rayon n'a penetre la brume, 
Et le lache soleil est monte" sans rien voir. 
Aujourd'hui, dans mes yeux, nul desir ne s'allume ; 
Songe au present, mon ame, et cesse de vouloir ! 

Le vieil astre s'eteint comme un bloc sur l'enclume, s 

Et rien n'a rejailli sur les rideaux du soir. 
Je sombre tout entier dans ma propre amertume ; 
Songe au pass6, mon ame, et vois comme il est noir ! 

Les anges de la nuit trainent leurs lourds suaires ; 

lis ne suspendront pas leurs lampes au plafond ; io 

Mon ame, songe a ceux qui sans pleurer s'en vont ! 

Songe aux echos muets des anciens sanctuaires ! 

Sepulcre aussi, rempli de cendres jusqu'aux bords, 

Mon ame, songe a l'ombre, au sommeil, songe aux morts ! 

[Les Levres Closes. 



SULLY-PRUDHOMME 267 



SULLY-PRUDHOMME 

1839-1907 

KEN^-FEANgois-AEMAND Peudhomme, the son of a merchant, was 
born in Paris and educated at the Lycee Condorcet. He tried two 
professions, engineering and the law, but found neither congenial ; 
and having some means, he early determined to devote himself wholly 
to letters. The appearance of his first volume, Stances et Poisies 
(1865), coincided with the formation of the Parnassian group ; and 
finding himself in general sympathy with the aims of Leconte de 
Lisle, he took a prominent place among the contributors to Le Par- 
nasse. The year after, Les Jllpreuves followed Stances et Poesies : 
together with miscellaneous lyrics the collection contains a fine effort 
in imaginative satire, Les ficuries d'Augias, and a number of sketches 
suggested by Italian travel. Les Solitudes (1869), Impressions de 
Guerre, Les Destins (1872), Vaines Tendresses (1875), further defined 
the original bent of his talent, which unites a refined sense of form 
with systematic thought. In 1869 a remarkably sympathetic and 
luminous rendering into French verse of the first book of Lucretius 
prepared the way for two long philosophical poems, La Justice and 
Le Bonheur, which appeared in 1878 and in 1888 respectively. In 
recent years Sully-Prudhomme, who became an Academician in 1881, 
wrote comparatively little poetry. His prose writings include an 
important treatise on artistic expression, another (of a moderately 
conservative tendency) on versification, afterwards incorporated in a 
more general work, Mori Testament poetique ; and some papers on 
Pascal contributed to La Revue des Deux Mondes in 1895. 

As a poet Sully-Prudhomme is always interesting, and sometimes 
exquisite ; he has dignity, conspicuous sincerity and a grave respect 
for his art, to the theory of which he devoted much attention. In 
many of his shorter poems, and in the general conception of Le 
Bonheur, he displayed a genuine power of allegorical invention and 
much felicity in choosing sensible shapes for moral and metaphysical 
ideas, though too often his metaphors want spontaneity, as if the poet 
could not forget that they are metaphors. He is impersonal and im- 
passive, according to the Parnassian formula : that is to say, he 
endeavoured to see things 'as they are'; his themes are objective; his 



268 A CENTURY OP FRENCH POETS 

agnosticism and pervading sadness are serene and without rancour. 
The humanitarian strain in Sully-Prudhomme recalls Victor de 
Laprade, who was, like him, what is emphatically called a thinker. 
Possessed of solid scientific attainments and the true philosophical 
temper, Sully-Prudhomme accomplished fsomething of a feat in 
versifying a body of thought which would have claimed attention 
even in prose ; for his analysis of the idea of justice, for instance, 
is lucid, precise, orderly and original. And he was a genuine poet as 
well as a genuine thinker : unfortunately the philosopher in him is 
too often separable from the artist, and the disparity between the 
solid doctrine and the somewhat precious forms in which he 
chose to convey it does injustice to both characters. It is, in fact, 
too late in the day for a philosophical poetry, and we are fatally 
conscious of a double aim. 

(EuwespoetiquesdeSidty-Prudhomme: Volumes i.-v. (1865-1888): 
Lemerre. 

XC 

Le Vase bris£ 

Le vase ou meurt cette verveine 
D'un coup d'eventail fut Me ; 
Le coup dut effleurer a peine : 
Aucun bruit ne l'a rev&e. 

Mais la legere meurtrissure, 5 

Mordant le cristal chaque jour, 
D'une inarche invisible et sure 
En a fait lentement le tour. 

Son eau fraiche a fui goutte a goutte, 

Le sue des fleurs s'est epuis6 ; io 

Personne encore ne s'en doute ; 

N'y touchez pas : il est brise. 

Souvent aussi la main qu'on aime, 
Effleurant le coeur, le meurtrit ; 
Puis le cceur se fend de lui-meme, is 

La fleur de son amour perit ; 



SULLY-PRUDHOMME 269 

Toujours intact aux yeux du monde, 

II sent croitre et pleurer tout bas 

Sa blessure fine et profonde ; 

II est brise : n'y touchez pas. ao 

[Stances : La Vie int^rieure. 



xci 

VOIX DE LA TEERE 

Tu montes vainement, 6 vivante mar£e, 
De tous les oris humains par la terre pousses ! 
Contre les fiers soleils, vagabonde egaree, 
Tes flots aigus se sont vainement emousses ! 

Tu n'es par aucun d'eux au passage accueillie ; s 

Tu peux longtemps encor dans l'infini courir : 
Cbaque £toile a son tour par ta houle assaillie 
La sent glisser a peine et dans la nuit mourir. 

Quand pour l'une tu fuis, au loin diminuee, 
Pour une autre deja tu grandis; mais toujours 10 
Ton douloureux concert de plainte et de huee 
Dans son ascension trouve les astres sourds ! 

Pourtant reste fidele a la recherche errante : 
Peut-etre existe-t-il, plus haut encore aux cieux, 
Une sphere moins sourde et moins indifferente 15 
Qui t'est moins etrangere et te comprendra mieux. 

[Ze Bonheur, iii. 



270 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

PAUL VEELAINE 

1844-1896 

He was born at Metz in Lorraine. His family came from the 
Belgian Ardennes, but his father was a French captain of engineers. 
He had a classical education in Paris ; was for some time a clerk, 
first in an insurance office and then in the Civil Service ; and as a 
stripling began to frequent the ' Parnassian ' group of poets. He 
married, unhappily, in 1870, adhered to the Commune, travelled 
with the youthful Arthur Rimbaud and, at Brussels, was tried and 
sentenced to two years' imprisonment for shooting his friend in a 
drunken quarrel. His sincere (if only poetically fruitful) conversion 
in the gaol at Mons is the most significant event of his life, which is 
only too well known. Verlaine's improvidence and waywardness and 
vices — drink was the most disastrous of them — have been probably 
exaggerated and certainly exploited by friends and enemies. For some 
time he was an usher in England, and towards the end of his career he 
gave lectures in Belgium, Holland, the French provinces, England, 
and contributed to respectable reviews. He spent years, on and off, 
in the hospitals of Paris ; and died in squalid surroundings at the 
beginning of 1896. Rags and beggary, a reedy will and a tender 
heart, childish inconsequence and a childlike faith and an unreason- 
able cheerfulness which seldom deserted him in gaol or tavern or sick- 
ward — these things make of ' Poor Lelian ' an almost legendary 
figure, not unlovable, which falls readily into its place in a subordinate 
tradition of French literature, the tradition of riming vagabondage 
begun by Rutebeuf and Villon and carried on from Villon to 
Mathurin Regnier, from Regnier to Piron and from Piron to more 
than one singer of our day. 

Verlaine's rank as a poet is still hotly disputed. The phrase ' a 
transitional Parnassian ' defines him aptly, at least on the formal side 
of his art. While immensely influenced from boyhood by Les Mews 
du Mai, he began by accepting the ideal of Leconte de Lisle and his 
disciples — the exact and impassive record of concrete sensations in 
metallic, irreproachable verse. Later, an inevitable reaction claimed 
him : he became emphatically a personal lyrist, and for Verlaine 
personality was perhaps rather the old romantic egoism, with an 
added candour, than the waste of evanescent moods which the typical 



PAUL VERLAINE 271 

symbolist 'evokes' by obscure and singular associations with the 
sensible world. Yet he may fairly be said to have first, among French 
poets, recognised the whole charm of the word half spoken. A real 
master of expression, who quite evidently thought in verse, he often 
preferred to suggest merely, and he carried the semblance of a fluid 
artlessness in discourse to the frontiers of genius and insipidity. His 
verse is of very various quality. Much or most of it is not only firm 
and regular, but rigorous ; and when he chooses to be demure, his 
sober utterance has almost the virtues of Racine's, without the pride 
of carriage. Racine alone, and possibly Lamartine, can match his 
natural sensitiveness to the merely sonorous value of words — a gift 
he presumed on. Not all his experiments with harmony and rhythm 
(assonance encroaching upon the prerogatives of rime, lines docked of 
a syllable to disconcert the ear, etc.) are happy. Their common 
tendency is towards equivocation. But in general his form is respectful 
of traditions, even when they rely on conventions grown hollow ; and 
he carried the dislocation of the Alexandrine, in particular, no farther 
really than the stage it had reached before him, in which a new 
rhythm is still marriageable with the old. Verlaine has often attained 
an aerial tenderness, and as often sunk to an earthiness and triviality, 
which are equally characteristic. He had the secret of faltering with 
grace, and he is less intellectually clear than emotionally simple. 
Gelare artem was his sovereign art. 

Principal Works : — Poemes Satumiens (1866) ; Les Fites Galantes 
(1869); La Bonne Chanson (1870) ; Romances sans Paroles (1874, 
at Sens); Sagesse (1881); Jadis et Nagubre (1884); Amour (1888) 
Parallelement (1889) ; Bonheur (1891) ; Chansons pour Elle (1893) 
Les Invectives (posthumous) ; (Euvres Posthumes (1903). In Prose 
Les poetes maudits, Louise Leclercq, Memoires d'un veuf, Mes Hopi- 
taux, Mes Prisons. The complete works have been published in five 
volumes (Paris : Librairie Vanier). M. Edmond Lepelletier's book, 
Paul Verlaine, sa vie, son osuvre (Paris, 1907), has now been translated 
into English. 

XCII 

RESIGNATION 

Tout enfant, j'allais rSvant Ko-Hinnor, 
Somptuosite persane et papale, 
Heliogabale et Sardanapale ! 



272 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Mon d^sir cr6ait sous des toits en or, 
Parmi les parfums, au son des musiques, 
Des harems sans fin, paradis physiques ! 

Aujourd'hui, plus calme et non moins ardent, 
Mais sachant la vie et qu'il faut qu'on plie, 
J'ai dft refr^ner ma belle folie, 
Sans me r^signer par trop cependant. 

Soit ! le grandiose echappe a ma dent, 
Mais, fi de l'aimable et fi de la lie ! 
Et je hais toujours la femme jolie, 
La rime assonante et l'ami prudent. 

[Po&mes Saturniens. 

XCIII 

Mon Reve Familiee 

Je fais souvent ce reve Strange et p6n6trant 

D'une femme inconnue, et que j'aime, et qui m'aime, 

Et qui n'est, chaque fois, ni tout a fait la mSme 

Ni tout a fait une autre, et m'aime et me comprend. 

Car elle me comprend, et mon cceur, transparent 
Pour elle seule, helas ! cesse d'etre un probleme 
Pour elle seule, et les moiteurs de mon front blSme, 
Elle seule les sait rafralchir, en pleurant. 

Est-elle brune, blonde ou rousse ?• — Je l'ignore. 
Son nom ? Je me souviens qu'il est doux et sonore 
Comme ceux des aim6s que la Vie exila. 

Son regard est pareil au regard des statues, 

Et, pour sa voix, lointaine, et calme, et grave, elle a 

L'infiexion des voix cheres qui se sont tues. 

[Poemes Satv/rniens. 

xciv 

Bon chevalier masqu6 qui chevauche en silence, 
Le malheur a perce" mon vieux cceur de sa lance. 



PAUL VERLAINE 273 

Le sang de mon vieux coeur n'a fait qu'un jet vermeil, 
Puis s'est evapore sur les fleurs, au soleil. 

L'ombre e^eignit mes yeux, un cri vint a ma bouche, s 
Et mon vieux coeur est mort dans un frisson farouche. 

Alors le chevalier Malheur s'est rapproche, 
II a mis pied a terre et sa main m'a touche. 

Son doigt gante de fer entra dans ma blessure, 

Tandis qu'il attestait sa loi d'une voix dure. 10 

Et voici qu'au contact glace du doigt de fer 
Un coeur me renaissait, tout un coeur pur et fier. 

Et voici que, fervent d'une candeur divine, 

Tout un cceur jeune et bon battit dans ma poitrine. 

Or, je restais tremblant, ivre, incredule un peu, is 

Comme un homme qui voit des visions de Dieu. 

Mais le bon chevalier, remonte" sur sa bete, 
En s'eloignant me fit un signe de la tete 

Et me cria (j'entends encore cette voix) : 
Au moins, prudence ! Car c'est bon pour une fois.' ao 

[Sagesse. 

xcv 

Beaute des femmes, leur faiblesse, et ces mains pales 
Qui font souvent le bien et peuvent tout le mal. 
Et ces yeux ou plus rien ne reste d'animal 
Que juste assez pour dire : * assez ' aux fureurs males. 

Et toujours, maternelle endormeuse des rales, 5 

MSme quand elle ment, cette voix ! Matinal 
Appel, ou chant bien doux a v£pre, ou frais signal, 
Ou beau sanglot qui va mourir au pli des chiles ! . . . 

Hommes durs ! Vie atroce et laide d'ici-bas ! 

Ah ! que du moins, loin des baisers et des combats, 10 

Quelque chose demeure un peu sur la montagne, 



274 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Quelque chose du cceur enfantin et subtil, 

Bont6, respect ! Car qu'est-ce qui nous accompagne, 

Et vraiment, quand la mort viendra, que reste-t-il ? 

[Sagesse. 

xcvi 

Ecoutez la chanson bien douce 
Qui ne pleure que pour vous plaire. 
Elle est discrete, elle est legere : 
Un frisson d'eau sur de la mousse ! 

La voix vous fut connue (et chere ?), 5 

Mais a present elle est voilee 
Coinme une veuve desolee, 
Pourtant comme elle encore fiere, 

Et dans les longs plis de son voile 

Qui palpi te aux brises d'automne, 10 

Cache et montre au coeur qui s'^tonne 

La verite" comme une etoile. 

Elle dit, la voix reconnue, 

Que la bonte" c'est notre vie, 

Que de la haine et de l'envie is 

Rien ne reste, la mort venue. 

Elle parle aussi de la gloire 

D'etre simple sans plus attendre, 

Et de noces d'or et du tendre 

Bonheur d'une paix sans victoire. 20 

Accueillez la voix qui persiste 
Dans son naif 6pithalame. 
Allez, rien n'est meilleur a l'ame 
Que de faire une ame moins triste ! 

Elle est en peine et de passage, 25 

L'ame qui souffre sans colere, 
Et comme sa morale est claire ! . . . 
Ecoutez la chanson bien sage. 

[Sagesse. 



FRANQOIS COPPtfE 275 



FKANQOIS COPPEE 

1842-1908 

Franqois Copp^e was a Parisian born and bred — the son of a small 
official in the French War Office, claiming kinship, it is believed, 
with a Walloon family which had already produced a poet of some 
consideration in the seventeenth century. As a child he had delicate 
health, and his schooling at the Lycee Saint-Louis was interrupted. 
He began life as a shorthand clerk in the war office. M. Catulle 
Mendes found hospitality in the periodicals for his early verses, and 
personal acquaintance and intellectual sympathy with Leconte de 
Lisle and his group led to the young poet's being included in Le 
Parnasse contemporain. CoppeVs first volume, Le Reliquaire 
(1866), is purely Parnassian ; its successor, Les Intimitis, with a 
more personal note, confirmed the impression of facility and clear 
perceptions and careful work. Poemes Modernes (1869) fixed, if not 
his rank, at least his peculiar domain : after the immensely popular 
' Greve des Forgerons ' Coppee was accepted as the poet of humble 
lives, and particularly of the decent Paris poor; and within that 
range he remained most uniformly successful in his later collections 
of poetry, though Les Recits et les Migies (1878) — mainly transcrip- 
tions from the Bible and the Koran — and the more recent Paroles 
Smceres show excellence in quite other veins. But since the year of 
national calamity (to which he paid his poetical tribute) he earned 
no small part of his popularity by prose stories and by plays. In 
1869 he had already obtained a striking success at the Odeon with 
Le Passant, which, by the way, first revealed the talent of Mme. 
Sarah Bernhardt ; and his reputation as a dramatist rose successively 
with Fais ce que dois, Le Luthier de Cre'mone, and Le Justicier (first 
entitled Pour la Couronne). Of his prose writings it is enough to 
mention Contes rapides, the autobiographical Toute une Jeunesse 
(1890), and the engaging record of a sincere conversion called La 
Bonne Soufrance. 

Appointed sub-librarian to the Senate in 1869, he resigned the post 
three years later in favour of Leconte de Lisle, and was then for a 
short time in charge of the Archives of the Com6die Frangaise. He 
wrote a great deal of dramatic criticism between then and 1884, when 



276 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

he succeeded Victor de Laprade at the French Academy. In recent 
years, Coppee took a somewhat active part as a political propagandist, 
until ill-health forced him into complete retirement. He died last 
summer after a protracted illness. 

As a lyrist, Coppee began by betraying his models too obviously 
in descriptions perhaps a little garish in colour, and sentimental 
anecdotes somewhat wanting in sincerity. Thanks to an intelligent 
study of manners and real sympathy, he soon rose far above mere 
aptitude in the best of his genre pieces, which are conspicuous 
examples of the close connection between Parnassus and a certain sort 
of realism. It may be said that his pathos is insistent, that he cal- 
culates emotional effects without allowing for the recoil, that his con- 
ceptions are often unsubstantial or invertebrate. But he was without 
question a keen observer, a charming and familiar narrator, and had 
many moments of cordial inspiration. From the first the quality of 
his verse was always transparent, neat and sure, conscientious if 
deficient in amplitude, flexible enough, if rather mechanical in its 
variety — and, above all else, eminently accessible. 

The poetry and most of the other writings of Frangois Coppee may 
be read in Lemerre's Edition, Elze'virienne. 



XCVII 
A UNE TULIPE 

rare fleur, 6 fieur de luxe et de d^cor, 
Sur ta tige toujours dressde et triomphante, 
Le Velasquez eut mis a la main d'une infante 
Ton calice lame d'argent, de pourpre et d'or. 

Mais, detestant l'amour que ta splendeur enfante, 
Maitresse esclave, ainsi que la veuve d'Hector, 
Sous la loupe d'un vieux, inutile tremor, 
Tu t'alanguis dans une atmosphere etouffante, 

Tu penses a tes sosurs des grands pares, et tu peux 
Regretter le gazon des boulingrins pompeux 
La fraicheur du jet d'eau, l'ombrage du platane; 



FBANQOIS COPPEE 277 

Car tu n'as pour amant qu'un bourgeois de Harlem. 
Et dans la serre chaude ainsi qu'en un harem 
S'exhalent sans parfum tes ennuis de sultane. 

[Poemes divers 

XCVIII 

Une Aum6ne 

Fumant a ma fenetre, en ete, chaque soir, 

Je voyais cette femme, a Tangle d'un trottoir, 

S'offrir a tous ainsi qu'une chose a l'enchere. 

Non loin de 14, s'ouvrait une porte cochere 

Ou Ton entendait geindre, en s'abritant dessous, 5 

Une fillette avec des bouquets de deux sous. 

Et celle qui tramait la soie et l'infamie 

Attendait que l'enfant se fut bien endormie, 

Et lui faisait alors l'aumdne seulement. 

— Tu lui pardonneras, n'est-ce pas ? Dieu clement ! 10 

[Gontes et Poe'sies. 



278 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

JOSE-MARIA DE HEEEDIA 

1842-1905 

By birth a Cuban, Heredia came of old Spanish colonial stock on his 
father's side, and claimed one of the first Conquistadores of New 
Spain among his ancestors ; but his mother was French, descended 
from a president h mortier of the Norman Parliament. He was sent 
to France as a young child and lived at Senlis till he was sixteen ; 
then, after a year at the University of Havana in his native island, 
he settled in Paris and studied history and palaeography at the Ecole 
des Chartes. His first published verses appeared in 1862 in La 
Revue de Paris ; here and there he contributed to other periodicals 
and to the successive Parnasses ; but it was not till 1893 that Les 
Trophies (which still remains his only volume of poetry) justified its 
name and the esteem in which a small circle of writers had long held 
his talent, by one of the purest triumphs of contemporary letters : the 
Symbolists themselves had the candour to applaud, against all the 
principles of their revolt. Three years later Heredia succeeded his 
friend and master Leconte de Lisle at the Academy : he was for some 
time the keeper of the Mazarine Library. A very little more of his 
poetry was printed in one or other of the reviews a short time before 
his death. 

Les Trophies is a quintessential work, a monument of artistic 
probity which might well be the achievement of a lifetime. Its 
subjects illustrate once more the perennial attraction of the distant in 
time and space for the poet whose ideal can only be satisfied if he 
can reconcile the religion of form with the scruple of reality : the 
blameless mould in which most of this poetry is cast confirms Boileau's 
possibly thoughtless eulogy of the sonnet. Each piece is microcosmic : 
the art and the life (particularly the familiar life) of ancient Greece 
and Italy, of France in the Middle Ages and at the Kenaissance, of 
Spain and modern Brittany and Japan, have passed through the still 
of an imagination almost scientific in its demand for precision, but 
human in its very impartiality. 

The limitations of the poet are those of his school : a hardness of 
outline which implies sometimes a misconception of the material, an 
exaggerated economy which tends to sweat the life out of a word, the 



JOSE-MARIA DE HEREDIA 279 

frigidity which results from a disproportionate effort to reconstitute 
the externals of existence. If it were at all useful to compare him 
with his master, it might be said of Heredia that his vision is 
manifestly less large, his flight less strong, his aim less significant 
than that of Leconte de Lisle ; while on the other hand he is more 
truly impassive, more constantly avoids the vice of emphasis, and is 
a sounder scholar within his range — though unluckily he has followed 
the author of Poemes Barbares in the use of some pedantic forms. 
His verse, full, sumptuous, pellucid, and singularly varied for its 
compass, is his own, and uniformly admirable. 

XCIX 

Antoine et Cl^opAtre 

Tous deux ils regardaient, de la haute terrasse, 
L'Egypte s'endormir sous un ciel etouffant 
Et le Fleuve, a travers le Delta noir qu'il fend, 
Vers Bubaste ou Sai's rouler son onde grasse. 

Et le Romain sentait sous la lourde cuirasse, 5 

Soldat captif bercant le sommeil d'un enfant, 
Ployer et defaillir sur son cceur triomphant 
Le corps voluptueux que son etreinte embrasse. 

Tournant sa tete pale entre ses cheveux bruns 

Vers celui qu'enivraient d'invincibles parfums, 10 

Elle tendit sa bouche et ses prunelles claires ; 

Et sur elle courbe, l'ardent Irnperator 

Vit dans ses larges yeux etoiles de points d'or 

Toute une mer immense ou fuyaient des galeres. 

c 

Le Lit 

Qu'il soit encourtine de brocart ou de serge, 
Triste comme une tombe ou joyeux comme un nid, 
C'est la que l'homme nait, se repose et s'unit, 
Enfant, epoux, vieillard, ai'eule, femme ou vierge. 



280 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Funebre ou nuptial, que l'eau sainte l'asperge 
Sous le noir crucifix ou le rameau benit, 
C'est la que tout commence et la que tout finit, 
De la premiere aurore au feu du demier cierge. 

Humble, rustique et clos, ou fier du pavilion 
Triompbalement peint d'or et de vermilion, 
Qu'il soit de chSne brut, de cypres ou d'erable ; 

Heureux qui peut dormir sans peur et sans remords 

Dans le lit paternel, massif et venerable, 

Ou tous les siens sont nes aussi bien qu'ils sont morts. 



STEPHANE MALLARME 281 

STfiPHANE MALLARMfi 

1842-1898 

He belonged to an old family of civil servants ; was born in Paris, 
educated at a private school in the suburbs and then at the Lycee de 
Sens, and, after some stay in England, was received into the teaching 
body of the French University and lectured on our language and 
literature for thirty years as a public-school master, first in the 
provinces and, from the early 'seventies onwards, in Paris. Adhering 
to the group of writers who chose Leconte de Lisle for their chief, he 
contributed in verse to Le Parnasse Contemporam (1864, 1869), and 
in prose to several reviews ; had the lion's share in the production of 
La Demiere Mode (1875), a curious short-lived journal of domestic 
taste ; translated Poe's Haven about the same time — and later many 
others of his poems — into French prose, and recovered and reprinted, 
in 1876, the French, which is the original, edition of Beckford's 
Vatheh. In the same year appeared L' Apres-midi d'tm Faune, 
suggested by Banville and intended for recitation by the elder 
Coquelin : this and the unfinished Herodiade are Mallarme's most 
considerable poems. An expensive volume of his poetry was first 
published in 1887; a volume of miscellaneous prose called simply 
Pages appeared at Brussels in 1890, and at Brussels also, in 1892, an 
essay — originally a lecture — on Villiers de L'Isle-Adam. The prose 
volume Divagations (Paris, 1897), which contains, with less valuable 
matter, the essential formulas of his poetical theory, is the only other 
book of Mallarm6's which need be mentioned here. 

His life was modest, dignified and singularly uneventful ; but his 
friendships and the intellectual influence he shed through them belong 
to the recent history of ideas in France. In hi8 youth, at Avignon, 
he was in close contact with the Felibriges of Provence; later, in 
Paris, he frequented the house of Victor Hugo, and all the Parnassians 
were his intimates, especially the great seceders Villiers and Verlaine, 
while he was on familiar terms with the leaders of new tendencies in 
painting, Manet and Whistler and Kenoir, a3 well as the Belgian 
draughtsman Felicien Kops. But it was a younger generation which 
set the greatest store by the grace and wisdom of his talk. His 
rooms in the Rue de Rome were, for two or three lustres, a centre of 
eager intellectual life. Having retired, on a well-earned pension, to 



282 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

the neighbourhood of Fontainebleau, he was finishing the poem 
Hirodiade when his last illness seized him. It was not long since, 
upon the death of Verlaine, the young writers of Paris had publicly 
hailed him 'the Prince of poets.' 

The poetry of Mallarme^ which remained to the last almost severely 
Parnassian in form, offers in its meagreness the most complete 
examples of a Symbolism which, in its exclusive care to repeat the 
authentic modulation of ideas, disdains the help of images sufficiently 
developed to impose their significance. In other hands, the move- 
ment (of which he is perhaps the most convinced theorist) was 
pre-eminently a revival of sentiment : it was his originality to ' aim 
at the head.' Few poets, probably, have made more difficult verses 
with more difficulty. The absence of punctuation, the strangeness of 
a summary dislocated syntax which seems always to chafe at the 
necessity of presenting simultaneous impressions successively, are 
only superficial obstacles : but not every one can endure the rarer 
ether of an art so purely suggestive. ' Instituer une relation entre 
les images, exacte, et que s'en d6tache un tiers aspect fusible et clair 
presents a la divination' — thus his own words define Mallarm6's 
poetic. His poems, variations on a theme withheld, a series of 
superfetations engendered by a secret logic, intrust to the flash 
of chance analogies instantly eclipsed the illumination of a principal 
thought — of an elementary and universal order — which patience and 
ingenuity may discover at the twentieth reading. It is often worth 
while, for the sake of the chaste, discreet and generous emotion which 
glistens at the bottom of the well. And if the interior music is all 
of tones unresolved, that which every one may hear is frequently 
delicious in its fluidity and many definitive and even sumptuous 
phrases emerge. 

Of the two long poems, Hirodiade, which Mr. Arthur Symons has 
daringly translated, is a stately fragment; in the relatively limpid Apres- 
midi d'un Faune, which inspired the symbolist composer M. Claude 
Debussy so happily, may be best seen the temper of his wistful and 
aristocratic imagination and in what company he loved to take refuge. 

Mallarm6's prose, less tense and more expansive in the verbal 
simulation of easy gestures, is the prose of a man who had read 
everything, reflected deeply, endured life and hated action. 
La chair est triste, helas ! et j'ai lu tous les livres . . . 

Les Poisies de Stephane Mallarme (frontispiece de F. Hops). 
Brussels: Deman, 1899.' 



STEPHANE MALLARME 283 

Prose et vers (the best of his writings collected in one volume). 
Paris : Perrin. 

Divagations (in prose). Paris : 1897. 

Poesies Completes, a facsimile reproduction of the manuscript, was 
published in Brussels and is long since out of print. 

M. Albert Mockel's masterly study of Stephane Mallarme^ Un 
He'ros, may be recommended. 

CI 

Les Fenetkes, 

Las du triste h6pital et de l'encens fetide 
Qui monte en la blancheur banale des rideaux 
Vers le grand crucifix ennuye du mur vide, 
Le moribond sournois y redresse un vieux dos, 

Se traine et va, moins pour chauffer sa pourriture 5 
Que pour voir du soleil sur les pierres, coller 
Les poils blancs et les os de la maigre figure 
Aux fenetres qu'un beau rayon clair veut baler, 

Et la bouche, fievreuse et d'azur bleu vorace, 
Telle, jeune, elle alia respirer son tremor, 10 

Une peau virginale et de jadis ! encrasse 
D'un long baiser amer les tiedes carreaux d'or. 

Ivre, il vit, oubliant l'horreur des saintes huiles, 
Les tisanes, l'borloge et le lit inflige, 
La toux; et quand le soir saigne parmi les tuiles, 15 
Son ceil, a l'horizon de lumiere gorge, 

Voit des galeres d'or, belles comme des cygnes, 
Sur un fleuve de pourpre et de parfums dormir 
En bercant l'eclair fauve et riche de leurs lignes 
Dans un grand nonchaloir charge de souvenir ! 20 

Ainsi, pris du degout de l'homme a l'ame dure 
Vautre" dans le bonheur, ou ses seuls app^tits 
Mangent, et qui s'entSte k chercher cette ordure 
Pour roffrir a la femme allaitant ses petits, 



284 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Je fuis et je m'accroche a toutes les croisees as 

D'ou Ton tourne l'epaule a, la vie, et, beni, 
Dans leur verre, lave" d'£ternelles rosees, 
Que dore le matin chaste de l'lnfini 

Je me mire et me vois ange ! et je meurs, et j'aime 
— Que la vitre soit l'art, soit la mysticite — 3° 

A renaitre, portant mon r§ve en diademe, 
Au ciel anterieur ou neurit la Beaute. 

Mais, helas ! Ici-bas est maitre : sa hantise 
Vient m'6cceurer parfois jusqu'en cet abri sur 
Et le vomissement impur de la Betise 3s 

Me force a me boucher le nez devant l'azur. 

Est-il moyen, 6 Moi qui connais l'amertume, 

D'enfoncer le cristal par le monstre insulte" 

Et de m'enfuir, avec mes deux ailes sans plume 

— Au risque de tomber pendant l'eternite' ? 4° 

en 

Sonnet 

Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui 
Va-t-il nous decbirer avec un coup d'aile ivre 
Ce lac dur oublie" que hante sous le givre 
Le transparent glacier des vols qui n'ont pas fui ! 

Un cygne d'autrefois se souvient que c'est lui 5 

Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se delivre 
Pour n'avoir pas chante la region ou vivre 
Quand du sterile hiver a resplendi l'ennui. 

Tout son col secouera cette blancbe agonie 

Par l'espace infligee a Poiseau qui le nie, 10 

Mais non l'horreur du sol ou le plumage est pris. 

Fant6me qu'a ce lieu son pur eclat assigne, 
II s'immobilise au songe froid de mepris 
Que v6t parmi l'exil inutile le Cygne. 



JEAN RICHEPIN 285 

JEAN RICHEPIN 

1849 

M. Richepin, whose father was an army surgeon, was born at M^dea 
in Algeria. He was a brilliant schoolboy and, in 1868, entered the 
Ecole Normale in Paris, the gateway to a successful scholastic career 
for which, however, an undisciplined temperament soon showed him 
unfitted. In the war he served with the irregular levies, became a 
journalist in 1871, and two years later was associated both as author 
and actor with an obscure theatre. The book of lyrical poetry which 
is still the most famous of his writings, La Chanson des Gueux, 
appeared in 1876 and caused considerable scandal. The author had 
indulged J)he taste for a wandering life long enough to guarantee the 
faithfulness of his pictures from the world of outcasts : his curiosity 
to know more of it easily survived a short term of imprisonment 
which rewarded the extreme frankness of his style, and he became 
successively a seaman, a dock labourer, a travelling tinker — and 
poetry lost nothing by these experiences. The violent collection 
called Les Blasphemes (1884) and La Mer (1886) confirmed his 
reputation as a poet of original, if unchastened, talent. He had made 
a name as a novelist also with La Glu (1881) and a volume of queer 
studies, Le Pave" (1883). A drama, Par le Glaive, made its mark in 
1892, and Le Ghemineau, played at the Odeon in 1897, was almost 
popular : other plays, La Martyre, La Gitane (in prose), Les Truands, 
have added nothing to his celebrity ; nor indeed have his later lyrical 
volumes, Mes Paradis (1894), La Bombarde (1899). He was elected 
to the French Academy in 1908. 

