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FRENC

"^Wo^, ^S

LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

SANTA BARBARA

PRESENTED BY

ERIC SCHMIDT

THE HISTORY OF
FRENCH LITERATURE

THE HISTORY OF

FRENCH LITERATURE

FROM THE OATH OF STRASBURG
TO CHANTICLER

ANNIE LEMP KONTA

NEW, YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

IQIO

Published December, 1909

CONTENTS

I. — THE MIDDLE AGES 1-12

Origins of the French Language and Literature — Oath of
Strassburg — Langue d'oc and Langue d'oil.

II.— EPICS 13-32

Jongleurs — Trouveres — Chansons de Geste — Chanson de Roland
— Breton Cycle — Chrestien de Troyes.

III. — FABLIAUX 33-54

Le Vilain Mire — Ysopets — Roman de Renart — Aucassin et
Nicolette — Bibles — Dits — Legs — Fatraisies — Bestiaires —
Lapidaires — Valuer air es — Roman de la Rose.

IV. — CHRONICLES AND HISTORY „ 55-62

Villehardouin — Joinville — Froissart — Commines — Alain Char-
tier.

V. — THE THEATER IN THE MIDDLE AGES .... 63-74
Mysteres — Miracles — Confrerie de la Passion — Basoche — En-
jants Sans Souci — Soties — Moralites — Farce — Farce du Cuvier
— Farce de Maitre Pathelin.

VI. — LYRIC POETRY 75-91

Chansons de Toile — Pastourelle — Troubadours — Sirventes —
Tensons — Arnaut de Marveil — Bertrand de Born — Bernard de
Ventadour — Arnaud Daniel — Guiraut de Bomeil — Marcabrun.

VII. — POPULAR POETRY 92-104

Olivier Basselin — Vaux de Vire — Charles d'OrlSans — Frangois
Villon — Petit Testament — Grand Testament.

VIII. — THE RENAISSANCE 105-116

Guillaume Bude — Robert and Henry Estienne — Calvin.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGES

IX. — SIXTEENTH CENTURY WRITERS 117-128

Rabelais — Garganiua — Pantagruel — Amyot — Lives oj Plutarch
— Montaigne — Essays.

X. — SIXTEENTH CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE . . . 129-149
Marot — The P16iade — Ronsard — Regnier — Malherbe — Tragedy
— Montchr^tien — Robert Gamier — Alexandra Hardy — Satire
Menippee — Me"moires — Montluc — La Noue — Brantome —
D'Aubign6 — Aventures du Baron de Foeneste — Les Tragiques —
Heptameron.

XI. — THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 150-165

H6tel de Rambouillet — L'Astre'e — Pre'cieuses — Voiture — G. de
Balzac — Scarron and the Burlesque Genre — Cyrano de Berge-
rac — Foundation of the French Academy.

XII.-— CORNEILLE 166-181

Comedy and Tragedy.

XIII. — TRANSITION OF MEDIAEVAL PHILOSOPHY . . . 182-187
Descartes.

XIV.— PORT-ROYAL 188-195

Jansenism — Pascal — Lettres Provinciales — Pensees.

XV.— THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL 196-237

Racine — Arguments of Andromaque, Britannicus, Berenice,
Phedra, Bajazet, Esther, Athalie — Boileau — Epitres — Satires —
L'Art Poetique — Boileau's Influence — Moliere — The Man — The
Writer — Arguments of Le Misanthrope, Tartuffe, Les Femmes
Savantes, L'Avare — La Fontaine — The Man — The Contes and
Fables.

XVI.— LA CHAIRE 238-251

Bossuet, a Pillar of the Church — Funeral Orations and Other
Notable Works — Bourdaloue — Fe'nelon — Telemaque — Fle"chier
— Memoires sur les Grands Jours d'Auvergne — Massillon —
Petit Car erne — Grand Car erne — Forensic Eloquence.

XVII.— LE SIECLE DE Louis XIV 252-274

The Great Writers and Artists — Memoires — Mme. de Se'vigne^s
Letters — Mme. de La Fayette — Zayde — La Princesse de Cleves
— La Rochefoucauld's Maximes — Le Cardinal de Retz — La
Bruyere — Les Caracteres — Saint-Simon's Memoires — Lafosse —

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGES

Cre'billon — Rhadamiste et Zenobie — Quinault — Rollin — Male-
branche — J. B. Rousseau — Regnard — Dufresny — Dancourt —
Le Sage — Turcaret — Gil Bias — Bayle — Fontenelle.

XVIII. — THE EIGHTEENTH, OR PHILOSOPHIC, CENTURY . 275-285
Influence of English Writers — The Reign of the Favorites —
The Salons of the Eighteenth Century — The Court of Sceaux —
Mme. de Lambert — Mme. de Tencin — Mme. Geoff rin — Mme.
du Deffand — Mme. d'Epinay — Mme. Necker — D'Holbach —
Helvetius — Mme. Roland.

XIX.— VOLTAIRE 286-305

Presented to Ninon de 1'Enclos — His Early Productions —
Voltaire in England — Voltaire at Cirey — Voltaire at the Court
of Frederick of Prussia — Voltaire at Ferney — Voltaire in
Private Life — Voltaire, the Writer — Voltaire's Influence — Argu-
ments of Zaire, Merope, Alzire, Mahomet.

XX. — MONTESQUIEU, BUFFON, AND ROUSSEAU . . . 306-327
Montesquieu — Lettres Persanes — Grandeur et Decadence des
Romains — L'Esprit des Lois: Importance of this work — Buffon
— Histoire Naturelle — Rousseau — Discours sur les Sciences, etc.
— Discours sur I'Inegalite — Le Control Social — Emile — Julie,
ou la Nouvelle Heloise — Confessions — Rousseau's Influence on
Literature, Morals, and Politics.

XXI.— THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS 328-334

The Physiocrates — Diderot — D'Alembert — Baron Grimm —
Condorcet.

XXII. — TRAGEDY, COMEDY, "TEARFUL" DRAMA, POETRY,

THE NOVEL 335-348

Sedaine — Mercier — Lemercier — Baculard d ' Arnaud — Beaumar-
chais — Le Barbier de Seville — Le Manage de Figaro — Marivaux
— Destouches — La Chaussee — PreVost — Manon Lescaut — Gres-
set — Vert-Vert — Piron — Lambert — Delille — Florian —
Fables — Ecouchard Lebrun — Marmontel — Gilbert — Andre
Che'nier — Odes — lambes — Bernardin de Saint-Pierre — Paul et
Virginie.

XXIII. — THE REVOLUTION AND ITS LITERATURE . . 349-356
Historical Review — Political Eloquence and Pamphlets —
Mirabeau — Chamfort — Canaille Desmoulins — The Theater
Songs — Marie Joseph Chenier — Vincent Arnault — J. B. Legouve"

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGES

— La Harpe — Duels — Collin d'Harleville — Fabre d'Eglantine —
Ca Ira — La Carmagnole — La Marseillaise.

XXIV. — THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 357-369

Goethe's Influence — Reaction in Literature — Chateaubriand —
Le Genie du Christianisme — Atala — Rene — Les Martyrs — Me-
moires d'Outre-Tombe — Mme. de Stael — Delphine — Corinne —
De I'Allemagne — Mme. Re'camier.

XXV.— THE ROMANTICISTS 370-391

Lamartine — Histoire des Girondins — Meditations Poetiques —
Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses — Jocelyn — Victor Hugo —
The Dramatist — Arguments of Hernani, Ruy Bias — The Novel-
ist— Notre Dame de Paris — Les Miserables — The Poet — Les
Orientales — Les Feuilles d'Automne — Les Chants du Crepuscule
— Les Chdtiments — La Legende des Siecles — Alfred de Musset —
Contes d'Espagne et d'ltalie — Poesies Nouvettes — Comedies et
Proverbes — Andre del Sarto — La Confession d'un Enfant du
Siecle — Alfred de Vigny — Poemes Antiques et Modernes — Les
Destinees — Cinq-Mars — Chatterton — Casimir Delavigne — Les
Messeniennes — Louis XI — Les Vepres Siciliennes — Th£ophile
Gautier — Emaux et Camees — Le Capitaine Fracasse — Les Gro-
tesques.

XXVI. — THE HUMORISTS AND THE SATIRISTS . . . 392-400
Charles Nodier — Xavier de Maistre — Voyage autour de ma
Chambre — Toepffer — La Bibliotheque de mon Oncle — Nouvelles
Genevoisses — Alphonse Karr — Les Gucpes — B6ranger — Paul
Louis Courier — Pamphlet des Pamphlets — Auguste Barbier —
lambes.

XXVII.— THE MODERN NOVEL 401-416

Idealistic Fiction: George Sand — The Three Periods of her
Literary Career — Rural Life Sketches: La Mare du Diable —
Alexandre Dumas pere — Les Trois Mousquetaires — Monte
Cristo — Fr6de"ric Souli4 — Memoires du Diable — Eugene Sue —
Le Juif Errant — Paul de Kock — Hector Malot — Sans Famille —
George Ohnet — Le Maitre de Forges — Octave Feuillet — Le
Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre — Julia de Trecaeur — M . de
Camors — Saintine — Picciola — Henri Monnier — Memoire de M.
Joseph Prudhomme — Edmond About — La Grece Contemporaine
— LeRoi des Montagnes — Erckmann-Chatrian — Madame Therese

vni

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGES

— L'Ami Fritz — Emile Souvestre — Un Philosophe sous les
Toils — Jules Verne — Voyage au Centre de la Terre — Henry
GreVille — Dosia — Victor Cherbuliez — Le Comte Kostia — Andre"
Theuriet — Le Chemin du Bois — Mademoiselle Guignon — Pierre
Loti — Pecheur d'Islande — Mon Frere Yves — Anatole France —
Le Crime de Sylveslre Bonnard — Jules Lemaitre — Contes — Les
Rois.

XXVIII.— THE REALISTIC NOVEL 417-433

Balzac — La Comedie Humaine — Merime'e — Colombo — Stendhal
— La Chartreuse de Parme — Le Rouge et le Noir — Flaubert —
Madame Bovary — Salammbo — Trois Contes — Edmond and
Jules de Goncourt — Alphonse Daudet — Lettres de man Moulin
— Fromont Jeune et Risler Aine — Numa Roumestan — Tartarin.

XXIX.— THE NATURALISTIC NOVEL 434-443

Emile Zola — Les Rougon-Macquart — Guy de Maupassant —
Short Tales — Pierre et Jean — Une Vie — Huysmans — La-Bos —
En Route — Marcel PreVost — Fredirique — Lea — The Psycholog-
ical Novel — Edouard Rod — L'Inutile Effort — Les Trois Coeurs
— Paul Bourget — Le Disciple — L'Etape — Paul Margueritte — La
Force des Choses — Maurice Barres — J. H. Rosny — Ferdinand
Fabre — L'Abbe Tigrane — Jules Renard — Willy — Le"on Daudet
— Jules Claretie — Ecole Naturiste — G. de Bouhe"lier — The
Novel of the Provinces — Moselly — Terres Lorraines — J. Ageor-
ges — Capdeville — Pierre Vernon — Rene" Bazin — La Terre Qui
Meurt — Le Ble Qui Leve — Paul Arene — Au Bon Soleil.

XXX.— RECENT POETRY 444-449

The Parnassiens — Leconte de Lisle — Baudelaire — Sully-Prud-
homme — Jose"-Maria de He"redia — Francois Copp4e — The De-
cadents or Symbolists — Verlaine — Mallarme — De R6gnier —
Jean Mor6as — Maeterlinck — Other Poets — Richepin — Rostand
— Mistral.

XXXI.— PHILOSOPHERS 450-456

Lamennais — Paroles d'un Croyant — Le Livre du Peuple — De
Bonald — Legislation Primitive — Victor Cousin — Du Vrai, du
Beau, et du Bien — Royer-Collard — Auguste Comte — Cours de
Philosophic Positive — Joubert — Pensees — Renan — Histoire des
Origines du Christianisme — Taine — De I' Intelligence — Philoso-
phic de I'Art.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGB8

XXXII.— HISTORIANS 457-462

De Barante — Histoire des Dues de Bourgogne — Thierry — Recits
des Temps Merovingiens — Guizot — Histoire Generate de la Civil-
isation en Europe — Thiers — Histoire du Consulat et de I' Empire
— Mignet — Histoire de la Revolution Francaise — Michelet —
Histoire de France — De Tocqueville — La Democratie en Ameri-
gue — Fustel de Coulanges — La Cite Antique — Lanfrey — His-
toire de Napoleon — Henri Martin — Histoire de France — Mme. de
R6musat — Memoires — Due de Broglie — Albert Sorel — Thureau-
Dangin — Ernest Lavisse.

XXXIII.— CRITICS 463-467

Predecessors of Sainte-Beuve — Saint-Beuve — Portraits Litter-
aires — Causeries du Lundi — Scherer — Anatole France — La Vie
Litteraire — Jules Lemaitre — Les Contemporains — Brunetiere —
L'evolution des Genres, etc. — Faguet.

XXXIV.— THE MODERN DRAMA ...... 463-496

Sardou — Dumas fils — Augier — Scribe — Ponsard — Autran — De
Bornier — Richepin — Delphine Gay — Labiche — Gondinet —
Pailleron — Meilhac and Halevy — Henri Becque — Theatre
Libre — De Curel — Brieux — Ancey — Courteline — Lavedan —
Hervieu — Maeterlinck — Rostand — Chanticler — Bernstein, etc .

XXXV.— THE FRENCH PRESS 497-518

The Origin of Newspapers — French Journals — French Periodi-
cals.

APPENDIX 519-523

The Forty Immortals of the French Academy — Rulers of
France.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 524-529

INDEX , 531-565

THE HISTORY
OF FRENCH LITERATURE

CHAPTER I

ORIGINS OP THE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

WITH the conquest of Gaul by Caesar (58-51 B.C.) there
began an intricate process of evolution which, continuing for
more than nine centuries, finally gave birth to a French lan-
guage and literature. The humble Sequence of St. Eulalie
—fragment of a Latin church chant— and the historical
Oath of Strasburg, sworn in French by Louis the Ger-
manic to make it intelligible to the Franks of Charles the
Bald, are but the embryo of what that language and literature
came to be. But at the end of the tenth century, when the
Capetian dynasty began to establish its sway and to consum-
mate French unity, there arose a French national life, and
with it a genuine national language and literature. In France,
as elsewhere, poetry preceded prose in the infancy of let-
ters; and we see those poetic beginnings in a brief composi-
tion on the Passion of Christ, and in the three hundred ver-
ses of the Life of St. Leger, the earliest regularly versified
document in French. Our own taste does not find much to
admire in this Life. Yet in its meager thread of narra-
tion, in its simple, dry precision — like to that of a bare chron-
icle—we perceive the earliest strivings of that intense creative
power which has produced French literature, and has by no
means exhausted itself in a thousand pregnant years of pro-
duction.

When their country was reduced to the status of a Roman
province by Caesar, the Gauls, inferior to the Romans in civil-
ization, had the Latin language imposed upon them — just as
2 1

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

French, by a natural process, is forced upon the Arabs of
Algeria.

The Latin brought to Gaul by the Roman soldiers and
rustic colonists was not the classic tongue of Cicero and Virgil.
At Rome, as in France to-day, there existed two languages,
that of the educated and that of the peasant : the literary Latin
of writers and scholars, and the vulgar Latin of the people.
The popular Latin of the Gauls, the Gallo-Roman, as it was
called after having supplanted the Celtic and having been
subjected to a strong influence from the idioms brought in
by the Germanic conquerors, was a language very different
from the classic or literary Latin. It is called Lingua
Romana1 by present-day philologists in contradistinction to
the literary Latin (sermo eruditus). "With the Gallo-Roman
language, which was spoken but not written, there was
evolved a sort of literary Latin written by people more or less
ignorant, in which constant grammatical errors are apparent.
This was called the low Latin (bas latin).

The French language is not a mixture of Gallic and
Latin but the popular Latin (sermo plebeius) introduced into
Gaul by the Roman soldiers, just as, in the same manner, the
Roman language was brought into the various other provinces
of Rome, suppressing the indigenous dialects and, with vari-
ous influences brought to bear upon it, evolving the Romance
or neo-Latin languages.

France, Italy, and a large part of Germany were united
by Charlemagne. But these three countries were distinct in
customs, ideas, and especially in language. So it is not sur-
prising that this vast empire, no longer held together by his
genius, soon began to fall apart under his weak successors.
Each of his three grandsons— Charles the Bald, Louis the
Germanic, and Lothair— took his share, though only after
bloody fratricidal wars— thus bringing to pass for the first
time the complete political division of France, Germany, and
the contested land of Lotharingia. The text of the solemn
oath sworn by Louis and Charles, at a critical moment of the
conflict, pledging them to mutual aid against Lothair, has

1 Some of the Latin writers of Gaul were: Apollinaris Sidonius, Trogus
Pompejus, and Sulpicius Severus.

ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE

been preserved. Aside from its historical interest, the final
separation of France and Germany, it possesses a very special
linguistic value. It was in March, 842, that Louis swore the
oath in French, Charles in German, for the understanding
of their respective armies. This document, which (not yet
French, but no longer Latin) invites the closest scrutiny for
the study it affords of a language in transition, is thus quoted
by the historian, Nithard : *

OATH OP Louis THE GERMANIC

OLD FRENCH MODERN FRENCH

Pro Deo amur et pro Christian Pour 1'amour de Dieu et pour
poblo et nostro commun salva- le salut commun du peuple chre"-
ment, d'ist di in avant, in quant tien et le n6tre, a partir de ce jour
Deus savir et podir me dunat, si autant que Dieu m'en donne le
salvarai eo cist meon fradre savoir et le pouvoir, je soutien-
Karlo et in adjudha et in cad- drai mon fr&re Charles de mon
huna cosa, si cum om per dreit aide et en toute chose, comme on
son fradra salvar dift, in o quid il doit justement soutenir son frere,
mi altresi fazet, et ab Ludher nul a condition qu'il m'en fasse
plaid nunquam prindrai, qui autant, et je ne prendrai jamais
meon vol cist meon fradre Karlo avec Lothaire aucun arrange-
in damno sit. ment, qui, par ma volonte, soit au

detriment de mon dit frfcre

Charles.

English: For the love of God and for the common salvation
of the Christian people and our own : from this day on, in so
far as God give me knowledge and power, I shall save (sup-
port) my brother Charles, by assistance and in each thing (on
all occasions), as one ought by right save his brother, in so
far as he will do the same thing to me; and from Lothair
shall I never take a pledge which may, by my will, be a
damage to this my brother Charles.

The declaration of the soldiers of Charles's army furnishes
another interesting document of incipient French in its un-
settled orthography:

1 Grandson of Charlemagne and one of the oldest French chroniclers.

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

OLD FRENCH MODERN FRENCH

Si Lodhuwigs sagrament que Si Louis tient le serment qu' &

son fradre Karlo jurat conservat, son frere Charles il jure et Charles

et Karlus meos sendra de sua mon seigneur de sa part ne le

part non lo stanit, si jo returnar tient pas, si je ne Ten puis

non lint pois, ne jo, ne neuls de"tourner, ni moi ni nul que j'en

cui eo returnar int pois in nulla puisse detourner, en nulle aide

adjudha contra Ludowig nun li centre Louis ne lui y serai,
iv er.

English: If Louis keeps the oath which he swears to his
brother Charles, and Charles, my lord, on his part, does not
keep it, and if I cannot turn him from it, neither I nor any
other can turn him from it, I shall give no aid to him against
Louis.

This language, crude and imperfect as it still was, repre-
sents a gradual evolution through nine centuries. The Can-
tilene or Sequence de Sainte-Eulalie, the oldest poetic monu-
ment of the French (from a manuscript of the Convent Saint
Armand in Valenciennes), written only fifty years later,
already shows a striking contrast to the Oath, because it
is entirely French in character, and contains the fully de-
veloped article. It speaks of the martyrdom of Saint Eulalie
of Merida, in 304, who under Maximianus, co-ruler of Diocle-
tian, died for her faith :

Buona pulcella fut Eulalie
Bel avret corps, bellezour anima,
Voldrent la veintre li deo inimi
Voldrent la faire diaule servir.1

But, as in the various regions of the vast Roman Empire,
various languages were evolved from the Latin amongst the
different peoples, owing to the imperceptible influence of
clime and race, perhaps even through the subtle variations
in structure of the vocal organs— so in France a variety of
dialects found their way from the Pyrenees northward, and
from the Alps to the sea— each one having points of contact

'A virtuous maiden was Eulalie, beautiful of mind and body the
enemies of God wished to vanquish her and make her serve the devil.

ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE

with, and divergences from, its neighbor. These dialects fall
into two general groups or languages— the langue d'oc or
language of Southern France usually designated as south of
the Loire, and the langue d'o'il, language of Northern France,
north of the Loire. Thus the original Roman province of
Gaul, and the large basin of the Garonne— almost one half of
France, in fact, did not speak French, and did not in the
Middle Ages produce any French literature. Hence the rich
and interesting literary expressions of the langue d'oc, flour-
ishing though it did on French territory, has no place here;
only in so far as those productions exercised a marked influ-
ence upon French literature proper are we concerned with
them. Beyond this they have been afforded a separate liter-
ary treatment in a succeeding chapter.

The bizarre names, oc and o'il, originated in a custom
of the Middle Ages, which designated languages by the par-
ticle of affirmation. The people of Southern France used oc
(from the Latin hoc), and those of Northern France o'il (from
the Latin hoc ille, which was contracted into o'il), to express
" yes." Thus also the Italian was called the language of si,
and the German the language of ja. Dante in his De vulgari
eloquentia sive idiomate, says that the language of o'il puts
forward its claim to be ranked above those of oc and si (Pro-
vencal and Italian).

The language of the North, the langue d'o:il, was in the
eleventh century divided into five groups, or principal dia-
lects, the boundaries of which were not accurately defined : the
dialects of the Northeast, the Picard and the Walton; of
the Northwest, the Normand; of the East, the Bourguignon,
the Franc-Comtois, the Lorrain, and the Champenois; of the
West, the Poitevin, the Angevin, and the Saintongeais; of the
Centre (in the lie de France) the Franc,ais (French). Origi-
nally all these dialects might have been of equal standing,
each sovereign in its own domain. As a literary instrument
no one of them was inherently superior to any other: the
employment of a certain one in a literary work or document
might reveal simply the origin of the writer. This equal
power and influence remained as long as there was no single
center of Government— no capital of the nation to impose
upon the whole country the need of a paramount language.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

The dukes of Normandy or Burgundy, equal to the Capetian
Kings, humble lords of the lie de France, used in their official
acts the dialects of their respective provinces.

But early in the twelfth century, the petty kings of the
lie de France began to profess the doctrine of "manifest
destiny ' ' by benevolently assimilating their neighbors. Gradu-
ally, they annexed Berry (1101), Picardy (1200), Touraine
(1203), Normandy (1204), and Champagne (1361). 1 Into
these provinces they took the dialect of the lie de France,
which being the language of kings, was presently adopted as a
model by cultivated society. Only the common people, averse
to such invasion, refused to accept French, and clung to their
old dialects. Thus the dialects of Picardy, Burgundy, and
Normandy, fell from their high estate as the medium of litera-
ture to the lowly one of patois — that is to say, an idiom neither
written nor spoken by educated people, and the end of the
century found the French dialect of the lie de France pre-
dominating, strengthened by the definite establishment of
royal supremacy over the feudal lords and the fixation of
Paris (owing to its university) as the intellectual center of
the country. But it was not until the fourteenth century,
when dialect after dialect had given way to the dominant one
—the French of the lie de France— that its triumph was com-
plete and the French language took its place in history. The
patois still spoken in Normandy, Picardy, and Burgundy, are
not, therefore — contrary to popular belief — literary French
corrupted in the mouths of peasants, but simply the remnants
of the ancient provincial dialects.

Meanwhile, at the south of the Loire, the langue d'oc also
had become almost extinct. The terrible crusade against the
Albigenses (so called from Albi, in Languedoc, where the
antisacerdotal sects were dominant), was not only a remark-
able religious and political occurrence, but one of great liter-
ary significance as well. With one stroke it carried the
French language clear to the Pyrenees and the Mediterra-
nean; for when the Albigenses (Albigeois) revolted against
the Church of Rome, they were so vigorously opposed that, as

1 These dates are not, of course, those of final annexation to the French
crown.

ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE

sects, they disappeared in great part at the end of the thir-
teenth century. A crusade against them was preached by
Pope Innocent III, in 1208, and was led by Arnold of Citeaux
and Simon de Montfort. This war of extermination, lasting
for several years, was one of the bloodiest in history.

In 1272 Languedoc was incorporated in France, and the
langue d'oc ceased to be written, and degenerated into patois.
The Limousin, Provencal, Languedocien, and Gascon patois,
persisting to-day in the respective provinces of Southern
France, are merely the fragments of that glorious language
which shone so bright at the time of the troubadours. The
dialect of Catalonia was nearly identical with the langue d'oc
—a similarity so complete indeed, that Catalonian, though
spoken beyond the Pyrenees assumed the name of Limousin
(Lemosi). The language of the South was more sonorous
than that of the North. The very names of the poets— in the
South, troubadours; in the North, trouveres (relating to the
same French verb trouver) —indicate the characteristic varia-
tions in the two chief idioms.

The study of French origins takes us into the Middle
Ages.1 To estimate aright their value with respect to this
period, we may profitably consider the opinions put forth by
the eminent Romance scholar and critic, Gaston Paris. "We
have outgrown," he says, "our attitude of disrespect for the
Middle Ages. Time was when French scholarship sought its
sources only in antiquity, or from its own more immediate
learning; and when the 'Dark Ages' were significant simply
as a stage of transition— essential to continuity, perhaps, but
merely as a ring of lead that binds two chains of gold. But
nowadays, science repudiates no period of history. "Wherever
it finds facts and laws, it pauses. It holds that all things that
have existed deserve its attention ; as far as possible, it strives
to imitate the vast and serene impartiality of nature."

During this period of fermentation and social reconstruc-
tion, a new state had sprung up by the combination of Roman,
German, and Christian institutions. The feudal system pre-

1 From the Fall of the Roman Empire, 475, until the capture of Con-
stantinople by Mahomet II, 1453, may be conveniently and with reason
regarded as such.

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

vailed and the two great powers of western Europe were the
pope and the emperor.

In the hands of Augustin Thierry and his successors the
history of the Middle Ages has become alive. These centuries
are an epoch essentially poetic, that is to say, everything is
spontaneous, original, unforeseen. The men of that time do
not give to reflection the place it occupies in modern life.
They do not observe themselves; they live naively, like chil-
dren with whom reflected life developed by civilization has
not yet stifled the free expansion of natural vitality. They
have neither in the physical nor in the social world that idea
of prearranged regularity which our reasoning power has
given us. Undoubtedly, reason is the sovereign and ruling
faculty, and its possession must be the highest aim of our
efforts. But it is not poetry; it is too often its negation.
Pure reason is an elevated region, serene and cold, like those
grand summits where an eternal whiteness reflects a sun with-
out clouds; life, with its forms and its colors, its songs and
fragrances, its powerful and joyous disorder, is in lower
regions. The older we grow, men or nations, the more does
reason expel the imagination within us. A great critic of our
days (Villemain) has said, "There exists in three fourths of
men a poet who died young, and whom the grown man sur-
vives. ' '

Taken as a whole and compared with ours, life in the
Middle Ages appears eminently poetic. Literature was the
image of this life. It has the same liberty, frankness, variety.
It is not, like ours, hedged in by laws, restrained by preju-
dices or proprieties, or directed by classical examples ; nothing
prevents it from saying plainly and entirely what it wants
to say. Above all, it is true ; and that is its great merit. Un-
preoccupied with rules, theories, questions of form, it ex-
presses simply the emotions of the soul, the real sentiments
and ideas of all. The public accepts it as the poet sings it.
One does not criticise; one does not seek to discern whether
a poem is well composed, original, correct in its versification
—or whether a play ("mystery") conforms to the rules of
dramatic art, whether a farce is kept within the limits of
good taste and decency. The only question is whether the
poet has made people admire, think, weep or laugh more than

ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE

other poets; whether people have been moved by his produc-
tions; whether he has left in the soul the clear and living
picture of his characters, the remembrance of his recitals,
the imprint of his sentiments. The beliefs, the passions, the
prejudices of the people are reflected naively and without
coloring in this literature. There is not yet arisen between
the learned and the unlearned that terrible distinction— the
outcome of different instruction— which to-day separates peo-
ple into two classes, almost foreign to each other: a class
almost beyond the pale of literature, another class that dis-
dains and ignores all that which does not conform to the rules
set by its doctors. Neither in Greece nor in the Middle Ages
did this distinction exist. The same poetry pleased all— the
prince as well as the burgher, the knight as well as the peas-
ant.

All this, however, is entirely true only of the first period
of the Middle Ages, the period almost wholly consecrated
to the epic. We do not speak here of the clerics, of those who
knew Latin, and who wrote and spoke it among themselves.
These remained without influence upon popular poetry, which
they despised. The fusion of their science with the popular
language and poetry occurring, almost simultaneously in
France and in Italy toward the end of the thirteenth century
marks the beginning of a new period. But from the second
half of the twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth
century, there is a tendency to a separation analogous to that
of the learned and unlettered. Then arises, by a natural and
ordinary process, that more restrained society which seeks
to distinguish itself from the rest by the elegance of its life,
the refinement of its customs, the conventional politeness of
its manners. This elite is grouped naturally at the courts of
the kings and princes; the term courtesy (courtoisie) is em-
ployed to designate its ideal. From that time on men are
divided into two classes— the polite world and the vilains:1
those who make up elegant society, who know its usages, share
its ideas ; and those who are excluded from it, and are ignorant
of its refinements.

In this formation of a polite society the important role

1 Vilain was used for rustic (noun).
9

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

belongs to the women. They introduce superficially at least,
if not really, into the manners a certain sweetness and urban-
ity, and infuse the rude and narrow bravery of the feudal
lord with the sentiment of galanterie. The tournaments are
changed into gallant feasts over which the women preside,
or they replace by social games and pleasures the too virile
amusements of the eleventh century. Thus inspired, the
rude barons who knew only the chase and war are trans-
formed into the gallant knights of the time of St. Louis
(1226-1270)— knights who pass a part of their lives in feast-
ing and assemblies, who vie with each other in the richness
of their costume, in luxurious modes of living, who carry
proudly on their helmets, when going to battle, the symbol
of their lady's love. This incessant influence refines, en-
nobles, purifies, and perhaps also weakens, character. The
virtues and graces of this chivalrous society have been singu-
larly exaggerated; but it has done much for our education,
and, in developing its traditions, France, its true fatherland,
has become and remained the most social and polite nation
of Europe. This new world needed a poetry distinct from
that of the people, a poetry courtly as the society for which
it was destined. And this poetry appeared, on the one hand,
in the versified romances of the Round Table,1 and, on the
other, in the greatest lyric works of the Middle Ages.

In the primitive times of all countries, poetry is anony-
mous ; it belongs to no one in particular, and the entire people
take part and reflect themselves in it. In the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, before the separation of the courtly and
vilains, before the creation of an artificial literature, when the
jongleurs (troubadours; Greek: rhapsodes), loved and under-
stood equally by all, were the sole historians, the sole poets
and scholars, the Middle Ages found expression in their great-
est power and variety. Even later, in spite of the separation
of the people in two classes, in spite of the introduction of
popular literature, there lived a poetry which addressed itself
to the whole nation : the poetry of the theater. In the four-

1 This will be treated later in detail. In Arthurian legend the table was
made by the magician Merlin for Uther Pendragon, who gave it to the
father of Guinevre, from whom, in turn, Arthur received it, together with
one hundred knights, as a wedding gift.

ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE

teenth and fifteenth centuries the mystery plays were what
the epic songs had been before them. Their exclusively
religious subjects gave them equal rights and claims to the
sympathy and respect of all, and in spite of their slight
literary value, they are one of the most original and power-
ful creations of the middle ages ; and if the individual drama
has been substituted for these great national representations,
these logically and spontaneously developed mysteries have
inspired some of the religious plays and autos by Calderon,1
and the historical plays by Shakespeare. So the poetry of
the Middle Ages, in its principal aspects, was epic, lyric, and
dramatic.

But all these branches of French literature during the
Middle Ages vary according to the differences of spirit of all
the stages of society that participate in them, and especially
according to the local and racial characteristics of the terri-
tories from which they spring. Gustave Lanson, the admir-
able literary historian of France, says that ' ' each one of those
regions furnishes its part in the literature of the Middle
Ages. Normandy and France proper apply themselves to the
editing of their chansons de geste ('songs of heroic deeds'),
as Burgundy in its century of separate existence creates an
epic of its own. In Champagne bloom romance, lyrical ideal-
ism, and personal memoirs. The noisy communes of Picardy
rejoice in dramatic poetry. Paris is the center : she produces
all, avails herself of all; everything flows to her. Rutebeuf
leaves his Champagne, Jean de Meung his Orleanais, and both
transfer their great talents to the capital. Then, during
long centuries, the provinces, one by one, as they enter upon
national unity, receive the one French language, and mingle
their original genius with its central spirit : crude and dreamy
Brittany, reinfusing French literature with Celtic melan-
choly ; inflexible and reasoning Auvergne ; Lyons, mystic and
passionate city despite the superficial agitation of material
interests; the entire South, so varied and so rich, in one
place more Roman, in another still marked by the passage of
the Arabs or the Moors, preserving under all the alluvial

1 Pedro Calderon de la Barca (Madrid, 1600-81), one of the most cele-
brated of the Spanish dramatists and poets.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

strata with which history has successively covered it, its
primitive layer of Iberian population ; hot and vibrating Pro-
vence, all charm or all fire; Gascony, scintillating with vivac-
ity, light and delicate; and strong and powerful Languedoc,
perhaps the one country of France where forms and tones
of poetry are best felt in their special beauty. * '

CHAPTER II

EPICS

EPIC poetry— "poetic narrative which precedes the ages
when history is written ' ' — is, in the natural order of develop-
ment as admitted by most critics, posterior to lyric and an-
terior to dramatic poetry. The first form of song was the
hymn originating with the ceremonies of the sanctuary.
Then men turned to the description of nature, of love, of
death, and this poetry usually sung to the accompaniment of
the lyre, was called lyrical poetry. The epic was born when
men began to narrate the lives of their heroes and to sing
their praises.

The beginnings of the national epics are lost in the pre-
historic times of nations l and the true epic is first found with
the peoples of the Aryan race. The source of the epic is the
oral transmission of the national history of a people, usually
centered around one personage in the time when the military
nobility was considered the flower of humanity. This oral
information of the historical facts, at first legendarized, then
greatly exaggerated, finally became fantastic and was per-
petuated in writing. Thus arose the Homeric Iliad and
Odyssey of Greece, the Mdkabhdrata and the Ramdyana of
Jndia, the Nibelungen of Germany, the Poema del Cid of
Spain, and the Chanson de Roland, the greatest of French
epics, in France.

Pio Rajna, an Italian scholar, has established the Germanic
origin of the French epic: " romane dans son developpement,

1 The triumph song of Deborah (1300 B.C.) and the twelve adventures
of the Shimshon (Samson) saga show traces of epic songs. Pentaur, poet
and priest of the court of Egypt, sang the heroic deeds of King Rameses
II in the Battle of Kadish (twelfth century B.C.). Schi-King is a collection
of heroic songs of the Chinese collected by Confucius (sixth century B.C.).

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

elle etait germaine dans son origine." All the nations who
inhabited Gaul from the sixth to the seventh centuries con-
tributed something toward the future French epic : the
Celts, however, only furnished the characteristics of some of
its heroes, the Romans gave the epic its form in language
(vulgar Latin) and in versification, the church gave its faith,
but the Germanic tribes brought the greatest influence to
bear, for it is owing to them that the epic was born in France.
When these tribes invaded Gaul they introduced their custom,
inherent with them for several centuries, of singing in pop-
ular verse their origins, their victories, their gods, and their
heroes,1 and they did not lose their taste for these epic recitals
which exalt courage and charm the imagination, but com-
municated them to the Gallo-Romans. Their ideas of war,
of royalty, of government, of family, of woman and of law,
then entered the French national poetry and gave it the epic
form, triumphing over the popular songs of lyrical and nar-
rative character, sung by the Gallo-Romans. These popular
songs were called Cantilenes and were sung both in the old
German2 of which an example is the Cantilene Saucourt
(ninth century) ; and in the vulgar Latin or Gallo-Roman
(Lingua Romana), as the Cantilene de Sainte Eulalie (ninth
century) which was the first monument of French national
poetry.

Epic composition on the soil of France may run back for
its origins to the poetic history of the Merovingians, where
traces of old French poems may be found; in the chansons
de geste, certain recitals, certain personages, moral traits,
customs civil and military, are the manifest residuum of the
most ancient poetry and the most ancient civilization of
France. In the fifth century, songs on Clovis were probably
sung, and in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries poems on
Dagobert, Charles Martel and Pepin le Bref may have ex-
isted. Of particular interest is the epic of Floovant 8 taken

1 Tacitus (first century), in his history of the Germans, states that the
Germans had an epic poetry whose hero was Sigofred.

1 The Ludwigslied is supposed to be the last type of cantilene sung in
German on French soil.

» Published by Michelant and Guessard: Les anciens poetes de la
France.

EPICS

from a chronicle of the eighth century, the Gesta Dagoberti,
and which tells that Floovant is really Dagobert, the name
Floovant signifying "descendant of Clovis." But of this
period there is little preserved, and of the fragments which
remain it is difficult to define their characteristics. There is
a tradition that Charlemagne caused the epic treasures to be
collected, and that his ascetic son, Louis the Pious (814-40),
who had been coerced in his childhood to learn them by heart,
had no sooner ascended the throne than he ordered them all
destroyed— by way of compensation for the ennui he had
suffered in memorizing them. However this may be, nearly
all have melted from sight with the snows.

During several centuries these national and religious
poems were orally transmitted from generation to generation
until Charlemagne became the principal hero, his legend
absorbing all others, and in the tenth century was born the
chanson de geste of truly French character. A number of
these chansons de geste were inspired by the oral traditions
circulating during the Merovingian period, others were in-
spired by the old Cantilenes. ' ' Our chansons de geste, there-
fore, ' ' says Leon Gautier, ' ' are military and not clerical, and
owe nothing to certain Latin chronicles from which it is
believed by some they have arisen." He tells us that the
Chronique de Turpin is posterior to the first chansons de
geste. ' ' The Chronique de Turpin and most of the analogous
legends are the works of some rhetorician of the monasteries
who copied without intelligence and without animation our
first chansons de geste." F. Scholle, also asserts that the
poems had for a long time been preserved by oral tradition
before having been written, and that the various readings of
the different compilations are due partly to the intervention
of the jongleurs and not solely to the copyists.

According to Marius Sepet there was a transition between
the cantilene and the chanson de geste — the chanson epique —
of which the Vie de Saint Alexis gives an exact idea.

The cantilene was a short popular song sung by the peo-
ple, whereas the chanson de geste was developed principally
among the nobility which was also the warrior class. From
this class were drawn chiefly the trouveres, many of whom
composed and sang their own songs. As a rule, however, the

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

songs composed by the trouveres were sung by a special class
of singers, heritage of the scopas (of the Francs) and who
were called in French joglers (joculares) or jogledors (jocu-
latores), later jougleors, jongleurs (jongleurs being an en-
tirely modern form). It was the jongleur who sang the
poems of fame, generally to the accompaniment of the viola
(vielle). He went from court to court, from castle to castle
to sing them as the scopa had done.

Edgar Quinet, philosopher, poet, and historian, has told
us how the epics were composed and put forth by the medieval
French rhapsode. For six dreary winter months the feudal
castle has remained enveloped in clouds. There have been no
tournaments, no war, few strangers and pilgrims, to break
the monotony of the days; the sad, interminable evenings
are poorly filled by the game of chess. With the swallows the
return of the trouvere is awaited. On a fine day in May he
sends forth his jongleurs to recite his poems to the burghers
and the common people in the little towns of the interior.
Presently he himself is seen following the escarpement leading
to the castle. Without delay, from the evening of his arrival,
the barons, squires, and ladies assemble in the great paved
hall to hear the poem he has composed during the winter.
The minstrel does not read his poem — he recites it ; and now
and again, in impassioned passages, he lifts his voice in song,
to the accompaniment of harp or fiddle. His bearing is
proud, yet of ingenuous frankness. Observe the complexion
of his audience :

" Seigneurs, or f aites paix, chevaliers et barons,
Et roi et dues, et comtes et princes de renoms;
Et prelats, et bourgeois, gens de religion,
Dames et demoiselles, et petits enfangons.1 "

In some cases he has composed his song by order of the
lord who has lent him the chronicle containing the tradition
he embellishes. The ancestors of his host figure therein.
Neighboring places— little towns, the forts, castles, and mon-

1 Lords, hold your peace, chevaliers and barons, and king, and dukes,
and counts, and princes of renown, and prelates, and bourgeois, and men
of religion, matrons and maidens and little children.

EPICS

asteries, are named. The name of France is never pro-
nounced without qualification: it is sweet, pleasant, praised
or honored France. The minstrel speaks to his auditors of
what they know and love the best— of tournaments and of
battles. In the virtues he ascribes to his heroes there is little
variety, but his terms are striking and energetic. ' ' Proud of
thought," "brave as a lion," "after the fashion of a proud
man, ' ' are phrases oft recurring. He sings of the great deeds
of Oliver, who, wounded to death, arises from his bed to
defy the Saracen chief; of the horse Bayard, which the
squires bleed to drink its blood while beset by famine in the
castle of Renaud ; of the conquest of Barbastre, or the battle
of Alichamp — both episodes in the Carlovingian cycle of
epics ; of the coming of the Emir 's daughter to the prison of
the knights; of Charlemagne's complaint upon hearing the
horn of Roland. Often the poet is powerless to regulate the
disorder of confused traditions : he falls back on the exclama-
tion, " Oyez seigneurs! " (" Listen, my lords! ")

In those warlike assemblies the voice of the minstrel rang
like sword on shield in a tournament, and was echoed sonor-
ously by the objects about him. The battlements of the castle,
the wind blowing through the halls, the signals from the
watch towers, the clattering chains of the drawbridges— all
these are in some measure a part of his poem. What he
does not say, the surroundings and the memories of the audi-
tors supply. With the coming of autumn the minstrel's song
is over; he departs, laden with gifts of precious vestments,
fine weapons, horses with elaborate trappings. If not already
a knight, he is, perhaps, made one. Then, in his absence, the
life of the manor loses its expression, and relapses into silence
and monotony.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the jongleur's pro-
fession was ennobling, even heroic. He followed the armies,
aroused them to battle — perhaps took a brave part in it him-
self. We have noted that one such jongleur, Taillefer by
name, was present at the battle of Hastings, and sang to the
Normans the epic of Roncesvalle (from the Roman de Ron
by Wace, oldest poet of the Breton Cycle) :

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

"Taillefer qui mult bien chantout
Sur un cheval qui tost alout
Devant le due alout cantant
De Charlemaine et de Reliant
Et d 'Olivier et des vasalles
Qui mururent a Renchesvals."1

But the jongleur did not remain long on the height. As
poetic inspiration waned, he himself sank. In the forefront
of the armies, at the courts of kings, in the service of the
great lords, he rode gaily a good horse. But in the fourteenth
century he fares afoot, in shabby but gaudy attire, carrying
his fiddle on his back, and stopping at public places to draw
an audience. He would play a prelude, sing a popular song
—and pass the plate. Reduced to such shifts, he is presently
confounded with clowns, with the owners of dancing bears,
with sword swallowers. From the exigencies of his plight
we have derived a slang phrase, payer en monnaie de singe
(to pay in monkey coin) ; for, lacking the wherewithal for
bridge tolls, he was constrained to ' ' cut a monkey shine, ' ' and
so pass on. In the fifteenth century his misery became ex-
treme, his reputation detestable. But in high and low estate
he was the needed interpreter of that poetry which he helped
to foster, and which replaced for the people both reading
and theater.

According to Gaston Paris, the jongleurs have played an
important role in the development of the French epic which
finally comprised an immense epic material, and which toward
the middle of the eleventh century spun itself out into long
poems and later was divided into cycles. Leon Gautier's def-
inition of a cycle is a number of popular poets grouped
around a hero or an important event which becomes the sub-
ject of their poems. Joseph Bedier tells us in his famous
Legendes epiques, how the trouveres of the thirteenth century
distributed all their epic poems (the hundred chansons de
geste which have been preserved and many others which have
been lost) into three cycles:

1 Taillefer, the great singer, on a swift horse, before the duke went
singing of Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver and the vassals who
died at Roncesvalle.

EPICS

N'ot que trois gestes en France la garnie:

Du rois de France est la plus seignorie,

Et 1'autre apres, bien est droiz que gel die

Est de Doon a la barbe florie . . .

La tierce geste qui molt fist a proisier

Fu de Garin de Monglane le fier. (GIKART DE VIANE.) l

These three groups are : First, the Royal Cycle consecrated
to the legend of Charlemagne and to the national wars, of
which the greatest poem is the Chanson de Roland. In this
cycle Gaston Paris also places the poems relating to the Mero-
vingians: Floovant, the most ancient; Les Saisnes; Le Pele-
rinage de Charlemagne (poem of the eleventh century) ;
and Le Roi Louis, a beautiful poem of the eleventh century
and of which only a fragment of six hundred verses has been
preserved. Second, the Cycle of Doon de Mayence, the center
of which is Renaud de Montauban,2 and which is consecrated
to the wars of the barons among themselves or against Char-
lemagne. The principal poems of this group are Doon de
Mayence, Les quatre fils Aimon from the ancient version of
Renaud de Montauban (twelfth century). Third, the Cycle
of Garin de Monglane, composed of twenty-four romances
of which William of Orange 3 is the principal hero and which
tells of the wars of the Provengals against the Saracens.
Among these are: La Chanson d'Aliscans, Girart de Viane, Le
Roman de Garin de Monglane. It is said that the trouveres
having divided the epic legends into three cycles, also estab-
lished a mystical relation between the three chiefs of these
three cycles: Charlemagne, Doon de Mayence, Garin de Mon-
glane >vere born on the same day, at the same hour, in the
midst of miracles.

1 There are but three gestes in rich France;
That of the King of France is the most esteemed,
And the next, 'tis but right I should say so,
Is that of Doon with the white beard . . .
The third geste in which there is much to praise
Is that of proud Garin de Monglane.

2 According to some authorities Ogier le Danois is the central figure of
this cycle.

3 A manuscript in Boulogne contains about a dozen compositions with
the title, Li Roumans de Guillaume d'Orange.

With the great cycles a number of small cycles originated
in the provinces of France, such as the bloody and savage
Cycle of the Lorrains, the cycle of hatred and private feuds ;
the Cycle of Girart de Roussillon ; the Cycle of Aubri de Bour-
going and that of Raoul de Cambrai. Each of these cycles
was independent of the other and not one, says Leon Gautier
could be reasonably attached to any of the great cycles, yet
owing to a sort of "cyclical monomania," the trouveres at-
tached them to the three great cycles.

The most famous of the great epic narratives transmitted
to us in literary form is the Chanson de Roland, which, in the
form afforded us by the Oxford manuscript, precedes the
year 1080 A.D.1 The episode on which was wrought the Chan-
son de Roland s seemed in its actuality so trivial to the
historians3 of Charlemagne's reign that they but briefly
recorded it. The Caliphate of Cordova in Spain had been
dismembered, and one of the warring Moorish chiefs who
had shared in its partition, invoked the aid of Charlemagne
against the Emir. A French army descended upon Spain, pos-
sessed Pamplona, and approached Saragossa. Then Charles,
having secured hostages from the Emir, and being threat-
ened by an uprising of the Saracens, deemed it wise to return.
He passed the Pyrenees in safety with the bulk of his army ;
but the Basques fell upon the rear guard at Roncevaux — a
trap into which Charles had foolishly led them — and his
nephew, Roland,4 in command, perished there on the 15th
of August, in the year 778. On such a slight structure of fact
was erected the greatest epic of France.

It is certain that the Chanson de Roland, as we possess it,
was not derived directly from the original popular forms, but
is a growth and an elaboration from the great body of epic
songs produced in the primitive period of spontaneous inven-
tion. In its oldest written form it represents, at the least, a

1 There are eight manuscripts of the Chanson de Roland, of which
those of Oxford and of the Library of St. Mark in Venice are the oldest.

2 The Chanson de Roland was translated in all European languages;
there is even an Icelandic version.

3 The historical facts of this poem, which are very meager, are given by
Eginhard, historian of Charlemagne (Eginhardi Vita Caroli Magni IX).

* Historically, Roland was not Charlemagne's nephew.

EPICS

second or third stage of the legend. Gaston Paris writes of
it : " The last adapter of the poem, whom we may place about
1080, has fashioned a poem in which contradictions and ob-
scurities are not lacking, but which is presented on the whole
with a certain unity and an incontestable grandeur. It is the
dominant work of the French Middle Ages: it sums up their
highest ideal, it presents their most powerful effort, it trans-
mits to posterity all that was most vital and lasting in those
times— patriotism, honor, and duty— and it deserves to re-
main always for France a truly national work. It is the
most perfect flower in that fruitful field of poetry, blooming
in the heroic age of France, which we call chansons de geste
— songs woven around the facts, or the reputed facts, of
history.1 It seems probable that all the poems of this kind are
a sort of vulgar development of much shorter songs— like to
those which Germania's warlike tribes consecrated to the
glory of their heroes.

This Chanson de Roland, though it belongs in its present
form to the last third of the twelfth century, was discovered
in an Oxford manuscript by Francisque Michel as late as
1836. According to some authorities its author was a Norman
who lived in England, Touroude or Theroulde, mentioned
in the last verse of the epic : ' ' Ci fait la geste que Turoldus
declinet." (This is the geste which Turoldus ends.) Leon
Gautier asserts that one may interpret this sentence in three
ways: A poet who has finished his poem; a scribe who has
finished copying it; a jongleur who has finished relating it;
and therefore it were better to regard the Chanson de Roland
as an anonymous poem. There are 4,002 verses, in all,
divided into five parts. The first part is concerned with the
embassy of the Saracen King, Marsile, to Charlemagne, and
the treason of Ganelon, Charlemagne's vassal. In the second,
acting on the pledge of Marsile and the good faith of Ganelon,
Charles leaves Spain, where he had been at war for a long
time. Roland, his nephew, commands the rear guard, and
is accompanied by Olivier and the Bishop Turpin. The third
part, and the most beautiful, discloses Roland passing through

1 Geste (from the Latin neuter plural, gesta, which becomes in French a
feminine substantive) was used in the sense of "history." Later on, une
geste came to mean in French an epic poem.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

the gorge of Roncevaux, where, in violation of the Saracen
oath, he is attacked, and defends himself heroically. In the
fourth division the Emperor, who has heard too late the
despairing blast of Roland's horn, returns to the scene of
carnage, smites the Saracens, and gathers the bodies of his
dead. In the last scene of all — the traitor Ganelon is caught
and put to death.

Of all the episodes of the Chanson that of the death of
Roland * is the most pathetic. The dying hero laments the
fate of ' ' Durandal, ' ' his sword, which must not fall into the
hands of the enemy, or of some coward. As if it were a living
thing, he reminds it of exploits performed, and of the holy
relics in its golden sheath. But death is creeping to his heart ;
he lies down, face upturned, his sword, and his horn " Oli-
phant " 2 under him. He prays that God will forgive him his
sins ; and, with conscience eased, sweet memories come to him :

De dulce France, des humes de sun lign,

De Charlemagne, sun seigneur, qui le nourrit.1

Again imploring the divine grace, with his right hand he
extends his glove toward God, as a sign of chivalrous faith;
and it is taken by St. Gabriel. Then, reclining his head on
his arm, "with folded hands he went to his end" ("jointes
ses mains est alets a sa fin"). Finally, God sends his angels,
who convey the count's soul to Paradise. The pathos and
simplicity in the poem on Aude's death is striking:

MORT D'AUDE
(Modern French translation)

L'Empereur est revenu d'Espagne:

II vient a Aix, la meilleure ville de France.

1 The phrase " to give a Roland for an Oliver " (a blow for a blow)
comes from the legend which tells that Roland fought for five days with
Oliver, but as they were equally matched, neither was victorious.

1 The sword and horn which tradition says Roland won from the giant
Jutmundus.

s Of sweet France, the men of his race, of Charlemagne, his lord who
brought him up.

EPICS

Monte au palais, entre en la salle.

Une belle damoiselle vient a lui : c'est Aude.

Elle dit au roi: "Ou est Roland le capitaine,

Qui m'a jur6 de me prendre pour femme?"

Charles en est plein de douleur et d'angoisse;

II pleure des yeux, il tire sa barbe blanche :

"Sceur, chere amie, dit-il tu me demandes nouvelles d'un homme mort.

Mais va, je saurai te remplacer Roland ;

Je ne puis te mieux dire : je te donnerai Louis,

Louis, mon fils, celui qui tiendra mes marches."

"Ce discours m'est 6trange," repond belle Aude.

"Ne plaise a Dieu, ni a ses saints, ni a ses anges,
Qu' apres Roland je vive encore!"
Lors elle perd sa couleur et tombe aux pieds de Charles.
Elle est morte soudain : Dieu veuille avoir son ame ! '

Antedating the epic of Roland is a singular production
(about 1060) which we cannot ignore — a complete poem,
written in heroic verse, entitled The Pilgrimage of Charle-
magne to Jersualem, the only comic chanson de geste exist-
ing (found in a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the
British Museum). An abstract of this extraordinary com-
position will prove interesting :

1 DEATH OF AUDE

(Literal translation)
The Emperor has returned from Spain:
He arrives at Aix, the best city of France.
He rides up to the palace, enters the hall.
A beautiful lady comes to meet him: it is Aude.
She says to the king: "Where is Roland the chief,
Who swore to take me for wife? "
Charles is filled with sorrow and anguish;
His eyes weep, he pulls his white beard.

"Sister, dear friend," says he, "you ask me about a dead man.
But I shall know how to fill Roland's place.
I cannot say better: I will give you Louis,
Louis, my son, he who will rule over my lands."
. . . "'Tis a strange speech you make me," answers fair Aude.
" God and his saints and his angels forbid,
That I continue to live after Roland ! "

Then the color leaves her face and she falls at the feet of Charles.
She died suddenly: God have her soul!

Charlemagne, says our imaginative author, stood one day,
crown on head, before a mirror, admiring his majestic ap-
pearance. His queen, in a taunting spirit, flung at him the
gibe that in the person of the Emperor Hugo of Constan-
tinople there reigned a sovereign more kingly than he. Char-
lemagne's vanity was stung. Swearing a great oath that he
would test her tale by looking upon this monarch, and that
if she had spoken falsely he would behead her on his return,
he set forth immediately for Constantinople accompanied by
his twelve paladins. On the way he tarried in Jerusalem, to
make his devotions, and the Patriarch paid him all honor and
gave him many precious relics. We learn from the veracious
poet that Charles and his peers repaired to that church
"where the Lord Himself sang His first mass with His
Apostles." There were the thirteen chairs which no one
since had dared to occupy; but Charles undaunted, took the
seat of Jesus, while the twelve peers seated themselves in the
chairs of the Apostles.

"When Charles and his companions reached Constantinople
the emperor gave them a banquet— a banquet so copious of
wine that the Frankish ruler and his paladins boasted in their
cups that they would do extravagant deeds. Charles him-
self declared that with one stroke of his sword he would halve
a horse and the ironclad knight that bestrode him. Roland,
on his part, undertook to overthrow the city walls with a
blast from his horn, and to tear out the beard of the Greek
emperor. Another paladin, not to be outdone, vowed that
he would turn the river from its course and inundate the
capital. These boasts, and others not very becoming, being
reported to Hugo by a spy hidden conveniently in a hollow
column, the royal host informed his guests that they would be
detained until they had made good their vauntings. Greatly
embarrassed, they sought to excuse themselves, but Hugo
would not relent. So they prayed to Heaven for aid, invok-
ing the saints whose relics they bore with them. And it
came to pass that the walls of the city began to fall, and the
water to pour in. Hugo asked no more, but showered presents
on the pilgrims and bade them depart as they had come. Fi-
nally, we learn that Charles, upon his return home, forgave the
queen, in view of the pleasures he had tasted on his journey.

EPICS

The external form of these poems varies little. The Chan-
son de Roland is in couplets, tirades, or stanzas (laisses).1
Every stanza forms a natural division of the narrative. The
couplet is composed in the Roland poem of at least twelve to
fifteen verses and becomes much more developed in the later
poems. Assonance at first prevails — assonance consisting in
a repetition of the last accented vowel in a word indepen-
dently of the consonants following it. Later the rhyme pre-
vails.

Charles Aubertin, author of the Origins of French Poetry
describes the epics thus: They disclose a happy instinct, a
brave fervor; we note a welling forth of naive and forceful
qualities, the beginnings of grandeur. But art is absent,
composition is almost wanting. The recital is neither rich
nor graceful ; it is rather like a good old breast-plate, and its
penetration is that of an iron sword. The verses, running
all alike, following the one upon the other with a similarity
of sound, suggest medieval barons in ponderous armor. One
of poetic intuition may perceive an entire moral state far
removed from our own — a less cultivated, a less complex
humanity, yet young and full of life ; and one undergoes with
joy its fortifying influence. And this is the true merit of
the French epic poems. If the literary interest frequently
flags, if the poetry falls below mediocrity, there remains
nevertheless the historic interest— that is to say the accurate
picture of feudal manners in their living originality. It is
here one must repair if he would see the portrait and the
reflection of an epoch which the later French chroniclers have
by no means described — which Joinville, Froissart, Ville-
hardouin himself, in their primitive rudeness, did not know.
The chansons de geste are, in a word, the poetic history of
feudalism.

Gaston Paris, who has set forth the immense influence of
the French heroic epics upon the Germanic and Latin world
of Europe tells us that they were transplanted early to the
neighboring countries : England, Germany, Holland, Norway,
Spain, but above all, in Italy, where dialects more or less
analogous to the French prevailed. The poems first sung in

1 See Le"on Gautier's Chanson de Roland (texte critique, eighth edition).

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

French were then strongly influenced by the dialects of North-
ern Italy and a romantic element was introduced. In the
course of time, these Franco-Italian poems were imitated in
Italian verse and prose, culminating in an epic poetry such
as Ariosto's brilliant Orlando Furioso, Bajardo's Orlando
Innamorato, Tasso's Goffredo (later called Gerusalemme Li-
berata), Pulci's Morgante Maggiore and others. As for the
prose— the romances— they continue to delight the people.
Even to-day a compilation made from several of them and
published with the title, Reali di Francia, enjoys a vogue
which numberless editions attest. It is the merit of the epics
that they parallel true history with the national legendary
history, and indicate the transformation imposed from cen-
tury to century on persons and events.

The reign of Charlemagne "inspired" the poets of subse-
quent periods to produce innumerable verified romances which
it would be tedious to analyze. But in the older poems the
type of Charlemagne is apotheosized, whereas in the subse-
quent romances, in order to please the great vassals of the
thirteenth century in their struggle against royalty, he is dis-
torted into caricature. The role of woman also changes; in
the early poems she was depicted as rude and wild, but
chaste; in the later poems she is represented as dishonorable
and lascivious. In short, the older poems are more simple,
but natural, the later ones are false and strained. Leon
Gautier informs us that no Provencale chanson de geste has
been preserved, unless it be Giratz de Rousilho, which, how-
ever, was composed in both the languages d'oc and d'oil. He
concludes that Northern France only achieved the epic form
of poetry. The last epic cycle of France was that of the
Crusades. Two other important cycles in France during the
Middle Ages are the Breton Cycle of Celtic inspiration and
the Cycle of Antiquity taken from the legendary sayings re-
lating to Greece and Rome.

Toward the middle of the twelfth century, along with the
Germanic epic, the Celtic traditions suddenly took their place
and with them a new world arose — a world less barbarous and
warlike. The chanson de geste is essentially feudal; the new
saga marks a departure from feudalism. While the scene of
the chansons de geste is in France and the neighboring coun-

EPICS

tries, that of the legends of the Breton Cycle -was restricted
to the lands where the Celtic dialects were spoken. Of the
three branches of that dialect the Gaelic disappeared since
the fourth century; the Gaelic is preserved in Ireland, Scot-
land, and on the Isle of Man ; the Breton or Cymric in Wales
and in Brittany * where it was introduced by the Bretons
who fled before the Saxon invasion, taking refuge in an-
cient Armor ica. Thus the traditions were brought from Eng-
land and introduced by the trouveres — Breton or Welsh
and then French musicians — to the big and little courts of
France.

The most ancient texts preserved cannot be traced back
farther than about 1150, but it is certain that these were
preceded by oral recitals of a much earlier period. The most
ancient form in which the Breton traditions seem to have
appeared is in the lai. The lais (lays) were sung by these
musicians to the accompaniment of the harp, and through
this channel the epic traditions of the Celts of Great Britain
spread throughout France. The largest collection of lays
was gathered by Marie de France and dedicated to Henry
II of England, second husband of Eleanore of Aquitaine,
the queen who made Breton poetry the fashion at her courts.
From Marie de Champagne, daughter of Eleanore and her
first husband Louis VII of France, the poet Chrestien de
Troyes received the theme of his Lancelot,2 the most brilliant
versification of the Breton romances.

The Breton Cycle, called also the Arthurian or Cycle of
the Round Table3 forms an immense collection to which
the poets of various countries collaborated. In the most of
these compositions King Arthur fills the role assigned to
Charlemagne in the French epics. The first notice literature
takes of Arthur is in a Latin chronicle by the Breton monk
Nennius in the eighth century. According to common ver-
sion he lived in the sixth century and was the son of Pen-

1 This language is spoken by over a million people in Brittany to-day,
of which, however, about half the number also speak French.

2 Dante has given the character of Lancelot an important place in his
Francesco, da Rimini episode.

3 The twelve knights of King Arthur are all seated indiscriminately
about the Round Table, significant of their equality.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

dragon. The last Breton king,1 he defended England against
the Picts and Scots in twelve battles, but disappeared after
the last battle. The Bretons, deprived of their king, took
refuge in Armorica in France, which province took from them
the name of Bretagne (Brittany). Tradition has it that
Arthur did not die but was taken by the enchanter Merlin
and the bard Faliesin to the island of Avalon, the "Land of
Eternal Youth," whence he would some day return to raise
his kingdom to its former magnificence.

The poets in the age of Arthur and in the generation im-
mediately following, celebrated the hero's exploits in brief
but expressive songs ; a century later the songs were developed
and the legendary recital appeared. England's subjugation
by the Saxons, and the overthrow of the Saxon rule by the
Normans (1066), each imposed new matter on a legend al-
ready transformed; and each series of contributors wrought
according to the genius of their race and the taste of the
time.

The two principal sources of the subject matter of Brit-
tany were the Historic/, regum Britannia by Godfrey of
Monmouth 1136 (published by San Marte 1854) and the
Roman de Brut by Robert Wace. From these sources have
proceeded in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries an enor-
mous quantity of poems divisible into two groups. The first,
composed of poems strictly treating of the Round Table, in-
clude all those which are inspired by the love of chivalry
and heroism, the principal ones being: Lancelot, Merlin,
Yvain, Erec, and lUnide,2 le Chevalier au Lion, Tristan de
Leonnais. The second group has a religious tendency alto-
gether mystical, the object of which is the search for the Holy
Grail. Of these the Romance of Perceval3 by the ancient
trouvere Chrestien de Troyes is the oldest and best. It was
continued by successive French versifiers to the extent of
some fifty thousand verses.

1 According to Breton tradition Arthur's court was held in Carduel in
Cumberland, but a Welsh tradition has it in Carleon.

2 The same legend that Tennyson used in his Idylls of the King.

8 The legend of Perceval, Welsh Peredur (searcher for the basin), is
among the collection of Welsh tales in the Red Book of Hergest, a manu-
script of the fourteenth century, at Jesus College, Oxford.

EPICS

Chrestien de Troyes, one of the most celebrated poets of
the Middle Ages, was the greatest champion of love, chivalry,
and the cult of women. One of his best works is the Roman
de Cliges written about 1160. Cliges is in love with Fenice
who returns his love, but is forced to marry his uncle Alexius,
emperor of Byzantium (Constantinople). Cliges in despair
seeks diversion in many adventures at the court of Arthur
in Brittany. His love for Fenice, however, brings him back
to Constantinople. Fenice feigning illness is given a strong
sleeping potion by her nurse, and seemingly dead, is in-
terred with great pomp in the cathedral, where during the
night she elopes with Cliges. For more than a year they
live in undisturbed happiness, but finally discovered and
pursued by the emperor's wrath, they flee for protection to
Arthur's court. Soon after the emperor dies and they re-
turn to reign in Constantinople. Tradition has it that since
then the rulers of Constantinople keep their wives closely
guarded.

