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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.
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