Jean Richepin's is a curious figure among French poets of the day. 
A verbal fecundity which may almost be called verbal incontinence, 
a systematic unreason, the inadequacy of his psychological instinct, 
the continuous violence of his tone, belong to a belated, an impenitent 
Romanticism ; while he possesses all the Parnassian craftsmanship, 
the Parnassian sureness in registering sensations, a sense of the 
prestige of syllables and of their emotional capacity which indeed 
sometimes degenerates into sheer verbalism. If nine-tenths of his 
' realism ' is the abuse of dialect and slang, he certainly knows the 
submerged classes and feels for them, and has conscientiously striven 
to make their joys and their revolts articulate — and pieturesque. As 



286 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Coppee is the poet of the resigned poor, so M. Eichepin's far richer 
gifts have been devoted to poverty insurgent. Walt Whitman was 
called ' the tramp in literature ' : this is a tramp who knows Greek, 
an Ishmael whose complete sincerity is compatible with an absorbing 
passiqn for splendid sounds and dazzling visions. 

CHI 
Le Deenier Ocean 

Pour immense qu'il soit, l'Oc^an diminue. 
Car la force par quoi notre globe a durci, 
Lente et sure, le fait se contracter aussi, 
Pendant qu'il s'evapore en brumes vers la nue. 

A toujours s'exhaler son ame s'ext^nue, 5 

Et son corps se condense a la longue epaissi. 
Jadis ce vert manteau couvrait tout, et voici 
Que bientot Ton verra la Terre a moitie nue. 

Puis viendra l'heure ou vieille, edentee et sans crins, 
Elle n'en aura plus qu'un haillon sur les reins, 10 

Un lambeau d'Ocean, lourd, gras, frange" de crasse ; 

Et dans le sale ourlet de ce pagne visqueux 
Grouilleront les derniers survivants de ma race 
Comme des poux colles a la loque d'un gueux. 

[La Mer. 

civ 

Regard de Pauvre 

Le vieux a gueule de bandit 
M'a regard^, ne m'a rien dit, 

Ni rhumble appel qui rend humain, 
Quand, brusque, il a tendu la main, 

Ni meme un merci chuchote" s 

En recevant ma charite\ 

Mais ses yeux de loup, ses yeux gris, 
M'ont parle, certe ; et j'ai compris. 



JEAN RICHEPIN 287 

lis disaient : ' Crois-tu, pour deux sous, 

' M'avoir a tes pieds et dessous ? ' 10 

lis disaient : ' C'est, en verite, 
' Toi qui te fais la cbarite.' 

lis disaient : ' En me les jetant, 
' Ces deux sous, toi seul es content.' 

lis disaient : ' De donner ainsi, 15 

' C'est toi qui te dois un merci.' 

lis disaient : ' Deux sous au barbon ! 
' Et Ton est tout fier d'etre bon ! ' 

lis disaient : ' Pour toi quel regal, 

' D'avilir en moi ton egal ! ' 20 

lis disaient : ' Tes deux sous recus, 
' J'aurais droit de cracher dessus.' 

lis disaient: 'Soit! je prends le don; 
' Mais n'espere pas mon pardon.' 

Ainsi, sans un mot, par ses yeux, 25 

M'a parle le silencieux. 

Et moi non plus je n'ai rien dit 
Au vieux a gueule de bandit. 

J'ai mis d'autres sous dans ma main 

Et, vite, ai repris mon cbemin, 30 

Fuyard bonteux songeant tout bas 
Qu'il n'avait pas tort, n'est-ce pas ? 

[La Bombarde. 



288 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

EMILE VERHAEREN 

1855 

The most striking figure among living French poets, and the most 
eminent, along with Maurice Maeterlinck, of those modern authors 
who' feel in Flemish and write in French, belongs by birth to the 
Waesland, the fertile district which lies between Ghent and Antwerp. 
He was educated at Brussels, Ghent and Louvain, and called to the 
Brussels bar. He does not seem to have practised, but spent some 
years in a lusty intellectual vagabondage, of which the first-fruits, a 
volume of lyrics, saw the light in 1883. About the same time he 
began also to contribute critical articles to various 'young' reviews,tboth 
Belgian and French. A period of bodily and mental suffering, which 
ensued upon an interval of rigidly ascetic ruralising, considerably 
affected the governing inspiration of his poetry, if it did not per- 
manently modify the deep characteristics of a talent which a dozen 
volumes of memorable verse have since illustrated. Besides these 
and several monographs on modern artists, chiefly impressionists, 
M. Verhaeren has written lyrical dramas, and two of them — Le 
Cloitre (1900) and Philippe Deux (1903) — have been played, with 
no particular success. He has travelled much, especially in Spain 
and England ; and resides in Paris and Brussels alternately. 

A violently personal poet for whom the world is rich in emblems 
and who has consistently sought to express himself by imposing his 
visions and his rhythms, who riots in furnaces of colour and whose 
emphatic accents betray the tribune born, might be called a Komantic 
or a Symbolist with almost equal propriety : but M. Verhaeren 
deserves better than to be identified with any school. He found his 
bent gradually, passing from the crudest pictures of an exuberant 
countryside to the faithful record of those desolate nights and days when 
pain took visible shape and a fevered pulse made reproachful music in a 
sick brain ; and for a time his fame rested on the skill with which he 
reproduced those obsessions : but it is a genius of health that opened 
his windows upon a busy world and gave him the function among 
poets of our time of glorifying the intensity of modern life in its 
common manifestations. He has exalted the daily tumult of streets, 
the allegorical significance of humble trades, the poetry of machines 



EMILE VERHAEREN 289 

and the teeming highroad of the seas, the personality of crowds and 
the self-sacrifice of pioneers. On this side his work approaches Walt 
Whitman's as an expression of democratic energy and hope. It may 
be added that of late the meliorist in him, and the champion of what 
may perhaps bear the name of a pantheistic positivism, has been 
sometimes oppressively conspicuous in gnomic sentences and pro- 
phecies and loud denunciation. But M. Verhaeren is also the poet 
of Flemish hearths and familiar joys ; he has met heroes and spectres 
— S. George and the North Wind — on the roads ; he is saturated 
with the history and the legends of his country and penetrated with 
the still and sullen beauty of its landscape. He endows the elements 
and the virtues with a vehement humanity ; and, like Browning, he 
is more dramatic in his lyrics than in his drama. 

There is more force than perfection in this poetry. M. Verhaeren's 
verbal opulence and extreme vigour do not exclude a sort of clumsi- 
ness in the expression, a want of variety, of suppleness and of 
measure. As a versifier, though he continually returns to the 
orthodoxy of his nonage, his characteristic form is the vers liberS, 
polymetric, recognising no judge but the ear and, in spite of certain 
irregularities, never leaving the ear in doubt as to the metrical 
intention. He uses, and even abuses, internal rime, internal 
assonance and alliteration. And, it may well be by an atavistic 
instinct inherited from a speech more heavily stressed than French, 
he is given to reinforcing his rhythm by surrounding the strong 
syllables with enclitics which exaggerate their weight by contrast. 

Poemes, i e , ii 8 , iii 8 series ; Almanack (1895) ; Les Campagnes 
hallucine'es (1893); les Villes Tentaculaires (1895); Les Visages de 
la Fie (1899); Les Heures claires ; Les Forces tumultueuses (1902); 
La Multiple Splendeur (1906) ; Les Aubes [this lyrical drama has 
been translated by Mr. Arthur Symons] ; Le Cloitre ; Philippe II. 

In prose : Contes de Minuit. 

All these works are published by the Sociele du Mercwre de France. 
The following books of poetry are published by M. Edmond Deman, 
Brussels: — Petites Ldgendes (1900); Les Heures d' Aprks-midi ; 
Toute la Flandre (Les Tendresses premieres, 1904; La Guirlande des 
Dunes, 1907; Les Heros, 1908). 



290 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

cv 

Le Glaive 

Quelqu'un m'avait predit, qui tenait une 6pee, 
Et qui riait de mon orgueil sterilise : 
Tu seras nul, et pour ton ame inoccup^e 
L'avenir ne sera que regret du passe\ 

Ton corps, ou s'est aigri le sang de purs ancetres, 5 

Fragile et lourd, se cassera dans chaque effort ; 

Tu seras le fievreux ploye, sur les fenetres, 

D'ou Ton peut voir bondir la vie et ses chars d'or. 

Tes nerfs t'enlaceront de leurs fibres sans seves, 
Tes nerfs ! — et tes ongles s'amolliront d'ennui ; 10 

Ton front comme un tombeau dominera tes reves 
Et sera ta frayeur, en des miroirs, la nuit. 

Te fuir ! — si tu pouvais ! mais non, la lassitude 

Des autres et de toi t'aura vo&t6 le dos 

Si bien, rive les pieds si fort, que l'h^betude 15 

Detrdnera ta t6te et plombera tes os. 

Eclatants et claquants, les drapeaux vers les luttes, 
Ta levre exsangue helas ! jamais ne les mordra: 
Use, ton cceur, ton morne cceur, dans les disputes 
Des vieux textes, ou Ton taille comme en un drap. 20 

Tu t'en iras a part et seul — et les nagueres 

De jeunesse seront un inutile aimant 

Pour les grands yeux lointains — et les joyeux tonnerres 

Chargeront loin de toi, victorieusement ! 

[Les Ddbdcles. 
cvi 

Au Nord 

Deux vieux marins des mers du Nord 

S'en revenaient, un soir d'automne, 

De la Sicile et de ses iles mensongeres, 

Avec un peuple de Sirenes 

A bord. c 



EMILE VERHAEREN 291 

Aigus d'orgueil, ils regagnaient leur fiord, 

Parmi les brumes mensongeres, 

Aigus d'orgueil ils regagnaient le Nord 

Sous un vent morne et monotone, 

Un soir de tristesse et d'automne. 10 

De la rive, les gens du port 

Les regardaient, sans faire un signe : 

Aux cordages, le long des mats, 

Les Sirenes, couvertes d'or, 

Mordaient, comme des vignes, i S 

Les lignes 

Sinueuses de leurs corps. 

Les gens se regardaient, ne sachant pas 

Ce qui venait de l'oc^an, la-bas, 

Malgre les brumes, 20 

Le navire semblait comme un panier d'argent 

Rempli de cbair, de fruits et d'or bougeant 

Qui s'avancait, porte sur des ailes d'ecume. 

Les Sirenes chantaient 

Dans les cordages du navire ; 25 

Les bras tendus en lyres, 

Les seins leves comme des feux ; 

Les Sirenes chantaient 

Devant le soir houleux, 

Qui fauchait sur la mer les lumieres diurnes ; 30 

Les Sirenes chantaient, 

Le corps crispe autour des mats, 

Mais les hommes du port, frustes et taciturnes, 

Ne les entendaient pas. 

Ils ne reconnurent ni leurs amis 35 

— Les deux marins — ni le navire de leur pays, 

Ni le foe, ni les voiles 

Dont ils avaient cousu la toile ; 

Ils ne comprirent rien a ce grand songe 

Qui enchantait la mer de ses voyages, 40 

Puisqu'il n'etait pas le me'me mensonge 

Qu'on enseignait, dans leur village ; 



292 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Et le navire aupres du bord 

Passa, les all^chant vers sa merveille, 

Sans que personne, entre les treilles, 45 

Ne recueillit les fruits de chair et d'or. 

[Les Vignes de ma Mwraille. 



evil 

Le Bazar 

C'est un bazar, au bout des faubourgs rouges : 

Etalages bonded, eventaires ventrus, 

Tumulte et cris brandis, gestes bourrus et crus, 

Et lettres d'or qui soudain bougent, 

En torsades, sur la fa9ade. s 

Chaque matin, on vend, en ce bazar, 

Parmi les Apices, les fards 

Et les drogues omnipotentes, 

A bon march£, pour quelques sous, 

Les diamants dissous IO 

De la rosee immense et eclatante. 

Le soir, a prix numerot£, 

Avec le desir noir de trafiquer de la purete, 

On y brocante le soleil 

Que toutes les vagues de la mer claire i S 

Lavent, entre leurs doigts vermeils, 

Aux horizons aureolaires. 

C'est un bazar, avec des murs grants 

Et des balcons et des sous-sols beants 

Et des tympans montes sur des corniches 20 

Et des drapeaux et des affiches, 

Ou deux clowns noirs plument un ange. 

A travers boue, a travers fange, 

Roulent, la nuit, vers le bazar, 

Les chars, les camions et les fardiers, 25 

Qui s'en reviennent des usines 

Voisines, 



EMILE VERHAEREN 293 

Des cimetieres et des charmiers, 

Avec un tel poids noir de cargaisons, 

Que le sol bouge et les maisons. 30 

On met au clair a certains jours, 

En de vaines et frivoles boutiques, 

Ce que l'humanite des temps antiques 

Croyait sincerement etre l'amour ; 

Aussi les Dieux et leur beaute 35 

Et l'effrayant aspect de leur eternite 

Et leurs yeux d'or et leurs mytb.es et leurs emblemes 

Et des livres qui les blasphement. 

Toutes ardeurs, tous souvenirs, toutes prieres 

Sont la, sur des 6tals, et s'empoussierent. 40 

Des mots qui renfermaient l'ame du monde 

Et que les poetes seuls disaient au nom de tous, 

Sont cbarries et ballottes, dans la faconde 

Des camelots et des voyous. 

L'immensite se serre en des armoires 45 

Derisoires et rayonne de plaies 

Et le sens meme de la gloire 

Se definit par des monnaies. 

Lettres jusques au ciel, lettres en or qui bouge, 

C'est un bazar au bout des faubourgs rouges ! 50 

La foule et ses flots noirs 

S'y bouscule pres des comptoirs ; 

La foule et ses desirs, multiplies, 

Par centaines et par milliers, 

Y tourne, y monte, au long des escaliers, 55 

Et s'&ige folle et sauvage, 

En spirale, vers les Stages. 

La-haut, c'est la pensee 

Immortelle, mais convulsed, 

Avec ses triomphes et ses surprises, 60 

Qu'a la Mte on expertise. 

Tous ceux dont le cerveau 

S'enflamme aux feux des problemes nouveaux, 



294 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Tous les chercheurs qui se fixent pour cible 

Le front d'airain de l'impossible 65 

Et le cassent, pour que les decouvertes 

S'en echappent, ailes ouvertes, 

Sont la gauches, fievreux, distraits, 

Dupes des gens qui les renient 

Mais utilisent leur genie, 70 

Et font argent de leurs secrets. 

Oh ! les Edens, la-bas, au bout du monde, 

Avec des arbres purs a leurs sommets, 

Que ces voyants des lois profondes 

Ont explore pour a jamais, 75 

Sans se douter qu'ils sont les Dieux. 

Oh ! leur ardeur a recreer la vie, 

Selon la foi qu'ils ont en eux 

Et la douceur et la bonte de leurs grands yeux, 

Quand, revenus de l'inconnu 80 

Vers les hommes, d'ou ils s'erigent, 

On leur vole ce qui leur reste aux mains 

De verite conquise et de destin. 

C'est un bazar tout en vertiges 

Que bat, continument, la foule, avec ses houles 85 

Et ses vagues d'argent et d'or; 

C'est un bazar tout en decors, 

Avec des tours de feux et des lumieres, 

Si large et haut que, dans la nuit, 

II apparait la bete eclatante de bruit 90 

Qui monte epouvanter le silence stellaire. 

[Les Villes Tentaculaires. 

cvin 

Celui qui me lira, dans les siecles, un soir, 
Troublant mes vers, sous leur sommeil ou sous leur cendre ; 
Et ranimant leurs sens lointain pour mieux comprendre 
Comment ceux d'aujourd'hui s'^taient armes d'espoir, 



EMILE VERHAEREN 295 

Qu'il sache, avec quel violent elan, ma joie 5 

S'est, a travers les cris, les revoltes, les pleurs, 

Ruee au combat fier et male des douleurs, 

Pour en tirer l'amour, comme on conquiert sa proie. 

J'aime mes yeux fievreux, ma cervelle, mes nerfs, 

Le sang dont vit mon coeur, le coeur dont vit mon torse ; 10 

J'aime l'homme et le monde et j 'adore la force 

Que donne et prend ma force a l'homme et l'univers. 

Car vivre, c'est prendre et donner avec Hesse. 

Mes pairs, ce sont ceux-la qui s'exaltent autant 

Que je me sens moi-mSme avide et haletant is 

Devant la vie intense et sa rouge sagesse. 

Heures de chute ou de grandeur ! — tout se confond 

Et se transforme en ce brasier qu'est l'existence ; 

Seul importe que le desir reste en partance, 

Jusqu'a la mort, devant l'eveil des horizons. 20 

Celui qui trouve est un cerveau qui communie 
Avec la fourmillante et large humanite. 
L'esprit plonge et s'enivre en pleine immensite ; 
II faut aimer, pour decouvrir avec genie. 

Une tendresse enorme emplit l'apre savoir, 25 

II exalte la force et la beaute des mondes, 
II devine les liens et les causes profondes ; 
vous qui me lirez, dans les siecles, un soir, 

Comprenez-vous pourquoi mon vers vous interpelle ? 

C'est qu'en vos temps quelqu'un d'ardent aura tire 30 

Du cceur de la necessite meme, le vrai, 

Bloc clair, pour y dresser l'entente universelle. 

[Les Forces Tumultueuses. 

cix 

Les Tours au Bord de la Mer 

Veuves debout au long des mers 

Les tours de Lisweghe et de Furnes 

Pleurent, aux vents des vieux hivers 

Et des automnes taciturnes. 



296 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Elles regnent sur le pays, s 

Depuis quels jours, depuis quels ages, 
Depuis quels temps evanouis 
Avec les brumes de leurs plages ? 

Jadis, on allumait des feux 
Sur leur sommet, dans le soir sombre ; 10 

Et le marin fixait ses yeux 
Vers ce flambeau tendu dans l'ombre. 

Quand la guerre battait l'Escaut 
De son tumulte militaire, 
Les tours semblaient darder, la-haut, 15 

La rage en flamme de la terre. 

Quand on tuait de ferme en bouge, 

Pele-mele, vieux et petits, 

Les tours jetaient leurs gestes rouges, 

En suppliques, vers l'infini. 20 

Depuis, 

La guerre, 

Au bruit roulant de ses tonnerres, 

Crispe, sous d'autres cieux, son poing ensanglante : 

Et d'autres blocs et d'autres phares, 25 

Armes de grands yeux d'or et de cristaux bizarres, 
Jettent, vers d'autres flots, de plus nettes clartes. 

Mais vous etes, quand m§me, 
Debout encore, au long des mers, 
Debout dans l'ombre et dans l'hiver, 30 

Sans couronne, sans diademe, 

Sans feux 6pars sur vos fronts lourds ; 

Et vous demeurez la, seules au vent nocturne, 

Vous, les tours, les tours gigantesques, les tours 

De Nieuport, de Lisweghe et de Furnes. 35 

Sur les villes et les hameaux, 

Au-dessus des maisons vieilles et basses, 

Vous carrez votre masse, 

Tragiquement ; 



EMILE VERHAEREN 297 

Et ceux qui vont, au soir tombant, le long des greves, 40 

A voir votre grandeur et votre deuil, 

Sen tent toujours, comme un afflux d'orgueil 

Battre leur re~ve : 

Et leur cceur chante et leur cceur pleure, et leur cceur bout 

D'etre jaillis du m6me sol que vous. 45 

Elandre tenace au cceur ; Flandre des a'ieux morts 

Avec la terre aimee entre leurs dents ardentes ; 

Pays de fruste orgueil ou de rage mordante, 

Des qu'on barre ta vie, ou qu'on touche a ton sort ; 

Pays de labours verts autour de blancs villages ; s° 

Pays de poings boudeurs et de fronts redoutes ; 

Pays de patiente et sourde volonte ; 

Pays de fete rouge ou de pale silence ; 

Clos de tranquillite ou champs de violence, 

Tu te dardes dans tes beffrois et dans tes tours, 55 

Comme en un cri g6ant vers l'inconnu des jours ! 

Cbaque brique, chaque moellon ou cbaque pierre, 

Renferme un peu de ta douleur hereditaire 

Ou de ta joie eparse aux ages de grandeur; 

Tours de longs deuils passes ou beffrois de splendeur, 60 

Vous §tes des t6moins dont nul ne se delivre ; 

Votre ombre est la, sur mes pensers et sur mes livres, 

Sur mes gestes nouant ma vie avec sa mort. 

O que mon cceur toujours reste avec vous d'accord ! 

Qu'il puise en vous l'orgueil et la fermete haute, 65 

Tours debout pres des flots, tours debout pres des c6tes, 

Et que tous ceux qui s'en viennent des pays clairs 

Que brule le soleil, a l'autre bout des mers, 

Sachent, rien qu'en longeant nos greves taciturnes, 

Rien qu'en posant le pied sur notre sol glace, 70 

Quel vieux peuple rugueux vous leur symbolisez, 

Vous les tours de Nieuport, de Lisweghe et de Furnes ! 

[La Guirlande des Dunes. 



298 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

JEAN MOEEAS 

1856 

M. MoidiAS, whose real name is Papadiamantopoulos, is a Greek and 
breathed the air of Attica in his childhood. His education was cosmo- 
politan, and it was after seeing something of the south of France and 
Italy, Genoa and several German cities that in 1872 he spent six 
weeks in Paris — enough to feel its fascination and to choose it for 
the home of his intelligence. Some years later he became in fact a 
Parisian, and began to rime in reviews of the Latin Quarter. His 
first book, Les Syrtes, appeared at the end of 1884 (before Symbolism 
was a movement) and was well received by a very limited public ; 
Les Gantilhnes followed ; he collaborated with M. Paul Adam in a 
couple of novels, and at the same time vigorously defended in pamphlets 
and letters his own conception of his art. With Le PUerin Passionne 
(the title recalls the famous Elizabethan miscellany) his renown grew 
considerable, and Verlaine himself is said to have avowed some jealousy 
of the younger poet, who owed a good deal, however, to his example. 
Progressively, M. Mor^as has since shown, with Sylves, firiphyle, Les 
Stances (1899-1902), how little the authenticity of his talent depends 
upon strange words and misty allegories : to the charm of syllables 
he has added in recent works a suave felicity, clearness, amplitude, 
and the dignity of grave emotions. Iphigenie, his latest production, 
is a noble paraphrase, well worthy of the unique accident which 
connects the race of Euripides with the language of Eacine. It was 
performed first at Orange in the Ancient Theatre, and afterwards at 
the Paris Odebn. Its author has hardly left Paris, or at least France, 
since he first settled there, except to visit his country at the time of 
the Greco-Turkish war. 

Jean Mor^as has an abnormally sensitive ear, and his symbolism 
has been perhaps above all else a feast of sonorous memories. By 
diligent reading of the elder poets he has amassed a treasure of verbal 
associations, and he has learned the secret resources of his adopted 
language by donning the habit of successive periods. He has echoed, 
without quite stifling a curiously modern tone in his often delicious 
experiments, the sumptuous and nugatory love-songs of the thirteenth 
century, the piercing cry of Villon, the noble languor of the Pleiad 



JEAN MOREAS 299 

(the derivative sect called Vecole romane sprang from this stage in 
his pilgrimage), and in later collections he has seemed to correct 
Ronsard's superb pedantry by the file of Malherbe, or to verify the 
descent of Chenier, through Racine, from the lover of Helen and 
Cassandra. The prefaces and polemics of M. Moreas have professed 
to base upon historical grounds the plea for a more thorough relaxation 
of the bands of French prosody : but his practice, some incidental 
' Whitmanisms ' apart, has tended more and more to conformity. 

Jean Mor6as is emphatically a literary poet : it is easier, that is, 
to characterise his instructed predilections than his original signifi- 
cance. It remains to be seen whether he will succeed in delivering 
a personality which is possibly vigorous from the nemesis of his 
triumphant assimilations. 

The earlier verse was published by L. Vanier ; Itrvphyle (1894) by 
the ' Bibliotheque artistique et litteraire'; in 1898 the same pub- 
lishers reissued his collective Poesies (1886-1896) ; Les Stances is 
published by La Plume (1901); Iphigenie by the Society du Mer- 
cure de France. 

ex 

El£gie 

Plus durement que trait turquois, 
Amour, plaisant doux archer, blesse 
Rustiques garcons et grands rois. 

Par telle langueur et faiblesse, 

Dieu oublia et diffame eut s 

David qui haiissait mollesse. 

Semblablement l'autre qui fut 
Salomon, si tres sage augure, 
De grand renom piteux dechut. 

Bouche feinte et feinte figure, io 

Yeux benins aux gracieux lacs 
Honte celent et mal'mort dure : 

Agememnon n'en eut soulas, 

Aussi, la forcenee Helene 

Le fit voir au due Menelas. 15 



300 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Achille servit Polyxene ; 
Chez la lydienne Herculus 
Fila quenouillette aime-laine. 

De Stratonice, Selecus 

Souffirit empire et vasselage, 20 

De Chrysdide, Troilus. 

Au gre d'un colore visage 
N'ecouta les buccins retors 
Antoine, preux trop plus que sage. 

Et tout docte, en nonchaloir fors, 25 

De sa Faustine, Marc Aurele 
Vit de cendre ses lauriers ords. 

Ainsi, en la bailli' de celle 

Dont les cheveux passent Tor fin 

(Las ! qui m'est felone et cruelle), 30 

Je cuide le Permesse vain, 
Et mon souffle n'a v£h6mence 
D'animer le roseau divin 

Qui clamait mon nom par la France. 

[Le Pelerin passionne ; Jonchee. 

CXI 

Stances 

Tu souffres tous les maux et tu ne fais que rire 

De ton lache destin ; 
Tu ne sais pas pourquoi tu chantes sur ta lyre 

Du soir jusqu'au matin. 

Poete, un grave auteur dira que tu t'amuses 5 

Sans trop d'utilite" ; 
Va, ne l'ecoute point : Apollon et les Muses 

Ont bien quelque beaute. 



JEAN MOREAS 301 

Laisse les uns mourir et vois les autres naitre, 

Les bons ou les m^chants, 10 

Puisque tout ici-bas ne survient que pour etre 
Un pretexte a tes chants. 

[Les Stances, iv. 8. 

cxu 

Je vous entends glisser avec un secret bruit 

La-bas sur la p^nombre verte. 
Entrez dans ma maison, 6 souffles de la nuit, 

J'ai laisse la fenetre ouverte ! 

O souffles, pour mon cceur tout charges a present 5 
D'erreur, de remords, d'amertume, 

Vous me parliez jadis lorsqu'avec le brisant 
Luttaient la tempete et l'^cume, 

Lorsque le long du sable aux flots harmonieux, 

Dans la crique et sur cette greve, io 

D'une amitie' perfide et la terre et les cieux 
Remplissaient mon &me et mon r§ve. 

Mais quoi ! vous vous taisez, esprits eoliens ! 

Un autre arpege se prolonge : 
C'est la pluie, elle tombe et je me ressouviens 15 

Tout a coup d'un autre mensonge. 

[Les Stances, vi. 5. 



302 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



JULES LAFOEGUE 

1860-1887 

Lafokgue was born at Montevideo, brought up at Tarbes, and 
finished his education in Paris, where (being one of a large family 
with small means) he was thrown upon his own resources very early. 
He read enormously — philosophy and science as well as literature — 
wrote much both prose and verse, got in touch through friends (MM. 
Paul Bourget and Teodor de Wyzewa among them) with several of 
the ' young " periodicals, and had attracted the notice of some 
influential men of letters when the post of French reader to the 
Empress Augusta was offered him. He lived four years in Germany 
and left Berlin finally in 1886 to marry a young Englishwoman 
whom he had met there ; but he had hardly settled again in Paris 
with brilliant literary prospects and published his first volume, when 
his lungs were found to be affected and he was ordered to the South. 
The disease was however too far advanced already, and he died in 
Paris within two days of his twenty-seventh birthday. 

French literature lost in Jules Laforgue a writer disconcertingly 
original, of exuberant and apparently universal talent, whose influence 
upon his contemporaries and successors, if not altogether fruitful, has 
at all events been penetrating. There are admirable pages in his 
prose writings — in Les Moralitds Ligendavres, those creative parodies, 
and in his singularly luminous reflexions upon modern art. He was 
himself, if one word could define him, the most complete of im- 
pressionists. In French poetry he inaugurated something more than 
a new manner. All the verse he made after he reached manhood, 
though it wears an unmistakable air of sovereign facility, is cynically 
uncouth, not through haste nor want of practice, but in obedience to 
certain conceptions of his art which possibly he would have modified 
with time. If Verlaine is unapproachably natural, Laforgue — who 
proceeded solely by allusion — was not afraid to be grotesque in the 
scrupulous effort to echo the very rustle of the wings of thought. 
But also his undress served the ends of a new irony, gay and glacial, 
inexorable and infantile, based on the obsession of our nothingness, 
which lisps the cruellest syllables and veils a shamefast sensibility. 



JULES LAFORGUE 303 

His letters, which have been published, reveal a valiant and lovable 
character. 

The literary remains of Jules Laforgue, all too heavily conditioned 
by their metaphysical postulates, have perhaps been overrated by the 
leaders of his generation : but so brilliant a prelude justified all 
manner of conjectures and the most durable regrets. 

Poesies (Le Sanglot de la Terre, Les Complaintes, L'Imitation de 
Notre-Dame la Lyme, Le Concile fee'rique, Des Flews de bonne 
volenti, Demiers Vers) ; Moralites Le'gendaires ; Melanges Posthumes. 
These ( hree volumes are all published by the Societe du Mercure de 
France, as well as M. Camille Mauclair's remarkable monograph on 
Jules Laforgue. 

CXIII 

COMPLAINTE 

De I'Oubli des Morts 

Mesdames et Messieurs, 
Vous dont la mere est morte, 
C'est le bon fossoyeux 
Qui gratte a votre porte. 

Les morts 5 

C'est sous terre ; 
Ca n'en sort 

Guere. 

Vous fumez dans vos bocks, 

Vous soldez quelque idylle, 10 

La-bas chante le coq : 

Pauvres morts hors des villes ! 

Grand-papa se penchait, 

La, le doigt sur la tempe, 

Sceur faisait du crochet, is 

Mere montait la lampe. 

Les morts 
C'est discret, 

Ca dort 
Trop au frais. 20 



304 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Vous avez bien dine : 
Comment va cette affaire ? 
Ah ! les petits morts-nes 
Ne se dorlotent guere ! 

Notez, d'un trait egal, 25 

Au livre de la caisse, 
Entre deux frais de bal : 
Entretien tombe et messe. 

C'est gai, 
Cette vie ; 30 

Hein, ma mie, 

Ogue? 

Mesdames et Messieurs, 

Vous dont la sceur est morte, 

Ouvrez au fossoyeux 35 

Qui claque a votre porte ; 

Si vous n'avez pitie 

II viendra (sans rancune) 

Vous tirer par les pieds, 

Une nuit de grand' lune ! 4 o 

Importun 
Vent qui rage ! 
Les d^funts ? 



Ca voyage 



[Les Cornplaintes. 



cxiv 

Dialogue 

Avant le lever de la Lvme 

— Je veux bien vivre ; mais vraiment, 
L'Ideal est trop elastique. 

— C'est l'ldeal, son nom l'implique, 
Hors son non-sens, le verbe ment. 



JULES LAFORGUE 305 

— Mais, tout est conteste ; les livres 5 
S'accouchent, s'entretuent sans lois ! 

— Certes ! l'Absolu perd ses droits, 
La, ou le Vrai consiste a vivre. 

— Et, si j'amene pavilion 

Et repasse au Neant ma charge ? 10 

— L'Infini, qui souffle du large, 
Dit : ' Pas de betises, voyons ! ' 

— Ces chantiers du Possible ululent 
A l'lnconcevable, pourtant ! 

— Un degre, comme il en est tant 15 
Entre l'aube et le cr^puscule. 

— Etre actuel, est-ce, du moins, 
Etre adequat a Quelque Chose ? 

— Consequemment, comme la rose 

Est necessaire a ses besoins. 20 

— Facon de dire peu commune 
Que Tout est cercles vicieux ? 

— Vicieux, mais Tout ! 

— J'aime mieux 
Done m'en aller selon la Lune. 

[Limitation de Notre-Dame la Lune. 



v 



306 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

HENRI DE EEGNIER 

1864 

Bobn at Honfleur and educated in Paris at the College Stanislas and 
at the Law School, M. de Regnier contributed his first published 
verses to Lutece in 1885, about the time when the other fuglemen of 
the new schools were beginning to feel their way in various French 
and Belgian periodicals more or less short-lived. He was in those 
days assiduous at Leconte de Lisle's receptions, but the Parnassian 
seceders Verlaine and Mallarm^ attracted him, and their influence is 
manifest in his juvenilia. The more personal and accomplished 
verse he made in the early 'nineties was appreciated by the small 
public of young poets, but his name had hardly travelled outside a 
group when his dramatic poem La Gardienne was presented without 
success at the Theatre de PCEuvre in 1894. Since that date M. de 
Regnier has rapidly gained the esteem of all who are curious about 
new directions in French poetry, and there is no native name so 
widely considered among poets of his generation. It is quite likely 
that his success owes something to a versatility real enough to cause 
a little misgiving : for poetry is a jealous art ; and he has taken 
rank as a writer of fiction with Le Trifle Blanc and La double Mai- 
tresse and Le Mariage de Minuit — works which reveal not only a 
sympathetic student of the eighteenth century and an amiable if 
disenchanted observer of contemporary 'society,' but a subtle 
analyst of moods, a master of transitions and of a prose sonorous, 
engaging and pervaded by a discreet irony, but also a little 
monotonous in its archaic amplitude and ceremony. But there is 
every reason to call prose his relaxation : no maker of verse still 
young in years has so frequently attained a perfect form or kept 
before him so resolutely an intimate ideal of verbal limpidity and 
imaginative splendour. Herein he differs from other Symbolists; 
yet his adherence to that school is not (like that of Jean Moreas) 
provisional ; for its original tendency to use the world of sense as 
the surest reflexion of individual souls, is nowhere more impressively 
illustrated than in his works from Tel qu'en Songe to La Citi des 
Eaux. But his vision is lucid ; his luxurious temperament, afflicted 
with the lacrimae rerum, loves most to evoke the external objects 



HENRI DE REGNIER 307 

with which it finds durable and immediate associations : naiads and 
fauns, swift horses, marble busts, laurels and moss-grown fountains, 
with gates of brass and golden sunsets, are emblems of regret 
and glory and ancient peace which time has appropriated and 
approved. 