At the end of the twelfth century, Robert de Boron in
his trilogy of the Grail (Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, Per-
ceval) united the Christian legend with the Celtic traditions
of the Round Table. These allegorical recitals infused with
vague mysticism treat of the Grail (the old French word
greal, Latinized gratalis) as the vessel used by Christ at the
Last Supper, and in which Joseph of Arimathea afterwards
caught the blood flowing from the side of the crucified
Saviour. This precious chalice, so the legend ran, was car-
ried to Britain where it was hidden for centuries and finally
recovered by the Welsh hero Perceval. From this poem are
derived subsequent forms of the legend. It is evident that
they proceeded from sacerdotal influences.1 At the same
time the lay influence was exercised in the recital of the
deeds done by the knights to win a sight of the Holy Grail
which, it was said, insured great happiness to the possessor
of perfect chastity, but vanished from sight when approached
by one not perfectly pure.

1 The legend of the Grail or Graal is said to have been suggested by the
words in Matt, xxvi, 23: "Qui intingit mecum manum in paropside hie
me tradet." (He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish the same shall
betray me.)

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

One of the oldest romances of this cycle is the song of
Tristan and his undying love for the fair Iseult of Ireland,
wife of King Mark of Cornwall, which ends in the death of
the lovers. Originally a Breton or Cornish legend of ancient
and barbarous times, it became in the Middle Ages the sub-
ject of poems and romances in numerous tongues. Received
by the trouveres Beroul and Thomas of the twelfth century,
it had an extraordinary distribution throughout all Europe.
Gaston Paris describes it as one of the finest love epics ever
conceived. Eilhard von Oberge introduced this romance to
German literature in the last half of the twelfth century;
the great Gottfried von Strassburg left the famous epic,
though unfinished, in its most classical form, and sequels
were written by two later poets, the last in 1300. From this
Richard Wagner drew the subject of one of his most im-
pressive music dramas.

Godfrey of Monmouth in the Historia regum Britannia
writes of a strange personage — partly of Welsh tradition,
partly of his own invention — the sorcerer Merlin,1 son of a
demon and a woman. Merlin figures in many romances of the
Breton Cycle. His life was written in popular Latin, and his
prophecies, credited indiscriminately, formed a most interest-
ing chapter in medieval literature. They embraced, among
others, that prophecy commonly applied to the infamous
Isabeau of Bavaria, who betrayed France, and to Jeanne
d'Arc, who saved it: "One woman will destroy France, one
woman will restore her."

Merlin's love affairs with the fairy Viviane, the lady of
the lake, are an interesting feature of the legend. In his
wanderings in a forest in French Brittany, Merlin met the
young fairy Viviane. He told her that he wrought many
wonderful things. To test him, Viviane asked that he cause
to appear in the forest a castle before which knights and
ladies should pass. Merlin described several circles with his
magic wand, and the castle appeared. Charmed with his
magic, she gave her heart to him, and thereafter the magician
came to see her every year for a season. But this did not
satisfy her; she wished to keep him forever. So she asked

1 In the Middle Ages Merlin became " le type de 1'homme supeiieur dont
le g4nie est annihite par les ruses d'une femme."

EPICS

him whether he knew a spell that would hold some one in an
enclosure without, however, imprisoning him. For a long
time he refused her this secret knowledge; but she finally
drew it from him, and one day when he had fallen asleep, his
head on her knees, under a blooming rosebush, she repeated
the incantation he had taught her, and on awakening he be-
came aware that he was chained forever.

The literary output of the Breton Cycle is inexhaustible.
The feudal Occident — romanized, germanized, christianized
— has found entertainment in it. As the French listened
to the Breton harpists, their imagination was captivated by
the fantastic character of the tales in which love and chivalry
played so great a part. Introduced into the coarse feudal-
ism of the North, they opened a new world to them — the world
of fairies and genii, of monsters and miracles and magic.

From this poetry sprang that ideal of courteous chivalry
—the protection of the weak and respect for woman. Women
who rarely figure in the ancient epics are here supreme and
find poetic expression: such as Morgana,1 the fairy sister of
Arthur; his wife Guinevere,2 with eyes of the ''finest blue
of the heavens" and who loved Lancelot of the Lake; Blan-
chefleur 3 whose story of her love for Floire is strikingly
like that of Aucassin and Nicolette; and a whole galaxy of
fairy creations. And these figures are stranger, more cap-
tivating because of the novelty of their adventures and senti-
ments, than all the heroes of classical antiquity— than Alex-
ander, JBneas, and Caesar— who formed a Cycle of Rome or
Antique Cycle introduced to France by the poets.

A thirteenth-century poet, John Bodel of Arras, divides
those elaborate versified recitals into three classes and begins
his poem Chanson des Saisnes,* thus:

1 One of the leading feminine characters, the heroine of the Morte
d' Arthur, also appears in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso; introduced into
Italy, the personage became popular with the Italians, who gave her
name, Fata Morgana (fairy Morgana), to a phenomenon of mirage pro-
duced on the coast of Messina and Reggio.

J In Chrestien de Troyes's story of Roman de la Charrette.

3 Boccaccio used the legend in E FUocopo.

4 Song of the Saxons, in which he treats of Charlemagne's wars with
Guiteclin (Wittiking). Some authorities claim the authorship for Jehan
Bordians.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Ne sont que trois matures a nul homme entendant
De France, de Bretagne, et de Rome la grant.1

The subject matter of " Great Rome," Albert tells us, em-
braces poems relating both to ancient and sacred history.
Hector, ^neas, the heroes of the siege of Thebes, Alexander,
Julius Caesar, and Vespasian himself, are pictured in these
curious compositions. They are probably the work of clerics
somewhat better informed than their fellows, and possessed
of a pedantry that becomes grotesque in its display, inasmuch
as their knowledge of history seems a bit confused. Thus in
one of these romances we see Judas Maccabeus fighting the
Saracens and marrying their king's daughter — a union, we
are told, from which sprung Brunehild (obit 613 A.D.),
mother of Julius Caesar. He in turn, betook himself to the
court of Arthur, King of Brittany, where he married the
fairy Morgana, mother of St. George and of Oberon the
dwarf, who already figured in the romance of Huon of Bor-
deaux. There were few poetic beauties to compensate for
these absurd anachronisms.

The oldest Alexandre chanson 2 in the French language
composed by the cleric Simon and amplified by Lambert li
Tors, Alexandre de Bernay, and Pierre de Saint-Cloud, is
written in twelve syllable iambic verse, from which the
famous Alexandrine of French poetical composition received
its name. The history of the Macedonian King, Alexander
the Great, is the subject of this epic of twenty-two thousand
verses; its coloring, however, is not that of classic antiquity,
but of the feudal times of the thirteenth century. The Roman
de Troie by Benoit de Sainte-More in which the author tells
that the French are descended from the Trojans likewise re-
flects feudal times.

1 There are but three kinds for any well-informed man (the epics) of
France, of Brittany, and of Rome the Great.

* An earlier Alexander poem was written in the twelfth century by
Alberic de Besangon, or Brianson, in the Dauphin^ dialect.

CHAPTER III

FABLIAUX

POETRY, or rather, poetic literature, had up to this time
been solely devoted to the upper classes represented by
the great vassals. They alone were the heroes of the poems,
and they alone were almost the only auditors or readers. But
toward the end of the twelfth century a new public appeared.
The burgher also came to hear the poems of the trouveres;
and after the burgher, the rustic. Hence the necessity arose
to sing not only for the kings and the powerful barons, for
the prelates, priests and monks, but rlso for the tradesmen
of the towns and the peasants of the villages. The fabliaux
originated with the bourgeoisie, just about the time when that
class was really established, but they were written for the
amusement of all classes. In those conceived to flatter the
pride of some great vassal or knight, the burgher or rustic
played a ridiculous role. In others, on the contrary, the
priest or the lord was the butt, and the rustic laughed his
rude laugh. The farces related were not always in the best
taste; the salt was somewhat coarse— but there was salt. The
middle class also had its place in the fabliaux ; and this place
was generally honorable — for in that class were found the
solid qualities of the race; righteousness, sincerity, economy,
patriotism. Finally religion, which played such a large part
in the society of the Middle Ages, has inspired a certain
number of these tales— some in which we see a true elevation
of spirit, and others in which the devotion is conventional.

The novel of adventure— usually a series of stories con-
nected with the same personage— forms the transition be-
tween the epics and the fabliaux. Some of these are of
original invention and some are based on national, Celtic, or
Oriental traditions; as: Robert le Diable, Richard sans Peur,
4 33

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

Foulke Fitz-Warin,1 llle et Galeron, Comte d'Artois. An-
other class of novels popular at this period were the romans
a tiroir, novels which could be lengthened or shortened by
the addition or the suppression of the digressional part, of
which an example is the novel called Sept Sages de Rome.
The fabliau,2 also called conte or aventure, is a popular
anecdote, often satirical, but sometimes tender and touch-
ing— a short tale in verse. It is a combination of popular
wisdom and malice contrived to engage both the reason and
the fancy of the reader. The question of the origin and
propagation of the fabliaux is a matter of discussion among
eminent critics. Theodor Benfey,3 Silvestre de Sacy,4 Gas-
ton Paris,5 Max Miiller,6 Reinhold Koehler,7 all uphold the
oriental theory: the great majority of fabliaux originated in
a common source — India8 — and were circulated in Europe
through two intermediaries, Byzantium which had received
them from Syria or Persia after their direct importation
from India to those countries, and through the Arabs. The
Arabs transmitted them in two ways: in Spain, by the Jews
and in Syria by the crusaders who, living in intimate relation-
ship with the Mussulman population, gathered the tales orally
and transmitted them in the same manner throughout
Europe. From Spain, the transmission was in a literary
form and through the Jews, the cosmopolitan people par ex-
cellence of the Middle Ages, and the only ones who knew
Arabic and could translate it into Latin.9

1 The sources of the Robin Hood tales.

3 Fablel, of which the regular plural is fableaux; but fabliaux — a form of
the old Picard dialect — is upheld by many authorities; in Picardy this
genre of literature was most richly developed.

3 Pantchatantra, fiinf Bucher indischer Fabeln, Marchen und Erz&h-
lungen, aus dem Sanskrit ubersetzt mit Einleitung von Theodor Benfey.

* Calila et Dimna, ou les Fables de Bidpai en arabe.

* Litterature francaise au moyen-Age.

• The migration of the Fable.

1 Aufsatzte ilber Marchen und Volkslieder.

'Ten Brink in his Geschichte der Englischen Literatur also says: "Die
Hauptmasse der Nouvellen des Mittelalters stammen von Indien."

• Recueil general et complet des fabliaux des XIII et XIV siecles imprimis
ou intdits, public d'apYes les manuscrits, par Anatole de Montaiglon et par
Gaston Raynaud.

FABLIAUX

The oriental theory is disputed by the celebrated savant
Joseph Bedier,1 who writes that the fabliaux were born spon-
taneously on all points of the globe and that it is equally
impossible to determine their place of origin or their mode
of propagation.

The writers of the fabliaux made no pretense to literary
merit, but their conies have the merit of reflecting the life
of the period. Some are delightful little stories well told and
full of sentiment, such as La Vair palefroi (The Dapple-gray
Horse) ; Guillaume au faucon (William with the Falcon) ;
Les deux changeurs (The Two Money-changers) ; Le Chevalier
au Chainse (The Knight with the Tunic.) The general char-
acteristic of the fabliaux, however, is pleasantry, and this is
indicated by the terms in which the writers themselves style
them — bourds or gabets (untruths, trickery) — fit to be told
after repasts to aid the digestion. In some fabliaux the
pleasantry leads to obscenity and disgusting platitudes. The
women are usually unfavorably depicted, sometimes as de-
praved, or peevish, or ruseful, and often with profound con-
tempt. The epoch of the fabliaux, of which only one hundred
and fifty have been preserved, comprises about two centuries,
the oldest being Richeut (1159), and the latest by Jean de
Conde (about 1340). But the majority date from the end of
the twelfth century and the commencement of the thirteenth
to the middle of the fourteenth centuries. The fabliau
Richeut is a picture of the life of a courtesan of the twelfth
century, traced with great surety of touch and a surprising
realism. Gaston Paris says of it: " Richeut reminds us of the
most realistic novels of our own days, in which such masculine
and such feminine types are described with relish, and we
cannot refuse to recognize that this is a vein very French
indeed, and altogether very different from what is called
I' esprit gaulois, which reigns in many fables."

The French fabliaux are rather diverse in character. One
finds among them the tale of devotion — the itinerary of St.
Peter, the narrations of Aristaeus, the reputed doings of
St. Paul. In our own day Anatole France has found in
them a source of inspiration, and has renewed this form of

1 See Les Fabliaux, by Joseph Be'dier.
35

literature in a manner that denotes great talent. The sub-
jects of the fabliaux are frequently great sinners who even-
tually do penance and are forgiven. We find among them
the story satirizing the clergy; the story of the spendthrift;
Dit de Berenger1 (the Tale of Berenger), prototype of
Moliere's George Dandin; La Mauvaise Femme (the Wicked
Dame) ; Le Court Mantel2 (the Short Mantel) — meaning the
mantle which becomes shorter or longer according to the
virtue of the lady who wears it. We note, also, numberless
stories of conjugal mishaps. Popular literature has drawn
most liberally on the type of Bartholo in the Middle Ages.
Again, we encounter the story that is merely amusing; La
Fontaine's, La Jeune Veuve (The Young Widow), is taken
from a fabliau by Gautier le Long, in which the young widow
is almost as lively in the old text as in the most modern one.

The fabliaux treating of religion are interesting, because
they show the peculiar conception the people of the Middle
Ages had of religion, as for instance, the fable of the Cour
de Paradis (Court of Paradise), a charming, but strange
poem which tells of God, of the Virgin Mary, the saints and
apostles dancing to a tune. In this poem the pious intention of
the poet is evident. Sometimes the fabliaux disclose an artless
daring, as in Le Vilain qui Conquit le Paradis par plaid, the
villain 3 who gains admission to Paradise by pleading his own
cause. Thus runs the theme : A villain dies, and so occupied
are the angels and demons that his unconsidered soul arises
alone to the portals of heaven ere judgment has been passed.
" What would you? " demands St. Peter. " Who allowed you
to come here ? This is not the abode of villains. Go hence ! ' '
"You are always hard as stone, St. Peter," replies the vil-
lain, ' ' and yet it would more become you to be lenient. Pride
sits with ill grace on one who has denied Christ. Behold in
me a sincere and loyal man." St. Peter bears the rebuff
meekly, and seeks counsel of St. Thomas, who declares that
he will put the villain in his place. But when he assumes an
overbearing attitude, he is promptly reminded of his lack of

1 See Be"ranger's song: Je suis vilain, vilain, vilain.
1 Also Le Mantel mautaillie.

'Villain (vilain) was used at that time for rustic (both as noun and
adjective).

FABLIAUX

faith ; and so, in his confusion, he calls upon St. Paul. This
good saint proves even sterner than the others. "I recognize
you," says the villain, "by your intolerance. You are the
same cruel tyrant at whose hands the first Christians suf-
fered." Thereupon the three saints, equally confounded,
lay the matter before the Lord, who summons the bold villain
to His presence. "I have led a pure and honorable life,"
pleads the villain. "I have fed the hungry, I have clothed
the naked, I have sheltered the homeless; I have taken Com-
munion with a clean conscience. It is thus, we have been
taught, that eternal life is gained. You know, O Lord, that
I speak the truth." So the villain, after all, is admitted to
Paradise.

But what does one not find in these varied and precious
collections ? Here an elegy full of grace and sentiment, there
an idyl or an edifying tale; turn the page, and behold!— a
gross buffoonery. As Albert says, "one is by turns, moved,
instructed, catechised, refreshed, rejoiced, scandalized. The
light and sensual mind discovers therein a nourishment to
its taste; the delicate and pure soul finds food for sweet
enchantment." In the fabliau of Le Chevalier au Barizel
(the Knight with the Barrel), we see to what heights these
narrators can rise. A knight black with crime is condemned
by Heaven's decree to wander on the earth until he has suc-
ceeded in filling a cask pierced with many holes. In vain
are his heroic endeavors to achieve this new task of the
Danai'des. Then, one day, he performs an act of Christian
devotion and charity. The succored one weeps with grati-
tude; a tear falls into the barrel— it is filled.

Among the infinite variety of fabliaux we note a simple,
didactic one that is typical of its kind. This fabliau of the
Housse Partie (the Divided Horse-blanket) by Bernier, sug-
gests King Lear. A father, having given his estate to his
son at the time of the young man's marriage, becomes a
burden in his old age, whereupon his ungrateful daughter-
in-law conspires to drive him forth. It is cold, and the old
man begs that at least he shall be provided with a garment
against the weather. The unnatural son sends his own young
boy to fetch the horse-blanket, and the child returns with but
half of it. "Why did you cut it in two?" asks his father.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

To which the little one responds that he is keeping the other
half for the day when he, too, will show his father the door.
Whereupon the unnatural son repents, and full amends are
made to the old man.

Many of the oldest fabliaux are revived in the later
classical literature of France and other countries. Boccaccio,
Chaucer, Rabelais, Moliere, and La Fontaine have found the
inspiration of many of their works in the old fabliaux. The
fabliau of the Vilain Mire (The Peasant Physician) supplied
Moliere with the subject of his famous comedy, Le Medecin
malgre Lui (A Physician in Spite of Himself). In this
Vilain Mire we are introduced to a woodcutter with a young
wife whom he is obliged to leave alone all day. Fearful that
she may receive admirers in his absence, he devises a singular
means to insure, as he fancies, her faithfulness. Every morn-
ing he beats her, and every evening he effects a reconciliation.
The woman resents this peculiar device, and seeks a means
of revenge. Her opportunity arrives with two strangers, who
ask her to direct them to some skillful country doctor. "I
know such a one," she tells them, "but he is possessed with
a strange mania. He does not want to appear as a man of
science, and he will not confess his skill until he has been
beaten soundly." She gives them a minute description of
her husband, who is cutting wood in the forest, and they go
in search of him. When approached by the strangers, he
does not, of course, acknowledge himself a physician, and
they proceed to extract the admission by means of the good
wife's formula. They tell him that the king's daughter is
desperately ill, and that he will be well paid for his serv-
ices. So what with the blows and the promise of money,
he agrees to accompany them. When he is taken to the
palace he is greatly embarrassed upon finding that the
princess is in a fair way to choke to death, because of a fish
bone in her throat, that no one has been able to extract. His
native wit comes to his rescue. Left alone, at his request,
with the princess, he makes such comical grimaces and con-
tortions that the girl, at first astonished, presently has a
laughing fit that expels the fish bone. The king heaps gifts
upon him, but he is loath to let such a learned man depart
until certain ailing subjects in his domain have been treated

FABLIAUX

also. The woodsman, unable to refuse, and altogether non-
plused, requests, at a venture, that all the invalids be gath-
ered together in the hall of the palace. "When they are
assembled, he has a fire kindled in the great chimney, and
announces that the sole means of effectual cure involves a
great sacrifice. The sickest one among them all must throw
himself into the flames, where he will be quickly consumed.
The others must then swallow his ashes, which will immedi-
ately restore them to health. The only problem is to deter-
mine which is the sickest person. In this dilemma, all the
patients hasten to declare themselves well. Thereupon the
amateur physician insists that they so declare themselves to
the king. The monarch is delighted, and so enriches the
peasant that he no longer finds it expedient to beat his wife
in order that she may be occupied in his absence.

The fable (Latin, fabula) is also considered a spontaneous
creation of the prehistoric history of the nations. There have
always been fables ; in the literature of every nation you will
find these tales to which the imagination contributes less
than is supplied by observation and the art of the narrator.
The fable generally conveys a moral, though it is not always
didactic throughout. The most famous are the Indian fables
called Pilpay.1 The Greek fables also trace their origin to
the Orient, for JEsop (sixth century B.C.) was a Phrygian
slave and he is the supposed originator 2 of the beast fable,
called after him the JiEsopic fables. Through the inter-
mediary of the Latin compilations, of Avianus (collected
from Greek fables which were called JEsop) and of Romulus
(Phgedrian and Byzantine fables), ^Esop became very pop-
ular in the Middle Ages and it was customary to give the
name Tsopets (little 2Esops) to all collections of fables. One

1 Pilpay, or Bidpai, the Arabic translation of the Pahlavi translation of
the original Sanskrit Pantchatantra, a celebrated book of fables and
considered the most ancient source of fables. Benfey traces the word
Bidpai or Pilpay to the Sanskrit vidyapate (in Arabic, bidbah), meaning
master of sciences, according to which Bidpai is not the name of an indi-
vidual. Vapereau's Dictionnaire des Litteratures says " Pilpay or Bidpay
is another name for Vishnu-Sarma, Indian (Hindoo) fabulist."

2 Some of the fables attributed to ^Esop were discovered in recent years
by Dr. Brugsch Pascha to have been drawn from Egyptian sources which
date to fourteen centuries B.C.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of the largest and most interesting of these collections was
composed by Marie de France, which she translated from an
English collection.

The Ysopets were transmitted in the Middle Ages by
the clerics; but independently of this there were in oral cir-
culation " contes " of animals which differed from the fable
because they offered no moral aim but only strove to be
amusing. A great many of these " contes " make a point of
the quarrel between the wolf and the fox, who with his finesse
and subtle treachery plays him a thousand tricks to which
the wolf in spite of his greater strength and ferocity invari-
ably falls a victim. Quite a number of these tales originated
with the people and were collected and put into verse by the
clerics. To this collection they added other fables borrowed
from antiquity or of Germanic origin, but almost all pro-
ceeded from oral transmission and not from books. This
collection grew until there were twenty-six poems of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries forming the great beast epic
of the Roman de Renart (The Story of the Fox). Sainte-
Beuve writes: " The satirical masterpiece of the thirteenth
century is the Renart— & production surpassing all others in
its importance and popularity. It is a vast parody embrac-
ing a collection of all the gossip of the fireside. It echoes
the rancor of the small against the great, and expresses the
political or religious audacity of statesmen, jongleurs, monks,
scholars. It is also animated with that imperious spirit
against women, which is so strongly and so repugnantly em-
phasized in many of the fabliaux." The myth explaining the
genesis of the animals in Renart runs :

Les Evain assauvagissoient
Et les Adam apprivoisoient.1

which is explained thus: When God banished Adam and
Eve from the earthly paradise, he gave them a miraculous
rod. When Adam struck the waters of the sea with this rod,
a sheep emerged, but when Eve in her turn used it, a wolf

1 See Le Roman de Renart, published by E. Martin.
(Eve made them wild
Adam made them tame.)
40

FABLIAUX

rushed from the waves and carried off the sheep. Adam
again striking the waters, a dog appeared which pursued the
wolf. Thus it continued, Adam causing to appear the gentle
domestic animals, and Eve the ferocious beasts and mischief-
makers.

The Renart in brief is an immense cycle— an epitome of
the spirit of opposition; and it affords a complete picture of
the Middle Ages. What seems confusion, incoherence even,
is but an expression of historical truth. In the French Mid-
dle Ages, we observe a chaos of disorganized forces working
to destroy themselves: the ancient world and the modern
world, the Germanic traditions and the Roman traditions,
the feudal rights and the communal liberties,1 reason and
faith, Church and State. All that proceeds from this chaos
—morals, laws, arts, sciences, philosophy, theology — is af-
fected by the tumult. Hence the character of the Renart — a
gigantic creation, or rather, compilation, presenting a bizarre
mixture of ignorance and erudition, of details gross, fastid-
ious, discordant, of light and lively ebullitions. It stretches
from one end of the Middle Ages to the other, gathering the
inspiration of each generation, growing with the follies and
the wisdom of each epoch. It is a collective work erected
by the contributions of the public mind — "like those great
cathedrals, now building, now stationary during centuries,
on which entire generations have labored, to which thousands
of artists have devoted their lives and their chisels, and
then died unknown. So die the poets of the Renart."

Most of the authors seem to have been clerics, only three
of whom (authors of the sixteenth, twelfth, and ninth
branches) are known— Pierre de Saint-Cloud, Richard de
Lison, a Norman trouvere and an abbot of La Croiz in Brie :

Tins prestres de la Croiz en Brie
A mis son estude et s'entende
A fere une novele branche
De Renart qui tant sot de gauche.1

1 Louis XI, the greatest tyrant, abolished serfdom.
1 A priest of La Croiz in Brie employed his learning and intelligence in
making a new version of Renart which knew so many tricks.

In these poems we are introduced to animals with human
characters — some of which bear artificial names and others
the names in familiar spech. To begin with Renart: this is
the animal known in French as renard (fox), but which the
Middle Ages knew as goupil. Renart was a proper name
used by the poets, and the poems became so popular that
Renart was substituted for the true or primitive one. In all
these poems the goupil appears under the name of Renart —
together with the wolf, Ysengrin; the lion, Noble; the bear,
Brun; the cock, Chantecler; the leopard, Firapel; the stag,
Brichemer; the ass, Bernart; the cat, Tyber; the vulture,
Escoffle; the badger, Grimbert; the monkey, Cointeriaux;
the sheep, Belin; etc., nearly all, beginning with Ysengrin,
the victims of the astute Renart. This ingenious transfor-
mation of individualizing the heroes and giving them proper
names is supposed to have originated in Northern France in
the eleventh century.

The most important branch and the masterpiece of the
collection is the Judgment of Renart l : After having been
summoned thrice in vain, Renart is brought before the
tribunal of the king of animals — Noble, the lion. Accused
of many misdemeanors, this intrepid scorner of the law is
convicted and condemned to die. The king has a scaffold
erected to punish Renart in view of the whole court, but the
sly fellow steps before the throne with downcast and penitent
mien, confesses all his sins and promises as a penance to make
a pilgrimage across the sea to the Holy Land. The king,
greatly touched, grants this favor. One of the finest episodes
of the ancient Renart is the master rascal's adventures with
Chantecler, the cock. In this encounter wits are well matched,
and Renart learns a lesson.

The first poems or branches were characterized by a
natural and simple style with nothing of the satirical: a
pleasant parody of society. But gradually coarseness, satire
and allegory were introduced until all semblance of the orig-
inal idea was lost and incoherence abounded. Finally, satire
alone under a thin disguise marked the last sequels in Le

1 From this branch proceeded the poem of Reinaert de Vos in Flemish,
which was the source of Goethe's Reineke Fuchs.

FABLIAUX

Couronnement de Renart, second half of the thirteenth cen-
tury; Renart le Nouveau by Jacquemard Gelee, of Lille, in
1288, and in Renart le Contrefait by an unknown author
from Troyes in the commencement of the fourteenth century.
A French writer calls it a comic-heroic epic which surpasses
in grandeur and power the works of ^Esop and of Phasdrus,
and recalls by its spontaneity the Indian fable, as it an-
nounces in parts the finesse of La Fontaine.

The chansons de geste were always sung as long as they
flourished, but with the introduction of the romance in verse
and prose came the custom of recital. Although the profes-
sional conteurs were obliged to determine upon some definite
form for their stories, these were not written and conse-
quently they were lost except a cante-fable (or chante-fable),
Aucassin et Nicolette, written in the twelfth century, partly
in prose, partly in verses (hence the name) of seven syllables
with assonance. This charming and idyllic love story by an
unknown author said to have lived in the time of Louis VII
(1130), has been admirably translated into English by
Andrew Lang. There are two other notable translations by
F. W. Bourdillon and Laurence Housman. "Whoever the
author was, he was a true poet and a consummate artist, for
he wove a story in the alternate prose and verse of the cante-
fable that is immortal with the dewy freshness of youth.

The story tells how Aucassin, the only son of Count Garin
of Beaucaire, falls in love with a captive Paynim maiden,
Nicolette, who had been sold to the captain-at-arms of Beau-
caire. The father vainly tries to cure his son of his infatua-
tion, and finally throws Aucassin in prison and determines
to have Nicolette made away with. Nicolette escapes and
builds herself a bower in a forest, where she is discovered by
Aucassin after his release from prison. Together the lovers
take flight by ship and are borne to a strange country, the
country of the King of Torelore. But the Saracens descend
upon Torelore and both Aucassin and Nicolette are taken
captive. They are placed on different ships and become
separated in a storm. Aucassin finally makes his way back
to Beaucaire after an absence of three years and finds that his
parents are dead ; so he succeeds his father as Count of Beau-
caire.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Nicolette is taken to Carthage, and is discovered to be
the long-lost daughter of the reigning king. Her father tries
to marry her to another Paynim king, so she steals away and
takes up her abode in a seaport town. After a time she dis-
guises herself as a harper by staining her face and attiring
herself in male garb. With viol in hand she sails away in
a ship, and after much wandering comes at last to Provence
and makes her way through the country till she comes to
the castle of Beaucaire. In the disguise of the harper she
sings a song to Aucassin of the love of Aucassin and Nicolette,
and he eagerly questions her, for he has never ceased to
think of ' ' Nicolette, ma tres douce mie, que je tant aim. ' ' x
He is then told all about the adventures of Nicolette, and how
she was a daughter of the King of Carthage. Aucassin begs
the supposed harper to go in quest of her, and Nicolette
promises that soon she will bring his love to him. She rests
for eight days, removes the stain from her face and clothes
herself in rich silks. Then she sends for Aucassin, and the
happily united lovers fall into each other's arms and are
wedded on the following day. This in brief is one of the
most charming stories that has been told in any age.

Such are the tales whose origin, according to Gaston Paris,
is lost in the buried past of India — tales lovely, mocking, shock-
ing, simple, complex ; tales proceeding through many mediums
from the fatherland of Buddha to the world of Mohammed,
thence passing westward into the communities of Picardy
and France, and floating with the current of popular tradi-
tion to swell the ever-quickening stream of literature.

Many of the fabliaux are concerned with persons and
themes borrowed from ancient literature : we meet Narcissus,
Pyramus, and Thisbe, the story of Aristotle. The authors
of most of these stories are unknown. The names of certain
writers of fabliaux have been preserved — among them those
of Gautier le Long, Jean Bodel, Jacques of Baisieux, Jean
the Gaul of Aubespierre, and Rutebeuf, one of the most
talented and versatile writers of the thirteenth century who
wrote a series of fables satirizing the times. Like the epic
song, like the lyric poems of the South, the fabliaux have had
their European influence— an influence just as great as that

1 Nicolette, my sweet lady, whom I love so well.
44

FABLIAUX

of the lyrics and the epics, principally in Italy, Germany,
and England: Boccaccio, Ariosto, Heinrich Glichezare, and
Chaucer are among those who borrowed from this treasure
lore. This genre of literature disappeared in the fifteenth
century and its place was taken by the novel and the farce.
But through the Italians it returned to France and was re-
newed in the works of Rabelais, Marguerite de Navarre, the
incomparable La Fontaine and others. Petit de Julleville
says the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries belong to the
fabliau, and the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the
farce; the second was but a transformation of the first, put
into dialogue, for the principle of the two genres is per-
ceptibly the same.

Popular poetry was not always narrative. Often it was
didactic or satirical; or, in the absence of any strongly
defined character, it was, for lack of a better definition, what
is commonly called "light" poetry. Again, the people of the
Middle Ages were very fond of knowledge and instruction,
and of putting into a single book all they knew and all they
wished to teach others. The poems so compiled were called
Bibles — a title meant to indicate, it would seem, that they
contained nothing but truths. The Bible of Guyot de Provins
is a universal satire, but is particularly directed against the
pope, the cardinals, and the higher clergy. Guyot is the
"Rabelais of the thirteenth century, but with less talent."
The Bible of Hugues de Berzy belongs in the same class, but
it is less satirical.

"Poetry of circumstance" in the Middle Ages was vari-
ously entitled Sayings (Dits), Disputes, Debates, Disputa-
tions, Battle, Legacies (Legs), Testaments, Reveries, Medleys
(Fatraisies) . The Testaments or Legacies begin at the end
of the thirteenth century. These are curious compositions in
which the poet, representing himself as dying, makes ironical
bequests to the objects of his irony. Such is the form which
the so-called Memoires assume in the Middle Ages.

As all human creations are evolved, and do not spring
complete from the head of one man — as Pallas Minerva
from the head of Jove; so the unique Roman de la Rose
had a prehistoric existence in the French literary conscious-
ness before Guillaume de Lorris gave it its final form, and

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

Jean de Meung supplied the sequel. To this extraordinary
product of the French mind — the Romance of the Rose — Gus-
tave Lanson has devoted a preliminary chapter dealing with
its place in didactic and moral literature.

Between the periods of lyric and of narrative poetry, there
arises a considerable body of didactic verse of a truly moral
character. In view of the national French nature as ex-
pressed in the middle classes, it could not well be otherwise.
French literature could not remain indefinitely isolated from
serious reflection and philosophic thought, or indefinitely
given over to haphazard sensation and the caprices of the
imagination and fancy. The spirit of the laity could not re-
main always closed to the science of the clerics. At first
the laity were strangers to that powerful movement of ideas
proceeding from the schools and convents from the eleventh
to the fourteenth centuries — a movement chiefly registered
in the great Latin and scholastic thirteenth-century works,
the Speculum Majus of Vincent de Beauvais, the Summa
Theologia of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Opus Majus of Roger
Bacon. The auditors of Roland and of Benart did not trou-
ble themselves much about universal ideas and principles.
Their religion caused them to fast on Lenten days, and to
open their purses to the church and to the poor; but it did
not inspire them to reflect on the Trinity or on the relation
between soul and body. They were children who loved to
listen only to stories. But gradually the curiosity of these
children awoke. Kings, princes, and lords, having received,
for that time, a superior education, observed the popular
interest in these clerical studies; the clerics, on their part,
wishing to extend the sphere of their influence, communi-
cated something of the science which until then the Latin
language had kept hidden from the knowledge of the pop-
ulace. In some way, learned literatures began to filter into
popular literature. From the twelfth century on we see all
kinds of didactic works (didactic, of course, in the unscien-
tific manner of the medieval, though erudite mind) finding
their way into French— works on natural history, physics,
medicine, morality, philosophy; books on cookery and eti-
quette.

Among the most ancient scientific writings in the vulgar

FABLIAUX

language we find the Bestiaires (from the Latin bestia,
beast), the Lapidaires (from the Latin lapis, idis, precious
stone), and the Volucraires (from the Latin volucris, bird)
— compilations of miraculous and puerile stories concerning
beasts and birds and precious stones, which disclose a
" science " more fantastic, more stupendous, than all the
adventures of the Knights of the Round Table— productions
all the more extravagant because the description of natural
things is mixed with allegorical moralities. The Middle Ages
was the epoch, par excellence, of allegory; in each animal,
the people seemed to see the vices and virtues of men, and
to point a moral in their descriptions of them. The two most
celebrated Bestiaires of French literature are the Bestiaire
d' Amour, of Richard de Fournival of Amiens, and the Besti-
aire divin of Guillaume, cleric of Normandy. The Lapi-
daires in the Middle Ages were treatises on the pretended
curative or preservative qualities of precious stones. The
most popular of the Lapidaires was that of Marbode, Bishop
of Rennes (twelfth century), who took his material from a
Greek original, and whose work was translated several times
into French in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. A
French critic tells us that the study of these three forms of
literature with their symbolical allegories is absolutely nec-
essary for a comprehension of the Middle Ages. Other Lapi-
daires and other Bestiaires followed, attesting the success
of the literary genre and the scientific ineptitude of the
readers.

From the twelfth century the lay public was enabled to
read, in Anglo-Norman, Boethius's De Consolatione — a fund-
amental work of scholastic science, and a classic commented
upon in the schools up to the time of the Renaissance. Later,
Aristotle's Ethics was translated. The principal parts of
the Bible and the evangelistic works were also translated,
or imitated, first in verse, and then in prose ; and to such an
extent that the church was sometimes alarmed to observe
the sources of her dogma too liberally opened to the bold
ignorance of the laity. The spirit of lay society was fur-
ther modified by the sermons in vulgar or popular language
delivered from the pulpits, from the ninth and tenth cen-
turies. The Debat de I'Ame et du Corps (Debate of the

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Body and the Soul), which is found both in Latin and in
French after the first third of the twelfth century, affords
a general view of Christian morality, with its vigorous ar-
raignment of the body as an instrument for the debasement
and damnation of the soul. Moral literature, as one may
easily understand, often turns to satire; and the exceedingly
vivid description of the actual world, and of man's ordinary
occupations and inclinations, sometimes found in these moral
works, lends them a peculiar flavor. The thirteenth century
was also the century of allegories. Allegory in the litera-
ture of the Middle Ages presents itself under three aspects:
First, as a philosophical method of interpreting the phenomena
of nature; second, as the abstracting process of the mind
which embodies itself in the rhetorical figure of personifica-
tion ; third, as a specific form of poetry.1 In this species of
literature distinction was attained by Raoul de Houdan,
with his La Voie du Paradis2 (The Way to Paradise), his
Ailes de la prouesse* (Wings of Prowess), and his strange
Songe d'Enfer (Dream of Hell), wherein he feasts with good
appetite at the table of Lucifer in company with fat usurers
and hoary sinners.

Allegory reached its greatest popularity in the famous
Roman de la Rose, an allegorical and didactic poem inspired
by Ovid's Metamorphoses and his De Arte amandi. The
author in the first part of the poem calls upon Macrobius
to witness that dreams are not always deceptive.4 The
Roman de la Rose is the " art of love put into action and
inclosed in the setting of a dream." In spite of its conti-
nuity as fiction, it is really two distinct works which belong
neither to the same time nor to the same author ; nor do they
breathe the same spirit. Of the 22,817 verses as found in
Fr. Michel's edition, the first 4,669 were composed about
1237 by a young cleric of Orleans, Guillaume de Lorris; the

1 See Courthope's History of English Poetry.

2 Disputed by F. Zenker (Ueber die Echtheit zweier dem Raoul von
Houdenc zugeschriebener Werke).

8 Called also Le Roman des AUes.

» Alluding to Macrobius's Commentary of Cicero's Dream of Scipio
(Commentarius ex Cicerone in somnium Scipionis, generally known as In
somnium Scipionis expositio).

FABLIAUX

remaining verses were written some forty years later by an-
other cleric of Orleans, Jean Clopinel de Meung. There is
nothing more unlike indeed than the two poems and the two
poets. The one poet, a delicate spirit, ingenious and full
of mannerisms, wrote to please polite society; the other — a
sharp, violent, cynical genius — hurled stinging words at
the superstitions and beliefs of the times. Guillaume de
Lorris sets forth the chivalrous, religious and sentimental
mysticism of the preceding age. He sums up with preten-
tious erudition all the amorous metaphysics of his time as
the beginning of his poem announces:

Ci est le Roman de la Rose

Oil 1'Art d'Amors est tote enclose.1

The second part of the Roman de la Rose announces in its
spirit the arrival of a new society. A distinct work of its
own, it is yet less a continuation than a counterpart of that
of de Lorris. From the midst of insipid sentimentalities
there proceeded the liveliest, the boldest, and sometimes the
most brutal invectives against the times. It is no longer
the art of love but an encyclopedia of bitter satire. The
bizarre mixture of mystic tenderness, chivalrous gallantry
and love, is followed by an overflow of unbridled sensuality,
a seditious emancipation of the flesh from the spirit, in which
Jean de Meung with scholastic subtlety launched forth into
political and satirical dissertations against beliefs, supersti-
tions and the monachal institutions. The love idyl became
a political pamphlet. The women he held in the profoundest
contempt and heaped most cruel insults upon them with
bold and cynical expression.

The scene of the poem unfolds in a dream and in spring-
time— a double allegory which in itself reveals the spirit of
the whole work. The contents may be summed up briefly as
follows : the poet or author who calls himself Amant (lover)
dreams that he sees a transparent palace surrounded by trees
and beautiful gardens, illumined by a roseate light — the

1 This is the story of the Rose,

Where the art of love is all inclosed.
5 49

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

dwelling of Deduit (Love's Pleasure). The gate is opened for
him by Oy sense (Idleness) and he meets a series of impalpa-
ble and very symbolic phantoms: Beaute (Beauty), Doux-
Regard (Sweet glances), Richesse (Riches), Dieu d' Amour
(God of love), Jeunesse (Youth), etc. In this magic garden
Amant sees on a rosebush a Rose of fascinating beauty, sur-
rounded, however, by thorny hedges which he could never
have penetrated without the aid of Bel-Accueil (Good-Recep-
tion). Finally, he succeeds with the help of Bel-Accueil in
kissing the Rose, for which the Rose and Bel-Accueil are
incarcerated and Amant is in despair. Here Guillaume de
Lorris stops and fifty years later Jean de Meung continues
and introduces two new characters: Dame Nature and Faux-
Semblant (False Appearance). A third actor, Dame Raison
— Reason — already employed by de Lorris, but now enlarged
and transformed, occupies likewise a large place in this poem.
Raison consoles Amant and Ami shows him how to reach
the goal. (Here Jean de Meung holds dissertations on friend-
ship, the golden age, and the origins of society.) This
road is called Trop-Donner (Give too much) and Amant can-
not pass. (Discourse on the infidelity of woman, and against
marriage. Jean de Meung advocated woman's rights and
free love.) Now comes Dieu d' Amour with his twenty-four
companions: Noblesse de Cwur (Nobility of Heart), Beaute,
Jeunesse, etc., and these supported by Nature and Genius
take possession of the tower where the Rose is imprisoned.
Amant plucks the Rose — then day breaks and the poet awakes.
In this latter part, Jean de Meung launches forth into
diatribes against the monks and celibacy. The poem concludes
with the following verse :

Explicit li Rommans la Rose;
Oil 1'art d 'Amors est toute enclose:
Nature rit, si com moi semble,
Quant hie et haec joingnent ensemble.1

1 Here ends the Romance of the Rose,
In which the whole art of Love is inclosed;
Nature smiles, if she resembles me,
When this and that come together.
(Love) (Nature)
50

FABLIAUX

Lenient writes of the Roman de la Rose: this artificial
product of the French mind — laden with illuminations some-
times graceful, but often shocking and contradictory — pre-
served its popularity and its splendor till the renaissance of
letters. From Homer to Dante, no poem has so aroused
the interest of men; none has caused more controversies
and commentaries. To what, then, did it owe this singular
vogue? First of all, to love— for love was the dominant
passion in the Middle Ages; and, in the second place, to
satire. To graft satire on gallantry, Juvenal on Ovid, is
a bizarre idea, without doubt, yet it gratified the two most
prevalent French passions, slander and love. Nature, in
'this poem, is no less boastful and learned than Reason. If
she has read history less, she knows, on the other hand, the
secret of things. She takes it upon herself to explain to us
the origin of the world, the movement of the stars, the suc-
cession of animal life. All these revelations— compounded
of reminiscences of Utopian ideas, agitated in the schools of
Greece and Alexandria, and overlaid with the biblical tradi-
tions— produced a marvelous effect upon the contemporary
imagination. They unquestionably confirmed the notion that
Jean de Meung— the most learned man of his century, even
in the judgment of the great Gerson1 — had hidden away
in his work the secret of the philosopher's stone. This free-
thinker of the fourteenth century refuted popular opinion on
the influence of the comets. He did not believe that their
appearance announced the death of a prince or some other
great personage — for the body of a king, when he is dead,
did not differ from that of a cart driver :

Car leur core ne vaut une pome
Plus que li cors d'un charetier
Ou d'un clerc ou d'un escuyer.*

Three centuries later, in the reign of Louis XVI, Bayle,
writing his Thoughts on the comet and ridiculing popular

1 Jean Charlier, called Jean de Gerson (1353-1429), theologian and chan-
cellor of the University of Paris.

1 For their corpses are not worth one apple more than the body of a carter
or of a cleric or of a groom.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

prejudice, performed an act of boldness to which the in-
timidated genius of Bernouilli humbly bowed. That daring,
violent, even cynical naturalism, bravely diffused through
the work of Jean de Meung, connects him, despite differ-
ence of time, with the philosophers of the eighteenth cen-
tury. In this respect one may consider him as a true ances-
tor of Jean Jacques Rousseau; like him, he is an apostle
of instincts and passion; like him, he plies the biting anger
of the misanthrope, swells with the rebellious aspirations of
the tribune, the noisy and inflamed rhetoric of the pam-
phleteer; like him, finally, he mingles with the recital of a
romantic adventure those long, moralizing dissertations in
which Nature and Reason delight, and which Saint-Preux
and Julie in Jean Jacques's Nouvelle Helo'ise do not disdain.
The political boldness of Rousseau's Contrat Social, the men-
acing doubts of the Discours sur I'inegalite des Conditions
are already contained in embryo in the Roman de la Rose.
The origins of society, of royal power, of tithes and taxes,
of property itself— all is put in question by Jean de Meung.
Voltaire seemed to shake the throne of Louis XV with his
famous verse. " Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heu-
reux1 (" the first who was king was a fortunate soldier ").
Jean de Meung is quite differently energetic and brutal in his
attitude toward royalty, of which he is, however, the servant
and ally:

Ung grant vilain entr'eus eslurent,
Le plus ossu de quan quil furent
Le plus corsu et le greignor.
Si le firent prince et seignor.
Gil jura qu'adroit les tendroit
Et que lor loges deffendroit.1

This audacious pamphleteer, this friend of the University,
this enemy of popes and monks, wore himself the frock of

1 The allusion being to Merowig, first Merovingian monarch, who de-
rived his kingship from the people.

2 They elected a tall villain (rustic) among them, the boniest that there
was, the stoutest and the tallest, and made him prince and lord. He
swore that he would skillfully protect them, and would defend their
dwellings.

FABLIAUX

the preaching friar; he lived rich, powerful, tranquil, hon-
ored; and was buried with great pomp in the cloister of the
Jacobins.

Unfortunately, says Lanson, Jean de Meung has not,
like Dante, created a form which would have insured to his
thought the eternity of beauty. He failed to be a great
artist. The most apparent and usual beauties of art are
wanting in his work; he cares nothing about the science of
composition, proportion, propriety. This Roman de la
Rose is a jumble, a chaos, a strange tissue of the most un-
related subjects. Digressions, parentheses of five hundred
verses, cost him no qualms. The work is a sequence of pieces
which cling together as they may, and which follow each
other sometimes without joining. Yet in spite of its in-
coherence, the entire poem gives the impression of something
vigorous and powerful. This buoyancy of ideas and argu-
ments, poured forth incessantly in eighteen thousand verses,
without pause, without rest; the fervor and flow of style —
exact, incisive, efficacious ; the precision of demonstration ; the
most complicated and subtle exposition; the robust alacrity
with which the poet carries an enormous burden of facts and
reasonings ; the movement which, in spite of inevitable languor
here and there, imposes upon the whole the confused yet fruit-
ful mass of scholastic erudition and boldly original inventions
— all this imparts to the work a somewhat vulgar force which,
nevertheless, is not without beauty. He closes worthily the
Middle Ages with a masterpiece which restores them and
destroys them at the same time. By his philosophy, which
consists essentially of the identity and the sovereignty of
Nature and Reason, he is the first link of the chain connect-
ing Rabelais, Montaigne, Moliere — to which Voltaire also is
attached, and even, in certain respects, Boileau.

The sphere of the influence of the Roman de la Rose may
be measured by the vast literature which has been amassed
on this production in France and in all countries where Ro-
mance literature is cherished. There are more than one
hundred and fifty manuscripts of this allegory, sixty-seven of
which are in the National Library in Paris. It was the sub-
ject of innumerable attacks : Gerson, one of the most bitter
denouncers, wrote one hundred years after its completion:

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Arrachez, hommes sages, arrachez ce livre dangereux des mains de
vos fils et de vos filles. Si je possedais un seul exemplaire du Roman
de la Rose, et qu'il fut unique, valut-il mille livres d'argent — je le
brulerais phi tot que de le vendre pour le publier tel qu'il est. Si je
savais que 1'auteur n'eut pas fait penitence, je ne prierais jamais pour
lui, pas plus que pour Judas; et les personnes qui lisent son livre a
mauvais dessein, augmentent ses tourments, soit qu'il souffre en enfer,
soit qu'il g&nisse en purgatoire.1

At the same time Christine de Pisan defended her sex against
the calumnies of Jean de Meung in her Lettres sur le Roman
de la Rose. But the poem found its defenders in the learned
doctors and magistrates of high rank. Its popularity was
so great that the priests cited quotations from it just as they
did from the Bible. When printing was introduced it was
published several times, and Marot made a modernized edi-
tion which was popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Later editions were made by Meon in 1814 and
F. Michel in 1864.

Gaston Paris writes: For a long time, and this was a
grave error, the Roman de la Rose was regarded as an open-
ing in French literature; in reality it opened one period
and closed another. The spontaneous, unconscious, almost
infantine dream of the Middle Ages ended, or only reap-
peared in transient intervals; modern literature, whose es-
sential elements are philosophical thought and knowledge
of antiquity made its debut.

1 Tear, wise men, tear this dangerous book from the hands of your sons
and daughters. If I possessed only one copy of the Romance of the Rose,
and it was the only one, valued at a thousand livres, I would sooner burn
it than sell it for publication, such as it is. If I knew that the author had
not done penance, I would no more pray for him than for Judas; and the
persons who read his book with an evil object increase his torments whether
he suffer in hell or groan in purgatory.

CHAPTER IV

CHRONICLES AND HISTORY

THE first interesting chronicle in France was written
by Gregoire de Tours. The famous Chronicle of Turpin,
a legendary history of Charlemagne and Roland also in
Latin dates from the eleventh century. It was falsely at-
tributed to Archbishop Turpin, but recent researches proved
that the authors were two monks in Spain. Although a
fable and full of anachronisms this history was considered
a great authority and inspired the songs of many of the
trouveres.

Suger— Minister under Louis VII and Abbot of Saint
Denis— caused to be gathered in his abbey all the known
Latin chronicles that had been collected in the first centuries of
national history, together with all the registers in which every
convent transcribed the facts of local and general history.
With these documents as a basis, the great Chronicles of
France or Chronicles of Saint Denis were compiled. They be-
gin by telling that the French are descended from the
Trojans — Francus, son of Hector, having come to establish
himself in Gaul, with a colony, at the same time that his com-
patriot, ^Eneas, settled in Italy and became the progenitor- of
the Romans. The history of the earlier succeeding centuries
is treated somewhat in the same fashion, and when the editor
had the choice of a simple narration by an historian or the
embellished story of a legend, he never hesitated: he always
chose the legend. About 1174 Gamier de Pont-Sainte-Max-
ence wrote the Vie de Saint Thomas de Cantorbery, four
years after the hero's death. It is one of the oldest works
written in the language of the Ile-de-France, as it is also
one of the most remarkable historical poems of the Middle
Ages.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

These chronicles mostly written in Latin and relat-
ing chiefly to foreign events were not therefore typically
French. French history proper dated from the Crusades.
The events which took place in the Holy Land under the
French Crusades, were of necessity recorded and trans-
mitted to the people in France. At first these histories were
in verse, epic form, but with Villehardouin 's nine years'
history of the fourth French Crusade, French prose history
was born. Thenceforth every work which employed epic
verse as a medium for historical facts was accidental and,
as it were, a step backward in the development of this
branch of literature. Fourteenth-century poems, like the
Combat des Trente 1 (Combat of the Thirty) and the Life
of Bertrand du Guesclin are but sterile records in literary
history.

The development of prose during four centuries, from the
twelfth to the fifteenth, is strikingly illustrated by a typical
historical work of each century: Geoff roi de Villehardouin 's
De la Conquete de Constantinople, the oldest French histori-
cal work; Jean de Joinville's Histoire de Saint-Louis; Jean
Froissart's Chroniques; and Philippe de Commines' Me-
moires. Geoffroi de Villehardouin, born at the Chateau de
Villehardouin in Champagne about 1160, was at first Ma-
rechal of Champagne and later of Roumelia. His Memoires
are the account of that extraordinary expedition, whose object
was the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre, and which resulted
in the taking of Constantinople and the establishment of a
French empire in the East. Villehardouin was the real pro-
moter of the crusade. His works at first were influenced by
the chansons de geste in regard to form and color, but later
he definitely disengaged history from the epic which had
at that time degenerated into romance. He took hold of
living events of which he himself had been an eyewitness,
and recorded them without recourse to his imagination. The

1 A poem on the battle fought in 1350 at Ploermel between thirty
Bretons and thirty English, under the command of Beaumanoir. Of its
three hundred verses by an unknown poet, a clever imitator of the old
trouveres, this famous verse has been retained:

Bois ton sang, Beaumanoir, Drink your own blood, Beaumanoir,
La soif te passera. To relieve your thirst.

CHRONICLES AND HISTORY

details, precise and characteristic, are an invaluable study of
the manners and customs of the epoch.

Nearly a century elapsed between the memoirs of Ville-
hardouin and those of Joinville, during which French cul-
ture was given a decided impetus by a great king and a
great pope, Louis IX and Innocent III. Jean de Joinville was
born about 1224 at the castle of Joinville, Chalons-sur-Marne,
and educated at the courts of Provins and Troyes — two old
cities of Champagne, at that time the abiding place of the
masters of the Oaie Science.1 At the call of the King of
France, Joinville sold all his property, equipped ten cav-
aliers and accompanied Louis IX on his first crusade. After
the death of Louis, Joinville lived to see two succeeding
reigns and the beginning of a third. It was at the request of
the queen, wife of Louis le Hutin, that he dictated his
Memoires, when he was more than ninety years old. He died
in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Nisard writes:
" Joinville has in common with Villehardouin the character
of a Christian knight : the courage, the straightforwardness,
the virtues of chivalry, without its illusions — a simple faith,
free from clerical rule and without theological refinement.
Joinville 's disputations with the founder of the Sorbonne,
in the presence of Louis IX, who acted as judge between his
seneschal and his chaplain, carry us to regions of thought and
meditation far beyond that epoch of action and adventure."

The foundation of the aforementioned Sorbonne was an
event of great significance in its influence on French litera-
ture and learning. It was a famous school of theology
founded by Robert de Sorbon 2 in 1250, as a branch of the
University of Paris, to assist poor theological students. The
college became one of the most celebrated in the world and
still exists as such. Before the revolution of 1789— during
the progress of which it was suppressed — the Sorbonne was

1 Oaie Science, or Gai Savoir, is the name given to the poetry of the
trouveres and troubadours.

1 Robert de Sorbon, or Sorbonne, was born at Sorbon, a little village
near Rheims, in 1201. After receiving his degree as Doctor of Theology
in Paris, he devoted himself to lectures, and acquired so great a repu-
tation that St. Louis wished to hear him, and eventually chose him for
his confessor.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

one of the four divisions of the Faculty of theology in
Paris. It produced so many able theologians that its name
was given to the entire faculty, and the students took the title
of Doctors and Bachelors of the Sorbonne, even though they
were not members of this college. Upon the reconstruction
of the University under Napoleon I, the building erected for
it by Richelieu, and still called the Sorbonne, was ceded to
the city of Paris, on condition that the theological faculty in
connection with the faculties of science and belles-lettres
should remove there.

The University of Paris * had been founded by bulls of
Innocent III, in the years 1208, 1209, 1213, by the reunion of
the Schools of Logic of la Montagne Sainte Genevieve, and
the School of Theology of the Cloisters of Notre Dame ; so that
it had actually existed before its official foundation, and by
this foundation it was simply more strongly concentrated and
organized. The schools of Paris were, since the eleventh
century, extremely flourishing, and were a light for the whole
of Europe. After the year 1208, the University was con-
stituted in a regular manner. It was composed of four facul-
ties : of theology, of canon law, of medicine, and of arts. The
last named embraced what may be called secondary instruc-
tion— from the third department as far as philosophy — and
with an advanced course, from baccalaureate to doctorate.
Logic was made the chief study. All the teaching was oral,
and with infinite discussions. The career of the student was
as follows. After a first examination he was proclaimed de-
terminant; 2 after a second examination, licencie — and that
qualified him for teaching ; after a third examination, maitre
es-arts (Master of Arts) — and then he was a professor of the
faculty; finally, after still another examination, he received
the degree of docteur. The Sorbonne branch of the University

1 A great number of provincial universities were founded in France in
imitation of the University of Paris. Among them were Angers, Toulouse,
founded 1229, and especially conspicuous in the fourteenth century;
Montpellier, Avignon, Cahors, Grenoble, Orleans, Poictiers, Caen, Bourges.

J At the end of the fifteenth century the term determinant was changed
to bachelier (bachelor). During the Middle Ages bachelier meant a candi-
date for knighthood and was therefore a title relating to the nobility and
not to the University.

CHRONICLES AND HISTORY

of Paris1 soon became a faculty of theology of the greatest
importance; it was truly a " light, guide, and judge " for the
Church of France. A "Permanent Council," Bossuet called
it; a judge also of books, and books sometimes most foreign
to its teachings. These were submitted to it by the author-
ities for a decision as to whether they contained anything
contrary to the religion of the State. Thus it was at the same
time a Permanent Council and a Congregation of the Index
— titles that made it most redoubtable. To return to its posi-
tion in the Middle Ages: it was at that time a school of re-
ligion, of law, and of a philosophy that was very subtle and
ingenious and at times very profound. It created theologians
and orators with dialectics concise and captious, and very
skillful diplomats. That is why so many celebrated diplomats
of the Middle Ages, and even of more modern times, were
priests. Theology and scholarship were marvelous means
by which to fortify, make supple, and sharpen men's minds
— always provided their intellects were strong enough to sup-
port this rigorous discipline.

Jean Froissart, born at Valenciennes in Hainault about
the year 1337, was the son of a painter of coats-of-arms. He
was a churchman — in fact, a good canon, who had even, for
some time, been a cure. Nevertheless, his history and his
poems, as he himself says, are recitals only of war and love.
He traveled in order to write history. According to Villemain,
perhaps it might be said more truthfully that Froissart became
an historian in order to travel. He set out for England, where
he was warmly welcomed by the lords and ladies and where
the queen, Philippa de Hainault, wife of Edward III, became
his patroness. As her protege he composed love poems, but
his great Chronicle was always uppermost, and the favor of
princes enabled him to travel and improve his mind. He
visited Scotland, at that time an unknown country. He ap-
proached familiarly Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black
Prince), and the great man of his century. He followed to
Milan the Duke of Clarence, who went there to marry the
daughter of Galeazzo II.

1 Since 1896 the University of Paris has five branches: law, literature,
the sciences, medicine, and theology (Sorbonne branch).

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

After the death of Queen Philippa, he returned to his own
country, and was appointed cure of Lestines, in the diocese of
Cambrai. This office he discharged but a short time, return-
ing to the more agreeable court life, and attaching himself
to Wenceslas, Duke of Brabant, a generous prince who made
verses. Froissart served him as secretary and poet; he re-
touched the verses of the duke, mingled his own with them,
and united all in a romance entitled Meliador, or, the
Knight of the Golden Sun. Froissart himself has told of
his reception at the court of England, and how he presented
his romance of Meliador to Richard II. This work is a his-
tory, almost universal in treatment, of the States of Europe
from the year 1322 to the end of the fourteenth century.
Sometimes, by happy contrasts, adroit transitions, he related
his own adventures along with historical facts. Froissart 's
whole genius lies in his ability to tell a story; and he tells
it well. No man had seen more countries; above all, no man
had seen them to better purpose. In the intervals of his
voyages, and even in the course of his excursions, he wrote
the chronicle of his time, and made verses. These were lais,
virelais, rondeaux, and little poems — gallant, sentimental, or
allegorical. The titles embrace: Li Horloge Amoureuse (The
Horologe of Love) ; Li Debat du Cheval et du Levrier (The
Dispute between the Horse and the Greyhound) ; Li Trettie
de I'Epinette Amoureuse (The Story of the Love Coop) ; Li
Trettie du Joli Buisson de Jonece (The Story of the Pleasing
Grove of Youth) ; Le Paradis d' Amour, etc. Freshness, grace,
color — above all, naturalness — are what one finds in these
amiable reveries. Froissart died about 1405 and Enguerrand
de Monstrelet wrote a continuation of his " chronicles," com-
prising the years 1400 to 1444. This chonicle, although a
faithful report of events,1 is tiresome and wordy ; which called
forth the criticism of Rabelais: " Ce long narre est plus
baveux qu 'un pot a moustarde. ' ' 2

An author's superiority consists in being, at once, of his
time and out of his time; in expressing the thoughts of his
contemporaries, and in having an individual expression of

1 Monstrelet was in Compi&gne when Jeanne d'Arc was taken prisoner.
1 This long narrative is more slabbering than a mustard-pot.

CHRONICLES AND HISTORY

his own. Such an author was Philippe de Commines, and
according to Villemain, the most original French writer of
the fifteenth century, because in addition to the naivete of
this period, he was endowed with the mental stability of an-
other epoch. In his Memoires one perceives a resemblance,
in form and detail, to the romance of chivalry; at the same
time there is disclosed a mind, serious and solid, that sees
through all ruses, and judges with marvelous insight, the
character, the form, and the objects of governments. Corn-
mines 's work in marking the progress achieved by reason,
government, and the art of living in the fifteenth century,
exhibits the perfection of a recital at once judicious and
naive. To a talent for story-telling is united political sagac-
ity. Commines was the confidant, the historian, and the
panegyrist of Louis XI, whose political astuteness and ability
he has pictured with supreme expression and intelligence.

The condemnation merited by Louis XI, says Augustin
Thierry, and of which the future will not absolve him, rests
on the blame the human conscience attaches to the memory
of those who have believed that all means are good in im-
posing upon facts the yoke of ideas. During Charles VIII 's
reign, Commines was imprisoned for eight months at Loches,
in one of the famous hanging cages called fillettes du roi,
devised by Louis XI (also ascribed to Cardinal La Balu, one
of the first to be " caged "). Later he was recalled to the
favor of Charles VIII, served him as chamberlain, and ac-
companied him on the expedition leading to the conquest of
Naples. During Louis XII 's reign, he remained in the good
graces of that king until his death.

Alain Chartier (1390-1449), preceding Commines, earned
the sobriquet of Father of French Eloquence by the force and
eloquence of his prose style. In Le Curial he depicts in a
fascinating manner the court life of Charles VII. In the
Quadriloge invectif, four allegorical characters, Noblesse
(Nobility), Clerge (Clergy), Roture (Commonalty), and
Labour (Peasantry), all reproach each other for the evils
of the Hundred Years' War, and seek a remedy. As a poet,
he was mediocre, resorting too much to allegory, a common
failing of the times influenced by the Roman de la Rose. Le
Lime, des Quatre Dames, considered his best poem, tells of four

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ladies who have last their sweethearts in the battle of Agin-
court — one was killed, one taken prisoner, a third disappeared,
and a fourth fled. The women dispute as to which of them
is the most unhappy. Chartier was very popular at court
on account of his grace and amiability of manner and his
poetry. Estienne Pasquier tells the following anecdote: One
day, Marguerite of Scotland, first wife of the Dauphin,
later Louis XI, seeing Chartier asleep on a chair, approached
and kissed him. This greatly surprised her companions, for
" nature had given him a beautiful mind in an ugly body."
The princess replied that she had not kissed the man, but the
lips from which came so many " golden words." Of this
story, one French critic remarks: " there is in this legend
more real poetry than in all the works of Alain Chartier."

As a prose writer, Chartier shows his close knowledge of
the classics, and unconsciously, perhaps, imitates their style.
In this way he may be considered a forerunner of the Renais-
sance ; and this no doubt accounts for the esteem accorded to
him later in the sixteenth century. A man of lofty ideas and
noble sentiments, he strove to express them in clear and
simple language. Estienne Pasquier compared Alain Chartier
to Seneca.

CHAPTER V

THE THEATER IN THE MIDDLE AGES

WITH all nations the theater owes its origin to religion.
In the fifth century manifestations of dramatic taste and
spirit were observed at the funeral of Sainte Radegonde,
Queen of the Franks: two hundred nuns chanted a kind of
elegy around her coffin, while others responded with lamenta-
tions and mournful gestures from the windows of the mon-
astery. The same circumstance is recorded of other impos-
ing funerals.

The religious drama in France was developed toward the
tenth century from the liturgical texts amplified by the
priests, clerics, and monks for the edification of the faithful.
They intercalated the ceremonies of their cult with simple
representations, the object of which was the teaching by
demonstration of the dogmas. For Pentecost, the descent of
the Holy Ghost was represented by doves and birds let loose
in the churches. The Day of Ascension, Christ was repre-
sented by a priest mounting the tribune. The demonstrations,
which belonged to the Nativity, showed the priests as prophets
passing in procession before the spectators announcing the
coming of Christ. For Easter, scenes figurative of the
Resurrection were represented.