His imagery is rich, not recondite ; his vocabulary personal with- 
out strangeness. M. de Regnier loves the magnificence of words 
which remember their ancestors, and all the pomp of" syntax ; and 
also he possesses, alone perhaps among the innovators, a strong 
traditional sense of rhythmical structure. His polymorphous odes 
may be read almost without a hesitation of the ear, the line being a 
rhythmical and logical (not only an arbitrary, typographical) unit 
within the strophe. After some youthful experiments with an 
optional mute syllable his most constant practice has been to retain 
that unique source of French verse, the feminine e. He breaks his 
lines without prejudice, but also without mechanical irregularity, and 
admits the clash of vowels, avoiding harshness always. He rimes 
for the ear, and nearly always abundantly ; but substitutes a deceit- 
ful assonance with extreme discretion here and there. In a word, 
M. de Regnier (whose writing has all the spell of conquering youth, 
but also the ineffable distinction of an art which is not improvised) 
is a French poet intensely national in tone, who has given something 
more than promises already to the formal ' reformation from 
within.' 

All the poetry of Henri de Regnier is published by the Socidte du 
Mercure de France. 

Premiers JPoem.es (Lendemains, 1885; Apaisement, 1886; Sites, 
1887 ; Episodes, 1888 — Paris : Vanier), republished in 1899. 
Poemes 1887-1892( Poemes Anciens et Romanesques; Tel qu'en Songe), 
collected in 1896 ; Les Jeux Bustiques et Divins, 1897 ; Les Medailles 
d'Argile, 1900 ; La Giti des Eaux, 1903 ; La Sandale ailie, 1907. 

CXV 

Apparition 

Le galop de la houle ecume a l'horizon. 
Regarde. La voici qui vient. Les vagues sont 
Farouches et le vent dur qui les fouette rue 
Leur troupe furieuse et leur foule bourrue. 



308 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Regarde. Celle-ci s'abat et vois cette autre 5 

Derriere elle qui, fourbe et hargneuse et plus haute, 

Lui passe sur la croupe et la franchit d'un bond 

Et se brise a son tour tandis qu'un eperon, 

Invisible aux deux flancs de celle qui la suit, 

La dresse hennissante et l'effondre en un bruit 10 

De vent qui s'epoumonne et d'eau qui bave et fume. 

O poitrails de tempete et crinieres d'ecume ! 

J'ai regarde longtemps debout au vent amer 

Cette course sans fin des chevaux de la mer 

Et j 'attends que l'un d'eux hors de l'onde mouvante 15 

Sorte et, soudain ouvrant ses ailes ruisselantes, 

M'offre, pour que du poing je le saisisse aux crins, 

L'ecumeux cabrement du Pegase marin. 

[Les Mddailles d'Argile. 

cxvi 

Odelette 

J'aurais pu dire mon Amour 

Tout haut 

Dans le grand jour 

Ardent et chaud 

Du bel ete d'or roux qui l'exalte et l'enivre 5 

Et le dresse debout avec un rire 

A tout echo ! 

J'aurais pu dire : 

Mon Amour est heureux, voyez 

Son manteau de pourpre qui traine 10 

Jusqu'a ses pieds ! 

Ses mains sont pleines 

De roses qu'il effeuille et qui parfument l'air ; 

Le ciel est clair 

Sur sa maison de marbre tiede 15 

Et blanc et veine comme une chair 

Douce aux levres . . . 



HENRI DE REGNIER 309 

Mais non, 

Je l'ai vetu de bure et de laine ; 

Son manteau traine 20 

Sur ses talons ; 

II passe en souriant a peine 

Et quand il chante, c'est si bas 

Que Ton ne se retourne pas 

Pour cueillir sa chanson eclose 25 

Dans le soir qu'elle a parfume ; 

II n'a ni jardin, ni maison, 

Et il fait semblant d'etre pauvre 

Pour mieux cacher qu'il est aime. 

[A travers I'An. 

cxvn 
La Colline 

Cette colline est belle, inclinee et pensive ; 
Sa ligne sur le ciel est pure a l'horizon. 
Elle est un de ces lieux ou la vie indecise 
Voudrait planter sa vigne et batir sa maison. 

Nul pourtant n'a choisi sa pente solitaire 5 

Pour y vivre ses jours, un a un, au penchant 

De ce souple coteau doucement tutelaire 

Vers qui monte la plaine et se hausse le champ. 

Aucun toit n'y fait luire, au soleil qui l'irise 

Ou l'empourpre, dans l'air du soir ou du matin, 10 

Sa tuile rougeoyante ou son ardoise grise . . . 

Et personne jamais n'y fixa son destin 

De tous ceux qui, passant, un jour, devant la grace 
De ce site charmant et qu'ils auraient aime, 
En ont senti renaltre en leur memoire lasse 15 

La forme pacifique et le songe embaume. 

C'est ainsi que chacun rapporte du voyage 

Au fond de son coeur triste et de ses yeux en pleurs 

Quelque vaine, eternelle et fugitive image 

De silence, de paix, de reve et de bonheur. 20 



310 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Mais, sur la pente verte et lentement declive, 
Qui done plante sa vigne et batit sa maison ? 
Helas ! et la colline inclinee et pensive 
Avec le souvenir demeure a l'horizon ! 

[La CiU des Eaux : Ode et podsies. 

CXVIII 

La Menace 

Vous aimer ez un jour peut-etre ce visage 

Qui vous platt aujourd'hui 
Par le trouble, le mal, l'angoisse et le ravage 

Que vous faites en lui. 

Car vous aurez alors, pour l'ceuvre de vos charmes, 5 

Un douloureux regret, 
Et ce temps vous verra maudire avec des larmes 

Ce que vous aurez fait. 

A ces yeux d^tournes, a cette bouche lasse 

Vous chercherez en vain 10 

Que Tamer souvenir disparaisse et s'efface 

De votre long dedain, 

A moins que, par orgueil, luttant contre vous-meme, 

Vous vous disiez tout bas : 
Que m'importe qu'il souffre et qu'il pleure et qu'il m'aime, is 

Puisque je n'aime pas ? 

Et pour, de cette image importune et morose, 

Eloigner votre esprit, 
Vous cueillerez l'odeur de la plus rouge rose, 

Que juin gonfle et murit ; 20 

Vous penserez a vous et a votre jeunesse 

Et a votre beauts, 
A la langueur, a la couleur, a la tendresse 

De ce beau ciel d'6te, 

A des pays lointains, a des villes lointaines, 25 

Au dela de la mer, 
A des palais, a des jardins, a des fontaines 

Qui s'elevent dans Tair. 



HENRI DE REGNIER 311 

Vous fermerez en vain sur ces beaux paysages 

Vos yeux, et, malgr6 vous, 30 

Vos yeux se rouvriront pour revoir ce visage 
Qui vous sera plus doux, 

Plus doux que le printemps et plus doux que l'automne, 

Que la terre et le ciel, 
Plus doux que cette lune ardente, courbe et jaune, 35 

Couleur d'ambre et de miel. 

[La Sandale ailde. 



312 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

FRANCIS VIELfi-GRIFFIN 

1864 

An American by birth, of Welsh and Dutch descent, M. Viele-Griffin 
is one of the three or four foreigners who use the French language in 
verse with real distinction. He was born at Norfolk, in Virginia, 
but came to France very young, and has lived alternately in Paris 
and in Touraine, for which smiling and aristocratic province his best 
poetry has expressed a special sympathy. His first verses appeared 
in a little periodical now defunct ; Vanier, the publisher of let jeunes, 
brought out his earlier volumes. The accent was personal from the 
first, but the form in Oueille d'Avril (1886) and Let Cygnet (1887) 
was mainly traditional. La Chevauche'e oVYeldis, followed shortly 
by Joics (1889), defined his spiritual bias and the originality of his 
formal ambition ; and with successive productions M. Viele-Griffin's 
reputation grew steadily among a public consisting chiefly of comrades 
and rivals, until two collective volumes, Poemes et Poesies (1895) and 
Clarte de Vie (1898), which included some legends in dramatic form 
— notably Swanhilde — forced the critics who have access to a wider 
circle of readers to take his work very seriously. The poet is himself 
a thoughtful and fastidious critic ; he writes in English as well as in 
French ; and in 1895 he had published a remarkable translation of 
Mr. Swinburne's Laus Veneris. His principal additions since 1898 
to the poetry contained in the books named are La Legende aile'e de 
Wieland le Forgeron (1900), and L' Amour sacrd — meditations and 
dialogues in honour of holy women published in 1903 by L' Occident 
and since reprinted (1906) along with other lyrics in a volume called 
Au Loin (Societe du Mercure de Prance). 

Both in the form and the spirit of his poetry M. Viete-Griffin has 
remained unrepentingly attached to the standard raised more than 
twenty years since ; he may indeed be called the leader at this day of 
a school which is no longer aggressive nor intact. An instinctive 
nobility of thought, verbal invention, a genuine gift of harmony, 
with something almost virginal in the suavity of his accents, dis- 
tinguish this poet, whose writing is all marked with the purpose of 
giving a sense to life and preoccupied with mystical affinities between 
material change and human destiny, and betrays a temperament 



FRANCIS V1ELE-GRIFFIN 313 

which is rich in the faculty of wonder. He has put a new soul into 
old legends and imagined new ones, and almost alone in his genera- 
tion he has shown himself capable of large poetical conceptions. It 
may be admitted that some of his work is diffuse and tenuous, and 
that the suggestive reticence of his symbolism now and again gives 
way to the eloquent mediocrity of allegorical abstractions. 

M. Viel6-Griffin has a real power of structure and his metrical 
intentions (the key and the rhythm once set) are generally clear. In 
a system of versification which manifestly depends rather upon the 
number of stresses — and therefore upon the device of equivalent — 
than upon syllabic enumeration, it is difficult not to discern the 
influence of English verse. Probably on the strength of his origin 
he has been called a pupil of Walt Whitman; but the technical 
prestige of Mr. Swinburne seems to have affected him more, if one 
may judge by his fondness for alliteration and the characteristic 
falling rhythm of three syllables, sometimes called ' anapaestic' His 
rimes are occasionally imperfect and always independent of spelling. 

CXIX 

Ronde Finale 

La bise tourne et la brise 

Chante clair dans les branches noires ; 

La porte s'ouvre en surprise 

Et rejette au mur le heurtoir ; 

Elles vont vers le printemps en fete s 

Radieuses de jeune espoir, 

Car le vieux soleil scintille 

Et voici le silex qui brille 

Sur la route seche et nette . . . 

La vie est faite et defaite 10 

Comme un bouquet aux mains d'une fille. 

Avec des fleurs qui causent, 

Qu'on effeuille sans se le dire : 

Et la chanson fraiche eclose ; 

Des bruits de querelles et des bruits de rires ; 15 

La derniere violette et la premiere rose ; 

Avec tout l'avenir 

Dans les yeux, sur la bouche qui s'ose 



314 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Jusqu'au baiser b&iin oil les levres se closent 

En un petit frisson et un grand soupir ; 20 

Au long du parterre qu'elles pillent 

Elles vont vers l'ete\ blondes tetes ! . . . 

La vie est faite et deYaite 

Comme un bouquet aux mains d'une fille. 

Dans les foins ou les fleurs qui meurent 25 

Sont douces comme un vain regret ; 

Sous les saules qui pleurent et effleurent 

L'eau qui dort comme une morte a leurs pieds ; 

Elles vont vers l'automne et babillent 

Avec des mots de poete : 30 

La vie est faite et d£faite 

Comme un bouquet aux mains d'une fille. 

La chanson sonne autour du pressoir 

Au pas lourd des vignerons ; 

L'ombre, plus hative a chaque soir, 35 

Disperse les rondes qu'elle rompt 

Comme des guirlandes fan^es ; 

Les plaines sont moissonnees, 

Les treilles d^eouronnees ; 

Rieuses, mais etonn^es, 40 

Sous l'effeuillaison des charmilles 

Elles vont vers l'hiver qui les guette : 

Car la vie est faite et d^faite 

Comme un bouquet aux mains d'une fille. 

La Clarte" de Vie ■. Chansons a L'Ombre. 

cxx 

On se prouve que tout est bien ; 
Qu'il est sage de changer de r§ve ; 
Que tout sera mieux, demain ; 
Que le passe" s'y acheve ; 

Qu'il est bon de rompre un lien ; 5 

De fouler les feuilles mortes ; 

Qu'hier est deja trop ancien 

Pour qu'on en cause encor de la sorte ; 



FRANCIS VIELE-GRIFFIN 315 

Que la vie est toujours nouvelle ; 

Que demain est le jour des forts ... 10 

Je me souviens d'heures plus belles 

Que demain — et demain, e'est la mort. 



Demain, est aux vingt ans fiers ; 

Leurs rires passent, et Ton reste accoude ; 

On a honte, un peu, de ses joyeux hiers, 15 

Comme d'un habit demode. 

Demain, c'est l'automne qui parle 

De plus pres a l'oreille qui l'ecoute. 

Je suis sans regret, mais j'ai mal ; 

Je suis sans effroi, mais je doute ; 20 

Non certes, de ma journ^e : 
J'ai vecu, au mieux, le poeme ; 
Mais Tame reste etonn^e 
De n'6tre plus elle-me'me. 



J'emporte comme un fardeau leger, 25 

Comme une gerbe de fleurs et de feuilles, 
Toute l'ombre de ton verger, 
Toute la lumiere de ton seuil ; 

Le poids est si doux qu'il m'enivre 
D'un baiser de lys sur la bouche ; 30 

Fait-il done tout ceci pour, enfin, que tu livres 
L'aveu de ton ame farouche ? 

II est bon de partir quand on aime, 

II est doux de se quitter ainsi : 

Puisqu'on ne le sait qu'a ce prix 35 

Et qu'on se decouvre soi-m^me. 

[La Partenza, xiii-xv. 



316 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

GUSTAVE KAHN 

1859 

M. Kahn was born at Metz of Jewish parentage, and finished his 
education at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris. After some 
journalistic experience he spent four years in North Africa and, on 
returning to Paris, founded La Vogue (1886) and produced in that 
strenuous little review most of the pieces which are to be found in 
his first volume of poetry. He took an active part in the manage- 
ment of another militant periodical, Le Symboli&te, and in this and 
other organs — French and Belgian — of the new poetical movement 
he did notable work for some years as a critic and especially as a 
theorist on prosody. Les Nomades, published in 1887, was among 
the first-fruits of Symbolism ; and M. Kahn speedily won and main- 
tained by successive publications a very eminent place among French 
poets of the day. The best part of his output in verse — relatively 
small ; in quantity — is collected in two volumes : Premiers Poemes 
and Le Livre $ Images (Paris, 1897 : Socie^ du Mercwre de Prance). 
In prose he has written some novels, an anti-catholic pamphlet, and 
L'Esthetique de la Rue (1901). 

Among the writers of this generation who have enriched or at least 
variegated the garden of French poetry with exotics, M. Kahn has 
cultivated some rare plants of Eastern origin. The Orient which his 
cunning and often delicious music evokes most often is rather that 
Orient whose charm filtered into the French poetry of the Middle 
Ages than that with which the Eomantics glutted their wild and 
uninstructed fancy : but it is above all the Orient for which a poet 
of Eastern race, a nomad exiled in the settled order of the West, 
yearns inconsolably. He evokes it by the opulent embroidery of his 
dreams and by the languorous tenderness of his subtle incantations. 
M. Kahn is an arabesque illuminator who decorates the short essential 
themes of many ballads and many tales with designs at once hieratic 
and elusive in their variety. He is often (and especially in his earlier 
work) obscure; and he has been reproached quite justly with a 
licentious syntax and a vocabulary in which words that are too old 
and words that are too young jostle each other disconcertingly. But 
no one denies his great verbal charm. 



GUSTAVE KAHN 317 

He was probably the first French poet who broke altogether with 
the ancient forms of French verse, and attempted not a renovation 
but something entirely new. The system he devised (of which the 
preface to Premiers poemes gives the theory) is complicated and 
indeed unique. It is enough to say that neither rime nor the 
enumeration of syllables is essential to it, and that the principle of 
recurrence is transferred to the rhythmical elements into which a 
model or thematic line may be resolved and to the feelings or ideas 
which it expresses. Internal assonance, and also parallelism (which 
is the assonance of meaning) play a paramount part in the construc- 
tion of M. Kahn's curious and — given the conditions — accomplished 
verse. It is to be regretted that he has in recent years produced so 
little of it. 

CXXI 

Quand le roi vint a sa tour 
la belle vint lui dire — Ah, Roi 

Ni les epouses de tes vizirs qui s'entr'ouvrent sous tes regards 
ni les lointaines exilees qui pleurent les forets barbares 
ne decelent les inconnus que denouent mes bras tour a 
tour. s 

Loin de toi souffrir est dur aux fleurs de l'arne, 

lame patit d'appels inutiles et languit : 

ce coffret de saveurs a toi, mon corps, prends-le pour toi ; 

que tes mains benissent mon front incline. 

De la tour le roi repondit : 10 

Ce reve que tu vins tendre tes levres courtes 

toutes les ames de mon etre l'attendaient en habits de fete ; 

pour tes levres et l'escorte de decors de ton reve 

les tapis sont prets et les lampes veillent et les vceux 

attendent. 
que tardais-tu, en rires perdus, ou dormais-tu ? 15 

Quand le roi dormit sur la tour, la belle triste frissonna 

Si tu ne savais pas que c'est errance et trSve 
le pauvre instant d'amour endormeur du remords 
je sais qu'il lui faut etre unique et comme en reve 
et je vais vers les ombres apalies de la mort. 20 

[Chansons d'amant : Eventails. 



316 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

GUSTAVE KAHN 

1859 

M. Kahn was born at Metz of Jewish parentage, and finished his 
education at the School of Oriental Languages in Paris. After some 
journalistic experience he spent four years in North Africa and, on 
returning to Paris, founded La Vogue (1886) and produced in that 
strenuous little review most of the pieces which are to be found in 
his first volume of poetry. He took an active part in the manage- 
ment of another militant periodical, Le Symboliste, and in this and 
other organs — French and Belgian — of the new poetical movement 
he did notable work for some years as a critic and especially as a 
theorist on prosody. Les Nomades, published in 1887, was among 
the first-fruits of Symbolism ; and M. Kahn speedily won and main- 
tained by successive publications a very eminent place among French 
poets of the day. The best part of his output in verse — relatively 
small ; in quantity — is collected in two volumes : Premiers Poemes 
and Le Livre d'lmages (Paris, 1897 : Soci^td du Mercwre de Prance). 
In prose he has written some novels, an anti-catholic pamphlet, and 
L'EstMtique de la Rue (1901). 

Among the writers of this generation who have enriched or at least 
variegated the garden of French poetry with exotics, M. Kahn has 
cultivated some rare plants of Eastern origin. The Orient which his 
cunning and often delicious music evokes most often is rather that 
Orient whose charm filtered into the French poetry of the Middle 
Ages than that with which the Komantics glutted their wild and 
uninstructed fancy ; but it is above all the Orient for which a poet 
of Eastern race, a nomad exiled in the settled order of the West, 
yearns inconsolably. He evokes it by the opulent embroidery of his 
dreams and by the languorous tenderness of his subtle incantations. 
M. Kahn is an arabesque illuminator who decorates the short essential 
themes of many ballads and many tales with designs at once hieratic 
and elusive in their variety. He is often (and especially in his earlier 
work) obscure; and he has been reproached quite justly with a 
licentious syntax and a vocabulary in which words that are too old 
and words that are too young jostle each other disconcertingly. But 
no one denies his great verbal charm. 



ALBERT SAMAIN 319 

ALBERT SAMAIN 

1858-1900 

The parents of Albert Samain were tradespeople at Lille. He was 
a schoolboy when his father died ; and to help to support his mother 
and a younger sister and brother he was obliged to take a place in a 
bank, and a little later became cashier to a firm of sugar brokers. 
His early life was dull, friendless and laborious, but he snatched 
what time he could for reading, taught himself Greek and English, 
and had begun to write verses when, in 1880, an extension of the 
business brought him to Paris. Here he was persuaded to try his 
luck in journalism, but without influence he could not get his work 
accepted : only a Lille review gave shelter to some middling prose of 
his about this time. His mother and brother joined him in Paris 
and his commercial prospects grew brighter : but he preferred to get 
smaller pay and more leisure as a clerk in the civil service, and from 
1883 until his last illness he was employed at the Prefecture de la 
Seine. Acting on the advice of M. Richepin, with whom he had a 
slight acquaintance, Samain now attempted to escape from intellectual 
insulation by joining a group of young literary vagabonds who called 
themselves ' Nous Autres ' ; and when Salis started his ' Chat Nbir,' 
began to spout verses at that famous night-house. The name was 
also given to a paper, and there some few of his early poems appeared 
and were appreciated by the more intelligent members of the 
fraternity, though Samain was far from sharing the revolutionary 
aspirations just beginning to be formulated, and was in fact content 
as yet to echo the distinctive notes of Parnassus with a scholarly 
perfection. Out of these first literary associations two or three solid 
friendships developed. But his life was still very lonely, for he was 
poor and very shy; and for several years, while, for his mother's 
sake, with a filial piety rare even in France, he still devoted most of 
his time to an uncongenial livelihood, he continued silently groping 
and finding his way in the tangle of opposing formulas into which he 
had wandered without the ordinary initiation of the schools, and 
wisely refused to interrupt by premature publication a long struggle 
to attain complete sincerity with the knowledge of his real bent. 
Holidays, at long intervals, on the Rhine, in Savoy, in London, 



320 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

were his only distraction, and the only events in his monotonous 
existence. 

At last, in 1893, Au Jardm de I' Infante was published. The 
critics almost unanimously saluted a new poet, a great poet. The 
scruples of an excessive modesty, and some constitutional inertia, 
prevented Samain from following up this legitimate success at once ; 
— and when Aux Flancs du Vase appeared in 1898 it was almost 
overlooked. Meanwhile he had caught glimpses of the Low 
Countries, the Pyrenees and Italy, and these travels as well as 
his continual exploration of the beauties of Paris and a wide range 
of reading (which included metaphysics) had furnished his imagina- 
tion and ballasted his mind. He had taken a conspicuous part, 
too, in founding a literary organ destined to a brilliant career, 
Le Mercwre de France, and contributed both poetry and short stories 
to its pages. 

After the appearance of his second volume, Samain set to work 
at once on a dramatic poem, Polypheme. But his health, which 
had always been delicate, and had suffered much from constant 
overwork and disappointments, now became precarious. His mother's 
death at the end of 1898 was a blow from which he did not recover; 
and a winter in the South only retarded for a few months the 
progress of a consumption which soon showed itself. A year later, 
having broken down entirely, he was taken to Lille, his birthplace, 
to be nursed by his sister, and from Lille to the country "house of a 
friend in the valley of Chevreuse, near Versailles. It was there 
that he quietly expired in the summer of 1900. A third volume of 
poetry, Le Chariot d'Or, was published posthumously, and also some 
stories in prose. Polypheme, his exquisitely pathetic sylvan tragedy, 
was produced at a Paris theatre, with great success, so lately as the 
summer of 1908. 

The entirely personal talent of Albert Samain developed slowly 
and almost in solitude, and is the more sincere. Temperament in 
him was stronger than literary admirations which, perhaps, leaned 
to a poetry more stately, more objective and of harder outlines than 
his own. He is the most spontaneous of Symbolists, for his soul is 
in his dreams and with the roses and statues of his enchanted garden 
he expressed himself. ' Un paysage est un etat d'ame.' The yearning 
for far-off imagined lands is the supreme emotion of his poetry, and 
regretful as a memory of lost delight and faded glory. No French 
poet is more sensitive to the nervous spell of hours and seasons : in 



ALBERT SAMAIN 321 

none of our time is a more poignant tenderness ennobled by a finer 
discretion. He was rich in pity and in fortitude. Something of 
Vigny's reserved and lucid melancholy, of the languor and the secret 
bitterness that are in Leon Dierx, belongs to Samain; and by a 
certain simplicity and his melodious perfection he continues Verlaine. 
His form, unfettered by mere prosodical superstitions, cleaves to the 
sane tradition of French verse : it is absolutely accomplished ; for 
Samain's grace, limpidity, delicate sense of colour and intensity of 
accent are unfailing, whether they are used to suggest the anxious 
premonitions of silence or the restlessness that twilight brings, or to 
evoke Parisian sunsets, autumnal forests or the lights of English 
harbours, or to resuscitate the golden frailty of the passengers for 
Cythera, or raise before us the heroic or voluptuous ghosts of ancient 
fame. 

Au Jardin de Vlnfante, Le Chariot d'Or and Aux Manes du Vase 
(with Polypheme), as well as a volume of Contes are all published by 
the Societe du Mercure de France. M. Leon Bocquet's remarkable 
study of the poet's life and work is published by the same Society 
(1904). 

CXXIII 

MUSIQUE SUE L'EaTJ 

Oh ! Ecoute la symphonie ; 
Rien n'est doux comme une agonie 
Dans la musique ind&inie 
Qu'exhale un lointain vaporeux ; 

D'une langueur la nuit s'enivre, 5 

Et notre cceur qu'elle delivre 

Du monotone effort de vivre 

Se meurt d'un trepas langoureux. 

Glissons entre le ciel et l'onde, 

Glissons sous la lune profonde ; 10 

Toute mon ame, loin du monde, 

S'est refugiee en tes yeux, 

Et je regarde tes prunelles 
Se pamer sous les chanterelles, 
Comme deux fleurs surnaturelles 15 

Sous un rayon melodieux. 
x 



322 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Oh ! ecoute la symphonie ; 

Rien n'est doux comme l'agonie 

De la levre a la levre unie 

Dans la musique indefinie ... 20 

[Au Ja/rdin de I'Infcmte. 
cxxiv 

AtTTOMNE 

A pas lents et suivis du chien de la maison, 
Nous refaisons la route a present trop connue. 
Un pale automne saigne au fond de 1' avenue, 
Et des femmes en deuil passent a 1'horizon. 

Comme dans un preau d'hospice ou de prison, 5 

L'air est calme et d'une tristesse contenue ; 
Et chaque feuille d'or tombe, l'heure venue, 
Ainsi qu'un souvenir, lente, sur le gazon. 

Le Silence entre nous marcbe . . . Cceurs de mensonges, 
Chacun, las du voyage, et mur pour d'autres songes, 10 
Reve egoistement de retourner au port. 

Mais les bois ont, ce soir, tant de melancolie 
Que notre coeur s'emeut a son tour et s'oublie 
A parler du passe, sous le ciel qui s'endort, 

Doucement, a mi-voix, comme d'un enfant mort ... 15 

[Au Jardin de I'Infcmte. 

cxxv 

Veill^e 

Penser. Seul dans la nuit sibylline fremir ! . . . 
Etre pareil au feu, pur, subtil et vivace ; 
Et, respirant l'ldee errante dans l'espace, 
Sentir, ainsi qu'un dieu, son front mortel grandir. 

Ordonner a son sang herolque d'agir ; 5 

Quitter ses vanit^s pauvres, clinquant et crasse ; 
Et revetant l'orgueil, claire et bonne cuirasse, 
D'un elan ivre au seuil de l'infini surgir ! 



ALBERT SAMAIN 323 

Sentir passer en soi, comme une onde ruisselle, 
Le flot melodieux de l'ame universale, i 

Entendre dans son cceur le ciel merne qui bat : 
Et comme un Salomon, lourd de magnificence, 
Voir dans un faste d'or, de pierres et d'essences, 
Venir a soi son ceuvre en reine de Saba. 

[Au Jardin de V Infante. 

cxxvi 

SOIR DE PBINTEMPS 

Premiers soirs de printemps : tendresse inavouee . . . 

Aux ti^deurs de la brise echarpe d^nouee . . . 

Caresse aerienne . . . Encens mysterieux . . . 

Urne qu'une main d'ange incline au bord des cieux . . . 

Oh ! quel desir ainsi, troublant le fond des ames, s 

Met ce pli de langueur a la hanche des femmes ? 

Le couchant est d'or rose et la joie emplit l'air, 

Et la ville, ce soir, cbante comme la mer. 

Du clair jardin d'avril la porte est entr'ouverte, 

Aux arbres legers tremble une poussiere verte. 10 

Un peuple d'artisans descend des ateliers ; 

Et, dans l'ombre ou sans fin sonnent les lourds souliers, 

On dirait qu'une main de Veronique essuie 

Les fronts rudes taches de sueur et de suie. 

La semaine s'acheve, et voiei que soudain, 15 

Joyeuses d'annoncer la Paques de demain, 

Les cloches, s'ebranlant aux vieilles tours gothiques, 

Et revenant du fond des siecles catholiques, 

Font tressaillir quand meme aux frissons anciens 

Ce qui reste de foi dans nos vieux os Chretiens ! 20 

Mais deja, souriant sous ses voiles severes, 

La nuit, la nuit paiienne appr^te ses mysteres : 

Et le croissant d'or fin, qui monte dans l'azur, 

Rayonne, par degres plus limpide et plus pur. 

Sur la ville brulante, un instant apaisee, 25 

On dirait qu'une main de femme s'est posee; 

Les couleurs, les rumeurs s'eteignent peu a peu ; 

L'enchantement du soir s'acheve . . . et tout est bleu ! 



324 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Ineffable minute ou l'&me de la foule 

Se sent mourir un peu dans le jour qui s'ecoule ... 30 

Et le cceur va flottant vers de tendres hasards 

Dans l'ombre qui s'etoile aux lanternes des chars. 

Premiers soirs de printemps : brises, legeres fievres ! 

Douceur des yeux ! . . . Tiedeur des mains ! . . . Langueur 

des levres ! 
Et l'Amour, une rose a la bouche, laissant 35 

Trainer a terre un peu de son manteau glissant, 
Nonchalamment s'accoude au parapet du fleuve, 
Et puisant au carquois d'or une fleche neuve, 
De ses beaux yeux voiles, cruel adolescent, 
Sourit, silencieux, a la Nuit qui consent. 40 

[Le Chariot d'Or. 

cxxvn 

Mon enfance captive a vecu dans des pierres, 
Dans la ville ou sans fin, vomissant le charbon, 
L'usine en feu devore un peuple moribond. 
Et pour voir des jardins je fermais les paupieres . . . 

J'ai grandi ; j'ai reve d'orient, de lumieres, 5 

De rivages de fleurs ou l'air tiede sent bon, 
De cites aux noms d'or, et, seigneur vagabond, 
De paves florentins ou trainer des rapieres. 

Puis je pris en dugout le carton du decor 

Et maintenant j'entends en moi l'ame du Nord 10 

Qui chante, et chaque jour j'aime d'un cceur plus fort 

Ton air de sainte femme, 6 ma terre de Flandre, 
Ton peuple grave et droit, ennemi de l'esclandre, 
Ta douceur de misere ou le coeur se sent prendre, 

Tes marais, tes pres verts ou rouissent les lins, 15 

Tes bateaux, ton ciel gris ou tournent les moulins, 
Et cette veuve en noir avec ses orphelins . . . 

[Le Chariot d'Or. 



PAUL FORT 325 



PAUL FORT 

1872 

M. Paul Fort, who was born at Keims, began to be heard of before 
he was twenty, as the founder of a little theatre which succeeded in 
introducing The Cenci of Shelley and Marlowe's Faustus to a few 
Parisians, besides some plays of M. Maeterlinck's which are now 
famous. Since his first book appeared in 1894, he has written and 
published a considerable quantity of poetry under the general title of 
Ballades frangaises. 

It would seem that he adopted the system of printing verse to 
look like prose not so much as a test of its genuine quality, as under 
an illusion that he writes something between the two. There is 
nothing between verse and prose (except bad prose and execrable 
verse) ; and the Ballades of M. Fort, since they conform to an 
external rhythm quite independent of typography, are indubitably 
verse, and verse of remarkable merit. Indeed, in nearly every case, 
the measure they suggest immediately to the reader's ear, being an 
old traditional measure, imposes itself in spite of the syllabic varia- 
tions the poet affects, sometimes counting the mutes and sometimes 
neglecting them, and occasionally docking a hemistich of a syllable : 
it is seldom that one is left in any doubt how to read his lines, 
because they are ancestral, and because he has tact ; the norm being 
quite certain, the ear invents a system of equivalents easily. Let it 
be added that M. Fort, when he uses the Alexandrine, as he does 
chiefly, respects the 'median caeswra' far more consistently than 
many of his contemporaries or immediate predecessors. He often 
rimes richly, often substitutes assonance, sometimes uses alliteration 
— here and there blank verse. In a word it is the verse of a scholar 
cunning enough to reproduce the very irregularities of that popular 
poetry in which the French provinces are so rich — but without losing 
his own real spontaneity. 