At first the liturgic drama was composed of a short text
in Latin prose. Gradually the language became partly Latin
and partly the popular idiom, with a gradual change from
prose to verse. Finally, versification predominated; the
popular language superseded the Latin, and the drama was
detached from the service.

Until the fifteenth century these religious dramas, were
called jeux or drames, as the Drame des Prophetes du Christ,

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

written in Latin in the eleventh century, the Drame d'Adam
of the twelfth century, and the Jeu de la Resurrection of the
thirteenth century. Toward the fifteenth century, it became
customary to represent these religious scenes by tableaux, for
which a great number of people were necessary: as the
" Passion," the " Last Judgment," etc., and these tableaux
were called Mysteres. Later dialogues were introduced, and
these dramatic mysteries created such an extraordinary vogue
that associations were formed in all the large cities to rep-
resent them.

Besides the mysteries which originated with the liturgical
texts and represented especially the events of the Gospel, the
Passion, the Resurrection and the Incarnation, there pro-
ceeded another form of the theater from the canticles in
honor of the saints, or from the readings of their lives given
in the churches. This form was called Miracle. Since very
early times it had been customary for students to represent
scenes from the lives of their patron saints. In 1119, the
Miracle of St. Catherine was given by the novices of the
convent of Saint-Albans under the direction of the abbot.
Sometimes the whole life of a saint was represented, and the
relics of the saint placed on the scene during the representa-
tion.

About 1200, or perhaps earlier, Jean Bodel, of Arras, com-
posed the Miracle or Jeu de St. Nicholas. The prologue to
this play analyzes it and discloses the climax. For the poets
of that time — like the Greeks1 — did not by any means, seek
to surprise; nor did they believe, with d'Aubignac, that ret-
icence in unraveling the plot was " the soul of tragedy."
The trouveres announced in advance the story to be told in
their epic poems and the dramatic authors did likewise. Ret-
icence in the development of the plot is an entirely modern
device. The Jeu de St. Nicholas of Bodel, and the Miracle
de Theophile, by Rutebeuf, are the only specimens of Miracle
plays preserved from the thirteenth century in France. The
Miracle of Theophile, by Rutebeuf, consisting of only six hun-
dred and sixty-six verses, is a very curious legend in dialogue.

1 The ancient choruses in the Greek tragedies took the place of the
monologues.

THE THEATER IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Theophile is the Faust of the Middle Ages — resembling not
Goethe 's Faust, but Marlowe 's. We have here a priest who has
sold his soul to the devil in order to recover an office or benefice
he has lost. He is saved by the intercession of the Virgin Mary.
One may consider this play of the thirteenth century, chrono-
logically, as the first of the Miracle plays of Notre Dame, in
the fourteenth century.

The Miracle play had for its foundation a miracle; that
is to say, the climax rested upon the intervention of a su-
perhuman power. Most frequently, it seems, such a miracu-
lous intervention proceeded from the Virgin Mary; this is
because (as we see from the nondramatic writings, from the
legends of the time, and from the monuments) the last cen-
turies of the Middle Ages were very particularly devoted to
the Mother of Jesus. These Miracle plays center upon a
struggle between the demons (who have a visible role as char-
acters in the drama) and the Virgin Mary, for the soul of
the sinner. Gautier de Coincy, a French poet of the twelfth
century, collected a large number of pious legends which had
accumulated during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and
translated them from Latin into French. They comprise
about thirty thousand verses and are called the Miracles
Nostre Dame. He sets forth that the sinner who has never
ceased to invoke the Virgin will be saved no matter how black
his crime. One finds in these plays characteristics of the art-
lessness and the moral conception of the time. In the story
of Robert the Devil,1 Robert is the spiritual son of Satan.
He was conceived by a woman who prayed for a son, first to
God, the Virgin, and the Saints, and finally invoked the Devil.
Robert is thus the child of despair. He is steeped in crime,
but eventually is filled with the divine grace, and expiates
his sins, by acts of courage, charity, and humility, and dies
like a saint. Robert the Devil was supposed to convey the
ideas of original sin and divine compassion. Another Miracle
tells of a monk so ignorant that he could retain in mind
nothing more than Ave Maria, and was therefore scorned
by all. His sanctity was revealed at his death, when five

1 It contains forty-seven characters and two thousand verses. It was
used for the theme in Meyerbeer's opera.
6 65

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

roses sprang from his lips in honor of the five letters in
the name of Maria. A nun having left her convent to live
a life of pleasure, returned after many years to find that the
Virgin Mary, to w^om she had never ceased praying, had
taken her place and fulfilled her duties as nun.

Another collection of Miracles de Notre Dame was com-
posed in the thirteenth century, by Jean le Marchant, a priest
of Chartres. Among them is the story of the chevalier who.
in order to obtain riches promised to give his wife to the
devil. While he was conducting her to his satanic majesty,
the poor wife entered the chapel of Mary for a moment's
prayer. In the meantime the Virgin Mary returned in the
wife's place to the husband, and was given by him to the
devil, whom she punished severely.

The story of the Tombeor Nostre Dame,1 tells of a poor
juggler who became a monk and saw his companions pay
reverence to the Virgin according to each one's ability in
music, art, or poetry. Knowing nothing but his tricks, he
secretly slipped into the chapel during the night, equipped
with his old juggler outfit and rendered homage to the Virgin
by dancing and juggling before her statue. Some of the
monks hidden in the chapel, horrified at this sacrilegious
proceeding, were about to denounce him when the Virgin
herself approached the juggler to wipe the perspiration from
his brow.

The Miracles from a dramatic standpoint are considered
superior to the Mysteries, owing to their simplicity in con-
struction and the possibility of development, whereas the
Mysteries were prolific productions of enormous length, which
retraced the entire history of religion, from the creation of
the world to the resurrection. The Passion, a Mystery by
Arnold GrSban, contained thirty-five thousand verses, and the
Mystery Actes des Apotres, by Arnold and Simon Greban,
comprised sixty thousand verses and the performance lasted
forty days. Several hundred persons were required for these
performances and they sometimes played the most terrible

1 This legend is the source of Anatole France's story of the Jongleur
de Notre Dame and of Maurice Lena's poem which Jules Massenet has
set to music in an opera of the same name.

THE THEATER IN THE MIDDLE AGES

scenes very realistically. He who represented Jesus was
properly crucified, and escaped death with difficulty; the
unfortunate one who enacted Judas was cut loose only at the
last extremity, and when the public judged by his contortions
that his remorse was sincere.

The members of the confreries especially devoted to these
representations were considered in a measure professionals,
and they had a fixed theater in some inclosed space ; but gen-
erally the theater used was temporarily built and disappeared
after the performance ; the actors were the people who volun-
teered to take part, the roles of Jesus, or God, or the saints
being represented by priests. A glittering procession of horse-
men rode through towns and villages, several months before,
announcing with trumpet call and poetry (cri du mystere] the
play, its date and duration, summoning those who wished to
take part, and distributing their roles among them. Thou-
sands of people witnessed these performances. During the
period of representation (from three to forty days) the gates
of the town were closed and sentinels patroled the streets to
guard the deserted houses. The cost of the theater, together
with the production, sometimes rose to one hundred thousand
francs ($20,000). The interior of the theater was richly
decorated with draperies and had an enormous stage * divided
into three parts (not of three stories as is still erroneously
believed). The division in the center represented the earth
sometimes with forty mansions : the palace of Herod, the tem-
ple of Jerusalem, the house of Mary of Nazareth, or the
abode of Adam and Eve, etc. Mountains, forests, rivers, and
lakes were introduced. To the left was Paradise, with flowers
and trees where God, usually in pontifical robes, was rep-
resented with His angels watching the play to the accompani-
ment of music. To the right was the entrance of Hell in the
shape of a dragon's mouth, opening and closing to engulf
sinners and emitting fire and smoke. At first only men were
allowed on the stage, as in Rome and Athens, but later women
assumed the female role, a custom introduced by the wander-
ing players from Italy. The scenery was the same throughout

1 An excellent picture of the whole effect of the stage in the Middle Ages
can be seen in a manuscript of the Mystery of the Passion in Valenciennes.

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

the play, and all the actors remained on the stage from begin-
ning to end, even if they had nothing more to do.

Of the numerous dramatic societies which flourished not
only in Paris, but in all parts of France during the Middle
Ages, the most celebrated was the Confrerie de la Passion
composed of the bourgeois and artisans of Paris, who, under
the direction of the clergy devoted themselves to the repre-
sentation of the mysteres de la Passion. In 1402, this or-
ganization received from the king the theater monopoly of
Paris, which they enjoyed for more than a century. Their
performances were first given in a hall of the Hopital de la
Trinite, a hostelry near the Porte Saint-Denis for pilgrims
and travelers who arrived in Paris after the gates were
closed. Then the company played in the Hotel de Flandres,
and finally they obtained the Hotel de Bourgogne (former
palace of the Dukes of Burgundy). In 1548, Parliament in-
terdicted the representations of ' ' mysteries ' ' ; this practically
ended the most powerful dramatic corporation of Paris, and
gave the deathblow to the religious theater of the Middle
Ages. The confreres still had the theater privilege, but
after unsuccessful attempts with secular plays they ceased
their performances and rented their theater to a company
of actors called Comediens fran$ais ordinaires du Roi, and
henceforth known as the troupe royale de I'hotel de Bour-
gogne.1 A decree issued by Louis XIV in 1676, declared
the Confrerie de la Passion dissolved and conferred their
property on the city hospital. The comedians paid the ground
rent to the hospital as they had done to the confrerie. This
is the origin of the droit des pauvres, a tax to which the
French theaters, concerts, and analogous amusements are still
subjected.

In imitation of the mysteries, great events of national or
ancient history were dramatized, such as the Siege of Orleans,
and the Destruction of Troy, immense works, but of small
literary value.

The comic theater existed in Paris in the Middle Ages in
the form of soties, moralites and farces. The growing desire

1 This company was united by order of Louis XIV with Moliere's com-
pany to form the famous Com£die-Fran(?aise, or Th6atre-Fran<;ais.

THE THEATER IN THE MIDDLE AGES

of the people to witness these performances gave rise to
innumerable dramatic societies in all parts of France: the
Puys, the Basoche, the Enfants sans-souci, Fous or Sots, the
Cornards, etc. The Puys, organized in honor of the Virgin,
gave representations of the miracles of her life. Originally
they were intended to crown religious plays, but gradually
degenerated into awarding prizes to silly songs and licentious
pieces.

The Basoche was a corporation of clerks from the Palais
de Justice1 (basoche), the members of which elected a king
and his court from among their numbers. The Basoche
presided at public entertainments and also gave theatrical
performances — farces, soties and moralites — on the marble
table 2 of the palace.

The Enfants sans-souci (Children without care), or Fous,
or Sots (fools), received letters patent from Charles VI, to
form a dramatic organization. They had a chief called
Prince of Sots, a second chief called Mother Sotte, and other
dignitaries with equally bizarre titles. The plays they per-
formed were called soties. The sotie, in one respect, re-
sembled the Italian comedy, inasmuch as the characters were
stereotyped personages, and always the same. It put on the
stage live issues of the time. It was the journalism of the
epoch. All the quarrels between royalty and the Holy See, all
the dissensions between the people and the great, or the gov-
ernment— in one word, all the affairs of the time were made
into soties — satires in dialogue. Petit de Julleville discredits
the theory of the Parfaict brothers, who represented the
Enfants sans-souci, as young people of good families playing
comedy to amuse and to moralize the people. He asserts that
their origin is obscure, but that they were composed of the
boheme and not of the jeunesse doree of Paris. The confrerie
owned a playhouse called the Maison des sotz attendans. Cle-

1 When the Kings of France occupied the Palais de Justice it was often
called the Palais Royal.

J Jurisdiction, called the Table de Marbre, because its sessions were
held on a large marble table occupying the entire space of the large hall
in the Palais de Justice in Paris. This table also served the Basochiens
(clerks of the basoche) to give their performances. Henri III suppressed
the title of the king of the basoche.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ment Marot, who in his youth was one of its members, wrote a
poem for his companions called Ballade des En f ants sans-souci.

The sotie differed from the farce only in the costume of
the personages: the sots wore parti-colored dresses (green
and yellow), and caps with long ears, and their names were
always preceded by the epithet of sot. The society is sup-
posed to have been founded on the idea that this world is a
kingdom of folly. Sometimes the soties expressed very dar-
ing political satire. The people against whom it was directed
were impersonated, dressed as sots and given over to ridicule.
The sotie " Vieux Monde, Abus, les sots " bitterly censured
the courts of justice, universities, and the Church, sometimes
even royalty did not escape satire. Louis XI and Francis I
placed a limit to these audacious liberties, but Louis XII often
made them serve his political attacks. When this monarch
was about to declare war with the pope, Julius II, he feared
an insurrection among the people. Realizing the power of
the theater on the public, he charged Pierre Gringoire to
defend his politics in a play called Jeu du Prince des sots, a
dramatic trilogy composed of a sotie, a moralite, and a farce.
This was represented in the market place before the king, the
University, and the people in 1511, and held to ridicule the
pope. It is one of the most curious monuments of the litera-
ture of the Middle Ages. At the end of the sixteenth century,
Henry IV completely banished all political allusions from
the stage.

The moralite was a dramatic work, whose object was a
moral and the characters of which were pure abstractions.
The oldest moralites date from the fifteenth century, and re-
late to religion. Religious, didactic, satirical, polemical,
legendary, or historical are the various characteristics de-
veloped in some of the moralites, while others simply point
a moral. Such were the moralites of Le Mauvais Riche et le
Ladre (the Bad, Rich Man and the Stingy Man), of the Em-
peror who condemned to death his Nephew, of Griselidis,1 of

1 Griselidis, or Griselda, the heroine of a legend used in the literature of
all nations: in the Lai du Frene of Marie de France, in the Tales of
Canterbury by Chaucer, in Boccaccio's Decameron; by Petrarcha in Latin,
by Erhart Gross and H. Stemhowel in German, in one of Perrault's Contes
de ma mere I'Oye, and recently by Armand Silvestre and Eugene Morand.

THE THEATER IN THE MIDDLE AGES

the " Mother and Daughter " drawn from an ancient author,
Valerius Maximus, and which is the story of a mother con-
demned to die of hunger but nourished in prison with her
daughter's milk and finally pardoned in consideration of
this pious fraud. One of the most curious moralites is the
Condamnation de Banquet by Dr. Nicolas de la Ches-
naye. The characters are: Je bois a vous (I drink to you),
Gourmandise (gluttony), Friandise (daintiness), Bonne
Compagnie (good company), jolly companions who dine sump-
tuously and with great merriment in spite of the hideous
forms of Colicque (colic), Goutte (gout), Apoplexie (apo-
plexy), etc., which menace them. From Dinner these lively
companions hasten to Supper still followed by the ugly spec-
ters who succeed in upsetting chairs, tables, and even some of
the companions. Undaunted they then go to Banquet where,
however, the specters joined by la Mort (death) succeed in
killing some of the companions. The surviving ones insti-
tute proceedings against Dinner, Supper, and Banquet in the
court presided over by Experience. The doctors Hippoc-
rates,1 Averroes 2 and others called in to give their verdict,
condemn Banquet to be hanged by Diete (diet) and Supper
is ordered to keep himself six miles — that is, six hours — from
Dinner.

The Danse Macabre or Dance of Death was originally a
kind of moralite intended to remind the living of the power
of death. The performances took place at the Convent of
the Innocents during the fourteenth century in Paris in
commemoration, it is thought, of the seven Maccabees.8 It
consisted of dialogues between Death and twenty-four people
of various ranks from the pope, emperor, empress, king, and
queen to the peasant and the beggar. Hence the Latin name
Chorea Maccabceorum later changed to Danse Macabre. As
early as the beginning of the fifteenth century this idea, also
adopted by other countries, was introduced into painting,*

1 The greatest doctor of ancient times (450 B.C.).
1 A famous Arabian physician (twelfth century).

* 2 Maccabees.

• In the Marienkirche at Luebeck, the Campo Santa at Pisa, the Cathedral
of Strassburg; in the cemeteries of Dresden, Berne, and Bale, which latter
has forty-five pictures.

sculpture,1 and finally into engraving 2 and printing,3 the
different personages being represented as whirled around in
a fantastic dance with Death as the leader. It was in vogue
in England, but reached an extraordinary popularity in Ger-
many in the middle of the fifteenth century, which was soon
after repeated in France where it was treated in every possi-
ble way — in pictures, bas-reliefs, tapestry, etc. Death was
made grotesque — a sort of " horrid harlequin," a skeleton
dancer, or a musician playing for dancers, leading all man-
kind.

The farce was at first an accessory to serious representa-
tions serving sometimes as an interlude to a Mystery or as an
episode in the play itself. There are more than one hundred
farces preserved from the Middle Ages in France. Their
authors loved especially to picture conjugal life, and to make
fun of the quarrels of the household, either among the burgh-
ers or the common people. In the farce, indicated by the
title of De celui qui enferma sa femme dans une tour, ou
la Dame qui ay ant tort, parut avoir raison (of him who locked
up his wife in a tower, or the lady who, being wrong, appeared
to be right), we see the George Dandin of Moliere. We have
also the farce of the women who want to rule their husbands ;
the farce of the newly wed, the origin of a chapter in Rabelais,
and a scene in Moliere 's ' ' Forced Marriage. ' ' The admirable
Farce du Cuvier (washtub) is classical: An almost angelic hus-
band, Jean, lives with his wife and mother-in-law, who contrive
to torture the poor man morning and evening. He is their
slave, their scapegoat. They make him get up before daybreak,
to light the fire, make up the rooms, wash the child. Then the
women appear and find fault with everything. At last, one
day, in desperation, he implores them to make a list of all his
tasks, and to forget nothing — for he has decided to do nothing
that is not set down in writing. So the women prepare the
list, and he puts it into his pocket. Pretty soon the bitter

1 In the church at Cherbourg.

1 Hans Holbein (fifteenth century) left fifty-three sketches for engrav-
ings. Other engravings date from the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth,
and even nineteenth centuries. (W. Kaulback and others.)

3 First known printed edition dates from 1485. Another edition is that
of Danse des Morts of Bale.

THE THEATER IN THE MIDDLE AGES

and violent wife begins to chide him. Gesticulating, she does
not think of a washtub behind her, in which the wash is
soaking, and she falls into it. " Help, help! Jean, good
husband, dear husband," she cries. But Jean gravely draws
the paper from his pocket, and reads it attentively. " This
is not written on my list," he says contentedly; and he
crosses his arms. His wife's cries bring her mother. She
attempts to lift her daughter from the tub, but she is not
strong enough. ' ' Jean, my dear son-in-law, help me ! " she
implores. " This is not on my list," repeats Jean. At last,
when his wife is more than half -drowned, he consents to draw
her out, but only on condition that henceforth he will be mas-
ter in his house. They promise, but everyone says to him-
self, " The poor fool will always be led."

In some farces the judiciary world, the pedants, braggarts,
and hypocrites are ridiculed. Among the best examples of
this genre and replete with satirical humor and wit are the
Plaidoyer de la Simple et de la Rusee (Plea of the Simple and
the Crafty Woman) and the Droits nouveaux (New Rights)
by William Coquillart.

The anonymous 1 and inimitable Farce de Maitre Pathelin
(Lawyer Pathelin) of the fifteenth century is more elaborate
than all the other farces of the old theater. Rejuvenated in
1705 by Abbe Brueys, it still holds the stage of the Theatre-
Frangais. Pathelin, a briefless lawyer, swears that he will
procure for himself and his wife that very day new garments
of which they are greatly in need. He enters the shop of his
neighbor, the draper, Master Guillaume Joceaulme; cajoles
him, speaks of his late father, his aunt, praises the quality of
his wares, and allows himself to be induced by Guillaume to
buy six yards of superb cloth for nine ecus.2 He takes the
cloth with him, and invites the merchant to come to his house
in the evening, to eat goose and receive his money. Guill-
aume goes; but what a surprise! He finds the lawyer's wife
in tears, and the lawyer himself in bed. The wife insists
that her husband has not stirred from the house that day nor
any day for the past eleven weeks! The draper is very in-

1 Attributed without foundation to Antoine de La Salle, to Pierre
Blanchet, and even to Villon.

J In ancient times an €cu was worth about three francs (sixty cents).

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

dignant upon hearing this, but Pathelin, in seeming delirium,
utters cries in all sorts of dialects talking Picard, Flemish,
Provencal, and even Turkish in such a manner that the draper,
deafened and frightened, runs away, making the sign of the
cross, and thinking that perhaps the devil himself had played
him the trick:

Le diable, en lieu de ly,

A prins mon drap pour moy tenter.

Benedicite.1

On his return home, Guillaume meets his shepherd, Aignelet,
who has for years killed and eaten Guillaume 's best sheep and
pretended that sickness has carried them off. Guillaume
finally in possession of proofs of the shepherd's perfidy, in-
forms him that he will be summoned before the court. Aig-
nelet in great distress intrusts his case to Pathelin, who ad-
vises him to feign idiocy and to reply to everything with a
bleating ba-a ! Guillaume, recognizing in his shepherd 's law-
yer the thief of his cloth is so disconcerted that he loses his
head and confuses the story of the clothier with that of the
sheep. He so tries the patience of the judge who in vain
calls him back to the subject in question with the famous
phrase revenons a nos moutons (let us return to our sheep)
that he absolves Aignelet. Pathelin attempts to collect his
fee, but the shrewd Aignelet has profited by the cleverness of
his lawyer and defeats him with his eternal Ba-a. Pathelin,
caught in his own trap, returns to his lodgings confessing

A that he has found his master.
These forms of comedy show most curious and original
qualities, in them the old esprit gaulois is given a free course.
They did not, however furnish the inspiration and materials
of true French comedy, for in the intermediate Renaissance
period they were completely lost in the shadow of the newly
introduced dramas of antiquity.

1 The devil, instead of him,
Has taken my cloth to tempt me.
Praise ye (O Lord).

CHAPTER VI

LYRIC POETRY

IN the Middle Ages narrative poetry took the form of the
national epic, in which it reached its highest expression; but
during a thousand years of literary productiveness, various
attempts to create a body of lyric poetry were not fairly
realized until the nineteenth century. The French genius
does not lean to lyricism. G. Lanson notes that his country-
men are unlike the Germans with their deep, pessimistic
nature, conscious of the tragedy of life. The French, he
remarks, are led neither by personal experience nor by deep
reflection to recognize the fact that the perpetuity of suffer-
ing is the very essence of life. On the contrary, life is to
them a delight; and hence, unlike Heine, they have not been
' ' able to create elegies out of their great sufferings, ' ' It has
been their habit to regard only the actual world and life in
its immediate aspect, and to free themselves from everything
that would arrest action. They have long intrusted to the
Church the business of regulating for them the questions of
a future existence — of death and eternity ; to spare themselves
further thought except during the brief moments of the death-
bed. Metaphysical problems and religious pensiveness were
stored away in a corner of the heart where they would not
disturb them in the enjoyment of life. Thus a great lyric
poetry, the most unrestrained and elevated of all poetical
inspirations, the outcry of the earnestness and the sadness of
existence, could not arise in France from those elements and
circumstances which created it among other nations. The
origin of lyric poetry in Northern France, so far as it
meagerly existed at all, related to woman — to whom action
was denied, and who lived somewhat in the realm of dreams
and emotions conducive to poetry. For her, and perhaps by
her, dancing songs and spindle songs were composed at the

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

period of truly spontaneous and popular poetic creation.
The songs with which the young women and girls in French
hamlets accompanied their spinning wheels — one singing the
theme solo, the others taking up the refrain — have been utter-
ly lost. But with the aid of certain refrains (motets or
ballettes) of an ancient and popular character, belonging to
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, together with the
cognate poetry in Sicily, Portugal and Germany, it has been
possible to reconstruct these songs, though somewhat feebly.

Talis tot se leva:

"Bon jour ait qui mon coeur a."

Beau se vetit et para,

Dessous 1'aulnoie.

" Bonjour ait qui mon coeur a

N'est avec moi."1

All these songs speak of love. There is the maiden, re-
joicing in her youth and beauty, who boasts of having a lover,
or complains that she has none — who would marry him whom
her parents refuse, or who rejects the choice of her parents,
and tells of their cruelty. Secret meetings, departure, absence,
desertion, dangers, surprises, fears, ruses, form the substance
of the emotions and the songs. But the song did not become
an ode. The dancing couplet did not rise to the dignity of
the lyric poem; it was not enlarged by a feeling for nature,
by a sympathetic communion with universal life, by a pro-
found and trembling intuition of the eternal conditions of
human suffering, or by intensity of emotion and the absorp-
tion of the whole being in one great passion. There is a
lively, pleasing, dancing rhythm, to be sure — wonderfully
adapted to the superficial form of those sentiments which touch
the heart without filling it ; but nothing of soul-stirring passion
or of ardent self-forgetfulness. There are poetic dialogues
between two lovers, or between mother and daughter, wife
and husband. There are short stories, in couplets — romances
of " fair Eglantine before her mother, sewing a shirt," of
" fair Amelot spinning alone in her chamber." Or, fair

1 Talis arose early: "Good-day to him who has my heart."
Beautifully she arrayed herself, and adorned herself under the alders.
"Good-day to him who has my heart; he is not with me."

LYRIC POETRY

Erembour sees, passing by her window, Count Renaud, who
has deserted her; she calls to him, and clears herself of the
suspicion of infidelity which kept him away. Such are the
spinning songs of the rude, early French period — poor, but
spontaneous, and not to be confounded with the mediocre
imitations by Audefroi le Batard, in the thirteenth century.

The dancing songs consisted essentially of couplets and
refrains-— rowdete, ballettes, virelis, from which originated
the rondeaux, ballades, virelais of the fourteenth century,
with fixed forms. The parting of the lovers, warned of the
dawn by the lark, and, later, by the watcher, constitutes the
genre called aubade* (from aube, dawn). The two most im-
portant kinds of the old French lyrics are the " Romances,"
also called Chansons de toile, from songs sung when weav-
ing linen (toile), the subject of which is usually a young girl
of noble birth and some knight. The other genre is the
Pastourelle (feminine form of pastoureau, shepherd), the
rhythms of which were particularly lively and graceful and
whose contents depicted the meeting of a knight and a
shepherdess who sometimes accepted, sometimes refused him.
These two genres were perhaps imported from the South ; yet,
treating, as they do, of universally human subjects, they may
have grown spontaneously.

We find, also, some early songs filled with a human sen-
timent far removed from the theme of love. A crusader's
song, composed before 1147, is more oratorical than lyrical,
colored more with reason than with passion, and significant
in its use of a didatic moral :

Comtes ni dues ni les rois couronne's
Ne se pourront a la mort derober :
Car, quand ils ont grands tresors amasses,
Plus il leur faut partir a grand regret.
Mieux leur valut les employer a bien :
Car quand ils sont en terre ensevelis,
Ne leur sert plus ni chateau ni cite.2

1 The morning counterpart of the serenade.

2 Nor counts nor dukes nor crowned kings can cheat death; for when
they have amassed great treasures, the more they must be loath to go.
Better for them to have used these treasures for good; for when they are
buried in the ground, neither castle nor stronghold is of use to them.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

With this production we see general ideas entering into
French literature: the road is opened which leads to Mal-
herbe. But up to this time French lyricism had little value ;
no one thought even of collecting its examples. Then, about
1150, the rich Provencal influence began to interrupt the
current of original French lyrics by introducing an artificial
and learned poetry in France, yet, at the same time, raising
the respect for lyric verses, and thus preserving for us some
remnants of the popular productions of former centuries.
The creation of Provencal poetry is due, to a considerable
extent, to woman ; from her it received its subject and inspira-
tion. For, in Provence, social conditions gave woman a
dominion, and made her taste a law. The baron of the North,
inclosed within the thick walls of his fortress, dreamt only
of war. But the nobles of the South — at peace under two or
three great counts ; rich, living in cities, enamored of festivals
and tournaments, with a spirit already open to culture and
ideals, their ears trained to rhythm — created for themselves
a literature in harmony with the physical and social condi-
tions of their lives. In their leisure, love became the fore-
most affair; and in order to please woman, they acquired
polish, humanity and freed themselves from feudal igno-
rance and brutality. There was less need of epics than of a
lyric poetry.

Demogeot, in his History of French Literature, tells us
that the epic songs of the language of the North have un-
rolled before us the ideal picture of feudalism — a vast scene
of history in which the life of the Middle Ages is disclosed
in its entirety. But there is another class of poems which
reveals them to us from a different point of view. These are
the small genre pictures — portraits which portray so well the
costume and the physiognomy of the epoch, that they form
the indispensable complement of the large canvases, and
lend them truth and life. First, and especially in the South,
lyric inspiration awakens. Happy flower of the climate,
it was born there, as it were, without cultivation; under a
more gracious sky, under less barbarous governments, men
allowed themselves to embrace earlier the sweet seductions
of life. In that land all women were loved, all knights were
poets. The noblest lords, the proudest Burgraves of Pro-

LYRIC POETRY

venee and of Languedoc, the Counts of Toulouse, the Dukes
of Aquitaine, the Dauphins of Vienne and of Auvergne, the
Princes of Orange, the Counts of Foix — all these composed
and sang verses. Often, even a page at court, sometimes
even the son of a serf, was honored, through his talent, only
less than his noble master, provided he possessed intelligence
and an elegant deportment.

After Provence had detached herself from Northern
France and formed an independent State * under Boson I and
his successors, she became happy and tranquil under her ob-
scure and paternal sovereigns, and saw her population and
her wealth growing; the customs became refined, the lan-
guage polished, and a harmonious instrument in the hands
of its first poets. The fusion of one part of Provence with
Catalonia,2 under the rule of Raymond-Beranger, in 1092,
imparted a new movement to the southern spirit. Boson,
governor of Provence under Charles the Bald, freed himself
after the king's death, in 897, from French sovereignty, and
founded the kingdom of Aries (Cisjurane Burgundy). The
city of Aries was called ' ' Gallic Rome ' ' from its importance.
The two peoples spoke almost the same language. The spirit
of the one, the wealth of the other, produced an elegance of
customs still unknown to the other regions. The influence
of Spain since the eleventh century had its effect on this
blossoniing literature, developing a strong lyrical tendency
which lasted until the thirteenth century. The splendor of
the courts of Barcelona, Granada and Cordova, the mag-
nificence of Moorish architecture, made known by the large
number of French, Provencal, and Gascon knights who had
joined King Alphonse IV of Castile and the Cid 3 Rodriguez
de Bivar, were sources of inspiration.

Through the knights of Arabia, who visited the courts

1 Ancient Hispania, Tarraconensis, overrun by the Alani, Goths, and,
later, by the Saracens.

3 United to Aragon in 1137, but in revolt against the Spanish sol-
diery, Catalonia gave herself to France and became the patrimony of
Raymond.

1 The principal national hero of Spain, famous for his exploits against
the Moors; but, of course, the Cid of the Chronicle is not at all the Cid of
the Romances.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of Christian princes/ Oriental poetry became gradually infil-
trated into the languages of the South, and with the aid of
music, instilled into them not only its inspirations, but
its harmony and its rhythmic form. With the exception of
a small number of epic works2 which Fauriel (French liter-
ary historian, 1772-1844), and Raynouard (1761-1836) have
made known to us, the only monuments of the southern muse
are certain impulsive effusions of sentiment or spirit. They
resemble not so much literary compositions as the melodious
music of that life of love and pleasure which passed joyfully
from the tournaments of the castles to the eternal feasts of
a smiling climate. To produce such works it was not neces-
sary to be a great cleric and to know how to read; it was
enough to have a heart capable of love. One of the chief
merits of those charming songs is entirely lost for him who
cannot read them easily in their original language. The
Provencal rhythm is inflected by the troubadours with a co-
quetry full of grace — " like a ribbon with striking colors
which floats and vanishes in a knot artistically formed." " I
confess," says Raynouard, " that I have tried in vain to
offer a translation of them; the sentiment, the grace, cannot
be translated. These are delicate flowers, the fragrance of
which must be breathed on the plant." " To enjoy those
songs," says Schlegel, " which have charmed so many illus-
trious sovereigns, so many brave knights, so many ladies
famous for their beauty, one must hear those troubadours
themselves, and try to understand their language. If you
do not want to take that trouble, well, then, you are con-
demned to read the translations of Abbe Millet " (French
scholar of the eighteenth century). The number of known
troubadours is more than five hundred, among whom the
most famous are : Bertrand de Born and Bernard de Venta-
dour of the Limousin group, Arnaud de Marveil, Richard
Cffiur de Lion, King Alphonse of Aragon, William IX of
Poitou, the oldest known troubadour, Prince Geoffroy Rudel
de Blaya, and Clara d'Anduze. The theme for their songs
was principally love and the troubadours disguised the iden-

1 See description in the Dernier Abend-rage of Chateaubriand.

2 See Gerard de Roussillon; Jaufre e Brunesentz; Chronique des Albigeois;
Roman de Flamenca; Roman de Fierabras.

LYRIC POETRY

tity of the ladies by substituting names of fantasy, such as:
Gent conquis (Fair captive), Sobre totz (Above all), Bel vezer
(Beautiful countenance), and even Mon diable (My devil).

Arnaut de Marveil or Marpill, a poor serf who became a
skillful troubadour, attached to the court of Viscount de
Beziers, had fallen in love with Countess Adelaide, daughter
of Raymond V, Count of Toulouse. Singing, under a ficti-
tious name, of the lady he loved, he traces thus ingenuously
her picture : Pus blanca eg que Elena>

Belhazors que flora que nays,
E de cortezia plenia,

Blanca dens ab motz verays,
Ab cor franc ses vilanatge,

Color f resca ab sauras cri :
Dieus que'l det lo senhoratage

La sal qu'anc gensor no vi.1

He finally disclosed himself as the author of the songs;
but no sooner had the countess encouraged him, than she was
forced to dismiss the poet at the behest of her royal suitor,
King Alphonse of Castile. So Arnaut went forth in despair,
and sought refuge with his friend and seignior, William of
Montpellier. The fountains of his grief were opened, and he

" Sweet my musings used to be,1
Without shadow of distress,
Till the queen of loveliness,
Lowly, mild, yet frank as day,
Bade me put her love away,

Love so deeply wrought in me.
And because I answered not,
Nay, nor e'en her mercy sought,
All the joy of life is gone,
For it lived in her alone."

1 Fairer than the far-famed Helen,
Lovelier than the flow'rets gay,
Snow-white teeth, and lips truth-telling,

Heart as open as the day;
Golden hair, and fresh bright roses —

God, who formed a thing so fair,
Knows that never yet another

Lived, who can with her compare.
J Mot ernn dout miei cosair. Harriet W. Preston's translation.

7 81

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

Another famous troubadour was Bertran de Born,1 whose
adventurous life and turbulent humor, Villemain has set
forth in an interesting fashion. This great lord, Viscount
of Hautefort, belonging to the twelfth century, whom Uh-
land and Heine have immortalized in their beautiful poems,
was called Tyrta?us because he inspired with his fiery songs
the warriors of France against the English invaders. But he
was of a disposition warlike, violent, passionate, and unscrupu-
lous, and, says Faguet, deserved in spite of his final penitence
in the Convent of Citeaux, to be placed by Dante in his
" Hell." In his verses he sometimes affords a strange relief
to the love songs of his contemporaries by a fortunate admix-
ture of warlike sentiment and pictures borrowed from feudal
life. Thus does he appeal to his lady-love 2 from the slanders
of his enemies :

(Jeu m'escondic que mat non mier

De so qu'ens an de mi dig lauzengier, etc.)

I cannot hide from thee how much I fear
The whispers breathed by flatterers in thine ear
Against my faith. But turn not, oh, I pray,
That heart so true, so faithful, so sincere,
So humble and so frank, to me so dear,
O, lady turn it not from me away!

So may I lose my hawk, ere he can spring,
Borne from my hand by some bold falcon's wing,
Mangled and torn before my very eye,
If every word thou utterest does not bring
More joy to me than Fortune's favoring,
Or all the bliss another's love might buy.

1 An indefatigable fighter, who incited the two sons of Henry II of
England to revolt against their father. He lost his castle twice. Dante,
in his Inferno, describes him carrying his own bloody head, which still
seems to menace and to curse.

2 Maenz de Montagnac, daughter of the Viscount de Turenne and wife of
Taleyrand de Pe"rigord. The song herewith reproduced places before us,
says Sismondi, the real knight of olden times, busied with war and the
chase, successively appealing to everything that is dear to him in life, to
everything which has been the study of his youth and his riper age, and
yet esteeming them all light, in comparison with love.

LYRIC POETRY

So, with my shield on neck, 'mid storm and raid,

With vizor blinding me, and shorten 'd rein,

And stirrups far too long, so may I ride,

So may my trotting charger give me pain ;

So may the ostler treat me with disdain,

As they who tell those tales have grossly lied.

When I approach the gaming board to play,

May I not turn a penny all the day,

Or may the board be shut, the dice untrue,

If the truth dwell not in me when I say

No other fair e'er wiled my heart away

From her I've long desired and loved — from you.

Or, prisoner to some noble, may I fill,

Together with three more, some dungeon chill,

Unto each other odious company;

Let masters, servants, porters, try their skill

And use me for a target if they will,

If ever I have loved aught else but thee.

So may another knight make love to you,

And so may I be puzzled what to do;

So may I be becalmed 'mid oceans wide ;

May the king's porter beat me black and blue;

And may I fly ere I the battle view,

As they that slander me have grossly lied.

His poetry — like himself — is powerful, ardent, passionate;
his sirventes are satires, challenges, duels.

The troubadours often made use of little satirical poems
which they hurled at their rivals, their lords, the kings, the
clergy, and sometimes even at the ladies. These poems in
which satire intermingled with warlike inspiration were
called sirventes * which originally meant service songs, that
is, songs used in the service of certain lords or of factions
(associated principally with the Ghibellines) . The sirventes
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries took the place of the
newspaper or pamphlet against the Pope and were circulated
from castle to castle in southern France.

1 " Poemata in quibus servientium, sen militum facta et servilia refer-
untur." — Du Cange, Siruentois.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

The most piquant form in which the Provencals composed
the love song was the so-called tenson, or dialogue poem of
repartee (Jeu parti) between two troubadours — a kind of
poetic tournament to which they challenged one another in
the presence of ladies and knights. According to Jean Nos-
tradamus, the tensons were disputations carried on between
the poetical knights and ladies on some subtle question of
love; and when they could not agree the disputants sent
the tensons, for decision, to illustrious presiding ladies who
held open "courts of love," a chivalrous institution existing
from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. In these gal-
lant courts the ladies presided and passed judgment in " de-
crees of love " (arrests d' amour}. In a code called De Arte
Amatoria et Reprobationis amoris (1174) written by Andre
the court chaplain, are cited the cours d' amour of Ermin-
gard, Countess of Narbonne, of Queen Eleanor of Guyenne,
of Marie of France, Countess of Champagne. In another
list, supplied by Nostradamus, Laura de Noves, wife of Hugh
de Sade, is mentioned among the principals in a court of
Avignon. It was Laura, the " lady with the beautiful blond
and wavy hair," who inspired Petrarcha.1 Her beauty, her
virtue, and her mind conquered all hearts. Petrarcha, who
lived at Avignon, saw Laura and loved her — loved her for
twenty years, even for ten years after her death. His poems
of which she is the subject embrace three hundred and eight-
een sonnets and eighty-eight songs. Laura did not wish to

1 Petrarch (Francesco Petrarcha) (1304-1374), one of Italy's greatest
poets, whose sonnets to Laura have won him enduring fame, was born at
Arezzo (Italy), and came to Avignon at the age of five years. His family
had fled their native land because of its unhappy strife. Petrarcha studied
at Avignon, and later, to please his family, he studied law at Montpellier.
The poet was much sought after because of his amiable and sweet dis-
position. Rome, Naples, and the Court of France contended for his
presence. He betook himself to Rome, where he was crowned poet
laureate at the Church of St. Peter; and he suspended his crown in the
vault of the edifice, to render homage to God for his genius. Venice
finally accorded justice to the family of the poet, returning to him his
fortune and inviting him to live there, but he refused. He retired to
Arco, where he died at the age of seventy years. Petrarcha wrote in
French as well as in Italian, and it was France that nourished and stimu-
lated his genius.

LYRIC POETRY

marry the poet, lest he cease to sing. To dispel his cares,
Petrarcha traveled; then he returned to Vaucluse. Laura
de Noves died of the plague, when she was thirty-eight years
of age. Petrarcha, who was then at Naples, hastened to
Vaucluse to weep over his beloved, whose body was interred
in the monastery of the Dominicans.

Anything like a comprehensive enumeration of the trou-
badours would expand this chapter disproportionately; even
Raynouard's1 Choix des Poesies originates des Troubadours
(1816) embraces a list of some three hundred poets. Yet
such is their relation to the society and the literature of the
period, and with so much romantic interest are their personal-
ities and productions invested, that some of them, at least,
must be mentioned if only in the briefest fashion.

William of Poitiers,2 crusader, king, lover, was first of
all, a man of action, yet he found time in the heat of his
turbulent carer to compose poems in many keys, of a finish
and quality that compel our admiration. His verses inspired
by " the tender passion," and supposed to reflect his own
peculiar amatory adventures, are not at all meat for babes;
but William sometimes voices his sentiments in the language
of chivalry and idealism. Characteristic of this vein is his
spring poem (Pus vezem de novelh florir, etc.) :

1 English readers who cannot enjoy the originals, and for whom Ray-
nouard is a closed book, will find no considerable body of good translations
in any one volume. They must seek for them in the scattered pages of
various essayists and historians. The translations reproduced in this
chapter are taken, in part, from Henry Carrington's Anthology of French
Poetry, from the tenth to the nineteenth centuries; Sismondi'a Historical
View of the Literature of the South of Europe, Roscoe's translation; Har-
riet W. Preston's Troubadours and Trouvbres, New and Old.

J William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine (born 1071;
died 1127), reigned over Germany, the northern half of Aquitaine, Berry,
Limousin, Auvergne. Refusing to join the first Crusade, in 1095, he could
not, upon the capture of Jerusalem, four years later, resist the call for aid
voiced by the little band of Red Cross Knights in the Holy Land. He
signalized his departure by a poetic lament that expresses his poignant
emotions on leaving his young son and his beloved land, to engage in an
expedition so little to his taste, and naively exhibits the conflict between
his natural impulses and a sense of duty. He survived this perilous cam-
paign and lived twenty-five years longer.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Behold! the meads are green again,
The orchard-bloom is seen again
Of sky and stream the mien again

Is mild, is bright;
Now should each heart that loves obtain

Its own delight.

But I will say no ill of love,
However slight my guerdon prove :
Repining doth not me behoove ;

And yet — to know
How lightly she, I fain would move,

Might bliss bestow!

There are who hold my folly great;
Because with little hope I wait;
But one old saw doth animate

And me assure:
Their hearts are high, their might is great,

Who well endure.

It was this same poet of spring and love — with little affec-
tion for church and clergy — who drew his sword upon the
Bishop of Poitiers when that prelate was in the very act of
excommunicating him because of some notorious scandal.
But the doughty bishop was too quick for him. " Strike,"
said he, " for I have done." " That I shall not," said Wil-
liam, sheathing his sword, " for I think too ill of you to
send you to Paradise."

Of greater and more abundant poetic gifts, and of a more
copious output, was Bernard of Ventadorn (or Ventadour),
son of a baker, and foremost among the sweet singers of
Provence. Born about 1130, his poetic powers were fostered
by his patron and seignior, Ebles II. It was the youthful
wife of Ebles — the lively and gentle Adelaide of Montpellier
— whom he first enshrined in his verses. They came to love
one another, and this did not please the lady's husband; so
Bernard was given his conge. Going thence, he found con-
solation at the feet of the Duchess of Normandy, who was no
less a personage than Eleanor, granddaughter of William of
Poitiers, divorced from Henry VII of France and married to

Henry II of England, becoming the mother of Richard Coeur
de Lion. The youthful Bernard, at this time, was ten years
younger than Eleanor — she herself was but thirty-three, and
wondrously attractive. %

Richard CCEUT de Lion (1157-1199), warrior, King of
England and troubadour, was made prisoner after his return
from the third Crusade, by Henry IV, Emperor of Germany.
Richard's favorite troubadour, Blondel de Nesles, traveled
throughout the empire in search of his place of captivity,
singing at every stronghold a song which he and Richard
had composed. At the Castle of Durrenstein, his faithful-
ness was rewarded by hearing Richard's voice in answer.
Blondel made known the whereabouts of the royal prisoner
to the Queen Mother in England, who soon ransomed her son.

" Needs must I sing, I have no other choice,
Although I find but grief and weariness ;

Still, it is always better to rejoice,
Yielding to grief is ever profitless :

Yet not as one beloved I sing my lay,

But as in sorrow, pensive and astray,
And since of good I see no likeliness,

By words I am forever led away.

" One thing I tell in which I naught deceive —
That in all love is chance and fickleness ;

And were I able her control to leave,

It were more worth than did I France possess;

But in despair and madness oft I say,

Better the memory of her charms should stay,
Of her great wisdom and sweet gentleness,

Than to hold all the world beneath my sway." 1

These verses are the work of Thiebaut IV (1201-1253),
who preeminently naturalized in the North the graceful
compositions of the troubadours. Grandson of a king of
Navarre, son and successor of a count of Champagne, edu-

1 Sismondi notes that the poems of the King of Navarre are exceedingly
difficult to comprehend. Antique words were long considered in France
as more poetical than modern ones; and thus, while the language of prose
was polished and perfected, that of poetry retained all its early obscurity.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

cated in the South and passing his life among the men of the
North — he was admirably qualified as a poetic adapter. He
imitated the troubadours, but in doing so he elevated their
songs, and seasoned them with a little of the salt of the
trouveres.

Froissart, called historien errant (wandering historian)
— author of ballades, rondeaux, virelais — is a charming nar-
rator even in verse. There is nothing more ingenious than
his Dit du Florin (What the Florin said) — a piquant con-
versation between the author and a solitary piece of money
which, by chance, remained in his purse; nothing is more
amusing than IA Debat du Cheval et du Levrier — the dia-
logue between the horse that carries the poet on his adven-
turous excursions and the faithful hound that follows him.
In a long allegory entitled Li Horloge d' Amour (The Clock
of Love) he compares, piece by piece, the heart of man with
a clock. Each passion corresponds to a part of the machine :
desire is the main spring, beauty serves as a balance-wheel,
and so on. Here is a brief specimen of his verse taken from
Longfellow's Poetry of Europe.

Take time while yet it is in view,

For Fortune is a fickle fair;
Days fade, and others spring anew,

Then take the moment still in view.

What boots to toil and cares pursue?

Each month a new moon hangs in air;
Take then the moment still in view,

For Fortune is a fickle fair.

Arnaud Daniel, of the Perigord group of troubadours,
Petrarch has placed in his Triomphes (Fourth Triomphe) ;
and Dante in his Purgatory says of him: " This one sur-
passes all the poets of his country by his love songs and his
romance prose."

Guiraut de Bornelh, or Borneil,1 who loved and sang in
the first half of the thirteenth century, belongs well up in the

1 He was the first troubadour who made a chanson, as, up to that time,
poems were called verses, but never songs.

LYEIC POETRY

list of troubadours. His ancient biographer, indeed, insists
that there was never a better troubadour; and the weight
of opinion seems to be with him, and against the judgment
of Dante, who preferred Arnaut Daniel. In the winter,
Guiraut de Bornelh studied in one of the schools where, it
would seem, formal instruction in the troubadour poetry was
afforded at this particular period ; and ' ' all summer ' ' says
his biographer, " he journeyed from court to court, accom-
panied by two jongleurs 1 who performed his songs. Guiraut
was a master of the chanson; his love songs are remarkable
for their lyric power and profound emotion. And, late in
life, when a civil and semireligious war blackened the beauty
of the land, he rose to his full height as the poet of his coun-
try's desolatiota. The loftiness of his amatory sentiment
appears in an aubade (" Reis glorios, verais lums e clar-
datz "), of which these stanzas are but a part:

All-glorious king, who dost illuminate
All ways of men, upon thy grace I wait;
Praying thy shelter for my spirit's queen,
Whom all the darkling hours I have not seen;
And now the dawn is near.

Sleepest or wakest, lady of my vows ?
Oh, sleep no more, but lift thy quiet brows;
For now the Orient's most lovely star
Grows large and bright, welcoming from afar
The dawn that now is near.

Oh, sleep no more, but gracious audience give;
What time with the awakening birds I strive,
Who seek the day amid the leafage dark,
To me, to me, not to that other, hark,
For now the dawn is near.

Among the well-known troubadours may be mentioned:
Marcabrun (probably a contemporary of William of Poi-
tiers), whose verses are so rarely concerned with love that

1 In company with a troubadour were usually one or two jongleurs, who
afforded diversion to the audience with jokes and juggles, and sometimes
performed the songs. .

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

he enjoys a unique distinction as the only troubadour person-
ally immune to that malady. The shockingly tragic history
of William of Cabestaing together with that of his sweetheart,
the Lady Soremonda, lends a peculiar interest to his poems,
seven of which have been preserved.1 The story runs that
Raymond of Roussillon killed Cabestaing from jealousy, and
then served his heart in a repast to Lady Raymond. After
she had unsuspectingly partaken of it, her husband exultingly
made known to her the fact. She replied that since she had
tasted such noble food, she would taste no other, and starved
to death.2 Raimon de Miraval " loved a great many ladies,
some of whom treated him well, and others ill, ' ' and he wrote
verses which showed less sincerity than ingenuity and grace.
Raimbaut de Vaqueiras whose singular adventure with the
Lady Beatrice of Montferrat has been set forth in detail by
his ancient biographer — a poet in whose elaborate ' ' lament ' '
" we seem to hear the trumpet contending with the lute."
Vaqueiras fell in battle along with his master Montferrat, in
the expedition against Constantinople in 1207. Pierre Car-
denal3 subtle, intellectual, inquiring, was a kind of Omar
Khayyam of the Middle Ages. In one of his daring sirventes,
he rehearses the bold defense he means to make when sum-
moned before the judgment seat of God. Another trouba-
dour, Peter of Auvergne, was surnamed ' ' The Ancient, ' ' and
Bertrand of Alamanon was but an echo of his greater pre-
decessors.

Some of the troubadours followed the crusaders to Pales-
tine, but even they dreamed only of love ; one, Prince Geoffrey
Rudel de Blaya, set sail for the Holy Land only because he
was possessed by a strange passion for the Countess of Tripoli,
whom he had never seen. So he went to offer her his heart,
and to die when he should look into her beautiful eyes.

1 La Curne de St. Palaye spent many years in collecting manuscripts of
Provencal poetry, most of which had never been printed. Millot pub-
lished translations from this collection.

2 The same story is told of the "gentil Sire de Coucy " and "la dame du
Fayel " ; this novel, published in 1839 by Crapelet, deserves, according to
Gaston Paris, a place of honor in the history of literature.

3 " Indisputably the subtlest and most intellectual spirit among them
all" (the troubadours), says the author of Troubadours and Trouveres.

LYRIC POETRY

Edmond Rostand has made use of this episode for his play
entitled La Princesse Lointaine (The Distant Princess).

The troubadours laid more stress on the rhyme and rhythm,
on the form of expression, than on the subject matter, although
themes for inspiration were not wanting: the Conquest of
England by William the Conqueror, the capture of Jerusa-
lem by Godfrey de Bouillon, the capture of Sicily by Guiscard
and de Hauteville — great events to excite the imagination
and inspire enthusiasm.

The wars of the Albigenses and the Waldensians, helped
to silence the troubadour's song; after the wars, they still
sang, but it was not the harmonious song of love, of spring,
of the blue skies of that climate of Paradise, but the song of
hatred and malediction. Lack of profound inspiration is
the true cause of the rapid decadence of Provencal poetry.
In the learned or labored lyricism, nothing is popular —
neither the foundation nor the form. In the overrefinement
of thought, in the artificiality of the verses, these works suffer
from an essential aversion to the common naturalness; for
good sense they substitute spirit, and their goal is the pleasure
of an elite of the initiated, and not universal intelligibility.
However, after a century of noble pastime and fashion, the
learned lyricism declined. The French barons cooled off
and abandoned it; but, as had happened with the epic, the
burghers picked up the art which had lost the favor of the
nobles, and assured it a new lease of life. In the communi-
ties of Picardy this gallant poetry is continued by Bodel,
Moniot, Adam de la Halle,1 till the last years of the thirteenth
century. Though Provencal still remained the language of
the people, its literature perished, and was revived only in
the course of centuries — a revival accomplished rather arti-
ficially and without the recovery of the ancient vigor.

1 Jean Bodel and Adam de la Halle were both from Arras, a town with
a great literary reputation, which caused Guilbert de Berneville, in one of
his chansons, to represent God Himself descending to earth to learn the
art of poesy in Arras.

CHAPTER VII

POPULAR POETRY

WITH the waning power of knighthood and the blossom-
ing of burghership, lyric poetry fled from the crumbling walls
of castles to towns and villages, and throwing off its garb of
allegory and romance, gave vent to the natural and joyful
feeling of the people in melody — and thus song was born dur-
ing the fifteenth century in France. The few poets of note
who bridged the dark Middle Ages and the Renaissance, were
Charles d 'Orleans, Villon and Basselin. We hear Olivier -
Basseliji, the village Anacreon of Normandy, laughing and
singing1 — " chantant en beuvant, et beuvant en chantant "
(" singing as he drinks, drinking as he sings ") :

" Si voulez que je cause et preche,
Et parle latin proprement,
Tenez ma bouche toujours fraiche;
De bon vin I'arrosant sou vent.
Car je vous dis certainement,
Quand j 'ai seche la bouche,
Je n'ai plus d'entendement
Ni d'esprit qu'une souche."1

His melodious rhymes were the first to brighten the life of
dreary drudgery led by the people, and to comfort, like a
soothing potion, the hearts of the poor, crushed and discour-
aged by taxes and war.

This Olivier Basselin, creator of the modern song, gave
free vent in his verse to his good-humor, to his copious mock-

1 If you would have me sing and preach, and speak Latin properly, my
tongue must be freshened and watered with sparkling wine. For I assure
you that when my throat is parched I have no more mental apprehension
than a log.

POPULAR POETRY

ery, and to his sturdy Norman hatred of the English. He
was born at Vire, a small town in Normandy, about 1390,
and was proprietor of a fuller's mill for the manufacture of
cloth. Situated under the Cordeliers Hill, near the Bridge
of Vau, its ruins, which have preserved the name of the Basse-
lin mill, are still to be seen. On the picturesque banks of the
Vire river, Olivier sang his poems, to which his fellow citizens
gave the title, still preserved, of Vaux de Vire, after the name
of the place which inspired them. During the entire fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries the songs were called Vaux de Vire,
then Vaudeville, by corruption. In the seventeenth century
they went indifferently by the names of chansons and vaude-
villes, as we see in Boileau, who in his Art Poetique, uses both
terms to designate the same thing. Finally, it was called
chanson only, since vaudeville meant something quite differ-
ent. The good Norman fuller loved especially three things:
wine, cider, and peace— wine more than cider, and cider more
than peace. It was Basselin who introduced into the Bocage l
the custom of singing songs after repasts. He had a remark-
able facility in improvising songs. In his Vau de Vire, en-
titled " Probity and Joy," he showed good-nature sharpened
with a touch of malice. Picturesqueness of expression was not
wanting, as is demonstrated in this lively and charming
quatrain :

Toujours dans le vin vermeil
Ou autre liqueur bonne,

On voit un petit soleil
Qui fre'tille et rayonne.2

The most celebrated of his songs is the one entitled A mon nez
(To my nose) :

II vaut bien mieux cacher son nez dans un grand verre:

II est mieux assure qu'en un casque de guerre.

Pour cornette ou guidon suivre plut6t on doit

Les branches d'hierre ou d'if qui montrent oft 1'on boit.'

1 A name given to several small countries of ancient France, of which
the two best known were the Bocage normand and the Bocage vende"en.

2 Always in the rosy wine, or other good liquor, one sees a little sun
that sparkles and beams.

*It is better to hide one's nose in a big glass: 'tis more secure than a

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Basselin was killed in the Battle of Agincourt. His songs,
oft-repeated by the people of Normandy and orally trans-
mitted by the rhapsodists of Rouen, Vire, and Falaise (towns
in Normandy), were printed for the first time about 1576,
under the title of Livre des chants nouveaux et vaux-de-Vire
d 'Olivier Basselin, by Jean Le Houx, poet and lawyer of Vire.
This, no doubt, accounts for the rejuvenation of the style, the
clearness of the verses, and the omission of archaisms ; and this
may also account for the erroneous idea, maintained by some,
that Basselin 's songs, ' ' which show his talent and his ignorance
of the rules of art, ' ' were composed by Jean Le Houx.

Charles d 'Orleans (father of Louis XII) court poet,
spoke the language of the courtiers — the language of Blois,
of Chenonceaux, of London. Neither his long captivity in
England (1411-1440), nor the misfortune which befell his
family and his country,1 brought forth even one utterance of
profound passion from this poet. His poems breathe a spirit
of unquenchable joy, and although commonplace in concep-
tion, reveal beauty of expression, fine susceptibility, and facil-
ity of form. Poetry was for him not the simple expression
of the soul — it was a kind of " learned embroidery " — made
by the imagination. Besides the poems written in prison
in the English language, he left several hundred ballads,
songs, roundelays, etc. In all his poems, of which there are
two large volumes, there is not one verse which suggests vul-
garity, for Charles d 'Orleans remained a princely gentleman
in every line he wrote.

After his release he lived in the Chateau de Blois, sur-
rounded by a court of poets and literary lights, and continued
to write poetry, a task which had consoled him for many a
weary day during his captivity. This court was a poetic

helmet. For pendant or banner, one ought rather to follow the branches
of ivy or yew, which show where one drinks.

Formerly the very small inns were called bouchons (tavern bushes) ; to
distinguish them from other houses, branches of yew or fir were fastened
above the doors. To this day in all the small villages of Normandy, Brit-
tany and other parts of France one may see the bouchon (bush) over the
tavern doors.

1 His father was assassinated and his wife died. At the Battle of Agin-
court, where he was taken prisoner, the flower of French chivalry perished.

POPULAR POETRY

arena where literary tournaments were held, and where the
rivals contested for prizes in ballad or song. Gaston Paris
writes: " It has been shrewdly remarked that there is, to
say the least, a strange coincidence in the relations so differ-
ent of Charles of Orleans and Villon with Louis XI; the
same lips which uttered the words that killed the last songster
of the Middle Ages freed the first modern poet. ' ' *

Villon's real name was Francois de Montcorbier. He was
born in the vicinity of Paris in 1431, and owes his surname of
Villon to Guillaume de Villon, canon of Saint-Benoit, who
took him under his protection and gave him an excellent
education. At twenty-one, he took the degree of Master of
Arts at the University of Paris, but soon his roguish nature
asserted itself. His motto " II n'est tresor que de vivre a
son aise " (none such treasure as living as you please), re-
veals his vagabond nature. This child of the Latin Quar-
ter, who went through all the vicissitudes of life, who starved,
stole, was imprisoned, tortured, and stood face to face with
the gallows, brought forth in his works a veritable treasure
of original and tender lyricism. He is the most original and
independent poet of the transition period from the Middle
Ages to the Renaissance, and the first prominent and artistic
representative of that quintessence of French spirit called
gauloiserie. Frangois Villon expresses for the first time the
lively, bold, mocking, and sometimes sad, popular idiom, in
verse coming from the depths of the soul and laden with the
weight of misery. -,

The place of this man " de povre et petite extrace " is
foremost among the poets of France. " One sees the wings
of the poet," says Nisard, " sprouting under the rags of the
beggar." This copious ballad-maker, fed on free repasts, is
preoccupied especially with the idea of death. He is the last
of those poets who have sung of God, of their lady, of their

1 Allusion to the harsh words spoken by Louis XI to Charles of Orleans
and which are said to have hastened his death. What the actual words
were is not known. Claude de Seyssel simply says: "Le roi le contemna
de paroles sans avoir e"gard a la majeste* de sa vieillesse ni a sa loyaute".
Dont, de regret qu'il en cut . . . il finit sa vie dedans deux jours." The
freeing of the first modern poet refers to the release of Villon from prison,
when Louis XI passed through Meung.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

naive and rude passions, always with a profound melan-
choly, with a feeling of the shortness of joy and the long dura-
tion of pain — and " death at the end of it all," as Shake-
speare has it. Jules Lemaitre writes : ' ' Love and Death were
Villon's muses. I dare say that he was the purest, the mos,t
precise, the most classic in form, of all our poets before the
seventeenth century, and in the main, the most ' personal ' —
the only one — before the Romanticists."

His poems express constant rejuvenation and the accent of
truth throughout his writings makes their charm and their
merit. He shows himself without mask and without pretence
in the frank expression of his wrongdoings and his regrets.
His poetry, Gaston Paris notes, is essentially lyric, in the sense
which the modern critic usually applies to the word — reflect-
ing as clearly as possible the soul of the poet in his verses;
not any poet has surpassed Villon in this respect; nay, not
any poet has equaled him, will never perhaps equal him in
one thing— in his absolute sincerity.

Villon is a creature of a transition period, but with re-
spect to the basis of his poetry he belongs no longer to the
Middle Ages. According to Lanson he is entirely modern —
the first poet who is frankly, completely modern.1 These
verses, and the things they contain, proceed from the very
depth of the experience and the feelings of the man ; they ex-
press his inmost sensibilities. Here we have a poetry which is
the outcry of a poor soul stricken with abject misery— and
that alone. In this voice, mocking and plaintive by turns —
which cries out its pain or its vice — there sounds sometimes
the cry of eternal humanity. We feel it, and it is this which
makes him great.

The best known of Villon's verses are still widely read
and quoted. His works were very popular. After the first
edition, edited shortly after his death, there appeared be-
tween the years 1498 (edited by Marot) and 1542, twenty-
seven new ones.2 Villon's poems show his melancholic gayety
and vivacity of mind, his scintillating wit and his impetuos-

1 Boileau in his Art po&ique says:

Villon sut le premier, dans ces siecles grossiers,
DSbrouiller 1'art confus de nos vieux romanciers.

* See Moscher's English edition.
96

POPULAR POETRY

ity of speech as well as clearness and grace. The Petit
Testament, written in 1456 when Villon prepared to depart
for Angers, to implore the generosity of an uncle supposed to
be rich, is in the form of legacies. He first announces his
departure, and, believing the voyage to be long and perilous,
pretends to dispose of his worldly possessions. He mentions
his friends from all ranks in life — the grave functionary of
parliament as well as the professional thief. He wills to his
solicitor a ballad, by way of payment; to his tavern keeper,
his debts; to his barber, his hair; to a drunkard, his empty
barrel ; to a very fat friend, two recipes to reduce his embon-
point; and to grandmother earth, his body, etc.

His Grand Testament, written in 1461, shows his remark-
able ability and is the first example in European literature
of a poetry profoundly and entirely personal. Among the
most touching verses in the Grand Testament is a prayer to
the Virgin for his mother:

Dame du ciel, regente terrienne

Emperiere des infernaux palus,
Recevez moi, votre humble chre'tienne,

Que comprise sole entre vos £lus,

Ce nonobstant qu'oncques rien ne valus.
Les biens de vous, ma dame et ma maltresse,
Sont trop plus grans que je ne suis pecheresse;

Sans lesquels biens ame ne peut merir,
N'entrer es cieulx, je n'en suis menteresse:

En cette foy, je vueil vivre et mourir.

His MOTHER'S SERVICE TO OUR LADY

Lady of Heaven and earth, and therewithal

Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell, —
I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,

Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,

Albeit in naught I be commendable.
But all mine undeserving may not mar
Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are ;

Without the which (as true words testify)
No soul can reach thy Heaven so fair and far.

Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

8 97

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Unto thy Son say thou that I am His,

And to me graceless make Him gracious.
Sad Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss,

Nor yet the sorrowful clerk Theophilus,

Whose bitter sins were set aside even thus
Though to the Fiend his bounden service was.
Oh, help me, lest in vain for me should pass

(Sweet Virgin that shalt have no loss thereby!)
The blessed Host and scaring of the Mass.

Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,

I am, and nothing learn 'd in letter-lore.
Within my parish cloister I behold

A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore,

And eke an Hell whose damned folk seethe full sore :
One bringeth fear, the other joy to me.
That joy, great Goddess, make thou mine to be, —

Thou of whom all must ask it even as I;
And that which faith desires, that let it see.

For in this faith I choose to live and die.

O excellent Virgin Princess! thou didst bear
King Jesus, the most excellent comforter,

Who even of this our weakness craved a share
And for our sake stooped to us from on high,

Offering to death His young life, sweet and fair.

Such as He is, Our Lord, I Him declare.
And in this faith I choose to live and die.

Into this Testament Villon incorporated a large number of his
older ballads, a genre he brought to perfection in the Ballade
des Dames du temps jadis (Ballad of Old-Time Ladies), and
the Ballade des Pendus (Ballad of the Hanging), the " Epi-
taph in Form of a Ballad," which the poet composed in the
prison of Meung-sur-Loire, when he and his companions were
under condemnation of death by hanging :

Frdres humains, qui apr6s nous vivez
N'ayez les cueurs contre nous endurciz,

Car si pitie" de nous pouvres avez,

Dieu en aura plus tost de vous merciz;
98

POPULAR POETRY

Vous nous voyez cy attachez, cinq, six,
Quant de la chair, que trop avons nourrie,
Elle est pi£c,a devoree et pourrie,

Et nous, les os, devenons cendre et pouldre,
De notre mal personne ne s'en rie,

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absouldre.

Se vous clamons freres, pas ne devez

Avoir desdaing, quoy que fusmes occis
Par justice; toustefois vous mesmes scavez

Que tous hommes n'ont pas bon sens assis;

Intercedez doncques, de cueur rassis,
Envers le Filz de la Vierge Marie,
Que sa grace ne soit pour nous tarie,

Nous preservant de 1'infernale fouldre;
Nous sommes mors, ame ne nous harie,

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absouldre.

La pluye nous a buez et lavez,

Et le soleil dessechez et noirciz,
Pies, corbeaulx, nous ont les yeux cavez,

Et arrache" la barbe et les sourcilz,
Jamais nul temps nous ne nous sommes rassis
Puis c& puis la, comme le vent varie,
(A son plaisir) sans cesser nous charie,

Plus becquetez d'oyseaulx que dez a couldre;
Hommes ici n'usez de mocquerie

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absouldre.

Prince Jesus, qui sur tous seigneurie,
Garde qu'Enfer n'ayt de nous la maistrie,

A luy n'ayons que faire ne que souldre;
Ne soyez done de nostre confrairie,

Mais priez Dieu que tous nous veuille absouldre.1

1 Men, brother men, that after us yet live,

Let not your hearts too hard against us be;
For if some pity of us poor men ye give,

The sooner God shall take of you pity.

Here are we five or six strung up, you see,
And here the flesh that all too well we fed
Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred,

And we the bones grow dust and ash withal;
Let no man laugh at us discomforted,

But pray to God that He forgive us all.
99

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Villon's charming Ballad of Old-Time Ladies, has invited
more than one eminent poet to translate it into English :

Dites-moi, oft n'en quel pays

Est Flora, la belle Romaine;

Archipiada ni Thais,1

Qui fut sa cousine germaine;

Echo, parlant quand bruit on mene

Dessus riviere ou sur etan,

Qui beaute eut trop plus qu' humaine,

Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

If we call on you, brothers, to forgive,

Ye should not hold our prayer in scorn, though we
Were slain by law; yet know that all alive

Have not wit alway to walk righteously;

Make therefore intercession heartily
With Him that of a virgin's womb was bred,
That His grace be not as dry a well-head

For us, nor let hell's thunder on us fall;
We are dead; let no man harry or vex us dead,

But pray to God that He forgive us all.

The rain has washed and laundered us all five,
And the sun dried and blackened; yea, perdie,

Ravens and pies with beaks that rend and rive
Have dug our eyes out, and plucked off for fee
Our beards and eyebrows; never we are free,

Not once, to rest; but here and there still sped,

Driven at its wild will by the wind's change led,
More pecked of birda than fruits on garden-wall;

Men, for God's love, let no gibe here be said,
But pray to God that He forgive us all.

Prince Jesus, that of all art lord and head,
Keep us, that hell be not our bitter bed;

We have naught to do in such a master's hall;
Be not ye therefore, of our fellow head,

But pray to God that He forgive us all.

1 Archipiada was the wife of Crates, a Greek cynic philosopher. Thais
was a famous courtesan of Athens, and mistress of Alexander the Great in
the fourth century B.C.

100

POPULAR POETRY

Ou est la tres sage Helois,
Pour qui fut chatre et puis moine
Pierre Abailart ' a Saint Denys?
Pour son amour eut cette essoyne.
Semblablement ou est la royne *
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust jete en un sac en Seine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

La Royne Blanche * comme un Us,

Qui chantait a voix de sirene,

Berte aux grands pieds * Bietris, Allis;

Harembourges * qui taint le Maine,
Et Jehanne, la bonne lorraine,
Qu' Anglais brulerent a Rouen:
Ou sont-ilz, Vierge souveraine?
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?

1 Abe'lard taught philosophy on Mount Ste. Genevieve, where his dis-
ciples came to hear him. The philosophers of the Schools were his enemies,
holding opinions opposed to his. Abelard was much admired by the Abb6
Fulbert, who liked to discuss philosophy with him. But the Abbe" had a
niece, and, in spite of his philosophy, Abelard fell hi love with her. As a
result of this passion for He'loise, the Abb6, filled with fury, had a de-
grading mutilation inflicted upon the philosopher. Then Abe'lard — ill,
sad, and tired of life — became a monk. The unhappy He'loise, suffering
as much as her unfortunate lover, also entered a monastery. In 1817 the
ashes of both lovers were placed in a mausoleum built for them in the
Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. For an original and unconventional
view of Abe'lard's conduct, the reader is referred to an essay in the col-
lected works of Mark Twain. The lover of He'loise is therein pitilessly
impaled on the shaft of a caustic humor. It is Mark Twain in his serious
vein, and at his best.

J Jeanne, wife of Philip the Fair. A legend connects the philosopher
Jean Buridan with the debauches of Jeanne de Navarre in the Tower of
Nesle.

3 Queen Blanche, of Castile, mother of Louis IX, the saint.

•"Bertha of the Big Feet," according to tradition the mother of
Charlemagne.

1 Harembourges was the daughter of the Comte du Maine.

101

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Prince, n'enquerez de semaine
Ou elles sont, ni de cet an,
Que ce refrain ne vous remaine:
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? '

Of these ballads Ferdinand Brunetiere writes: Is there
anything more grewsome than the ' ' Ballad of the Hanging ' ' ?
of more vivid coloring than La Grosse Margott a more naive
conception than the ballad which Villon made at the request
of his mother? and since one cannot mention Villon without
recalling it — is there anything more human in melancholy

Tell me now in what hidden way is

Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,

Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,

Only heard on river and mere, —
She whose beauty was more than human? . . .

But where are the snows of yester-year?

Where's He"loise, the learned nun,

For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?

(From love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen

Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine? . . .

But where are the snows of yester-year?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,

With a voice like any mermaiden, —
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,

And Ermengarde, the lady of Maine, —
And that good Joan whom Englishmen

At Rouen doomed and burned her there, —
Mother of God, where are they then?

But where are the snows of yester-year?

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,

Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword, —
But where are the snows of yester-year?

— Translation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
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POPULAR POETRY

than the ' ' Ballad of Old-Time Ladies ' ' ? But, adds M. Brune-
tiere, it is not Villon who has beeil imitated. Those who cre-
ated a school are the " great rhetoricians ": Jean Meschinot,
Jean Molinet, Guillaume Cretin — the Raminagrobis 1 of Rabe-
lais— Jean Marot, Lemaire de Beiges. Already prosaic in
the hands of Alain Chartier, poetry in their hands became
pretentiously didactic. Did they themselves realize it, and
not being able to create beautiful poetry, is it for that reason
they made it artificial by overloading it with infinite compli-
cations and deplorable ornaments? "

Whatever Villon may have been — perhaps more sinned
against than sinning — his soul must have retained purity
to find such expression. His beautiful ballads when once
heard, leave their rhythm in our memories. Swinburne has
crowned him " Prince of All Ballad Makers ":

Bird of the bitter, bright, gray golden morn
Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years,

First of us all and sweetest singer born,

Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears
Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears ;

When song newborn put off the old world's attire

And felt its tune on her changed lips expire,
Writ foremost on the roll of them that came

Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre,

Villon, our sad, bad, glad, mad brother's name!

Alas! the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn,
That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears,

And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn
And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers
Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears;

Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire,

When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire
Could buy thee bread or kisses ; when light frame

Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar,
Villon, our sad, bad, glad, mad brother's name !

1 A word used to ridicule a conceited man. Name given by La Fontaine
to an old cat.

103

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Poor splendid wings so frayed and soiled and torn !

Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears!
Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn,

That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers

Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears!
What far delight has cooled the fierce desire
That like some ravenous bird was strong to tire

On that frail flesh and soul consumed with flame,
But left more sweet than roses to respire,

Villon, our sad, bad, glad, mad brother's name?

ENVOI

Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire;
A harlot was thy nurse, a god thy sire ;

Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame.
But from thy feet now death has washed the mire,
Love reads out first at head of all our quire,

Villon, our sad, bad, glad, mad brother's name.

— ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNB.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RENAISSANCE

FOB more than two centuries the literature of France
suffered from inertia: the age of chivalrous poetry was over,
people no longer cared for the insipid allegories, the myster-
ies had been forbidden, the conte in verse had completely dis-
appeared, and literature took the form of prose in the nouvelle
imitated from the Italian — a special genre of the fifteenth
century. It was introduced into France with the Cent nou-
velles nouvelles by Antoine de La Salle in imitation of Boccac-
cio's Decameron.

The Monologue is also a production of this century, and
the Franc Archer de Bagnolet, written by a canon of Reims,
is its principal exponent. An entire literature for and against
women, occupied many writers, an example of which is the
tiresome and prolix Champion des Dames (The Champion of
Women), by Martin Le Franc, written about 1442, in imita-
tion of the Roman de la Rose, and which was reprinted in
1530 by Galliot du Pre. In 1542 Gratien du Pont wrote a
long poem harshly censuring women, called Controverses des
Sexes masculin et feminin (Controversies of the Masculine
and Feminine Sexes).

The Renaissance movement gave a new impetus to this
languishing state and wrought great changes in the literature
of France. Italy was the cradle of the Renaissance — the great
literary, artistic, and philosophical movement which was
called into life about the middle of the fourteenth century,
and which spread throughout Europe during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. Three great historical facts prepared
the way : the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 ;
the wars under the French kings in Italy ; and the great dis-
coveries of the fifteenth century.

105

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Constan-
tinople became the center of all that was left of Roman culture
and learning in the West until it was captured by the Turks.
Many Greek and Latin scholars living in Constantinople,
among them the famous Lascaris, fled to Italy and carried
with them rich spoils of the Greek literature, intellectual
treasures of the languages, politics, philosophy, and religious
beliefs of antiquity. These savants opened schools in Rome,
Venice, and Milan, and interpreted the great writers of
Greece and Rome: Plato, Sophocles, Aristotle, Euripides,
Virgil, Horace, Terence, etc., to numbers of students from all
parts of Italy. Italy's great writers: Dante, Petrarch, Boc-
caccio and others, made known these works of antiquity, and
brought to light many old manuscripts which they had found
in the archives of convents. The first one to break with the
mediaBval traditions was Petrarch. He founded a new school
to trace the origins of the great Latin writers to their very
sources. The basis of almost all of the new school of poetry
in France and England as well as Italy is due to him. The
Este of Ferrara, the Medici of Florence — Leon X, a pope of
that brilliant family, encouraged exploration in the domain
of antiquity. Their liberality was unbounded in the pro-
tection of savants, artists, and humanists.1 Paul III,2 Sixtus
V,3 men of profound politics and statesmanship, were great
patrons of literature, art, and reform. Poggio, Angelo,
Poliziana, Pico de la Mirandola, Machiavelli, Bembo, and the
learned printers of the family of Aide — popularized by their

1 Humanists were scholars who at the Revival of Learning in the four-
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries devoted themselves to the
study of the language, literature, and antiquities of Rome, and afterwards
of Greece. — Murray.

2 Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) was pope, 1534-49. He excommuni-
cated Henry VIII of England in 1538; in 1545 he convoked the Council of
Trent.

3 Felice Peretti, Pope of Rome, 1585-90. He determined the number of
cardinals to be seventy. "Elected as successor of Gregory XIII because
the cardinals thought him near death as he walked, bent up, leaning on a
staff. It is said that as soon as the vote was assured, he arose with such
a brisk movement that he made his neighbors draw back, threw away his
staff, raised his head, and intoned the Te Deum in a voice that made the
window panes of the hall rattle." — Larousse, Encycl.

106

THE EENAISSANCE

translations and publications the master-works of Greek and
Latin literature.

The expeditions into Italy repeated under three kings
(Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I), put the French
in touch with the antique treasures. Italy preceded France
by half a century on the road of Renaissance, but she did not
feel this renewed impulse so strongly as France did, having
always been brilliant and civilized with her majestic monu-
ments, her even more majestic ruins, and with a home cul-
ture which had never quite broken with classical tradition.
Nor did the Renaissance produce so tremendous and rad-
ical a change as in France, where the new sources of inspi-
ration for poetry, thought, and science caused an agitation
and upheaval heretofore unequaled in the annals of her
history.

For the literature of France the renewed study of Greek
and Roman culture meant a rupture with the Celtic past.
The old French literature was strictly a national literature,
for even the chansons de geste which treated of classical
antiquity were depicted in true French spirit. With the
Renaissance, the doctrine of humanism and hellenism espoused
by writers and thinkers found expression in their works.

The third great factor to further this movement, which
excited and emancipated the human mind, was the succession
of remarkable discoveries. The discovery of America, the
Copernican Revolution, the art of engraving (1422), and
above all the invention of printing by Gutenberg,1 all these
gave an impetus to scientific research. The art of printing
multiplied and diffused the master-works of ancient genius
heretofore inaccessible because of their rarity and cost. The
humanists found most puissant auxiliaries in printing, which
spread their works throughout Europe, and in the protection

1 It is said that Gutenberg had seen at Venice, at the house of Pamphilo
Castaldi de Feltre, certain little wooden sticks used by the Chinese in
printing, which Castaldi had received from Marco Polo, the famous Vene-
tian traveler and author. It was Marco Polo who gave Columbus the idea
of seeking the Indies in the West. Marco Polo is thus possibly the prime
cause of the two greatest discoveries of the modern world. Mendel, an
Alsatian monk, had already devised characters to be used in printing, but
he concealed his discovery.

107

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of the sovereigns.1 It was Charles VIII who introduced the
Renaissance into France. The masterpieces revealed to him
in his expedition into Italy had incited his admiration. Under
Louis XII the new movement found a firm footing, but to
Francis I is accorded the honor of having brought the Renais-
sance to a flood. It triumphed under him: scholastic litera-
ture was replaced by the critical studies of ancient texts, even
those of the Bible, and a Latinized language clear and flexible
took the place of the stiff and deficient language of old.
Francis I was called the Protector, the Father of Letters and
of Arts. He addressed himself to the scholars of all Europe ;
he made them generous offers to attract them to his court;
and the litterateurs, the scholars, the artists he encouraged
with his gifts were numberless.

Guillaume Bude, the " prodigy of France," the disciple
of Janus Lascaris, was called by Francis I to his court. Bude
was one of the most profound Hellenists of the century, and
was therefore vigorously and constantly attacked by the Sor-
bonnists. He wrote the Commentaires sur la langue grecque,
a treatise De Asse on the coinage of the Greeks and Romans,
and on classical learning, Annotations sur les Pandectes, and
the Lettres grecques. In his work he showed that science
is not an obstacle, but rather a road to the faith ; that ancient
philosophy is a sort of preparation to the study of the Gospel.
He occupied many important positions under Francis I and
profited by his influence with that king in founding the Col-
lege de France.2 In spite of the remonstrances of the Sor-
bonne and of Parliament, the chairs of Hebrew, Greek and
Latin were established, to which were added those of Mathe-
matics, Medicine, and Philosophy.

1 Henry VII of England encouraged Italian poets to live at his court.
Mathias Corwin, King of Hungary, was a great patron of art and literature
and the Hungarian Renaissance dates from his reign.

2 First called the College of the King and then the College of the Three
Languages, after the chairs of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin had been estab-
lished. Under Louis XIII it was known as the Royal College and during
the Revolution as the National College. Napoleon created a chair of
Turkish and changed the name to Imperial College. Under the Restoration
it became the College of France and chairs of Sanskrit and Chinese were
established. Now it is the College of France, with forty-two professors,
and its free instruction includes the entire field of learning.

108

Many famous scholars added to the reputation of this
college; among them were: Vatable or Wastebled, professor
of Hebrew, editor of the famous Bible de Vatable, condemned
by the Sorbonne; Danes, professor of Greek, distinguished
orator, philosopher, and mathematician; Jean Dorat, master
of Ronsard and poet of the Pleiade; Denis Lambin, the savant
philologer, whose slow manner of working gave the word
lambiner to the French language. Next to Bude must be
placed Robert and Henry Estienne, father and son. Robert
was the first to print Bibles in France, and his orthodoxy
soon became suspected. Henry Estienne,1 workingman and
man of letters, sought his recreation in the composition of
his " Treasury of the Greek Language," and in launching
ardent pamphlets, written in the vernacular, which attracted
attention throughout all Europe. Under the title of " Apol-
ogy for Herodotus," he published a lively and strange
satire on the customs, prejudices, and excesses of his time.
Besides encouraging the scholars, the kings of France had in-
vited Italian artists to their courts; Leonardo da Vinci,
Andrea del Sarte, were great favorites. The Castles of
Amboise, Chenonceau, Blois and others were built by Italian
architects. Through the influence of Catherine de Medici,
the Italian language had been introduced into the French
court, and Henri Estienne 2 in his Deux dialogues du nouveau
language fran$ais italianise, protested against this invasion,
and criticised it as the doctrine of humanism carried too far.
In this criticism nothing escaped his pitiless fervor ; the vices,
crimes, perversities, absurdities, hypocrisies and superstitions,
all were exposed and depicted without reserve. He was
banished from France. For Francis I, although he protected
the new movement, created the censorship and decreed the

1 Of Henry Estienne, Ronsard sang the famous toast:
" Verse, et verse, et reverse encore Fill and fill and fill again this
Dedans cette grande coupe d'or. great cup of gold; I would drink
Je veux boire d, Henri Estienne, to Henry Estienne, who from
Qui des enfers nous a rendu Hades brought back to us the

Du vieil AnacrSon perdu sweet, lost lyre of old Anacreon.

La douce lyre te"ienne."

2 To him is attributed the famous proverb: "A brebis tondue Dieu
meaure le vent" (God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb).

109

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

death penalty against every author of works published with-
out his authority. Under his reign Louis de Berquin l and
Estienne Dolet 2 were burned at the stake.

Another victim of fanaticism and ignorance was Ramus
(Pierre La Ramee). His crime consisted in writing against
peripateticism. Since the twelfth century the doctrines of
Aristotle had been introduced into France as supreme author-
ity. The ignorant believed that Aristotle was a king of the
Middle Ages, and even the learned stood in religious awe of
him. In his work Dialecticas partitiones et Aristotalicae
animadversiones, Ramus attacked the obscurity of Aristotle's
philosophy and asserted that his logic was false. In proclaim-
ing reason and not authority the criterion of truth, Ramus
was the precursor of modern philosophy.

After long and laborious researches these men, martyrs
to their cause, conquered barbarism and ignorance, and cleared
the path for the succeeding writers. In France the Renais-
sance predominated until the death of Francis I (1547), and
paved the way for the Reformation,3 the religious revolution in
the second half of the century. In this period, under the sons
of Henry II (Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III), this
great religious question plunged France into eight civil wars,
beginning with the massacre of Vassy in 1562 and ending with
the Edict of Nantes in 1598 under Henry IV, by which free-
dom of religious worship was given to the Protestants.

The founder of the Reformation in France was Calvin.
Jean Chauvin, called Calvin, born in 1509, at Noyon in
Picardy, was destined for the church. He was made a

1 De Beze wrote: "Louis de Berquin might have been the Luther of
France had Francis been a Frederick of Saxony."

2 Of Dolet it was said: "He had French talent, Latin genius, universal
erudition, and courage that never failed." Francis I ordered the massacres
of Me>indol and Cabrieres, two cities occupied by the Waldensians, mem-
bers of a reforming body of Christians — followers of Peter Waldo of Lyons
— organized about 1170. Their chief seats were in the Alpine valleys of
Piedmont, Dauphin^, and Provence; hence the French name, Vaudois des
Alpes, or Vaudois. By order of Francis I over three thousand were slain.

3 Michelet says of the Reformation and its spirit: "Luther sang: a great
audacity indeed at that epoch when humanity scarcely dared to breathe.
That mournful picture of Holbein gives an exact idea of the time: a lean
tiller of the soil leading two lean horses, followed by Death."

110

THE RENAISSANCE

chaplain at the age of twelve (there were bishops and cardinals
at five and eight years). He studied theology in Paris, and
there wrote a Latin discourse for the rector Nicolas Cop, which
expressed approval of the doctrine of justification by faith.
This created a great scandal. Calvin, obliged to flee, led the
life of a fugitive for almost two years. During this time he
visited the court of Queen Marguerite of Navarre where many
dissenters took refuge, among them : Marot, Roussel, and Bona-
venture Desperiers. In 1534, Calvin embraced Protestantism
and a year later he finished his famous Institution of the
Christian Religion, a Summa theologiae designed to fix the new
doctrine, and to prevent Protestantism from becoming free
thought. It is a code in which all is foreseen, all is defined,
all is as narrowly confined as possible, and all reduced to one
sole and central idea. That idea is that God is all, and
man is nothing. From this postulate, with its consequences
and conclusions, Calvin deduced Protestantism as he under-
stood it. All his theology, all his arguments, all his morality,
rest on that foundation. It was a profession of faith and a
manifesto with a celebrated preface addressed to Francis I.
It established the French Reformation, but Calvin was once
more obliged to leave the country. The following year he was
called to Geneva to teach theology. Farel, from Dauphine,1
convinced of Calvin's ability, persuaded him to accept the

1 Farel, born near Gap, in Dauphine", in 1489, was a noted French re-
former and itinerant preacher in Switzerland. In 1530 he introduced the
Reformation into Neuchatel, and settled in Geneva in 1532. In spite of a
bitter and protracted opposition, he brought about the establishment of
the Reform Movement by the Genevan Great Council on August 27,
1535. The lords of the province of Dauphin^ bore three dolphins on their
crest, hence the name. Humbert II, Dauphin de Viennois, ceded the
Dauphine1 to Philip of Valois on condition that the eldest son of the kings
of France should be called the Dauphin. Apropos of heirs apparent, it is
interesting to note the origin of the title of Prince of Wales: The land of
Wales never wanted to submit to England, which made all efforts to over-
come the antipathy of the province. At last, the people of Wales declared
that if a chief were given to them who did not speak a word of English,
and had never committed an evil action, they would accept him. Accord-
ingly, when a son was born to the King of England, the infant, who ob-
viously fulfilled these requisites, was declared to be the chief of the Welsh
clans. Since that time the oldest son, heir presumptive, of the kings of
England, has borne the title of Prince of Wales.

Ill

mission to reform the city. Onee pledged to the task, Calvin
gave himself to it entirely. He exercised an absolute author-
ity : he reorganized the whole government giving it a political
constitution ; he imposed his confession of faith and his inter-
pretation of it; the family and their habits were regulated
by law even as to their mode of dressing and the table ex-
penditures. At the end of eighteen months the city, exas-
perated by his pious tyranny, drove him away ; two years later
it recalled him. Calvin returned, took his place again in no-
wise changed. He persecuted the hardened ones in the name
of the law, in the name of the gospel; he had them judged,
sentenced, executed, without hesitation, without compunction.
He believed that he alone knew the truth, possessing the
absolute right to repress and punish error. One of the victims
of his intolerance was Michel Servet, or Servetus,1 who was
burned at the stake. Calvin used, as matter for his con-
demnation, friendly controversy of theological questions on
which they differed. Another victim was Jacques Gruet who
was decapitated. During twenty-four years — from Septem-
ber, 1541, till the day when it was written on the registers of
the city: " May 27, 1564, Jean Calvin has departed to God "
— he exercised an absolute sway. His power to keep enforced
a growing body of ecclesiastical ordinances made Geneva the
citadel of Protestantism. The exiles of all countries flocked
there, especially the French; but all had to bend before the
law of the reformer.

At the age of thirty-one Calvin married: this was, as it
were, a necessity for every chief of the reformers — the pledge
of a definite rupture with the Roman Church. (Erasmus says
on this subject: " With them it ends, as in a comedy, with
marriage.") Calvin had to yield to the solicitations of his

1 Michael Servetus, born in Spain in 1511, was a controversialist and a
physician. He published at Hagenau, in 1531, an essay directed against
the doctrine of the Trinity, entitled De Trinitatis erroribus, which attracted
great attention. Afterwards he studied theology at Louvain. In 1553
he published Christianismi Restitutio, which caused him to be arrested by
order of the inquisitor-general at Lyons. He made his escape, but he was
apprehended at the instance of Calvin at Geneva, on his way to Naples,
and was burned after a trial for heresy which lasted from August 14 to
October 26, 1553.

112

THE RENAISSANCE

friends, and he resigned himself to matrimony. He married
Idelette de Bure, the widow of an Anabaptist whom he had
converted.

Calvin, notes Paul Albert, worked with a somber, collected,
indefatigable energy. Among his contemporaries there were
men like Ulrich von Hutten, Dolet, Rabelais, who greeted
the returning light with transports of joy; who were, so to
speak, intoxicated with the sight of all the treasures which
antiquity brought, and plunged into it headlong. Calvin, on
his part, remained master of his science; he dominated it, he
assigned to it a determined purpose. It was for him a means,
not an end. In founding the Church of Geneva, he founded
at the same time the school and the academy, and thus set
an example which has become a law. This was one of the
most powerful means of action in Protestantism, and in the
procedure which Calvin adopted, science is necessary, but it
must be subordinated to faith. The Christian must be in a
position to read and interpret the sacred books; but he is
forbidden to find in them anything save what Calvin finds
in them. Calvin's personal taste would lead him to write
in Latin ; but to spread his writings among the masses he em-
ployed the French language — the language of his commen-
taries on the Scriptures of his more than three thousand
sermons. Often he even published the same work in both
languages; this he did notably in the case of his Christian
Institution — his life work. It is divided into four books,
the general titles of which are: Of the Knowledge of God;
Of God the Redeemer; Of the Means of Participating in
the Grace of Christ; Of the Exterior Means of Aid to
Salvation (by which he understood the church, the sacra-
ments, the polity). The basis on which Calvin established
his whole doctrine is the principle of justification founded
not upon works, but on the grace of God through the blood
of Christ.1 This is the point of departure and the end. All

1 It is the doctrine that men are saved by the blood of Christ: their
works avail them nothing. Christ died for them, and He alone can save
them. The Catholic believes that he can save himself: he is commanded
to do good to redeem his sins. But the Catholic is also asked to implore
the divine grace, and to follow the injunction of Christ: "Ask, and ye shall
receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
9 113

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

religion, since creation, is reviewed, explained, demonstrated
from this point of view. There is no deviation or halting;
but a steadfast, regular progress, an imposing gradation, a
powerful and simple concentration. Calvin commands re-
spect, not sympathy. His is an energetic, profound soul, a
strong intelligence, a mind with a limited horizon. Fanatics
are all such, and Calvin is one of the most perfect types of
fanaticism. His admirers would discover under this rigidity
a depth of feeling — even a tender and compassionate heart.
This is an illusion : he was hard and dry, and he walked with
a high authority. The style is like the man — rigid, firm, with-
out abandon, without illumination. " Ce style si triste," as
Bossuet called it. This eloquence so grave and so rigorous
brought about the divorce of the Renaissance and the Ref-
ormation.

Although the Renaissance and the Reformation — two
widely different movements — were united against a common
cause — the traditions of the Middle Ages — the Renaissance
triumphed and the Reformation suffered defeat. Catholicism
was almost unconquerable in France. Its history was amalga-
mated with the most ancient national French traditions.
Clovis had become master of Gaul only by virtue of the sup-
port of the orthodox bishops; he had been consecrated at
Reims, and the consecration was, so to speak, the very con-
dition of royal authority.1 Since the eighth century, the

1 After the battle of Tolbiac, Clovis and three thousand of his soldiers
were baptized. The legend says that during the commotion of Clovis's
baptism, the clerk charged to bring the holy oil to anoint the royal head
found himself separated from the suite by the multitude and could not
approach the sacred font. The moment of christening had come. Hav-
ing blessed the baptismal water, the archbishop (Remi) called for the oil
with which to mix it, but in vain. Then he began to pray, his eyes and
hands uplifted to heaven. A deep anxiety oppressed the spectators.
Suddenly a dove with snowy plumage fluttered in the air, and hov-
ered over the prelate, holding in its beak a little vial containing the
holy oil. The bishop then administered the sacrament of baptism, say-
ing: "King, by the grace of God thou art the anointed of the Lord; in-
stituted by His representative on earth. The throne is supported by the
altar." All the French kings were crowned at Reims. Henry III said
while placing the crown on his head, "It pricks me"; Louis XVI, "It is
in my way" (die me gene). The Ampulia (holy vial) is preserved in the
Cathedral of Reims.

114

THE RENAISSANCE

alliance of the church and the Carlovingian kings was pledged,
and this is the foundation of the temporal power 1 of the
popes. Pepin the Short having been anointed king by Pope
Stephen II, assisted him against Aistulf, King of the Lom-
bards, and gave to the Pope the exarchate of Ravenna and
the Pentapolis. Thus he laid the foundation of the Papal
States. Charlemagne confirmed this alliance and upheld
Christendom against the Saracens. The Crusades originated
in France. All during the Middle Ages the authority of the
Holy See was never attacked. Political influence which
brought about the controversies between Philip IV and Boni-
face VIII, and later the Great Schism2 in no way changed
the submission of the people to the church. The monastic
orders,3 powerful organizations placed their wealth and their
soldiers at the disposition of the sovereigns, their banners
waved beside the royal oriflamme. The Catholic Church had

1 Christ said to St. Peter: "Thou art the rock, and on this rock I will
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Christ
said also to St. Peter: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be
loosed in heaven; whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be bound in
heaven." It is on this authority that Catholics base confession and ab-
solution. The church had to struggle against the temporal power of its
adversaries, and so it seemed necessary that it should have not only
spiritual authority but also temporal forces at its disposal. This is the
origin of the temporal power of the popes, and Catholicism's justification
for it.

J There were two Great Schisms or dissentions. One existed in the
Catholic Church from 1378-1417, when there were several popes at
the same time in Avignon and in Rome. The Council of Constance and
the election of Martin V put an end to it. The other Schism was between
the Latin and Greek churches and began in the ninth century owing to
some doctrinal difficulty and ended in a final division in 1054 between
Pope Leo IX and the Patriarch Michael Cerularius.

1 Originating as far back as St. Martin, Apostle of the Gauls, founder of
the first convent at Marmoutier, an abbey in Touraine. In 372 A.D., St.
Martin, desirous of securing for himself a retreat outside of the city, had
a monastery built two miles distant. At first there were only a few
wooden cells, but his disciples increased rapidly. The original name was
Majus Monasterium, corrupted into Marmoutier. In 853 this monastery
was destroyed by the Normans, but the Count of Touraine had it rebuilt.
It is said to have been the first convent in Western France, and a more
important one than that which St. Martin had built at Ligug6 in Poitou.
Owing to the recent anti-Catholic laws in France it is now abandoned.

115

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

always been in complete possession of the arts and sciences
and its highest authority in matters of religion, after the Pope
and the Councils,1 was invested in the University of Paris and
in the Sorbonne.

During a period of one thousand years, writes a French
critic, one can discover only now and then — as in the Roman
de la Rose, in the Renart, in the fabliaux — some witty attacks
on the churchmen, especially the monks. But the Gallic
fervor which exercised itself at their expense never attacked
the institution itself; the church seemed excellent, useful, in
spite of the abuses of individual members. Finally, Catholi-
cism in France was an edifice imposing in its massiveness and
duration — an object of universal veneration, and apparently
indestructible.

The Reformation therefore did not affect the faith of the
great majority in France, but created the Counter-Reforma-
tion; Henry IV in order to secure his royal position was
forced to embrace the Catholic faith.

1 The Councils are assemblies of prelates who decide the more important
questions concerning the church.

CHAPTER IX

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS

WITHIN ten years the three books which were " the very
soul of the century " were written: the Pantagruel of
Rabelais, the Christian Institution of Calvin, and the Spiritual
Exercises of Loyola. Each work was symbolical of the thought
underlying its great question: the Renaissance, the Reforma-
tion, and Catholicism in France.

Ignace de Loyola (Inigo Lopez de Recalde), born in the
castle of Loyola in Biscaya in 1491, was page at the court
of Ferdinand V of Spain. In 1521, at the siege of Pampeluna,
he was wounded in the leg by a cannon ball; the wound was
indifferently treated, and he became lame. Loyola was the
handsomest man of his day, and his mother, doubting his
patience under this affliction, turned his thoughts to piety.
During his convalescence a life of the Saints was placed in
his hands, and, reading it, he was led to devote himself to
God. He distributed his possessions among the poor. After
consecrating his life to the Virgin Mary in the sanctuary at
Montserrat, he went to live in a cave and subjected himself
to all sorts of hardship. Upon his return from a pilgrimage
to the Holy Land, he studied in the college of Montaigne.
In 1534, he went to Paris and founded a society with six
disciples: Pierre Lefevre, Xaver, Rodriguez, Laynez, Boba-
dilla, and Salmeron, who met in a subterranean chapel of the
church of Notre-Dame de Montmartre. These men devoted
their lives to the conversion of infidels, and to the redemption
of the fallen. Besides the vows of chastity, of poverty and
obedience, they swore absolute submission to the Pope. In
1540 this order was confirmed by Pope Paul III, who gave
to Loyola the Church of Jesus and named the order Clercs
reguliers de la compagnie de Jesus, afterwards called Jesuits.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

They carried the Gospel to China, to the Indies, to America.
The organization had a military character, and Loyola was
elected general; nevertheless, he did not hesitate to perform
most menial duties, and even the enemies of Loyola recognized
his nobility, piety, and disinterestedness. He was canonized
in 1622 by Gregory XV.

Rabelais, Amyot, and Montaigne stand foremost among
the creators of the beautiful language of the sixteenth century,
in whose learned school it became pure and wondrously en-
riched. A French critic says, in Rabelais, Amyot, and
Montaigne, classic antiquity is brought into perfect union
with the budding genius of the French race. In their
language are mingled savory expressions of the vernacular
and words borrowed from the Latin and Greek, forming a
vehicle for the new ideas and sensations of the times. Ra-
belais reflects the soul of the people, powerful and trivial;
Amyot those of the cultivated bourgeoisie; Montaigne of the
gentleman of letters. In these three great writers the sap of
the race rises, circulates with force and bursts forth into a
youthful and vigorous style, full of contrast, where ideas
crowd and press for expression, alive with novelty.

The same spirit which animated these great writers,
penetrated all the arts and marked them with a profound
imprint : music with Goudimel ; * eloquence with Calvin and
de Beze; erudition with Henry Estienne; natural sciences
with Palissy and Olivier de Serres;2 poetry with d'Aubigne
and Du Bartas, memoires and pamphlets with Montluc,3 the
Gascon captain, who in the leisure which, to his great regret,
his age and infirmities left him, retraced with the fire of
youth his exploits and his thousand adventures. With the

1 Teacher of Palestrina, " prince of music."

s Palissy was the creator of ceramics in France. De Serres introduced
the cultivation of the mulberry tree.

3 Getting into a quarrel with a passer-by, Montluc told him, furiously: "I
will give you, scoundrel, such a blow with my fist that I shall hurl you into
this wall, leaving only your right arm free to salute me, if perchance I
honor you by passing here again." He was a noted French marshal.
In the latter years of his life he dictated from memory his account of the
wars from 1521 to 1574. Henry IV paid it a just tribute in calling it La
Bible du Soldat.

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SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS

audacious courtier Brantome,1 who delighted in telling the
infamies of his century — to which he was proud of belonging
— L 'Hospital, Sully,2 de Thou, Pasquier, and the authors of
the Satire Menippee, were those magistrates and men of letters
who, by their serious writings, or their satirical pamphlets
protested against the follies of their contemporaries, and
smoothed the road for the generations to come.

The most passionate and powerful interpreter of the spirit
of the Renaissance was Rabelais. According to F. Brunetiere,
he was the living incarnation of the supreme idea of the
Renaissance: that of the goodness or the divinity of nature.
Francois Rabelais was born at Chinon in Touraine (between
1485 and 1500; died about 1553). At an early age he entered
the Franciscan order. He studied Latin, Greek, Hebrew,
German, Italian, Arabic, and the natural sciences, in spite
of the interdiction of his superiors, and was therefore im-
prisoned. Protected by Geoffroy Maillezais, he obtained his
pardon and entered the order of the Benedictines. He left
this order, too, and studied medicine in the University of
Montpellier. In 1532 he received the position of doctor at
the hospital in Lyons. He was obliged to write almanacs and
facetious books (Pantagrueline pronostication) for a living,
and about this time he revised an old popular novel, Les
Grandes et estimables Chroniques du grand et enorme Geant
Gargantua (The great and inestimable chronicles of the great
and enormous Giant Gargantua), which had an immense suc-
cess ; shortly after he wrote a continuation to this novel calling
it Pantagruel, the entire title being Les horribles et espouven-
tables Faits et Prouesses du ires renomme Pantagruel Roy
des Dipsodes, Fils du grand Geant Gargantua, composes
nouvellement par Maistre Alcofribas Nasier. (The horrible
and terrible deeds and prowesses of the much-renowned Pan-
tagruel King of the Dipsodes, son of the great Giant Gargan-

1 He served six kings, and certainly made his epoch known; for he tells
everything, and instructs by depicting with singular truthfulness the man-
ners, qualities, and vices of the time. His great works are Vie des hommes
ittustres et des grands capitaines and the Vies des dames galantes.

1 It was Sully, statesman and economist, who said: "Tilling and grazing
— these are the two breasts by which France is nourished — the true mines
and treasures of Peru."

119

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

tua, recently composed by Master Alcofribas Nasier.1) He
was, however, recognized as the author of this book as well
as of the former novel which had been censured by the Sor-
bonne. To escape persecution, he went to Rome in the capac-
ity of physician and secretary to the Cardinal du Bellay.
In 1536 Rabelais received from Paul III a bull absolving him
from his apostasy (his flights from the monasteries). About
two years later he was practising medicine in Lyons, and then
in Montpellier, where he was appointed Professor of Anat-
omy.2 In 1539 he was physician to William du Bellay, gov-
ernor of Turin.

Rabelais remodeled the chronicles entirely, and called the
book Gargantua, which although written after Pantagruel,
is really the First Book of Rabelais 's great work. He begins
with a humorous prologue addressed to the " very illustrious
drinkers," and then the story tells of the birth, childhood,
and education of the Giant Gargantua. Then follows a veiled
satire against royal conquests in the description of the war
between Grandgousier,3 the grandfather of the giant and
King Picrochole, " the stupid, vainglorious, and headstrong
conqueror, the crowned imbecile." One of the heroes of this
war is the monk, Jean des Entommeurs, who put to flight
with his cross an entire troop of soldiers. He also founded
the abbey of Thelema, the motto of which was Fais ce que
vouldras (Do what thou wilt).

Pantagruel, which became the Second Book in the series,
but was really written before Gargantua, treats of the educa-
tion of Pantagruel. The lofty passages are those which con-
cern education and morality. Rabelais insisted that physical
exercise should be mixed with intellectual work, that the
studies be varied, and not too exactingly long, and above all,
that study should have its fountain-source in nature and not in
books. Thus Rabelais invented the object lesson long before

1 Anagram of Francois Rabelais?

1 In the Middle Ages, and later, dissections were performed by the bar-
bers, who were also surgeons, the professor himself never handling a knife.

1 Most of the characters have become types; thus Grandgousier, the
grandfather of the giants, is the personification of the glutton; flargantua
has become proverbial as an insatiable eater; Pantagruel, as an Epicurean
philosopher and a jolly companion.

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SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS

our modern pedagogues. In this book occurs the famous letter
of Gargantua to Pantagruel, which has been called the Chant
triomphal de la Renaissance (The triumphal song of Renais-
sance). An amusing description is given of Panurge, the man
who ' ' if he had sixty -three ways of finding money, had also
two hundred and fourteen ways of spending it. ' ' The character
of Panurge, says Saintsbury, " is hardly comparable to any
other character in literature except Falstaff. The main idea
in Panurge is the absence of morality in the wide Aristotelian
sense, with the presence of almost all other good qualities."

The Third Book signed by Rabelais and preceded by a
royal privilege granted in 1545, also opens with a curious
prologue. The story confines itself principally to conversa-
tion, with little action. In spite of the royal privilege, this
book was also censured by the Sorbonne, and Rabelais felt it
prudent to take refuge in Metz where he took the position of
physician in the hospital. After a year he returned to France,
but with the death of Francis I, his royal protection ended
and Rabelais was not yet in the good graces of Henry II.
Moreover, the famous Chambre Ardente 1 created for the trial
of heretics by the Parliament of Paris, was in session and
Rabelais, who had aroused anew the indignation of the Sor-
bonne by his Fourth Book, fled again to Rome, where besides
the Cardinal du Bellay's protection he enjoyed that of the
powerful families of Guises and of Chatillon.

The Fourth Book, published about 1548, describes the
adventurous voyages of Pantagruel, Panurge, and Brother
Jean, who go in search of the oracle of La Dive Bouteille
(the Divine Bottle) visiting on the way a series of fantastic
islands and America. In this book the incidents of the Storm

1 A special court of justice, by which over five hundred death sentences
were passed in two years. The name Chambre Ardente (burning-room)
was, according to some authorities, derived from the fact that the people
tried there were usually condemned to be burned. Other authorities say
it was so called because the room in which the tribunal sat was illuminated
by many burning tapers. The most celebrated of these Chambre Ardentes
was the one in session at the Arsenal in the seventeenth century to pass
judgment on the great trial called Affaire des poisons (poison). The
names of many people of high rank were on the files of this case, among
them that of Madame de Montespan, the king's favorite, which caused
Louis XIV to put an end to this court.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

and of the Frozen Words occur, and the amusing story is
told of Panurge 's sea voyage during which he avenges him-
self for an insult offered him by Dindenaut, a sheep merchant.
This merchant has a flock of sheep on board. Panurge buys
one of these and throws it into the sea; the rest of the flock
follow, dragging with them Dindenaut and the shepherds in
their vain attempt to save the flock. From this story arises
the proverbial " moutons de Panurge," satirizing the imita-
tive extravagance of the multitude.

The Fifth Book is of doubtful authority. It was published
about nine years after Rabelais 's death (1553), and is a con-
tinuation of the description of the voyages and fantastic
islands. The travelers visit Ringing Island, the island of the
Furred Cats, and of the Lanterns, and conducted by a Lantern
(Learning or Study), an inhabitant of the Island of Lantern,
they finally reach the Island of the Bottle. Here the priestess
Bacbuc initiates them in its mysteries — " in wine is truth,
good hope lies at the bottom of it " — which means, as ex-
plained by the commentators,1 that for the conquest of science
two things are necessary: God's guidance, and the society of
man. Panurge receives the advice of the oracle of the Holy
Bottle which is — Trinch (Drink).

The satirical parts of Rabelais 's books are directed against
the aggressive policies of the monarchs, the religious hypo-
crites, the charlatanism of physicians and against the insolence
and ignorance of the great lords. He knew how to veil his
formidable attacks with a torrent of inoffensive buffoonery
and unintelligible allegories. No satirist ever wielded the
weapon of sarcasm with such an audacious and fearless art.
With his inexhaustible fund of knowledge, his gayety, his
bursts of laughter, he disarmed the very one whom he had
made his butt:

Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escrires,
Pour ce que rire est le propre de 1'homme.1

1 The commentators of Rabelais have seen in his Grandgousier the per-
sonification of Louis XII; in Gargantua, Francis I, and in Pantagruel,
Henry II, and many other representations under fictitious names of con-
temporary men and things.

* It is better to write of laughter than of tears,
For laughter is the gift of man.
122

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS

Rabelais 's language is very rich and picturesque, his humor
infinitely varied, and his writings show force, power of thought
and a sense of morality. Often, however, he is rough and
coarse, but coarseness had always been the characteristic of
comic literature. La Bruyere says of him: where he is bad,
he is worse than the worst, it is the charm of the canaille;
where he is good he is exquisite.

The following legend is explanatory of the famous phrase
— quart d'heure de Rabelais1 — denoting anxious moments:
Rabelais stopped at an inn in Lyons, and, after feasting
for several days, found himself, as was often the case,
without a sou to pay his bill, and no means of returning to
Paris, where he had a most important engagement. His
dilemma was great, and for some moments (the " quarter of
an hour ") he was in despair, when suddenly he bethought
himself of a plan. He placed two packages on the table in his
room, labeled " poison for the king," " poison for the
dauphin." The packages were soon discovered and Rabelais
was arrested and dispatched to Paris, where he was brought
before Francis I, to whom he explained the joke he had played
on the innkeper and gave the proof of it by swallowing the
supposed poison. At which the king laughed most heartily.

No great writer is read so little, and no character in litera-
ture has been so distorted by legends 2 as Rabelais. To quote

1 Used now in the more special sense of "the time to settle a bill," and
especially the addition at a restaurant. H. J. Vetter in one of his paintings
has immortalized the quart d'heure de Rabelais.

* " The cur6 of Meudon (Rabelais was cure" of Meudon, a small town near
Paris, for not quite one year) appears to us under that illumined mask in
which he so much resembles the little King of Yvetot." See the song of
Beranger (May, 1813), Le Roy d'Yvetot :
II e"tait un roi d'Yvetot There was a king of Yvetot,

Peu connu dans 1'histoire little known to history; went to

Se levant tard, se couchant t6t, bed early, got up late, and slept

Dormant fort bien sans gloire, quite well without glory — crowned

Et couronn6 par Jeanneton by Jeanneton with a simple cotton

D'un simple bonnet de coton night-cap, so they say.

Dit-on. Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! ah! ah! ah! ah!

Oh! Ohl Oh! Oh! ah! ah! ah! ah! What a good little king was thatt

Quel bon petit roi c'Stait la! La, la.

La, la- He ate his four meals a day,

II faisait ses quatre repas, etc. etc.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Professor Tilley in his excellent book on Rabelais : ' ' In spite,
however, of our scanty knowledge,1 certain facts in his life
and character stand plainly out. We must abandon the
legend which represents him as a gluttonous and winebibbing
buffoon, as an unfrocked priest, as a sort of ecclesiastical
Falstaff. We have seen what his relations were with Guil-
laume and Jean du Bellay, two of the foremost men in the
kingdom; we have seen how he was respected by men like
Geoff roy d'Estissac, the Bishop of Maillezais, and the dis-
tinguished jurist, Andre Tiraqueau, and how humanists like
Salmon Macrin, and Dolet, and Voulte, and Jean de Boys-
sonne, spoke in the highest terms of his learning and of
his skill as a physician. But, perhaps, it is from the letters
written to him during his sojourn at Turin by Guillaume
Pellicier, Bishop of Montpellier, that we get the most con-
vincing proof of the high regard in which he was held, not
only by men of his own rank, but by those far above him
in power and station, princes of the church and patrons of
humanism. ' '

For further explanation Professor Tilley introduces an ex-
tract from Hippocratis Aphorismorum Paraphrasis Poetica:
" You will, perhaps, think the man was a buffoon and a jester,
one who angled for dinner with witty speeches. No, he was
no buffoon, no jester of the market place, but one who, with
the penetration of a distinguished mind, laughed at the
human race, its foolish wishes and credulous hopes. He passed
his days free from material care, his sails ever filled with
the breeze of prosperity. Nor would you find anyone more
learned, when it pleased him to lay aside laughter for serious
topics. ... If a great and difficult question had to be solved
by industry and learning, you would have said that he alone
saw into the greatest mysteries, that to him alone were re-
vealed the secrets of nature. . . . He was familiar with all
the learning of Greece and Rome, and like a second Democritus
laughed at the idle fears and hopes of populace and princes,
and at the vain cares and anxious labors of this transitory
life."

1 The Sociele" des Etudes Rabelaisiennes was founded in 1902 for re-
searches of Rabelais's works.

124

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS

Jacques Amyot (1513-1593), very poor, very laborious,
made himself the servant of the well-to-do scholars of the
College de France in order to profit by the course of public
lectures. It is said that he worked at night by the light of
burning coal, and that every week he received a loaf of bread
from his mother in Melun, through the boatmen on the
Seine. By dint of privations and perseverance he learned
Latin, Greek, philosophy, and mathematics, and then received
the chair of Latin and Greek at the University of Bourges.
Successively preceptor, doctor of letters, doctor of sciences,
professor at Bourges — Francis I gave him the revenues of the
Abbaye of Bellozane. Under the successors of Francis, he
was named Grand Almoner of France, preceptor of the future
king, Charles IX, and finally Bishop of Auxerre. Amyot
said to the prince who caused the massacre of St. Bar-
tholomew : * ' Our Lord has invested you with a singular good-
ness, inclined of itself to love, honor, and esteem everything
that is virtuous. It is not true greatness to be able to do
everything one can, but to aspire to all that one ought to do.
The eternal law which commands princes as well as other men,
is righteousness, truth, and justice." Unfortunately, Amyot
had not the necessary moral authority to engrave such words
on the soul of his pupil, nor were they in accord with the
principles of his mother, who thoroughly dominated her son.
Amyot's great work is the translation of all of Plutarch's
works, but the best in that vast collection is his translation
of the " Lives " of Plutarch — the classic that made Plutarch
the most popular of ancient authors in France. Amyot had
the advantage of writing in French and his work addressed
itself to all who knew how to read.

The first classicist in France was Michel Eyquem, seigneur
de Montaigne, born in 1533, in the castle of Montaigne in
Perigord. According to Sainte-Beuve he was the wisest
Frenchman that ever lived. His father, although a nobleman,
chose as godparents for his son people of humble rank and
had him brought up by peasants. Montaigne himself tells
that his father's idea was to make him hardy and frugal, and
to bring him in contact with the class of people who would
stretch out their arms to him rather than those who would
turn their backs on him. Montaigne also tells that besides

125

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

his peasant nurse he had a German tutor, Horstanus, who
spoke only Latin to him, so that at six years of age, Montaigne
knew nothing of French, but had acquired Latin perfectly
without rules, without books and grammars, without beatings,
and without tears. At six years of age he entered the college
of Guyenne in Bordeaux. Later he studied law, and at the
age of twenty-three was made a councilor in the Parliament
of Bordeaux. During this time he formed his friendship for
Etienne de La Boetie, of which he writes : * ' if one should ask
me why I love him, I feel I can but express myself thus:
because it was he ; because it was I. ' '

Montaigne was attached to the courts of Francis II and
Henry III, and witnessed the massacre of Saint Bartholomew,
the violence of the League, and all the atrocities committed
in the name of religion — in France the Catholics were burn-
ing the Protestants, in Geneva the Protestants were burning
the Catholics. " Combien j'ai vu de condamnations plus
criminelles que le crime! " (How many condemnations I have
seen more criminal than the crimes!) wrote Montaigne; and
at this time, when in religion, in literature, in politics, every-
one said ' ' I know all, ' ' Montaigne took for his device, ' ' What
do I know? " (Que sais-je?) With a profound knowledge of
human nature and with his classical acquirements he preached
skepticism. And in Montaigne's skepticism is expressed his
humanity — his toleration. It is the affirmation that in this
world where relatives rule it is wrong to believe oneself the
infallible holder of the truth. Montaigne's skepticism pro-
claims the liberty of the conscience, and preserves human
morality.

After visiting Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, he with-
drew to his castle in Perigord, and wrote a history to which
he gave the modest title of Essais (two volumes were published
in 1580, and J;he third in 1588). Without pretension he writes
in his introduction: " C'est icy un livre de bon foy, lecteur,"
and describes his work as " un parler simple et naif tel sur
le papier qu'a la bouche." (This is a book of good faith,
reader, a conversation simple and unpretentious on paper as
I would talk.) And he excelled in this ability to talk — an
art in which no people have surpassed the French. His
Essais, which Cardinal de Perron called the breviary of well-

126

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS

bred people, are a series of about one hundred and seven
treatises in which he discusses many questions on society,
literature, religion, friendship, politics, etc. It is a moral and
philosophical work, the unique subject of which is Montaigne
himself. It marks the beginning of a long epoch of classical
French literature which influenced Voltaire, Rousseau, Mon-
tesquieu and the Encyclopedists. Montaigne's work is the
" first by virtue of seniority and glory of all those master-
pieces which are part of the French genius in its striving to-
ward the perfection of the human mind. ' '

From an intellectual point of view Montaigne esteems
ignorance. " Beaucoup savoir apporte occasion de plus
douter, ' ' * but, says Faguet, there are two kinds of ignorance :
one elementary, which knows nothing because it does not
know; the other, refined, elevated, which knows nothing after
having learned everything because it has found out that to
learn everything leads to knowing nothing. And the first
one is the better, and the second is not bad. Hence Mon-
taigne's famous mot: " Ignorance and incuriosity are a soft
pillow for a well-made head. ' '

In his religious views Montaigne was very circumspect;
he never attacked any doctrine. In questions of controversy,
he confined himself to arguments, but rarely gave an opinion.
It has been stated that he said nothing because he knew noth-
ing on this subject, or that he doubted everything. Professor
Dowden's2 symbolism with reference to this phase of Mon-
taigne's character is striking: " Perhaps his faith wavered;
perhaps he could not really check the advance of his question-
ing spirit at the point which seemed most convenient. The
higher souls alone, he thought, know an assured belief. He at
least, imperfect believer as he was, had provided, by his in-
genious artistry, a defense of the faith unconceived by them.
He could imagine the happier state and he would in his
outward conduct conform to all the duties which such a state
implies. Was he a skeptic ? Perhaps so, at times, in the back-
shop of his mind. But he was also a Perigourdin, a Christian,
a Catholic, a conservative, and as such he would behave. It

1 "The more we know, the more we are inclined to doubt."
1 See Professor Dowden's Montaigne.
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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

was as if the tower of Montaigne 1 were an allegory of the
fabric of his soul. Below was the chapel with its altar, where
the mass might be devoutly celebrated. Up aloft was the bell
which at the appointed hour rang its Ave Maria. Below was
the region of spiritual faith, but the place was not quite
habitable. Between the two was the library, where Montaigne
spent most of his days, and most of the hours of each day.
It was the region of moral prudence. In the library he could
think his own thoughts, or gaze at its beams and joists and
ponder the sentences of a philosopher's creed; here he could
be wise with a human wisdom, and Seneca and Plutarch — not
the fathers of the church — were his companions. ' ' Montaigne
died in 1592.

1 Montaigne in one of his essays describes the tower, his favorite place
of retreat. The first, second, and third floors were occupied by his chapel,
library, and bedroom, respectively, with the belfry overhead.

CHAPTER X

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

AFTER Villon, the first great lyric poet in France, poetry
fell into a decadence during the period of the grands rhetori-
queurs (great rhetoricians). They were the fashion at the
courts of Burgundy and Brittany and until the accession of
Francis I, at the court of France. Their works were char-
acterized by an unsuccessful imitation of the Latin, and by a
vain and pretentious style. Their attempt to lead the poetical
thought of a nation into an entirely strange and artificial path
did not succeed, and the old form of poetry triumphed.
Poetry, however, never reached sublime heights in the six-
teenth century in France. Of this a French critic writes:
" Lyrical poetry was represented by Clement Marot with
grace but with little feeling; by the passionate poets of the
Lyonnaise School (Maurice Sceve, Louise Labe), who in their
efforts to elevate the language by the lofty treatment of sub-
jects lost themselves in abstraction and subtleties; by Du
Bellay whose poems were sad and personal, and by Ronsard
in sensual and melancholy qualities. But in general with
Ronsard and the poets of the Renaissance, inspiration was
suppressed by the rules of classic antiquity and poetry was
more didactic than lyric. Malherbe, although lyric in form,
aimed at oratory. After Malherbe, poetry was cultivated
only by the second-rate poets, such as: Theophile, Maynard,
Racan, the precieux (Voiture, Malleville, Sarrazin, Godeau,
Saint-Armand, Scudery, Scarron), who introduced into their
poems more fine wit than they did feeling. And it was
only in the Fables of La Fontaine and in the songs and
choruses of Racine that lyric poetry reached again true
beauty."

Clement Marot, " the poet of princes," was born in 1497
10 129

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

at Cahors. Through the influence of his father, the poet
Jean Marot, Clement was early introduced to court life. He
became attached to the court of Marguerite de Valois, Queen
of Navarre, and later to that of Francis I. He followed that
monarch on his expeditions, and almost all the important
events of his reign are sung by Marot. Marot was constantly
persecuted by the Sorbonne and being accused of heresy, he
was imprisoned at various times, owing his deliverance to
the intervention of Marguerite and the king. Some histo-
rians say that upon an accusation of his mistress : ' ' Prenz-le,
(take him,) il a mange le lard," 1 he was arrested by order of
the inquisitor and imprisoned in the Chatelet. In his distress,
Marot wrote Lyon Jamet a letter in which, making a funny
and very piquant application of the fable of the Lion and the
Mouse, he besought him to effect his liberation. Through
Jamet 's influence, Charles Guiart, Bishop of Chartres, who
was secretly favorable to the reformers, issued in 1526 a decree
of arrest against Marot, as if the poet had not already felt
the hand of justice. This mandate was executed, and Marot,
given over to the officers of the bishop, was transferred to
Chartres, where the hostelry of the Eagle was assigned to
him for a prison. Here he was visited and feasted by all
the influential people of the city. This inspired the pris-
oner to write his celebrated Enfer (Hell) — a virulent satire
aimed against the administrators of the law and a work
by which he incurred the displeasure of Diane de Poitiers,2
mistress of Francis I, whom he boldly reproached for her
unbelief.

1 Not translatable; il a mange le lard was a figurative mode of speech em-
ployed to express in general "to be guilty." The phrase Prenz-le, il a
mange le lard, Marot uses in one of his ballads. Manger du lard is a slang
expression meaning "to betray one's accomplices."

2 Diana of Poitiers, Duchess of Valentinois, and first lady of honor to
Queen Claude, was richly endowed by nature in mind and in body. Her
father, Jean de Poitiers, Count of St. Vallier, was condemned to be be-
headed; but Diana threw herself at the feet of Francis I, and by her tears
and her charms obtained his pardon. But her father's hair grew white in
a single night in the prison at Loches, and fear threw him into a violent
fever from which he never recovered. Hence the expression "fever of St.
Vallier." Diana was at least forty years old when King Henry II, barely
eighteen, fell desperately in love with her; and although almost sixty years

130

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

In 1534, Marot was implicated in the Affaire des placards,
when all the principal streets of Paris were placarded with
printed sheets attacking the Roman Catholic Church in the
most offensive terms. Marot was obliged to leave Paris, and
found refuge at the court of Margaret of Navarre and, dur-
ing a later period, at the court of Renee de France, sister
of Louis XI.

In 1536 he dedicated to Francis I his translation of the
first thirty Psalms. The dedication ran :

Mais tout ainsi qu'avecques diligence
Sont eclaircis par bons esprits rusez
Les escritaux des vieux fragmens usez,
Ainsi, 6 roi, par les divins esprits
Qui ont sous toy Hebrieu langage appris,
Nous sont jettez les pseaumes en lumiere,
Clairs, et au sens de la forme premiere,
Dont apres eux, si peu que faire scay,
T'en ay traduit, par maniere d'escay
Trente, sans plus, en ton noble langage,
Te suppliant les recevoir pour gage,
Du r6sidu qui ja t'est consacre,
Si les voir tous il te venoit a gre. »

old at the death of the king, she had always held the same sway over his
heart. Her charms and beauty withstood the ravages of time; every man
at all distinguished in letters could count upon her protection. The reign
of Henry II was that of Diana; but no sooner was that prince in extremis
than the courtiers who had so long worshiped at her shrine turned their
backs upon her. Catherine of Medici, wife of Henry II, sent orders to
her to return the crown jewels and to retire from the beautiful castle of
Chenonceaux to one of the less sumptuous castles. She died at the age of
sixty-six, beautiful to the end. She is the only royal mistress in whose
honor medals were struck. One still exists on which she is represented
trampling Love under foot, with the words "Omnium victorem vici" (I
have conquered the conqueror of all).

1 But just as, with diligence, the writings of old worn fragments have
been made clear by cunning minds; and just as, O King, the Psalms have
been put in a clear light for us, and with their original meaning, by those
inspired minds who learned the Hebrew tongue under you — of which writ-
ings, after them, as well as I can, I have translated, as a sort of exper-
iment, thirty — no more — into your noble tongue, supplicating you to
receive them as a pledge of the remainder, which henceforth are consecra-
ted to you, if you would see them all.

131

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Marot's translation was received at the court with enthusiasm.
Francis I took pleasure in humming new psalms. ' ' With this
royal example before them, the courtiers and the ladies, even
the least virtuous, began to learn them by heart, and, before
they were formally set to music, to sing them to the tune of
current, and sometimes the most profane or burlesque, melo-
dies. ' ' In spite of royal favor, the Sorbonne continued their
persecutions, and finally prohibited the sale of this translation.
Marot sought refuge in Geneva, but there, too, animosity and
intolerance drove him away. He finally found protection in
Turin, where he died in 1544.

His psalms, fifty in number, were published in 1543, with
a preface by Calvin. They were set to music by Goudimel and
almost all of them were introduced into the song books of
the Calvinists. Their composition is like that of Marot's
songs and epitaphs, strained and pedantic. His best works
are his epitres, rondeaux, and ballades, some of which are
marvels of grace and wit and rhythmic harmonies. The
word Marotisme, indicative of Marot 's style, was used to desig-
nate a genre of poetry, of facile wit and melodious rhyme,
without much depth or passion. This style with its archaic
coloring, placed Marot as the last of the poets of the Middle
Ages, and a modern poetry, artistic and erudite, was created
by the Pleiade.

The impulse to this new school of poetry was given by
a class of young scholars, nourished under the strong disci-
pline of classical studies. Their master was Jean Dorat and
one of their number — Ronsard — became the chief of the new
school, and formed, with Joachim du Bellay, Remi Bellau,
Jodelle, Dorat, Ba'if, and Pontus de Thiard, the French
Pleiade.1 The pupils of Dorat " having drunk at their
leisure the strong wine of the ancient poets " learned to
admire the elevation of their language and the nobility of
their ideas. In 1549, Du Bellay published his Defense et

1 Under Henri III. There was another French Pleiade under Louis
XIII, composed of Rapin, Commire1, Larue, Manage, Santeul, Duperrier,
and Petit. The name Pleiade, an astral term taken possession of by
poetry, was given to seven poets who lived in the reign of Ptolemy Phila-
delphus: Lycophron, Theocritus, Aratus, Nicander, Appolonius, Homer,
and Callimachus.

132

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

Illustration de la Langue Frangaise, a manifesto of the new
school and their programme. It furnishes the historic date of
that literary movement which was prolonged during almost
half a century, with Ronsard as its chief. The intention of
Du Bellay was, not only to defend the common language
against the contempt of the scholars, but to show that it
might acquire the qualities in which it was still lacking, and
by what means one might hope to elevate it to the level of
Greek and Latin. He wished to enrich the French language
by imitating the ancient Greek and Latin writers, and taking
freely from the " sacred treasures of the Delphic temple."
" The Romans," he says, " imitated the best Greek authors
— transforming themselves into them, devouring them, and,
after having devoured them, changing them into their own
blood and nourishment." The new school, then, aban-
doned rondeaux, ballades, and virelais, for the cultiva-
tion of the new genres of poetry: odes, elegies, idylls, and
sonnets.

Du Bellay (1525-60) is known as the most modern of
poets of the sixteenth century. His poems show grace, emo-
tion, and creative ability. The pastoral poem Vanneur de
Ble aux Vents (Winnower addressing the Winds) is quoted
as a model of grace and poetic ease:

A vous troupe leg&re,
Qui d'aile passag£re
Par le monde volez,
Et d'un sifflant murmure
L'ombrageuse verdure
Doucement esbranlez :

J'offre ces violettes
Ces lis et ces fleurettes
Et ces roses icy;
Ces vermeillettes roses
Tout freschement escloses.
Et ces ceillets aussi.