The title of his poetry (of course he uses the word ballade in the 
Eomantic, which is the English sense, not the formal one) is applic- 
able especially to his first series — songs of the French countrysides, 
familiar and intense, picturesque and evocative, in which the readers 
of Mr. A. E. Housman may catch here and there a fugitive affinity 



326 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

with the Shropshire Lad. M. Fort is at his best perhaps when he is 
most homely; but he is often admirable, too, when he leaves the 
village behind him and the ringing steeples and the husbandmen and 
the cheerful highways, and at a higher pitch of aesthetical emotion, 
but with equal limpidity and the same independence of studious 
prosodies, harmonises his being with some single aspect of the 
beautiful world, bathes in sunlight, drinks in the breeze and tells 
how happy he is to be alive. He has seen hills and ocean, storm 
and twilight with his own eyes and sung them with radiant sincerity. 
Also, he has peopled the woodlands with Silenus' crew; has made 
himself a medieval chronicler, a Monstrelet or a Juvenal des Ursins 
in verse, to tell the life and legend of Louis Onze ; he has even com- 
posed a little love story, Lucierme, which is almost a very modern 
novel. So various are these Ballades. Possibly he does not know 
how much more he is a renewer than an innovator ; at any rate he 
has forged himself an instrument infinitely supple, of infinite promise 
in the hands of an artist singularly curious and receptive, but 
unmistakably and sanely national. If the audacious impressionism 
of Laforgue and the confidential lispings of Verlaine have borne 
a part in his development, the spiritual identity of M. Paul Fort 
persists in a particular intonation, fresh as the sea-spray and as 
tender as young grass. 

Les Ballades francaises are published by the Society du Mercv/re 
de France. 

CXXVIII 

Ballades 

Ah ! que de joie, la flute et la musette troublent nos coeurs 
de leurs accords charmants, voici venir les gars et les fillettes, 
et tous les vieux au son des instruments. 

Gai, gai, marions-nous, les rubans et les cornettes, gai, gai, 
marions-nous, et ce joli couple, itou ! 

Que de plaisirs quand dans l'eglise en fete cloche et 
clochettes les appelle tertous, — trois cents clochettes pour 
les yeux de la belle, un gros bourdon pour le cceur de 
l'epoux. 

Gai, gai, marions-nous, les rubans et les cornettes, gai, gai, 
marions-nous, et ce joli couple, itou ! 



PAUL FORT 327 

La cloche enfin tient nos langues muettes. Ah ! que de 
peine quand ce n'est plus pour nous. . . . Pleurez, les vieux, 
sur vos livres de messe. Qui sait? bient6t la cloche sera 
pour vous. 

Gai, gai, marions-nous, les rubans et les cornettes, gai, gai, 
marions-nous, et ce joli couple, itou ! 

Enfin c'est tout, et la cloche est muette. Allons danser 
au bonheur des epoux. Vive le gars et la fille et la fete ! 
Ah ! que de joie quand ce n'est pas pour nous. 

Gai, gai, marions-nous, les rubans et les cornettes, gai, gai, 
marions-nous, et ce joli couple, itou ! 

Que de plaisir, la flute et la musette vont rajeunir les 
vieux pour un moment. Voici danser les gars et les fillettes. 
Ah ! que de joie au son des instruments ! 

[Ballades frangaises : Les Cloches. 

cxxix 
"Vision du Crispuscitle 

Plus limpide a mourir qu'il ne le fut a naitre, et couleur 
des etoiles avant de disparaitre, le jour promene au loin sa 
lumiere de songe. Derriere la colline ou s'espacent les 
hetres, il argente le ciel, melodieux sous les branches: et 
tous les troncs alignent leur ombre qui s'allonge. 

Je laisse aller ma vie au gre du jour mourant. Je sens 
comme un bien-etre et comme une sagesse penetrer en mon 
ame. Et l'extase me prend a la fraiche lumiere blanchissant 
l'azur calme, a ces hetres voiles de soir, a leur tristesse, a 
1'inclinaison triste et grave de leurs palmes. 

Une clarte sereine, une blancheur celeste, que doucement 
degradent les nuances de l'azur, un blanc foyer de lueurs, 
immense et couvrant l'Ouest, comme un grand lys glacial 
balance dans l'air pur, accuse la colline et la met en relief. . . . 
Je laisse errer ma vie au gre du jour mourant. Je gravis 
la colline et je marche en revant. 

Or je traine mon ombre, ainsi, baissant la t6te. Une lueur 
de jour est sur le gazon ras, et les hetres allongent leur 



328 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

ombre vers mes pas. Est-ce l'aube naissante ? ou le jour 
qui s'epanche ? . . . Je leve les deux mains, et leurs paumes 
sont blanches. Derriere la colline ou s'espacent les hetres, 
le soir berce un grand lys lumineux sous les branches. 

Cependant les £toiles, au-dessus de ma t6te, scintillent. 
Le zenith a son azur profond. Bient6t le Chariot d'or y 
posera son timon. La-bas, nageant dans l'ombre, est-ce un 
vaisseau de nacre, ce nuage poinmele" ou brule Ald^baran ? 
Le ciel oriental a rev§tu ses astres ; je les revois mires dans 
un fleuve aux eaux lentes — puis, tourn^e vers le jour, ma 
prunelle s'argente. 

Cette clarte subite, oubli^e, me surprend, plus glacee qu'un 
miroir. Quel eblouissement de prisme tournoyant vient 
envahir mon §tre? . . . Mes paupieres se closent dans le 
ravissement. Je vois en moi le Jour et ses heures de fete ! 
Eblouissez mon ame, belles heures melees ! Tant6t c'est une 
aurore en feu qui me penetre. un midi d'or trainant les 
violettes du couchant, et tant6t c'est l'azur d'une aube 
devoilee, ou la terre parait, couronnee de verdure. 

Je bute dans les herbes, mes yeux s'ouvrent au monde. 
Je regarde les hetres et je les sens pleins d'ombre. ce 
jour sous les arbres ou se plaint le zephyr, pourquoi si 
froidement me vient-il eclairer? . . . Je m'approche des 
hetres: je les ai vus fr^mir. Et voici qu'une feuille se 
decoupe tremblante sur le ciel argente, que des milliers de 
feuilles se d^tachent du soir, que des millions de feuilles se 
d^coupent en noir, par la brise agitees! Je les vois, une 
a une, et par branche, 6clater noires au ciel limpide, et je 
vois l'ombre prendre, comme un feu devorant, sur leur foule 
parlante. 

D'un seul effort j'atteins le haut de la colline. Mes yeux 
fouillent l'espace de ce cdte qui luit. Et devant moi, partout, 
dans l'ombre ou le jour fuit, et jusqu'aux horizons faisant 
mouvoir leurs lignes, je vois des arbres noirs secheveler vers 
lui. J'&oute; j'entends les feuilles mollement crepiter, les 
arbres s'agiter, tordre des flammes sombres, dechirees en 
flammeches sous des vents argentes. C'est l'incendie de 
l'ombre au fond d'un soir d'^te! . . . Brusquement, le ciel 



PAUL FORT 329 

mSme est envahi par l'ombre. . . . Trois fois un jet d'argent 
sort comme une touffeur d'orage, de plus lointain des collines 
boisees. Mais ce n'est pas la foudre, ce ne sont pas ses 
lueurs, je n'entends pas rouler le tonnerre — et j'ai peur ! 
Et je me sens mourir et mon coeur s'est glace, a cet appel 
mystique du soleil efface\ 

[Les Hyrrmes du Feu, vii. 

(Ballades francaises, vii e S6rie). 



330 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



OHAELES GUfiEIN 

1873 

M. Charles Guerin is a Lorrain from Luneville, who seldom leaves 
his native province. He once edited and indeed composed a poetical 
magazine called Le Sormet at Nancy, and has contributed to a good 
many young periodicals : but he has kept aloof from the ' schools ' 
and from the literary quarrels of his time. His first poems were 
hardly noticed, but with Le Coeur Solitaire he became almost famous, 
and he is one of the younger poets of whom something great may be 
expected with confidence. A subtle and mature technique in his 
case has discovered new secrets of expression and used them without 
eccentricity. His personal, sensitive and limpid talent recalls Albert 
Samain, but if he has not all the intensity as yet of the author of 
Polypkeme, he is also healthier. He is in all senses an idealist, and 
like his countryman, M. Maurice Barres, he may be said to repre- 
sent a sort of national reaction in art which is almost inseparable 
from a sympathy (if no more) with all the French traditions, and 
especially the Christian tradition. For the rest he does not force the 
emotional note, he thinks and awakens thought, he attains the just 
epithet without apparent effort, and he uses the strict syllabic verse 
— riming however exclusively for the ear and very often varying 
rime with pure assonance. He inclines to a certain diffuseness. 
M. Guerin has expressed a fraternal admiration for another living 
poet, M. Francis Jammes, who, from the solitude of his home at the 
foot of the Pyrenees, has launched more than one volume of poetical 
merchandise in which the mixture of good and bad is almost in- 
extricable. M. Jammes is indeed (what is rare in French literature) 
a true bucolic poet, but his form exceeds too often the singular 
disdain of poetical ritual reached by Jules Laforgue, whose influence 
is very apparent upon his earlier work {De VAngelus de Vaube d, 
VAngeUts du soir), full as it is of experiments in deliberate triviality 
and in deliberate prosaism. It would be unpardonable not to 
mention his name in speaking of M. Guerin ; but it is not possible 
to give a just notion of his originality within limits which neither 
his intrinsic merit nor his authority would justify us in exceeding. 



CHARLES GUERIN 331 

Joies Grises, 1894 ; Le Sang des Cre'puscules, 1895 ; Sonnets et wn, 
Poeme, 1897 ; Le Semev/r de Gendres, 1901 ; Le Ccew Solitaire, 1898 ; 
L'Eros fimebre, 1900. 

CXXX 

Le sombre ciel lacte se voute en forme d'arche. 

Un grand silence emu berce les choses ; l'arbre 

Palpite au vent leger qui passe, et dans l'etable 

On entend remuer les betes dans la paille. 

La confuse rumeur des seves qui travaillent s 

Traverse le sommeil de l'homme apres la tache. 

Comrne un laboureur las qui s'arrache a la glebe, 

L'humble poete alors sort de la chair et leve 

Vers la vivante nuit, radieuse et profonde, 

Un front qui porte aussi sa lumiere et ses mondes. io 

Helas ! interroger ce qui ne peut repondre, 

Dit-il ! ah ! tout mon cceur debile et sa misere ! 

J'ai laisse sous mon toit s'endormir mon a'ieule, 

Et me voici, devant le songe de la terre, 

Frissonnant comme un brin de foin sec sur la meule. is 

Le rhythme interieur qui regit la matiere 

Comme l'illustre lyre antique emeut les pierres, 

Les seves en tumulte ecartent les ecorces, 

Autour de moi la ruche invisible bourdonne, 

Et, frele comme un jonc dans le fleuve des forces, 20 

Je doute en flechissant de mon ame immortelle : 

O nuit, le temps s'ecoule, et je ne suis qu'un homme ! 

Plus faible et sanglotant qu'au jour de mon bapteme, 

Je pense a vous qui, hauts et droits, 6 mes ancetres, 

Vecutes avec l'ame et la force des cedres. 25 

La voix du Createur sur vos fibres vibrantes 

Chantait comme un vent pur dans les rameaux sonores. 

Votre coeur large et pur s'ouvrait comme une grange ; 

Vous aimiez l'oraison du pauvre a votre porte, 

Et votre foi d'enfants pleurait sur l'Evangile. 30 

Beni soit notre pain de chaque jour, benies 

La journee et la nuit, disiez-vous, et la vie 

Coulait pour vous comme une eau claire sur l'argile. 



332 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

L'ete" brulait ; et vous veniez avec l'epouse 

Vous asseoir ou je suis, aux heures ou le jour 35 

S'enfuit en ne laissant au ciel que des etoiles. 

Alors le vieux desir humain joignait les bouches. 

Sans penser que la mort est au fond de l'amour, 

Vous laissiez puissamment tressaillir dans vos moelles 

La saine volupte qui fait les fortes races. 40 

Plus tard, quand, jardinier ride\ l'Automne passe, 

Vous voyiez a vos bras les enfants se suspendre 

Comnie un bouquet de fruits dores apres la brancbe. 

Simples et droits, 6 mes ancStres, vous portiez 

Des ames que le soir de la cbair trouvait grandes. 45 

Large ivresse ! J'entends cbuchoter les halliers, 

Et la terre en amour rit au celeste abime. 

Le temps plane sur moi comme un aigle immobile. 

Je voudrais me confondre avec les cboses, tordre 

Mes bras contre la pierre et les fralcbes ecorces, 50 

Etre l'arbre, le mur, le pollen et le sel, 

Et me dissoudre au fond de l'etre universel. 

Je ne veux pas de femme en pleurs sur ma poitrine : 

Toute cbair a ma bouche a le gout du peche, 

Et mon cceur est amer comme un fruit desseche. 55 

Que Dieu jette son nom sonore a, la ravine, 

Et mon esprit, coteau pierreux et desole, 

Ne rendra pas l'6cbo des paroles divines. 

C'est que dans l'ivre et large emoi des belles nuits 

Ou tout bruit, palpite et soupire a la fois, 60 

Ou le silence m§me a sa rumeur, les voix 

Couvrent la melodie absolue ; et l'esprit 

Qu'on a tenu pencbe trop longtemps sur la foi 

S'y trouble comme un clair visage au fond d'un puits. 

Celui qui frappe au seuil et prie avec des larmes 65 

Se voit un etranger qu'aucun hote n'accueille ; 

On se sent faible ; on tremble, on doute que son ame 

Dans la creation pese plus que la feuille ; 

On craint que la clart6 divine ne soit plus 



CHARLES GUERIN 333 

Qu'une derniere 6toile au ccEur des hommes purs. 70 

Le monde est triste et vieux, et les nouveaux venus 
Pour qui le ciel est vain comme un mot inconnu 
Ont recouche le Christ dans son sepulcre obscur. 

Mais je veux, 6 mon Dieu, Emigre" tout, croire en toi. 

Pr§te-moi la candeur de la vierge et la foi 75 

De l'enfant. Que je sois vigilant, bon et simple. 

Aceorde-moi sur tous les dons l'humilite, 

Ann que j'onre au vent de ta volonte sainte 

Le docile et profond emoi d'un champ de ble. 

Permets-moi d'oublier qu'un soir des temps anciens 80 

Le doute deborda du calice divin. 

Enfin rends a mon cceur la jeunesse d'aimer ; 

Que le grain germe encor dans ce jardin ferme ! 

Je cherche en egare ta croix au carrefour, 

Je t'appelle a travers la nature vivante ; 85 

II est temps de m'entendre, 6 Dieu ! ne sois pas sourd, 

Reconforte mon ame obscure, ta servants, 

Car, pareille a l'abime etoile de l'amour, 

L'immensite" des cieux nocturnes m'epouvante. 

[Le Ccewr Solitaire. 



334 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

AUGUSTE ANGELLIER 

1848 

M. Angellier, who was bora at Dunkirk and educated at Boulogne 
and at Louis-le-Grand in Paris, has devoted most of his life, since the 
great War in which he served as a volunteer, to English scholarship. 
At different public schools, at the Universities of Douai and Lille 
where he long held the chair of English, and more recently at the 
Higher Normal School of the Rue d'Ulm, he had a very brilliant 
academical career, and his reputation, not only as a stimulating 
master but as a great humanist, has crossed the Channel. His well- 
known study of the Life and Works of Kobert Burns (1889, 1893), 
a monument of interpretative sympathy and solid, unpedantic learning 
which contains without irrelevance a whole theory of poetical expres- 
sion, and reflects a sane, tender and robust humanity, has long been 
accepted as authoritative. 

Apart from a few contributions to periodicals, M. Angellier pub- 
lished no verse before 1896, when A VAmie perdue, which has been 
called a romance in sonnet-form, appeared. Its remarkable technical 
qualities imply a patient if secret apprenticeship to the craft of verse. 
The interest is mainly psychological, but the work is full of delicate 
descriptions which attune the quiet landscape of the North of France 
to all the vicissitudes of a moving story, told with the noblest reti- 
cence, of a passion and a renouncement. A collection of short lyrics 
followed, in which a minute study of nature seized in the most 
particular and evanescent effects of seasons and elements is not less 
apparent than a resourceful suppleness of form, a familiar grace, a 
candid and vigorous philosophy of life. Three parts, so far, have 
since appeared of a graver and more important work, Dans la 
Lumiere Antique. The dialogues on love, on the civic spirit, on 
nature, which compose the two first volumes are likely to fill a con- 
siderable place in contemporary poetry. The older taste for disserta- 
tions in verse is associated, by ill fortune,, with solemn platitudes and 
the shameless nudity of tedious abstractions; but in M. Angellier's 
poetry reason is winged and the virtues and the affections are em- 
bodied ; the tone is natural, and wisdom, pure of all magisterial 
taint, is conveyed in concrete and compelling images. He has 
abandoned dialogue in his latest volume, in which the atmosphere is 
still that of a venerable civilisation. 



AUGUSTE ANGELLIER 335 

Of all the French poets whose talent has emerged during the last 
twenty years, M. Angellier seems almost alone to have escaped the 
contagion of symbolism. The vogue of a school was little likely, 
indeed, to tempt his maturity, but his art has unquestionably profited 
by all the experiments of a century. Extreme tenacity of vision 
distinguishes him, a generous vocabulary, above all the gift of 
sympathy. ' Corot, c'est un homme qui sait s'asseoir,' was said of the 
great painter : it might be said as truly of this accomplished poet. 
He is incapable of "an insincere posture: he is also definite, in form 
as well as in spiritual intention ; and if his lines have by no means 
the unyielding surface of the Parnassians and he accepts the reason- 
able reforms which reconcile French prosody once again with the 
spoken language, he handles the traditional instrument with as much 
probity as distinction. 

All M. Angellier's poetry is published by Hachette. 

A V Amie perdue (1896) ; Le Chemin des Saisons (1903); Dans la 
Lumikre Antique: Les Dialogues d' Amour (1905); Les Dialogues 
Qiviques (1906); Les Episodes, i. (1908). 

The Clarendon Press has published a volume of selections from 
his writings, prose and verse : Pages choisies, with an Introduction 
in French from the pen of M. A. Legouis (Oxford, 1908). 

CXXXI 

La GrSle 

Les legers grelons de la grele 
Bondissent sur le bord des toits ; 
Leur chute elaire s'amoncele, 
Au pied des murs, en tas etroits ; 

Parfois, se heurtant aux parois, s 

Un grain rejaillit et sautele 
Sur les paves mouilles et froids, 
Comme une blanche sauterelle. 

Le sol un instant etincelle, 

Argente de ce fin gravois ; io 

Les legers grelons de la grele 

Bondissent sur le bord des toits. 

[Ze Chemin des Saisons : Printemps. 



336 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

CXXXII 

L'Habitude 

La tranquille Habitude aux mains silencieuses 
Panse, de jour en jour, nos plus grandes blessures ; 
Elle met sur nos cceurs ses bandelettes sures, 
Et leur verse sans fin ses huiles oublieuses ; 

Les plus nobles chagrins, qui voudraient se defendre, 5 
t D^sireux de durer pour l'amour qu'ils contiennent, 
Sentent le besoin cher et dont ils s'entretiennent 
Devenir, malgre eux, moins farouche et plus tendre ; 

Et, chaque jour, les mains endormeuses et douces, 
Les insensibles mains de la lente Habitude 10 

Resserrent un peu plus l'etrange quietude 
Ou le mal assoupi se soumet et s'6mousse ; 

Et du me'me toucher dont elle endort la peine, 

Du meme frdlement delicat qui repasse 

Toujours, elle delustre, elle eteint, elle efface, 15 

Comme un reflet, dans un miroir, sous une haleine, 

Les gestes, le sourire et le visage meme 

Dont la presence 6tait divine et meurtriere : 

Ils palissent couverts d'une fine poussiere, 

La source des regrets devient voUee et bl&ne. 20 

A chaque heure apaisant la souffrance amollie, 
Otant de leur 6clat aux voluptes perdues, 
Elle rapproche ainsi, de ses mains assidues, 
Le pass6 du present, et les reconcilie ; 

La douleur s'amoindrit pour de moindres delices ; 25 
La blessure adoucie et calme se referme ; 
Et les hauts desespoirs, qui se voulaient sans terme, 
Se sentent lentement changes en cicatrices ; 

Et celui qui cherit sa sombre inquietude, 30 

Qui verserait des pleurs sur sa douleur dissoute, 
Plus que tous les tourments et les cris vous redoute, 
Silencieuses mains de la douce Habitude. 

[Le Chemin des Saisons : Automne. 



NOTES 



The rimes are poor and all (except fipidaure) foreseen. The superstition 
of a distinct poetical vocabulary haunted Millevoye — whence bocage and 
pa/mpre and p&bre and mausolee. 

13. The ' oracle of Epidaurus,' — i.e. the doctor's opinion — is fatal at least 
to the reputation of the poem. Aesculapius had a temple at Epidaurus in 
Argolis. 

II 

1. Boule, 'sphere.' 

2. Ghitif. By a natural association of ideas the word captiimm took 
the meaning ' poor, weakly, pitiful ' in the mouths of Gaulish provincials. 
The old sense subsists in the learned form captif. Cf. Italian cattivo. 

10. M/dabousse. This word is a good instance of what is often called 
contamination or 'crossing.' The old French esbousser (from bouse) has 
been altered under the influence of eclater. Cf. meugler (=mugw + beugler) 
virelai ( =vireli+lai) ; and our ' sweetheart,' originally ' sweetard,' the last 
syllable being simply a common termination, modified by confusion with 
'heart.' 

13. Morgue tranchante, 'peremptory pride.' The origin of morgue is 
unknown. 

29. The omission of the article before beauti touchcmte has a slightly 
archaic effect. 

30. Pdtir was taken directly from Lat. pati by learned men : in the 
popular language deponent forms all disappeared. There is no reason for 
the circumflex. 

Ill 

There was a popular superstition that a little man in red haunted the 
Tuileries, appearing whenever a sovereign was to be removed. This song 
was composed and circulated on the eve of the Revolution of 1830. 

The metrical scheme of each strophe is 5858668856. 

1. The origin of the exclamation fowl, 'fie ! ' is not known. 

9, 10. Poyradis — dix : a conventional rime, dix here being pronounced 
diss. 

18. Bemil-menage, on the same principle as denument, reni,erciinent, etc., 

Y 



338 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

because e mute when not elided cannot stand after a vowel within a 
line. 

22-24. The Emigration of 1792. 

26. The little man in red always dresses according to the spirit of the 
hour. 

32. Gouttiere, 'eaves.' 

42. Plus n'y pensais, archaic forje n'y pensais plus ; but the pronoun is 
still popularly omitted in many instances, e.g. ' connais pas ! ' 

IV 

The scheme is 83488 in most of the strophes ; 83588 in the 5th, 6th, 
11th, 12th and 13th. . 
1. Bateleurs, ' tumblers,' from the old verb basteler. 

27. Grimowe (grimaire) is a variant of grammaire (masculine because it 
stands for un lime, de . . .). A grammar-book being in Latin was readily 
confounded with ' black art ' books in the Middle Ages : omne ignotum pro 
venefico ! The form of the first syllable may be accounted for by ' dis- 
similation,' i.e. the tendency to avoid repeating a sound (grammatica, 
gramarie) ; or the stages may have been : *gra/matica, gremaire, gremaire, 
grimaire. (The r is not fully explained ; but cf. medicum: mire.) 

31. It is characteristic that Stranger's gipsies should know the Greek 
mythology. 

33. Gaiement is usually spelled gaiment in verse. Vide in. 18. 
38. ' Though we be banished from the town.' 

46-50. The stay-at-home, with his eye fixed on the weather-cock of his 
parish steeple, is no true philosopher. 

65. The origin of carabin, ' saw-bones,' is not known : the termination is 
common to several cant names for professions — rapin, robin (robe), calotin, 
etc. 



The natural discontent of Napoleon's old soldiers was exasperated in the 
first years of the Restoration by the distribution of commissions among the 
gilded youth whose only recommendation was that their fathers had 
emigrated. There is a brilliant passage on the feeling in the army at this 
time in one of the public letters of Paul-Louis Courier. This dramatic 
farewell of the veteran marching out to be shot for striking his officer has 
genuine pathos. 

7. L'exeircice, ' drill.' 

13. Morveux, a contemptuous word for a 'youngster' : literally it means 
one who runs at the nose (morve = ' pituite '). 

14. Je lui fends, sc. le ventre, la tUe or something similar. 
24. Bousculer, ' to hustle,' is for boute-culer — bouter cul. 

34. Appas, ' charms,' is properly the plural of appdt, ' bait ' (appastvm), 
but is sometimes treated as a singular. 



NOTES 339 



VI 



Among the incidental consequences of Napoleon's fall, none was felt more 
keenly as a wound to the national pride than the loss of the artistic spoils 
from Italy, Germany and the Low Countries with which the wars of the 
Revolution and the Empire had enriched the Louvre. No less than 5233 
works of art, among them 2000 paintings, were claimed by the Allies and 
restored to the countries from which they had been taken. The Medicean 
Venus, the Venus of the Capitol, and the Apollo Belvedere, were among 
the famous statues removed, and the pictures lost to France included 
almost the whole collection of so-called Prvmitifs. 

5. Nos UbiraUurs, the Allies, in ironical deference to the fiction by 
which the Bourbons and their, supporters strove to palliate a foreign 
victory. 

6. Chars, i.e. the vans that were to remove the treasures. 

11. Leo the Tenth. (John de' Medici, second son of the Magnificent), 
whose apostolate coincided with the most brilliant phase of the Benaissance 
in Italy (1513-21). 

13. It is hardly necessary to say that nothing went, at least directly, to 
England. 

18. An invocation to Apollo as the inspirer of Homer and champion of 
the nine Muses his daughters against the Python. Apollo slaying the 
Python was chosen by Delacroix many years later as the subject for his fine 
ceiling in the Galerie dApollon. 

28. Gnidos in Caria possessed the Aphrodite of Praxiteles. 

35. That is, the Medicean Venus is forced to follow the fortunes of war. 

43. Tisms instead of robes, drops is characteristic of the 'classical 
diction. 

47. As it happened, nothing by Correggio (1494-1534) nor by Francesco 
Albani of Bologna (1598-1661) was removed from the Louvre. 

50. Pujet (1622-1694), or rather Puget,the most celebrated French sculptor 
of Lewis xiv.'s reign. Lebrun the painter, whose most conspicuous works in 
the Louvre are a Crucifixion and a Martyrdom of S. Stephen, was Puget's 
contemporary, and by no means to be confounded with Mme. VigeVLebrun. 

51. The great works of Louis David (1748-1825) are in the Salle des 
Sept Chemin^es. His sculptural and declamatory talent dominated French 
painting for two generations, and he is the last man to whom a return to 
nature (from the standpoint of nineteenth-century art) can be justly traced. 
Delavigne's absurd phrase must be understood as an assertion of the obvious 
truth that David led a reaction against the sophisticated prettiness of 
Greuze and the roseate frivolity of Boucher. His ideals were large, human 
and actual, and he is more 'natural' than they in the sense in which the 
Jacobins playing at Greeks and Bomans were sincerer than great ladies 
playing at shepherdesses. In politics David was an honest man, a regicide 
and an idolater of Napoleon : he was living in exile at Brussels when the 



340 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Messenietmcs appeared, and his name was a symbol deal to all the malcon- 
tents of the Restoration. 

58-61. Canova's Venus (for which Caroline Borghese sat), bis Hercules 
and his Ajax were all removed to Italy in 1816, and are now in the 
Borghese Palace. 

68-70. The allusions are to two famous pictures by Gros, ' Les Pestiferes 
de Jaffa' (1804) and the Battle of the Pyramids (1810) : both are now at 
Versailles. 

71. Gerard's Napoleon at Austerlitz — also at Versailles. 

78, 81. 'Le Deluge' and 'Bndymion' by Girodet both hang in the Salle 
des Sept Cheminees. 

82. Nim&sis is one of two flying figures in the masterpiece of Prud'hon — 
sometimes called the Andre Chfoier of French painting — which represents 
Vengeance and Justice pursuing Crime. The picture was originally painted 
for the First Criminal Court in the Palais de Justice (1808). 

83. Phedre in the ' Phedre et Hippolyte ' of Guerin. 

85. David's great picture 'Leonidas aux Thermopyles.' Notice the 
cleverness of the transition to the broader theme of this and other Mes- 
sdnimnes : Gloria victis ! 

VII 

In spite of the fatuity disclosed in the last verse, this little poem is not 
an unfavourable example of Delavigne's elegance and Atticism in his 
lighter work. The Villa is, of course, the celebrated retreat of the Emperor 
Hadrian at Tibur (Tivoli), in which the masterpieces of Greek art were 
accumulated. 

VIII 

There is the vehemence, and indeed the incoherency, of real passion in 
this outburst ; it is a pity it ends with a fomCy which, if graceful in itself, 
is become a mere commonplace of amatory verse, and leaves us cold. 

IX 

This poem is nothing else but a sigh. Its originality does not consist in 
the order of the feelings expressed, in the spacious and hazy description, or 
in the rhythm or the vocabulary — which are purely traditional — but in the 
pitch, the vibrating sincerity, the singing quality of the verse. The reader 
will notice that several of the rimes are particularly indigent, and several 
of the epithets superfluous or vague. In default of movement, the poem 
has the continuity of spontaneous emotion. Lamartine tells us, in one of 
the romancing notes appended in later editions to his poetry, that ' L'lsole- 
ment ' was written one evening in the autumn of 1819, on a hill overlooking 
his father's house at Milly, where he read the sonnets of Petrarch and 
thought of the friend he had lost the year before. It is easier to trace the 
influence of Racine than that of Petrarch in the poem. The poet placed 



NOTES 341 

it first ' by birthright ' among the Meditations, but it does not appear to be 
really the earliest written of them. 

11, 12. There is no enjambernent here : the comma is deceitful. 

17. An inversion. 

28. The luminous density of this line gives it a classical nobility. 

44. This might really be Racine. 

48. A flat, colourless and pretentious line. 

XI 

The scheme of this Ode is the traditional ababccdecd, which is also a 
favourite with Hugo. It is perhaps worth while to compare it, as one of 
the great examples of Lamartine's eloquence, with Mazeppa (xix), which 
resembles it at least in the general conception of a poet's subjection to his 
own genius. 

1. Ainsi : the classical formula for introducing a similitude. 

21, 22. It is thus reason, the reflective faculty, which transports the 
poet, and his senses which vainly strive to moderate the poetical enthusiasm : 
a singular idea of ' inspiration, 1 if we could suppose the poet had exactly 
weighed the meaning of his words. But in pensee no doubt he includes 
the sensuous spring of the imagination, and I'mstinct des sens means no 
more than the shudder of the Delphic priestess when the god descends 
upon her — la sainte horreur, Hugo's horreur sacrie. 

48-50. Horace, Od. iv. 2, 1 : 

Pindarum quisquis studet aemulari, 
Iule, ceratis ope Daedalea 
Nititur pinnis, vitreo daturus 
Nomina ponto. 

58. For Lamartine, all poetry is strictly ' subjective,' and its source is 
not the sympathetic imagination which assimilates a world, but the 
intensity of personal emotions fed by experience of life. Therefore, in 
effect, he cries : ' You praise our verses, and yet you revile the passionate 
disorder of our lives which they can only reflect ! ' It is [interesting to 
compare or rather to contrast this apology (which leads directly to the 
doctrine of irresponsible genius) with the evidently less sincere pretext 
upon which Victor Hugo was, later on, to justify the derelictions of 
Olympio as increasing the scope of his spiritual experience, and therefore 
profitable to humanity (Les Voix Intkieures : A Olympio). 

72. Laches, 'feeble.' 

80-90. The inconsistency of this last strophe is only apparent. Life is 
more than the poetry which reflects life and feeds upon it ! Tit in 1. 81 is 
M. Eocher, an intimate friend of the poet's in early life, who rose to 
distinction in a judicial career. ' One of my friends,' says the note to this 
poem, ' came in just as I was finishing the last strophe. I read the whole 
piece to him : it touched him. He copied and carried it off and read it to 
some classical poets of the time, and they encouraged the unknown poet by 



342 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

their praise. I dedicated it afterwards to this friend, who himself wrote 
remarkable verse.' 

XII 

Those who know nothing else of Lamartine's know Le Lac, which fixes 
one of the eternal commonplaces of all poetry in a sovereign form. The 
inexorable flow of time is everybody's theme : it has been plausibly con- 
jectured that Rousseau's Nouvelle Hiloise, iv. 17, was his model. But 
unquestionably the occasion of this Elegy, as well as the manner and the 
tone, was absolutely personal. There are passages in Raphael, the story of 
his friendship and passion for Madame Charles, there called Julie (though 
in his verse she shares the name of Elvire with the poet's Neapolitan sweet- 
heart, Graziella), which might almost be called prose renderings of these 
superb strophes — in'chapter xxxv. notably. The lake is the Lac du Bourget 
near Aix in Savoy : it^was there they had met in 1816, and they were to 
meet again the next autumn ; but Madame Charles was already dying, and 
Lamartine returned to Aix alone and wrote his poem there, calling it first 
Ode au Lac d/u B . . . 

2. The first version (which was published after the poet's death by 
V. de Laprade) ran : Sans pouvoir rien fixer, entra/£nfo sans retour. 