De vostre doulce haleine
Esventez cette plaine,
Esventez ce sejour;
133

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Ce pendant que j'ahanne
A mon ble que je vanne
A la chaleur du jour.1

Pierre de Ronsard was born in 1524 in the Castle of Pos-
sonniere, near Vendome. His childhood and early youth
were singularly active. Disgusted with school at nine years
of age, he became a page at court, and passed about three
years in Scotland, in the service of King James. He visited
Flanders and Germany, and, at the age of nineteen returned
to France, where a brilliant career awaited him. But he
suddenly lost his sense of hearing which compelled him to
give up court life and led him to devote himself to literature.
Shipwrecks, wars, gallant adventures, knowledge of men and
languages — these things he gained on his travels, and turned
them to account as a poet. Proclaimed in the Jeux Floraux,2
" prince of poets," Ronsard also became the poet of princes.

1 To you, troop so fleet, Lily and violet

That with winged wandering feet I give, and blossoms wet,

Through the wide world pass Roses and dew;

And with soft murmuring This branch of blushing roses,

Toss the green shades of spring Whose fresh bud uncloses,

In woods and grass. Wind-flowers, too.

Ah, winnow with sweet breath,
Winnow the holt and heath,

Round this retreat;
Where all the golden morn
We fan the gold o' the corn
In the sun's heat.

— Translation by ANDREW LANG.

1 The Floral Plays (Jeux Floraux), an academy of Toulouse, was
founded in 1323 by seven troubadours of Toulouse, under the name of
Tres gaie Compagnie des sept troubadours de Toulouse. Every year
on the first of May a poetical contest takes place in Toulouse, and this
academy distributes prizes for the best poems: the first prize a golden
violet, the second a silver eglantine, and the third a marigold in metal,
hence the name Floral Plays. Cle'mence Isaure, born in Toulouse, was
noted for her mental gifts and for her patronage of young poets. She
gave this institution a new impetus by providing an annual fund. After
her death her statue was erected at the city hall and wreathed with
flowers during the contests. The Jeux Floraux were reorganized at the
end of the seventeenth century, and raised to the dignity of an academy,
after which only French aspirants were admitted. It was suppressed in
1790, but reestablished in 1806, and is the oldest literary society in Europe.

134

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

Queen Elizabeth gave him a diamond of great value, and
Mary Stuart sent him a rock of solid silver, with the inscrip-
tion " a Ronsard, 1'Apollon de la source des Muses." She
received him during the brief reign of her husband, Francis

II. Four kings, Henri II, Francis II, Charles IX, and Henri

III, showered upon him favors and distinctions.

Ronsard was the founder of modern French poetry. He
introduced for the first time the idea that form and style
were necessary in the composition of verses. He was, above
all, an admirable artist, and the aim he never lost sight of in
his poetry and which, in the estimate of his contemporaries
he achieved so well, was nobility, earnestness, and splendor
of language. A large vocabulary did not exist in French,
and Ronsard set to work to increase it. He created new words
and rejuvenated old ones (archaisms), he tried to form a
language for poetry — richer and more elevated than that
used for prose. Some critics say he would have been a great
poet, if not epic or lyric, at any rate elegiac, but for his great
fault — his determination to suppress his personal inventive
power under a balderdash of imitations. He encumbered the
French language with Latin and Greek expressions, not com-
prehensible, as he himself writes, to the majority of the people :

Les Frangais qui mes vers liront,
S'ils ne sont et Grecs et Remains,

En lieu de ce livre ils n'auront

Qu'un pesant faix entre les mains.1

Nyrop in his defense, writes that Ronsard did not borrow
more words from the ancient languages than any of the other
writers of his time, and that Boileau was in error when he
represented Ronsard 's muse speaking Greek and Latin; he
should have said, continues Nyrop, " that his muse spoke
French, and thought in Greek and Latin."

Ronsard 's attempt to write an epic poem, the Franciade,
was a failure. He used an improbable legend for the subject

1 Frenchmen who will my verses read,
Unless they be Greek and Roman (scholars),
Instead of this book will have
But a heavy load in their hands.
135

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

matter, and imitated Virgil and Homer. It speaks of Francus,
the son of Hector, who escapes from the fury of the Greeks
and after a series of adventures arrives at Crete. The two
daughters of the King of Crete fall in love with him. One
of them, desperate with jealousy, throws herself into the sea;
the other, a prophetess, discloses the future to Francus, in
which he appears as the ancestor of a long line of kings in
France, from the legendary Pharamond1 to Charlemagne.
The poem lacks inspiration, and Ronsard, who intended to
write twelve cantos, stopped after the fourth. Ronsard 's
success lay in his odes, sonnets, and hymns. The following
graceful " Ode," addressed to Cassandra, is expressive of his
lighter manner:

Mignonne, aliens voir si la Rose,
Qui ce matin avait desclose

Sa robe de pourpre au soleil,
A point perdu cette vespree,
Les plis de sa robe pourpree,

Et son teint au vostre pareil.

Las! voyez comme en peu d'espace,
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place,

Las, las, ses beautez laisse cheoir!
O vraiment maratre Nature,
Puisqu'une telle fleur ne dure

Que du matin jusques au soir.

Done, si vous me croyez, Mignonne,
Tandis que votre age fleuronne

En sa plus verte nouveaute',
Cueillez, cueillez votre jeunesse;
Comme a cette fleur, la viei Hesse

Fera ternir votre beaute".2

1 Frankish chieftain of the fifth century who, according to legend, was
the first king of the Merovingian line; at all events the first Frankish
king whose name — and nothing else — history has preserved.
2 Come, darling, see an' if the rose,
Which did to the sun's dawn disclose

Its purple robe all freshly blown,
Has not at hour of Vespers lost
Its painted dress, its beauty's boast,
And its complexion like your own.
136

SIXTEENTL

Ronsard, the :
and he knew, by
over prose and p
either adversari<
" lies buried unc

"While Ronsar
portes (1546-16(,
generation of tht
of entirely differ*
The one revived
frankness :

Otez vc
Del'im

Mathurin Regnier's
his satires. He wrote .

J'ai ve
Me la'

A
F

to the i
of me

L^ERATURE

xhibited the dis-
..en, in 1555, and
rg. His odes to
ier, brought him
)de to Du Perier,
reads:

Ue?

;lles choses
roses:

is, but as the initi-

e French language.

gical legislator," he

ame the " regent of

,ion; he proscribed the

•iced to a small number

By the clearness of

^m, he freed poetry

"» Du Bellay and

'Ie condemned

"ms. He dif-

regulated

• of style

's Gas-

' the

are,

rfect.
of its

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

and literary circles of Europe. Malherbe was surnamed the
"tyrant1 of words and syllables," and established those
severe precepts to which, thereafter, the talented French poets
subjected their powers.

Malherbe, if severe toward others, was no less so to him-
self. He was an indefatigable worker, polishing and repolish-
ing his phrases. It is said, that on one occasion, a friend
of his having lost his wife, Malherbe wished to address his
consolations. When he had finally finished his verses, he
found his friend not only consoled, but remarried. During
twenty-five of his busiest years, he wrote on an average, thirty-
three verses a year. " When one asked his opinion," says
Racan, " on some French word, he would generally refer
you to the street porters of the Hay Market, saying that they
were his authority for the language." By this he meant
that the language of the people was never influenced by for-
eign forces,2 and that the language of literature, too, should
be pure and simple ; in other words, French.3

In rendering poetry more simple and rational, Malherbe
raised its standard to perfection, but he thereby rendered
it more difficult, and, for over a century after him, there was
no lyric poet of France. An epigram on Malherbe, composed
by his friend Maynard, reads :

La favour des princes est morte ;

Malherbe, en notre £ge brutal,
Pegase est un cheval qui porte

Les poetes a 1'hopitaL*

" Grammarian-poet," says Sainte-Beuve, " his object
above all was, like a clever artist, to restore and to string the
instrument from which Corneille and Racine would draw
sublime and melodious chords." Malherbe died in 1628.

1 It is said that on his death bed, Malherbe upbraided his nurse for
using a word incorrectly.

3 The court had been by turns Spanish, Italian, and Gascon.
1 Ce qui n'est pas clair, n'est pas frangais. (Rivarol.)
• The favor of princes is dead;
Malherbe, in our brutal age,
Pegasus is a horse which bears
Poets to the almshouse.
139

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Du Bellay in his Defense already quoted, advised the
coming writers to restore comedies and tragedies to their
ancient glory. To Estienne Jodelle (1532-73), was assigned
the role of dramatist of the Pleiade, and he introduced
tragedy into the national literature, when, at the age of
twenty, he wrote Cleopatra Captive, in imitation of Seneca.
The Italian tragedies, Rucella'is's Rosmonda, and Trissino's
Sofonisba, had been translated into French, but Jodelle 's
tragedy is important in the history of French literature
as the first regular French tragedy. His work is faulty, the
plan very simple, the language negligent, and the speeches
interminable; but it has the merit of being the first attempt
to offer a higher form of amusement than the mysteries and
farces.

People awakened to the new erudition, introduced by the
humanists, felt the want of intellectual entertainment. To
see before them a living representation of the characters of
antiquity — the subjects of their diligent studies — aroused in
the savants unbounded enthusiasm. They themselves under-
took to play the various parts.1 The first representation took
place at the Hotel de Reims, in 1552, then at the College of
Boncour, before Henry II and his court. According to
Brantome, the king presented Jodelle with five hundred
ecus and his gracious favor. Shortly after, Jodelle produced
another tragedy, Didon se sacrifiant.

The impulse to tragedy having been given, there was soon
a whole school of dramatic authors following in the footsteps
of Jodelle. Jean de la Taille wrote Saul le Furieux, and La
Famine ou les Gdbaonites (1571) ; Antoine de Montchretien
(1575-1621) wrote Sophonisbe, David, I'Ecossaise, and Robert
Gamier (1535-1601), who showed in his tragedies more eleva-
tion, harmony, and purity of language than his contemporaries,
produced among other pieces, Les Juives2 his masterpiece.

1 Jodelle as Cleopatra; Ronsard, Baif, La Peruse, etc., taking other
parts.

2 Funeral Chorus of Les Juives:

Comment veut-on que maintenant

Si devotees,
Nous allions la flute entonnant

Dans ces vallees?
140

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

All tragedies, however, were almost entirely based on an
imitation of Seneca, and only written for court and college
amusement, until about 1600, when Alexandre Hardy intro-
duced them to the public. Alexandre Hardy (about 1570-
1631), was an actor, and the dramatist of a company of play-
ers under Valleran Lecomte, in the Hotel de Bourgogne.
Although a mediocre writer, he helped to fix the form of
classic tragedy, he created the plot, and strengthened the
unity of action. Compelled to work very rapidly to supply
the requisite number of plays, he was often obliged to fur-
nish one at a day's notice, and once wrote a five-act tragedy
in five days. The popularity of his plays was increased by
the variety of sources — Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish
literature — from which he took his material. He wrote about
seven hundred plays, tragedies, tragi-comedies, pastorals, etc.,
which appealed to both the court circles and the people. Of
these numerous plays, he published only forty, the best of
which is Marianne.

With Hardy, the modern theater found its impulse, and
dominated the stage for thirty years, but the definite forma-
tion of tragedy dates from Corneille.

True French comedy also dates from the sixteenth cen-
tury. Jodelle, Ronsard, Bai'f, translated the comedies of
antiquity, while Jean de la Taille, Odet de Turnebe, Godard
and many others imitated the Italian comedies. Among the
latter writers, the greatest was Larivey,1 an Italian, Pierre
Giunto, who settled in France under the name of Pierre de

Que le luth touch6 de nos doigts

Et la cithare,
Fassent r^sonner de leurs voix,

Un ciel barbare?

Que la harpe de qui le son

Toujours lamente,
Assemble avec notre chanson

Sa voix dolente?

How it is to be expected that we, so desolate, should go forth into the
vales with sounding flute? — that lute and zither, touched by our hands,
should echo in a barbarous clime? — that the sound of the ever-lamenting
harp should mingle with the doleful voice of our song?

1 Larivey (arrive), French translation of Giunto.

141

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

1'Arivey. His comedies are characterized by fine observation,
originality, and force; and written in prose, an innovation at
that time, they form an epoch in the history of the French
theater. Les Esprits, his best comedy, furnished the material
for several scenes of Moliere's L'Etourdi.

Comedy altogether dominated by the Corn-media deU'Arte
brought by the Italians from across the Alps, became erudite
and artificial, and it remained with the grand Corneille to
regulate comedy as well as to create true tragedy.

SATIRE MENIPPEE

Satire has always been cultivated in France where it is
in harmony with the racial characteristics. During the Mid-
dle Ages, it played a continuous role — in fables, farces,
moralities, soties, etc. Rabelais used it, and Du Bellay and
Ronsard advocated its cultivation, and finally, satire became
embodied in some important works of the sixteenth century :
Discours sur les miseres de ce temps of Ronsard, the famous
Satires of Regnier, the Tragiques of d'Aubigne, and the
political pamphlet — the Satire Menippee. During the seven-
teenth century, satire reached its culmination in Boileau's
Art Poetique and in some of his Satires.

The Satire Menippee is the most famous of that species
of literature — the pamphlet — which the political chaos of the
sixteenth century brought forth. It took its name from the
Satira Menippea of the Roman 1 satirist Varro, who imitated
Menippos, the pupil of Diogenes. The pamphlet was the work
of a circle of friends : Leroy, a chaplain of the Connetable de
Bourbon; Passerat, Durand, poets; Gillot, Pithou, Rapin,
and Chrestien, lawyers and professors.

These men were no Huguenots, but peaceful Catholics,
who feared evil results for their country from the doings of
the League,2 and the prolongation of the civil wars, which
might finally deliver France into Spanish hands.

1 The Romans have claimed the invention of this genre: Satira quidem
tola nostra est. (Quintilian.)

2 The League was a confederation of the Catholic party, founded by
the Duke of Guise in 1576, with the apparent purpose of defending the
Catholic religion against the Calvinists, but in reality to overthrow Henry

142

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

The Satire Menippee * was a sort of farce divided into
two parts: La Vertu du Catholicon, and Les Affaires des
Etats — Oeneraux. The Preface introduces two charlatans,
who sell the Catholicon, a marvelous drug, which has the
effect of permitting one to be a traitor and an assassin in
the name of the Holy Church. This was symbolical of the
religious zeal alleged by the Leaguers as an excuse to fight
against the king — a false zeal, intended to conceal their revo-
lutionary spirit. " Then comes a description (in which, as
throughout the work, actual facts are blended inextricably
with satirical comment) of the procession of opening. To
this succeeds a sketch of tapestries with which the hall of
meeting was hung, all of which are, of course, allegorical, and
deal with murders of princes, betrayal of native countries to
foreigners, etc. Then comes ' L'Ordre tenu pour les Se-
ances, ' in which the chief personages on the side of the League
are enumerated in a long catalogue, every item of which
contains some bitter allusion to the private or public conduct
of the person named. Seven solemn speeches are then delivered
by the Duke de Mayenne as head of the League, by the legate,
by the Cardinal de Pelleve, by the Bishop of Lyons, by Rose,
the fanatical rector of the University, by the Sieur de Rieux,
as representative of the nobility, and, lastly, by a certain Mon-
sieur d'Aubray for the Tiers-^ltat. A burlesque coda con-
cludes the volume, the joints of which are : first, a short verse
satire on Pelleve; secondly, a collection of epigrams; and,
thirdly, Durant's Regret Funebre a Mademoiselle ma Corn-
mere sur le Trepas de son Ane, a delightful satire on the
Leaguers, which did not appear in the first edition, but which
yields to few things in the book." 2

The clever composition, the striking satire and wit dis-
played and its great purpose — to show that religion should not
be made to serve politics — endeared it to all hearts. It was

III and to place the Guises, chiefs of the League, on the French throne.
Henry IV understood that by abjuring Calvinism he would put an end to
the League. "Paris is indeed worth a mass," said Henry in embracing
Catholicism and restoring peace to France.

1 The full title is De la Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne et de la Tenue des
Etats de Paris.

3 From Saintsbury's French Literature.

143

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

not a book composed as a whole, but a veritable journal,
published successively in detached leaves, and then combined
as a collection. A nineteenth-century echo of this great satir-
ical pamphlet, was the Minerve Frangaise of the Restoration,
a semiperiodical, issued irregularly (1818-20) at a time when
some subterfuge was necessary to evade a ruthless censorship.

MEMOIRES

France is considered the fatherland of the genre of litera-
ture, known as Memoires. Chateaubriand attributes the su-
periority of the French nation to produce the best Memoires,
to the inclination of the French people to narrate, to their
sociability, and to the vanity of their humor. Joinville and
Froissart have written nothing else; under Louis XI and
Charles VIII, Commines excelled in that genre. Under
Francis I, the Marshal de Fleuranges set down the recital of
his campaign with a simple vivacity. Montaigne's Essais
are classed among the great Memoires. Jean Martin and
Guillaume Du Bellay have written their Memoires in a simple,
curious style. But, of the greatest importance, are perhaps
the Memoires of the sixteenth century, which relate to the
immediate religious and political strifes of that period — when
France was alive with armed bands, when religious wars
racked the country, and men killed each other with bestial
rage. During this time, many men yielded to the impulse to
write what they had observed, and if their works were badly
written they had the great merit of sensible and vigorous
simplicity and animated expression, which brought the events
clearly before one. Among this group of warrior writers
was the old general d 'Estrees, who told in a few pages of the
forty fortresses he had taken, and ' ' whose great frame, ' '
says Brantome, " one saw mounted on a big charger holding
himself erect at the trenches, which he overtowered by half
his body, and remaining there, with head uplifted in the midst
of bullets, as if he were on a hunt. ' '

Blaise de Lasseran-Massencome, Seigneur de Montluc (1502-
77) , was a captain of warlike ferocity, who turned his declin-
ing days to account and wrote his exploits for the instruction
of his children and the young nobility of France. His Com-

144

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

mentaires, valuable for the history of his epoch, were written
with the fiery ' ' eloquence of the brigand, ' ' and he seemed to
glory in the bloodshed of the numerous civil wars he lived
through. He, however, writes : "I have all my life hated
writing, and would pass a whole night with my armor on
my back in preference to writing."

Francois de La Noue, called Bras de fer (Iron Arm) , (1531-
91), was a French captain, representative of the severe Prot-
estant type. King Henry IV said of him, " He is a great
warrior, but a still greater man of honor." In his captivity,
La Noue wrote his Discours politiques et militaires, which
Henry IV called the soldier's Bible. It is a precious literary
work, full of the knowledge of the times and discloses the
writer's honesty and purity of intention.

Guillaume de Tavannes (1509-73), one of those great
Catholic lords leagued together to defend their faith, left
Memoires valuable to history, but characterized by an auda-
cious use of bad language. His brother, Jean de Tavannes,
also a writer, but a Protestant and faithful servant of Henry
IV, found himself many times on the same battle-field with
his brother in opposite camps.

To these might be added a long list of interesting Me-
moires, such as the Historia sui temporis written in Latin by
the Protestant de Thou; the Memories nostrce libri VI, of
Paradin ; the Memoires of the Due de Sully, one of France 's
greatest ministers, published under the title of Sages et royales
economies d'Etat; of Marshal de Villeroi; and the Memoires
of Nicolas de Catinat, Marshal of France, whose simplicity,
fine moral character, and the great solicitude he showed for
the welfare of his soldiers, earned for him the cognomen of
Pere la Pensee (Father Thoughtful). This great soldier, who
sold his estates to equip the army of the king, said: "As long
as a drop of blood and an inch of land remain to me, I will
employ them in the service of the country in which God
allowed me to be born. ' '

Two men of great diversity of character, manners, and
opinion were among the famous Memoire writers of the six-
teenth century. One, Pierre de Bourdeilles, Seigneur de
Brantome (1540-1614), better known as the abbot of Bran-
tome, whose writings are characterized by a frivolity border-
11 145

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ing on obscenity. His Memoires, writes a French critic, are
a continuous and servile echo of all the rumors of the court
and the city which — from Francis I to Henry IV — struck the
ear of a curious and talkative courtier. No writer was ever
more completely devoid of moral sentiment. He repeats every-
thing without thinking of anything; a true parrot of the
court, the more interesting as he is less profound. For he
tries to veil nothing, and so the whole century is reflected in
the impudent frankness of his work. The mobility of his
mind puts him in sympathy with the events which he relates ;
one sees him moved by Mary Stuart's misfortunes, struck by
the austerity of old Montmorency,1 astonished at the Roman
grandeur of L 'Hospital, charmed with the heroism of Bayard.
Though his style is neither brilliant nor precise, he grows
animated in the recital of battles and debauches; he repro-
duces very well the gossip of the courtiers and the women,
and records with ample truth those varied impressions which,
by turns, control him, without even inspiring him with respect
for virtue or hatred for vice.

Brantome's Memoires include: Vies des hommes illustres
et grands capitaines frangais et Strangers; Vies des dames
illustres; Vies des dames galantes (a collection of obscene
anecdotes) ; Anecdotes de la cour de France touchant les duels;
Rodomontades et jurements des Espagnols; etc. All these
captains and illustrious ladies with whom Brantome had lived
on a familiar footing, are depicted by him with a piquant
naivete and give a true and characteristic picture of the times.

The other man was a Gascon gentleman, caustic and boast-
ful, audacious in love and war — Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne2
(1550-1630), Calvinistic captain, historian, and litterateur.
It is said that at the age of eight years, when passing in the
public square of Amboise before a number of gibbets, from
which were suspended the heads of some of his coreligionists,
he pledged his life to the Protestant cause. His entire writ-
ings show a passionate party feeling and a profound sorrow
for the condition of his country ; they display force and wit,

1 Wounded to death in a battle, this famous Conne"table de France said
to his confessor: "Do you think that I have lived for eighty years with
honor, not to know how to die in a quarter of an hour? "

* He was the grandfather of Madame de Maintenon.

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SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

an ardent mind, and a bold valor. Whatever there was of
ardor, of impetuosity, of giddiness, of originality, says a fa-
mous French critic, in that Gascon and Protestant youth that
pressed around Henry IV, is found again in d'Aubigne. At
the age of ten he made his first expedition in his shirt.
Guizot tells us that a kinsman of pacific temperament locked
up young d'Aubigne to quell his martial humor. Every
evening his garments were taken away and brought back in
the morning. He could escape from his prison only through
the window. But, " What youth wants, God wants "; the
linen of his bed served him as a ladder ; then he was free, but
without clothing other than his shirt. In this attire he
reached, at night, a company of Huguenot cavaliers. They
covered his nakedness, the captain took him on his horse, and
thus he entered on his campaign. At one time he danced the
gaillarde x before the Grand Inquisitor ready to condemn him
to death, escaped through a window, and, fleeing to the do-
mains of Renee de France, hastened to seat himself at the feet
of the princess, where, on a silken cushion, he improvised, still
out of breath, and soiled with dust, a sermon on contempt of
death, after the Bible and Seneca.

He was a very energetic prose writer, and evolved such
audacious opinions in his Histoire universelle depuis 1555
jusqu'en 1601, that he was obliged to take refuge in Geneva
after its publication. Here he was occupied in repairing
the fortifications of the city from the material of a church
which had been in ruins for forty years. His enemies con-
sidered this sufficient cause for his arrest and condemnation
to death. It was the fourth time that the death sentence hung
over d'Aubigne, but he was so little concerned about it that
he married shortly after.

D'Aubigne wrote two spirited pamphlets: La Confession
du sieur de Sancy, who changed his faith several times, and
Le Divorce satyrique de la reine Marguerite. He was one
of the most vigorous satirists and poets of his times. Les
Aventures du Baron Foeneste is one of the most ingenuous

1 A bold dance which originated in Italy and was brought to France,
where it became the vogue in the sixteenth century. The composer,
Prsetorius, called it an "invention of the devil, full of shameful and
obscene gestures and of immodest movements."

147

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

satires of customs and manners. The story is in the form
of a dialogue between two men. One, the Baron de Foeneste
(from the Greek <f>alvea-0ai, to appear), is a Gascon gentleman,
a Papist, ridiculously attired with jacket of many colors and
flowing trousers of taffeta. He relates with bragging fatuity
and comical vanity to his friend, Enay (from the Greek elvcu,
to be), a Huguenot, his adventures at court. Enay is a man
of sedate qualities, wise and virtuous, who has the good sense
to remain peacefully on his estates. In this book, d'Aubigne
intermingles violent attacks with caustic humor against all the
follies of his time, particularly against the great failing of
the century— that of false appearance.

The great satirical poem of d'Aubigne, Les Tragiques,
discloses a grewsome picture of the horrors of the religious
wars. Pathos, force, audacity, and outbursts of passionate
hatred characterize the work. It is a picture in seven books,
of the misfortunes of France and the persecution of the Prot-
estants. The first book, entitled Miseres, is a general picture ;
the second, Les Princes, is a furious satire on the court of
Henry III; the third book, La Chambre Doree (The Golden
Chamber), is a diatribe against magistracy; the fourth, Les
Feux (Fire), and the fifth, Les Fers (Irons), are the recitals
of different death penalties meted out to Protestants; the
sixth is Vengeance, and the seventh, Jugement. Les Tra-
giques is a great lyric poem, but written without art.

In contradistinction as to sex, but equal as to ability, a
woman stands among these warrior writers who added fame
to the sixteenth century — Marguerite de Valois (1492-1549),
called " la Marguerite des Marguerites " (the pearl of pearls).
She was the sister of Francis I, the wife of the Due d 'Alengon,
and for many years as the wife of Henri d 'Albret, the Queen
of Navarre. A spirited woman of brilliant education, of high
intellect, scrupulous morality, and eager sympathies, she en-
couraged the arts, protected scholars, and had a marked influ-
ence upon the Renaissance movement in France. She wrote
with facility in verse and in prose, which merited for her the
title of " the tenth Muse." She is especially famous as the
author of the Heptameron, a collection of seventy -two stories
after the manner and plan of Boccaccio's Decameron. They
are narrated with much cleverness, but some of them are too

148

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY POETRY AND PROSE

licentious for modern taste; for taste varies with the epoch
we live in.

The sixteenth century is also famed for its humane activ-
ity. It is in this century that St. Vincent de Paul established
the first home for foundlings. A provision was made by him
for the foundlings, by which he secured through a brief, but
effective appeal, forty thousand livres for the purpose. The
Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, formerly called Daughters of
Charity, were first united to care for these poor abandoned
children whom Vincent de Paul rescued from starvation or
ill-treatment.1 Vincent de Paul founded the Priesthood of
the Mission, called, later on, Lazarists. He also founded
a large number of hospitals, and ended his holy career at the
age of eighty-five. He was canonized by Clement XII.

1 In Victor Hugo's L'Homme qui Rit (The Man Who Laughs) there is a
chapter on the Comprachicos — monsters in men's form who kidnaped
deserted children, cut their muscles and otherwise mutilated them, and
then sold them to the lords whom their deformities would amuse. The
existence of the Comprachicos is disputed.

CHAPTER XI

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

THE seventeenth century, commonly called le Siecle de
Louis XIV, begins with the stormy minority of that king
under the regency of Anne of Austria, the queen mother.
In this period occurred the civil wars, undertaken by the
great lords, to restore their expiring power, the Cabale des
Importants (Plot of the Importants) and the mad doings of
the Fronde.

The Plot of the Importants with the Dukes de Beaufort
and de Guise as leaders, whose object it was to frustrate the
power of Mazarin, ended with Beaufort's imprisonment at
Vincennes. The wars of the Fronde were also directed against
Mazarin. They were parliamentary and artistocratic insurrec-
tions against the policy of Anne of Austria and Mazarin,
and were divided into two periods. The first or Parliamen-
tary Fronde lasted from August, 1648, to March, 1649. The
second or Fronde of the Princes (the party of the Condes)
lasted from October, 1649, to September, 1653. When Ma-
zarin wished to impose a tax, the burden of which would be
borne by the poor alone, the magistrates were filled with pity,
and when the edict was presented for registration, they re-
jected it. A special court of justice was thereupon convened,
and Louis XIV, at the age of seven, was conducted to Parlia-
ment, where the tax was registered. Mazarin caused some
magistrates to be imprisoned, and the people of Paris revolted
against the king's troops. On one side was the Regent Anne
of Austria, and Mazarin; on the other, the enemies of the
court. There was fighting of a morning and dancing at night.
For symbols, the frondeurs wore straw bouquets on their hats.
They satirized the power of Mazarin by songs and couplets;

150

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

but he only said in his Italian French : S 'ils cantent la can-
zonetta, ils pagaront." ("If they sing their little song they
will pay.") The most popular of those Mazarinades, as the
satirical rhymed pamphlets were called, is the one by
Scarron :

Un vent de fronde

A souffle ce matin;
Je crois qu'il gronde
Centre le Mazarin.1

A price was placed on the head of Mazarin, and he was forced
into exile, but soon restored. The name Fronde, sarcastically
given, was first applied to the malcontents, it is said, by a
magistrate of the Parliament, who compared their resistance
to that of the street urchins who defied each other with slings
(frondes) in the moats around Paris, and often turned
against the archers sent to arrest them.

This period was but the continuation of the stormy times
of the sixteenth century. " One sees," says a French critic,
' ' the same disorder in the customs of the times, the same un-
intelligent imitation of the antiquity of Italy and Spain;
hence in literature the same license of expression, the same
pedantry, the same effects, the same Italian plays on words, and
the same Spanish magniloquence which are the characteris-
tics of the preceding century. Only during the second half
of the seventeenth century, beginning with the actual reign
of Louis XIV, did French genius — enlightened by the torch
of spiritual philosophy, of religion, of antiquity well under-
stood, and encouraged by the munificence of the great king —
begin to display all its qualities, and the French language to
acquire that degree of maturity and perfection beyond which,
perhaps, it may change, but not improve. Louis XIII was a
weak, timid prince, indifferent to letters. Under his reign
the Court exercised no influence upon society or upon litera-
ture. However, men's minds having become more enlight-
ened, there was a tendency toward gentler and more elegant
manners. Societies were formed in Paris for the betterment

1 A "Fronde" wind blew this morning; I believe it is roaring against
Mazarin.

151

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of social behavior, to purify the relations between men and
women, and to make the language more decent, more reserved,
more regular."

The most celebrated of these societies is that which assem-
bled at the Hotel de Rambouillet, the first and the most illus-
trious of the literary salons. It had existed since 1610, but
the period from 1624-1648 marked the time of its glory and its
influence. It was, so to speak, directed successively by three
women of distinguished minds and charming grace : the>
Marchioness of Rambouillet; her daughter, Julie d'Angennes,
later Duchess of Montausier; and her younger daughter,
Angelique de Rambouillet, who was, later, the first wife of
the Marquis de Grignan. The Marquis of Rambouillet, grand-
master of the royal wardrobe, had married Catherine de Vi-
vonne, in whom were united loveliness of figure with a scrupu-
lous virtue, a cultured mind, a pure taste, and a great pas-
sion for letters.

The entire Hotel de Rambouillet was reconstructed ac-
cording to the plans of the Marquise, who also introduced
an innovation as to the artistic decoration of the rooms. One
of these, the Chambre bleue (blue room) so called because
the walls, hangings, and furniture were of blue velvet, has
become famous as the rendezvous of brilliant men and beauti-
ful women. This room has been the subject of poems by
Voiture, Tallemant des Reaux, and Chapelain who called it
the Logo de Zyrphee.

Madame de Rambouillet assembled at her house a choice
society free from the license that prevailed in the morals
and the language of the times. The men were called Pre-
cieux and the women Precieuses, and this name was pleasing,
since it was bestowed upon women of irreproachable conduct
and a taste for spiritual things, who prided themselves on the
delicacy and elegance of their sentiments, their manners, and
their language. The name of Catherine, the Marquise de
Rambouillet, seemed unpoetic, so Malherbe made it into an
anagram: Arthenice. The beautiful Arthenice, the " incom-
parable " as she was also called, although susceptible to the
cold, could not endure fire because it burned her skin ; so she
received her guests in an unheated chamber. The guests
ranged themselves in the ruelle, the space between the wall

152

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

and the bed,1 on which the marquise sat wrapped in furs.
Hence came the expression, coureur de ruelles.2

Here were united the beaux-esprits of the times to dis-
cuss intellectual questions and to cultivate the belles-lettres.
Words were examined from all sides with minute care, and
were admitted or rejected by a majority of votes. The gram-
marian, Vaugelas, was the president of this singular academy
and his opinion regarding the fate of words had great weight.
The reform begun by Malherbe in the French language,
was continued by the Precieuses, and the transformation which
was consummated in the literature during the first thirty years
of the century is due to them. The poets of the hour read
their latest madrigals. Comedies and tragedies were played,
the Marquise herself taking part. Brilliant minds exchanged
ideas and discussed questions on philosophy, literature, and
grammar.

The reign of the Precieuses, which had dominated the liter-
ary world for so many years, had been prepared by the rococo
style of the idealistic novels originating in Italy and in Spain.
In Italy, with Marini 's Les Querelles des desesperes, and San-
nazzaro's Arcadia; in Spain, with Gongora's cultism and
Montemayor's novel Diana enamorada. These were imitated
in France by Honore d'Urfe in his novel L'Astree.

In d 'Urf e 's novel, the principal characters were shepherds
who spun out their love stories. One saw through trans-
parent pseudonyms Henri IV, Marguerite de Valois, his
first wife; and Gabrielle d'Estrees, whose sudden death by
poison only prevented her from becoming his second wife, and
various other personages. There are some interesting passages
in the long recitals, but for the most part there are intermi-
nable dissertations on the different degrees of love. It is the
same style of discussion which formed the theme of conversa-
tion among the Precieuses. Of these there were three cen-

1 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries many people of high rank
received guests before rising.

2 Formerly this expression meant one who frequented assiduously the
society of the great ladies. It is equivalent to the term now in use, coureur
de salons. Style de ruelle meant style prccieux. A coureur de ruelles now
means one who frequents resorts of low debauchery (usually in the ruelles —
lanes or alleys).

153

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ters in the seventeenth century : the Hotel de Rambouillet, the
palace of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, and the house of Made-
moiselle de Scudery. There the Precieuses composed little
verses and madrigals, and above all, heroic novels. Mademoi-
selle de Scudery wrote Clelie (histoire romaine) a tiresome
novel, in which she depicts under a Roman guise, the Precieuse
coterie. With ridiculous sentimentalism and fastidious lucu-
brations, she describes the map of the Pays de Tendre
(Country of Love), whose capital is Tendre sur Inclination
(Love on the River of Inclination). The various degrees of
love are described as towns, rivers, and mountains. The great
Conde, the Duchess of Longueville, the Archduke Leopold of
Austria, the Marquise de Rambouillet, and other celebrities
of the day, are easily recognized under thinly disguised char-
acters in the novel. This idealistic style which was in vogue
in all the cultivated societies of Europe, was called Marinism
(after Marini) in Italy, Gongorism (after Gongora) in Spain,
euphuism in England (after Lyly's Euphues), and precieux
in France. The Precieuses contributed much to establishing
that art of conversation which is one of the glories of France.1
But — as too often happens — the goal in view was overleaped.
By dint of purifying the sentiments, of " giving the mind
control over matter," they often sacrificed good sense, and in
their super-refinement of the sentiments, in their search for
the finest, they ruined the delicacy of wit and sentiment. The
language became pretentious and abounded with far-fetched
and affected metaphors. The most elevated as well as the
most simple things lost their names, and a direct and simple
manner of speech became entirely out of fashion. Under
pretext of banishing vulgar words and employing only beauti-
ful language, all that is natural and simple was treated as
base and ignoble. Innocent expressions were proscribed, and
the language was in a fair way to become a ridiculous and
unintelligent jargon. When the Precieuses would speak of
servants, they referred to them as the " faithful," or the

1 For centuries the French have laid stress on the art of conversing and
have perfected it to such an extent that they can discuss the most delicate
subjects in such a manner as not to shock the sensibilities. This is the
triumph of the art of conversation over the coarseness of realities and even
of thought.

154

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

" necessaiy "; they went to meet you " with the wings of
impatience "; the nightcap became the " innocent accomplice
of a lie "; the eyes were the " mirrors of the soul," or the
" paradise of the soul "; the ears were the " doors of the
understanding ' ' ; gray hairs were ' ' quittances d 'amour ' '
(acquittances of love) ; trees were " rustic ornaments "; the
sun was the ' ' torch of the day ' ' ; the feet were the ' ' poor
sufferers " ; a glass of water, a ' ' bath for the interior " ; a
broom, the " instrument of cleanliness "; the chemise, the
' ' constant companion of the dead and the living ' ' ; and war,
the " mother of disorder." Instead of saying sit down, the
affected term " satisfy the longing of this chair to embrace
you " was used. Instead of telling the servant to extinguish
the candle, they would say ' ' take away the superfluity of that
light." Many of these expressions found a permanent place
in the French language; such as, " feliciter " (to felicitate) ;
" le masque de la vertu " (the mask of virtue) for hypocrisy;
" perdre son serieux (to loose one's seriousness) for to laugh;
and, strange as it may seem, the word " s 'encanailler " (to
keep low company).

This manner of speech was taken up by the clumsy imita-
tors of the Precieuses of the Hotel de Rambouillet who
abounded in Paris, and had spread to the provinces, when
Moliere began an active crusade against them in his immortal
satire Les Precieuses Ridicules. It was his first effective
blow and was continued in Les Femmes Savantes. The great-
est names of all nobility and of literature were among the
Precieux and Precieuses of the Hotel de Rambouillet, but Mo-
liere inspired by the " demon of comedy," fearlessly assailed
them with that recklessness characteristic of genius. Neither
did Moliere timidly try his play on the provinces, but pro-
duced it boldh in the Petit-Bourbon Theater in 1659 and
achieved a glorious victory. The members of the Hotel de
Rambouillet Tvere present at the first performance, and were
clever enough not to recognize themselves, and to applaud.
Angelique de Rambouillet, who presided, was a partisan of
Moliere.

Among the illustrious women who shone in the salon
of the Marquise de Rambouillet were the Marquise de Se-
vigne, Duchesse de Longueville, Marquise de Lafayette, Mar-

155

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

quise de Sable, Mademoiselle Paulet, and others. Madeleine
Paulet, on account of her golden hair called the Lionne rousse,
counted among her mourants x the dukes of Guise and of
Bellegarde as well as marquises and marshals. The great
lords who frequented the Chambre bleue of Arthenice were
the Prince de Conde, the most famous of that illustrious line
of princes; the Marquis de Sable, the Due de La Roche-
foucauld, the Marquis de Vigean and the Due de Montausier,
who after " sighing " for fourteen years for Julie, the fair
daughter of the house, was finally rewarded for his devotion.
Julie was not so much the child of her parents as the child
of the Hotel de Rambouillet. When her father spoke of
giving her in marriage, there was a general outcry : the Hotel
without Julie was inconceivable. The Duke presented Julie
for a New Year's gift (1641) with a collection of sixty -three
madrigals composed by the beaux-esprits of the day. It was
called the Guirlande de Julie (Julie's garland), and was in
the form of a manuscript on vellum in folio, of twenty-nine
leaflets. Each one was ornamented with a flower painted by
the famous artist Robert, and under each flower was written
by the calligraphist Jarry, one of several madrigals. The
Duke himself composed sixteen and even the great Corneille
contributed verses on the tulip, the orange blossom, and the
white everlasting. This valuable garland now in the possession
of the Due d'Uzes, was once the property of England, ac-
quired at a cost of thirty thousand francs.

The distinguished Vincent Voiture (3598-1648), the son
of a wine merchant of Amiens, was one of the most brilliant
minds of the celebrated society. With Vo.'ture gallantry en-
tered poetry. His Lettres, full of elegant gossip and a spir-
ited joyousness, qualities for which he was unsurpassed as a
conversationalist, had a prodigious success. \

Benserade (1613-1691), the favorite poet af the grandes
dames, was also a dramatic author. His chief claim to fame
rests in having provoked the celebrated battle of sonnets which
lasted about a year and a half. In opposition to Benserade 's
sonnet on Job, Voiture wrote his sonnet to Urania, and there

1 1. e., suitors ready to die for their ladylove. (Expression us^d by the
Pr6cieuses for amoureux.)

156

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

ensued a literary battle. The court and the city took part with
great zest ; hence the names Uranistes and Jobelins, indicative
of the partisans of the two poets. Many writings in verse and
prose also appeared under these names. ' ' The factions of the
Guelfs and Ghibellines, of the white rose of Lancaster and
the red rose of York, caused no more blood to flow than this
literary civil war of the Uranistes and Jobelins, caused ink
to flow." The French Academy and the Sorbonne declined
to arbitrate, so the committee of awards of the University of
Caen decided in favor of Voiture. Corneille entered into
the debate, saying that one of the sonnets was the most in-
genious, but he would have wished to have written the other.

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1594-1654), a disciple of Mal-
herbe, effected for prose the reform which his master had
brought about in poetry; he gave it nobility, harmony, and
order. Balzac 's Lettres, published in 1624, were a prodigious
success in all Europe and gained for him the title of ' ' grand
epistolier de France."

Claude Favre de Vaugelas (1585-1660), the oracle of the
Precieuses, labored for thirty years on a free translation,
purely written, of the work of Quintus Curtius. His work
Remarques sur la Langue Fran$aise, is considered excellent.

Racan (1589-1670), who in spite of his shyness and awk-
ward absence of mind, fell in love many times, was inspired
to write a pastoral of three thousand verses.

The poet Chapelain (1595-1674), after twenty years of
work, published the first twelve cantos of his La Pucelle (The
Maid of Orleans). These the Duchess of Longueville pro-
nounced ' ' very fine but very tedious, ' ' and so Chapelain did
not dare to have the rest of his epic printed ; it remained in
manuscript in the files of the Bibliotheque Nationale.1

Gombauld was the author of Endymion. Owing to his tall
figure and curt speech, he was surnamed le beau tenebreux.2

Oliver Patru, academician and lawyer, was called the
" French Quintilian." He excelled by virtue of a correct-

1 Founded in the fourteenth century at the palace of the kings, it was
the first library accessible to the public, one hundred years before Nicholas
founded the library of the Vatican.

2 A name assumed by Amadis de Gaule. The expression has passed
into the language and applies to a taciturn and melancholy lover.

157

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ness, a refinement, a good taste, and an elegance unknown at
that time to the bar. He was the arbiter of the art of speak-
ing well, and his inaugural discourse before the Academy was
so esteemed that a similar one was exacted from that time on,
of all the members newly admitted. His works were published
several times during his lifetime

Godeau, prelate litterateur, was called the " dwarf " of
Julie, because of his small stature and his assiduities to the
fair Julie. These men with Cospian, the eloquent preacher,
and his pupils, Richelieu and Bossuet, who made his debut
as preacher in the famous Chambre bleue, were all frequenters
of the Hotel de Rambouillet. All these writers constituting
the salon of the Hotel de Rambouillet and the numerous other
salons l which sprang up in emulation of the Rambouillet,
were artists in the matter of language. They were solely oc-
cupied in polishing the verbal instrument; they wrote only
to make fine sentences. But if they produced nothing power-
ful and profound in this reform, they rendered great services
by purifying and disciplining the language and fixing the
rules of syntax. They gave the language a number of words
which have endured; they held up to honor all beautiful
sentiments expressed in books or in the intercourse of life,
and contributed toward elevating the morals and refining the
manners. Therefore the famous reunions of the Chambre
bleue of the Marquise de Rambouillet are considered one of
the epochs in the history of French literature.2

In direct contrast to, but actuated by the same impulses
which produced the sentimentalism of the Precieuses were the
burlesque writers. Both were extreme forms resulting from
Italian and Spanish influences brought to bear upon French
literature. Sarazin, the " Hamilcar " of the Precieuses, is
said to have written the first French burlesque verses, but he
and his many imitators were surpassed by Scarron who was

1 The salons of Mesdames de Choisy, de Fiesque, de Sully, de Rohan-
Chabot, and Mademoiselle de Scudery, whose Saturdays became very cele-
brated. Even journals were written for these assemblies in the ruelles,
as the Gazette de Soret written for the ruelles of Madame de Longueville.

2 Not an unmixed blessing, however, for in bowing to the dictum of
the beau monde the writer, now and then, had to sacrifice depth and
loftiness of thought to perfection of style.

158

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

the first to undertake a large burlesque work. Paul Scarron
(1610-1660), whom a cruel practical joke confined for the
rest of his life to an invalid's chair, brought burlesque into
great vogue for ten years. The loss of his health was followed
by that of his fortune; nevertheless, he offered shelter to
Frangoise d'Aubigne (later Madame de Maintenon, second
wife of Louis XIV), who was early orphaned and without
sustenance. He offered to pay her dot, if she wished to be-
come a nun, or to marry her, if she preferred that. She was
then sixteen, and became a widow at twenty-five. On his
death-bed, he addressed these words to his wife : ' ' I leave you
without worldly possessions, virtue does not bestow any ; how-
ever, always be virtuous. ' ' It was then that Madame Scarron
became governess for the children of Madame de Montespan,
the mistress of Louis XIV, and later when de Montespan fell
into disfavor, the wife of Louis XIV without the title of
queen. Of the peculiar union of Scarron and Frangoise
d'Aubigne Jules Lemaitre writes: "An abbot disguised as
an Indian during the carnival was forced to take a nocturnal
bath, became a cripple, and was confined by paralysis to his
chair for twenty-two years. During this time he never slept
an entire night, nor did he ever stop groaning in his pain
except to burst into laughter. This man was the founder of
burlesque poetry and had the reputation of being the gayest
of men. In his day his popularity was more real than that
of Corneille or Victor Hugo, his fame more prodigious. But
this is insignificant. At the same time there was a little girl
who, born in prison and raised in Martinique, returned to
France, watched over the turkeys of a wicked and avaricious
relative, and experienced poverty and hunger — and who be-
came the wife of the greatest king in the world. Surely these
two destinies taken individually would be very strange ! But
what of their being united? There is something more extra-
ordinary than the personality of Searron and the fortunes of
Frangoise d'Aubigne, and that is the marriage of the cripple
and the " belle Indienne," future mistress of France. This
produced in their lives the most violent antithesis, something
as hyperbolically contrasted as one of Victor Hugo 's dramatic
conceptions. ' '

Scarron laid the foundation of the burlesque school with his

159

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

epic, Typlion, ou la Gigantomachie, in which Typhon rolls
tenpins with his friends, and when he is hit with a ball,
throws it into Olympus, whereupon war ensues between the
gods and the Titans, in which the latter are defeated. Scarron
was the creator of French travesty. His Virgile Travesti is a
travesty of Vergil's " JEneid." His most famous work is
the Roman Comique, in which he describes the lives and ad-
ventures of a wandering theatrical troupe in a refreshingly
natural and interesting manner. Of this, similarities can be
found in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Gautier's novel, Le
Capitaine Fracasse. Moliere, who was a zealous reader of
Scarron, borrowed several of his scenes for various plays of
his own; Sedaine took from him the idea of La Gageure
Imprevue (The Unlooked for Wager). Scarron 's La Maza-
rinade, a bitter satire against Cardinal Mazarin, cost him his
pension as Malade de la Reine; x but his style of writing was
very much in vogue, and his comedies, the best of which is
Jodelet, ou le Maitre Valet, yielded him an income. Scarron
is known to posterity as the creator of the burlesque genre.
He himself composed a burlesque testament, and a touching
epitaph which has remained famous :

Celui qui cy maintenant dort

Fit plus de piti6 que d'envie,
Et souffrit mille fois la mort

Avant que de perdre la vie.

Passant, ne f ais ici de bruit,

Garde bien que tu ne 1'e" veilles :
Car voici la premiere nuit

Que le pauvre Scarron sommeille.*

1 Madame de Hautefort obtained for Scarron an audience with the
Queen, Anne of Austria, who granted him a pension of five hundred
feus, for which he jestingly took the title of " Scarron, par la grace de
Dieu, malade indigne de la Reine" (Scarron, by the grace of God, un-
worthy patient of the Queen). Queen Christine of Sweden said to him:
"The Queen of France has created you her malade, I make you my
Roland."

2 He who now sleeps here inspired pity rather than envy, and suffered
death a thousand times before he lost his life. Passer-by, be very careful
not to wake him, for this is the first night that poor Scarron slumbers.

160

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Of all the burlesque poets, Scarron alone has survived,
and this genre in which he excelled disappeared with him.
Charles Coupeau d'Assouci, a burlesque poet coming after
Scarron, and who gave himself the title of ' ' Emperor of Bur-
lesque, first of the name," is only remembered by Boileau's
verses :

Le plus mauvais plaisant cut des approbateurs,
Et jusqu' a d'Assouci, tout trouva des lecteurs.1

Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) was a fore-
runner of the Encyclopedists of the eighteenth century. His
works bizarre, but interesting, had the characteristics of the
burlesque, the precieux and the libertin.2 His two best works
are the satirical and fantastic descriptions of voyages: " His-
toire comique^des Etats et Empire de la Lune, and Histoire
comique des Etats et Empire du Soleil, in which he describes
his trips to the moon3 and sun, satirises society, criticises
current opinions and puts forth scientific questions. Swift
in Gulliver's Travels, Voltaire in Micromegas, and Fontenelle
in Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes have imitated de
Bergerac. Jules Verne described a trip to the moon two
hundred years .after. From Bergerac 's Pedant joue, into
which he introduced a peasant speaking his dialect, Moliere
took two scenes for his Fourberies de Scapin. The character
Se janus in Bergerac 's tragedy, la Mort d'Agrippine, voices the

1 The worst buffoon had approvers and even d'Assouci found readers.

2 Libertin in the sixteenth century in France was one who professed
liberty, in matters religous; and the libertins were a class of people who
opposed the theocratic system of Calvin in Geneva and his regulation of
their private life. In the seventeenth century libertin also expressed a
tendency of the mind and not of manners. The greatest libertins of that
century were the poet The"ophile de Viau, the writers Saint-Evremond,
Chapelle, and Fontenelle, who formed a transition between the great
skeptics of the sixteenth century, Montaigne, etc., and those free-thinkers,
the philosophers of the eighteenth century.

3 Bergerac is supposed to have found inspiration for his Voyage a la
lune in Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moon, translated from the Eng-
lish and published in Paris in 1648. However, the original manuscript of
Bergerac 's Voyage a la lune recently discovered in the Royal Library at
Munich, shows the dates 1641-1643 (the manuscript in the National
Library at Paris gives the date 1649-1650).

12 161

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

sentiments of the libertins of the day. Cyrano de Bergerac
has lately made his bow before the public again as the hero
of Rostand's drama.

Antoine Furetiere (1.619-1688) in his Roman Bourgeois.
attacked the sentimental writings then in vogue, and showed
the courage of his convictions by ridiculing the sentimentali-
ties and affectations of society, and by portraying life among
the middle classes — a thing unheard of ; in fact, it was consid-
ered an audacity to write a story in which princes and prin-
cesses, shepherds and shepherdesses did not play the leading
parts. Furetiere also compiled a dictionary of some import-
ance ; this the French Academy considered an infringement for
which it excluded Furetiere from its number.

Marc Antoine Gerard, Sieur de Saint- Amant (1594r-1661)
was the most celebrated and curious of the bacchanalian poets
of France in the seventeenth century. In his poems Albion,
and Rome ridicule, he is burlesque. In Les Goinfres ( The
Gluttons), Le Melon, etc., he is a "veritable genius, the poetic
drinker, the chief and Anacreon of gluttons and haunters of
cabarets, who swear only by the cup. ' ' By turns fantastic and
realistic Saint- Amant was famous for his rustic and home-life
descriptions.

Bernade de La Monnoye was gifted with satirical humor
together with a taste for the beautiful and the curious in lit-
erature. When the Abbe de La Riviere, Bishop of Langres
died, he left one hundred ecus to the poet who would write
his epitaph. La Monnoye undertook it :

Ci-git un tres grand personnage,

Qui fut d'un illustre lignage,

Qui posse'da mille vertus,

Qui ne trompa jamais et qui fut tou jours sage, . . .

Je n'en dirai pas da vantage :

C'est trop mentir pour cent

1 Here lies a very great personage,
Who was of illustrious lineage,
Who possessed a thousand virtues,
Who never deceived and always was wise, . . .
I will say no more;

For one hundred crowns these are too many lies.
162

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Valentin Conrart, a literary man and a frequenter of the
Hotel de Rambouillet, and of the " Saturdays " of Mademoi-
selle de Scudery, established a literary salon of his own,
comprising about eight men of letters who met once a week
at his house. They talked literature, they discussed their own
works and projects, and enlightened one another with their
counsels. This is the origin of the famous Academic Fran-
caise; and these modest litterateurs — Conrart, Godeau, Gom-
bault, Habert, Malleville, Chapelain, Desmarets, Serizay —
were the first members of that remarkable institution. Riche-
lieu informed of these reunions, offered to organize this soci-
ety as a public body under the protection of the king (1635)
in emulation of the Crusca in Florence. Richelieu's proposi-
tion was accepted, and the French Academy was formally con-
stituted in 1637 by letters patent of King Louis XIII. The
name Academy comes from Academe, the land belonging to
Academos, a mythical Greek hero of the Trojan War. This
land near Athens, planted with trees and surrounded by
walls, was used as a gymnasium where Plato taught philosophy
to his disciples. Up to 1635 the number of members of the
French Academy had not yet reached thirty, but in 1637 the
number was increased to forty, which was never exceeded.

Under the pretext of honoring the society, of elevat-
ing the character of the man of letters, and giving him more
importance in the state, there were admitted some personages
more eminent by their birth or their functions than by any
literary distinction. Louis XIV having been declared the
protector of the Academy, the title of Academician had its
place in the hierarchy of the court, and was coveted by the
greatest lords of France and the highest dignitaries of state
and church. Although to-day the tendency is toward the
selection of members on the basis of literary qualifications,
originally this was not the case. As late as the end of the
eighteenth century, Voltaire wrote: " The French Academy
contains prelates, noblemen, lawyers, professors, and even
some writers. ' ' .

The Academy was to occupy itself solely with the French
language — to purify it and to fix it by the publication of a
dictionary, a grammar, and poetics. At Richelieu's request
the Academy was charged with compiling and editing a dic-

163

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

tionary " which would bring the French language to its
highest perfection in designating a means of reaching the
highest degree of eloquence." Vaugelas was put in charge
of directing the enterprise. The dictionary then became the
principal occupation of the Academy, but the first edition *
did not appear until 1694. The slowness with which it pro-
gressed made it the object of much raillery. An epigram
on it by Boisrobert is famous :

Depuis six mois sur 1'F on travaille,

Et le destin m'aurait fort oblig6

S'il m'avait dit: tu vivras jusqu' au G.2

In 1663, Colbert, minister of Louis XIV, appointed a
committee of four (from the forty members) called La Petite
Academic, whose special work it was to conduct the composi-
tion and editing of the inscriptions on public monuments.
Later this name was changed to Academie Royale des Inscrip-
tions et Belles-Lettres. A third branch or class, the Academie
des Sciences, was added to the original Academy by Colbert
in 1666.

For a long time the Academy had no fixed abode, but met
at the different private houses, until Louis XIV assigned it
a hall in the Louvre, which it held until 1793 (Year II of the
Republican Calendar), when it was dissolved by the Conven-
tion. In 1795, the Directoire reestablished the Academy
(three branches) under the name of Institut National, to
which Napoleon I added the fourth class or branch, the
Academie des Beaux-Arts. The fifth branch, the Academie
des Sciences Morales et Politiques was added in 1832 at
Guizot's suggestion. Each of these five branches is composed
of forty regular members (except the Academie des sciences,
which has sixty-eight), and a great number of associates and
correspondents. Every regular member receives 1500 francs,
and the secretary of each branch, 6000 francs annually. Each
branch meets independently of the others, except once a year

1 The last (seventh) appeared in 1877.

2 For six months they have been working on F,
Fate would have been kind to me
Had it said: " You will live till G."
164

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

(October 25th), when a great general assemblage of all the
members takes place in the Palais de 1'Institut.

The first branch, the Academic Franchise and its forty
immortels,1 exerts a powerful influence on the progress of
literature, owing to the numerous annual prizes it bestows
upon the worthy works of French literature; besides which
it has the disposal of several prizes to reward noble deeds.
" The Academy has impressed on the minds of the nation
the idea that the glory of literature is an integral and neces-
sary part of the greatness of a people." The Academy's
original statutes are almost unaltered, and at the present time
it works daily on its dictionary and grammar. It also criti-
cises, approves, or disapproves, and judges the works it under-
takes to crown.

Since 1806, the general name of the five branches has been
Institut de France, with the various qualifying adjectives —
royal, imperial, or national — added according to the form of
governments. And this Institut de France occupies the first
place among all the Institutes in the world.

1 The term immortel is used in a Society (and especially the Acade"mie
Fran9aise) in which deceased members are immediately replaced.

CHAPTER XII

COBNEILLE

LYRIC poetry was expiring and the tendency of poetry
became by turns preeieux, burlesque, and fantastic. The novel,
too, was subject to the fashion of the hour — exotic, descrip-
tive, historical — but, interminable and mediocre, it could not
survive its day, except the realistic novel of Sorel and the
Roman comique of Scarron.

The theater on the contrary improved, and soon put forth
masterpieces. When Hardy was still the great and almost
sole purveyor of pieces for the stage, the simultaneous decora-
tions 1 of the old mysteries were still in use, the scenes being
reduced in size and placed in close juxtaposition according
to the space allowed ; and the plays were confused and uneven.
In his Mort d'Alexandre, the first two acts were taken up in
the expression of portentous omens and sinister forebodings ;
in the third, Alexander was poisoned; and during the entire
two last acts he died.

From about 1628, a number of poets made their debut in
tragedy: Theophile de Viau in Pyrame et Thisbe* Racan,
Rotrou, Francois 1'Hermite, known as Tristan, whose Mari-
amne became famous, du Ryer, Desmarets, La Calprenede, etc.
Tragedy found its form with the establishment of the ' ' three
unities," which were employed for the first time in Jean
Mairet's tragedy Sophonisbe (1629). The three unities: the
unity of action, of time, and of place were considered the

*The grouping side by side on the stage of all the places where the
action is to occur.

2 Le voila, ce poignard, qui du sang de son maltre
S'est souill^ lachement: il en rougit, le traitre.

(Here is the dagger which, with its master's blood
Has dastardly stained itself: it blushes, the wretch.)

166

constituent and necessary elements of tragedy, as interpreted
by the Italians from Aristotle's Poetica (Chapter VII), and
which Mairet imitated. The critics of different countries in-
terpreted these rules more or less correctly, and later it was
established that while Aristotle insisted on unity of action
as indispensable to the beauty of the drama, he only advocated
strongly the observance of the unity of time (twenty-four
hours) , and did not mention unity of place. When Corneille's
Cid appeared, the question was agitated and the original in-
terpretation of the rules was made authoritative. Chapelain
and d'Aubignac helped to impose them and later Boileau
reduced them to an exact formula :

Qu'en un lieu, qu'en un jour, un seul fait accompli
Tienne jusqu' a la fin le theatre rempli.1

The insistence of the " three unities " eliminated the pastoral
and the tragi-comedy, and with the Cid, Corneille became the
true creator of tragedy. The Cid marks the definite constitu-
tion of tragedy; the adherence to the three unities,2 a close
study of the soul and the sustaining of the dramatic interest.
Corneille's tragedies reflect history and politics, and show
an original conception of the sovereign will, together with
loftiness of thought and heroism of sentiment; whence has
come the phrase ecole de grandeur d'dme. (school of
magnanimity). Racine in his eulogy of Corneille, delivered
before the Academy said : ' ' You well know in what state you
found the drama when he began to work. What disorder!
What irregularity! All the rules of art, even those of fitness
and decorum were violated. In this infancy, or more properly
speaking, in this chaos of the dramatic poem among us,

1 Let one single deed accomplished in one place, in one day,
Keep the stage filled until the end.

2 Not a strict adherence, however; Corneille interpreted unity of time
to mean the minimum of duration in time; unity of place, the minimum
of variation in place, and unity of action, the maximum of verisimilitude.
(G. Lanson.)

The Preface of Cromwell (considered the manifesto of the Romantic
school) of Victor Hugo overthrew the rule of the "three unities," in-
sisting alone upon the unity of action as indispensable to a masterpiece.

167

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Corneille after having for some time sought the right path
and fought against the bad taste of his century, finally, in-
spired by an extraordinary genius, and aided by the knowl-
edge of the ancients, caused rationality to appear on the stage,
accompanied by all the splendor, all the embellishments of
which our language is capable; he happily adjusted the real
with the ideal and left well behind him all his rivals. ' '

Before Moliere, comedy in France was but lightly esteemed,
and the taste of the public turned to tragedy. Comedies
were contrived by the tragic poets between tragedies, by way
of recreation; for tragedies they reserved the best of their
talent. Thus we have Cyrano de Bergerac's Pedant Joue, a
bizarre buffoonery from which Moliere borrowed the scene de
la galere, and another scene in Les Fourberies de Scapin.
(The Impostures of Scapin) ; Scudery's Trompeur Puni (The
punished Deceiver), the Comedie des Comedies, etc.; Tristan
PHermite's Folie du Sage (The Wise Man's Folly) ; Rotrou's
La Hague de I'Oubli (The Ring of Oblivion), Diane (Diana),
etc.; and, finally, Corneille 's youthful comedies, so free and
brilliant in versification, Le Menteur1 (The Fibber), and La
Suite du Menteur. Le Menteur is a character picture, but not
yet a character comedy. Corneille, for the first time, put a
character into comedy, but he did not know how to build a
comedy on this character. However, this was already a con-
siderable progress over what had preceded, and the road to
great comedy was open. Corneille was thus the creator of
good comedy in France as he had been of true tragedy. Be-
fore him nothing piquant, witty, or particularly amusing had
appeared since " 1'Avocat Patelin." M. E. Mennechet says:
" In order to meet with some traces of French gayety, it is
necessary to turn one 's steps to the Pont-Neuf , where opposite
the statue of Henry IV, the charlatan Mondor and his asso-
ciate Tabarin made the crowd merry by burlesque and buf-
foonery, while selling a balsam which they proclaimed a uni-
versal remedy. Many great lords and noble ladies stopped
their carriages to listen to their witticisms. Among the actors
in the open were three: Gros-Gruillaume, Gauthier-Garguille,

1 From the Spanish comedy La verdad sospechosa (The Suspicions
Truth), by Don Juan Ruiz de Alarcon.

168

CORNEILLE

and Turlupin, who drew such crowds that the comedians of
the king, who were playing at the Hotel de Bourgogne, became
jealous of their success and complained to Richelieu. The re-
sult of this was that the Cardinal called the three mounte-
banks to play before him in a corner of his palace, arid they
amused him to such an extent that he advised the royal play-
ers to take the three jugglers into partnership. A hint from
the Cardinal meant a command, and soon Gros-Guillaume,
Gauthier-Garguille and Turlupin were installed in the Hotel
de Bourgogne, to act their farces between the tragedies of the
legitimate players. Soon the rival Theatre du Marais fol-
lowed this example and played farces which shared the public
favor with the tragedies of Rotrou and Corneille, and opened
the field for the comic poet.

Pierre Corneille, born at Rouen in 1606, of a family of
state officials, had been destined for the bar from his child-
hood. He was advocate general at the " Marble Table of
Rouen. ' ' a His literary career began with the comedy Melite
in 1629. Tradition has it that Corneille introduced in'oO this
comedy an adventure of his own life : Corneille was introduced
by a friend to a young girl whom this friend loved dearly.
Corneille supplanted the friend in the young girl's affections
just as, in Melite, Tirsis supplants Eraste with Melite. His
love Corneille has immortalized in the following verses :

J'ai brule fort longtemps d'une amour assez grande,
Et que jusqu'au tombeau je dels bien estimer,
Puisque ce fut par la que j'appris a rimer.
Mon bonheur commen^a quand mon ame fut prise:
Je gagnai de la gloire en pendant ma franchise.*

Other comedies soon followed: Clitandre, la Veuve (The
Widow), la Galerie du Palais, la Suivante (The Waiting

1 The Table de Marbre was a tribunal of appeal from the decisions of
the magistrates (maitres des eaux et forets), who had authority over the
whole extent of their jurisdiction (matirises) .

2 For a long time I was consumed by a great love,
Which, even to the grave, I ought well to prize,
Since it was through it that I learnt to rhyme:

My happiness began when my heart was captured:
Losing my freedom, I gained glory.