5. lac ! He had written originally Beau lac ! These amendments 
have their importance — especially as Lamartine was, in theory, a poet who 
never corrected his verse. 

21-36. The form of this apostrophe is one of the most beautiful of all 
French forms, and the special vehicle of elegies. Ronsard used it in some 
of his first poems, and Malherbe in his most famous piece, the ' Consolation 
a Du Perrier.' 

36. Here followed two amorous strophes beginning 

EUe se tut : nos coeurs, nos yeux se rencontrerent . . . 
They were in quite another spirit, and Lamartine was wise enough to 
sacrifice them to the unity of emotion without which ' Le Lac ' would lose 
its distinction. 

38, 40. Bonheur — malheur : not a commendable rime ; it is too facile, 
too certainly anticipated. But Lamartine's craftsmanship was not exacting. 

XIII 

Lamartine's incapacity for self-criticism appears in his characteristic 
comment upon Let PrUudes, which he disparages as the diversion of idle 
virtuosity, excepting only a lyrical interlude inspired by conjugal 
affection which is precisely the weakest part of a fine production. The 
eloquent passage transcribed here follows that ' true elegy ' after a short 
parenthesis which contains one memorable line : 

L'amour est a l'amour, le reste est au genie. 

25, 26. These superb lines are a good example of Lamartine's singular 
power of wedding his music to his sense in a natural affinity. 



NOTES 343 



XIV 

All Lamartine's poetical virtues, harmony, elevation, eloquence, intense 
sincerity, contribute to the perfection of this Hymn, which wants no 
commentary. In point of technical accomplishment, it is (like most of the 
more important poems in Les Harmonies) far in advance of anything in 
Les Meditations : the short lines in particular discovering the poet's 
resourcefulness, constructive skill, and capacity for speed. The great 
choruses of Esther and Athalie certainly influenced him — without making 
the poem less original — in the composition of the earlier part. The 
scheme of the strophe of five syllables is ababbaccdeeeed. 



XV 

This is one of the few passages of not prohibitive length which it is 
possible to detach from the long and singularly unequal story of Jocelyn. 
It belongs to the interval between the rescue of Laurence and the crisis of 
the hero's life. Laurence is still, for Jocelyn, a boy. The fluid and 
spontaneous eloquence of the apostrophe to physical beauty is perhaps its 
whole merit. 

12. Flexibles : I suppose a more delicious epithet for streams has never 
occurred to a poet : the metaphor it carries with it makes us almost expect 
that arbres shall be particularised by a word evoking a sight of running 
water. Qracieux destroys the balance, and secures the rime. 

23, 24. Beauty draws tears to the eye of the beholder, because it is a ray 
of light too strong to be endured. There is grace in this fancy, which, 
starting from the expression of an emotion, invents a natural cause to explain 
what is only in the mind : the mythological faculty of the imagination, on 
the contrary, sees the soul of man in things. 

38. L'habitante, sc. V&rne.'] 

XVI 

This romantic masterpiece in which the glory of Roncevaux is revived 
was written when the Song of Moland was still a mere name for the French 
public. Recently, scholars had been giving attention to various rifaevmenti 
of relative antiquity ; but the epic in the form in which we know it was 
not recovered until 1837, when Francisque Michel found the oldest complete 
manuscript existing in the Bodleian at Oxford. It will hardly be necessary 
to remind the reader that the historical foundation for the heroic legend is 
the surprise and defeat by Basque peasants, in a pass on the Spanish side of 
the Pyrenees, of the rear-guard of Charlemagne's army returning from a 
victorious campaign, commanded by Roland, prefect of the Breton marches. 
He was not the Emperor's nephew, and only two men of any rank perished 
with him. The date was the 15th of August 778. 

I. Cf. Hernani, v. 3 (Dona Sol :) Oh ! que j'aime bien mieux le cor au 
fond des bois ! 



344 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

The horn, symbolical and decorative, has come to be considered as a sort 
of Romantic ' property.' 

Cita.it le temps du patchouli, des Janissaires, 
D'Elvire, et des turbans, et des hardis corsaires. 
Byron disparaissait, somptueux et fatal, 
Et le cor dans les bois sonnait sentimental. 

A. Samain (Le Chariot d'O). 

8. Paladins. The word is the'Italian paladmo (palatinum : Old French 
palaism : an officer of the Imperial household), and is quite a modern 
name in French for the Twelve Peers. 

10. The Pic du Marbore" is not far SB. of Gavarnie, near the so-called 
Breche de Roland, and within a day's journey from Luz and Argeles. 

12. Gaves, the Pyrenean word for mountain-torrents, is apparently the 
Old French gave, ' gullet,' Provencal gava, of uncertain origin. The modern 
verb (se) gav&r comes from the Provencal 

49. Troubadour, for a minstrel of Charlemagne's time, is a verbal ana- 
chronism. 

55. Sousses, our house, housings (saddle-cloth), is conjectured to be the 
Arabic ghushia. 

56. Turpin, the great medieval type of the warrior prelate, plays a 
different part in the Song of Bola/nd : he dies with all the Christian host. 

59. The Saints are always Monsieur (Messire) or Monseigneur in the 
literature of the Middle Ages. 

64. Destrier. This very ancient word for a charger comes from desire 
(Lat. detxtera). A squire led his knight's horse with the right hand. 
Destrier had only two syllables in old poetry. 



XVII 

Vigny would have been too ill represented without at least some portion 
of La Maison du Berger. The first division of the poem (which has three) 
has been selected at some risk of leaving an impression of incoherence. 
Tired of the smoke and vanity of cities, the poet invites an ideal mistress 
to a life of roving contemplation ; and the shepherd's hut that is to be their 
caravan becomes the symbol of a spiritual solitude which is not so much 
detachment from human struggles as a refuge whence outcast poetry may 
at least watch the universal flux undismayed by the mediocrity of men or 
the indifference of nature. The superb digression on railways is followed 
in the second part by a more comprehensive protest against the antilyrical 
spirit, and the degeneracy of poetry, the ' daughter of Saint Orpheus.' 

9. Le boulet, that is, the weight attached to a convict's chain. 

14. La lettre sociale, the initial with which (like our broad arrow) society 
brands the criminal. 

29-35. Encensoirs — reposoirs (the little altars in a street where the Host 



NOTES 345 

rests in a procession) : see how this great poet creates an atmosphere of 
devotion with two words ! 

36-42. The Twilight goes to sleep — and yet casts his grey mantle over the 
banks. Yet the figure is animate and persuades us, and this stanza has a 
singular beauty. 

72. Ne plane et la cUfend. For the omission of the second negative, 
compare line 101 : ' (a moins que) ... la France nous convie.' 

83. Has not the poet confounded the brazen bull of Phalaris with the 
Moloch worshipped at Carthage and elsewhere under the image of a bull 
and often propitiated by human sacrifices ? 

128. Y : sc. * au calcul,' or perhaps ' a la science.' 

XVIII 

In this poem Vigny's characteristic stoicism receives its final expression, 
and the last lines are a sort of poetical testament. He rarely attained in 
narrative the free and varied movement which distinguishes especially the 
first part of La Mort dv, Loup, which is full of formal beauties. 

5. Brandes. Nobody knows the origin of this word which is used in the 
West of France for a sort of heath and a sort of heather. It is at least as 
old as the twelfth century, and may be Gaulish or pre-Gallic. 

6. Great tracts of unprofitable land in the South-west have been re- 
claimed in the last hundred years by vast plantations of firs and pines. 

XIX 

Byron's fine poem gave Hugo his subject, and no more : Byron's is merely 
a vivid narrative, Hugo's masterpiece is an elaborate similitude between 
the material sufferings of Mazeppa's ride and the torments of genius — the 
nightmare of inspiration. The two poems can hardly be compared save in 
respect of movement. Byron's Mazeppa has plenty of movement, but Hugo's 
unquestionably gives a stronger impression of breathless speed. It has 
amplitude, it presents a splendid series of pictures, and its variety of rhythm 
is remarkable. Yet the classical hemistich is for the most part still present 
— more constantly at least than in some poems of the same collection. 
Byron (and through him, Hugo) was indebted to Voltaire's Histowe de 
Charles XII. for the story — on which doubt has been thrown — of Mazeppa, 
the hetman of Cossacks, and his punishment. 

1. Ainsi. At this early stage Hugo keeps the consecrated formula, as 
did Lamartine (v. xi.). 

20. Ouragan, our ' hurricane,' is a Caribbean word. Observe how, in 
comparing the horse and his rider to a storm, the poet uses the most 
material word to describe its gathering : s'entasser is more than ' to gather ' 
(tas, a pile, a bundle). 

28. There is perhaps a timid approach here to a coupe ternavre which, if 
more plainly intended, would be exceptionally audacious : 2 + 7 + 3. 



346 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

41. Oavales (from Italian cavalla), for juments, is a poetical word : the 
romantics hare their superstitions like the classics ! Possibly they believed 
they were reviving the real feminine of cheval. It has an aesthetic value 
certainly. There is a verb recently formed from it : se cavaler or cavaler, 
' to scamper off.' 

43-48. See how some worn metaphors are brilliantly revived in this one 
strophe. The evening not merely advances — its strides grow longer ; the 
sun does more than pierce the clouds — the clouds are an ocean, wave on 
wave, and the sun a ship which cleaves them with its prow ; and Mazeppa 
feels everything 'go round and round' — the sky itself is a wheel, like 
marble with its streaks of golden light. 

61. Le grand due, the old name for the eagle owl (bubo ignavus). The 
long-eared owl is sometimes called moyen due and the short-eared petit due. 
The name was apparently suggested by their tufts or egrets.^ 

62. Orfraie for osfraie, Latin ossifraga, ' bone-breaker ' : our ' osprey.' 
In his later works the osprey has a moral significance for Victor Hugo and 
is often contrasted with the eagle. 

68. Yeuse, ' evergreen oak,' is probably a Southern form, representing 
popular Latin Uicem for Uicem. The y counts as a syllable. 

86. JSrable is the popular Latin acera/rborem (acer, 'maple'), the last r 
becoming I as in tempora — temple (our ' temple '), now tempe. 

109. Chenues (ca/n/utum), ' hoary,' i.e. snow-capped. 

124-126. The tireless flight of genius constantly extends the bounds of 
the worlds imagined. 

133, 134. Implacable — I'accable. An imperfect rime — a : a. Aecabler 
is pronounced accdbler because the a was originally double, accaabler (ad, 
cadabla for catabula, Kara/3o\q). It has nothing to do with cable, which is 
capulum, ' a halter.' 

XX 

The feeling expressed in the second stanza is not arrogance — the arro- 
gance of the seer which is so characteristic of the later Hugo : it is rather 
the sudden suspicion that he is alone in the universe — a metaphysical terror 
that perhaps invades most souls at times. 

XXI 

The qualities and the vices of the pure Romantic ballad are typically 
displayed in this hackneyed romance. Gastibelza's complaint is vague, 
incoherent, windy and theatrical : but the form is delightful and the 
momentary illusion, thanks to many charming details, is complete, and it 
is hard to say whether the burden is more delicious or absurd. 

5, 9. In order to find so many words in -ague the poet was bound to 
admit a few imperfect rimes. The a in gagne is a close d. Dame — time 
(below, 11. 41, 43) has not this excuse. 

11. Maugrabme is an old popular form for "margravine, borrowed directly 
from the German Markgrtijm. 



NOTES 347 

45. Bagne, the Italian bagno, 'bath' — after a bath in Constantinople 
which was converted into a gaol. We used to speak of 'bagnios' in 
English, with another meaning. 

61. Cisar, empereur d'Allemagne is an adroit counterfeit of popular 
anachronism. 

62. Licou or licol, 'halter,' is simply lie-col, 'neck-tie.' 

74, 76. Las — hilas ! Nobody now says lasse for las, nobody says Mia 
for Mlas : but a century before every one said h£a, and a great deal earlier 
no doubt the s was sounded in both words. 

77. La, Cerdagne, Cerdana, a district on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees 
just south of the vale of Andorra. 

86. Av, clou — that is, hung up and useless. 

XXII 

In spite of the early date assigned to it by the poet, it is at least probable 
that this graceful little poem, which only saw the light in 1856, and closely 
resembles many pieces in Chansons des Rues et des Bois in form and spirit, 
was rehandled if not rewritten long after 1830. The word coccmelle is 
borrowed directly from the Latin coccmelhts, diminutive of coccinus, 
KOKKtvor, 'scarlet-red': cochenille, our 'cochineal,' is the Spanish 
cochinilla. 

19. A play on the popular name for the lady-bird : bete au bon JJieu. 

XXIII 

This poem breathes the very spirit of Greek art and Greek mythology. 
It is sober, serene, limpid ; — and, but for the word atrium in the first line 
which introduces a Roman thing into a Greek picture, it would be abso- 
lutely flawless. What a superb idea is this of the monsters subdued by 
the hero gazing abashed at the spinning-wheel of Omphale, the symbol of 
a passion which has conquered their conqueror — ' le vainqueur du vainqueur 
de la terre ' ! 

XXIV 

' Soir,' first printed posthumously in 1888 in the first volume of Toute la 
Lyre, was apparently written in March 1846, the date assigned to the 
equally fine but much longer poem ' Nuit,' which follows it in that collec- 
tion. Victor Hugo commanded the sources of fear and wonder ; and 
something of his wizardry is exhibited in this poem. It contains also 
admirable examples of the art of prolonging (apparently) the shorter 
measures, by suspension (1. 17) and by condensation (1. 45). 

10, 12. Eaux — chaos. The rime gives us the choice between os and 
cahots ! 

35, 36. All the effect in these lines, as in the following stanza, is due to 
the alternation of words reproducing particular sensations or representing 
palpable objects with a phrase intentionally vague and reticent. 

41. Mitres, better Mytres = 'f\vrpa, the 'wing-cases' of certain insects. 



348 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



XXV 

In the second series of Les Contemplations, the whole of the first book, 
' Pauca Meae,' is consecrated to the memory of Leopoldine Hugo (Mme. 
Charles Vacquerie). This poem, written while the feeling of revolt against 
the blow was still uppermost, and ostensibly an answer to friends who 
would have persuaded him to resume all his activities, set at rest, for ever, 
the question whether Victor Hugo had ' a heart.' Beautiful in form as it 
is, there are slight flaws (for instance, the weak rime ait/rore — encore occurs 
twice in the space of not very many lines) which afford the strongest possible 
proof of the poet's absorption in his grief. The spirit of ' Trois Ans apres ' 
contrasts strongly with that of 'A Villequier,' the poem of resignation, 
which is still finer, but of prohibitive length. 

XXVI 

I have inserted these few lines because, without some specimen of the 
more philosophical portions of Les Contemplations, Victor Hugo would be 
too imperfectly represented : the most interesting and the most harmonious 
poems of the sixth book are unfortunately much too long to find a place 
here. The reader will at least see examples, in these two strophes, of 
Hugo's invariable habit of translating the objects of pure thought into terms 
of the imagination. 

XXVII 

These lines stand at the head of the first book of Les ChMvments : no 
preface could be more impressive than this is in its density and dignity of 
thought, its monumental diction and its prophetic vehemence. 

XXVIII 

The metrical scheme is : 

12a 12a 12 b 12c 8c 12b 12 d 8d 8b 

12. Oreffe (graphiwri), 'registry' of a court or a prison: greffier is the 
registrar, or clerk of the court. The plural graphia has given the femi- 
nine word greffe, ' graft.' 

18. Ecrou is the book in which prisoners are entered : it may or may 
not be the same word as ecrou, our ' screw.' 

21. Achille Fould, a Jewish banker and member of parliament, in all 
probability financed Louis Bonaparte in preparation for the Coup d'Etat ; 
he was several times finance minister under the Empire and had an ugly 
reputation. General Magnan, Governor of Paris, was aware of the con- 
spiracy, but took no active part in it until the moment for action, when he 
superintended the ' restoration of peace' in the streets of Paris (3rd, 4th, 
and 5th December 1851). The Marquis (afterwards Duke) de Morny, 
Louis Bonaparte's half-brother, was minister of the interior : he was a man 
of some talent, a favourite in society, and a gambler on the stock exchange. 



NOTES 349 

The poet's portrait of Momy in L'Histoire d'un Crime, whether accurate or 
not, is a masterpiece. Mawpas, prefect of police, was a young man of 
family, very ambitious. He and Morny, with Mocquard, the Prince- 
president's secretary, Fialin de Persigny, his most disinterested friend, and 
Saint- Arnaud, the Minister of War, were the five chiefs of the conspiracy. 
31. Pontons : the prison-hulks at Toulon, filled with political prisoners 
after the success of the Coup d'Etat. 

41. Strictly, perhaps, there should be no s in the plural of porte-sabre 
and porte-miti-e. 

42. Etau is not another form of dtal ; it is really etoc ( = estoc, ' stump, 
stock, rapier ') wrongly spelt, the plural estocs having been confounded with 
estaux, the plural of estal, when the two words sounded exactly alike. 

43. Mriviere, ' lash,' is properly a stirrup-strap (Itrkr). 
48. Goemon, ' sea-weed,' is a Breton word. 

48. The descriptive beauty of this line and of all this strophe is in effec- 
tive contrast with the passionate invective, and the proper names against 
which it is directed, in the preceding strophes. 

XXIX 

The Black Hunter is apparently the Wild Hunter of German legend, 
the wwtende Jdger in whose name Grimm recognised a distortion of the 
god Wuotan's. In this wonderful lyric he symbolises at once the Aveng- 
ing Spirit of liberty and the people of Prance. The metrical scheme is 
alternately : — 

8a 8a 4b 8a 4b 
10a 5b 10a 5b 10a 5b 
The decasyllables have the division after the fifth syllable. 

XXX 

His banishment, which added more than one string to the lyre of Victor 
Hugo, made him a great poet of the sea — almost exclusively, as might be 
expected from his temperament, the poet of the sea in its terrible aspects. 
It is not ' the sea, my mother,' of Mr. Swinburne, that he sings in this 
magnificent poem, or in Travaillewrs de la Mer, or in ' Les Paysans au bord 
de la Mer,' ' L'Oc^an,' ' Pleine Mer' and other sea-pieces of La Legends des 
Siecles. Here especially his imagination which, more than the imagination 
of any other poet, revels in the creation of myth, endows not only the sea, 
but every wave of the sea, the squall, the ship, the sea-line, the yards and 
the anchor, with animate existence and a human will. 

23. Enclume represents incudmem, classical incudem. For the parasitical 
I compare English and Old French syllable ; and for the m, charme (carpmwm) 
and Drdme (Druna). 

25. Hydre ecaillk, cf. xxviii. 49 : l'enorme ocean, hydre aux ecailles 
vertes. 

28. Maniaque has not the same shade of meaning as our word ' maniac ' : 



350 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

it is applied to the victim of an insane obsession, a fixed idea, rather than 
to a raving madman (fou fwrieux, forceni). 

50. Vergue, ' yard,' is another form of verge. 

51. Cabestan, whence our 'capstan,' is a Provengal word, connected 
with the Latin capistrare. 

56. Tangage, the ' pitching ' of a vessel as opposed to the rolling. 

57. Hune, ' bell-beam ' : la grande hune is the main top. It is a word 
of Scandinavian origin, as is also foe, 'jib' (or triangular sail). 

67. Gale, ' the hold,' and the verb caler, ' to sink, to drop, to strike (a 
mast),' come from the Italian callare, which appears to be the Greek 
Xakav. 

72. Beavpri, from the English, ' bowsprit.' 

75. Urgel was a hairy giant slain by Tristan in the Breton legends of 
Tristan and Isolt ; but the poet means UrgUe ( Urgel in the Breton), one of 
the Nine Sister-Spirits of Celtic legend, whose home was the Isle of Sein, 
and of whom the mightiest was Mor-gen. Morgan or Morgane (Italian 
Morgana) is for Morgain, the Old French corruption of Mor-gen, from 
which a subject-case, Morgue, was formed. According to Geoffrey of 
Monmouth's Life of Merlin, Morgue sheltered Arthur from his foes, healed 
his wounds and kept him a prisoner. She is also represented as Arthur's 
sister and the enemy of Guinevere. In later romances she became a fairy, 
and to her was attributed the well-known phenomenon of atmospheric 
refraction observed particularly in the Straits of Messina and called Fata 
Morgana. 

XXXI 

This hymn now stands at the very beginning of La Ldgende des Siecles, 
after the Vision. It was not published, however, until 1877, with the 
second series. 

46-48. These sententious lines are exceedingly characteristic of Hugo's 
apophthegmatic manner, and perhaps they express all that he held most 
permanently in politics. 

56. The rhythm is remarkable (5 + 3 + 4). 

100-102. An excellent example of Hugo's art of ending nobly — without 
the vulgarity of a noisy climax. 

XXXII 

One of the well-known pearls of La Ligende. Apart from the absolute 
perfection of the verse, it owes everything to the subtle evocation of an 
atmosphere. Very little in ' Booz endormi ' is borrowed from the Bible. 
It has been conjectured that the entire poem sprang from the impression left 
upon the poet's mind by a sight of the moon one night looking like ' a 
sickle in a field of stars.' Much of the effect of simplicity is obtained here 
by short words — but without the niaiserie of Tennyson's ' Dora' or so much 
of Wordsworth. 



NOTES 351 

4. Boisseavsc : thence our ' bushel.' 

14 Compare Tennyson's ' Wearing the white flower of a blameless life.' 

19-24. Some characteristic antitheses. 

26. The effect of the 'ascending' rhythm (3 + 4 + 5) is strangely 
beautiful. 

32. There are phrases both of Bossuet and of Diderot which may have 
suggested this line. 

37-40. The tree of Jesse, a favourite subject of medieval and Kenaissance 
sculpture. 

43. Quatre-vmgt for quatrevimgts : the s is only dropped before another 
number. 

51, 52. Magnificent lines, where all are fine. 

53. Bouleau, ' birch,' is the diminutive of the obsolete boule : a Gaulish 
word (like chine), which, however, as in almost every case, passed through 
a Latin form (betullum) to become French. 

67. From this point onwards, every line, every word almost, contributes 
an inimitable touch to the effectiveness of the illusion. This is more than 
word-painting : Hugo's words make us both feel and see, with their complex 
associations and their concrete wealth. 

69. What an atmosphere there is in this one word nuptiale. 

70-72. This phrase, or this fancy, must have haunted Hugo, for we find 
in a short poem of Les Contemplations (' Pauca Meae,' x.), over the date 
'Avrill847': 

On ne pent distinguer, la nuit, les robes bleues 
Des auges frissonnants qui glisscnt dans l'azur. 

81. Jerimadeth, which yields the most unexpected of rimes — one how- 
ever which depends on a hypothetical pronunciation — is a pure invention 
of the poet's. 

XXXIII 

' Cassandre ' only appeared in 1877. It has surely much of the Greek 
dramatic spirit, serene and terrible. 

XXXIV 

This marvellous song comes from the masterpiece called 'Eviradnus,' 
which tells how an aged knight-errant rescued Mahaud, heiress of Lusatia, 
from the hands of two greedy potentates in disguise. Joss, who sings, is 
the Emperor Sigismund : Zeno, his companion, is King Ladislas of Poland 
(the historical pretext is of the flimsiest). 

XXXVI 

The song which Fantine sings (near the end of the First Book in Les 
Misirables) from her bed in the house of the ' Mayor of M sur .' 



352 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



XXXVIII 

Written during the siege of Paris. The poet did die in the time of roses, 
fourteen years later. I believe he was absolutely sincere in calling himself 
im bonhontme clement : moreover, at bottom it was true. 

XXXIX 

Perhaps Jeanne's Norman nurse may have given a suggestion for this 
song : the setting is partly Norman (Avranches, Fougeres), partly Breton 
(bmiou, the Breton bag-pipe ; and Maitre Yvon's name). 

13. Lippe, 'blubber-lip' (Germanic). 

19. Chasse-maries are small coasting vessels, generally lugger-rigged. 
The plural should be les chasse-ma/rh. 

XL 

The structure is original. There is something in the incoherent charm 
of this song that may remind English readers of Browning and the songs in 
Pippa Passes. 

XLI 

Notice that this celebrated and enchanting little poem translates into 
words the visual associations of a melody : it describes, and therefore it is 
not itself, a piece of symbolism. I do not know whether the music is 
the well-known gavotte attributed to King Lewis xm. himself. 

2. Webre, which does not shift the stress of the German, was the French 
pronunciation of the name when Weber was at the height of his popularity 
in France. Most French people nowadays say Wiblre. 

7. Louis has one syllable here : usually it has two in verse. 

XLII 

El Desdiehado means ' The Unfortunate ' in Spanish. ' ITn gout de cacher 
un sens mysterieux sous d'humbles mots, l'essai d'une esthetique,' which 
M. de Gourmont remarks as the characteristic of all Les Chvmeres, is par- 
ticularly evident in this sonnet. Externally limpid, but laden with secret 
associations, it seems to interpret obscurely the torment of a nostalgic 
imagination which harks back at once to the gods of Greece and to the 
Middle Ages, under the influence of the Neapolitan sky. 

2. I cannot identify this Prince of Aquitaine — there were many. Possibly 
the allusion is to the troubadour JaufFre Budel, Prince of Blaye in 
Aquitaine, the hero of a poem of Browning's and of M Kostand's Prin- 
ccsse Lomtame, among other works. His love for the unseen Lady of 
Tripoli has been shown by Gaston Paris to be a myth engendered by a 
phrase of his own poetry. 



NOTES 353 

4. Some lines from an early poem of Gerard's may perhaps help to 
unravel the thought here : 

Quiconque a regarde le soleil fixement 
Croit voir devant ses yeux voler obstinement 
Autour de lui, dans l'air une tache livide. 
Ainsi, tout jeune encore et plus audacieux, 
Sur la gloire un instant j'osai fixer les yeux : 
Un point noir est reste dans mon regard avide. 

7. This mystic flower is perhaps that which he elsewhere calls 
Rose au coeur violet, fleur de Sainte Gudule. 

9. It might be Guy de L-usignan-, who bought Cyprus in 1192 from 
Cceur-de-Lion and founded the family of French Kings of Jerusalem, or 
Hugues x. who married Isabella of Angouleme, widow of King John, and 
is the ancestor of the Pembrokes ; or more than one other of this illustrious 
family. But much more probably, the name is a symbol of glory and 
adventure. Bi/ron, similarly, may not mean any particular person : the 
most famous men of that house were Armand, who began as a page to 
Margaret Queen of Navarre and died, a Marshal of France, at the siege 
of Epernay in 1592 ; or his son Charles, who conspired against Henry iv. 
with the friends of Spain and the League, and was executed in 1602. 

10. The allusion no doubt is to the poet Alain Chartier (1394-1439) who 
was kissed, it is said, by Margaret of Scotland while asleep. 

11. The grotto of Calypso. 

12-14. Twice the poet (even as Orpheus went down into Hades) has 
explored the dead past, bringing back with him an image of paganism and 
an image of the Christian ages of faith. 

XLIII 
The sonnet addressed by Tasso (1544-1595) from his prison in Ferrara to 
the author of the Lusiad (1524-1579) is apparently that beginning 

' Vasco, le cui felici, ardite antenne,' 
and numbered 364 among the ' Rime eroiche ' in the great Pisa edition of 
1822. 
14. Tortoni, the great cafe glacier of the Boulevard des Italiens. 

XLIV 
2. Gine for Gines — a licence : yet etymologically there should be no s in 
Genes. 

XLV 

The second strophe, though effective, is unessential to the conception of 

the poem. 

XLVI 

Sainte-Beuve, in a celebrated piece ' La Rime,' had already revived this 
delightful form of strophe, dear to poets of the Pleiade and consecrated 

Z 



354 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

especially by Eemy Belleau's lovely 'Avril.' Hugo used it in Les 
Orientates ('Sara la baigneuse ')• David, called David d' Angers (to dis- 
tinguish him from Louis David), perhaps the most eminent French sculptor 
of the Eomantic period, was the intimate friend of Victor Hugo and many 
other poets of that generation (1788-1856). 

23, 24. II s'y pend — the act ; il y pend — the state. 

28-30. His loins are, more supple even than the branch he pulls down 
towards him (ramme) : they are easier to bend, though they bent another 
way — en leur sens, i.e. in their natural direction. 

40. Le meme serpent qu'on dit qui mordit. This idiomatic construction, 
a fusion of qui, dit-on, mordit and que Von dit avoir mordu, has no parallel 
in English. Qui has the force of qu'il. We should turn the difficulty by 
parenthesis. But I have known people say ' A friend whom I expect will 
be coming.' 

XLVII 

This piece is remarkable as an example of a certain deliberate realism or 
prosaism of which Sainte-Beuve may be called the initiator in modern 
French poetry. He was in this curious quality the true master of Baudelaire. 

XLVIII 

The fantastic address (absurdly called a Ballad) to the Moon belongs to 
the early days when Musset was the spoilt child of Romanticism, sometimes 
borrowing its garb or aping its postures and quite as often laughing in his 
sleeve at its extravagances, in much the same spirit as that in which Byron 
began a canto of his masterpiece with 'Hail, Muse, etc. — We left Juan 
sleeping. 1 — This poem is impertinent and charming, buoyant, coloured and 
witty. In the second edition of Musset's early poems it contained several 
additional strophes of a licentious character. I have followed the first edition. 

14. Faucheux or faucheur, 'field-spider. 1 

59. Prie is an old alternative form for pri : it represented the Latin 
neuter plural, mistaken for a feminine singular. There are many such 
cases : Cor, comes towment and towrmente; bras and brasse. 

XLIX 
The caesura is placed after the fifth syllable. Notice the felicitous inter- 
play of the repeated rimes. The philosophy — life is only worth living for 
the sake of remembering how we have lived — is quite characteristic. 

L 
Saint-Blaise or ' Sacca di San Biagio ' forms virtually part of the island 
called Giudecca {Zuecca in the Venetian dialect) : in this poor and populous 
district of Venice few people would think of gathering verbena ! 

LI 

Les Nuits are unquestionably the most original and the most perfect of 
Musset's poems. In each of them, except in this ' Nuit de Dfoembre,' the 



NOTES 355 

poet receives the visit of his Muse who exhorts him to find consolation in 
poetry for the disillusions of life. If we may trust his brother's testimony, 
these visits were a kind of hallucination, not merely an allegory. On 
certain nights when he expected the Muse, he would dress carefully, fill 
his room with flowers and candles, and watch till all hours for her coming. 
This poem also, perhaps, owes its conception to some such illusion as that 
by which the poet Coleridge in an ecstatic moment saw himself. 

37. Libertm, unlike our ' libertine ' in its present use, connotes impiety. 

38. Toast, or toste, with the verb toster, is of course borrowed from the 
English ; but our word came from the old French toste, which is the Latin 
tostum, from torrere. There are several similar cases of words recently 
borrowed from the English which in their original form were French : thus 
ticket is etiquette, sport is a corruption of desport, budget is the old word 
bougette, ' a little purse.' 

90. Promener sur une claie (' hurdle '), was an old form of torture. 

LII 

This poem, absolutely sincere and really heartrending, belongs to the 
period when Musset, still a young man, discovered that he was bankrupt of 
all that made life worth living to him. It reflects the utter dissolution of 
the will, the demoralisation of the poke dAchu, who has nothing left him 
but remembrance. 

LIII 

1. La Nuit. In the Medicean Chapel of San Lorenzo at Florence, 
Michel Angelo worked from 1520 to 1533 at the tombs of Giuliano and 
Lorenzo (grandson of the Magnificent) : the figures of Night, Day, Dawn 
and Twilight are stretched upon the sarcophagi. 

LIV 

7. The inversion of the natural order (the verbs here preceding their 
subject), as also the omission of an article in the next line, are meant to 
have an archaic effect. 

LV 

3. Imbriqui, imbricatus from imbrex, 'a gutter-tile.' The shape and 
the disposition of the tiles give the senses of the (architectural) word 
' imbricated.' Gautier means to suggest the overlapping of the pieces in a 
coat of mail. 

8. Brassard, 'brace.' 

15. FaMssks, ' dented, battered.' 

LVI 

Every one knows at least the melody to which Gounod set the delightful 
' Barcarolle.' 



356 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

8. Lest, ' ballast' 

10. Mousse, ' a cabin-boy,' is the Spanish mono rather perhaps than the 
Italian mozzo. 

LVII 

La Comidie de la Mart, Gautier's deepest creation in verse, narrowly 
misses being one of the dozen greatest achievements of the century by a 
certain dissipation in the magnificent imagery with which he drapes the 
ideas of ' life in death ' —or the horror of decay as it would appear to a con- 
sciousness imprisoned in a tomb— and of ' death in life,' or the decay of a 
soul still inhabiting flesh. The poem would be even more impressive were 
not the pictures so many, so sumptuous and so bewildering. In the second 
part, the poet, guided not by Virgil but by the figure of Death herself, is 
admitted to intercourse with illustrious shades, and asks in turn of Faust, 
of Don Juan, of Napoleon, the eternal question : What is happiness ? He 
who thirsted for knowledge all his life now only regrets love ; the insatiable 
lover holds wisdom the better part ; the great conqueror's ideal is a life of 
pastoral peace. Don Juan's answer forms a complete poem within the 
poem. Since Tirso de Molina, a Spanish poet of the early seventeenth 
century, threw into dramatic form, with it seems some elements of a dateless 
popular tradition, the legend of faithless libertinism left by the scandalous 
life of Don Juan Tenorio (the original is said to have ended in a cloister), 
almost every age and every people has made a Don Juan in its own likeness. 
For some he has been only the type of a vulgar ' lady-killer,' for others the 
lamentable slave of an ideal passion surviving a thousand illusions ; and 
there is little in common, besides polygamy, between the capricious egoist 
of Moliere's morality, Mozart's lucid and spectral Don Giovanni, and 
Byron's ' natural man ' according to the Regency — to say nothing of the 
impenitent, stoical lover whom Baudelaire ferried to hell over the waves of 
his consummate verse. Th^ophile Gautier has hardly added an individual 
Don Juan to the list : it is a hedonist whom the pursuit of pleasure has 
left unsatisfied and who imagines that science would not have deceived him. 

15. Bouvreuti, the popular Latin bovariolttm, 'little herdsman.' Our 
' fcuK-finch ' contains something of the same metaphor. 

Filon, 'vein.' 

97. Y grec de Pythagore. I do not know what was Gautier's authority 
for supposing that Pythagoras used the letter Y as a symbol of dubitation : 
the shape obviously suggests the analogy of cross-roads. Elsewhere, in a 
descriptive passage of some ephemeral prose, the French poet speaks of 
' l'y du carrefour.' 

Rose mystique. The reader will find a succinct account of the Rose as 
the 'symbol of spiritual love and supreme beauty' in the notes to Mr. 
Yeats's poems The Wind among the Heeds. The flower is sacred to Our Lady 
in Christian legend ; of old it was distinguished in the worship of Isis, and 
a rose was eaten by the Golden Ass of Apuleius when he was transformed 
and received into her secret fellowship. 



NOTES 357 



LVIII 



Jose Ribera (1588-1652), one of the great Spanish painters of the seven- 
teenth century, was brought up at Valencia but worked and died at Naples, 
where he was called 'Lo Spagnoletto.' His characteristic manner is 
sombre, almost sanguinary, grim subjects and a stormy palette ; but he 
relented in some religious pictures. Gautier had in mind, no doubt, the 
Repentant Magdalen and the Trinity he had seen in the Prado. The 
spelling Ribeira suggests a Portuguese rather than a Spanish name. 

24. PenUlique, from Pentele, a parish in Attica. 

30. Victvmavre : this unusual word is the Latin victi/marius, an assistant 
at sacrifices. 

50. Tournh, 'soured. 

60. Moelleux, 'soft, unctuous,' from moelle, 'marrow.' Modle is the 
Latin medulla, which became successively medole, meole, and, by metathesis, 
mode. Till the seventeenth century it was pronounced mo-ele, and 
singularly enough Victor Hugo counts the word as a disyllable in his 
verse. Later it was sounded as a diphthong (mwele), and when the pro- 
nunciation of the diphthong oi changed form we to wa, moelle followed the 
great number of words in which the vowel though differently spelled had 
sounded like its oe. 

LIX 

10. Moire, ' watered silk.' This is not the original meaning, which was 
that of the English ' mohair.' The word (sometimes spelt mouaire) and the 
thing are both said to have been borrowed from England in the seventeenth 
century : ' mohair ' itself is the Arabic mokkayyar. However, Hatzfeld- 
Darmesteter quotes Chrestien de Troyes : ' Vestuz d'un drap de moire ' — 
a solitary instance of the word, if it is the same word, in medieval 
literature. 

12. Ajustis, ' close-fitting ' : what our modern dressmakers call collants 
as opposed to bouffants. 

LX 

This brilliant fantasy is an admirable example of Gtautier's virtuosity. 
It professes to gather together the associations of a hackneyed melody : 
they are associations of a purely literary order, and depend entirely upon 
the title. 

5. Tabatieres, i.e. 'musical boxes.' For the parasitic t, compare 
caoutchouti, from caoutchouc, ' India-rubber ' — where also the final c is silent. 

9-16. Poudreux berceaux is an allusion to the love-bowers in the trees, 
the so-called nids d'amoureux, which have long been a special feature of 
the tea-gardens (guinguettes) in the suburbs of Paris, at Sceaux and 
Robinson notably. 

11. Oommis, a clerk or a shopman, is properly the past participle of 
commett/re. 



358 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Qrisette meant originally a plain grey or drap stuff, such as became the wives 
and daughters of sober citizens. Thence the word was used to signify such 
persons, and specialised by the Paris students, as a name for their sweet- 
hearts of the small burgess class and among the working-girls. The name, 
if not the thing, is almost extinct. 

13. Tormelle, 'arbour.' 

14. Chevrefeuil, ccuprifolvwm is an old, rare, and etymologically correct 
alternative form of chevrefeuille, which is due to the influence of feuille. 

15. Ritournelle : not (here) the sort of song specifically so called, because 
of its ' burden ' or ' return,' in the later Middle Ages, but the ' symphony ' 
of a song — the bars played by the instrument alone. 

16. Argenteuil : the wine of that Parisian suburb, famous in the 
Middle Ages, and in our day less appreciated than its asparagus. 

19. SibUe is a small, hollow, wooden tray. The origin of the word is 
doubtful. 
23. Glapissent, 'yelp.' 

25. Niccol6 Pagcmwvi, the prince of violinists (1784-1840). 

26. Comme avec vm crochet, as a chifformier might pick up a treasure in a 
dust heap. 

30. Oripeau, 'gold thread' and 'gold leaf,' made of polished brass. 
Figuratively it means ' tinsel,' ' dross.' The first part of the word is the 
old adjective orie (with the tonic accent on o), Latin a/wreurm. 

32. A visualist like Gautier, more inevitably even than other poets who 
have tried to interpret the effects of music with words, requisitions the 
plastic arts for analogies with sound. Arabesques has definitely musical 
associations for all who know their Schumann. 

49-52. Here is another and more subtle analogy. The rotundity of a 
pure musical phrase is suggested by the sight of the cupolas ; and their 
form is that of a bosom laden with the music of a sigh. Such is the logic 
of the imagination. 

53. Esquif was borrowed from the Italian schifo, of Germanic origin 
(compare the German Schiff, our ' ship ') : Old French had esquipe. 

71. Bosse d'une note fantasque, ' thrashes to an antic tone.' In Gautier's 
fancy, the music of the Ca/rna/val evokes all the well-known figures of a 
Venetian masked ball, and with every note or every phrase one of them 
is resuscitated in an appropriate posture. Rosier came apparently from rosse, 
'jade,' with the first meaning ' to scold.' 

72. Gasscmdre, Cassandro, one of the traditional old men of Italian farce, 
along with Pantaloon and the Doctor (see below). 

75. Nothing need be said of Pierrot, the whitewashed ingenuous clown 
of French pantomime. The name was long one of the approved names for 
the stage peasant — like Colin, Lucas, Gros-Jean or Gros-Kene. The pun 
on blcmche, ' a minim,' is obvious. 

77. Le BocUwr bolona/is, the scholar or the lawyer of Bologna, is another 
of the ridiculous old men of Italian farce. He first appeared in 1560, when 



NOTES 359 

the Bolognese actor Lucio introduced him upon the stage. He is often 
found pleading, still oftener misquoting Latin. Harlequin, (Arlecchino) is 
his servant, and cozens him ; Colombine, his daughter, is always com- 
plaining of his parsimony. The Doctor appears in French farce as early as 
15V2. It is just possible that the principal features of the character were 
borrowed from some real scholar of Bologna University. 

79. Polichinelle, our Punch, is the Neapolitan Polecenella, Tuscan 
Pulcinella, a personage of the popular farces in Naples who has travelled 
half over Europe since he entered France with the mariormettes in the 
seventeenth century. His nose is, of course, the great thing about him. 

80. Groche, ' a quaver ' ; a semi-quaver is une double croche. 

81. Trivelin, Trivellino, is another of the late Italian clowns, well known 
also to the French ihidtre foram of the eighteenth century for which so 
many good poets, like Piron, often wrote. 

83. Scara/mouche, Seara/muccio, was always dressed in black. 

86. Domino was originally the name for a priest's short cloak with a 
hood. No doubt it came from some pious formula. 

99. Cramme, ' a scale.' The Greek gamma r was used once to designate 
the tonic. 

113. Chanterelle, the highest (or E) string of the violin. 

114. Harmonica, German Harmoniha, means 'musical glasses.' But 
does Gautier mean this, and not rather (sons) harmoniques, which is what 
we call ' harmonics ' ? 

LXI 

An example of the French virtue of verbal economy. The lines have as 
much density as Juvenal's. 

8. Charlatans. The word was borrowed from the Italian (ciarlatamo, 
from ciarlare, ' to bawl '). 

9, 10. The curiosa felicitas of these lines will escape no one. 
13, 14 A model of the gnomic style. 



LXII 

Facit indignatio versus. Occasional as this celebrated invective was in 
its origin, it will live as long as the language. The breathless quality of the 
rhythm is what has struck every reader. 

14. That is, in the mouth of a swearing workman. 

20. The boulevard de Gand was, under the restoration monarchy, a cant 
name given to the boulevard des Italiens. It recalled the flight of Lewis 
the Eighteenth to Ghent on Napoleon's return from Elba. The court of 
the King of France, during the Hundred Days, was 'la cour de Gand.' 

21. Mitraille is a corruption of mitaille, from the old word mite, our 
' mite,' which may be Germanic. 



360 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

23. Canaille is the Italian canaglia, a lot of dogs. In modern use this 
substantive is both collective and common : ' the rabble ' and ' a cad.' 

24. Buaimt, one syllable. 

32. Blanc, sc. d'Espagne or de druse (carbonate of lead prepared for the 
complexion). 

47. Fille, sc. publique. 

52. Hyperbolical : at twenty Napoleon was still an obscure subaltern. 

75. Limon, ' slime,' is the popular Latin limumem = linmm. Ordure 
comes from the old adjective ord, which is the Latin horrid/wm. 

86. Sanglier is the Latin smgularem, a word which (as it describes the 
animal's solitary habits) replaced aper in popular speech. It ought there- 
fore to be spelt senglier. 

92. Meute, ' a pack ' of hounds, is the popular Latin movita (movere), and 
meant first a ' start,' then ' going a-hunting,' then the hunt itself. 

94. Matin is mansuetimum [* masetino] = ' tame.' 

97. Gohue, of unknown origin, meant once a market ; now a ' throng.' It 
is probably not co-hue (' cry'). 

99. Dogues is of course our English word : molosse, a variety of 
bull-dog, is the Greek /ioXoo-o-os (from the name of a people in Epirus). 

108. Soul (the I silent) is still often spelt saoul : it is satvMwm, ' full ' 
(satur). 

113. Chervil. Our 'kennel' preserves the Norman-Picard form, which 
characteristically keeps the hard c of the Latin canile. 

LXIII 
14. Titian died of the plague (fle"au) in Venice at a patriarchal age 
(1477-1576). 

LXIV 

Whether Marie, the subject of a handful of idylls or episodes in the 
volume called after her name, was a real person is not quite certain, 
Brizeux's reserve being considerable. His brother thought she existed. 
For us at any rate she has the reality of an emblem : she is the Breton 
soul. All or nearly all the place-names in this piece belong to the south- 
west corner of the province. 

9. Men-hfo means ' long stone ' in Breton. The origin of the tall single 
stones which are found in Brittany and the west of England was long a 
vexed question of archaeology. They are certainly pre-Celtic. 

23. Au presbytere, at the house of the priest of Arvanno, the Abbe 1 Lenir, 
where Brizeux received his early education. 

LXV 

The form of this poem deserves notice : the lines of twelve syllables 
alternate with the lines of eight, but the rimes are disposed in triads — three 
feminine and three masculine lines alternately. It is, I think, an original 
and effective) scheme. 



NOTES 361 

9. The line defines the poetic ideal of Brizeux admirably. 

13. Soc, 'ploughshare,' is a Celtic word : 'sock' is used in certain parts 
of Great Britain. 

14. Pasteur, which has here its figurative sense, is of course the learned 
form of ptitre which is the old subject-case (joasteor, p&teur, the object-case, 
has disappeared). 

32. Lwnde, 'moor,' is the Celtic (Latinised) lomda, 'a bare, open tract' 
The Breton has lawn,. 

LXVI 

If the spirit of this gay and delicate piece recalls the famous Pervigilium 
Veneris of the later Roman literature — ' Cras amet qui nunquam amavit 
quique amavit nunc amet,' its form is quite unique. It is almost a double 
sonnet and almost an inverted villanelle. Here is the scheme : — 1 2 3 4, 
4 5 6 7, 7 8 9 10, 1 4 7 10 ; then 10 11 7, 7 12 4, 4 13 1, 13 12 11. It has 
thus four quatrains followed by four triads ; only thirteen different lines, 
and only two rimes ; all the odd numbers rime together and all the even 
numbers rime together. 

LXVII 

In this long poem the rime is remarkably rich throughout ; the rhythm 
solemn and, in its relative monotony, appropriate to the theme. Its 
pantheism is only apparent. The word chine represents the Latinised form, 
cascanv/m, of a Gaulish original. 

27. Pervenche, our 'periwinkle' ('dogbane' is the commoner name), is 
Pliny's vinca pervinca. 

106. The oak is as much (though differently) a religious symbol for this 
Christian Gaul as it was for his ancestors in druidical times. But compare 
lines 137, 138. 

107, 108. These two lines are monumental. The second has the cowpe 
ternaire (3 + 5 + 4). 

LXVIII 

Watteau would have done justice to this charming procession of players 
(with the poet and the donkey in the rear) crossing a glade in all the glory 
of their parts. 

6. This line ran originally : 

Montrant son sein nu sous la broderie. 

12. Dame-jeamne, ' demi-john,' a glass bottle with a big body and a little 
neck, generally enclosed in wickerwork. It has nothing to do with the 
proper name Jeanne, nor (as has been suggested) is the word a corruption 
of the Persian Damaghan, the name of a town famous for its glassworks. 
It is really nothing but the Provencal dcmajano, which is for de mejano, 
' of middling (size).' 

LXIX 

The poem, inspired by an old popular burden, has only two rimes. 
Notice that voient (line 3) is a monosyllable. 



362 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



LXX 

This Ballade illustrates at once Banville's skill in one of those traditional 
forms he loved, and his loyal admiration for his master. L'ile of course is 
Guernsey. It is hardly necessary to give the scheme : it is enough to say 
that in each of the three strophes of eight lines there are the same three 
rimes, crossed thus ababbcbc : the last line being exactly repeated at the 
end of each strophe, as well as at the end of the half-strophe called L'Bnvoi 
which traditionally (Banville eludes and suggests the tradition neatly) 
begins with : Prince ! — This is a ' single ' ballade in octosyllables. There 
is also the ' double ballade,' in decasyllables of which each strophe rimes 
thus ababbccdcd, thus introducing a fourth rime. The Envoi has five lines, 
ceded. The French ballade dates in this form from the fourteenth century. 
There is little doubt that its original was the ancient dancing song called 
balhtte (which was in all probability an import from Provence) : the 
ballette had also three strophes and refrains, but the arrangement of Times 
was not uniform. 

5. Voyron, in Dauphiny, near the Grande-Chartreuse, has important 
cloth factories. 

6. Auch is in Languedoc, Nmts in Burgundy, Gap in Dauphiny, and 
Lille in French Flanders. No eminent poet of Banville's time came from 
any of these towns. 

9. Parnassus, of course. 

12. Oiseliers, i.e. like people who train humming-birds. 

14. Delille (1738-1813), the laureate of the classical decadence. 

19, 20. The description might (but for the date) have been meant for 
M. Kichepin. 

22. Whether the grand cri of the Marseillaise is really Rouget de L'Isle's 
is still disputed. There is a well-known story that in his later years, he 
enjoyed asking young admirers which strophe of the great hymn they 
preferred. Naturally it was always ' Nous entrerons dans la carriere. . . .' 
' Eh bien ! celle-la, malheureusement, n'est pas de moi ! ' 



LXXI 

The Oriental poem called pantoum was first heard of in France when 
Victor Hugo gave a prose translation of a pantoum malais (by his friend 
Ernest Fouinet) in the notes to Les Oriemtales. Its structure is described 
in the chapter on poetical curiosities in Banville's Petit Traite, and this 
poem is given there as an example. The pantoum is written in quatrains : 
the second line of each becomes the first of the next quatrain, the fourth 
line of each is repeated in the third of the next, and the first line of the 
poem reappears as the last. Its peculiarity is that throughout two 
different motives are pursued, in the first two and in the last two lines of 
each quatrain respectively ; but there should always be some mysterious 



NOTES 363 

analogy between them. It would be surprising indeed that the symbolists 
had not been tempted by the opportunities which these conditions offer, if 
' fixed forms ' had ever had any attraction for them. 

LXXII 

This piece in its realism and its melancholy shows a side of Banville's 
talent that has perhaps been unduly neglected by his critics. 

1, 2. Fiacre — nacre, a lax rime, common in many good poets but 
extremely rare with Banville. The first establishment for the hire of hackney 
carriages in Paris was set up in 1640 at the sign of Saint-Fiacre (Fiacrius 
or Fefrus, a hermit of Irish birth, who lived in the forest of Brie c. 650 a.d., 
and is the patron of gardeners). 

12. Equarrissmr, a 'knacker' (who 'quarters' horses). 

15. Coram (literally an iron collar used as a punishment, and supposed to 
be the Germanic querha, ' neck ') and chahut belong to the traditional vocabu- 
lary of Paris cabmen. Timmermans in IS Argot parisien says : ' Le Chahut 
est le cahot qu'on leur fait subir (sc. aux chevaux) en les agitant avec 
violence.' 

16. President as a term of abuse has of course a political origin : I can 
only conjecture that Gamahut is a personage in some ephemeral farce. 

LXXIII 

Flaubert says of this poem : ' La Colombe restera peut-6tre comme la 
profession de foi historique du xix e siecle en matiere religieuse.' It is at 
least the most sane, luminous and plastic expression of an attitude character- 
istic of the last age, and becoming rarer every day among cultivated French- 
men. The reader will not fail to admire the amplitude, the colour and the 
rhythm of ' La Colombe ' : especially admirable are lines 20, 51 and 56. 

9. Julian, the Apostate, who nearly succeeded in restoring Paganism 
during his short reign (361-363 a.d.). 

LXXV 

A superb profession of impassibility in passionate verse. Montreurs, 
' showmen,' ' bear-leaders.' 

9. The emphasis is upon muet, sans gloire. 

13. Trdteau, 'booth' (our ' trestle '). 

LXXVI 

This poem is worth quoting as an example of Leconte de Lisle's lyrical 
talent in the narrow sense : it is often denied to him entirely ; and his 
preference, when he forsakes the Alexandrine and the epical-descriptive 
manner, for strophes which end in a sort of ritournelle, and for songs with 
a burden to them, is perhaps a sign — if other signs were wanting — of 
relative sterility in this vein. 



364 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



LXXVII 

6. Claies, (here) 'cheese-wattles.' Eclisse in line 18 has the same 
meaning. Glade is a word of Celtic origin, Latinised into cleta, whence the 
French descends directly. 

LXXVIII 

The singular perfection of this famous poem needs no commentary. 
Nowhere in literature perhaps have the sensations of livid heat, tropical 
stillness and silence (how far from Matthew Arnold's ' all the live murmur 
of a summer day ' !) been so masterfully rendered. 

LXXIX 

14. A fine phrase to describe the shark. 

18. Les Trois Bois, ' the Magi,' is an old popular name for the three 
bright stars we call the belt of Orion, and known to astronomers as 8, e, £ 
Orionis. In France they are more usually called ' le baton de Jacob ' or 
' le rateau.' Le Triangle, the asterism Tria/ngula ; Le Scorpion, the 
eighth sign of the zodiac. 

20. L'Ourse, the little Bear ; Septentrion, ' Charles's Wain.' 

27. Son grlle pilote, the pilot-fish which, as sailors imagine, guides the 
shark towards its prey. 

28. Aileron, 'fin.' 

29-36. Evolutionist morality. 

LXXX 

The great Siege inspired nothing, even in L' Annie Terrible, more 
moving than this outburst of indignant patriotism, with its characteristic 
gesture of contemptuous and irreducible constancy. 

13, 15. Froides — roides : a rime for the eye. Nobody says anything but 
raide, though froede (the old pronunciation) persists in patois. Raide or 
roide, by the way, is an instance in which the feminine form of an adjective 
has absorbed the masculine (rigidum : reit, roit). 

29. Dicombre, rarely used in the singular. 

41. An allusion to the arms of Paris — a toiling ship, with the legend 
Fluctuat nee mergitwr. 

57. Fauve is connected with the Germanic falw — : modern German/aZft, 
our fallow. Applied to the colour of deer, etc., this adjective in the 
expression bUe fauve has come to mean little more than ' wild.' It is also 
a substantive. 

LXXXI 

These stanzas were headed au lecteur in the editions published during 
the poet's lifetime. They were first printed in the Revue des Deux Mondes 
(June 1855). Both rhythm and diction have the unchangeable quality of 



NOTES 365 

a solemn epitaph : the conceptions and their intensely concrete expression 
are more than characteristic — quintessential. Most of the lines are 
regular, with a classical poise : line 13 is a fine example of coupe ternaire 
(3 + 5 + 4) ; and there are certain Alexandrines which flow without a break 
(lines 3, 4, 6, 17, 34) : they are the most Baudelairian of all. 

9-12. The allusion is of course to the Hermes Trismegistus of the 
alchemists. With the help of the Evil One our will all goes to smoke. 
18. Catim, was originally a proper name ( = Catherine) : cf. our ' Poll.' 
22, 23. In Baudelaire's first edition, these lines ran somewhat differently : 

Dans nos cerveaux malsains, comme un million d'helminthcs, 
Grouille, chante et ripaille un peuple de Demons. 

Million would thus have had two syllables instead of three — of which 
there are other instances. 

29. Lice, ' brach,' of unknown origin, is to be distinguished from lice, 
' (jousting-) list,' as well as from lice, ' a weaving frame,' which is the Latin 
licia (plural), and our ' lisse.' 

34. 'Pousser un geste ' is not French, and this sort of zeugma (as gram- 
marians would say) is more startling than happy. Originally the poet had 
written ' Quoiqu'il ne fasse. . . .' 

37. How different is this sinister Ervnui, the disease of an insatiable 
imagination, from the mere tedium — a sign of low vitality — which has been 
too often called la maladie du siecle ! The word — our ' annoy ' — is the 
verbal substantive of ennuyer, which is the popular Latin inodiare 
(odium). 

LXXXII 

Baudelaire, the complex, the ultra-modern poet, slakes his thirst for the 
ancient ideals of formal beauty in this poem. The mood is not affected : 
there is a classical side to the character of his intellect if not of his imagina- 
tion. Perhaps all moderns, when they turn with disgust from the less 
simple conception of human beauty, of which sadness, unrest, mystery and 
sacrifice are essential elements, necessarily exaggerate the serene and 
candid uselessness of pagan art. Sterility at least can have formed no part 
of the Greek ideal. 

6. Machine. Wordsworth in a celebrated poem somewhat unhappily 
applies the expression ' The very pulse of the machine.' The word, in 
French, shocks no one : the eighteenth century had so long used it 
emphatically for the body, as the servant of the soul. 

27, 28. HirddiU—fecondiU. Baudelaire, a master of striking rimes and 
concrete language, is fond of obtaining a particular effect by occasionally 
coupling abstract words with an identical termination. The poets of the 
classical decadence did the same thing continually, but they did it without 
thinking, out of sheer exhaustion. 



366 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

LXXXIII 

There is a remarkable affinity between the impressions evoked in this 
sonnet and some of those recorded by R. L. Stevenson in that posthumous 
masterpiece In the South Seas. It is a commonplace that the sense of smell 
is the most powerful stimulant to memory ; but no doubt the poet's 
imagination colours his verse more vividly than any recollections of his 
voyage to the Tropics. ' Symbolism ' aspires to use words just as Baudelaire 
used a perfume — to suggest moods : but (though elsewhere he anticipates 
the symbolists) his method in this piece is the direct notation of sensations. 
The distinction of the epithet monotone in line 4, and the extreme 

beauty of 

des femmes dont l'oeil par sa franchise 6tonne . . . 
Encor tout fatigues par la vague marine . . . 

will not be lost upon the reader. ' Vague marine ' recalls the sixteenth 
century. The sonnet was evidently inspired by Jeanne Duval, the mulatto 
mistress of the poet. 

LXXXIV 

Death and the horrors of its bodily aspect always preoccupied Baudelaire. 
Apart from its intensity of colouring, this famous poem owes its beauty to the 
magnificent conception of remembrance conquering corruption. It bears a 
superficial similarity to one of the best-known Orientates, ' Les Troncons du 
Serpent ' (as to the measure, Baudelaire's short lines have two syllables 
more than those of Hugo) : but unquestionably the younger poet has done 
a finer thing. It is terribly sincere. 

3. The word charogne is the popular Latin caronia (earo) : carogne, 
whence our ' carrion ' comes directly, is the Norman-Picard form : it 
subsists as a term of abuse. 

25. Was Verlaine, in ' Marco ' (Poemes Satumiens), unconsciously affected 
by this line when he wrote — 

Sa robe rendait d'ilranges musiques 
Quand Marco passait ? 

29-32. This strophe needs to be read more than once before the singular 
felicity of the image can be appreciated. 

48. Amours, the plural, is seldom masculine. 

LXXXV 

Addressed to Jeanne Duval. Never was sound more inseparable from 
sense than in this poem with its supple and buoyant rhythm. 

5-9. Compare the description of Dalila in Samson Agonistes, 11. 710-721. 

5-6. Large— large : the same word in form and by etymology, but 
there is a wide enough difference in sense to justify the rime. 

10. It seems uncertain whether se pavaner, ' to strut,' was taken directly 



NOTES 367 

from pavonem, * a peacock ' : pavane, the name of a stately sort of dance, 
is the Spanish pavana. 

LXXXVI 

4. Chenille, lit. ' little dog ' — from the shape of the caterpillar's head. 

6. A coupe ternaire, ' in ascending numbers,' 3 + 4 + 5. 

16. Flaire. The word is the Latin fragrare : the interchange of I and r 
(titulum, titre) is not uncommon. Dialectically flavrer still keeps the 
intransitive sense of ' to smell,' in which it has been replaced by the corrupt 
form fleurer. 

26, 28. Auberge — Mberge, perhaps a questionable rime. Auberge, the 
Provencal avhergo, is .simply another form of the Old French herberge, 
Mberge : Old High German Mri-berga, ' army shelter.' Hiberge here is in 
the subjunctive. 

LXXXVII 

The chapter on wine in Les Paradis Artificiels may be compared with 
this poem. The subject long haunted Baudelaire : he wrote some popular 
verses on ' Le vin des honnfites gens,' to which Villiers de Hsle-Adam 
supplied the music, and about 1853 began a play called L'lwogne which 
was never finished. 

4. La fibre = les nerfs. 

33. Crapule, the Latin crapula, ' surfeit,' means both drunkenness and a 
drunkard. Becently as a term of abuse it has almost lost its definite meaning. 

48. Enragi. All the posthumous editions of Les Fleurs du Mai read 
enrayi. It has been pointed out — notably by the editor of Le Tombeau de 
Charles Baudelaire— that enrage' is the word printed in the two editions 
given by the poet himself, and that enrayi gives exactly the opposite sense. 
Fmrayer is to put spokes in a wheel (rim), and so to check, to put the 
brake on. The old reading is restored in this book : nevertheless I think 
there is something to be said for enrayi : the drunkard's body would stop 
the wheels. 

LXXXVIII 

The exact force of the ironical title ' La Beatrice ' is not very plain. 
Presumably it is Jeanne Duval, again, who makes common cause with those 
who misunderstand the poet's sincerity. 

16. Grand' pitii. Grand had originally— like Latin grandis— no separate 
form for the feminine, and there is no justification for the apostrophe in the 
survivals — grand'mere, grand'tante, grand'rue, grand'messe, grand'faim, 
grand' soif, grand'peur, grand'pitie. 

18. Artistement. Artiste is an adjective as well as a substantive, and 
artistigue is, at least as it is generally used, superfluous. 

XCII 
This early poem, it will be noticed, is an inverted sonnet : two triads 
followed by two quatrains. All the lines except the first have the coupe 



368 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

midiane (5 + 5) which is relatively uncommon in decasyllables. Notable 
examples of Verlaine's internal rime occur in lines 3 and 8. The other rimes 
are all 'rich.' 

I. Ko-Hmnor, ' Mountain of light,' the name of a famous jewel belonging 
to the English royal collection. 

3. Heliogabalus, better Elagabalus (the name is said to be Al GabaL 'the 
Mountain'), the Roman emperor of Syrian race whose short reign from 
219 to 222 a.d., was a miracle of effeminacy and corruption, recorded by 
Dion and Herodian. 

Sardanapalus, king of Assyria. Scientific history knows nothing of him ; 
Greek legends attributed to his voluptuous indolence and misrule the 
revolt of several tributary peoples culminating in the siege and first 
destruction of Nineveh about the end of the eighth century B.C. The 
tradition of his spectacular suicide has been preserved for us in Byron's 
tragedy. For Villon this monarch was 

Sardana, le preux chevalier 
Qui conquist le regne de Cretes. 

10. Par in the common pleonasm par trop is the Latin intensive per of 
permagnus, peropportune,perfieere, etc. In Old French it is often a separable 
particle reinforcing adverbs like molt, tant, and then commonly precedes 
avevr and estre, as in Roland, 3331 : de eels d'Arabe si grant force i par at 
(that is, ' II y a si (tres-) grand nombre de ceux d'Arabie '). 

12. The very ancient word lie is almost certainly of Celtic origin, for 
there is lige = ' deposit' in Irish, and leit=' mad' in Breton. Our 'lees' 
comes straight from French, no doubt. Another lie (' chere lie ') is an 
adjective, Latin laeta. 

13, 14. It is hardly necessary to say that these lines express contempt for 
mediocrity when presented as an absolute good. Beauty is a height 
inaccessible to the merely pretty, assonance (says the young Parnassian) is 
an imperfect substitute for rime ; and caution is not the ideal quality of 
friendship. 

XCIII 

Few poems of Verlaine's have won such celebrity as this sonnet, which 
wants little commentary. It is full of technical interest. There is not even 
a simulation of the median caesura in 

pour elle seule ; et les-moitews de mon front bleme, 

and it is really absent in several other lines. The vigour and sobriety of 
line 12 contrast deliriously with the length and languor of the next, and 
the last of all is remarkable for the Racinian effect of its sibilants, and the 
audacious perfection of its unusual rhythm, 4 + 3 + 5, with a feminine 
ending carried over from the second group. 

II. Que la Vie exila is obscure. Were the beloved banished by this life 



NOTES 369 

from their home in heaven ? or were they simply severed by its vicissitudes 
from their ideal loves 1 Perhaps this is only an instance in which the poet 
has said more than he means, and seems to mean even more than he has 
said. 

14. ' Quand on ecoute M. Verlaine, on desirerait qu'il n'eut jamais d'autre 
inflexion que celle-la,' said Barbey d'Aurevilly in his unsympathetic review 
of Polities Saturniens. 

XCIV 

In this gentle allegory of penitence the rhythm is grave and sober 
throughout. The end is an example of Verlaine's characteristic bonhomie 
(there is no other word !). 

XCV 

It is difficult not to suppose that this beautiful sonnet — or at least its 
opening— was suggested by the famous apostrophe beginning 
Chair de la femme ! argile ideale ! 6 merveille ! 

in Victor Hugo's 'Sacre de la Femme' (LSgende des Sikles, ii. 1). The 
median caesura is tolerably preserved in five of the lines : it disappears even 
for the eye in line 13. ' Matinal appel' (6-7) is bad overflow, for it might 
pass for a mere miscount. 

1-8. Grammatically a series of interjections. As punctuated, the 
significance of toujours in line 5 is problematical. 

8. A superb line : — ' or splendid sob that dies in the fold of a shawl.' 

11. Is there not a reminiscence of Hebrew poetry in the symbolic 
montagne ? 

14. No French (or English) poet has quite the quality of familiar candour 
expressed with all the graces of hesitation in this line. 

XCVI 

Here is a poem which may be described justly, for once, by the epithet 
elusive. It is pretty certain that he here addresses his wife, possibly from his 
prison, where he learned that she had obtained a, judicial separation from 
him. 

2. Pleure — plaire. Assonance is, strictly speaking, identity of vowel- 
sound followed by dissimilar consonants : here everything is identical 
except the (tonic) vowel. Internal rime, assonance and consonant-assonance 
are all frequent in this poet, more especially in Romances sans Paroles. 

XCVII 

2. i.e. toujours dressee sur ta tige, et triomphante. 

3. Le Velasquez is a little affected ; the article is used in this way only 
before the names of a few of the earlier Italian poets and artists. 

7. Inutile tresor is of course in apposition. 

2a 



370 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

XCVIII 

3. Enchlre, ' bidding,' ' auction,' is the verbal substantive of mchirvr, ' to 
raise the price.' 

4. Oochere in porte cochere, 'carriage entrance,' is an adjective (only- 
existing in the feminine form) from coche — our ' coach.' There is also a 
substantive coMre, of recent and facetious coinage, the feminine of cocker. 

5. Geindre, Latin gemere. The old form was giembre : d was substituted 
for 6 (as in empremdre) through the influence of such verbs as itemdre, 
poindre. The other form of the same verb gimir, in which the conjugation 
is changed, dates from the thirteenth century. 

XCIX 
Though this celebrated sonnet is perfect throughout, lesser beauties are 
all forgotten when we have reached its splendid climax — all the shame of 
Actium in Cleopatra's eyes. There are two sonnets on Cleopatra, only less 
fine than this, by Albert Samain (Au Jardin de I'Infante, pp. 107, 108). 