169

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Maid), la Place royale. These comedies were witty and amus-
ing without being coarse. About 1633 Corneille was presented
to Richelieu and became one of his ' ' five authors. ' ' Richelieu
himself was ambitious to shine as an author and wrote some
plays by a peculiar method of collaboration. He would
choose a subject, indicate its division into acts and intrust
the versification of each act to one of the five poets: Bois-
robert, 1'Estoile, Colletet, Rotrou, and Pierre Corneille. He
reserved for himself the task of binding together all these
parts written separately, and interjected verses of his own
making. After the first attempt, La Comedie des Tuileries,
naturally a weak production, Corneille withdrew from this im-
possible union, much to Richelieu's chagrin. In this manner
the tragedy of Mirame was composed. Richelieu displayed a
fatherly tenderness for this drama, the representation of which
cost him a sum equivalent to 200,000 or 300,000 ecus, and for
which he had a theater built in his palace, now the Palais
Royal.1 " The applause bestowed upon this tragedy over-
joyed the Cardinal. From time to time he arose and left his
box to show himself to the spectators; again, he would order
silence, in order to have the most beautiful passages admired. ' '
Corneille 's tragedy Medee, appeared in 1635, and the Illu-
sion comique in 3636, and in the same year the Cid had its
first performance in Paris, and was received with unbounded
enthusiasm. "It is difficult to imagine," says Pellisson,
" with what approbation this piece was received by the court
and the public. People did not grow tired of it; nothing else
was heard in society ; everyone knew a part by heart ; the
children were taught it, and in some parts of France, ' beau-
tiful as the Cid ' became a saying. ' ' The court caught the
spirit and wished to see the tragedy which had created such
a sensation. The comedians wi^re commanded to play it three
times at the palace of the Louvite, and twice at the Cardinal's
palace. Even criticism was silent for a moment; carried
away by the popular current, stunned by the success of the
play, the rivals of Corneille seemed to join the multitude of

1 This Palais Cardinal, built by Richelieu, was presented by him to the
King, and served for a long time as a residence for the princes of Orleans.
The famous glass gallery, called the " GaKerie d' Orleans," under the old
rdgime a rendezvous for gamblers and libertines, was opened in 1829.

170

CORNEILLE

his admirers. But soon they got their breath again, and their
first sign of life was an act of resistance to the torrent which
threatened to carry them away. With the exception of
Rotrou, who was capable of understanding and enjoying
Corneille, the uprising of the playwrights was unanimous.
The malcontents and the envious ones had found in Riche-
lieu an ardent and powerful auxiliary. The struggle became
ardent and bitter. Much was written in praise or blame.

Balzac wrote to Scudery, who had sent him his observa-
tions on the Cid: " Consider, Sir, that all France makes
common cause with Corneille, and that there is, perhaps, not
one of the judges who — in spite of the rumor that you have
conspired together — has not praised the work which you
desire him to condemn. So, even if your arguments were in-
vincible, and your adversary were to acquiesce, he would
still have good reasons to console himself upon the loss of the
suit, and to tell you that it is something more to have satisfied
an entire kingdom than to have written a conventional play.
This being so, I do not doubt that the gentlemen of the Acad-
emy will find themselves hindered in a favorable judgment of
your suit ; on the one hand, your reasoning will not shake them,
and, on the other, the public approval will restrain them. You
are victorious in the Cabinet ; Corneille has won in the theater.
If the Cid is guilty, it is of a crime that has been rewarded ;
if he is punished, it will be only after a triumph. If Plato
must banish him (the Cid) from his republic, he must crown
him with flowers while banishing him, and treat him no worse
than he once treated Homer."

A polemic, still celebrated, appeared under the name of
the " Quarrel of the Cid," and nothing was heard on the
streets, it is said, except the cries of the sellers of pamphlets
for, or against the Cid. The public remained faithful to the
play, so the Cardinal craftily resolved to defer his judgment
to the Academy, thus exacting from it an act of homage to
him, under cover of deference to the predominant opinion.
The Academy edited its Sentiments in December, 1637, but
they did not satisfy the Cardinal. Corneille showed great
displeasure, and said : ' ' The Academy proceeds against me
with so much violence, and employs such a sovereign authority
to close my mouth, that my sole satisfaction rests in thinking

171

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

that the famous work on which so many brilliant minds have
labored for six months, may, indeed, be deemed the sentiment
of the French Academy. But perhaps this will not be the
sentiment of the rest of Paris. I have created the Cid for
my own recreation and that of people of taste, who delight
in the play."

Corneille did not further defend himself; but the public,
less docile, persisted in its opinion. It was as Boileau said,
later on :

En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue.

Tout Paris pour Chimene a les yeux de Rodrigue.

L' Academic en corps a beau le censurer,

Le public, re volte, s'obstine a I'admirer.1

The struggle was terminated, and the Cardinal's anger ceased;
and when Horace appeared in 1639, the dedicatory epistle
was addressed to the Cardinal. In the same year, Cinna
placed the reputation of the great poet at its height.

Corneille returned to the obscurity of private life which
agreed with the simplicity of his manners. It is said the
Cardinal helped him to get married. Corneille lived at
Rouen, in a house adjoining that of his younger brother,
Thomas,2 already well known through some comedies which
had been successful. The two brothers married two sisters :

Les deux maisons ne faisaient qu'une;
Les clefs, la bourse etait commune;

Les femmes n'etaient jamais deux;
Tous les VCKUX etaient unanimes :

Les enfants confondaient leurs jeux;
Les peres se pretaient leurs rimes;

Le meme vin coulait pour eux.3

1 In vain a minister leagues himself against the Cid; all Paris sees
Chimene through Rodrigue's eyes. The Academy in a body has censured
it in vain; the public, indignant, persists in admiring it.

2 When Corneille was at a loss for a rhyme to complete a verse, he would
open a small slide leading to his brother's room, exclaiming, for instance:
"Sans souci, a rhyme."

3 The two houses made but one; the keys, the purse were in common;
the women were of one accord; all wishes were unanimous; the children
mingled in their sports, the fathers lent each other their rhymes, the same
wine ran for them.

172

CORNEILLE

In Polyeucte (1643), Corneille's style is loftier and purer,
his thoughts more exact. This play marked a second revolu-
tion in endeavoring to overturn paganism, which was the pre-
vailing idea of the theater. Corneille had dedicated this piece
to the regent Anne of Austria. Richelieu was no longer
present to impose his judgment, and Corneille wrote :

Qu'on parle bien ou mal du fameux Cardinal,
Ma prose ni mes vers n'en diront jamais rien;

II m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal,
II m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien! J

About the same time, Corneille's comedy Le Menteur appeared
upon the stage.

There were three periods in the career of Corneille. The
first comprised: Clitandre, La Galerie du Palais, La Veuve,
La Place Roy ale, L' Illusion; the second, his best period: Le
Cid, Horace, Cinna, Polyeucte, La Mort de Pompee, Nicomede,
Rodogune; the third: Sophonisbe, Sertorius, Othon, CEdipe,
Agesilas, Pulcherie, Attila, Surena. The last plays were not
worthy of his genius.

Corneille had announced that he had given up the theater ;
and he translated the " Imitation of Christ," in verses. " It
is better," he had written in his preface to Pertharite, " that
I resign of my own volition, than that I be dismissed entirely ;
it is right, that after twenty years of work I begin to notice
that I am growing too old to be still fashionable. ' ' After six
years of retirement he again appeared with CEdipe. Fouquet
had recalled the genius of Corneille to the theater, and the
poet wrote:

Je sens le meme feu, je sens la meme audace
Qui fit plaindre "le Cid," qui fit combattre "Horace;"
Et je me trouve encore la main qui crayonna
L'ame du grand Pompee et 1'esprit de Cinna.2

1 Let them speak well or ill of the famous Cardinal : neither in prose nor
verse will I ever speak of him. He has done me too much good for me to
speak evil of him; he has done me too much evil for me to speak good of
him.

* I feel the same fire, I feel the same boldness which made the Cid to be
pitied, which made Horace fight; and I still find myself the hand which
drew the soul of the great Pompey and the mind of Cinna.

173

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

" Pierre Corneille," says Faguet, " is the first man of
great genius who appeared in France, and he remains one of
the four or five great tragic poets of all time. He spent
some ten years writing romantic, or even buffoon comedies;
yet those pieces are still read with pleasure. Later on, he
formed a conception of human greatness which became his
conception of tragic greatness."

Corneille, in his energetic, sometimes sublime verses, de-
picted men as they should be. " He moves us as before a
masterpiece, he warms us with the rumor of a fine action, and
he intoxicates us with the sole idea of a virtue removed from
us forever by the space of three thousand years," said La
Bruyere. Every other thought, every other preoccupation
is strange to the poet; his characters breathe heroic passions
which they pursue without turning aside or allowing them-
selves to be fettered by a mortality still imperfectly fixed, and
often opposed by the interests and engagements of factions;
and thus he remains supremely a man of his time and of his
country, while at the same time depicting Greeks, Romans,
Spaniards. He does not preach virtue, but the heroism of his
characters pervades the mind of the reader — it appeals to our
better nature, our thoughts are purified and elevated — at such
heights poetry and morals blend. La Bruyere says : ' ' When
a book elevates the mind, do not seek another rule for passing
judgment on the work ; it is well made, and made by a master
hand." The poet used to say smilingly, when reproached for
the slowness and sterility of his conversation: " I am none
the less Pierre Corneille." The world has passed the same
judgment on his works; in spite of the failures of his last
years, he has remained the " great Corneille."

" The style of Corneille," says Demogeot, " is the merit
by which he excels. The touch of the poet is crude, severe
and rigorous, with but little adornment and color. It is warm
rather than brilliant; he is fond of turning to the abstract,
and imagination yields to thought and reason. On the whole,
Corneille, a pure genius, incomplete in his grandeur and his
faults, creates for me the effect of those great trees, bare,
rugged, sad, and monotonous of trunk, covered with branches
and dark verdure only at the summit. Such trees are vig-
orous, powerful, gigantic, with little foliage; abundant sap

174

CORNEILLE

rises in them. But do not expect shelter, nor shade, nor
flowers. ' '

Brunetiere writes of the tragedy of Corneille: "It is
beautiful, it is wonderful, it is sublime, it is not human, nor
living, nor true." But writes Lanson: " M. Brunetiere is
severe. Corneille 's heroes are exceptional creatures; the de-
ranged or passive heroes of the contemporaneous novel or
drama, are they of a more normal and proportional nature?
And is it not just as legitimate to select in the general human-
ity some exceptional beings, as to depict conditions which are
not common except in extreme and particular cases of human-
ity ? And adds Lanson : ' ' How the tragedy of Corneille takes
color and life! When one reads it the imagination is filled
with the political history of the times. It appears as a clear
concentration of moral traits, dispersed in the Memoires of de
Retz and of Saint-Simon, in the letters and the papers of the
ministers and ambassadors! It is to the France of Louis
XIII what Le Rouge et le Noir 1 or the novels of Balzac are
to the France of Charles X or Louis Philippe. . . . One has
never entertained doubt as to the influence Corneille could
exercise ; his tragedy is a school for the greatness of the soul. It
incites aspiration to great efforts, to noble passions, to heroic
sacrifices. Never has public opinion varied in this respect."

Corneille 's conception of tragedy is the exaltation of
the sovereign will above the fatality of the passions, and it is
from this standpoint — the sovereignty of the will — that Cor-
neille regards the human soul. His heroes are masters of
themselves :

Qu' importe de mon cceur, si je sais mon devoir? *

Aristie in Sertorius.

Je suis maitre de moi comme de 1'univers:

Je le suis, je veux 1'etre. O siecles, 6 memoire, v^^

Conservez a jamais ma derniere victoire ! 3

Auguste in Cinna.

1 Red and Black, by Henri Beyle, known by the nom de plume of
Stendhal.

2 What matters about my heart, if I know my duty?
8 1 am master of myself as I am of the universe:

I am, it is my will that I be. Oh, ages, oh, memory,
, Retain forever my last victory!

175

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

Sur mes passions ma raison souveraine.1

Pauline in Polyeucte.
Je suis fort peu de chose,
Mais enfin de mon cceur moi-meme je dispose.2

Dirc6 in (Edipe.

Faites votre devoir et laissez faire aux dieux.*

Old Horace in Horace.

Lanson says the Cornelian sublimity lies therein that the
whole soul, when the crucial moment comes, reaches with a
single impulse toward the good. Examine, he says, the places
where one feels the indefinable impression to which the word
" sublime " has been applied:

Je suis jeune il est vrai ; mais aux ames bien nees,
La vertu n 'attend pas le nombre des annees.4

Rodrigue in the Cid.

Que vouliez-vous qu'il fit centre trois? — Qu'il mourut! '

Horace.

Ou le conduisez-vous? —
— A la mort.
— A la gloire.8

Polyeucte.

Argument of Le Cid: Chimene, the daughter of Count
Gormas, loves Don Rodrigo, son of Don Diego. The king
names Don Diego tutor to his son, in consequence of which
Don Gormas, who feels himself entitled to the post, quarrels
with Don Diego and strikes him. As the latter is too old to
revenge himself, his son, Don Rodrigo, challenges Count

1 My sovereign reason over my passions.
2 1 am but very little,

But after all, I myself dispose of my heart.
3 Do your duty and leave the rest to the gods.

• I am young, 'tis true; but with generous souls
Courage waits not for the number of years.

• What would you have him do against three? — Die!

• "Where are you leading him? (asks Pauline).
"To death" (answers Felix).

"To glory" (replies Pauline).
176

CORNEILLE

Gormas and kills him in a duel. Chimene throws herself at
the feet of the king and begs him to punish Rodrigo, her
filial duty overpowering her love. Rodrigo, however, offers
his dagger to Chimene begging her to revenge herself on him.
Her love for him triumphs, and Rodrigo departs for the wars
against the Moors, against whom he wins a great victory, from
which he returns home as the Cid,1 and is lauded as the savior
of his country. Chimene persists in avenging her father and
promises to be the wife of him who kills the Cid in a duel.
Don Sanche is the rival of the Cid, and when vanquished by
the latter brings his sword to lay it at the feet of the king.
Chimene, thinking the Cid has been killed, pours forth her
grief. The king seeing this, apprises her of the Cid's vic-
tory in the duel, and decides that she marry the hero who has
never ceased to love her.

Many lines of this beautiful, powerful, and original trag-
edy have passed into proverbs :

Ses rides sur son front ont grave1 ses exploits.*

Rodrigue, as-tu du cceur? •
A vaincre sans pe"ril on triomphe sans gloire.*

Argument of Horace: The city of jEneas, and that of
Romulus — Alba and Rome — have been at war for a long time.
To put an end to useless shedding of blood, it has been
resolved to choose from both sides three champions and to
give first rank to that one of the two cities whose champions
are victorious. Alba chooses three brothers by the name of
Curiatii, and Rome three brothers by the name of Horatii.

1 The subject of Le Cid is taken from the Spanish author Guilhelm de
Castro. The title of Cid is said to have been given to Rodrigo de Bivar
(the principal national hero of Spain, famous for his exploits in the wars
with the Moors) because of the remarkable circumstance that five Moorish
kings or chiefs acknowledge him in one battle as their Seid, which is the
Arabic, as Cid is the Spanish word, for "chief." The name has become
proverbial to designate a young, intrepid warrior of chivalrous character.

1 The wrinkles on his brow have engraved his exploits.

3 Rodrigo, hast thou courage?

• In conquering without danger, one triumphs without glory.
13 .7

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

But one Horatius has married Sabina, sister of the Curiatii,
and one of the Curiatii is about to marry Camilla, sister of
the Horatii. Horatius and Curiatius love their country
equally; but Curiatius is overcome with emotion at being
obliged to fight against those who will be doubly his brothers-
in-law, while Horatius, on the contrary, from the moment
when the interest of Rome is at stake, knows no longer Curi-
atius, and thinks only of his country.

One of the most sublime scenes is that where old Horatius,
believing that his son has fled before the Curiatii, after having
seen his two brothers slain before his eyes, is angered, and
breaks out in threats against him. Soon he learns that his
son did not flee ; far from it, he killed the three Curiatii, and,
proud of his victory, he returns laden with the spoils of the
conquered. He meets his sister Camilla and asks her con-
gratulations. Camilla cares little for the glory of Rome;
what she sees in this triumph is the death of her betrothed,
and she curses her native city in a famous tirade that well
expresses the dramatic height attained in Horace:

Rome, 1 'unique objet de mon ressentiment!
Rome, a qui vient ton bras d'immoler mon amant!
Rome qui t'a vu naitre et que ton cceur adore!
Rome, enfin, que je hais parce qu'elle t'honore!
Puissent tous ses voisins, ensemble conjures,
Saper ses fondements encor mal assures!
Et si ce n'est assez de toute 1'Italie,
Que POrient centre elle a 1'Occident s'allie;
Que cent peuples unis des bouts de 1'univers
Passent pour la detruire et les monts et les mers!
Qu'elle-meme sur soi renverse ses murailles!
Et de ses prop res mains de"chire ses entrailles!
Que le courroux du ciel allumS par mes vceux
Fasse pleuvoir sur elle un deluge de feux !
Puisse"-je de mes yeux y voir tomber ce foudre,
Voir ses maisons en cendre, et tes lauriers en poudre,
Voir le dernier Romain a son dernier soupir,
Moi seule en etre cause, et mourir de plaisir! l

Rome, the sole object of my hatred!
Rome, for which thy arm has just slain my lover!
Rome, which gave thee birth and that thy heart idolizes!
ITS

CORNEILLE

Hearing those blasphemies, Horatius rushes upon his sis-
ter and kills her. What will the Romans do? Shall they
condemn Horatius who has just given them their victory?
The judges condemn, but the people absolve him.

Horace is founded on the historical story related by Livy,
of the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii. Of all the
plays of Corneille, it is the most realistic in its dialogue,
characters, and actions; the second and third acts are among
the most sublime he has ever created.

Argument of Cinna (or, the Clemency of Augustus) :
The Emperor Augustus has intrusted Cinna, grandson of
the great Pompey, with high offices and much power. Cinna
loves Emilia, who although she returns his love, will not con-
sent to marry him, unless he avenges the death of her father,
who was executed by order of Augustus. Cinna then forms
a conspiracy with the principal citizens of Rome, and comes
to inform Emilia of the resolutions of the conspirators. His
recital is scarcely ended, when a message of the Emperor
summons him to the palace. Cinna, believing all to be lost,
prepares to die; but Augustus, tired of the cares of empire,
merely wishes to consult with him as to whether or not to ab-
dicate. Cinna, who fears to lose the opportunity of revenging
Emilia, prevails upon him with great eloquence to continue
reigning. Then Maximus, another aspirant for the hand of
Emilia, and jealous of Cinna, reveals the conspiracy to Augus-
tus, who has the conspirators seized, but resolves upon clem-

Rome, in short, which I hate because she honors thee!
May all her neighboring states together conspiring
Undermine her still insecure foundations!
And if the whole of Italy be not strong enough,
Let the East with the West join against her;
May a hundred peoples from the ends of the earth
Cross, to destroy her, both mountains and seas!
May she tear down her walls over herself
And with her own hands pluck out her entrails!
May the wrath of Heaven kindled by my prayers
Cause a deluge of fire to pour down upon her!
May I with my own eyes watch the bolt fall,
See her houses reduced to ashes, and thy laurels to dust,
See the last Roman drawing his last breath;
I alone be the cause of it all, and die exulting!
179

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ency. He overwhelms Cinna with proofs of the plot and the
remembrance of benefits conferred. Cinna expects only death,
but Augustus forgives him, and disarms his hatred by the un-
expected words: " Soyons amis, Cinna " (" Let us be friends,
Cinna "), and unites him with Emilia, whose hatred yields
to the royal clemency.

Voltaire said: " But, true or false, this clemency of
Augustus is one of the noblest subjects of tragedy, one of
the most beautiful lessons for princes. It points a great
moral. This is, in my opinion, the master-work of Corneille,
in spite of some defects."

Argument of Polyeucte. Christianity has penetrated into
the Roman Empire, but is still persecuted. Felix, governor
of Armenia, has given his daughter, Pauline, in marriage
to Polyeucte, an Armenian lord whose credit may strengthen
the fortune of Felix. Pauline loves Severus, a Roman gen-
eral, and she yields, with regret, to the orders of her father.
Edicts are issued commanding that Christians be put to
death. Polyeucte converted by his friend, Nearches, be-
comes a Christian, and publicly breaks the images of the
false gods. Meanwhile, Severus, who was believed dead,
arrives in Armenia, having by his valorous deeds become a
favorite of the Emperor Decius. Felix, for fear of the Em-
peror's wrath, and seeing in Polyeucte 's death a chance for
gaining the Emperor's favorite as a son-in-law, has Poly-
eucte arrested. Pauline wants to save her husband, whom
she does not love; Severus unites his efforts with those of
Pauline to appease Felix. But this ambitious villain sees
in such generosity merely a trap, and hastens to destroy his
son-in-law. Polyeucte persists in confessing his faith; he
dies a martyr. His death arouses the admiration of Severus,
who promises to procure the Emperor's protection for the
new faith, and brings about the conversion of Felix and Pau-
line, whose words : " Je vois, je sais, je crois, je suis desabu-
see! " (I see, I know, I believe, I am undeceived) have be-
come proverbial as expressing a profound conviction.

The " Sun King " of that Age of Splendor did not shed
much of his gold upon Corneille. He was less generous to
the creator of French drama than to any other writer of his
reign. During the last months of his life, Corneille 's illness

180

CORNEILLE

exhausted his pecuniary resources. Boileau, who was in-
formed of his sad position, went straightway to Versailles and
offered to relinquish his own pension in favor of Corneille:
" I cannot," he said to Madame de Montespan, " receive
without shame, a pension from the King, while a man like
Corneille is deprived of it." Louis XIV hastened to send
one hundred louis to the illustrious patient, but two days
later Corneille died at the age of seventy-eight years (1684).
The nineteenth century would have justified his greatness and
his genius, for Napoleon Bonaparte said of him: " I would
have raised a poet like Corneille to the rank of a prince. ' '

CHAPTER XIII

TRANSITION OP MEDIAEVAL PHILOSOPHY — DESCARTES

DURING the Middle Ages, philosophy was the " hand-
maiden " of theology. The church was the only moral power
universally recognized. It treasured all the ancient culture —
art, learning, science — everything centered in the monasteries.
These were the schools (scola), the only places of instruc-
tion. Hence the term, scholasticism, which in reality meant
rather a method than a doctrine.

Porphyry1 in his celebrated Introduction to the Cate-
gories, translated into Latin by Boethius,2 sets forth the
problem: " Are the universals realities, or only abstract con-
ceptions? " This question agitated the scolastics and brought
about the quarrel of the " Universals," which gave rise to
three philosophical schools in the Middle Ages: the Realist,
the Nominalist, and the Conceptualist.

Professor Schwegler 3 says : ' ' Hand in hand with the
development of Scholasticism in general proceeded that of
the antithesis between nominalism and realism. The nom-
inalists were those who held universal notions (universalia)
to be mere names, empty conceptions without reality. The
realists held firm by the objective reality of the universals
(universalia ante res}. The antithesis of these opinions took
form first, as between Roscellinus,* as nominalist and Anselm,5

1 Melech, called Porphyry, a great philosopher and writer, was born in
Syria about 232 A.D., and taught philosophy in Rome.

1 Roman philosopher and poet of the sixth century.

3 Schwegler's History of Philosophy, translated and annotated by James
Hutchison Stirling, LL.D.

•Roscellinus, born in France about 1150, died about 1220, called the
founder of Nominalism.

• Saint- Anselm, born in Italy 1033, died at Canterbury 1109.

182

TRANSITION OF MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

as realist, and it continued henceforth throughout the whole
course of Scholasticism. There began as early as Abelard 1
(1079), an intermediate theory (conceptualism) as much
nominalistic as realistic,2 which after him remained the domi-
nant one (universalia in rebus). In this view the universal is
only conceived, only thought, but it possesses also objective
reality in the things themselves, nor could it be abstracted
from them unless it were virtually contained in them. All
the arguments of this school are founded on the assumption,
that whatever is syllogistically proved has exactly the same
constitution in actuality that it has in logical thought. ' '

Scholastic philosophy aimed to fit the truths of Christian-
ity, and Anselm's doctrine — credo ut intellegam (I believe
that I may understand) — is representative of that philosophy.
In his Proslogium, he sets forth his ontological argument of
the existence of God, which was combated by Gaunilon and
Abelard.

The doctrine of Aristotle, which flourished among the
Arabian schools, was brought to Europe by the Arabs in
Spain, in the eleventh century. From the twelfth century
until the Renaissance, the doctrines of Aristotle were repre-
sented as supreme authority in France.

In the thirteenth century, the University of Paris was
divided into two parties: the Thomists or partisans of the
philosophy of Saint-Thomas Aquinas2 and the Scotists or
partisans of Duns Scotus.3 Aquinas reproduced Aristotle's
philosophy as he interpreted it from the Latin translations
made from the Arabian. His doctrine was such an harmo-
nious combination of reason and faith, that it became the
theory officially taught in Catholic colleges. Duns Scotus

1 Pierre Abelard, born at Le Pallet, near Nantes, France, in 1079,
d-ed 1142.

2 Called the Doctor Angelicus and the Doctor UniversaKs.

3 Birthplace uncertain, Scotland or Ireland (Dunstanburgh Castle), in
"1265 or 1274; died in Cologne. Dempster gives twelve arguments why
Duns Scotus was a Scotchman. He studied at Oxford and became a
Franciscan friar and later a professor of philosophy and Doctor of the
University of Paris. Tradition says his lectures attracted thirty thousand
students. His name Duns became proverbial for a learned man, and
satirically used gave rise to the word dunce.

183

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

opposed Aquinas, contending that God's omnipotence was
not limited by reason. The Dominicans were more inclined
to the Thomists, the Franciscans to the Scotists. This was a
quarrel in which the clerical esprit de corps of the religious
orders was as much a factor as the astuteness of the philoso-
phers. On both sides were produced revelation, miracles,
arguments. Duns Scotus, in his defense of the doctrine of
the Immaculate Conception, is said to have refuted two hun-
dred objections held by the Dominicans against this doctrine.
His dialectical ingenuity in this controversy won for him the
title of Doctor Subtilis.

The abuse of dialectics and of useless abstractions, led
some philosophical minds to mysticism, and some to the
natural sciences. Saint Bonaventure, surnamed the " Ser-
aphic Doctor," one of the great theologians of the Middle
Ages was a mystic, and taught that truth could only be
attained with the aid of supernatural favor Roger Bacon,
an English monk living in Paris, was one of the greatest repre-
sentatives of experimental science. On acount of his great
learning and of his inventions, he was called by his admirers,
the " Doctor Mirabilis, " but his enemies prosecuted him for
sorcery. Bacon's persecution was due to the fact that he no
longer made philosophy entirely subservient to theology, but
opposed clerical dogma, insisted on the reformation of the
system of teaching, and announced the reform of .science
and the church.

Philosophy identified with theology, a dangerous alliance,
resulted in the proclamation of two truths — reason and
religion. Roger Bacon and his disciple, William of Occam,1
approached the experimental method, and they have sometimes
been called the precursors of critical philosophy,2 and some-
times of empiricism.3 Jean Buridan, like his master Occam,
was a nominalist, but inclined to determinism,4 and to repre-

1 Born in England 1270; died at Munich in 1347; doctor of philoo-
ophy and theology in Paris; was called the Doctor Invinciblis and Sin-
gularis.

2 Analysis of reason. Kant was the founder of critical philosophy.

J Method relying on direct experience and observation rather than on
theory. John Locke was the originator of empiricism.
• The doctrine that will is determined by motives.

184

TRANSITION OF MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

sent causeless motivation of the will as a deception. It was
he who, in a discussion on free will, used the famous sophism
of the ass, placed between a bushel of oats and a bucket of
water, and dying of hunger through eternal indecision which
to satisfy first, his thirst or his hunger. This argument, which
made him more famous than his writings, cannot be found in
any of his works, and is supposed to be a souvenir of his oral
recitations.

The change from scholasticism — philosophy subservient
to religion — to modern philosophy — independent reason —
was affected by the growth of science, and the great revolu-
tions in that field (Copernicus,1 Galileo,2 Kepler3); by the
revival, with the Renaissance movement, of letters, and of all
the ancient systems of philosophy: Platonism,4 Neoplato-
ism,5 Peripateticism,6 Pythagoricism,7 Skepticism,8 Epicure-
anism,9 Stoicism,10 and Mysticism.11

The modern period of philosophy, shows a sharp opposi-
tion to the mediaeval. Scientific inquiry turned the thoughts
of men to the contemplation of nature, and this led to the
independent reasoning of the individual, and consequent
emancipation from established authority, and finally, to Skep-

1 A Prussian, the founder of modern astronomy (1473-1543). He ad-
vanced the theory that the planets revolved around the sun.

I A famous Italian astronomer and physicist (1564-1642).
3 A famous German astronomer (1571-1630).

• Doctrine of Plato, a famous Greek philosopher, disciple of So-
crates, teacher of Aristotle, and founder of the Academic School, fifth
century.

• Philosophy originating with Ammonius Saccas in Alexandria in the
third century.

9 The philosophy of Aristotle taught in the walks of the Lyceum at
Athens (from peripatetic — walking about).

T Doctrine of Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher and mathematician,
sixth century, B.C.

8 Also Pyrrhonism, a school of philosophy founded by Pyrrho, a Greek
philosopher, third century, B.C.

• Doctrine of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, fourth century, B.C.

10 School of philosophy founded by Zeno, a Greek philosopher, third
century, B.C.

II A sort of rationalistic philosophy of magic evolved from the union of
the first discoveries in physics and the traditions of the Kabbala (a mystic
philosophy of the Hebrew religion).

185

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

ticism. Francis Bacon 1 and Descartes,2 the founders of
modern philosophy, were skeptics.

Descartes introduced a new method in the application of
reason to metaphysics. He inaugurated the modern reaction
by doing away with all prejudices and all presuppositions,
by doubting everything he could, in order to see what refused
to be doubted, leaving a starting point. The fundamental
principle of his philosophy is cogito ergo sum (I think, there-
fore I am). He started with this fundamental proposition
and used it as a criterion for establishing other truths. These
were his innate ideas. From the general, he deduced the
particular, looking to mathematical science for his method
and precision. His method, which, in its entirety, is known
as Cartesianism, is summed up thus: " To attain the truth
one must, once in his life, free himself from all received
opinions, and reconstruct anew, and from the bottom, all
the system of his knowledge." From Descartes 's philosophy,
resulted the antithesis of " being " and " thought," to this
day the task of philosophy.

Bacon likewise banished prejudices and dogma, but dif-
fered diametrically from Descartes in his method: " Ob-
serve Nature, let Nature write her own record on the mind —
all knowledge arises out of experience. ' ' His is the inductive
method; by establishing the particular, he arrives at the
general truths. Thus both the French and English schools
started in revolt against medievalism and dogma; but one
system seized upon the essential activity of the mind, the
other upon the assumption that the mind is passive.

Descartes 's teachings influenced the trend of thought dur-
ing the seventeenth century, and governed the intellectual
world; people satisfied themselves by saying " The master
has said it." Cartesianism is presented complete in the four
principal works of Descartes: First The Discours de la
Methode (pour bien conduire la raison et ckercher la verite
dans les sciences), published in French, in 1637; second, the

1 Baron of Verulam and Viscount of St. Albans, was born in London in
1561, died at Highgate in 1626.

7 Rene" Descartes (Latinized Renatus Cartesius) was born at La Haye,
in Touraine, in 1596, and that town now glories in the name of La Haye-
Descartes.

186

Meditations Philosophiques — a masterpiece in research, as
well as in dialectics ; third, Les Principes; fourth, Le Traite
de I'Ame — which represented a psychology more distinct and
more realistic than anything attempted up to that time, and
whence the famous Ethics of Spinoza 1 was to proceed. Des-
cartes was one of the foremost mathematicians of his day.
His Geometry was considered a standard.

Descartes also rejected the superannuated formulas and
the language of scholasticism, and made his doctrine acces-
sible to all by editing a course of philosophy according to
his principles as an accompaniment to the course taught in
schools. He undertook, likewise, in the form of a dialogue,
a popular exposition of the thoughts set forth in his Discours.
In doing this, he not only furthered the propagation of his
ideas, but assisted in the formation of the French language;
and it was Descartes who created for the French a philosophic
language capable of expressing the profoundest meditations.
His Discours de la Methode is the first work written through-
out in the grand style of the seventeenth century.

1 Baruch Spinoza, born in Amsterdam in 1632, died 1677. He was the
great modern expounder of Pantheism.

CHAPTER XIV

PORT-ROYAL

IN 1204, a convent was founded by Mahaut de Garlande,
in the valley of Chevreuse, on the domain of Porrois. A papal
bull, in designating the abbey, used the phrase de portu regio,
corrupted into Porrois, from which the term Port-Royal be-
came officially recognized. In the beginning of the seven-
teenth century, the Abbess Angelique Arnauld, undertook to
reform the religious order of this abbey,1 and introduced the
severe principles of Jansenius.2 Duvergier de Hauranne,
the abbot of Saint-Cyran, became the spiritual adviser of this
religious order, and founded the society of Solitaires de Port-
Royal — a Jansenist community — at Chevreuse. Although
possessed of great erudition and eminent talent as a writer,
the abbot of Saint-Cyran was content to lower himself to the
level of the humblest intelligence, in order to teach the ele-
mentary truths of religion. To profound wisdom, he added
a powerful eloquence which Richelieu considered " more
dangerous than six armies."

At this time, a great number of Catholics maintained
that there had been introduced into the discipline of the
Church certain abuses contrary to the spirit of the Gospel.
These Catholics denied the absolute power of the popes, and
accused the Jesuits of lax morality and of aspiring to univer-
sal domination. Jansenius and de Hauranne undertook to
combat these conditions and to revive the " Augustinian
tenets upon the inability of the fallen will, and upon effica-
cious grace." Jansenius reduced to the form of doctrine the
principles of the new reform, in a work which he entitled

1 In 1626 this order established another convent of Port-Royal in Paris.

2 Cornells Jansen, or Jansenius (1585-1638), Bishop of Ypres, in Flanders,
a Dutch Roman Catholic theologian, founder of Jansenism.

188

PORT-ROYAL

Augustinus, because he claimed to have based all his argu-
ments on the text of Saint Augustine. This famous work caused
impassioned religious controversies during the entire century.
The Jesuits, already at odds with Port-Royal, accused Jan-
senius of having reproduced the doctrines of Calvin on pre-
destination, and denounced the work, which was condemned
by Pope Urban VIII. Commissioners, to examine the book
of Jansenius, were appointed, who, after long researches,
extracted the " five propositions," which have become so
famous. These propositions are not formulated in so many
words in the Augustinus, but according to Bossuet, are the
very soul of the book. The following are the five proposi-
tions: First: Some of God's commandments are impossible
to the just who wish to observe them, and to that end exert
all their strength. Second : In the state of fallen nature, in-
terior grace is never resisted. Third : In the state of fallen
nature as to merit or demerit, man need not enjoy liberty
without necessity; it is enough for him to be free from any
coercion. Fourth : The Semipelagians 1 admitted the necessi-
ty of antecedent grace for all good works, even for the begin-
ning of faith; but they were heretics, because they said that
man's will could submit to grace or resist it. Fifth: It is
a Semipelagian error to say that Christ died for all men.
From these propositions was evolved the doctrine that free-
dom of will was nonexistent, and that Christ did not die
for all men, but only for the predestined. This was pushing
the doctrine of grace to a point of resemblance with the fatal-
ism of Calvin.

The question of divine grace agitated all the thinkers of
the seventeenth century. One finds its trace in the tragedies

1 Disciples of Cassianus, of Faustus, Bishop of Riez, and other theologians
of the Gallican Church in the fifth century who wished to conciliate the
orthodox opinions of Augustinus with Pelagianism. Pelagianism, the
doctrine of Pelagius (British monk of fifth century), propagated in Africa
by his disciple Celestinus, is summed up as follows: Adam's fall from
grace affected him alone; every man will always be born innocent as
Adam was before his fall; death is not the consequence of sin, but of the
natural order; it lies in everyone's power to attain salvation by following
the teachings of Christ. The Pelagian believed that man is "morally
well," the Semipelagians that he is "morally sick," and Saint Augustine,
that he is "morally dead."

189

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of Corneille and Racine, and in the letters of Madame de
Sevigne. The Solitaires of Port-Royal devoted the greater
part of their lives to its discussion. Jansenius maintained
further that ecclesiastical jurisdiction belongs to the whole
church, arid that it should be exercised not only by the Holy
See, but by councils — a kind of Christian Parliament, in
which the popes have only the right of presidency.1

The five propositions were submitted to Pope Innocent X,
and after two years of discussion were condemned by the
papal bull, Cum occasione impressionis libri. The Church of
France was divided between the Jansenists and their oppo-
nents, the latter led principally by the 'Jesuits After the
imprisonment of Saint-Cyran 2 by Richelieu, Antoine Arnauld,
the celebrated controversialist, called " the great Arnauld,"
became the head of the Jansenists. In the society of the So-
litaires there were many distinguished scholars, theologians,
and moralists: Lemaistre de Sacy, Lancelot, Nicole, Nicolas
Fontaine, Singlin, De Sericourt, Arnauld d'Andilly, and
others. These men lived on a farm called Les Granges, de-
pendent on the abbey. They were not bound by any vow or
united among themselves by any rule. They utilized their
time acording to their capacities. The great Arnauld (An-
toine) was the invincible, uncompromising, never failing
scholar of them all. His friend Nicole, told him one day,
that he (Nicole) was exhausted, and that at last he wished
to rest from his long labors. " You, rest! " Arnauld said
to him. " Well, will you not have all eternity to rest in " ?
Nicole taught philosophy and the humanities, and became one
of the most distinguished professors of the Petites Ecoles
(little schools), opened by the Solitaires for the instruction
of the young, and where Racine was a student.

Arnauld and Nicole spread reform by means of their
writings. Nicole's famous Essais de morale, were called by

1 The Gallican doctrine does not place infallibility (which means that the
Pope is divinely guarded from all errors in questions of faith and morals),
in the Pope alone, but in the entire episcopal body united to its chief;
whereas the ultramontanes consider the Pope to be the authority of all
jurisdiction in the Church, and superior to the councils.

2 In 1638 Saint-Cyran was confined in the dungeon of St. Vincent until
1643, the year of his death.

190

PORT-ROYAL

Voltaire a masterpiece. Madame de Sevigne wrote about them
to her daughter: " I am reading again his (Nicole's) great
book. I should like to make it into a bouillon in order to
swallow it." Often the Solitaires left their studious occupa-
tions, and, turning to manual labor, became wine-growers, la-
borers, gardeners, cobblers, carpenters. M. de la Riviere, an
old and distinguished soldier, protected the forests of Port-
Royal, and passed his time there praying, reading, and medi-
tating. The famous duelist, M. de la Petitiere, made shoes for
the nuns ; the Baron de Pontchateau was a gardener, and Le
Maistre cut wheat with the day laborers. This society, com-
posed of men of all conditions, formed without civil or reli-
gious obligations, obeying no common chief, lived in the most
perfect harmony. Lords and ladies of the court — people who
aspired the same repose without wishing to renounce entirely
their visits to the world — came to establish themselves about
the abbey and Les Granges: the Duchess de Longueville, the
Duchess de Luynes, the Duchess de Liancourt, Madame de
Sevigne, the Prince de Conti, brother of the great Conde.
It is said of him that after his conversion he showed such a
submission to divine will, that it almost frightened his fam-
ily ; and that his children hid the story of Abraham from him,
fearing lest he might at length wish to imitate the sacrifice
of Isaac.

The Jansenists were supported by the majority of the
members of Parliament,1 by some bishops, and men of high
rank and talent, but they were assailed by the Sorbonne, and
struggled against the attacks of the Jesuits. Hence arose, in
1656, the celebrated Lettres Provinciales of Pascal. The suc-
cess of the Provinciales secured to the Jansenists the favor
of public opinion, and delayed their fall. The respite
accorded them, however, was not long, and Port-Royal was
approaching its destruction when it was saved by an extra-
ordinary personage — the Duchess de Longueville (Anne Ge-
nevieve de Bourbon-Conde, of royal blood), heroine of the
Fronde, born in the prison of Vincennes in 1619. After
the peace of the Fronde, she saw herself abandoned by the

1 Parlement, before 1789, a court of superior judicature which judged
without appeal.

191

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

world, and threw herself into the arms of religion with all
the ardor which she had formerly shown for polities or for
romantic adventures. She took M. de Sacy as instructor,
and submitted herself to his severe counsels with great docil-
ity.1 When the time of persecution came for Port-Royal,
she was active in the service of the Solitaires. She concealed
in her home Arnauld and Nicole, and their eccentricities some-
times added to her penitence. For example: the great Ar-
nauld carried good comradeship and freedom from convention-
ality even to the point of taking off his garters in the evening,
while sitting by the fireplace in the presence of the Princess;
" which made her suffer a little," says Madame de Se-
vigne. After two years of effort and negotiations, Madame
de Longueville succeeded in triumphing over the Pope,
Louis XIV, and the Jesuits. Port-Royal obtained permission
to repeople its monastery, to reopen its schools and reunite
its scattered Solitaires (1668). The same virtues, the same
piety, the same austerities were renewed. But with the death
of the Princess in 1679, disappeared the only protector of the
Jansenists in favor with Louis XIV, who regarded Port Royal
with ill-will. After a series of persecutions the society was
forcibly dissolved toward the end of this reign. A bull of the
Pope suppressed the monastery, and the King caused the
house, the church, and the farm of Les Granges, as well as the
neighboring habitations to be destroyed (1710). The influence
of Port-Royal continued, and Jansenism 2 had some adherents
in France until the nineteenth century

The history of Port-Royal is important in the literary his-
tory of the seventeenth century, for this celebrated period
included within its scope men eminent both by their genius
and their virtues, and produced works on religion, morality,
logic, and grammar, which exercised a powerful influence,
religious and literary, upon this memorable epoch. But the
inflexible, unpitying doctrines of the Solitaires in regard to
grace and predestination elicited the following from Bos-

1 "The true crown of Madame de Longueville," says Sainte-Beuve,
" which we must all the more revere in her in so far as she did not per-
ceive it, in so far as she covered it, as it were, with her hands, in so far
as she lowered it and hid it — is the crown of humility."

2 At the present day Jansenism is continued in Holland.

192

PORT-ROYAL

suet, although sharing many of their views: " they are men
who hold men's consciences captive under very unjust rigors,
who can endure no weakness, who always drag hell behind
them, who cause virtue to appear too severe, the Gospel ex-
cessive, Christianity impossible."

PASCAL

Blaise Pascal, born at Clermont in 1623, was one of the
greatest French writers and philosophers. He was also an
illustrious mathematician and physicist. At the age of twelve
he is said to have formulated without the help of any book
Euclid 's thirty-second proposition in geometry ; at sixteen, he
wrote a treatise on conic sections which surprised Descartes;
when eighteen, he invented a calculating machine. We owe to
him the laws of the specific gravity of the air, the equilibrium
of liquids, the arithmetical triangle, and the calculation of
probabilities, the principle of the hydraulic press, and the the-
ory of the cycloid. He was a profound moralist, a subtle and
vigorous dialectician, a great orator, and finally, a great poet
in the Pensees, because of an imagination now somber and
tragic, now inspired by faith and illumined by hope. Des-
cartes had created the philosophic language and style; but
eloquent philosophy, without ceasing to be really philosophic,
dates from Pascal. He held that no system of philosophy
solves the enigma of life, because every system perceives but
one side of our nature, and all systems destroy one another:
nature puzzles the Pyrrhonists and reason puzzles the dog-
matists. One day, at the bridge of Neuilly, Pascal was the
victim of a runaway accident, as a result of which, it is said,
he had hallucinations which often made him see an abyss
beside him ready to engulf him. He retired to Port-Royal,
where he lived an ascetic life.

In consequence of a dispute between Arnauld and the
Jesuits on the questions de facto et de jure in the proposi-
tions contained in the Augustinus, Arnauld was condemned
by the Sorbonne. Blaise Pascal, at the solicitations of his
friends accepted the task of publicly defending Port-Royal
against the Jesuits, and published, from 1656 to 1657, eighteen
anonymous letters, the comprehensive title of which is Lettres
14 193

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ecrites par Louis de Montalte a un Provincial de ses amis et
aux Reverends Peres Jesuites sur le sujet de la Morale et de la
Politique de ces Peres (Letters written by Louis de Montalte
to one of his friends in the Provinces, and to the Reverend
Jesuit Fathers, on the subject of the Morals and the Politics
of these Fathers). In the first Provinciale, Pascal treats the
difficult question of grace. Beginning with the fourth letter,
he carries the fight against the Jesuits on another ground.
Nevertheless, this masterpiece, which fixed the French lan-
guage and has remained an inimitable model, was not a work
of predilection on the part of Pascal. He was silently pre-
paring the materials for a great work which would demon-
strate the truth and the greatness of Christianity, but which
death did not permit him to finish, and whose scattered ele-
ments, published under the title of Pensees, sufficed to assure
for their author the admiration of posterity.

The crude memoranda of Pascal's Pensees are to-day in
the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, open to the public. Care-
fully pasted on sheets of paper, they are bound in one volume,
which is one of the most curious of that wonderful collection.
It is due to the work of Cousin, Faugere, Sainte-Beuve, Astie,
and Havet, that the plan which inspired Pascal to make the
detached sketches was brought to light.

We recall " the abyss of Pascal " (in allusion to the run-
away accident mentioned above), in order to characterize cer-
tain social or moral problems which frighten by their depth
those who seek to sound them. " The grain of sand " of
Pascal, in the Pensees (an allusion to Cromwell's death), has
become an original locution to express the idea that minute
causes can engender great results. Here are a few extracts
from the Pensees:

" Thus all our life passes. We seek rest while combating
some obstacles ; and if we have surmounted them rest becomes
unbearable."

" We are sometimes better corrected by the sight of evil
than by the example of good ; and it is well to accustom one-
self to profit by the bad, since it is so common, while the
good is so rare. ' '

" For, finally, what is man in nature? A Nothing in re-
gard to the Infinite, a Whole in regard to nothing, a medium

194

PORT-ROYAL

between nothing and all. Infinitely far from understanding
the extremes, the end of things and the principle of them are
invincibly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret ; equally
incapable of seeing the Nothing whence he is drawn and the
Infinite in which he is engulfed. ' '

CHAPTER XV

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

WITH the advent of such masters as Racine, Boileau,
Moliere, and La Fontaine, French literature, from being
precieuse, burlesque, and courtly, became classical,1 a term
used with different acceptations, but which means here a
combination of rationalism with a sense of the aesthetic. The
classical period embraces two centuries, and has produced the
greatest works the French possess.

RACINE

'Jean Racine was born in 1639, at La Ferte-Milon. Or-
phaned at the age of four, he was under the guardianship of a
grandmother and aunt, both ardent Jansenists, who sent him
to Port-Royal, where he was reared under the influence and
care of Le Maistre, Nicole, Hamon, and Lancelot. Racine
showed from his earliest years a very strong taste for poetry,
and especially for the tragic poets. Often he was lost in the
forests of the abbey with a copy of Euripides in his hand.
His greed for knowledge took him everywhere in search of
books, which he pored over in secret. The Greek romance
of the loves of Theagenes and Chariclea fell into his hands.
He was reading it eagerly, when Claude Lancelot, " le chef
de la secte hellenique," caught him in the act, tore the book
from him and threw it into the fire. A second copy met the
same fate. Racine bought a third ; in order to insure its con-

1 In the Nodes Atticae of Aulus Gellius the word dassicus is applied to
writers of distinction and merit. The most remarkable classical epochs
of literature are: the centuries of Pericles, of Augustus, of Leo X (or de
Medici), and of Louis XIV.

196

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

tents from the flames, he learned it by heart and carried it to
Lancelot saying: " You may burn this one like the others." ,
Port-Royal intended that their pupil should be a lawyer ; but
scarcely had Racine finished his course in philosophy at
the college of Harcourt (to-day the Lycee Saint-Louis), when
he entered the literary world with an ode on the marriage
of the King. This poem, entitled La Nymphe de la Seine
(on the marriage of Louis XIV with Marie-Therese) ,
brought him, by recommendation of Chapelain, a gift of
one hundred louis and a pension of six hundred livres with
the title of homme de lettres. This was a public scandal in
the eyes of the Solitaires of Port-Royal who had vainly
warned him by letter and threats of excommunication to stop
writing.

In order to turn the young man aside from poetry, he was
led to hope for a benefice, and was sent to Uzes to his uncle,
the vicar Antoine Sconin, who set him to studying theology ;
but his true vocation conquered and he returned to Paris.
In 1662 he composed a piece sur la convalescence du roi,
which gained for him a presentation at court. Les Freres
Ennemis, composed at Uzes, was produced and met with some
success; but much more successful was Alexandre, given in
1665, when Racine was twenty-five years old. At Paris he
sought and obtained illustrious and useful friendships with
La Fontaine, Boileau, and Moliere. This was the epoch when
the four friends met at the fashionable cabarets, where men
of letters, such as Chapelle, Furetiere, and the great lords, the
Dukes de Vivonne, de Nantouillet, and others eagerly sought
their society. Racine's relations with Moliere were of brief
duration ; but while ceasing to be intimate, the mutual esteem
of these two great men was undimmished. The friendship
of Boileau and Racine remained unchanged during forty
years. At first Racine was only a successful imitator of
Corneille; the beautiful passages of La Theba'ide and of
Alexandre may be characterized as strong impressions pro-
duced by great models on a young man destined, in his turn,
to become a master of his art. It was in writing Andromaque
(1667) that Racine found himself. He had just caused
Alexandre to be played when he became the friend of Boileau,
three years older than himself, who had already published

197

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

several of his own satires. " I have a surprising facility in
making my verses," the young tragic author naively said.
" I wish to teach you to make them with difficulty," answered
Boileau, " and you have enough talent to learn soon."

Andromaque was the result of this new effort, and the
true debut of Racine. He was henceforth irrevocably com-
promised in the cause of the stage. Nicole, while attacking
Desmarets, wrote with all the rigor of Port-Royal : ' ' A maker
of romances and a theatrical poet are public poisoners, not
of bodies but of souls." Racine in defense of dramatic art
wrote two letters which were so bitter, so incisive, and so in-
sulting to Port-Royal, that Boileau prevented him from
publishing the second. In 1668 he staged Les Plaideurs,
which had been requested of him by his friends, and partly
composed during the repasts they often had in common in
the famous cabaret of the Mouton blanc. " I put into it,"
said Racine, " only a few barbarous words of the chicanery
I remembered in a suit at law, which neither I nor my judges
have ever well understood." Les Plaideurs, composed of
reminiscences partly from the ' ' Wasps, ' ' by Aristophanes
and partly from Racine's own lawsuit when he was prior of
Epinay, is an amusing satire of life in the law courts ; of the
judges, ridiculed in the characteristics of Perrin Dandin; of
the litigants, personified in Chicaneau and the Countess of
Pimbesche; of the lawyers, characterized in Petit- Jean and
1'Intime, who in their pleadings, give way to bombastic and
pedantic eloquence. After the first failure of the play, the
royal players one day risked a performance before the King.
Louis XIV was struck by it, and believed that he did not
dishonor his dignity or his taste by bursts of laughter so great
that the courtiers were astonished. The delighted players,
on leaving Versailles, returned straight to Paris, and went
to awaken Racine. Three coaches coming in the night, in a
street where coaches are rarely seen at any time, awakened
the neighborhood. People went to the windows and, since
it was known that a censor had made a great uproar against
the comedy of the Plaideurs, no one doubted in the least that
the poet who had dared to ridicule the judges in the public
theater would be punished. On the morrow all Paris believed
him to be in prison. On the contrary, he triumphed with

198

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

Britanniais1 (1669); whereupon the King stopped dancing
at the court balls for fear of resembling Nero.

Berenice was a contest between Corneille and Racine for
the entertainment of the Duchess of Orleans, Henrietta of
England; and Racine won, without much glory. Berenice
was played at the Hotel de Bourgogne by a famous actress,
Mademoiselle Champmesle, who also played an important role
in the life of the great Racine.

In 1672 Bajazet was represented and showed a marked
contrast with Berenice; from ancient history and Rome, the
scene passed to contemporary history and Constantinople.
Racine's reputation was constantly growing; he had staged
Mirthridate and Iphigenie. Phedre was produced in 1677,
and an intrigue of the great lords at first caused it to fail.
Pradon, a tragic poet, who pretended to rival Racine, acting
on the advice of his protectors, composed a play which was
to be performed in opposition to the one Racine was known to
be writing, and which had Phedre for its subject. Boileau
riddled Pradon with his satire. A cabal had been set in
motion to secure the triumph of Pradon and the fall of
Racine.2 The plotters, led by the Duchess de Bouillon, rented
in advance for several representations the two theaters where
the two plays were to be given. Pradon 's play had an im-
mense audience, while Racine's was enacted to empty seats.
However, from the time the friends of Pradon ceased to pro-
duce his play, the public went in crowds to witness Racine's
masterpiece, but chagrin and wounded pride had done their
work in the poet 's soul : he abandoned dramatic art in the full
glory of his career at thirty-seven years of age. He reconciled
himself with the pious Port-Royalists, and wished to become
a Chartreux; but his confessor turned him away from his
design, and his friends married him off to Catherine Romanet.
Madame Racine was an excellent person, modest and devoted,
but prosaic, who never went to the theater and scarcely knew
the titles of her husband's plays. She brought him something
of a fortune. In addition to this, the king had given the great

1 Britannicus is an answer to the critics who reproached Racine for
writing only of love. (Although love is not totally absent from the play.)

2 It has been said that Racine's manuscript was taken from him. Ra-
cine had previously accused Pradon of plagiarism.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

poet a pension, and Colbert had named him treasurer at
Moulins1 Racine had seven children. He devoted his life
to them with pious solicitude, but when his children were ill,
he said with the anxiety of paternal tenderness: " Why did
I not become a Chartreux "? The Memoires of his father,
written by his son Louis, depict Racine in all the austere
charm of his domestic life. ' ' He left everything to come to
see us," writes this filial biographer. " An equerry of the
duke came one day to tell him that he was expected to dinner
at the home of Conde. ' I shall not have the honor to go,'
said he; 'it is more than a week since I have seen my wife
and children, who are happy in the anticipation of eating a
very fine carp with me to-day. I cannot help but dine with
them.' And when the equerry insisted, he had the carp
brought in : ' Judge for yourself if I can disappoint these
poor children who have planned to entertain me, and would
have no more pleasure if they ate this dish without me.' '
" He was born tender-hearted," adds Louis Racine. " He
was tender toward God when he returned to Him, and from
the day he went back to those who, in his childhood, had
taught him to know God, he was tender toward them without
reserve. He was so all his life to his friends, to his wife and
his children."

The duties of historiographers to the king, titles which
both Racine and Boileau received from Louis XIV, drew the
friends already so intimate into closer communion. Racine
and Boileau were preparing to depart with the king for the
campaign of 1677; but the besieged cities opened their gates
before the poets had left Paris. " How is it that you did
not have the curiosity to see a siege? " the king asked them
on his return. ' ' The trip was not long. " ' ' It is true, Sire, ' '
answered Racine, who always was the more skillful courtier
of the two, " but our tailors were too slow. We ordered
campaigning clothes; when they brought them, the fortified
places which your majesty was besieging were taken." The
following year they were obliged to accompany the king on

1 Louis XIV granted frequent benefits to men of letters. Racine re-
ceived almost fifty thousand livres from him, and was named the his-
toriographer of the king. Boileau received the same title.

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THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

his campaigns, and their awkwardness on horse, their ignorance
of military things, called forth many epigrams and anecdotes
at their expense. Finally, Boileau, who suffered from ill
health, and was of a morose disposition, remained in Paris.
His friend wrote to him constantly, sometimes from the camp,
sometimes from Versailles, whither he returned with the king.
The correspondence of the two friends have a great literary
interest.

After twelve years of cessation from dramatic work,
Madame de Maintenon begged Eacine to compose for the
young ladies of Saint-Cyr " some sort of moral or historical
poem from which love might be entirely banished." His
compliance with this request enriched French literature with
the delicate elegy of Esther (1689). " Madame de Main-
tenon was charmed with its invention and execution," said
Madame de la Fayette. " The play represented, in a
way, the fall of Madame de Montespan and Madame de
Maintenon 's own elevation; the difference being that Esther
was a little younger and less ' precieuse ' in point of piety."
The brilliant success of this play inspired the poet to write
another masterpiece, Athalie (1691), drawn from the same
source. The young ladies of Saint-Cyr, in the uniform of the
house, performed it quite simply at Versailles before Louis
XIV and Madame de Maintenon, in a room without a stage.
When the players acted it in Paris, it was pronounced cold
and was not a success. Racine foresaw failure, but Boileau
said to him : " I am sure that this is your best work, the pub-
lic will return to it."1 This beautiful inspiration into which
the poet put his heart, his intelligence, his faith, and his art,
is considered one of the most perfect plays. His C antiques
spirituels, composed in 1694, are called the Chant du Cygne
(Song of the Swan), for they were his last verses.

The tragedies of Racine may be divided into three classes :
the first class includes plays borrowed from the drama of
' ' Euripides " ; his historical tragedies form the second class ;
in the third class are his tragedies inspired by the Bible.
Madame de Maintenon had requested Racine to make a com-

1 The public did return to it, but it was fifty years later, after Racine's
death.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

position concerned with the misery of the people as result-
ing from a prolonged war — a memoire which she wished to
present to Louis XIV. But the king, who allowed no com-
mentaries of any sort, was discontented with the audacity of
Racine — " who, because he could make verses, imagined him-
self able to govern a State," and he made it plain that he
wished no longer to see the poet. Racine, who sincerely loved
the king, was much affected by this order. He was already
an invalid; his illness increased, and he died a short time
afterwards, in 1699.

" Racine,'* says Faguet, " is our greatest tragic author,
as Moliere is the greatest comic one. There has been an
alternation in France between the glory of Racine and that
of Corneille, and, according to the epoch, people prefer the
one and believe themselves obliged to disparage the other.
Actually, Racine is the favorite. It is incontestable that he
at least deserves to be called one of the greatest French tragic
authors, and one of the four or five greatest tragic writers of
all literature."

" Corneille," says Fleury, " depicted persons who mas-
tered their passions ; Racine depicted those who allowed them-
selves to be governed by them. Instead of exciting admiration
by grandeur, Racine excited compassion for suffering." He
made himself the delineator of tender sentiments, especially of
love ; he is the painter of love,1 such as he conceives it, violent,
impetuous, jealous, often criminal: " C'est Venus toute en-
tiere a sa proie attachee."2 (Phedre.)

Larroumet notes that Racine made jealousy the dominant
motive in four of his plays. " The greatest misery which
love can call forth is jealousy. The cries of rage which
Roxane 3 and Phedre utter are without equal in forcefulness

1 In a poem, A Racine, written for the celebration of the anniversary
of Racine's birth, at the Th^atre-Fransais, in 1888, George Lefevre calls
him Poete des amants (poet of lovers). "This eternal question of love,"
said Napoleon, "with its sweetish tone and its fastidious background, was
the sole occupation of everybody, the lot of idle society. It is therefore
not exactly Racine's fault if his works are impregnated with love, but
rather the fault of the times."

2 "It is Venus in her entirety clinging to her prey."

3 " Bajazet est une grande tuerie" (Bajazet is a great slaughter), wrote
Madame de SeVigne.

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THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

and truth. Roxane is the embodiment of jealousy whom the
cause of her deception instills with the thirst of blood:

Dans ma juste fureur observant le perfide,

Je saurai le surprendre avec son Atalide

Et, d'un meme poignard les unissant tous deux,

Les percer 1'un et 1'autre, et moi-meme apres eux.1

(BAJAZET.)

It is the woman who plays the principal role in Racine's
plays ; one speaks of the heroines of Racine and of the heroes
of Corneille, for according to Marivaux, style has sex. La
Bruyere's simple criticism was: " Corneille is more moral,
Racine more natural."

With Racine, indeed, the dramatic motive was not admira-
tion, but tenderness. Thus he turns us back upon ourselves;
his art gains in truth what it loses in loftiness. In spite of
the differences which distinguish him from his predecessor,
there is between them a resemblance which their epoch im-
posed on them. Both are spiritual in the highest degree;
both seek the source of their power exclusively in moral
nature. They disdain or ignore the exterior appearance, the
material movement of the stage, the prepared color of history.
Larrouniet writes: " The best eulogy one can give the
tragedies of Racine is that it is impossible to imagine them
otherwise than they are. The facts could not proceed in any
other manner; one finds nothing to add, nothing to retract.
This art gives the illusion of being life itself.

"Both Corneille and Racine have attained the highest
degree of tragic genius, but Corneille looked to the heroic,
that is to say, the exceptional ; Racine regarded humanity as
it was. Thus they represent the two supreme forms of tragic
art — the one idealistic, the other realistic."

Although Racine in his conceptions is less sublime than
Corneille, although he reduces his personages to more human
and more natural proportions, his characters are ennobled,

1 In my justified rage watching the unfaithful one;
I shall know how to surprise him with his Atalide
And, joining them with the same dagger,
Pierce them both, and myself after them.
203

not by moral perfections, but by the free development of their
nature ; thereby they attain a higher degree of being — that is
to say, of beauty. Within this marvelous sphere, peopled by
kings and heroes, the air is less heavy on those noble brows;
the vulgar necessities of life no longer oppress the breast;
hearts beat with no other obstacle than the shock of rival
passions or the impassable limits of human conditions. The
passions of the court become the passions of humanity, and
the work of Racine will remain imperishable like them. But
it is especially by his style that Racine envelopes his heroes
with an ideal magnificence. Here one is tempted to hold to
the opinion of Voltaire, wrho suggested that all criticism of
the plays be confined to a line written at the bottom of each
page, thus: " Beautiful, sublime, harmonious! "

ANDROMAQUE

After the capture of Troy, Andromache, the widow of
Hector, and her son Astyanax have become the slaves of
Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, and son of Achilles. Pyrrhus,
affianced to Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen,
defers his marriage from day to day, because he has fallen
in love with Andromache. The Greek generals, conquerors of
Ilium, have charged Orestes, who loves Hermione, to recapture
Astyanax, whom they would put to death. Pyrrhus, angered
because Andromache wishes to remain true to her vows to her
dead husband, threatens to deliver Astyanax, if she does not
consent to marry him. Andromache finding him inflexible de-
cides to wed him to save her son, but decides also to kill her-
self after the nuptials. The news of this marriage infuriates
Hermione ; she commands Orestes to kill Pyrrhus at the altar,
promising him her hand as reward. Orestes consents, and
Pyrrhus is slain, but when Hermione hears that her lover is
dead, she repulses the murderer with horror, and kills herself
on the body of Pyrrhus. Orestes then becomes the victim of
the avenging Furies.

BRITANNICUS

The subject of this play is borrowed from the thirteenth
book of the Annals of Tacitus. The poet depicts Nero upon

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THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

the threshold of crime, still hesitating between good and evil,
between Burrhus and Narcissus. Agrippina, his mother,
thirsting for power, has formed the design of marrying Junia
to Britannicus, son of the Emperor Claudius and adopted
brother of Nero, in order to gain for herself the affection of
this young prince, and to make of him her support in time
of need against Nero himself. Nero, in order to foil this plan,
has Junia carried off, and falls in love with her at first
sight. He orders Britannicus to renounce his love; on his
refusal he has him arrested, and plans his death. The in-
tervention of Agrippina seems to disarm the anger of the
Emperor, but in reality adds to it a new degree of hypocritical
hatred. Burrhus, his governor, brings him back for a moment
to better sentiments, but Narcissus prevails upon him to con-
summate the crime. Britannicus is accordingly invited to a
banquet, in the course of which he is poisoned. This tragedy,
which, in the judgment of La Harpe, " unites the art of
Tacitus to the art of Virgil, and depth of thought to purity
of style, " is in the eyes of Voltaire ' ' the play of con-
noisseurs."

BERENICE

Berenice treats of the love of the Emperor Titus for the
beautiful Jewess Berenice, whom for reasons of State he
cannot marry. The brilliant lines in which Berenice describes
the greatness of Titus express the splendor of the court life
of Louis XIV.

De cette-nuit Phenice, as-tu vu la splendeur?

Tes yeux ne sont-ils pas tout pleins de sa grandeur?

Ces flambeaux, ces buchers, cette nuit enflammee (etc.)-1

Racine did not forget that these lines were to be spoken
before the young king — " a Titus to many of the women of
the court whose fondest wish would have been to be his
Berenice." It is the drama of the court. It is the cult of the
royal personage. The individuality of great men was often
suppressed to conform to the ideas of that monarch whose

1 Saw you, Phenice, the splendor of this night?
Are not your eyes filled with his greatness?
Those torches, those funeral piles, that lurid night.
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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

absolutism governed genius as it dominated the intellectual
life of the people. Racine, Corneille, even Moliere, were sub-
jected to it. The poetic freedom of the great dramatists was
still more curtailed by the enforced adherence to the so-called
Aristotelian unities: unity of place, of time, and of action.
It was an observance imposed upon them by a dictum of the
French Academy approved by Louis XIV. To ignore it
meant failure; yet Corneille 's Discours des trois unites
plainly shows how great a hindrance it was to dramatic
development.1

PHEDRE

Phaedra, pursued by the anger of Venus, has fallen in love
with Hippolytus, son of her husband and another woman.
In her hopelessness, she wishes to die; but hearing that her
husband is dead she discloses her sentiments to Hippolytus,
who repulses her with horror. Suddenly it is learned that her
husband, Theseus, is returning. Phaedra, in despair, lets her
nurse accuse Hippolytus of having made the declaration
which she herself had made to him. Theseus, too credulous,
banishes his son from his palace, and begs Neptune to punish
him; but, moved by the distress of Phaedra, he soon repents
of his imprudent order. It is too late; the horses of Hip-
polytus, frightened by a marine monster, have run away and
crushed his body on the rocks. Phaedra is silent. The play
is an admirable portrayal of a woman's character. It includes
a great number of beautiful verses :

Et 1'avare Acheron ne lache point sa proie.*
Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses degre"s.s
Le jour n'est pas plus pur que le fond de mon co3ur.'

BAJAZET

This is a Turkish play, the mise-en-scene of which treats
of a plot in the Seraglio, related to Racine by the French

Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgic.
And hungry Acheron relinquishes not his prey.
Like virtue, crime has its degrees.
Daylight is no purer than the bottom of my heart.
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THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

Ambassador for the Orient. The persons who figure in it had
scarcely died when Racine put them on the stage. The
Sultan Amurat goes to besiege Babylon; during his absence,
the favorite Sultana, Roxane, in league with the Grand Vizier
Acomat, plots to enthrone the young brother of the Sultan,
Bajazet, with whom she is in love, and to have Amurat
assassinated upon his return. Bajazet, who loves another
woman, resists and loses time. Amurat returns, and puts to
death the guilty ones, excepting Acomat, who succeeds in
escaping. The verse spoken by Acomat is often quoted :

Nourri dans le harem, j'en connais les de'tours.1

ESTHER

The Jewess Esther has been chosen among a thousand
rivals to become the wife of Ahasuerus, King of Persia, who
has repudiated his wife, the proud Vashti. By the advice
of Mordecai, her uncle, Esther has concealed from the king
her origin and her race. Faithful to the God of Abraham,
she worships him in secret; she has gathered about her some
young Israelitish women whom she instructs in the law of
the Lord, and in the midst of whom she freely bewails the
misfortunes of Jerusalem. New misfortunes threaten the
people of God. An enemy of Israel, the Amalekite Aman,
has forced from the king an edict that all the Jews scattered
through the empire be put to death. Esther presents herself
before Ahasuerus; she solicits and obtains the favor of re-
ceiving the king at her table; Aman is to be present at the
feast. It is in the presence of the persecutor of the Jews that
she casts herself at the feet of the king and implores grace
for her people, at the same time declaring herself to be a
Jewess. Touched by the tones of the queen, and enlightened
concerning the sinister projects of his favorite Aman,
Ahasuerus sends him to the gibbet which had been prepared
for Mordecai, repeals the edict of proscription, and puts an
end to the captivity of the Jews.

The choruses are an innovation which Racine introduced
into his plays, Esther and Athalie, in imitation of the Greek

1 Brought up in the harem, I know its by-ways.
207

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

tragedies, reviving thus the most beautiful inspirations of
the prophets — and they are masterpieces of lyric poetry. In
the ancient tragedies the chorus represented the crowd
(people) moralizing on the events. In Esther the young
Israelites who compose the chorus participate in the action:
they suffer, they tremble, they hope, and their chants express
their sorrow and their enthusiasm.

ATHALIE

The subject of Athalie is taken from the Bible, in the
Fourth Book of Kings. Athaliah, daughter of Achab and of
Jezebel, King and Queen of Israel, had married Jehoram, King
of Judah. Their son, Ochosias, reigned but one year. At his
death, Athaliah caused the children of Ochosias, her grand-
children, to be massacred, in order to get possession of the
throne of Judah. One only of these children, Joas, escaped
her cruelty, and was reared secretly in the temple by Josabet,
wife of the High Priest. Athaliah, frightened by a dream,
enters the temple of the Jews. There she sees a child re-
sembling the one whom a prophetic dream has shown her as
her enemy; it is Joas. She wishes to know who he is, to see
him, to question him; she wants the High Priest to put him
into her hands. Joas secretly arms all the priests, all the
Levites; and when the queen, lured by an equivocal promise,
presents herself to take possession of the treasures of the
temple and the child who terrifies her, the revolted priests
seize her, drag her out, and throttle her in the name of young
Joas, whom they proclaim King of Judah, and legitimate heir
of his father, Ochosias.

In Athalie was reached the culmination of dramatic
ability : the temple in Jerusalem which is the scene of action,
the tenor of the plot, all lend to this last masterpiece of Ra-
cine's an atmosphere mysterious and grand, augmented by the
majesty of the language. Lyricism, the integral part of the
Greek tragedies, resumes its place in the choruses, which
spring from the nature of the drama itself.

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THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

BOILEAU

Nicolas Boileau Despreaux * was born in Paris in 1636.
Son of a magistrate, born of a long line of lawyers, he was
destined for the study of law, which he soon deserted for
literary pursuits. He was an ethical and didactic writer,
very much preoccupied with questions of style and of versifica-
tion; furious in his criticisms of bad taste, and a scourge of
mediocre writers. His works consist of twelve epistles, twelve
satires, and two poems — the one didactic, the other for recital.
His verses are very well worked out; their rhythmic and
regular form impress them easily on the mind, and a great
number have become proverbs. The Epitres are generally
superior to the Satires; four, especially, are masterpieces of
their kind. The epistle on the passage of the Rhine, under
the eyes of Louis XIV, " whom his grandeur attached to the
bank," is a magnificent epic. The epistle to Lamoignon, in
which the author describes the country house where he lives
during the summer, on the banks of the Seine, between Paris
and Rouen: the houses hollowed from the rock on the slope
of the hills, their chimneys, with exposed masonry, rising from
the ground ; the ' ' implanted willows, the walnut trees in-
sulted by the passers-by " — all this forms a fresh rural pic-
ture; and these pictures are very rare in the seventeenth
century. We must furthermore note the indignant protest
addressed by Boileau to Racine against the criticism of
Phedre; and, finally, the Eulogy of Truth in his ninth
epistle :

Rien n'est beau que le vrai, le vrai seul est aimable;
II doit re"gner partout, et me'me dans la fable.2

While Racine and Moliere were giving their masterpieces
to France, Boileau, their friend, was teaching the public to
understand and admire them. Before his time, an uncertain

1 He added Despreaux to his name in order to distinguish himself from
his brothers.

a Nothing but Truth is beautiful, Truth alone is worthy of love,
It should reign everywhere and even in the fable.
De Musset changed the first line to: "Rien n'est vrai que le beau."
(Nothing but the beautiful is true.)
15 209

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

taste admitted in confusion the good as well as the mediocre ;
when he appeared, there were some models, but no defined
principles. The task of Boileau was to clear up the confused
art of the seventeenth century ; to assign to each man and each
work the proper rank in public esteem. It is his glory to
have done this with an almost infallible discernment, with an
intrepid courage; and, finally, to have crystallized his judg-
ments in a form so apt, in a language so perfect, that no one
will be tempted to revise, and thereby weaken, them. Com-
mon sense and the sovereignty of reason in matters of taste
go to make the durable merit of Boileau 's doctrine. Here is
an element of resemblance to the other great men of his
century. It is the spirit of Descartes transferred to poetry.

The poetical career of Boileau may be divided into three
periods. In the first, the satirist attacks the mediocre poets
with all the impetuosity of youth ; he fights untiringly against
the false standard of taste imported from Spain and Italy.
It is at this time that he published nine satires, of which four
are exclusively literary, while the others contain a number
of unexpected sallies against bad writers which are the more
stinging because of their unexpectedness. " The satires be-
long, ' ' says Voltaire, ' ' to the first manner of this great artist
— a manner very much inferior, it is true, to the second, but
far superior to that of all the writers of his time, if you except
Racine. ' ' In the second period, Boileau abandoned satire : he
had destroyed; it was now a question of reconstructing. At
this time appeared I 'Art Poetique, in which he formulated
and coordinated the literary doctrine he had just made prev-
alent. On this, his masterpiece in four cantos, he worked
for five years deliberately and with the utmost care. It
served the French as a poetical code for one and a half
centuries, and its absolute authority was overthrown only by
the Romanticists of the nineteenth century. In the same year
(1674) he published the first four cantos (there are six) of
the Lutrin* (Lectern) — an ingenious and elegant pleasantry,
a masterpiece of versification worthy of a subject less shallow.

This poetical masterpiece deals with a chorister who
dearly loves to have himself seen by the faithful while he

1 After La Secchia Rapita (The Rape of the Bucket) of Tassoni.

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THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

fulfills his ecclesiastical duties. By way of a joke, it is
planned to place in the church a large pulpit, or reading desk,
that will hide him completely from the public. This is done
during the night; when morning comes the furious chorister
breaks the new desk in pieces. A dispute arises; it becomes
a battle in which the books stacked in the shop of a neighbor-
ing bookseller serve as projectiles. The scene is laid in Paris,
at the Sainte-Chapelle, and in the Palais de Justice. The
quarrel had actually taken place, and Le Lutrin was the result
of a bet : Boileau in conversation with M. de Lamoignon held
that the slightest circumstance might serve as a subject for
an epic poem. " Prove it and make one on this quarrel of
the Sainte-Chapelle," replied Lamoignon. " Why not " ?
responded Boileau. " One ought never to challenge a fool,
and I am sufficiently one not only to undertake it, but also
to dedicate it to Monsieur, the First President (Lamoignon)."
Boileau kept his word with the result we have observed: it
bears out his sentiments expressed in his famous Art Poe-
tique :

Sans la langue en un mot, 1'auteur le plus divin
Est tou jours, quoi qu'il fasse, un me'chant e"crivain.1

In the Lutrin a less aggressive spirit animated the critic;
his mocking was more joyous. He wrote the first nine epistles ;
the seventh, addressed to Racine, united in the highest degree
all the qualities of excellence that assured the glory of the
great French satirist. French criticism had only recently
become a genre; it had not yet attained any great develop-
ment. Boileau created the style of literary criticism in verse
as he was also the creator of the satire and the epistle in
France. The most remarkable of his satires are: Le Repas
ridicule and Les Embarras de Paris, which, however, are in-
ferior to the satire entitled, A mon Esprit, in which he sets
forth the problem of the satire :

Elle seule, bravant 1'orgueil et Tin justice,
Va j usque sous le dais faire palir le vice.2

1 The most divine author, if he uses not the correct expression,
In spite of all his efforts will never be but a poor writer.

* It (satire) alone, defying pride and injustice,
Penetrates even into the palace to put vice to shame.
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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

After this work, Boileau, who had been appointed his-
toriographer of the king along with Racine, followed Racine's
example by interrupting his poetic labors ; during the ensuing
sixteen years he was content with publishing the last two
cantos of the Lutrin. He again took up his literary work in
1693; but, less fortunate than his famous friend, he was far
from disclosing a new genius. Here begins the third period
of his life — that in which he produced the Ode sur la prise de
Namur, the satires against Les Femmes, on L'Honneur, and
the one against L 'Equivoque. Boileau never replied directly
to any pamphlet attacking him, but when in 1687, the famous
Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns was agitating the lit-
erary world, Boileau took a very active part in defense of the
ancients. It is said that during a meeting of the Academic
Franchise, when Charles Perrault 1 read his poem Le Siecle de
Louis le Grand, in which he freely abused the authors of an-
tiquity, Boileau, angered and offended, showed his chagrin,
and made use of his most effective weapon — satire. He wrote
in a letter to the Marquis de Mimeure that his vexation so
apparent on this occasion must have served Moliere as a model
for his Misanthrope. When Perrault published his Parallele
des Anciens et des Modernes, the Prince de Conti said: " If
Boileau does not answer, you can assure him that I shall go
to the Academy to write on his seat: " Thou sleepest,
Brutus.' ' The ode on the capture of Namur — designed to
overturn Perrault 's celebration of the moderns — not sufficing.
Boileau wrote his Reflexions sur Longin.

The works of Boileau are the best expression of the liter-
ary criticism of the seventeenth century ; although during the
entire century literary discussions were the fashion. In the
salons, the sonnets of Benserade, and Voiture were discussed ;
in the Academy, Le Cid. Debates were in vogue in all the

1 A man of wit, author of the charming Fairy Tales, reminiscent of our
Mother Goose Stories. It is Perrault who read before the Academy a
discourse containing these lines:

"Que Ton peut comparer, sans crainte d'etre injuste,

Le siecle de Louis au beau siecle d'Auguste."

Louis XIV is said to have imitated the customs of the age of Augustus with
respect to his court poets. Louis thought himself another Augustus,
Boileau was his Horace.

212

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

literary circles; the most celebrated of these debates was
called the " Quarrel of the ancients and the moderns," the
moderns being represented by Charles Perrault, the ancients
by Boileau, Huet, La Fontaine. The dispute ended with the
reconciliation. of Boileau and Perrault. Boileau in his de-
fense of the ancients, writes Lanson, as little suspected that
he was an evolutionist as Saint Augustine thought himself a
Cartesian when he encountered the famous formula : Je pense,
done je suis. The quarrel was revived fifteen years later,
when the ancients carried off the palm of victory with the
translation of the Iliad by Madame Dacier and of Telemaque.
by Fenelon.

At court, Boileau retained his independence as elsewhere,
and for thirty years enjoyed the uninterrupted favor of the
king. Boileau, like Racine and Moliere, have been reproached
by posterity for flattering the king, but it must be remembered
that at this epoch there was in France a royalty cult, and it
was only natural to praise the king. Nevertheless, this adula-
tion did not make Boileau stoop to any sordidness; on the
contrary he dared even at times to tell an unpleasant truth
to the king. Louis XIV having composed some verses, showed
them to Boileau. " Sire," said Boileau, " nothing is im-
possible to Your Majesty. Your Majesty has wished to make
bad verses, and Your Majesty has entirely succeeded."

" M. Boileau," Racine wrote to his son, " has not only re-
ceived from heaven a marvelous genius for satire, but he has
likewise an excellent judgment that enables him to distinguish
what should be lauded from what should be reproved. ' ' But
this ' ' marvelous genius for satire ' ' did not affect the natural
good-will of Boileau. " He is only cruel in verse," said
Madame de Sevigne. Racine was vicious and bitter in dis-
cussion; Boileau always retained his sangfroid. His opinions
often anticipated those of posterity. One day the king asked
him who was the greatest poet of his reign: "Moliere, Sire,"
answered Boileau, without hesitation. " I should not have
thought so," answered the king, somewhat astonished, " but
you understand it better than I."

Boileau lived the greater part of his life at Auteuil, in
a house which he owed to the bounty of Louis XIV, and which
was a favorite rendezvous of the great celebrities of the day.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Twice a week these great men met, and among their favorite
places were the famous cabarets,1 the Mouton blanc and the
Pomme de pin, the taverns Villon and Regnier are supposed to
have frequented. Here these men of genius exchangd their
brilliant ideas over the flowing cup and gay repasts.

It is related that on one occasion, Moliere, Chapelle,
Boileau, Racine, and La Fontaine, were assembled at Auteuil.
They were dining and drinking, and the wise Boileau lost
his wits with the rest of them. Wine had put them in a most
serious frame of mind; reflection on the miseries of life, and
the maxim of the ancients that the highest happiness is not
to have been born at all — or, being denied that, to die young —
prompted a heroic resolution to throw themselves forthwith
into the river. They set out, and the river was not far. Then
Moliere persuaded them that such a noble action should not
be buried in the shades of night ; that it would more properly
be done in the light of day. So they stopped, and, looking at
each other, said: " He is right "; to which Chapelle added,
" Yes, gentlemen, let us not drown ourselves until to-morrow
morning, and, meanwhile, let us drink the rest of the wine."
But the following day saw a change in their ideas; they con-
cluded that, after all, it was better to support the miseries of
life.

Among those great minds, Boileau constantly remained
the bond between rivals. An intimate friend of Racine, he
never quarreled with Moliere ; he ran to the king to ask him
to transfer the royal pension, with which Louis had honored
him, to the aged Corneille, who found himself deprived, with-
out reason, of the monarch's favor. Boileau entered the
Academy in 1684, immediately after La Fontaine; his satires
had retarded his election. " He praised without flattery, he
humbled himself nobly," says Louis Racine, " and when de-
claring that membership in the Academy should be closed to
him for many reasons, he alluded to all the Academicians
whom he had satirized in his works."

Boileau survived Racine by twelve years, without setting
foot in the court subsequent to his first interview with the king
after Racine's death. " I have been at Versailles," he writes,

1 These cabarets were later called cafe's.
214

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

" where I have seen Madame de Maintenon, and after-
ward the king, who overwhelmed me with kind expressions ; so,
here I am, more the historiographer than ever. His Majesty
spoke to me of M. Racine in a way to make all the courtiers
anxious to die, if they thought he would speak of them in this
way after their death. However, this consoled me very little
for the loss of our illustrious friend, who is none the less
dead, although mourned by the greatest king in the universe."
' ' Remember, ' ' Louis XIV had said, ' ' that I have always one
hour a week to give you when you wish to come. ' ' However,
Boileau did not return. ' ' What should I do at the court ? ' '
he used to say. ' ' I no longer know how to praise. ' ' He lived
in retirement on his estate at Auteuil until his death. Boileau
died in 1711, having survived all his friends, leaving almost
all his estate to the poor, and followed to his tomb by a
numerous crowd. " He had many friends," said the people,
' ' yet they assure us that he spoke ill of everybody. ' '

No writer has contributed more to the formation of poetry
than has Boileau; no juster and more delicate judgment has
appreciated the merit of authors; no more elevated soul has
directed a firmer and saner mind. In spite. of the vicissitudes
of letters, in spite of the sometimes excessive rigor of his
decisions, Boileau has left on the French language an in-
effaceable imprint. His talent has exercised less influence
than his mind ; his judgment and his character have had more
influence than his verses.

There are few writers who have been so widely read as
Boileau.1 He exercised an influence throughout Europe, and
acted upon the works of Pope, Dryden, Gottsched, Lessing,
Luzan, and others. Boileau 's dictum was adopted as the
highest standard of French taste. Lanson writes: <l Ex-
perience seems to indicate that the principles of Boileau in
their essential and profound signification embody the funda-
mental and permanent demands of French taste. For two
centuries all that has been found solid, sane, and durable in
our literature, all that has been saved from oblivion and the
decay of time, is the diction essentially conforming to the doc-
trine of the Art poetique : and the concealed faults or obvious

1 There are two hundred and twenty-five editions of his works of which
sixty editions were published during his lifetime.

215

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

deformities which caused the destruction of schools and their
works, were generally what Boileau implicitly or expressly
condemned. ... A psychological and moral literature, clear,
precise, regular, and interesting, based on reality and yet
resting the mind from reality, the joy of the esprits legers,
and the food of active intellect — that is what French taste
demands. Because of this, therefore, for many years to come
we shall have something of Boileau, and something essential,
in all the works which will succeed among us."

MOLIERE

Tragedy had held the stage early in the seventeenth cen-
tury in France. Not until Moliere rang up the curtain on
true comedy did the sock take the place of the buskin.
Farces had been introduced by Gros Guillaume and Gautier-
Garguille; Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin had written a comedy
sketch of manners, Les Visionnaires (The Visionaries) ; and
Corneille's Le Menteur, the first notable attempt at a comedy
of character, had appeared. But the complications of plot in
these plays were almost incomprehensible ! and Scarron 's Le
Marquis ridicule, and Don Japhet d'Armenie abounded in
mystification, and buffoonery. With Moliere 's advent these
clumsy and superficial essays gave way to refreshing, natural
pictures of life; and that, too, at a time when life was
stifled by affectation and artificiality of speech and manner.
Mediocre poets could not effect this change; only a genius
could show the way and find the means to correct and improve
society — in fact, to rescue it. Moliere, creator of modern
comedy, unfettered by rules, rose to heights never before and
never since attained. Comedy as it had been developed in
the Greek and Roman world, and continued in the Italian
Commedia dell'arte, found in him a master who overturned
the traditions of comic complications — depicting instead the
weaknesses of his age and of humanity as we still see it to-
day. Of all Frenchmen, Moliere remains the author who
enjoys universal homage, whose place in the world's literature
is above all other contrivers of comedy, ancient and modern.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, who later took the pseudonym of

216

' ' Moliere, ' ' was born at Paris in 1622. His father, chamber-
lain of the king, sent him to be educated at the " College
de Clermont " (later Louis-le-Grand), at that time conducted
by the Jesuits. But he was preferably in attendance at the
lessons which the philosopher Gassendi gave to his disciples,
among whom were the celebrated traveler Bernier, the poet
Renault, the humorist Cyrano de Bergerac, and Chapelle the
Epicurean. During the course of these lessons, Poquelin ac-
quired a certain liberty of thought which often appeared in
his plays, and, later, lent color to the accusation that he was
irreligious. After his studies were finished, Moliere, at the
age of twenty, played in the gambling house of la Perle, and
then organized a company under the ambitious name of
L'lllustre Theatre in 1643, where he acted under the name
of Moliere. The next year the company was stranded, Moliere
was arrested by the tradesman who supplied the candles, and
the company had to borrow money to release him from prison.
In 1646 he left Paris as the chief of a small troop of actors,
who, not being able to support themselves in Paris, traveled
twelve years through the provinces. In 1653, at Lyons, he
staged his comedy L'Etourdi,1 the first regular play he had
ever composed ; Le Depit Amoureux z was presented at Be-
ziers 3 in 1656, where he was the protege of Prince de Conti,
governor of Languedoc. The company returned to Paris in
1658, and Moliere played before the king in the hall of the
Guards of the old Louvre. Under the patronage of the king
and of Monsieur, the king's brother, Moliere became the chief
of a troop called the " Troupe de Monsieur " which played
in the Hotel du Petit-Bourbon. Later they played in the
Palais-Royal under the protection of the king and were called
" troupe du roy " in opposition to the " troupe royale " of the
Hotel de Bourgogne, and of the Theatre du Marais. Some
years later, Moliere 's company absorbed the Marais company
to form the Theatre Guenegaud. In 1680, by order of Louis

1 L'Etowdi is imitated from the I'lnavvertito of Nicolo Barbieri.

J Le Depit Amoureux is derived from I'lnteresse, by Nicolas Secchi, and
from the farce, Gli Sdegni amorosi.

3 For the opening of the session of the Estates of Languedoc. Local
tradition still shows the chair in the barber's shop where Molidre sat in
silence and studied from life the various characters who assembled there.

217

XIV, who wished to have only one French theatre in Paris,
Moliere 's company was united with the " Troupe royale de
1'Hotel de Bourgogne, " forming the famous Comedie Fran-
caise (official name of the Theatre-Francais) in a wing of the
Palais-Royal. So Moliere may be considered the true founder
of the Theatre-Francais. It was dedicated to a classic reper-
tory and to this day is considered the foremost stage for classic
plays and their perfect interpretation. It was at the Theatre
du Petit-Bourbon that Moliere in 1659 achieved such a signal
victory with his Precieuses Ridicules. He broke away from
the Italians and Spanish, and, taking the customs of his time
at first hand, squarely attacked the affectations and absurd
pretensions of the vulgar imitators of the Hotel Rambouillet.
" Courage, Moliere! " cried an old man from the midst of the
pit. " That is true comedy! " When he published his play
Moliere, lest he offend a powerful class, took pains to say in
the preface, that he was not attacking the real Precieuses, but
those who imitated them poorly. Menage, one of the most
illustrious alcovistes,1 declared himself converted. " Mon-
sieur," said he to Chapelain, while coming from the opening
performance of the Precieuses, " we used to approve of all
the nonsense which has just been so cleverly criticised with so
much good sense, and, as Saint Remi said to Clovis : ' We shall
have to burn what we have worshiped, and worship what we
have burned. ' " 2 "It happened, as I had predicted, ' ' added
Menage. After that first performance they abandoned the
nonsensical and forced style which had been cultivated, and
applauded Moliere with enthusiasm.

Then Moliere took another step. " Henceforth," said
he, " I shall study Plautus and Terence, and reveal the frag-
ments of Meander." Like his illustrious contemporaries, he
proceeded to borrow from the classics ; he assimilated what he
borrowed, and impressed it with his own originality. From
Plautus he took L'Avare and Amphitryon; from Terence, the
knaveries of his valets and the debates of his Adelphi con-
cerning marriage. In Italy he sought his scholar — academi-

1 An alcoviste was an habitue" of ruelles and also meant a cicisbeo or
professed gallant and attendant of a married woman.

*The entire quotation reads. "Courbe la te"te, fier Sicambre, adore ce
que tu as brute, brule ce que tu as adore"."

218

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

cian of Bologna or Padua — whose education he completed
in the school of the French Vadius or Pancraces; Pantalon,
an amorous and credulous old man, was transformed into
Gerontes, and Scapin, wily and knavish, naturally followed
his master. Moreto inspired La Princesse d'Elide; Tirso de
Molin's Le Convive de Pierre (The Stone Guest), became Le
Festin de Pierre, usually known as Don Juan. It was as
Moliere himself said : " Je prends mon bien ou je le trouve." x
But it did not in the least detract from his glory ; like Shake-
speare, he did not copy, he transformed, by virtue of his
genius. ^

L'Ecole des Maris (The School for Husbands) and Les
Fdcheux (The Bores) were performed for the fetes at Vaux.
Among the ridiculous characters of this last-named play,
Moliere had not included that of the hunter. Louis XIV him-
self pointed out to him his omission. ' ' There is one whom you
have forgotten, the Marquis de Soyecour," said he. Twenty-
four hours later the tiresome gamekeeper, with all his hunting
jargon, forever found a place among the Facheux 2 of Moliere.
With L'Ecole des femmes,3 La Critique de I'Ecole des
Femmes, and I'Impromptu de Versailles, began the fighting
period of the great comic poet's life. Accused of irreligion,
attacked even in his private life, Moliere, repaying insult
with insult, exposed the idiosyncrasies of his enemies to the
ridicule of the court and of posterity. Don Juan ou Le Festin
de Pierre, was designed to clear the author of the reproach of
impiety; La Princesse d'Elide and L' Amour medecin were

1 "I take my own wherever I find it."

Pascal said: "Let no one say that I have said nothing new. The
arrangement of the material is new."

La Bruyere said: "Everything has been said" and yet he wrote an
excellent and an original book.

2 Les Fdcheux is the first example of those pieces called "pieces a tiroir "
— plays without plan or plot; and in it was introduced, for the first time,
the comedy-ballet, in which the dance is so intermingled with the action
as to fill up intervals, without breaking the continuity of the play. Les
Fdcheux was conceived, written, rehearsed and performed within fifteen
clays.

a Sir Walter Scott says: " The Country Wife of Wycherly is an imitation
of L'Ecole des femmes, with the demerit on the part of the English author
of having rendered licentious a plot which in Moliere's hands is only gay."

219

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

only charming interludes in the great struggle henceforth
waged between realities and appearances.

In 1666, Moliere produced Le Misanthrope, an invective
against the superficiality and the perfidies of the court. Le
Tartuffe was a new effort in the same direction, bolder in its
attack on religious hypocrisy, and seeming to strike even at
religion itself. Moliere had been working on it for a long
time. The first acts had been played at court under the title
L' Hypocrite; the completed play was performed under the
title of L'Imposteur, during the absence of the King. The
next day its representation was forbidden : ' ' His Honor, the
first President Lamoignon did not wish it to be played." *

The good sense and judgment of the king finally prevailed
over the terrors of the true devotees and the anger of the
hypocrites. His Majesty had just seen the performance of
an impious buffoonery, when he said to the Prince of Conde,
who was protecting Moliere: " I should like to know why
people who are so scandalized at Moliere 's comedy say nothing
of that of Scaramouche. " 2 " The reason for that," re-
sponded the prince, " is that the comedy of Scaramouche
deals with heaven and religion, for which these gentlemen
care nothing, whereas Moliere 's comedy reflects themselves —
a thing which they cannot endure." The following frag-
ments of a petition presented to the king by Moliere, on the
comedy of Tartuffe, illustrates some of the difficulties he had
to contend with :

SIRE:

The duty of comedy being to correct men while diverting them, I
have thought that in the profession I pursue I could do nothing
better than attack by means of ridiculous descriptions the vices of my
epoch; and since hypocrisy, without doubt, is one of the most
prevalent of these, one of the most troublesome and dangerous, I
had thought, Sire, that I should render no small service to all honest

1 The play upon words is lost by translation. Moliere said : " Monsieur
le premier president ne veut pas qu'on le joue," le referring to Tartuffe, but
which may also be applied to Lamoignon.

2 Scaramouche, a personage of the ancient Italian stage always dressed
in black from head to foot. Tiberio Fiorelli was the first comedian known
by that name, and is said to have invented it. Moliere uses it in his phrase
"Le ciel s'est habille", ce soir, en Scaramouche."

220

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

people in your kingdom if I made a comedy describing hypocrites and
exposing to view, as they ought to be, all the studied deceits of these
extremely "good" people, all the hidden tricks of these counter-
feiters in devotion, who wish to ensnare men by means of false zeal
and a sophistical charity. . . . But, in spite of this glorious declara-
tion of the greatest king on earth as well as the most enlightened; in
spite, moreover, of the approbation of the Papal legate and the greater
part of our prelates — all of whom, in the readings of my work which
I have given them, found themselves in accord with the sentiments of
your Majesty; in spite of all this, I say, we see a book composed by
the cure l of which boldly gives the lie to all this august testi-
mony. Your Majesty need say nothing, and the legate and the prel-
ates need not render their judgment; my comedy, without his having
seen it, is diabolical, and diabolical is my brain ; I am a demon clothed
in flesh in the form of a man — a libertine, an impious wretch worthy
of exemplary punishment. It does not suffice that a public fire ex-
piate my offense; I should settle too cheaply. The charitable zeal of
this good man does not stop at this: he does not wish that I should
have mercy from God, he wishes that I be damned ; it is all settled. . . .

While waiting permission to stage Tartuffe, Moliere had
produced Le Medecin Malgre Lui, Amphitryon, George Dan-
din and L'Avare,2 lavishing freely the inexhaustible resources
of his genius, and always ready for the royal or princely
fetes. Moliere was the comedian, the director and manager
of his company, and also furnished the plays, most of which
were improvised on command for the court. Monsieur de
Pourceaugnac was played for the first time at Chambord;
" one year later," Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme appeared, with
the divertissements and music of Lulli. The play directly
satirized one of the most frequently ridiculous characteristics
of his time. Many of the people secretly felt themselves
pricked ; their anger broke out at the first representation, and
Moliere thought himself ruined ; but the king said to him :

1 The cur£ of Saint-Barthe'lemy, Pierre Roulle1, who made a most violent
attack on Moliere and called him "that demon clad in human flesh, who
deserved to be sent through earthly, to eternal, fires," in a pamphlet (Le
Roy glorieux au monde). In answer, the king adopted Moliere's company
as his servants and gave them the title of Troupe du roy.

3 After Plautus, and the play Goethe considered among the finest ever
written.

221

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

" You have never done anything which has diverted me so
much; your comedy is excellent." So the court immediately
hastened to admire it.

The king had lavished his favors on Moliere, who was sta-
tioned near him as chamberlain by heredity.1 He had given
him a pension of seven thousand livres and the privileges of
the royal theater. He protected him against the slanders of
certain of his private servitors and gave him a public proof
of his esteem, by being the godfather of the oldest of his
children, whose godmother was the Duchess of Orleans. Hear-
ing that some of the officers of his court had treated Moliere
in a contemptuous manner, the king bade him be a guest at
his private table, where he himself served the actor-dramatist,
saying to his astonished courtiers: " You see me occupied
in serving Moliere, who is not good enough company for
some of my officers. ' ' But all the power of the monarch, and
his constant favors, could not efface the public prejudice which
was then attached to the actor's profession, and confer upon
the comedian, seen every day on the stage, the station and rank
to which his genius entitled him. The friends of Moliere urged
him to quit the theater. ' ' Your health is declining, ' ' Boileau
said to him, ' ' because the profession of a comedian is exhaust-
ing you. Why do you not give it up ? " " Alas ! " answered
Moliere, sighing, " it is a point of honor which holds me."
" And what do you mean by that? " asked Boileau. " The
point of honor," explained Moliere, "consists in my not de-
serting more than a hundred persons whose support depends
upon my personal exertions."

In ordinary life Moliere laughed little, and observed a
great deal; his friends had nicknamed him " the Contem-
plator. ' ' Constantly wounded in his affections and his pride,
Moliere was unhappy and sad. Ill-mated with a wife of
whom he was justly jealous, whom he passionately loved, and
unable to find at home consolation for the vexations and
troubles of his life, he sought in work and incessant activity,

1 According to the custom in France in 1669, the valets de chambre-
tapissiers made the king's bed every day, together with the regular valets.
They were obliged to take care of the campaign furnishings, and to arrange
his Majesty's furniture.

222

the only relief which a proud spirit could enjoy. Psyche,
Les Fourberies de Scapin (The Impostures of Scapin), and
La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas produced in 1671,1 disclosed nei-
ther the sadness nor the increasing suffering of their author.
Les Femmes Savantes at first had little success; it was pro-
nounced cold. The marvelous fineness of portraiture, the
accuracy of judgment, the delicacy and elegance of the dia-
logue, were not relished until later. When Moliere wrote
Le Malade Imaginaire — the last of the repeated blows which
he had aimed at physicians — he was in worse health than
usual ; his friends, his actors, urged him not to play. ' ' What
do you want me to do? " he asked. " There are fifty poor
workmen who have only their day's wages on which to live;
what will they do if we do not play ? I should reproach myself
for having neglected to give them bread, if only for a single
day."

Moliere was, his contemporaries say, a comedian from head
to foot. " It seemed as if he had several voices; everything
spoke with him, and by a step, by a smile, by a wink of the
eye and a movement of the hand, he could make more things
understood than the greatest talker could express in an hour."
During the fourth performance of Le Malade Imaginaire, on
the seventeenth of February, 1693, Moliere 's health, under-
mined by unhappiness and overwork gave way. He had a
hemorrhage which a few hours later ended his life, at fifty-one
years of age. According to the ridiculous customs of the time
he, as an actor, was denied Christian burial.

In the preface to the edition of Moliere of 1682 — attrib-
uted by some to Marcel, by others to La Grange and Vinot—
is found the following : * ' Everyone regretted a man so rare,
and still regrets him every day, but particularly the persons
who have good taste and delicacy. He was named the Ter-
ence2 of his century; this one word includes all the praises
which might be bestowed on him." La Fontaine expressed
his sorrow and regret at the death of Moliere, in this touching
epitaph :

1 The same year the first French opera Pomone was produced. The
Academy of Music had been founded in 1669.

1 A celebrated Roman comic poet who lived in the second century before
Christ.

223

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

Sous ce tombeau gisent Plaute ' et Terence.
Et cependant le seul Moliere y git:
Leurs trois talents ne formaient qu'un esprit,
Dont le bel art rejouissait la France.
Us sont partis, et j'ai peu d'esperance
De les revoir malgre tous nos efforts;
Pour un long temps selon toute apparence,
Terence, Plaute et Moliere sont morts.2

The great glory of Moliere is to have been the poet of
humanity, and at the same time the poet of his own epoch.
Not only was he the first to perceive and chastise the ridicu-
lous elements in things which his contemporaries esteemed
and took seriously, but he has incarnated men's vices and
whims in creations which have an imperishable verity. His
characters have a physiognomy so distinct, so personal, that
they may be recognized among a thousand ; we think that their
epoch lived with them, yet each century finds in them its own
leanings and vices; they are at once real as individuals and
eternally true as types. They are not creatures of fantasy,
but of real life, with warm blood pulsing through their veins,
and his characters, with their human frailties and their eter-
nal veracity have raised Moliere to one of the greatest poets of
all time. The plot which sweeps his actors along, and envel-
ops them like an atmosphere, is resplendent with the fire of
his imagination. It is a warmth of gayety which warms us,
which impassions all this comic world, and scintillates from all
the objects in it, " like the light of a southern sky, in a thou-
sand brilliant effects." This burst of joyous humor, this
sweep of imagination, increases in Moliere along with the
severe gift of philosophic observation. In proportion as his
reason becomes more profound and his insight more pene-
trating, his comic power increases and burns. It is, so to
speak, the lyricism of irony and sarcastic gayety, linked with
pure sportiveness and sparkling laughter. In a clear, pre-

1 A Roman dramatist (second century B.C.).

2 Under this tomb rest Plautus and Terence — yet only Moliere rests
here: their three talents formed but one mind, whose fine art delighted
France. They are gone, and I have little hope of seeing them again, in
spite of all our efforts; for a long time, according to all appearances,
Terence, Plautus, and Moliere are dead.

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THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

else and natural manner he speaks the language of the cities,
of the provinces, of all classes and of all passions. Le Malade
Imaginaire is its last expression and most striking example.
In this play Moliere approaches the ideal of free and unre-
strained imagination, which made the charm and poetry of the
ancient Greek comedy.

Saintsbury says : ' ' Of all dramatists, ancient and modern,
Moliere is perhaps that one who has borne most constantly in
mind the theory that the stage is a lay pulpit, and that its
end is not merely amusement, but the reformation of manners
by means of amusing spectacles. . . . Brunetiere says : ' ' One
may almost say that, during two centuries, a comedy was criti-
cised with Moliere as a basis ; in other words, that during this
time he was the standard for Europe. ' '

To the accusation made against him by some pedantic
critics, who objected to his plays because they were not made
strictly to conform to rules, Moliere answered with a convinc-
ing argument : ' ' Je voudrais bien savoir si la grande regie de
toutes les regies n 'est pas de plaire. ' ' a And all the world who
loves true comedy says of him with La Fontaine : ' ' Voila
mon Homme! "

Moliere was not a member of the Academy; his vocation
had closed its doors to him. It was almost a hundred years
after his death, in 1778, that a bust of him was erected be-
neath which were carved these words: " Rien ne manque a
sa gloire, il manquait a la notre. ' ' 2

The three masterpieces of Moliere are Le Misanthrope, Le
Tartuffe,3 and Les Femmes Savantes.

LE MISANTHROPE

Alceste is one of the most loyal of men. He lacks only
one virtue — indulgence to the frailties of mankind. His
peevish wisdom pardons no form of human weakness. He is
ready to denounce as a lie, as treason, the most harmless ex-
pression that implies a concession to the customs of the world.

1 " I should really like to know if the great rule of all rules is not that
of pleasing."

z " His glory lacks nothing; he was lacking to ours."

* Moliere himself wrote it Tartuffe; the French Academy changed the
spelling to Tartufe.

16 225

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

To the bad humor of Alceste, Moliere opposes the optimistic
character of Philinte. Alceste falls in love with a coquette;
faithful Eliante would much better deserve his love, but
he loves Celimene in spite of himself. The indignation of
Alceste is often justified by the vices of that society in the
midst of which he lives : the hypocrisy and sweetish spiteful-
ness of the prude, Arsinoe ; the fatuity of marquises ; the van-
ity of the court poet, and especially the perfidious coquetry
of Celimene, are offenses that wound profoundly a man of
intelligence and noble character. Nor is Alceste ridiculous
except at certain moments, when the violence of his passions
contrasts too strongly with the causes which provoke them.
Whether Philinte has praised bad verses, or whether corrupt
judges have rendered an unfair decision, the misanthrope
makes no distinction ; he bursts out, he becomes indignant, he
declares himself resolved to flee from society, to withdraw
from this wicked life — forgetting that there would be little
merit in loving men if they were perfect, and that the rarest
and most difficult virtue, charity, consists precisely in loving
them in spite of their faults.

Moliere was loudly censured as having ridiculed in the
person of Alceste, the Duke de Montausier, a man of honor
and virtue, but of blunt, discourteous manners. The duke,
informed that he had been put on the stage by Moliere,
threatened vengeance; but being persuaded to see the play,
he sought the author instantly, embraced him repeatedly, and
assured him that if he (Moliere) had really thought of him
when composing the Misanthrope, he regarded it as an honor
which he could never forget. It is of Montausier that Boi-
leau had said, in his satire to Valaincour : ' ' The smile on his
face is in bad humor. ' '

Le Misanthrope pictures the suffering in the heart of a
man who loves, and sees himself deceived without his own
sentiments becoming extinguished (the suffering of Moliere
himself). The Misanthrope is the most correct work of
Moliere, and a great number of its verses have become pro-
verbial. For example :

L'ami du genre humain n'est point du tout mon fait.1
1 To be a friend of the human race does not at all suit me.

226

Ces haines vigoureuses

Que doit dormer le vice aux ames vertueuses. l

Un endroit ecarte1

Ou d'etre homme d'honneur on ait la liberte.2

TARTUFFE

A rich and pious bourgeois, Orgon, has been imprudent
enough to receive in his home a man whose apparent devout-
ness has deceived him. His mother, Madame Pernelle, is,
like him, the dupe of this sacrilegious and deceitful humbug.
In vain have his brother-in-law, his son, and specially his ser-
vant, the frank and sprightly Dorine, discovered the rascal
beneath the mask of holiness. Orgon first opens his eyes at
the moment when he has personal proofs of the knavery of
his protege — at the moment when his entire estate, when his
very house, belong to the scoundrel who expels him from it;
when his honor, his liberty, and perhaps his life, are in im-
minent danger. A verse often quoted reads :

On n'y respecte rien, chacun y parle haut,

Et c'est tout justement la cour du roi Pe'taud.3

LES FEMMES SAVANTES

Les Femmes savantes is, so to speak, the continuation of
Les Precieuses ridicules. One of the finest and best poised
pieces of Moliere, it succeeded completely at the court and in
the world of letters, but did not receive from the public the
welcome which it deserved. What Moliere attacks here again
is not so much science as pedantry. The unwholesome air of
pedantry and the ' ' higher life ' ' has infected the home of a
simple and good bourgeois, Chrysale. His wife Philaminte,

1 The vigorous hatred that vice should arouse in virtuous souls.

z A sequestered spot where one is free to be a gentleman of honor.

8 This phrase from Tartuffe has become proverbial as meaning " when
everybody wishes to speak at once." At one time in France, beggars
named a chief whom they facetiously called "King Petaud" (from the
Latin, peto, " I demand "). He had no authority whatever over his sub-
jects.

227

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

his sister Belise, and Armande, his oldest daughter, converse
all day with pedants of poor tone, whom they consider sub-
lime geniuses. To look after the cares of the household is be-
neath them. They are entirely given up to pretentious bab-
bling, to literary and philosophic divagations ; they quote Des-
cartes, Epicurus, Plato; they seek animals in the moon, and
weigh the verses of M. Trissotin, an aspirant to the dowry of
Henriette, the second daughter of Chrysale, who has been able
to escape the contagion of maternal folly. She is one of the
most sympathetic creations of Moliere. With the consent of
her father, she has promised her hand to a good man, Cli-
tandre, a declared enemy of false knowledge and pedantry.
Henriette has not concealed from Trissotin the fact that she
has only repugnance for his person, and that her heart is with
Clitandre ; but he does not pride himself on delicacy, and will
not renounce for such a light rebuff the fine dower which he
covets. Ariste, brother of Chrysale, and the thinker of the
comedy, intervenes very opportunely. At the moment when
they are about to sign the marriage contract, he brings the
news that Chrysale is ruined. Trissotin perceives, a little late,
that it is not at all consistent with his dignity to accept a heart
which does not yield itself ; and he retires. Ariste has brought
only false news ; the disasters of which he spoke are of his own
invention. It is a stratagem which he has employed, in order
to undeceive Philaminte and oblige Trissotin to show the
depths of his soul. Philaminte is constrained to yield, and
Clitandre will marry Henriette.

L'AVARE »

Harpagon loves nothing in the world but himself and his
ducats. Solely occupied in guarding and increasing his
estate, he sees in his children only enemies and domestic spies.
In return, his daughter Elise, and his son Cleante, have nei-
ther feelings of tenderness nor respect for him. Left to them-
selves, without guide and counsel, they are guilty of the most
blameworthy actions. Elise authorizes the man whom she loves

1 L'Avare, which in Germany is the moat popular of Moliere's piays, is
founded on Aulularia, a comedy by Plautus.

228

THE CLASSIC FKENCH SCHOOL

to come to the paternal house in disguise, and Cleante ruins
himself in advance by loans from usurers. Harpagon takes
it into his head to marry them. About their inclinations and
their tastes he cares little : for his son he has chosen a widow ;
he destines his ' ' daughter for Monsieur Anselme, ' ' a prudent
and wise man " not more than fifty years of age "; he himself
wishes to marry a young girl of poor parents, whose beauty
has charmed him. He discovers that his son is in love with
this young girl, yet it makes little difference to him. But
an accident affecting that which he holds most dear makes
him for a moment forget his fine projects. His treasure, a
cash box containing ten thousand crowns, has disappeared.
He wishes to have the people of the city and suburbs arrested
en masse. It turns out that his domestic, Valere, the dis-
guised lover of Elise, has stolen the precious cash box, and he
restores it to Harpagon only on condition that he will marry
his daughter and son according to their own wishes. It is
found that Valere is the son of Monsieur Anselme, and the
brother of that Marianne who is sought in marriage by Har-
pagon and his son. This discovery ends their difficulties :
Valere is to marry Elise, and Cleante will wed Marianne.
Harpagon, to whom the cash box has been returned, consents,
provided that he be put to no expense whatsoever, and a new
coat be made for him for the wedding.

" George Dandin " is concerned with a rich peasant, who
has married a young lady of noble family, in spite of the coun-
sel of his reason, and finds cause to repent, having strayed
into this role of a ridiculous rustic gentleman. " Tu 1'as
voulu, George Dandin, ' ' x has become a well recognized
quotation.

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme is the eternal image of the
parvenu — of the ridiculous figure cut by a good man when
trying to imitate the manners of a caste which is not his own.

L' Amour Medecin — the play which, as Moliere tells us in
his Preface, was " proposed, written, learned, and presented
in five days " — is the true point of departure of the attacks
against the Faculty (of Medicine). He had already aimed
several attacks against physicians in Don Juan, but this time

1 "You would have it so, George Dandin."
229

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

he attacked them face to face, and began a campaign which he
continued in several plays.

Sir Walter Scott says: " The medical faculty at Paris
in the middle of the seventeenth century was at a very low
ebb. Almost every physician was attached to some particular
form of treatment, which, exercised on his patients with-
out distinction, probably killed in as many instances as it
effected a cure. Their exterior — designed, doubtless, to in-
spire respect by its peculiar garb and formal manner — was
in itself matter for ridicule. They ambled on mules through
the city of Paris attired in antique and grotesque dress, the
jest of its laughter-loving people, and the dread of those who
were unfortunate enough to be their patients. The consulta-
tions of these sages were conducted in a barbarous Latinity;
or, if they condescended to use the popular language, they dis-
figured it with an unnecessary profusion of technical terms,
or rendered it unintelligible by a prodigal tissue of scholastic
formalities of expression. The venerable dullness and pe-
dantic ignorance of the faculty was incensed at the ridicule
cast upon it in L' Amour Medecin, especially as four of its
most distinguished members were introduced under Greek
names, invented by Boileau for his friend's use. The consulta-
tion held by these sages, which respects everything save the
case of a patient; the ceremonious difficulty with which they
are at first brought to deliver their opinions ; the vivacity and
fury with which each finally defends his own, predicting the
instant death of the patient if another treatment be followed
— all this seemed to the public highly comical, and led many
reflecting men to think that Lisette was not far wrong in
contending that a sick man should not be said to die of a fever
or consumption, but of four doctors and two apothecaries.
The farce enlarged the sphere of Moliere 's enemies ; but as the
poet suffered none of the faculty 1 to prescribe for him, their
resentment was of the less consequence."

1 Moliere aaked a favor of the king for the son of a physician. " What,
Moliere," exclaimed the monarch, "you, have a doctor! What does he
do?" "Sire," said Moliere, "we argue, he prescribes remedies for me; I
take none, and get well."

230

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

LA FONTAINE

Jean de La Fontaine, born in 1621 at Chateau-Thierry,
died in 1695. After an indifferent education he entered the
Oratory * at Reims, at the age of twenty, to study theology,
but soon left it, not having an ecclesiastical vocation. He
came and went from city to city, amusing himself everywhere,
leading a nonchalant life.

Pour moi le monde entier etait plein de delices,

J'etais touche des fleurs, des doux sons, des beaux jours,

Mes amis me cherchaient et parfois mes amours.2

Of a careless, flighty and impressionable disposition, he
was altogether a creature of circumstance. Just as he had
been influenced by the reading of a few books to study for the
priesthood, so an ode of Malherbe 's made him a poet at twenty-
five years of age. In order to check the insouciant life La
Fontaine was leading, his father arranged a marriage for him
with Marie H6ricart, and gave him a position as maitre des
eaux-et-forets in 1647. But he neglected alike his 'position
and his wife, whom he left alone at Chateau-Thierry, spending
most of his time in Paris, which gay capital he finally made
his home. Here he was welcomed and loved by the great
world, the princes of Conde and Conti, the Dukes of Bour-
gogne and Vendome. Fouquet gave him a pension, and later,
when this minister was disgraced and in danger of losing his
life, La Fontaine pleaded for royal clemency in his poem
Elegie aux Nymphes de Vaux:

Du magnanime Henri qu'il contemple la vie;
Des qu'il se put venger, il en perdit 1'envie,
Inspirez a Louis cette meme douceur.8

1 A Brotherhood founded by Philippe of Neri, in Italy, for the education
of youths and the training of preachers, and brought into France in 1611
by Cardinal de Be>ulle.

2 For me the whole world was full of pleasure: I was moved by the
flowers, by sweet sounds, by the beautiful days; I was sought by my
friends, and sometimes by my loves.

3 May the life of the magnanimous Henry — who, as soon as he could
avenge, lost all desire to — inspire Louis with this same gentleness.

231

Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans, attached La
Fontaine to herself as gentleman servant; the Duchess of
Bouillon kept him at her home in the country; he lived for
twenty years at the home of Madame de la Sabli&re, beautiful
and witty, who received many of the fashionables, and, see-
ing herself ruined, reorganized her home, but kept, as she said
to her friends, " her dog, her cat, and La Fontaine."

When she died, M. and Madame d'Hervart received the
poet, already old and quite isolated, in their home and cared for
him the remainder of his life. When d'Hervart was on his
way to make the proposal to La Fontaine, he met him in the
street. " I was coming to ask you to stay with us," he said.
" I was going there," answered La Fontaine with the most
touching confidence. He remained until his death, content to
go occasionally to Chateau-Thierry, as long as his wife lived,
in order to sell, with her consent, some tract of land. His
friends had tried to reconcile him to her, and, with this ob-
ject, had sent him to Chateau-Thierry; he returned without
having seen her. " I did not find my wife," said he; " she
was at evening prayers." His absence of mind was some-
times incredible, and his artlessness was often a source of
great merriment at the famous reunions of Auteuil. He was
nicknamed " le bonhomme," which led Moliere to remark:
" Let us not make fun of ' le bonhomme,' he will perhaps out-
live us." Louis XIV permitted La Fontaine to present to
him in person, his published Fables. La Fontaine went
to Versailles for the purpose, and made a very good presenta-
tion speech, but forgot to bring the Fables. Neverthe-
less, the king received him graciously, and gave him a purse
filled with gold. La Fontaine promptly mislaid the purse,
which was found later among the cushions of the carriage.
He was expected one day at a friend's house to dinner: " I
come from the burial of an ant," he said, on arriving late.
" I followed the convoy to the cemetery, and returned with
the family to their own home."

In spite of his absence of mind, his original simplicity
of nature and his incapacity in ordinary life, La Fontaine
was able to judge the literary merit as well as the moral quali-
ties of his famous friends. When they were together, they
spoke of their diversions, of science and literature and of their

232

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

own productions. They gave each other advice when one of
them " succumbed to the malady of the period and wrote a
book." La Fontaine gave a charming picture of their
famous reunions in his novel Les Amours de Psyche et de
Cupidon. The episode in the Golden Ass of Appuleius be-
came, under La Fontaine's pen, a novel of adventure written
in an ironical and facetious but graceful style, interspersed
with verses. He describes the delightful intimacy enjoyed
by these four illustrious friends, whom he names Acanthe
(Racine), Ariste (Boileau), Gelaste (Moliere), and Polyphile
(La Fontaine).

La Fontaine wrote with a great promiscuity all genres
of poetry: comedies, verses, ballads, epistles, and epigrams,
but his masterworks are his Fables in twelve books (1668-
1695), and his Conies et Nouvelles in five books (1665-
1685). He was the fabuliste inimitable.1 Up to his time,
the writers of fables had been only philosophers and satirists.
La Fontaine rejuvenated the fable. The ancient fable con-
cerned itself only with the meaning of the story and the moral
thereof. La Fontaine's superiority lies in the narration it-
self; the moral is not unduly obtruded — story and lesson
are equally considered. The dominant trait of his genius is
his universal sympathy and love ; he portrayed all ranks, from
king to peasant, with warmth of feeling and a happy humor.
He discovered the secret and profound charm of nature,
animating it with his inexhaustible and gracious genius. He
was flexible and naive at times, elegant, noble and penetrating,
beneath a simplicity of form. He himself describes himself :

Je m'avoue, il est vrai, s'il faut parler ainsi,
Papillon du Parnasse et semblable aux abeilles,
A qui le bon Platon compare nos merveilles :
Je suis chose le"gere et vole a tout sujet,
Je vais de fleur en fleur et d'objet en objet.
A beaucoup de plaisirs je mele un peu de gloire.2

'The word fabuliste is La Fontaine's invention, and as late as 1709 was
still in use as designating only La Fontaine.

* I confess myself, it is true, if one must so talk, a butterfly of Parnassus,
and like the bees to which the good Plato compares our marvels. I am
but a light thing, and fly to every subject; I go from flower to flower, and
from object to object. With a great many pleasures I mix a little glory.

233

An eminent and ingenious writer, M. Taine, has found in
the fables of La Fontaine all the classes, all the professions,
all the society of the seventeenth century : in the lion, the ab-
solute king ; in the fox, the courtier ; in the wolf, the warrior ;
in the bear, the country gentleman; in the ox, the peasant,
and so on. However this may be, it is true that La Fontaine
immediately finds the precise word which characterizes the
role of his personages, just as he finds the swift stroke of
delineation which makes us see their exterior ; the heron, with
his long beak fastened like a handle to an equally long neck;
the weasel, with the pointed nose; Triste-Oiseau Le Hibou
(The Moping Owl), Le Bat Ronge-Maille (Nibble-Stitch),—
and the rest. In his Fables he is the poet of all time, of all
nations, of all ages of men. The child finds amusement in his
works, the adult instruction, and the scholar admires them.
They are of equal merit with the most beautiful works of the
" grand siecle," as much by the irreproachable purity of
their morality as by the inimitable perfection of their style.
The poet took from its source the old apologue of the Orient,
magnified through the centuries by the successive inventions
of the Greeks, the Romans, and the moderns ; he made himself
the universal heir of popular common sense ; he gathered care-
fully all these fables, transcribed them, put them in verse, as
he says modestly in his preface; and they are no longer the
fables of Vishnu-Sarma, of yEsop, of Phaedra, of Babrius, of
Planude; they are the fables of La Fontaine. Indeed, poetic
originality does not consist in inventing the subject, but in
discovering the poetry in the subject. The invention of La
Fontaine is his manner of narration, his admirable style, that
happy imagination which everywhere diffuses interest and
life. " He does not compose," says La Harpe, " he con-
verses. If he tells a story, he is persuaded he has seen! "
His erudition, his eloquence, his philosophy — all that is best
in him of imagination, memory, sensibility — is made use of to
interest you. Hence the phenomenon which had not been
seen since the Odyssey — that singular but incontestable alli-
ance of the highest poetry with the most naive description,
hence, also, it comes, according to Moliere's expression, that the
great minds of France will not efface the bonhomme (La Fon-
taine) .

234

THE CLASSIC FRENCH SCHOOL

La Fontaine's Fables were published in three collections
— the first dedicated to the Dauphin (son of Louis XIV),
the rest to Madame de Montespan. They are, as he says, ' ' Une
ample comedie en cent actes divers et dont la scene est
1 'univers. ' ' * Sometimes they reach the heights of the epic
or lyric, but " come down again with a smile." At times
elegiac and satiric, one also finds in them eloquent discourses
and philosophical developments. The Duchesse de Bouillon
called him her fablier,2 saying that he produced fables as a
tree produces fruit. Madame de Sevigne describes his
Fables thus: " C'est un panier de cerises; on veut en choisir
les plus belles, et le panier reste vide. ' ' 3 His famous fable,
La Cigale et la Fourmi, is a masterpiece of the modest sim-
plicity of his style. Other fables held in especial esteem are
the touching Odyssey of Les deux Pigeons; Le Chene et le
Roseau; Les Animaux malades de la Peste; Le Savetier et le
Financier; La Laitiere et le Pot-au-lait; L'Alouette et ses
petits, avec le Maitre d'un Champ; L'Homme et la Couleuvre
— eloquent plea of animals against man; Le Paysan du
Danube — a protest against war and its consequences; Le
Chat, la Belette et le petit Lapin; Le Loup et le Chienj Le
Pot de terre et le Pot de fer; Le Meunier, son Fils, et I'Ane;
L'Huitre et les Plaideurs; Philemon et Baucis.*

Of these fables Taine writes: " They are our epics, we
have no other. I need not take away this name from the in-
sipid Henriade, nor from the artificial and sentimental med-
ley which Chateaubriand entitled Les Martyrs. And this epic
of La Fontaine is Gallic; always varied, always new. It is

1 " An ample comedy in one hundred diverse acts of which the scene is
the universe."

2 ier, the usual French termination of fruit-trees: "pommier, poirter,':
etc.

1 " It is a basket of cherries; in choosing the finest the basket is emptied."
'English titles: The Locust and the Ant; The Two Pigeons; The Oak
and the Reed; The Animals Sick with the Plague; The Cobbler and the
Banker; The Milkmaid and the Milk-can; The Lark, its Young, and the
Owner of a Field; The Man and the Adder, The Peasant of the Danube; The
Cat, the Weasel, and the Little Rabbit; The Dog and the Wolf; The Earthen
Pot and the Iron Pot; The Miller, His Son, and the Ass; The Oyster and the
Litigants; Philemon and Baucis. Ivan Kriloff, the Russian La Fontaine,
borrowed thirty-seven of his fables from the French author.

235

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

in touching these instincts, that La Fontaine became so pop-
ular. With Rabelais, Voltaire, and Moliere, he is our most
faithful mirror. Plato, it is said, having learned that the
great king wished to know the Athenians, gave the advice to
send him the comedies of Aristophanes; if the great king
would wish to know us it is the books of La Fontaine which
we should send to him."

La Fontaine's Contes were written for the Duchesse de
Bouillon (1664). They were patterned after the Decameron
of Boccaccio, and on this account La Fontaine has been ac-
cused of immorality. Yet we must remember that these Contes
were written in the seventeenth century, and dedicated to a
worthy woman of high standing. Let us bear in mind, too,
what we read in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy: " One of
the greatest amusements of our ancestors was reading Boc-
caccio aloud — an entertainment of which the effects were
speedily visible in the literature of our country. ' ' La Fontaine
himself does not lay much stress on the Contes as stories,
taking it for granted that everyone knew the subject matter;
but with respect to their artistic form, he has said :

Contons, mais contons bien, c'est le point principal;

C'est tout; a cela pres, je vous conseille

De dormir comme moi sur 1'une et 1'autre oreille.1

However, the Contes, as a whole, with their refined licentious-
ness, are inferior as a picture of manners to the coarser Fabli-
aux which inspired them.

In the Contes, La Fontaine — as Balzac did later in his
Contes drolatiques — uses with adroitness many ancient
phrases. He was the only one of the great writers of the
seventeenth century who had any knowledge of the old
Erench literature. Particularly beautiful is the story of Le
Faucon, wherein a poor knight, having no other gift for his
lady love, prepares a dainty morsel for her with his pet falcon.

H. Taine, in his La Fontaine et ses Fables writes : ' ' The
preachers, the philosophers, the poets formed a chorus to

1 Let's tell stories, but let's tell them well, that's the main point.
It is the whole thing; as for the rest, I advise you
To sleep as I do, soundly.

236

praise the imposing beauty of well-ordered morals and liter-
ature, in a solemn anthem accompanied by the ecclesiastical
organ. Bossuet leads them and the audience contemplates
with awe the august display of violet robes, plumed hats
and of spangled gowns, which arrange themselves in beautiful
order before the king. In a corner is a good man who yawns
or laughs. The sermon bores him, he dislikes ceremonies, con-
siders the rows too regular, the organ too loud. He places
on his prie-dieu the book of Saint- Augustine put into his hands
by a friend. Furtively he draws from his pocket an edition
of Rabelais, makes signs to his neighbors Chaulieu and the
Greai Prior,1 and whispers low to them some drollery. ' ' His
nurse during his last illness voiced the sentiments of all who
knew this charming and rare creature and his original sim-
plicity of nature: " God would never have the courage to
condemn him."

1 The Chevalier de Vendome, grand prieur de France.

CHAPTER XVI

LA CHAIBE1

IN order to make religion understood and observed by
the people, sermons were preached in the popular language
at an early date. The sermons of the famous orator, Saint-
Bernard, Abbot of the Cistercian Monastery of Clairvaux,
(1091-1153, canonized 1174), were delivered partly for the
people and partly for the instruction of the monks. Of these
sermons only three hundred and forty in Latin, addressed to
the monks, have been preserved. It was by such orators an
Saint-Bernard, Pierre 1'Ermite, Foulques de Neuilly and
Maurice de Sully that the crusades were inspired. At the
same time the foundation and development of the Dominican
and Franciscan orders of the twelfth century gave a great
impetus to religious eloquence. In the fourteenth century
there was a decline in oratory. Nevertheless, we owe to this
period the ablest orators, whose works have come down to us
— Pierre d'Ailly, de Clemangis and Jean Charlier, better
known as Gerson, Chancellor of the University and preacher
of the court. In his sixty sermons one finds the defects of
his time — the use of secular erudition, the abuse of allegory,
and bad taste. Yet his eloquence touches us, for it makes one
feel the sufferings and calamities which the orator deplores.

In the fifteenth century, two Franciscan monks, Menot and
Olivier Maillard, owe their fame to the boldness of an elo-
quence that feared not to speak to the people in their own
language, replete with rude and trivial imagery.

In the sixteenth century, theological discussions rendered
an eminent service to the progress of letters by enriching the
common language with an abundance of ideas formerly con-

1 The pulpit.
238

LA CHAIRE

fined to Latin. Calvin especially was an important factor,
with his Institution Chretienne.

The seventeenth century, profoundly penetrated by reli-
gious influence, produced a group of brilliant pulpit orators.
The formulation of new precepts and the reform of the clergy
gave renewed impulse to the eloquence of the pulpit, which
became a school of psychology. Le Pere Bourgoing, le -Pere
Lejeune, le Pere Senault, le Pere Claude de Lingendes, Fran-
cois de Sales, Saint Vincent de Paul, Du Perron and Mas-
caron had illuminated Christian doctrine at the beginning of
the century, and were the best preachers before Bossuet. It
was in the epoch of Louis XIV that the eloquence of the
pulpit reached its highest expression: the development of
political and judicial eloquence was hardly possible during
that reign of absolutism, but the preachers were spurred on
to their utmost capacity by the aesthetic tastes of the court.
Among these were: Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fenelon, Flechier,
and Massillon.

The preachers of the early part of the century were ora-
tors rather than moralists. Bossuet and Bourdaloue were
both moralists and orators. They began to preach, Bossuet
about 1655, and Bourdaloue some five years later. Although
Bossuet was more attached to the teaching of doctrine, both
turned their minds to the examination of things interior.