C 
1. Encourtine smacks of the Plelade, but it is as old as the twelfth 
century. 

6. Bdnit, for beni, is a form confined to pious objects (pom bdnit, eau 



10. The rhythm is superb : yet such a coupe as 5 + 2 + 5 (or 7 + 5) rarely 
satisfies the ear. 

11. Brut, 'unhewn.' 

CI 

This poem is relatively limpid. — The windows, through which the dying 
patient catches a glimpse of day and a vision of golden galleys in the sunset 
among the tiles, are the means — art or mysticism — by which the poet, 
turning his back on the hideousness of reality, sees a lost heaven of ideal 
beauty. 

10, 11. Telle . . . jadis! This is all parenthetical. 

13. Extreme Unction. 

20. A very beautiful line which, however, recalls Baudelaire's ' O parfum 
charge" de nonchaloir ' (' La Chevelure'). Modern poets have revived the old 
word so dear to Charles d'Orl^ans, but nonchalance is the ordinary form. 
The impersonal verb chaloir (calere) ' to trouble ' has virtually disappeared. 

38. An inversion. 

CII 

M. Albert Mockel has thus interpreted (if that is the word) the sense 
of this difficult sonnet : 

. . . Nous y voyons apparaitre l'image d'un cygne captif dans un 6tang 
glace, celle d'un cygne qui se d6bat, celle (par allusion) de l'oiseau qui d6vore 
l'espace, et celle du blanc desert de la neige. J'y vois la conception plato- 
nicienne de Fame dechue de l'ideal, et qui y aspire comme a sa patrie natale ; 



NOTES 371 

et celle que le genie est un isolement de par son aristocratie. II nous 
suggere aussi la misere du poete, ioi exile,— jadis il eut ete prophete,— 
et qui survit a son moment. Et la conclusion sto'icienne : vaincre par le 
mepris le malheur, en gardant haut la tete. Enfin, on en peut faire des 
adaptations morales assez diverses, — celle-ci, par exemple, qui fut, je crois, 
dans la pensee de l'auteur : l'homme superieur, s'il succombe a la vie 
quotidienne, est la victime de son anterieure indifference, pour n'avoir pas 
chantt la rigion oil vivre, pour n'avoir pas secoue^ a temps les prejuges qui 
l'etreignent a present, captif malgre son indignation. 

( Un Hiros. ) 

cm 

There are many pearls in La Mer, but as a rule you must dive into 
slime to find them. The best poems, such as ' La Vieille,' are incredibly 
coarse in places. This sonnet may give an insufficient, but still some 
notion of M. Richepin's violent imagination and of his virtuosity. The last 
six lines are especially characteristic. 

10. En, sc. de ce manteau (VOcdan). 

12. Ourlet, 'hem,' is a diminutive of the Old French ourle, Latin orulum 
(classical ora), of which another form, orle, survives as a term of heraldry 
and architecture. Pagne, a nigger's loin-cloth, is the Spanish pano. 

CIV 

All the rimes are masculine. 

17. Barlon, ' grey -beard ' — though there is nothing to imply grey in the 
word. 

22. French slang says : ' Je ne crache pas dessus,' just as ours says : ' It 
is not to be sneezed at.' The adverb dessus takes the place of sot with a 
personal pronoun, at least if it refers to an inanimate object. 

CV 

This feverish poem, of which the gist is a warning of inutility, of seden- 
tariness, is of course a sick man's vision. There is extraordinary condensa- 
tion in the language. The rhythm is restless and vehement, but the form 
is almost regular, apart from the matter of caesura. 

2, 3. The median caesura is virtually absent in both these lines. 

6. No median caesura here, nor in line 19. 

10. The sixth syllable is atonic (feminine e). 

17. iclaUmts et claqucmts : Verhaeren uses every sort of alliteration. 

20. The median caesura is again virtually wanting. It is a vivid phrase 
for the vanity of scholasticism : futile problems, which resist the keen edge 
of the intellect as a blanket might blunt an axe. 

21. Les nagueres—the yesterdays of youth. The word is used as a sub- 
stantive, but the s must not be taken for a sign of the plural. It is an 
alternative form (so also guire or gu&res). 



372 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



cvi 

The last lines make the sense of this allegory sufficiently plain : the 
Sirens are ideals, visions of art, or perhaps creeds. — The feminine e counts 
everywhere here, but there are a few final words left without a rime (at 
lines 3, 4, 24), and some false rimes if we look to their spelling. Though 
it is only the logic of the narrative that dictates the variety of measures 
and the arrangement of the lines in ladsses, the impression of unity is 
complete. 

29, 30. A fine image. 

40. Qui enchantaient — hiatus. 

CVII 

Another allegory — but eloquent and impassioned ; a naming vision of 
universal hucksterdom, trafficking in faith, love, science and the sweat of 
great men's brows, ' the molten diamonds of the dew.' — All that was said 
of the form of the last poem is true of this : it would be tedious to point 
out all the irregularities. 

2. itventcdres are hawkers' trays — so called because they are exposed to 
the air. Ventrus is a perfect epithet for them. 

3. Internal rime — ris'dis, rus-rus. Bowrru comes from bourre, coarse 
wool. 

5. Internal rime again. 

13. A line of fourteen syllables, for I assume pureti scans pur'ti. 
20. Tympams, 'pediments.' 

22. Clowns : this English word was once the French colon (i.e. ' a country 
clown '). 
25. Waggons, carriers' carts and low- wheeled drays. 

44. Camdots, ' street-hawkers.' The word originally meant a coarse sort 
of cloth ; it is evidently connected with chcmecm. What a comdot sells is 
camelote, ' shoddy.' The pedigree of voyou, 'rough,' has not been traced. 

45, 46. Armovres dirisoires : internal rime. 

47, 48. Victor Hugo called popularity ' la gloire en gros sous.' 
61. Expertiser is to value, 'appraise.' 
76. This is positivism. 
85. Internal rime. 

CVIII 

A profession of faith, and also an exegi monumentum. Few poems of 
Verhaeren are so harmonious as this. 
9-12. This might be Walt Whitman. 
27. Liens, a monosyllable : by the rales it should be li-ens. 

30, 31. Tvri — vrai, a defective rime ; for vrai is w& (open e). 

CIX 

2. Lisweghe or Lisseweghe, now a village but once a considerable industrial 



NOTES 373 

town, lies a little South-eastwards inland from the fashionable Blanken- 
berghe, whence its truncated tower may be plainly seen. 

Fumes (Veurne), near the sea and the French frontier and about fifteen 
miles from Dunkirk, though fallen from its old estate, is a town still worth 
visiting for its churches of S. Walburga and S. Nicholas (with a great 
square tower), its Town-Hall and monuments of the Spanish occupation ; 
but it is best known for the religious procession which for the last two 
hundred and fifty years and more has taken place there annually on the 
last Sunday in July. A very ingenuous Mystery-play is a part of this 
festival. The procession is joined, it is said, by many illustrious penitents. 
Fumes was taken by the troops of Philip the Fair in 1297 after a victory 
over the Count of Flanders. 

72. Nieuport, on the Yser, was once a fortress which stood many sieges — 
notably in 1383, 1488, and 1792. Its lighthouse dates from the late 
thirteenth century. A mile and a half away lies the new watering-place of 
Nieuport-Bains. Turenne's victory over Conde and the Spaniards (la 
bataille des Dunes) was won near here in 1668. 

CX 

In manner and matter this elegy is very palpably modelled on a famous 
double ballade of Villon's (Grant testament, after strophe liv.) : how far it 
is merely a pastiche the reader may judge by a few lines transcribed from 
the old poem : 

Folles amours font les gens bestes. 

Salmon en idolatrya ; 

Samson en perdit ses lunettes . . . 

Bien heureux est qui rien n'y a ! 

Orpheus, le doux menestrier, 
Jouant de flustes et musettes, 
En fut en dangier du meurtrier 
Bon chien Cerberus a troys testes ; 
Et Narcissus, le bel honnestes, 
En ung profond puys se noya 
Pour l'amour de ses amourettes . . . 
Bien heureux est qui rien n'y a ! 

The imitation is at any rate very charming, excellently rimed ; and, by 
the way, M. Moreas has not admitted a word which was not French in the 
fifteenth century. The style will not however give any one much trouble. 
The form is terza rima. 

1. Turquois for turc : ' veys Cupido tenant son arc turquoys ' says a poet 
much older than Villon. 

5. Diffame=diffamation. 

8. Augure, i.e. prophet. 

9. Piteux for piteusement. 



374 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

11. Lacs (pronounced Id) is the popular Latin lacius for laqueus, and 
means 'snare.' 

12. Mal'mort, malam mortem. 

13. Soulas, ' comfort ' (solatium). 

17. La lydienne, Omphale. Herculus for Hercule is characteristically 
medieval. 

18. Aime-laine : this sort of compound was coined every day by the 
Renaissance poets — scarcely earlier. 

19. Stratonice, the daughter of Demetrius Poliorcetes. 
21. Ghrysdide, Chryseis, the Cressida of Shakespeare. 

23. Buecins, for ' bugles,' is perhaps an exception to what was said above 
of M. Moreas' vocabulary. The word is now the name of a mollusk ; the 
right form would be buismes, the Latin for 'bugle' being buccina, not 
buccinum. 

24. This means, I imagine, a man of too great valour for discretion. 
Trop plus was a frequent collocation. Preux (preus, preuz in Old French) 
is apparently the old subject-case of preu, the popular Latin prodem, 
supposed to be connected with the prod- oiprodesse. Prodem never had a 
nominative. Another preu meant ' gain, profit.' Prud'homme (which now 
means an arbitrator) is prodem hommem. Prude is for pru de (femme). 
Cf. pron, and prouesse. 

25. i.e. docte en tout, sauf en nonchaloir. 

27. Ord is an old adjective, 'filthy, smirched,' the Latin horridum. 
Thence comes ordure. 

28. Baillie has disappeared in favour of bailliage, ' bailiwick.' Bailli, 
our ' bailiff,' was the participle of the old verb baillir, bailler in its modern 
form. It represents the Latin bajulare, ' to carry,' and meant once both to 
have in charge and to give in charge. Bailli' for 'baillie savours rather of 
Bonsard's scrupulous orthography than of Villon, who would have left, and 
not counted, the e. 

31. Guide, 'think' (cogitate). 

34. Glamer, an old verb, has been revived quite recently. 

CXI 

This is not ' art for art's sake,' but other people's lives for the sake of my 
poetry. It is the measure of Bonsard's 

Plus estroit que la vigne a l'ormeau se marie 
De bras souplement forts — 

and of Malherbe's Consolation a Du Perrier. The next piece, oxii., is in 
Chenier's and Barbier's measure (iambes). 

CXIII 

This bitter little poem rimes excellently for the ear, though it breaks 
several rules, singulars especially being coupled with plurals half-a-dozen 
times or more. 



NOTES 375 

3. Fossoyeux, dialectical for fossoyeur. It rimes perfectly with Messieurs, 
the r being always silent. 

6, 7. C'est ... fa. In French a good deal of irony can be conveyed by 
the neuter pronoun applied to persons. 

9. Bock is now understood as a term of measure, equivalent to quart de 
litre (nearly half a pint). The word is German, our ' buck,' and was really 
only the trade-mark of a particular brewery. In French the word dates 
from the introduction of German beer at the first Paris Exhibition in 1855. 

10. Soldez, ' settle up,' as one might a bill. 

27, 28. i.e. The dues of the dead figure in an account-book between two 
items : ' To cost of dance.' Entretien tombe et messe is a realistic abbrevia- 
tion : you must understand ' pour l'entretien de la tombe et pour faire dire 
des messes a leur intention.' 

CXIV 

This colloquy is perplexing by reason of its excessive condensation. I 
venture to offer a paraphrase, without being quite confident that I have 
read Laforgue aright. 

You say 'live your life.' I would live mine, but really the Ideal is too 
indefinite and too variable. — The word itself would be meaningless if the 
Ideal were the logical !— Well, but everything is in dispute. Philosophies are 
born and die, and no one can say why. — Of course ! in the real world, where 
life is the only truth, the absolute truth of some other sphere has no more 
rights. — Suppose, in despair, I lower my flag and ferry my spirit across to 
Nothingness ? — The voice of Infinitude warns you not to play the fool. — Yet 
what is beyond our conception seems near enough to the harbour of possi- 
bility — at any rate we shout as if they could hear us there ! — It is only a 
step : how many such steps there are between dawn and twilight. — Tell me 
this, at all events : does being real mean being good for something in par- 
ticular ? — That follows, doesn't it ? The rose is necessary — to its own needs. 

In other words (you put the thing queerly), the Universe is so many vicious 

circles ? — Vicious if you like : as it is the Universe, there is nothing outside 
them. — All things considered, I prefer to take the Moon for my gospel. 

(All through the collection to which this piece belongs, the Moon symbol- 
ises the Serenely Absurd ; it is the sphere where problems are of no 
account.) 

The rimes embrassdes of this strange piece all satisfy the ear. 

6. That is, one book brings another to the birth ; a new book kills the 
doctrine of the last. 

CXV 

M. de Kegnier has a power of vision, a lucidity (when he likes), and a 
suppleness of rhythm apt, as here, to convey the very sensations of speed, 
which often remind his readers of Hugo. The great poet might almost 
have written ' Apparition ' — but for some of the rimes. It is otherwise 
regular. 



376 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

5, 6. Autre — haute, a delicate assonance. Notice that four feminine 
endings are followed by four masculine ones (lines 3-6, 7-10). 

10, 11. En un bruit de vent — a very bold overflow. 

11. Bave is apparently an ' echoic ' (or onomatopoeic) word. It is of the 
same family as babil, babillard, etc. 

15-18. Twice running, singular and plural terminations are coupled, 
defying the rule but not offending the ear. 

CXVI 

It would be tiresome to call attention to all the instances, in this and 
other poems of our contemporaries, in which the old rules of rime — those 
at least which make the eye its judge — are set at nought. The variety of 
measures is by no means infelicitous, nor (as so often) a mere matter of 
printing. The theme is old, but the tone new and very engaging. The 
lines scan thus : 8 24412103—4 8 83 41248 83—2933888 88888. 

5, 6. Enivre — rire : assonance. 

15, 17. Tihde — Uvres : assonance. 

16. An octosyllable — the last syllable of une evidently does not count. 
19. Burn (burra), ' drugget ' ; whence bureau, originally a table-cloth of 

coarse material. Possibly this line is intended for an octosyllable (et 
d'laine), but I do not think so. 

25, 28. ildose—'pauvre : assonance. 

CXVII 

1, 3. Pensive — indeeise : assonance. Otherwise all the rimes perfectly 
satisfy the ear. 

CXIX 

Fresh, sunny, tuneful and a little sad, this roundelay of happy girlhood 
going forth with laughter and prattle to meet each season of the year, is 
one of the best things done in a new manner by contemporary poets in 
Prance. There is no question of scanning the lines : each strophe is a 
whole, and within each strophe the ear quickly accepts a typical measure 
and, by dragging or hurrying the rhythm in each line, makes them all con- 
form to it. The rimes are, almost without exception, perfect for the ear. 

1. Bise, the winter wind ; brise, ' breeze.' Both are of unknown origin. 

2. Ghante — branche : assonance ; elair — noires : consonant-assonance. 
4. Hewtovr is old-fashioned for marteau, ' door-knocker.' 

13. Sans se le dire, ' unconsciously.' 

25. Internal rime, as also in line 27. 

26, 28. Regret (e) : pieds (yd) — a defective rime. 
28. Dort — morte : assonance. 

CXXI 

I have respected M. Kahn's habit of beginning his lines with a small 
letter, because it is part of his theory, which considers the unit of thought 



NOTES 377 

and feeling rather than the unit of measure. It is useless to count the 
syllables in his lines : it must be allowed that in this poem at least a 
rhythm imposes itself on our ears. Kime, internal rime, assonance, allitera- 
tion of all kinds link line to line within the laisses or musical phrases. — 
Emotionally, the song is not without beauty. 

3. JSpouses — s'mtr'owvrent : internal assonance ; and there ia a complex 
interplay of r and I in this and the next two lines. 

5. An obscure line : apparently the meaning is : ' [neither your viziers' 
wives nor your barbarian captives] have souls to reveal to you rich as mine 
is with the memory of so many ideal lovers.' But inconnus, after all, may 
mean no more than usual — strangers. 

11. B&ve — ttvres : assonance. 

12. litre — fite : assonance. 

13. Lewes — escorte — dicors — rive might be called assonances erribrassdes. 

CXXII 

The parable is plain : art, the supreme luxury, goes begging in our 
utilitarian age. 

2. Brocs is pronounced br6. 

4. Le Compagnon du Tour de France is the title of one of George Sand's 
'social' novels, of which the hero, a brother (compagnon) of one of the 
guilds or crafts called Devoirs, travels the country on an evangelising 
mission. 

7. Et me verses) : this manner of speaking is quite obsolete — every one 
says et versez-moi, but it was the old rule with the second of two impera- 
tives. 

9. Calf at, * caulker,' is a Provengal word of Arabic origin. 

21. Carton-pierre is a mixture of paper-pulp and plaster. 

24. ' We scrape the bottom of the trough and drink sour wine.' Swr is 
Germanic. 

26. Chanteau, sc. de pain, ' cut loaf,' from chant, ' edge,' Latin canthum 
(kuv86s, 'corner'). 

CXXIII 

The rimes are thus disposed : aaab, cccb, dddb, eeeb, ffff. They 
are feminine in the first three lines of each strophe, all feminine in the last. 
The effect is singularly melodious. 

CXXIV 

A sonnet — with an additional line. 
6. The sixth syllable is ' atonic' 

15. An idea which seems to have haunted Samain. Compare (Au 
Jardin de I' Infante, ' Soirs ', p. 115) : — 

Quelque part une enfant tres douce drat mourir. 



378 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



cxxv 

This splendid aspiration — to be a seer, a saint, a hero — is grammatically 
a series of interjections. 

12. 13. Singular rimes with plural : otherwise this sonnet is quite 
regular (though the disposition of the rimes in the two triads does not 
follow the best models). 

CXXVI 

This sweet and subtle poem is to be compared, and contrasted, with 
Baudelaire's bitter invocation ' Le Crepuscule du Soir' in Tableaux 

Void le soir charmant, ami du criminel. 

2. An excusable inversion. 

13. From the legend of S. Veronica came the old English word vernwle, 
which meant a handkerchief with the face of Our Lord as a pattern 
upon it. 

14. Suie is a very old word of uncertain, but most probably Celtic, 
origin (cf. Irish suihaige, suice). The known Germanic forms, from one of 
which our soot (s6t) descends, would not account for the French. 

16. P&ques is a plural, as is shown by such expressions as Pdques flemies 
(Palm Sunday), and the article is elliptical : la (f6te de) Paques. The 
Latin is Paschae, but the Hebrew word it represents is singular in number. 
The form Pdqwe is used for the Jewish Passover. 

19. Anciens, trisyllabic here, is a word of doubtful scansion, like dud, 
hier, and a few more. The ie has been more generally counted by modern 
poets as a diphthong, wrongly, according to the origin of the word (popular 
Latin anteicmum, from ante). 

CXXVII 

It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that Lille is a vast manu- 
facturing centre. The poem begins like a sonnet with its two quatrains, 
then come three triads each on a single rime. 

13. Eselandre (scandalwm) is almost obsolete, the learned form scandale 
having taken its place. The first I is parasitical (as in enclume) ; for 
the second compare dpUre, chapitre. 

15 Bouir, 'to set' (flax, etc.), is here intransitive. 

CXXVIII 

The reader may restore if he likes the consecrated typography, and he 
will see that the scheme is : 10 a, 10 b, 10 a, 10 b (alternate masculine and 
feminine rime ; the old coupe 4 + 6) followed by the refrain, 6 c, 7 a, 6 c, 7 c. 
There are only three different rimes ; one of them is twice replaced by 
assonance : fite-belle ; nmettes-messe. The verse is syllabic, but the feminine 



NOTES 379 

e only counts where it would be pronounced ('troublent nos cceurs') except 
in two instances : — 

La cloche enfin tient nos Ungues muettes . . . 
Vive le gars et la fllle et la fete . . . 

Throughout the ear, not the eye, is the judge. 

Hardly any words want explaining. Qars, now only a country word, is 
the old subject-case of gargon which, by the way, is a word of unknown 
origin, though it exists in other of Romance languages. Cornettes are a 
sort of large caps worn by nuns and peasants, and probably so-called 
because of the horn-like shape of the great bows which fasten them under 
the chin. Itou (itout, etout) means aussi : it is » common word in many 
parts of France. It is almost certainly not connected with etiam or item, 
but is another form of iteu, itel, an adverb but properly an adjective, in the 
subject-case itels — hie talis. 

Tertous is for trStous, the old intensive form of tons. 



CXXIX 

Perhaps the most useful commentary on this delightful poem will be a 
conventional transcription of two paragraphs or strophes. The italics mark 
assonances and one internal rime : the rest are perfect rimes ' for the ear.' 

Cette clarte subite, oublie', me surprend, 
Plus glace 1 qu'un miroir. Quel eblouissement 
De prisme tournoyant vient envahir mon itre ? 
Mes paupieres se clos't dans le ravissement. 
Je vois en moi le Jour et ses heures AefSte ! 
Eblouissez mon am', belles heures melees ! 
Tantot e'est une aurore en feu qui me pdnetre, 
Un midi d'or trainant les violett's du couchant, 
Et tantfit e'est I'azur d'une aube devoilee, 
Ofi la terre parait, couronn^' de verdure. 

Je bute dans les herb's, mes yeux s'ouvrent au monde. 
Je regarde les hStr's et je les sens pleins d'ombre. 
O ce jour sous les arbr's on se plaint le zephyr, 
Pourquoi si froidement me vient-il eelairer ? . . . 
Je m'approche des Mtr's : je les ai vus fremir. 
Et voici qu'une feuill' se decoupe tremblante 

Sur le ciel argente", 
Que des milliers de feuill's se detachent du soir, 
Que des milliers de feuill's se decoupent en noir, 

Par la brise agitees ! 
Je les vois, une k une, et par branche, eclater 
Noires au ciel limpide, et je vois l'ombre prendre, 
Comme un feu devorant, sur leur foule parlante. 



380 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

cxxx 

60. Bruit, the verb, has two syllables ; bruit, the substantive, has one. 

CXXXII 

Sully-Prudhomme has another conception of 'L'Habitude,' too different 
even to be called inferior : — 

L'Habitude est une etrangere 
Qui supplante en nous la raison : 
C'est une ancienne menagere 
Qui s'installe dans la maison. 

— {La Vie Interiewre.) 

' C'est le sentiment de ceux qui n'en ont point,' says Mile, de Lespinasse. 
Notice that the rimes are all feminine. M. Angellier accepts all the 
reasonable reforms (admitting hiatus, for instance). 



The following remarks may be found useful by English readers who are 
quite ignorant of French prosody. How French verse is to be read cannot 
be taught by written words, but the rudiments of its mechanism may. Fuller 
information is accessible in a large choice of manuals and treatises, amongst 
others in — 

Quicherat : Traite de Versification frangaise (1850). 

Tobler : Le vers frangais, ancien et moderne [French translation of the 

German work, Vom frambsischen Versbau] (1885). 
Banville : Petit traite de Poisie frangaise (1872). 
L. B. Kastner : A History of French Versification (Oxford, 1903). 
L. M. Brandin : A Booh of French Prosody (1904). 

The more philosophical (or speculative) Traiti general de Versification 
frangaise of Becq de Fouquieres (1879), W. Tenint's Prosodie de V&cole 
moderne (1844), Clair Tisseur's Modestes observations sur Vart de versifier 
(1893), are almost indispensable to those who are particularly interested 
in the Romantic handling of the Alexandrine ; and the prosodical disputes 
of our contemporaries are the subject of Sully-Prudhomme's short essay 
Reflexions sur Vart des vers (1892), and of a chapter on 'Le Vers libre' in 
M. Bemy de Gourmont's admirable book L'Esthitique de la Langue frangaise. 



APPENDIX 

SOME REMARKS UPON MEASURE, RIME, AND 
RHYTHM IN FRENCH VERSE 

MEASUEE 

1. The measure of a line of French verse is determined by the 
number of syllables it contains : the measure of several lines is 
the same when the number of syllables in each is the same. All 
syllables within the body of a line being reputed equal, differences 
in value, whether of stress or of duration, cannot affect the 
measure. 

In English verse identity of measure does not always depend 
upon the number of syllables : two lines may belong to the same 
type of verse, though one contain more syllables than the other, 
so long as there is no excess in the number of stresses — that 
is, of syllables which in ordinary speech we pronounce with 
greater energy. 

2. In French verse syllables formed by the vowel called feminine 
e, 1 unless occurring at the end of a line, are counted, even when by 
the habits of modern pronunciation they are silent. 

The feminine e, which was sounded in every case (though 
lightly) until the sixteenth century or even later, and is still 
sounded in the speech of Southern Frenchmen wherever it 
occurs, has now ceased in the pronunciation of good speakers 
to have any value for the ear except in certain specified cases, 
e.g. when it occurs in the initial syllable of a group of words, in 
enclitics of one syllable followed by a second syllable containing 
the same vowel, and when it is placed between two consonants 
and a third (being a mute). In reciting verse, though the 
feminine e is still sounded apart from such cases as these by 

1 It is less well but more commonly called e mute, a name which begs the 
question of its value. 



382 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

certain speakers, the better practice is now to drop it altogether, 
and to make up the loss by the almost instinctive device of 
prolonging the preceding or other syllables in the line so that 
the duration of the whole remains unaffected. 

Within the last twenty years there has arisen among the 
younger poets a movement against counting syllables which are 
not in fact pronounced. But the practice of the most revolu- 
tionary versifiers is, so far, too inconsistent for any alternative 
rule to be even stated. 
A feminine e when followed immediately by another vowel is 

invariably elided (or cancelled), and a fresh syllable begins with 

the consonant which preceded it. Thus, 

Le ciel a force d'ombre etait comme aplani 

12345 6 78 9 10 11 12 

is a line of twelve syllables : the seventh syllable is bre, the tenth is 
ma. Though there is now no real aspirate in French, the initial h 
in a considerable number of words, chiefly of Germanic origin, is a 
reputed consonant, and there can be no elision before it. 

Cueillez la branche de houx. 
12 8 i s 6 7 

A feminine e at the end of a word, immediately preceded by a 
vowel, must be followed by a word beginning with a vowel, and 
therefore be elided, unless it occurs at the end of a line. 

Cher Zachari(e), allez ; ne vous arrStez pas. 
But such a line as 

Cher Zacharie, pars, et ne t'arrete pas 
would be incorrect. 

This rule dates only from the sixteenth century and was not 
invariably obeyed even in the seventeenth. Becent poets often 
break it, and it is probably doomed. 
A feminine e immediately preceded by a vowel in the body of 
a word is not counted. 

Effraient has two syllables, voient has one, gaite (gaiete) has 
two, remerciement (remerciment) four. 

3. A diphthong 1 is counted, by definition, as only one syllable. 
•Changes in French pronunciation have in many cases turned two 

1 A diphthong is the combination of a semi- vowel with a pure or nasal 
vowel. It must never be confounded with a digraph, in which two letters 
represent one vowel, as au, ei, ai. 



APPENDIX 383 

distinct and successive sounds into a diphthong, while in others a 
diphthong has been divided into two syllables. Prosody, in this as 
in other respects, is often more conservative than speech. 

4. A line of French verse may have from one to thirteen syllables, 
or even more. The commoner measures are of thres, four, five, six, 
seven, eight, ten and twelve syllables. 



RIME 

It is a fundamental law of French verse that every line must end 
in a syllable which the ear recognises as identical with the last 
syllable of one or several other lines, whether the vowel in this 
last syllable be followed by one or several consonants or be 
absolutely final. This identity constitutes rime, and the ear is in 
theory its judge ; but rime is in fact complicated by the reminiscence 
of older pronunciations perpetuated by inconsistent spelling, so that 
in many cases even a perfect identity of sound is by tradition held 
inadequate, because the two syllables in question, being differently 
spelled, would once have been differently pronounced ; while on the 
other hand identical spelling is sometimes allowed as a pretext for 
coupling sounds which do not now agree perfectly together. To 
make the ear invariably the sole arbiter of what is and what is not 
rime is the object of a reform which, though perhaps in the long 
run inevitable, has not yet been established by any constant 
practice. 

At the same time there is a recent disposition to substitute an 
occasional assonance for rime. Assonance, or identity of vowel 
without identity of consonants, was used in early French 
narrative poetry, but from the thirteenth century onwards only 
survived in popular verse. Blank verse has also been used, but 
without success, at various periods, notably at the Renaissance. 
Occasional blank verses are to be met with in the writings of 
certain living poets. 

1. In principle, a syllable containing any one of the fifteen French 
vowels cannot be said to rime with a syllable containing any other. 
The vowels are these (the symbols being those adopted by the 
' Association phonetique internationale ') : — 



384, A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Pure Vowels Nasal Vowels 

a (rnal) a (male) a (ment) 

e (mai) e (mais) t (main) 

o (maux) a (mode) o (mont) 

(meut) ce (meule) & (Meung) 

i (mie) semi-vowels, i.e. i, u, y com- 

u (moule) bined with pure or nasal 

y (mule) vowels to form diphthongs 

and sounded with little more 

vibration than consonants : 

j (miel), w (moi), u; (muida). 

The coupling, however of a and a is held tolerable by the 
example of the great modern poets ; that of o and o is now much 
rarer. 1 

In principle, a diphthong rimes only with a diphthong ; but in all 
ages poets of repute have occasionally coupled diphthongs with pure 
or nasal vowels : 2 the practice is justifiable on the theory that the 
semi-vowel of a diphthong is really a consonant. 

2. The last audible vowel of a line may be actually final or it may 
be followed only by a consonant or consonants, whether silent or 
pronounced : in either case the termination is called masculine. If 
on the contrary a feminine e follows the last audible vowel in a line, 
whether immediately or with the intervention of one or more con- 
sonants, the termination is called feminine. A masculine termina- 
tion cannot be said to rime with a feminine one. 

Whatever the value of a feminine e within the line, at the end 
it is neither audible nor counted : its value is illusory or 
becomes real only by a caprice of declamation. The French 
ear no longer recognises any difference between vis and vice or 
between mal and malle or between vrai and vraie. The natural 
distinction (recently proposed by M. de Gourmont) would be 
this : when the last sound is a vowel, the termination is 
masculine ; when the last sound is a consonant the termination 
is feminine. But the few poets of our day who have repudiated 
the old rule are by no means consistent, nor perhaps is their 
authority sufficient for its repeal. 

1 Laohe : taehe — couronne : trdne. This sort of rime is sometimes con- 
demned on the ground that one vowel is ' long ' and the other ' short.' It 
is not a question of quantity, but of quality. 

2 They have avoided however coupling wa with a — roi : ingrat. 



APPENDIX 385 

Hence the rime itself is called masculine or feminine, and in 
French verse the rimes must be of either kind alternately. 

In other words, if a line have a masculine ending, the next 
must either rime with it, or must have a feminine termination 
belonging to a fresh rime. This rule, founded perhaps upon 
the original interdependence of lyrical poetry and music, but 
formulated at the Eenaissance, no longer even secures the 
variety it aimed at. It is combated by both the more and the 
less advanced reformers, and is apparently doomed, at least as 
far as the longer measures are concerned. 

3. Though the definition of rime requires the identity of any 
consonants pronounced after the riming vowel in a pair of lines, 
excellent poets have not infrequently coupled a word ending in an 
audible consonant with a word in which the final sound is a vowel, 
if that vowel were followed by a silent consonant which in the older 
pronunciation of the language would have sounded exactly like 
the audible consonant in its fellow. 

Until the seventeenth century final s or x signifying a plural, 

or any other final consonant, though ordinarily silent, might 

be sounded for the sake of emphasis, or before a pause. 

Except in the South of France, this habit has disappeared 

(leaving certain traces in the alternative pronunciation of the 

word tous and of several numerals) : but there is thus some 

historical justification for such rimes as las : hilas I — Vinus : nus 

— bdnit : zenith. Less excusable is the class of defective rimes 

known as ' Norman,' in which the infinitive ending -er [e] is 

coupled with the open e [s] and audible r of words like 

cher, mer. 

Two words of which the last audible syllable is identical cannot 

be said to rime if one, and not the other, ends in the silent letters 

-es or -ent ; and in a masculine rime, if the last vowel of one word is 

followed by silent s, x or z, the last vowel of the other word must 

also be followed by any one of these three letters, which are reputed 

equivalent. 

A nasal vowel of course can only rime with a nasal, but it is 
indifferent whether the silent consonant which is part of its sign 
be n or m. Other silent consonants than these following the final 
vowel have no importance if the rime is otherwise good. 

Banville and other precisians protest against this ' laxity,' but 
few good poets would reject such rimes as tyran : diffirend, or 

2b 



386 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

even nid: flnit, though most perhaps would hesitate to couple 
tabac with combat. The ear of course approves all these 
equally. 
A silent consonant immediately preceding a final s is also 
immaterial to the rime. 

Moris, remords, mors all rime perfectly together. 

4. A rime which fulfils these conditions is a sufficient rime : a rich 
rime is one in which, besides, the required identity in sound is ex- 
tended to the consonant or the vowel immediately preceding the last 
audible vowel. To admit only rich rimes, at least in words of more 
than one syllable, is a counsel of perfection. 

This sound if a consonant is called consonne d'appui. 
Rime words in French may be identical from the first sound to 
the last, i.e. equivocal rimes are perfectly admissible, on condition 
that the two words making one sound be absolutely distinct, not 
necessarily in their etymology, but in their meaning. 

A rule formulated by Malherbe and incapable of rigorous 
statement, as it touches the matter of poetry, requires in addition 
that the two words which form a rime shall not be so closely 
related in meaning or in grammatical form as to exclude the 
element of surprise. The spirit of this rule forbids the poet to 
couple words which suggest each other too readily (e.g. bonhew, 
malheur), and also condemns a large class of too easy or too 
common rimes, which includes adverbs in -merit, substantives 
in -ion, participles in -e and many verbal terminations. 

STRUCTURE 

In a French poem as in an English one, the lines may be all 
of one measure, or different measures may be combined in a 
single poem. The lines may follow one another in riming pairs 
(which is the rule in dramatic poetry, and is most usual in narrative) : 
the rimes are then called ' flat ' — rimes plates ; — or they may rime 
alternately — rimes croisees ; — or a riming pair may be enclosed by 
two other lines which rime together, according to the formula 
abba, rimes embrassees or enclavdes ; — or these dispositions may be 
combined. In certain sorts of poem, called therefore poemes a forme 
Jixe, the arrangement of the rimes, the number of lines, their 
measure, one or several, and their grouping in strophes or stanzas, 
are settled by a rigid tradition and a special code. 



APPENDIX 387 

For the construction of the Sonnet, the Ballade, the Vil- 

lanelle, the Chant Royal, the Eondeau, the Triolet, the Virelai, 

the Sextine, the Ternaire, the reader will refer to the regular 

manuals. 

Most French lyrical poetry is written in less settled forms — more 

or less consecrated by illustrious use — consisting in an unlimited 

number of strophes exactly repeated or diversified at regular periods. 

The variety of French lyrical strophes is considerable, and there is 

no formal limit to invention. A poem in which the divisions, the 

combinations of different measures and the disposition of the rimes 

are arbitrary — in other words, a poem unique in structure — is said 

to be written in vers Ubres. 

In this sense the Fables of La Fontaine supply the most 
illustrious examples of vers Ubres ; but the expression has been 
recently applied to verses which do not conform to the tradi- 
tional prosody. Others, in which the spirit of old rules is 
respected but the rules themselves interpreted more liberally or 
so modified as to correspond more closely to the modern pro- 
nunciation of French, are often described as vers liberis — 
emancipated. 

HIATUS 

Hiatus, by which is understood the juxtaposition of a final 
vowel (not being feminine e) and an initial vowel, has in principle 
been forbidden in French verse for the last three centuries; but 
apart from the toleration of special cases — such as the phrase ' ga et 
Ub' — and occasional infringements by even famous poets, the rule 
has been observed inconsistently, or only 'for the eye.' Recently, 
the grounds of the prohibition have been questioned ; many living 
poets disregard it entirely ; and it is agreed that its statement at 
least needs revising in accordance with phonetic principles, which 
would distinguish between (1) a real breach of continuity, necessary 
to the enunciation of two succeeding vowels when both are identical 
or when the first is a nasal — but not always disagreeable to the ear ; 
and (2) other cases, involving no such interruption, in which two 
vowels belonging to different words follow each other immediately. 

It may be said that hiatus is offensive only when it occurs 
within a rhythmical group [v. infra], and not always then-^if, 
for instance, the foregoing vowel belong to an enclitic or a word 
relatively unimportant, or if the vowels in collision form such 



388 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

a combination as the ear is accustomed to accept in the body 
of single French words, especially a combination easily assimi- 
lated to a diphthong (i, u, y+ vowel). 

RHYTHM 

In French verse Rhythm, or order in time, means a distribution 
of variable elements in a fixed period having for its object the 
gratification of the ear by a sense of change in uniformity. 

1. The formation of these elements or groups of syllables depends 
upon grammatical or logical coherence in agreement with certain 
habits of the ear, or in other words upon meaning controlled by 
rhythmical tradition. 

2. Their termination is marked by the incidence of stress, with 
either a prolongation of the vowel upon which it falls or a more or 
less appreciable interruption before the first syllable of the succeed, 
ing group. 

Stress in French, though susceptible of varying degrees of 
intensity according to the natural sonority of the vowel which 
bears it, is normally less emphatic than the stress we place on 
a particular syllable of almost every English word. Etymo- 
logically, the last tonic vowel (i.e. the last vowel not being a 
feminine e) of every French word except enclitics of one syl- 
lable is capable of bearing a stress which represents the Latin 
accent. But the characteristic continuity of spoken French 
makes the phrase and not the word the real unit of speech, 
and tends to level in respect of intensity all the syllables within 
a group of words cohering by the sense, except that enclitic 
monosyllables are lighter than other tonic syllables, and syllables 
formed by a feminine e are lighter still. It is the last syllable 
of a whole group which receives the stress. 

3. The number of groups thus constituted is not limited by any 
rule of prosody ; nor in the case of lines having less than nine syl- 
lables is the number of syllables contained in each group prescribed. 
As regards the longer measures tradition, hardened into rule, long 
required that they should be divided into two primary elements 
of fixed proportions by a principal pause or interruption called (by 
false analogy with Latin verse) a caesura. 



APPENDIX 389 

4. The syllable which immediately precedes the caesura receives a 
stress: it must therefore be the last tonic syllable of a group of 
words, or (in rare instances) of a single word which, being insulated 
and self-sufficient, is equivalent to a group ; and it cannot belong to 
an enclitic or contain a feminine e. It may however be immediately 
followed, in the same word, by a final syllable containing a feminine e, 
which vowel must be elided by a following vowel, the caesura in this 
case marking not a rest — in the musical sense — but a pause. 

In the older French poetry a feminine e ending a word 
which immediately preceded the caesura was not counted in the 
line. 
A caesura is vitiated if the word which precedes it is connected 
by a close grammatical relation with what follows, or if it con- 
stitutes a dependent member of a phrase to be completed with 
words belonging to the succeeding group. 

5. In the infrequent line of nine syllables the caesura occurs 
after the third, the fourth or the fifth syllable ; in the decasyllabic 
(originally the chief measure of epic poetry, and subsequently the 
favourite measure of fable and light satire) it occurs after the 
fourth, more rarely after the fifth or the sixth; in lines of eleven 
syllables, after the fifth. 

Nine: — 



Ten:— 



Eleven :- 



Prends l'eloquence || et tors-lui le cou. 
4 5 



Mattre Corbeau, || sur un arbre perche 
i 6 

N'est-ee point assez || d'aimer sa maitresse ? 
5 5 



Sur le vert ooteau || peignant aes cheveux d'or 
5 6 



6. The Alexandrine of twelve syllables is by the classical rules 
of French versification (and possibly by a reminiscence of its origin 
as a reduplication of the ancient line of six syllables) divided by 
the caesura into two equal halves. The composition of either half 
line (or hemistich) is rarely indestructible, and the sense normally 
suggests or requires additional pauses. The subdivisions are in 
the discretion of poets, who have in general preferred such as the 



390 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

ear could appreciate most readily. The commoner elements in 
either half-line are groups of two, three or four syllables. Thus : — 

Je crains Dieu, | cher Abner, || et n'ai point | d'autre crainte. 

3 3 3 3 

Sea trois vaisseaux | en rade || avaient mis | voile baa. 

4 2 3 3 

J'evi|te d'etre long, ]| et je deviens | obsour. 
2 4 4 2 

7. Lines occur not infrequently in the classical poets in which 
the subdivisions are more imperiously dictated by the sense than 
is the principal division : that is, the sense requires a pause at 
the sixth less evidently than at intermediate syllables : 

Qu'est-ce done ? || Qu'avez-vous | qui vous puisae | emouvoir ? 

In rarer distributions, elements of one and of five syllables are 
found. A monosyllabic element immediately preceding or follow- 
ing the caesura has very commonly the effect of weakening it. The 
line 

Et qu'enfin | sa candeur || seule [ a fait tous sea vices 
3 3 15 

may be recited so as to emphasise the break between ' candeur ' and 
' seule ' ; but a more natural reading will sacrifice the pause at the 
expected place and thus prolong the rhythmical period : 

Et qu'enfin | sa candeur j seule || a fait tous ses vices. 

Occasionally the caesura was actually perfunctory, the sense barely 
tolerating and in no way requiring a suspension of the voice at the 
half-line. Examples of this, before the nineteenth century, are found 
chiefly in satire and in comic dialogue. 

On m'avait fait venir j d' Amiens | pour Stre Suisse 
Et tel mot, | pour avoir I rejoui le lecteur 

8. Such attenuations of the ' median ' caesura prepared the French 
ear for the virtual abrogation of the rule which required it. Great 
as is the variety of rhythms which the classical Alexandrine furnished 
to Racine and some other poets of the seventeenth century, its limits 
appeared too narrow for the new rhetoric of the Romantic generation, 
who desired an instrument apt not only to express the most tumul- 
tuous moods and passions but to express them realistically. 

In the early poetry of Victor Hugo and of Vigny (as indeed in 
certain of Andre Chehier's fragments) evidence of discontent with the 



APPENDIX 391 

old immovable caesura appear in numerous Alexandrines of which 
the main division is more or less equivocal. The characteristic 
rhythms of the Eomantic poets were very gradually and somewhat 
timidly evolved. Their common definition is that they substitute 
two principal pauses or interruptions, one occurring at any place in 
the first hemistich, the other at any place in the second, for the single 
caesura at the half-line and the two discretionary subdivisions of the 
classical system. The Romantic Alexandrine is thus tripartite. The 
following are examples of its commoner types : — 

L'obscurite, les | cieux I brumeux, | les oieux vermeils. 

4 i i 

Voila l'hom|rae. Qui done ! a dit : | l'homme est sublime ? 

>5 4 

Le loup hur|le, le ver j man[ge. Rien ne repond. 

3 4 5 
L'inflexiou | des voix j chores qui se sont tues. 

4 3 5 

Chair de la femme, | argile j ideale : | 6 merveille ! 

4 '5 3 

II est grand et blond ; | l'autre I est petit, | pale et brun. 
5 43 

Des la I ves, sous l'ecorce i affreu | se des basaltes. 
2 6 4 

It will appear from these examples (1) that the point of departure 
was a compression or rather a coalition, more or less demanded by 
considerations of syntax or of meaning, between two subdivisions of 
the classical scheme ; and (2) that the general effect of the Romantic 
rhythms is to diminish somewhat the absolute duration in time of 
the entire period filled by an Alexandrine. 

9. Poets of the Romantic age (and notably Victor Hugo through- 
out his careeer) all but invariably preserved the letter of the old rule 
while so often rebelling against its spirit : that is, they were careful 
to keep the ' median ' caesura ' for the eye ' and to avoid placing a 
syllable naturally incapable of bearing a stress, as an enclitic or a 
feminine e, or a syllable actually incorporated or inseparably con- 
nected with a following word, at the place in the line where the old 
division would have fallen. On this account they have been blamed 
for timidity and superstition — with how much injustice has been 
indicated elsewhere (Introduction, p. 53). 

Their successors have abandoned their scruples. There are in 
Leconte de Lisle, Banville, Baudelaire, Verlaine a certain number of 



392 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

lines in which the illusion of a 'median' caesura is no longer 
sustained : — 

La roici morte. Que l'abime l'engloutisse ! 

ma nuit claire ! tes yeux dans mon olair de lune ! 

Seraifc-ce point quelque jugement sans merci ? 

And finally, lines in which a polysyllable actually bestrides the 
place of the old caesura are relatively frequent in the poetry of to-day 
— even in that part of it which in most other respects clings to the 
traditions of French versification. One example will be enough : — 

Celles qui furent familieres, mes pensees. 

It should be observed that the Eomantic Alexandrine with its 
varieties and its extensions is still many times less often found in 
the works of the Eomantic and later poets than the old classical 
line clearly and equally divided. 

ENJAMBEMENT 

The name enjambement is properly given to a protraction of 
the last rhythmical element in a line, and a consequent omission of 
the interval or breathing-space between one line and the next. 

The unity of a line may be perfectly preserved, and its final 
element may constitute a real group separated by logic or 
syntax — and therefore by rhythm — from what is to follow, even 
though it leave the general sense incomplete in the case of a 
long periodical sentence. This kind of false enjambement was 
quite common in the classical French poets, though it is true that 
they were careful in tragedy (and generally whenever they used 
the Alexandrine in rimes plates) that the conclusion of a pair 
of lines should coincide with the end of a sentence. In the 
poetry of the nineteenth century ' periods of thought ' do not 
necessarily correspond to any fixed rhythmical period — the line, 
the couplet or even the strophe. (It need hardly be repeated 
that the logical or syntactical elements of such a ' period of 
thought ' do correspond to the variable rhythmical elements and 
indeed actually create the rhythm.) 
The line being a unit, it follows that the end of a line must be 
also the end of a group or rhythmical element. Under the classical 
system enjambement, as defined, was forbidden, just as the ' median ' 



APPENDIX 393 

caesura was enjoined upon poets — in the interest of measure. In 
both cases the rule was relaxed by the Romantics as an obstacle to 
the free development of expression and as tending to rhythmical 
monotony; but as all good poets recognise the unity of measure 
which enjambement endangers as a paramount object, they have used 
this liberty with the utmost caution. In general it has been held 
that — 

(1) Enjambement requires a reinforcement of rime, upon which 
alone devolves the function of marking the end of a line when the 
stopping-point is temporarily obliterated. Hence in part the 
Romantic dogma of ' rich rimes.' 

(2) The mere overflow of a grammatical supplement — of one or 
two words necessary to complete a phrase — is to be discouraged as 
an awkwardness ; and the sentence (divisible of course into smaller 
groups of syllables) should not be brought to a conclusion before the 
end of the second line. Otherwise the enjambement will have the 
effect of a mere arbitrary prolongation of the normal measure — be 
it Alexandrine or decasyllable or other — and its unity instead of 
being quickly restored will be compromised still more. 

The following passages contain examples both of true and of 
false enjambement. In order to distinguish the true cases, the 
rhythmical groups astride between two lines are enclosed within 
square brackets. 

Le moment vint ; l'esoadre appareilla ; [les roues 

Tournerent ;] par ce tas de voiles et de proues, 

Dont l'apre artillerie en vingt salves gronda, 

L'infini se laissa violer. L' Armada, 

Formidable, penchant, prSte a eraoher le soufre, 

Les gueules des canons sur les gueules du gouffre, 

Nageant, polype humain, sur l'abfme b^ant, 

Et, comme un noir poisson dans un filet geant, 

Prenant l'ouragan sombre en ses mille cordages, 

S'ebranla . . . 

Homme, l'Sltre doit Stre. Homme, il n'est pas possible 

Que la fleehe esprit vole et n'ait pas une cible. 

II ne se peut, si vain et si croulant [que soit 

Ce monde] ou l'on voit fuir tout ce qu'on apercoit, 

II ne se peut, 6 tombe ! 6 nuit ! que la nature 

Ne soit qu'une inutile et creuse couverture, 

Que le fond soit de l'ombre aveugle, [que le bout 

Soit le vide], et que Rien ait pour e^orce Tout. 



394 A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 

Enjambement and rejet are sometimes used as convertible 
terms. The latter comprehends any extension of a rhythmical 
element beyond a point fixed by rule or tradition — as the 
caesura ; enjambement, which affects the end of a line only, is a 
particular case of rejet. 



INDEX 



(The numerals in italics after the names of poets represented in this volume 

refer to pages containing the notices upon them and the selections 

from their poetry. 'N' = Commentary, ' n ' =foot-note. ) 



Adam de la Hale, 7. 

Adam, Paul, 298. 

Albani, Francesco, N. 339. 

Alexandrine, The, 3. 

Alixandre, 3n. 

Allan, Mme., 177. 

Amadis de Gaule, 13. 

Ampere, J. -J., 213. 

Anacreon, 14. 

Andrieux, Francois, 37, 67. 

Angellier, Auguste, 334-326, N. 380. 

Anne of Brittany, 13. 

Apuleius, N. 356. 

Arnold, Matthew, N. 364. 

Arras, 7. 

Auch, N. 362. 

Augusta, The Empress, 302. 

Augustan Period, The, 25-34. 

Aupick, General, 251, 253. 

Mme., 254. 

Baif, Antoine de, 14, 15, 18. 
Ballade, N. 362. 
Balzac, Jean de Guez de, 22. 
Banville, Theodore de, 51, 227-232, 

238, N. 361-363, 385, 391. 
Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules, 252, N. 

369. 
Barbier, Auguste, 107, 120, 207-212, 

213, N. 359, 360, 374. 
Barres, Maurice, 330. 
Baudelaire, Charles, 227, 238, 251- 

265, N. 354, 364-367, 378, 391. 
Beaumarchais, 36 n. 
Belgiojoso, Princess, 177. 
Belleau, Remy, 14 n., 18, N. 354. 
Benserade, I. de, 23. 
Beranger, P. -J. de, 38, 70-78, N. 337, 

338. 
Berkeley, Bishop, 39 n. 
Berlioz, Hector, 163, 166. 
Bernhardt, Mme. Sarah, 275. 
Beroul, the trouvire, 6 n. 
Berri, Duke de, 119. 



Bire, Edmond, 178. 

Biron, N. 353. 

Blondel de Nesle, 6. 

Boequet, Leon, 321. 

Bodel, Jean, 7. 

Boileau-Despreaux, 24, 32-34, 46, 278. 

Bonaparte, Joseph, 119. 

Lueien, 70. 

Princess Mathilde, 170, 193. 

Bordeaux, Duke de (Count de Cham- 
bord), 119. 

Borel, Petrus, 192. 

Borghese, Caroline Bonaparte, Prin- 
cess, N. 340. 

Bossuet, 3n., 25n., 39n., 49, 50, N. 
351. 

Boucher, Francois, N. 339. 

Bouilhet, Louis, 233-236, N. 363. 

Bourget, Paul, 302. 

Brizeux, Auguste, 120, 213-217, N. 
360, 361. 

Browning, 289, N. 352. 

Brusle, Gace, 6. 

Buffon, 36n.,39n. 

Burns, Robert, 334. 

Busoni, P., 213. 

Byron, 48, 49, 88, 89, 108, 175, N. 
345, 354, 356. 

Cagliostbo, 163. 
Calvin, 3n. 
Camoens, N. 353. 
Canova, N. 340. 
Casanova, Jacques, 213. 
Cassandro, N. 358. 
Charlemagne, Pelerinage de, 3, 5. 
Charles x., King of France, 79, 89, 

121. 
Charles, Mme. ('Elvire '), 88, N. 342. 
Chartier, Alain, 8, N. 353. 
Chateaubriand, 36 n., 41, 43, 47-50, 

119. 
Chaulieu, Abbe de, 37. 
Chenedolle, C.-J. de, 43. 

395 



396 



A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



Chenier, M.-J., 37. 

Andre, 16, 42, 43, 175, 207, 299, 

N. 340, 374, 390. 
Chreatien de Troyes, 6n., N. 357. 
Christine de Pisan, 8. 
Chryseis, N. 374. 
Classical Decadence, The, 34-44. 
Cleopatra, N. 370. 
Coleridge, S. T., N. 355. 
Colet, Mme. Louise, 176. 
Colombine, N. 359. 
Colon, Jenny, 163. 
Commynes, Philippe de, 13. 
Condorcet, 251. 
Conon de Bethune, 6. 
Coppee, Francois, 275-217, 286, N. 

369, 370. 
Coquillart, G., 8. 
Corneille, 22, 24, 27, 28, 47. 
Corot, J.-B..335. • 
Correggio, N. 339. 
Courier, Paul-Louis, 71, N. 338. 
Cowley, Abraham, 24. 
Cowper, William, 40. 
Crepet, Eugene, 253, 255. 
Cretin, Guillaume, 8. 

D'AuBi&Ni, Ageippa, 19, 20, 207. 
Daurat, Jean (Auratus), 14. 
David, Louis, N. 339, 340. 

(d' Angers), P. -J., N. 354. 

Debussy, Claude, 282. 
Delacroix, Eugene, 252, 253, N. 339. 
Delavigne, Casimir, 79-84, N. 339, 340. 
Delille, Abbe Jacques, 40, 43, 46, 52, 

N. 362. 
De Quincey, Thomas, 1, 3 n., 253. 
Desbordes- Valmore, Marceline, 85-87, 

91, N. 340. 
Des Champs, Eustache, 8. 
Deschamps, Bmile, 120, 164, 166-168, 

238, 252, N. 353. 

Antony, 120, 167, 238. 

Desportes, Abbe, 18, 20. 

Diderot, 36 n., 40, 41 n., N. 351. 

Dierx, Leon, 266, 321. 

Dorat, C.-J., 37. 

Du Bellay, Joachim, 14, 15, 18, 175. 

Dubois, 170. 

Ducis, J.F.,43. 

Dumas, Alexandre (pkre), 121. 

Duval, Jeanne, 252, N. 366, 367. 

Eleanor of Aquitaine, 6. 
Epidaurus, N. 337. 
Euphuists, 22. 

Fabliaux, 8. 



Felibriges, 281. 

Fiacre, Saint, N. 363. 

Flaubert, Gustave, 193, 232, 234, 

238, 252, N. 363. 
Fort, Paul, 325-329, N. 378, 379. 
Foucher, Paul, 175. 
Fouinet, Ernest, N. 366. 
Fould, Achille, N. 348. 
Foy, General, 79. 
France, Anatole, 39. 
Francis I., King of France, 13. 
Froissart, Jean, 8. 
Fumes, N. 373. 

Gand (Ghent), Boulevard de, N. 359. 

Gap, N. 362. 

Gautier, Theophile, 51, 120, 167, 

192-206, 227, 238, 252-254, N. 

355-359. 
Gerard, Francois, N. 340. 
Gessner, Salomon, 41. 
Gilbert, N.- J. -L., 42 n. 
Girodet, Louis, N. 340. 
Goethe, 48, 49, 163. 
Gounod, Charles, N. 355. 
Gourmont, Bemy de, N. 352, 380, 

384. 
Gresset, Louis, 13, 32, 37. 
Greuze, J.-B., N. 339. 
Gros, A. -J., N. 340. 
Guarini, 22. 
Guerin, P.-N., N. 340. 
Charles, 330-333, N. 380. 

Hadbian, The Emperor, N. 340. 

Hallam, Arthur, 121. 

Harlequin, N. 359. 

Haussoullier, G., 252. 

Heliogabalus, N. 368. 

Henry iv., King of France, 20. 

Heredia, J.-M. de, 218, 278-280, N. 
370. 

Hermes Trismegistus, N. 365. 

Herrick, Robert, 14. 

Horace, N. 341. 

Housman, A. E., 325. 

Hugo, General Sigisbert, 119. 

Victor, 11, 17, 43, 51-55, 58, 

60, 91, 92, 107, 109, 119-162, 169, 
170, 175, 193, 207, 213, 238, 252, 
281, N. 341, 343, 345-352, 354, 357, 
362, 366, 369, 372, 375, 390, 391. 

Mme. Victor (Adele Foucher), 

119, 170. 

Leopoldine (Mme. Charles Vac- 

querie), 121, N. 348. 

Jammes, Feancis, 330. 



INDEX 



397 



Jodelle, Etienne, 14n., 18. 
Johnson, Samuel, 50. 
Juan, Don, N. 356. 
Julian, The Emperor, N. 363. 
Juvenal, N. 359. 
Juvenal des Ursins, 326. 

Kahn, Gustave, 316-318, N. 376, 

377. 
Kipling, Rudyard, 71. 

Labb, Louise, 14 n. 
Labrunie, Gerard, see Nerval, Ge- 
rard de. 
Lacordaire, Le Pere, 253. 
Ladislas, King of Poland, N. 351. 
La Fontaine, 13, 26-28, 32, 35, 47, 

178, 228, 387. 
Laforgue, Jules, 60, 302-305, N. 374, 

375. 
Lamartine, A. de, 35, 51, 52, 67, 

88-106, 108, 175, 177, 221, 271, N. 

340-343. 
Lamb, Charles, 26. 
Lamennais, Abbe F. de, 170. 
Lamotte-Houdart, A., 37. 
Landor, W. S., 238. 
Laprade, Victor Richard de, 92, 

220-226, 268, 276, N. 342. 
Lebrun, P.-D.-E., 37, 46. 

Charles, N. 339. 

Leconte de Lisle, 57-59, 109, 123, 

178, 233, 237-250, 266, 267, 270, 

275, 278, 279, 281, 306, N. 363, 

364, 391. 
Legouis, A. , 335. 
Lemercier, N. 43. 
Leo x., Pope, N. 339. 
Lesage, 35 n. 

Lespinasse, Mile, de, 41 n. 
Lewis xin., N. 352. 

xvin., 88, N. 359. 

Lille, N. 362. 
Liswegh, N. 372. 
Lorris, G. der, 7, 9. 
Louis-Philippe, King, 70, 89, 121. 
Louvre, Pictures and statues removed 

from the, N. 339, 340. 
Lucretius, 108, 267. 
Lusignan, N. 353. 

Machaut, G. de, 8. 

Maeterlinck, Maurice, 63 n., 288, 325. 

Magnan, General, N. 348. 

Maine, Duchess du, 37. 

Malherbe, Francois de, 20-22, 24, 33, 

53, 299, N. 342, 386. 
Malibran, Mme. (Maria Garcia), 177. 



Mallarm4, Stephane, 64 n. 266, 281- 

284, 306, N. 370, 371. 
Manet, E., 281. 
Marbore, N. 344. 
Marino (Marini), 22. 
Marivaux, 35 n. 
Marlowe, 325. 
Marot, Clement, 13, 14 n., 15, 19, 27, 

38. 
Martial, 14. 
Mauclair, Camille, 305. 
Maupas, C.-E. de, N. 349. 
Maynard, Francois, 24. 
Mazeppa, N. 345, 346. 
Medici, Tombs of the, N. 355. 
Mendes, Catulle, 275. 
Meredith, George, 71. 
Merimee, Prosper, 193. 
Meschinot, Jean, 8. 
Meung, Jean de, 7, 9. 
Meyerbeer, 166. 
Michaut, G., 170 n. 
Michel, Francisque, N. 343. 
Michelangelo, N. 355. 
Michelet, Jules, 2. 
Middle Ages, French Poetry in the, 

3-12. 
Millevoye, Charles, 43, 67-69. 
Milton, 17, 19, N. 366. 
Mockel, Albert, 283, N. 370. 
Mocquard, J.-F.-C, N. 349. 
Moliere, 13, 19, 28, 29, 32, 34, 47, 

N. 356. 
Molina, Tirso de, N. 356. 
Molinet, Jean, 8. 
Moloch, N. 345. 
Monstrelet, E. de, 326. 
Montaigne, 13, 22. 
Moreas, Jean, 298-301, 306, N. 373, 

374. 
Morgan, Mor-gen (Morgain, Mor- 
gana), N. 350. 
Morny, Duke de, N. 348, 349. 
Mozart, N. 356. 
Miiller, Max, 34 n. 
Muset, Colin, the trouvere, 175. 
Musset, Alfred de, 55, 120, 175-191, 

220, N. 354, 355. 

Napoleon i., 79, 121, 163, N. 338, 

339, 340, 356, 359, 360. 

in., 121, 122. 

Nerval, Gerard de, 163-165, 192, N. 

352, 353. 
Newman, J. H., Cardinal, 39 n., 54. 
Nieuport, N. 373. 
Nodier, Charles, 79, 107, 119. 
Nuits, N. 362. 



398 



A CENTURY OF FRENCH POETS 



Ollivieb, EmTLE, 220. 
Omphale, N. 347, 374. 
Orleans, Charles, Duke of, 9, 10, 
N. 370. 

Philippe-Bgalite, Duke of, 88, 

89. 

Ossian, 48, 88. 

Paganini, N. 358. 

Pagello, Dr. P., 176. 

Panard, C.-F., 38. 

Pantoum, N. 366. 

Paris, Gaston, N. 352. 

Parnassians, The, 55-59. 

Parny, B.-D. de, 41, 46, 88, 237. 

Pascal, 25 n., 267. 

Patelin, 28. 

Persigny, Victor Fialin, Duke de, 

N. 349. 
Petrarch, 88, N. 340. 
Phalaris, N. 345. 
Pierrot, N. 358. 
Piron, Alexis, 38, 270, N. 359. 
Pliny, N. 361. 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 252, 281. 
Polichinelle (Punch, Pulcinella), N. 

359. 
Ponsard, Francois, 55. 
Pope, Alexander, 32. 
Pradon, Nicolas, 34. 
Praxiteles, 339. 
Prior, Matthew, 14. 
Prud'hon, Pierre, N. 340. 
Puget, Pierre, N. 339. 
Pythagoras, N. 356. 

Quinault, 28 n. 

Rabelais, 13, 27. 

Raean, H. de, 24. 

Rachel, Mile. (Elisa Felix), 177. 

Racine, 29-32, 34, 35, 47, 52, 60, 88, 

92, 271, 299, N. 340, 341, 343, 390. 
Rambouillet, H6tel de, 22. 
Regnier, Mathurin, 13, 19, 20, 28, 

178, 270. 

Henri de, 306-311, N. 375, 

376. 

Renaissance, The French, 12-20. 

Renan, Ernest, 39, 238. 

Renoir, P. -A., 281. 

Ribera, Jose, N. 357. 

Ricard, Xavier de, 238. 

Richepin, Jean, 285-287, 319, N. 362, 

371. 
Rimbaud, Arthur, 270. 
Rocher, N. 341. 



Roland, La Chanson de, 3, N". 343, 

343, 364. 
Romantic Period, The, 45-55. 
RonBard, 14-18, 20, 21, 175, 299, N. 

342, 374. 
Rops, F., 281, 282. 
Rostand, Edmond, 176, N. 352. 
Rouget de l'lsle, N. 362. 
Rousseau, J.-B., 37, 39, 52, 80. 
J. -J., 36 n., 41, 48, 49, 88,92, 

175, N. 343. 
Rudel, the troubadour, N. 352. 
Rutebeuf, the trowo&re, 7, 8, 15, 

270. 

Saint Alexis, Vie de, 3-5. 
Saint- Amant, A. de, 23, 24, 38. 
Saint- Arnaud, Marshal de, N. 349. 
Sainte-Beuve, C.-A., 51, 120, 169-174, 

175, 252, N. 353, 354. 
Saint-Blaise (San Biagio), N. 354. 
Saint-Gelais, M. de, 17. 
Saint-Lambert, J. -P. de, 40. 
Saint-Pierre, B. de, 49, 88. 
Saint-Simon, Duke de, 19, 35 n. 
Salis, Rodolphe, 319. 
Samain, Albert, 266, 319-324, 330, 

N. 344, 370, 377, 378. 
Sand, George (Mme. Dudevant), 176, 

177, N. 377. 
Sarin azar, 15. 
Sardanapalus, N. 368. 
Sarrazin, J.-F., 23. 
Scaramouche, 28, N. 359. 
Sceve, Maurice, 14 n. 
Schiller, 48. 

Schumann, Robert, N. 358. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 48. 
Secundus, Iohannes, 15. 
Segrais, J. de, 26 n. 
Shakespeare, 31, 43, 48, 122. 
Shelley, 49. 

Sigismund, The Emperor, N. 351. 
Sophocles, 237. 
Soulary, Josephin, 120, 218,219, 312, 

313, N. 361. 
Southey, Robert, 170. 
Spenser, Edmund, 14 n. 
Stael, Mme. de, 43, 46. 
Stevenson, R. L., N. 366. 
Stratonice, N. 374. 
Sully-Prudhomme, Armand, 267-269, 

N. 380. 
Swinburne, A. C, 312, 313, N. 349. 
Symons, Arthur, 282, 289. 

Tasso, 88, N. 353. 
Tennyson, 121, N. 350, 351. 



INDEX 



399 



Terence, 28. 

Tb6ophile de Viau, 23. 

Thibaut, Count of Champagne and 

King of Navarre, 6. 
Thiers, A., 70. 
Thomas, the trouv&re, 6 n. 
Thomson, James, 40. 
Thyard, Pontus de, 14 n., 18. 
Titian, N. 360. 
Tortoni, N. 353. 
Tristan and Isolt, 6, N. 350. 
Trivelin, N. 359. 
Turpin, Archbishop, N. 344. 

Uroel, N. 350. 

Vade, J. -J., 38. 

Vaugelas, Claude, 22. 

Verhaeren, Emile, 288-297, N. 371- 

373. 
Verlaine, Paul, 59, 60, 266, 270-274, 

281,282, 298, 306, 326, N. 366-369, 

391. 
Veronica, Saint, N. 379. 
Viele-Griffin, Francis, S1S-315, N. 

376. 



Vigny, Alfred de, 54, 92, 107-119, 

166, 167, 213, 253, 321, N. 343-345, 

390. 
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, 64 n., 266, 

281, N. 367. 
Villon, 10, 11, 19, 270, 298, N. 368, 

373, 374. 
Voiture, Vincent, 13, 23. 
Voltaire, 4, 13, 31, 36 n., 37-40, 178, 

N. 345. 
Voyron, N. 362. 

Wagner, Richard, 253. 

Wailly, L. de, 207. 

Watteau, N. 361. 

Weber, C.-M. von, N. 352. 

Whistler, J. McN., 281. 

Whitman, Walt, 286, 289, 313, N. 

372. 
Wilhem, 71. 
Wordsworth, 49, 170, 221, N. 350, 

365. 
Wyzewa, Teodor de, 302. 

Yeats, W. B., N. 356. 
Young, Edward, 41, 170. 



Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty 
at the Edinburgh University Press 



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