BOSSUET

Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, born at Dijon in 1627, belonged
to a family of magistrates. He early entered the ecclesiasti-
cal state, and from his childhood took delight in the Bible —
especially the Old Testament — to such an extent that later
what he wrote was sometimes composed almost wholly of Bibli-
cal citations and allusions. At sixteen years of age the little
abbot, as Tallemant called him, essayed his first sermon at the
Hotel de Rambouillet ; at eleven o'clock in the evening,
mounted on a tabouret, he improvised a sermon on death be-
fore the most imposing assembly of all the great minds of the
time, which caused Voiture to remark: " Je n'ai jamais
entendu precher ni si tot ni si tard." ("I have never
heard preaching so early or so late.") Yet, in spite of his

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

success, he pursued his studies in retirement. He emerged
from it to publish his Exposition de la Foi Catholique, one
of a series of pamphlets which make up the book Histoire
des variations des eglises protestantes — a very clear, precise
work in which he reduced to the essential points the contro-
versy between Catholics and Protestants. He was from that
time on considered one of the pillars of the church, and he
was all his life struggling against the exaggerations of the
Jansenists, who leaned too much to severity; of the Jesuits,
who inclined too much toward indulgence ; of the Protestants,
who accorded too much to reason; and of the Quietists, who
deferred too much to sentiment. His Exposition is a history
of reform from the Catholic point of view, yet sufficiently
impartial. His reasoning may be summed up thus: " The
Protestant confession of faith has changed often; hence it is
false." The reply was that these modifications argued in
favor of the Protestants, inasmuch as religion is progressive,
and God reveals as men have need of revelation. Bossuet met
the Protestants equally in the field of politics.

It was at this time that Louis XIV, desirous that his work
should be continued after him, resolved to have the heir to
the throne reared under his eyes. To this end he intrusted
the prince's education to Bossuet, who was then Bishop of
Condom; and the prelate composed for his pupil the books
which he needed and which he could not otherwise procure.
Such is the origin of the Discours sur I' Histoire Universelle,
of the Traite de la Connaissance de Dieu et de Soi-meme, and
of the Politique Tiree de I'Ecriture Sainte." The Discours
is a philosophy of history, from the Christian point of view,
from the beginning of the world to Charlemagne. The work
is divided into three parts. The first is concerned with a
rapid exposition of events; the second presents the sequence
of religion, and shows that events have disposed themselves
marvelously — be it among the Jews, or in the Roman Empire
— for the propagation of Christianity. The third part, and
the most interesting, considers, from a purely human point
of view, the causes of the grandeur and decadence of empires.
Thus Bossuet reviews the history of the Egyptians, the Greeks,
and the Romans, with whom he is more especially concerned.
These studies show a great knowledge of history, and the

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work as a whole forms a magnificent picture in which the
thought may be criticised but not the execution. Montes-
quieu's Grandeur et Decadence des Remains proceeds largely
from Bossuet's Discours.

The Connaissance de Dieu is an elementary treatise of
philosophy, outside of theology, in which Bossuet proves the
existence of God and the immortality of the soul; by argu-
ments borrowed from Descartes. In the chapters demonstrat-
ing the existence of a supreme intelligence by the perfection
of its works, there is found an anatomic description of the
human body, in which the minute exactitude of detail is
equaled only by the clearness of exposition and the happy
coloring of the style.

The Politique is the theory of absolute government : kings
are established by God, and are responsible only to Him.
They must do good for their people; but if they stray from
this duty, the people are none the less obliged to obey, and
they never have the right to remind kings of their duties.
This work is composed essentially of passages from the Bible,
accompanied by a short commentary. We must admit that
Bossuet often forces the text to draw from it his principles.
The Protestant Jurien, who answered Bossuet, used the same
texts and several others which Bossuet had neglected, to
establish the principle of the sovereignty of the people, and
of the people's right to demand an account from the king
of the use he has made of his power. Louis XIV had had
disputes with the Pope as a temporal sovereign ; * he seized
this occasion to have it decided by the clergy just what might
be the reciprocal rights of kings and popes. An ecclesiastical
assembly was called in 1681. Bossuet presided, and delivered
his discourse on the Unity of the Church. The assembly ac-
cepted the opinions of the councils of Bale and Constance,
which had declared the general councils superior to popes.
It ruled, furthermore, that, in ordinary circumstances, the
decisions of the Pope could not be valid except inasmuch as
they were approved by all the clergy — an approval which
would be established by the absence of all complaint. These
rules, which were worked out by Bossuet, constitute what is

1The king claimed the right to collect the revenues of the vacant
bishoprics; the Pope opposed this claim.
17 241

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

called the liberties of the Gallican Church. The articles
provoked violent attacks from the Pope's adherents, and
Bossuet answered in a new work entitled Defense de la decla-
ration du clerge de France. In it he places the spiritual power
above the temporal power, and demonstrates that the doctrine
of the infallibility of the Pope dates only from the fifteenth
century.

The last theological struggle of Bossuet, was that which
he had to sustain against Fenelon on the subject of Quietism.1
Fenelon in his Explication des Maximes des Saints seemed to
approve this doctrine, and was attacked by Bossuet, and
censured by the Pope; but Fenelon appeared greater in his
defeat than Bossuet in victory. Then Quietism disappeared
almost entirely.2

Bossuet is not only an illustrious theologian; he is also
the greatest religious orator of France. His sermons had
made him famous before his books. He did not compose them
in advance; he confined himself to outlining the plan and
writing a few brilliant passages; then, after having steeped
himself in his subject, he mounted the pulpit and abandoned
himself to the inspiration of the moment. It is these sketches
of sermons that have been recovered; even in this imperfect
state they are yet superior to the completed works of many
other orators. Among the doctors of the church, Saint
Chrysostom was Bossuet 's model for eloquence, and Saint
Augustine his guide for the study of religion.

But the triumph of Bossuet is the funeral oration. No
one has equalled him in this kind of discourse, which displays
him in all the pomp of eloquence. Three of these orations
especially are placed in the first rank, because of the interest

1 Quietism is the mystical doctrine which makes Christian perfection
consist in love of God and inaction of the soul, without exterior works.
Quietism had representatives in all epochs. Its best-known chief was the
Spanish priest, Molinos, who, toward the middle of the seventeenth century,
published an ascetic book idealizing religion to such a degree that it became
incomprehensible to the common people. The celebrated Madame Guyon
adopted the ideas of Molinos, and wrote about Quietism. (Larousse.)

1 The hard and obdurate character which Bossuet showed to the Prot-
estants, he also made known to his illustrious colleague, Fenelon, in the
great quarrel on Quietism.

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of the subject and the manner in which the orator has adorned
it. In the funeral oration on the Queen of England — daughter
of Henry IV, and wife of Charles I, whom the English revolu-
tion had sent to the scaffold — Bossuet traces in bold strokes
both the progress of the Anglican heresy and the history of the
revolution accomplished, and makes an oratorical portrait of
Cromwell which has remained famous. The funeral oration
on the daughter of this queen, Henriette d 'Angleterre, and
especially the oration on the Prince de Conde — the great
Conde — permitted the orator to make the most brilliant pic-
tures. Conde had figured in the Thirty Years' War, and in
the Fronde; Bossuet 's recital of the battle of Rocroy, and his
comparison of the impetuosity of Conde with the wise delibera-
tion of Turenne, are the salient parts of this work. But a
passage truly sublime is the peroration in which the orator
calls on all men of all ranks to come and render homage to
the illustrious dead ; ' ' then, in a trembling voice, returning
to himself and indicating his white hair, he bids farewell to
his audience, and announces that henceforth he shall con-
secrate to God alone the remnants of a weakening voice and
an ardor which is dying."

The eloquence of Bossuet possessed the quality of boldness
and primitive strength. He kept before him one idea — to
strike vigorously into the minds of his auditors the religious
truths he announced. To attain this end, he found, as if by
instinct, the most magnificent parallels, the grandest images;
his ardent imagination animated all, and when he showed the
nothingness of human things and the pettiness of men before
God, he filled the mind with terror.

La Bruyere has eulogized him by calling him a " Father
of the Church." His name belongs among the great scholars
who have defended dogma, and among the writers who have
employed the French language with the greatest force and
eloquence. The Meditations sur I'Evangile, and the Eleva-
tions stir les Mysteres are still classed with his best produc-
tions; but his best-known works are his Oraisons Funebres,
and his Discours sur I'Histoire Universelle.

Bossuet, in spite of his immense superiority, was not an
orator according to the standards of the seventeenth century.
He rises to great heights, but he falls again ; he is sublime, but

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THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

uneven. In the time of Louis XIV, men especially loved regu-
larity, measure. Bossuet was the theologian of the epoch, but
the orator was Bourdaloue. He died in 1704.

BOURDALOUE

Louis Bourdaloue, born at Bourges in 1632, entered the
Society of Jesus at the age of sixteen years. All his life he
was occupied with two things only — confession and preaching ;
it was in the confessional that he gathered the material
for his sermons. These were not improvised in part, like
Bossuet 's; they were scholarly compositions, carefully thought
out, written at leisure; and delivered with lowered eyes, to
avoid all distraction. Bourdaloue considered his subject in three
or four ways, which made the subdivisions of his discourse;
then he entered into the points at issue without ever letting
himself be turned from his object ; an admirable logician, his
logic was so powerful, he entwined you, he held, and you
could not escape him. Madame de Sevigne, who admired him,
has noted the peculiar effect of his eloquence on his audience :
" He has often taken my breath by the extreme attention
with which one listens to the force and justness of his argu-
ments. I breathed only when he was pleased to end." The
Marechal de Gramont was once so absorbed by the force of the
orator's deductions that he exclaimed in the very midst of the
sermon, " Zounds, he is right! " Another time, the Prince
de Conde, seeing him enter the pulpit of Saint-Sulpice, cried,
" Silence, here is the enemy! " Boileau deferred nobly to
his great faculties as a moralist when he said, " In satire on
women I am only the ape of Bourdaloue. ' ' 1

This eloquence of Bourdaloue was of a peculiar nature,
it consisted neither in the movement of his discourse, nor in
brilliant phrases, nor in great and beautiful images: it arose
from his array of proofs, from the clear and facile presenta-
tion of ideas. " There is not in Bourdaloue," said Joubert,
" either perfect precision or volubility." He pleased es-

1 After one of Bourdaloue's sermons, Louis XIV said to him: "Father,
you ought to be satisfied with me; Madame de Montespan is in Clagny."
"Yes, Sire," answered Bourdaloue, "but God would be more satisfied if
Clagny were seventy leagues from Versailles."

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pecially by his fortitude and truth. Many of his sermons,
however, have lost for us much of their interest. The
enormous partitions and subdivisions of his subject, wrought
with a view to the salvation of dependent souls, are somewhat
fatiguing. He is interesting to the modern reader chiefly for
such sermons as Sur Madeleine, Sur la Pensee de la Mort,
Sur la Severite Evangelique, Sur la Medisance (Slander).

Bourdaloue was active up to the time of his death, in 1704,
in vain appealing to his superiors for permission to rest. He
had lived to see the first successes of Massillon, and had
pronounced thereon the words of Saint John the Baptist:
' ' He must wax great, but I must perish. ' ' Massillon, indeed,
became great; but Bourdaloue in the eyes of posterity has
remained greater.

FENELON

Francois de Salignac de La Mothe de Fenelon, born at
the chateau de Fenelon in Perigord, in 1651, was also a cele-
brated prelate and preacher ; but only two of his sermons have
been preserved. The vivid imagination, the penetrating im-
pressiveness of the orator in these two productions make us
regret most emphatically the loss of the others; but Fenelon
improvised his sermons, and rarely took the trouble of tracing
their plan in writing. He preached with enthusiasm without
preparation. He is in contrast with Bossuet: it is the spirit
of sweetness opposed to that of force.

Saint-Simon has given us an admirable portrait of Fenelon.
He has dwelt upon this prelate 's noble manner, the seduction
in his face, the desire he had to please everyone, and the
ease with which he succeeded. The air of the grand seigneur
with which he invested every word and action enhanced his
dignity without ever imparting to it the spirit of pride and
disdain. He had the charm which delights men's minds and
hearts. These same qualities are found in his works — ex-
quisitely replete with Christian sweetness and Attic grace.
Nothing is more precious than his little treatise on L 'Educa-
tion des Filles. He shows in this treatise the importance of
the early education of women, who, being called upon some
day to become mothers of families, must in their turn be the
first teachers of their children ; and he emphatically criticises

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THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

the ignorance in which the young are left. He wishes children
to be instructed while being interested, by amusing them, and
making them study things rather than books. We should not,
he tells us, limit ourselves to teaching them religion ; we must
make them love it. As for their defects, we must try to
prevent these from birth, in order not to have to repress them
when developed. The treatise ends with a chapter on the
duties of women, and advice on the means of making capable
governesses.

Chosen as the preceptor of the Due de Bourgogne, grand-
son of Louis XIV, Fenelon composed several works of instruc-
tion. His Fables in prose, and his Dialogues des Morts gently
insinuated into the mind of his pupil the general principles
of morality. Telemaque was intended to teach him political
science and the art of reigning. This singular novel is a very
beautiful work of imagination and politics. In it Fenelon
shows himself less desirous of making his 'pupil careful of
his rights than to preserve him from the pitfalls of luxury,
and the dangers of despotism. The political ideas set forth
carry the author into the eighteenth century and make him
the forerunner of Montesquieu and Rousseau. He showed
that the apparently glorious age was undermined by the in-
justice, egotism, pride, and rapacity of the great.

Telemaque is the development of an episode in the Odyssey.
In the Homeric poem, Telemachus, tired of waiting for his
father, who has not yet returned from the siege of Troy,
takes it upon himself to seek him. This voyage, which
occupies a minor place in the ancient poem, is the subject of
Fenelon 's book. Telemachus travels through Sicily, Egypt,
Phoenicia, the Isle of Crete, Magna Graecia, or Southern Italy
— sometimes threatened with death ; a slave, a king, a general ;
at times alone, more frequently in the company of the goddess
of wisdom, who has taken the form of Mentor, his governor,
in order to inspire in him the ideas of an ideal morality, of
a sound political theory, and devotion to humanity. Here
and there are graceful and interesting pictures that divert
the reader ; such are : the sojourn of Telemachus in the island
of Ogygia, where Calypso ruled, and his descent into the
subterranean fires — passages containing an admirable picture
of the happiness of good men in another life ; the adventures

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•

of Philoctetes, abandoned in the Isle of Lemnos — and so on.
Fenelon criticises ostentation, conquests, absolute power — that
is to say, the whole governmental system of Louis XIV —
most unfavorably. Louis XIV would not pardon the writer,
and Cambrai was the place of exile where the prelate passed
his life, far from the king and the favors of the court. It
meant much to have drawn upon himself the hatred of the
prince; but he suffered a greater misfortune when, in em-
bracing Quietism in his Maximes des Saints, he incurred the
censures of Bossuet and the Holy See. Condemned by Pope
Innocent XII for this work, Fenelon gave a great example of
Christian submission when he himself announced to his
diocesans the sentence passed upon him, and forbade the read-
ing of his book. This prompt submission brought him more
honor than the victory won by Bossuet through violence.
" The Eagle of Meaux " was not satisfied until he had
silenced " the Swan of Cambrai," x whose incontestable merit
perhaps overshadowed him, and whose fine action prompted
the Pope 's severe criticism of Bossuet : ' ' If Fenelon loves
God, Bossuet does not love his neighbor." Fenelon died in
1715.

FLECHIER

Esprit Flechier, son of a chandler, was born in 1636 at
Pernes, a small city of the diocese of Carpentras, and died in
1710. He began by being a bel esprit, very fond of the graces
of style, and ended as a bishop (of Nimes), commendable and
grave. He had the good sense never to be ashamed of his origin.
Someone in his presence commented on the strange fact that
the holder of an episcopal see should have emerged from a shop.
" If you had been born in my place," replied Flechier, " it
is probable that you would still be making candles." He
composed a large number of funeral orations. The first is a
tribute of gratitude to Madame de Montausier, the same Julia,
who with her mother, presided at the soirees of the Hotel de
Eambouillet : the orator delights in tracing the charm of these
reunions where there were " gathered so many persons of

1 Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, was called I'Aigle de Meaux, and Fenelon,
Bishop of Cambrai, le Cygne de Cambrai.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

quality and merit; where there was wisdom without pride,
polish without affectation." His masterpiece is the funeral
oration of Turenne, in which, by dint of art, he rises to
eloquence in recounting the military exploits, and especially
the death of Turenne, struck by a cannon ball in the midst of
battle. There still exist some panegyrics by Flechier, and two
mediocre Histoires. The most curious of his writings has
been known only since 1884. It is his Memoires sur les Grands
Jours d'Auvergne, a recital, at once piquant and grave, of the
repression that should be exercised on the exactions of the
lords of Auvergne. It is an infinitely instructive chapter of
history, as well as a work full of life, well planned, and
written in the best language. At this time (in 1665) crime
was fitly suppressed in the cities; but in the countryside,
especially in the mountains, there were noble families who
were veritable brigands, who, by means of terrorizing or cor-
ruption, were assured of immunity. Nevertheless, there were
occasions when justice took its course; from time to time, at
undetermined periods, the king would suddenly send a com-
mission charged with receiving the complaints of the poor
people, and condemning without pity all the guilty ones,
whoever they might be. This is what was called the ' ' Grands
Jours. ' ' The commission sent out in 1665, discovered a series
of horrible crimes, unpunished, and pronounced sentence of
death with confiscation of property on more than three hun-
dred nobles. Flechier, who was a tutor in the home of one
of the influential members of this extraordinary tribunal,
makes a chronicle of these atrocities in an ingenious and fas-
cinating style.

The style of Flechier — very labored, wise, symmetrical,
and antithetical — has nothing of true eloquence and profound
inspiration ; a little slow, it is, nevertheless, worth studying as
an example of art employing the artifices of elocution. It is
said that Flechier received lessons in this art, and that he had
studied under a master who bound himself to make orators in
a given time. Villemain called him the French Socrates.

LA CHAIRE

MASSILLON

Jean Baptiste Massillon was born in 1663 at Hyeres, in
Provence. He belonged to a family of small birth, and
entered into the congregation of the Orat&ire, preached at the
court from 1699 to 1719, and passed the rest of his life at
Clermont, Auvergne, of which he had been named bishop, and
where he died in 1742.

The first time he preached before Louis XIV, in the midst
of a court entertained only by the glory of the king, he took
as his text these words of the Gospel : ' ' Happy are those who
weep "; and he had the skill to draw from this a high lesson
of morality, while at the same time conveying very delicate
flattery for the king. Louis XIV, later, said to him : ' ' Father,
I have heard great orators; I have been very content with
them. Every time that I have heard you, I have been very
much discontented with myself." When the king died,.
Massillon, who alone remained of the century 's great orators,
paid the last tributes of France to the memory of Louis. The
oration begins with a sublime sentence. The king, during his
lifetime, had been overwhelmed with flattery, and hailed with
the title, " Great." Massillon, looking over the heads of the
assembly, and seeing the royal cenotaph, exclaimed: " God
alone is great, my brethren! " These words have redounded
more to Massillon 's glory than all the rest of his work. Louis
XV was at that time only seven years old; nevertheless,
Massillon was asked to preach before him, and it was on this
occasion that he composed the Petit Careme, an epitome of ten
sermons, addressed less to the young king than to his entourage.
Everything in the Petit Careme hinges on the duties of
superiors toward inferiors. There are, beneath the touching
gentleness of the orator, certain tendencies which were in ac-
cord with the sentiments of the philosophers of the epoch:
moreover, these philosophers held Massillon in singular esteem.
Voltaire, who always kept one of Massillon 's volumes on his
table, admired very much the effectiveness of his diction, and
the rare purity of his style, saying of him: "He is the
preacher who knew the world best; more flowery than Bour-
daloue, more agreeable, and with an eloquence which bespeaks
the courtier, the academician, and the man of brains; withal,
a moderate and tolerant philosopher."

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Massillon wrote his sermons and learned them by heart,
like Bourdaloue; but while reciting them, he cast his eyes
on the audience, and his gestures added to the charm of the
sermon — for he exercised a veritable charm. Bossuet had
addressed himself to the imagination, Bourdaloue to reason;
Massillon addressed himself to the heart. The first preached
dogma ; the second, dogma and morality ; the third, especially
morality. Although he did not astound his hearers like
Bossuet, he sometimes attained effects of great eloquence. We
are told, for instance, that in his sermon on the Petit N ombre
des Elus (On the Chosen Few), at the moment when he said,
" If Jesus should suddenly appear in the midst of us, how
many righteous men would he find? " — the whole audience
rose in astonishment. This sermon made so great a sensation
in Paris that Massillon was called to Versailles to preach be-
fore Louis XIV. It is said of the bellringer of St. Eustache,
in Paris, where the sermon was preached, that he went about
exclaiming : " It is I, it is I who have rung in the famous ser-
mon." The sermon on " Alms," and that on the " Sanctity
of the Christian," produced analogous effects. These works
are part of the Grand Careme, which is composed of forty-
two sermons.

Massillon was the last great orator of the seventeenth-
century pulpit. The following extract is from " On the
Chosen Few ":

' ' I shall confine myself to you, my brethren, who are here
assembled. I do not speak of the rest of men, I regard you
as if you were the only ones on earth ; and this is the thought
which occupies and terrifies me. I am supposing that this is
your last hour, and the end of the world ; that the heavens are
about to open over your heads, and Jesus Christ to appear in
His glory in the midst of this temple, and that you are
assembled in it only to await Him like trembling criminals on
whom one is to pronounce either a sentence of forgiveness or
a decree of eternal death. For there is no use flattering your-
selves ; you will die such as you are to-day. All these desires
for change which beguile you will continue to do so until
your deathbed; it is the experience of all epochs. All that
you will then find in yourselves that is new will, perhaps, be
a little greater reckoning than that which you would have to

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render to-day; and from what you would be if it came to
judging you at this moment, you can almost decide what will
happen to you at your death. ' '

FORENSIC ELOQUENCE

Previous to Louis XIII, the eloquence which characterized
the bar was bombastic and in bad taste. The lawyer confined
himself to an empty display of knowledge in matters of no
moment, and forsook argument for long citations of the poets
and of Latin authors. The judges, in their turn, were forced
to listen to these prolix, absurd and pretentious dissertations
which Racine so aptly ridicules in his comedy, Les Plaideurs.

Olivier Patru contributed mostly to the reform of forensic
eloquence. His success was due to the rectitude of his judg-
ment, the purity of his style, and the restraint of his citations.
His fault lay in his too carefully polished phrases, which
lacked inspiration and impulse. After thirty years of law
practice, he devoted himself to literary work, and divided the
honors with Vaugelas as master of the French language. He
was received into the Academy, where he introduced the cus-
tom of the Discours de remerciements, a custom which still
prevails. This innovation was called eloquence academique.

Paul Pellisson is cited as a forensic orator on account of
his Memoires in defense of Fouquet, whose friend and
protege he was, and to whom he remained faithful until the
unfortunate minister's death. Pellisson braved the wrath of
Louis XIV, who had condemned Fouquet, and even partook
of his captivity for four years in the Bastille, where he com-
posed his Memoires. He was refused ink and paper, so he
wrote on the margin of his books with a mixture of toasted
bread dissolved in wine. His Memoires are a masterpiece of
dialectics and of style. After he left the Bastille, Louis XIV,
to reward him for so much fidelity, accorded him a pension
and some lucrative offices.

CHAPTER XVII

LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

COBNEILLE, Descartes, Pascal, filled the first half of
that greatest of French literary epochs — the seventeenth cen-
tury. Notwithstanding the diversity of their genius, these
three men are related to one another by certain ties of the
intellect. The characteristics which they possess in common
are spiritual nobility, a sublime fervor, a simplicity in grand-
eur. " We feel," says Demogeot, " that a majestic harmony
is established among these most illustrious representatives of
French thought. But though they had a bond of unity in
the spirit of the century, they lacked a center of government.
Meanwhile, there was growing up, amid the bloody frivolities
of the Fronde, the man who was first to give to France what
she most desired — the severe unity which is her strength and
glory.

' ' Royalty — the material personification of a people — was at
that time the only form under which the nation could see and
understand itself ; and Louis XIV 1 was the most glorious ex-
pression of that royalty. His person seemed made for the
role: his figure, his carriage, his beauty, and his stately air,
all bespoke the sovereign ; a natural majesty accompanied all
his actions, and commanded respect. His deficiency of educa-
tion was offset by great good sense. He had especially the
instinct of power — the feeling of the necessity of directing
destinies, together with that faith in himself so essential to
the exercise of command over others. Besides, he took posses-
sion without diffidence of all the living forces of the nation.
He entered into his epoch as if into his house. His maxim
of rule was quite opposed to that of vulgar tyranny; he

1 Son of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, born 1638, died 1715.

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

wished to unify in order that he might reign. He concen-
trated at the foot of his throne all that was characterized
by influence or splendor: nobility, fortune, science, genius,
bravery, shone about his crown like streams of light. ' '

It was fitting that he should be called the Sun King.
Succeeding to the ministerial supremacy perfected by Riche-
lieu and Mazarin, Louis XIV, with royal power and authority
founded absolute monarchy in France. He considered him-
self the representative of God on earth — as the " participant
in His knowledge as well as of His authority. ' ' All the great
men as well as the people saw in their king the representative
of God on earth, and to serve the king meant to serve God.
He was truly the whole state — ' ' 1 'iStat, c 'est moi, ' ' and every-
one bent before him, nobility, Parliament, Third Estate, even
the clergy. Extreme centralization, passive obedience, the
cult of the royal person raised to the status of dogma, com-
pleted the absorption of the nation, the incarnation of the
people in a single man.

Versailles is the symbolic work of Louis XI Vs reign. It
reveals its thought, its grandeur, its immense and cruel
egotism. France paid for the construction of Versailles a sum
which to-day would equal four hundred millions of francs
($80,000,000). " Saint-Germain," remarks Saint-Simon,
" offered to Louis XIV a complete town which its situation
alone was sufficient to maintain as such. He left it for Ver-
sailles—the saddest and most ungrateful of all places— with-
out scenery, without forests, without water or earth, because
everything there is moving sand and marsh. He decided to
tyrannize over Nature, to conquer her by force of art and
wealth. There was only a very miserable tavern in that place ;
he built there an entire city."

Jules Hardouin Mansard * constructed the place. Charles
Lebrun 2 was occupied for eighteen years in decorating it.

1 It is to Francois Mansard, great-uncle of the above, that the inven-
tion of the Mansard roofs is attributed.

2 Charles Lebrun, a famous painter (1619-1690), profited by his singular
favor with Louis XIV to procure the foundation of a French school at
Rome in 1666. Young Frenchmen of talent are sent to this academy at
Rome, to study painting, sculpture, and music at the expense of the state.
The series of "Battles of Alexander" in the Louvre forms the principal

253

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

He represented the exploits of the Sun King in an allegorical
manner in twenty-seven paintings on the ceiling of the grand
gallery, and mythology was the magnificent allegory of which
Louis XIV was the reality. Conquered nations were personi-
fied in it. Holland, Germany, Spain, and even Rome bowed
there to the king. Lebrun was the creator of the Louis XIV
style.

A third artist completed Versailles. Le Notre created a
landscape for this mansion. " From the windows of his in-
comparable glass gallery, Louis saw only that which was
his own. The entire horizon was his work, for his garden
comprised the whole of it. Those groves, those straight
avenues, were only the indefinite extension of the palace; it
was a vegetable architecture which completed and reproduced
the architecture in stone. The trees grew only regularly, in
squares; water, conducted into this arid place at great ex-
pense, spouted in regular designs. A thousand statues of
marble and bronze were the mythological pictures of this
chateau of verdure, and, like those of Lebrun, presented the
apotheosis of the king and his amours. Louis was, indeed,
the soul of his court as of his palace. It was he who inspired
grace and spirit in women, valor and chivalry in soldiers,
emulation and almost genius in artists. The courtiers lived
and died at his glance. Far from fleeing display as a burden,
he was at his ease in his role of king; he played it with the
satisfaction and happiness of a great artist. He gathered
about him, and tastefully distributed this brilliant world
which belonged to him."

Louis XIV's army was the largest and best organized in
Europe, and his generals the greatest. His diplomacy con-
trolled all courts. He built monuments, he created academies.1

Laws and customs were codified; industry and trade were
developed; the French nation excelled all others in the arts

work of Lebrun. The Louvre had its beginning in a tower erected for
the louvetiers (masters of the wolf-hounds) in what was then a forest
abounding in wolves (loups~). In our time the Louvre has become the
richest artistic museum in the world. Its principal architects were Pierre
Lescot, Lemmercier, Du Cerceau, Claude Perrault, and Visconti.

1 Of inscriptions and medals, 1663; of sciences, 1666; of music, 1669; of
architecture, 1671; and others.

254

LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

and sciences ; French writers proclaimed the king as the ideal
prince, and arrayed his court with the splendors of the em-
perors of Rome and Byzantium. Versailles with its magnifi-
cence became the envy of all monarchs. We know that
under Louis XIV letters and arts were carried to a high
degree of perfection by a brilliant constellation of prose
writers, poets, and painters : Corneille, Racine, Moliere, in
the drama; La Fontaine and Boileau in poetry; Bossuet,
Fenelon, Flechier, in oratory; La Bruyere and La Roche-
foucauld in moral criticism; Pascal in philosophy; Saint-
Simon and de Retz in history; Poussin, Le Lorrain, Lebrun,
Perrault, Mansard, Girardon, Puget, in art — these were the
principal representatives of the century of Louis XIV. More-
over, letters not only reflected the regularity of the Great
Reign, but they received from it elegance and grace. The
society of women ; the intrigues of the heart, the science of
the passions; the sprightly conversations, with no real basis,
in which verbal embroidery was everything, in which the
need of saying everything, the obligation of concealing certain
things, was imperative.

In this epoch written conversation became the literary
type. The preceding age had expressed itself especially in
Memoires. The seventeenth century also had its Memoire
writers : Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Madame de Motteville,
Madame de La Fayette, Madame de Caylus; La Rochefou-
cauld, Louis XIV himself, and Bussy-Rabutin, whose scan-
dalous chronicle Histoire amoureuse des Gaules, a cynical
description of the adventures of the ladies of the court,
brought him into disfavor with the court, and caused his im-
prisonment in the Bastille ; Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz,
eclipsed all his rivals by the fire of his narrations and the
depth of his portraits.

The French language reached its perfection in this epoch.
Voltaire in his Siecle de Louis XIV says: " The language
under Louis XIV was carried to the highest state of perfec-
tion in all genres." A talent for conversation — brilliant and
flexible as well as elegant — was developed under the reign of
Louis XIV. This art, practiced by society, produced a rich
literary genre — the epistolary. No literature has anything of
this type to compare with the names of Ninon de L'Enclos,

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Mesdames de Montespan, de Coulanges, de la Sabliere, de
Maintenon. But the most celebrated name of all is that of
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sevigne (1626-1696),
whose correspondence has a place among the masterpieces of
the century. She was the joy and sunbeam of this distin-
guished and polished society. Sainte-Beuve has described
Madame de Sevigne as a laughing blonde, very sprightly and
roguish. The brightness of her mind passed into and shone
in her changing eyes, and, as she says herself, in her " parti-
colored iris." She received a classic education and shone at
the court of Louis XIII by her brilliance of mind rather than
her beauty. Separated from her husband, she devoted herself
to her children, and when the Marquis de Sevigne was killed in
a duel, she never married again, although only twenty-six years
old. Madame de Sevigne went into the world beloved, sought
after, courted, sowing unfortunate passions round about her,
without in the least meaning it. Her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin ;
her preceptor, Menage; the Prince of Conti, brother of the
great Conde; Fouquet and Turenne — all vainly sighed for
her. A widow at twenty-six, with a great fortune and remark-
able beauty, she devoted herself entirely to her two children,
especially her daughter, the handsome and cold Madame de
Grignan, for whom she had up to the end of her life an ex-
treme passion. Arnauld, of the Port-Royal, scolded her very
severely, saying that she was a pretty pagan, and that she was
making of her daughter the idol of her heart.

It was because of a mother's love, in order to entertain
her daughter — " majestically tired in the midst of the fetes
and chicaneries of provincial society ' ' — that she undertook to
write a series of letters for twenty-five of the most curious
years of the reign of Louis XIV. The diversity of her studies
enabled her to become an excellent writer, but the qualities of
her literary style are such as one does not acquire : imagina-
tion, sensibility and wit, added to rapidity of touch; un-
labored and correct phrasing, and a language which does not
fear the right word, and ignores prudery and timidity. Hers
was the model of the epistolary genre. Her correspondence,
like an " enchanted mirror, makes us know the court and
its intrigues, the king and his mistresses, the church, the
theater, literature, war, the entertainments, the banquets, and

256

LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

the toilets of the time." All is animated and colored while
passing through the mind and the pen of this charming woman.
The abandon and facility of the style contribute to the illu-
sion. It is a living, spirited conversation, piquant, variegated,
in which is found all the grace, all the unexpected diction,
all the heartiness and warmth of a person of great intellect,
soul, instruction, and reason.1

Madame de Sevigne 's letters to Charles de Sevigne, to Abbe
de Coulanges,2 to Madame de La Fayette show an excellent
literary style, but the letters addressed to her daughter are most
exquisite of all. She chats with her daughter and " lets her
pen trot with loose bridle." In these letters are found the
French style par excellence — a finely fashioned mind, an
easily excited imagination, a love for the natural — expressed
in a firm and facile manner with great simplicity, and a per-
fection of form which makes Madame de Sevigne the master
in this particular branch of literature.

MADAME DE LA FAYETTE*

The period from 1630 until 1660 was one of the great
epochs of the French novel, and literature was almost entirely
limited to fiction. The novels of Mademoiselle de Scudery
marked a transition from the novel of La Calprenede (the
prince of romantic fiction) to the novel of Madame de La
Fayette. These novels of Mademoiselle de Scudery offered
a psychological as well as historic interest. " The novels of
Madame de La Fayette," says Geruzez, " were more than a
novelty; they were almost a revolution." But it was the
revolution of good sense, good taste, and simplicity which
were to replace the extravagance, the bombast, and the im-
possible inventions of the old-style novel. The novels of
Madame de La Fayette have remained the very type of moral
analysis. Her first attempt was Zayde, a story of adven-

1 The best edition of Madame de SeVigne"'s letters was prepared by Paul
Mesnard for the series of Les Grands Ecrivains de la France.

2 Madame de SeVign^'s uncle, the Abbe de Coulanges, directed the edu-
cation of his niece who, orphaned when a child, proved the joy and happi-
ness of " le Bien Bon, " as she called the Abb4.

3 Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
(1634-1693).

18 257

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ture and sentimentalism — a transition between the heroic
romance of Mademoiselle de Scudery and the psychologi-
cal novel. The scene is laid in Spain; the hero and heroine,
at their first meeting, cannot understand each other except by
gestures, since one is Arabian and the other Spanish. When
they meet again, the Arabian girl speaks Spanish and the
Spaniard, Arabian; they blush and understand.

La Princesse de Cleves is far superior to Zayde. It is a
novel in which passion is analyzed with much delicacy and
decorum — a modern novel. The chief scene is that in which
M. de Cleves, astonished at seeing his wife determined to re-
main in the country, questions her, and learns that she is
fleeing from the Due de Nemours, who loves her, and whose
love she returns. M. de Cleves dies, some time after this,
from chagrin and jealousy. This leaves his widow free to
marry the duke, who still loves her; but she reproaches her-
self for the sentiments she had entertained toward him during
the lifetime of her husband, and retires to a convent. The
period of this story is nominally the reign of Henry II; but
we feel ourselves fully in the seventeenth century, at the court
of Louis XIV; the Duchesse de Valentinois is Madame de
Montespan ; Marie Stuart is but another name for the Duchesse
d 'Orleans; in the Prince of Cleves, we detect M. de La Fay-
ette ; the Due de Nemours is no other than La Rochefoucauld.
La Rochefoucauld, who was a fast friend of Madame de La
Fayette, had a great influence on her literary development ; her
work became more thoughtful and psychologically deeper.
" He gave me wit, but I have reformed his heart," she said.
Madame de Sevigne wrote : ' ' Nothing could be compared to
the confidence and charm of their friendship. ' '

Madame de La Fayette has left memoirs of this court ; also
a Vie d'Henriette d'Angleterre, in which the author enters
into very intimate details, so that one might fancy himself
to be reading a real novel. It is all written in a distinguished
style, and with a precision which is not in the least affected.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

Francois, Due de La Rochefoucauld, and Prince de Mar-
sillac, born at Paris in 1613, died 1680, was the great initiator

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

in moral studies. He took part in the Fronde, but it was less
from political conviction than to please the Duchesse de
Longueville. He left curious Memoires of this epoch, written
in a firm and precise style, but much less interesting than those
of de Eetz. The book which has made the reputation of
La Rochefoucauld, is his little collection of Maximes.1 He
frequented the salon of Madame de Sable, and there he got
his inspiration for them. Every salon of the seventeenth
century favored some special development of a literary genre :
Mademoiselle de Scudery's was noted for its madrigals and
verses, the Princesse de Montpensier 's for literary portraits,
and Madame de Sable 's for maxims. The maxims of La Roche-
foucauld are masterpieces of style; no one before him had
attained to his precision and clearness, to his skill in putting
an edge on thought.

The philosophic system of La Rochefoucauld deserves less
eulogy ; it is bitter and pessimistic. For him all human actions
have no other motive than self-love, and his whole book is,
in the last analysis, only this thought recurring in a hundred
different ways. He reasons thus: virtue has its recompense,
but in being virtuous it is only our desire to gain the recom-
pense. He does not admit that a good action may be per-
formed naturally and disinterestedly. He judged the human
race by the fault finders with whom he had lived ; in his last
years he became completely saddened and misanthropic. The
following selections from his Maximes are characteristic:

We should gain more by letting ourselves be seen as we are than as
we are not.

Narrow-mindedness makes obstinacy; we do not easily believe in
that which is beyond our range of vision.

How can we expect that another will keep our secret if we have not
been able to keep it ourselves?

In order to know things well, we must know them in detail; and,
since this is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and
imperfect.

As it is the characteristic of great minds to make many things
understood with few words, so — on the contrary — little minds have
the gift of talking a great deal and saying nothing.

1 The full title is Reflexions et Sentences, ou Maximes Morales.
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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

The desire to appear skillful often prevents our becoming so.

The true way to be deceived is to believe oneself shrewder than
others.

The mind is always the dupe of the heart.

Everyone complains of his memory, and no one complains of his
judgment.

Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.

It needs greater virtues to sustain good fortune than bad.

We are never so ridiculous by the qualities which we have as by
those which we pretend to have.

Passions are the only orators which always persuade. They are
like a kind of nature whose rules are infallible ; and the simplest man
who has passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent who has
none.

Epigrams, like proverbs, are the condensation of thought.
In the case of proverbs, the condensation is often accomplished
through the process of ages and the friction of many minds.
The epigram, when it is the work of one man, is recast by him
again and again, until he can compress it no more. In a first
edition of the Maximes, we read : ' ' There is no pleasure which
one gives so willingly to a friend as that of offering our ad-
vice. " In a later collection this becomes : ' ' We give nothing
so liberally as our advice."

LE CAEDINAL DE RETZ

Paul de Gondi, Cardinal of Retz, born at Montmirail in
1614, died 1679, was destined from his childhood to the eccle-
siastical career, for which he was little suited. Dr. Retz had
begun by telling, in a little work full of energy, the same Con-
juration de Fiesque from which Schiller took one of his
dramas. Richelieu, to whom they brought this composition of
an eighteen-year-old writer, exclaimed : ' ' There is a dangerous
mind! " In 1643, after being appointed coadjutor of the
Archbishop of Paris (Henri de Gondi, his uncle), he put him-
self at the front in the Fronde. He became a Frondeur to
gratify Madame de Longueville ; he himself has explained it :
' ' To please her beautiful eyes, I made war on kings, I would
have warred against gods." De Retz was the historian of the
Fronde. After the defeat of the Frondeurs at the battle of

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

the Faubourg Saint- Antoine, he made his peace with the court
and received the cardinal's hat. Mistress of all power, Anne
of Austria had him arrested; but he succeeded in escaping
from his prison and left the kingdom. When he returned to
France he gave up polities and finished his life in retirement,
writing his Memoires — a model of that kind of informal
history which flourished in the seventeenth century.

LA BRUTERE

Jean de La Bruyere, born at Paris in 1645, died 1696, was
for some time treasurer in the district of Caen. On the recom-
mendation of Bossuet, the great Conde engaged him to teach
history to his grandson, the Duke of Bourbon. La Bruyere
was, above all, a man of honor ; this is the opinion of Boileau,
Saint-Simon, and all of his contemporaries. Virtue was for
him a kind of beauty. He lived in a sort of retirement; and
in so far as he was a man of the world, he looked at the scene
without becoming an actor.

" He was," says Saint-Simon, " very disinterested. He
was content all his life with a pension of a thousand crowns,
which the duke gave him," as preceptor for his grandson
Louis de Bourbon. His patron, the duke, was " brutal,
vicious, and of an unbearably ferocious character." The
duchess was a " scornful, mocking, sarcastic person, incapable
of friendship, and very capable of hatred ; wicked, proud, im-
placable, with a fertile mind for black artifices, and the most
cruel songs, which she inflicted on people whom she pretended
to love, who lived with her." La Bruyere suffered much
from these eccentricities, and from the haughty disdain and
humiliating condescension to which he was subjected by
friends of the house.

Taine tells us that " the great lords of the time considered
men of letters and artists as a kind of amusing domestics.
The Pope requested the king " to lend him Mansard," as
you would request your friend to lend you his horse or his
dog. We find in La Bruyere's book no less than twenty
" thoughts " on the scorn attached to the condition of a sub-
ordinate and man of letters. The points which he makes are
penetrating and profound; yet we can always read between

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

the lines an animus underlying the moral eloquence of his
work. We can often recognize the restrained and bitter
smile of a superior soul which sees that it is scorned, and
returns a hundredfold, but in silence, the contempt it has
endured. Unfortunately, this too frequent and too pervasive
sentiment soon poisons all the others. We end by becoming in-
capable of gayety, or even of calmness; we no longer see in
the vices of man the interior necessity which renders them
endurable, nor in the follies of the world the agreeable non-
sense which makes them amusing. We lose our serene philos-
ophy and sense of humor; we become satirical and misan-
thropic. The feeling of sadness increases, everything becomes
tense and strained ; the author speaks only in insulting tirades,
or rasping, reproachful phrases. This is, indeed, the habitual
tone of La Bruyere; his style, however perfect it is, fatigues
the reader; the extreme and painful emotions which fill the
work are communicated to him; we wish harm when we have
read his books, and we wish it to the whole race. He leaves,
with more force and less monotony, the same impression left
by Rousseau; both were profoundly and incessantly wounded
by the disproportion of their genius and their fortune, and
their secret chagrin has embittered and colored all their
work." . . .

La Bruyere was at heart gracious and full of tender-
ness— traits which come to the surface at times, but are
almost always concealed by his biting satire. The chapter
on the heart, and that on women, are sown with noble and
exquisite thought, contrasting strongly with the bitter irony
of the rest, and affording a glimpse of what he might have
been if circumstances had not turned him aside toward more
violent and sadder expressions of literature. ... A final trait,
common to La Bruyere and Rousseau, marks his character;
it is the incurable melancholy, the sadness in the very depths
of his soul, the loss of all illusion, the disgust with men, the
cruel feeling of human misery. Witness words like these:
' ' We must laugh before being happy, for fear of dying before
having laughed. Life is short, tiresome, it is wholly spent in
hoping, and we put rest into the future as well as joy, at the
age when often our best possessions — health and youth — have
already disappeared. The time comes which overtakes even

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

our desires ; we are in the midst of them when the fever seizes
us and we perish: if we had recovered, it would only be to
hope still longer." His book attempts to compute in how
many ways man can be unendurable.

Jean Formey writes: " He (La Bruye're) came almost
daily to sit with a bookseller named Michallet, in whose com-
pany he perused new books and amused himself with a very
pretty little girl, daughter of the bookseller, who had struck
up a friendship with him. One day, he drew a manuscript
from his pocket and said to Michallet : ' Will you print this ?
I don't know whether you will find it worth while; but in
case of success, the profit will be for my little friend.' The
bookseller undertook the edition (Les Caracteres). Scarcely
had he put it on sale than it was exhausted, and he was
obliged to reprint the book three or four times ; it brought him
two or three hundred thousand francs. This was the unfore-
seen dower of his daughter, who made in consequence a most
advantageous marriage. ' '

La Bruyere's only work, Les Caracteres, is composed of
sixteen chapters, in which he passes in review men of letters,
prelates, women, courtiers, and bourgeois; in which he dis-
cusses fashion, judgements, the government of states ; or takes
to task the incredulous ones who were at that time called the
* ' esprits forts. ' ' The full title of his work is Les caracteres de
Theophraste * traduit du grec avec les caracteres ou les mo&urs
de ce siecle. Here is an extract from Chapter VI, " On the
Good Things of Fortune; the Rich and the Poor Man ":

" Giton has a fresh complexion, full face and hanging
cheeks, a steady and assured glance, broad shoulders, thick
chest, and a firm and deliberate bearing : he speaks with con-
fidence, makes the man who is talking to him repeat, and
enjoys only indifferently what his companion says to him.
He unfolds a large handkerchief, and blows his nose with a
great noise; he spits to a great distance, and sneezes very

1 Ethici Charakteres of Theophrastus, Greek philosopher, 370-288 B.C.
La Bruyere's translation is a supplement to his own character sketches, of
which there are 1,119. The Characters of Theophrastus were the original
models of Hall's Characteristics of Virtues and Vices; of Earle's Microcos-
mographie ; of Overbury's Characters or Witty Descriptions of the Properties
of Sundry Persons.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

loudly ; he sleeps during the day, he sleeps at night, and pro-
foundly ; he snores in company. At table, and while walking,
he occupies more space than any other person. He keeps in
the middle when walking with his equals ; he stops and they
stop, he continues to walk and they walk; they all regulate
themselves by him. He interrupts, he corrects those who are
speaking; he is not interrupted, they listen to him as long
as he wishes to speak, agree with him in everything, and be-
lieve the news he relates. If he sits down, you see him en-
sconce himself in an armchair, cross his legs one over the other,
knit his brow, lower his hat over his eyes, in order not to
see anyone; or he raises it after a while and uncovers his
forehead by way of pride and audacity. He is lively, a great
laugher, impatient, presumptuous, choleric, free thinker and
politic, mysterious in regard to the affairs of the time; he
thinks he has talent and brains. He is rich.

" Phedon is hollow-eyed, of a flushed complexion, his
body dried up, his face lean. He sleeps little and very lightly.
He is absent-minded, a dreamer, and he has the air of an idiot
in spite of his intellect; he forgets to say what he knows, or
to speak of events which are known to him, and if he does
so sometimes, he makes a bungle of it. He thinks he is
boring those to whom he speaks, so he talks briefly, but with-
out animation; no one listens to him, he does not make his
hearers laugh. He applauds and smiles at what others say
to him, he is of their opinion; he runs, he flies to do them
little services, he is complaisant, a flatterer, officious. He is
mysterious in his affairs, does not always speak the truth; he
is superstitious, scrupulous, timid. He walks diffidently and
lightly, apparently afraid to tread the ground, with eyes
lowered, and dares not raise them on those who pass. He is
never among those who form a circle for discussion ; he stands
behind the one who speaks, furtively notices what is said,
and retires if he is looked at. He occupies no space, and
takes up no room. He goes along with bent shoulders, his
hat lowered over his eyes so that he may not be seen; he
wraps and conceals himself in his coat ; there are no streets or
galleries so obstructed and filled with people through which
he does not find the means of making his way without effort,
and gliding through without being perceived. If he is asked

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

to sit down, he barely places himself on the edge of the chair.
He speaks low in conversation and articulates badly; out-
spoken, nevertheless, on public affairs; discontented with the
epoch; in a mediocre way, prejudiced against the ministers
and the ministry. He never opens his mouth except to
answer ; he coughs, he blows his nose behind his hat, he almost
spits upon himself, and he waits until he is alone to sneeze —
or, if this happens in spite of him, it is without the knowl-
edge of the company, and costs no one either a greeting or a
compliment.1 He is poor."

SAINT-SIMON

Louis de Rouvray, son of Claude de Saint-Simon, favorite
of Louis XIII, was born in 1675, at Versailles. The king
was his sponsor, and he became a page at court, and then a
soldier. Later, he handed in his resignation, and remained
at the court without employment. He was a malcontent
from his birth and by family tradition. He had a great re-
spect for Louis XIII, ' ' the king of the nobles, ' ' but deplored
the ' ' long regne de vile bourgeoisie ' ' of Louis XIV. At the
death of Louis XIV, he favored the party of the Due d 'Or-
leans, with whom the Due du Maine disputed the regency;
and he was intrusted by the regent with the mission of negoti-
ating with Spain the marriage of Louis XV with the Infanta.
Later he retired to his estates, where he occupied himself with
the edition of his Memoir es, which are very voluminous (123
volumes) . He exercised no influence whatsoever on the litera-
ture of his time, as he worked with the greatest secrecy.
His Memoires which, according to his last will, were not to
appear until fifty years after his death (1725), were con-
fiscated by the French Government, and taken to the archives
of the Ministere des affaires etrangeres. They were not per-
mitted to be made public until 1830. In these Memoires du
Due de Saint-Simon sur le regne de Louis XIV et la Regencc,
he depicts with admirable penetration the thousand incidents
of the court, and the physiognomy of the courtiers.

Saint-Simon had begun to gather the matter for this work

1 "Dieu vous be"nisse!" after a sneeze.
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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

at the age of nineteen years. Every evening he jotted down,
without anyone observing him, all that he had seen and heard
during the day; and it is from these notes, and not from
more or less vague recollection, that he composed his book.
It has been said of him, that he was " curious like Froissart,
penetrating like La Bruyere, and passionate like Alceste in
Moliere." During all the time of his sojourn at the court,
Saint-Simon imposed on himself the role of spy on all that
world which paraded around him — studying faces, noting
gestures, hearing every word, and seeking to read the very
bottom of the soul. His Memoires were written in a strange,
incorrect style. He never revised his sentences and never
erased a word. " He writes without order (a la diable) for
posterity," said Chateaubriand. His portraits also seem
thrown together, composed at hazard, but with great vigor.
Saint-Simon is the greatest French word-painter of historical
portraits.

The transition from the seventeenth to the eighteenth
centuries shows a decline in classicism. Fenelon, in his Lettre
a I'Academie, achieved a victory for the ancients in the
" Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns," but did not much
retard the impulse toward modernism. Racine had created
a school; but among the great number of tragic writers who
sought to walk in his steps, only a few, such as de Lafosse
and Crebillon had some dramatic talent united with a certain
originality. Classic tragedy fell altogether into decadence
with the dramatic poets, Jean Galbert de Campistron, La-
grange-Chancel, Longepierre, and tended toward the melo-
dramatic. Brunetiere tells us that of the many pieces of
this period, there are not six which are remembered, not even
one, which one dares represent, and there is not an author
to whom the history of literature accords more than a pass-
ing mention.

Antoine de Lafosse 's (about 1653-1708) tragedy Manlius
Capitolinus, an adaptation of Thomas Otway's " Venice Pre-
served, ' ' had a prodigious success in its time, and was still con-
sidered a masterpiece by Villemain. It is said, however, that
the play owed much of its popularity to the masterful inter-
pretation of the great actor Talma. An interesting document
preserved in the archives of the Theatre-Francois reads:

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

" Pass the citizen Bonaparte to this evening's performance
of Manlius. (Signed) Talma." Of this document, Frederic
Febvre, in Le Gaulois, relates a story told him by Talma's own
son. It seems that Emperor Napoleon when he was a lieuten-
ant of artillery was in the habit of haunting the Palais-Royal
Galleries in the hope that he might see the tragedian, and that
Talma, espying him, would whisper to his companion: " The
other way, if you don't mind. I see Bonaparte coming, and
I'm afraid he'll ask me for seats." Later, Napoleon, who
ardently admired Talma, had him appear in a performance
in Erfurt before an ' ' audience of kings. ' '

Prosper Jolyot de Crebillon (1674^1762) tried to intro-
duce in his tragedies the element of terror which had been
the fortune of ^Eschylus. " Corneille," he said, " took
heaven, Racine the earth; there is nothing left for me but
hell, and I have thrown myself headlong into it. ' ' His plays
abound in terrible situations and fearful crimes. Thus in
Atree et Thyeste, the prince is represented as offering to his
brother, Thyestes, a goblet filled with the blood of his own
son. Crebillon later tried to remedy this great defect by in-
troducing tender sentiments, but, for all his expedients, he
does not move us.

His best play is Rhadamiste et Zenobie. The subject,
which is very romantic, was borrowed by the author from a
novel of the Precieuses school. It concerns a king of Arme-
nia, who, seeing himself overcome by the Romans, does not
wish to leave his wife in the power of his enemies. In a fit of
jealousy he stabs her and casts her into the river. Zenobie is
saved, and later returns, under a false name, to the presence
of her husband. The violent character of Rhadamiste, his
agitated life, his jealousy, and his remorse, are pictured in a
true and striking manner, and contrast happily with the
sweet and loving character of Zenobie. Disarmed by this
feverish love, she finally pardons him, and is reconciled to
her would-be murderer. This work is the only celebrated
tragedy that appeared on the French stage in the interval
which separates Racine from Voltaire. It is said that, acting
on the advice of a friend, Crebillon read his tragedy to Boi-
leau, who had grown old and was ill. Boileau listened atten-
tively enough to the first two scenes; then he rose in anger,

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

crying: " What, Monsieur, you wish to hasten my death by
reading these detestable verses ! I see in you an author com-
pared with whom, Scudery and Pradon are shining lights. I
do not regret to die since my country produces such authors. ' '
Brunetiere calls the tragedies of Crebillon melodramas in
verse. Crebillon had a prodigious memory. He kept in mind
the entire play, with all corrections and additions, and did
not put it in writing until the time of the performance.

Since the production of the first French opera in 1671,
this genre of divertissement became very popular. Mazarin
had introduced a troupe of singers into France from Italy,
where opera was flourishing since the sixteenth century.
Perrin and Cambert wrote the words and music of Pomone,
the first French opera given in 1671. Then Lulli the Italian
composer, receiving a privilege from Louis XIV, opened his
theater in 1672, under the name of Academic Roy ale de
Musique, for operatic productions, and engaged Quinault at
four thousand livres to furnish annually a poem for the opera.
Lulli, director and manager of this theater for fourteen years,
wrote the music for the ballets which Louis XIV himself
danced, and he also put to music Moliere's comedy ballets.

Philippe Quinault (1635-1698), wrote twelve opera poems
for Lulli, besides sixteen tragedies and comedies, distinguished
by a charming and facile style. Quinault was called the
" handsome Quirinus," and together with Saint-Evremond,
known by his literary correspondence, was a frequenter of the
ruelles of the salons.

Charles Rollin (1661-1741), the eleve divin, one of the
precursors of reform in modern methods, was one of the most
beautiful characters of his time, but a poor historian. He
devoted himself entirely to the education of youth. His
Traite des Etudes, is a work whose merit still stands. " No-
where," says Villemain, " has education in letters, the only
complete education of the moral man, been rendered more
useful and attractive." He published thirteen volumes of
L'Histoire Ancienne. Montesquieu called Rollin " The Bee
of France."

Nicholas Malebranche (1638-1715), one of the great
French writers and philosophers of this century, continued
the Cartesian method, but essayed to overcome the dualism

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

of that philosophy. He wished to conciliate Christianism
with Cartesianism by conforming his system to the dogma, and
asserting that the human mind and the divine word are one.
Arnaud contested his doctrines and Fenelon also undertook to
refute them.

Pseudo-classic literature began with Jean-Baptiste Rous-
seau (1670-1741). He studied with the Jesuits, and " com-
menced as an author " with his Odes Sacrees — imitated from
the Bible, addressed to the converted old men of the seven-
teenth century. At the same time he composed licentious epi-
grams, destined for young libertines who were to be the prof-
ligates of the regency. Of his " Ode to Posterity," Voltaire
said to him : ' ' Gare que cet ecrit in extremis n 'aille pas a son
adresse ! " 1 J. B. Rousseau was the son of a mason of whom
he was ashamed. On making his first dramatic success, he
said to his father, who had come to congratulate him : ' ' I
do not know you! " To which his father answered: " Do
not forget that it is the mason who made the poet! "

Rousseau never succeeded in obtaining triumphs in drama,
although he thought himself particularly called to that voca-
tion; and the failure of his comedy of Le Flatteur, gave
birth to infamous and celebrated couplets which brought on
him a decree of banishment. He passed his last years in
Brussels and in Germany. Piron, author of La Metromanie
and of many songs and satires, composed his epitaph:

Paris fut son berceau,

Le Brabant fut sa tombe.

Sa vie fut trop longue de moitte —

Trente ans digne d 'en vie,

Trente ans digne de pitied*

J. B. Rousseau was especially remarkable as a writer of
epigrams. After Racine, Voltaire and Piron, 'J. B. Rousseau
and Lebrun excelled in this pungent form of literature in
France. This is Rousseau's epigram against the Prince de
Rohan, Cardinal of France :

1 " Beware that this composition in extremis (at death's door) will not
reach its address."

2 " Paris was his cradle, Brabant his grave. His lif e was too long by
half — for thirty years to be envied, for thirty years to be pitied."

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Un vieux Rohan, tout bouffi de son nom,
Oppresse fut du foudre apoplectique.
Un vieux docteur, horame de grand renom,
Appele fut dans ce moment critique.
Pres du malade, il s'assied, prend le pouls:
"Eh! bien, dit-il, comment vous sentez-vous? "
Point ne repond. Notre ruse Boerhave '
Lui crie alors d'un ton un peu plus fort:
"Monseigneur! — Rien! Peste! Le cas est grave.
Prince! — Au plus mal! — Votre Altesse! II est mort.2

Four comic authors came into prominence toward the
end of the century: Regnard, Dufresny, Dancourt, and Le
Sage. The comedies of Jean Francois Regnard (1655-1709),
are considered the best after Moliere. Written with great
vivacity and ease, his plays are characterized by their good
humor and gayety, and in the facility of dialogue he is
unsurpassed. Of his twenty-five plays, several are still fa-
vorites on the French stage : Le Legataire Universel, Le
Joueur, Le Distrait, Les Menechmes. In Regnard 's satires
of contemporaneous vices, his only aim has been to provoke
laughter. Voltaire said of him: " Qui ne se plait avec
Regnard n'est digne d 'admirer Moliere." 3 A famous adven-
ture which Regnard experienced he describes in his novel
La Provengale: On a sea voyage from Italy to Marseilles,
Regnard was taken prisoner by pirates together with a lady
whom he loved, and her husband; Regnard was sold to Ach-
met-Talem, who made him his cook, and took him to Constanti-
nople. Regnard 's family rescued him and he returned to
France with the lady of his affections, and made preparations
to marry her, when the husband, whom they believed dead,

1 Famous Dutch doctor, used here as a class-name.

2 Old Rohan, all puffed up with his name, was oppressed with an apoplec-
tic stroke. So an old doctor, a man of great renown, was called in at this
critical moment. Seating himself, he felt the sick man's pulse. "Well,"
he said, " how are you? " There was no response. Our crafty Boerhave
then called out in a little louder tone: "Monseigneur! ... No answer!
The deuce! The case is grave. Prince! . . . Past recovery! . . . Your
Highness! . . . He is dead!"

3 " He who takes no pleasure with Regnard is unworthy of admiring
Moliere."

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

appeared. Eegnard then sought distraction in travel, return-
ing after several years to France, where he divided his time
between Paris and his chateau de Grillon, in literary pursuits
and pleasure.

Charles Riviere-Dufresny (1648-1724), was successful as
musician, artist, architect, poet, novelist, and dramatic author.
The incident of his having married his laundress to liquidate
his debts to her, furnished Le Sage with a character for his
Diable boiteux.

Florent Barton, Sieur D'Ancourt (1661-1725), called
Dancourt, wrote about sixty comedies, some of which are still
popular. He excelled in representing in a satirical manner
the customs of his epoch, and especially the power of money
and scramble for position. He was at first a lawyer, but hav-
ing run away with and married a comedian's daughter, he
adopted that profession to please her, and remained for thirty-
three years at the Comedie-Franc.aise as one of its most favor-
ite comedians.

Alain Rene Le Sage (1668-1747), was a dramatic author
and novelist, and was inspired from the start by Spanish
literature. The title and plot of his first novel Le Diable
Boiteux, are taken from the Spanish novel, El diablo cojuelo,
by Guevara, but the episodes and characters, essentially
French, are his own. The author tells how Asmodee, a
malicious and tricky servant of the devil, is indebted to a
young student, Don Cleophas, for liberating him from the
captivity of a magician, and repays him by letting him see
from a tower in Madrid the interior of all the houses, whose
roofs are uncovered at a signal from the devil's servant.
The novelist portrays with amusing humor and fine satire a
series of scenes drawn from various walks of life. The suc-
cess of the work was such that two purchasers had a dispute
with weapons for the last copy that remained in a bookstore.

The dramatic works of Le Sage are Crispin, rival de son
maitre, and Turcaret. Crispin wishes to marry the fiancee
of his master, in order to receive the dower and flee with it.
This is only the knavery of valets, but the dialogue is worthy
of Moliere in its spirit and naturalness. Turcaret has a
more elevated purpose. People had just been organizing
joint-stock societies, and an unbridled era of gambling had

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

resulted. Many families had been ruined; but many people
without intelligence or education, had found themselves sud-
denly rich, and wished to mimic the debauched grands sei-
gneurs. These unscrupulous financiers, so much in predom-
inance at the time, are depicted with unsparing vigor. Tur-
caret is one of these men; and this vulgar and insolent rev-
enue farmer and his corrupt entourage are so true to life,
that those who felt that they were hit by his comedy offered
a fortune to Le Sage if he would suppress it. He did not
consent to this, preferring to lead a life often painful and
harassed.

The immortal masterpiece of Le Sage is Gil Bias. The
hero is a young man whom his parents send forth in search
of employment, confiding to him a mule and very little money.
Gil Bias successively mounts all the rungs of the social ladder.
We see him despoiled by tavern keepers and parasites; now
connected with thieves, now with doctors, lawyers, players,
noble personages; with an archbishop, whose sermons he cor-
rects— and, finally, as secretary of two celebrated ministers
who in turn govern Spain. Thus the author brings before
us a complete picture of society — interrupting himself, from
time to time, to give us sentimental bits which do not equal
his comic passages. The narrator, who is Gil Bias himself,
is a good character — loving and thinking aright, but some-
times doing evil, and exciting our sympathies, in spite of his
errors. He is one of the best literary types of France. Gil
Bias was also a loan from Spain, but the author in this case
borrowed only the scene ; the fiber of the novel, the characters,
so diverse and typical — especially the hero, the true ancestor
of Figaro — all this is his own invention. Brunetiere says:
" The originality of Le Sage's novel lies in the fact that he
has ' humanized ' that which he imitated of the Spanish novel.
To understand the meaning of this word, it suffices to compare
Gil Bias with his translation of Estevanville Gonzales. Of
the rogue's confession in the Spanish novel he made a pic-
ture of humanity, and from a succession of indifferent adven-
tures he evolved a satire of the conditions of his time. . . .
The importance of Le Sage's novel lies in the fact of having
constituted the realistic novel as a literary genre."

Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) was one of the most influential

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LE SIECLE DE LOUIS XIV

philosopher-theologians and critics of France. He leaned
toward skepticism, and was a precursor of the Encyclopedists
of the eighteenth century. His Dictionnaire historique et
critique is still considered a good book of reference for the cul-
ture and literature of the seventeenth century. His Reponses
a un provincial is a collection of philosophical and religious
dissertations. Mennechet writes: " Attacked often with
violence, Bayle defended himself always with moderation,
and merited by his virtues and talent that France, who
banished him, should consider it an honor to number him
among her illustrious children."

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757), born at
Rouen, was a nephew of Corneille. His importance is almost
entirely confined to the influence which he exercised on his
circle, by the universality of his knowledge, and the charm
of his conversation. He was also for many years the oracle
of the salons. In his last years, he replied to a lady who
asked his age: " Sh-h! Death has forgotten me." Fonte-
nelle introduced science into the domain of literature, and
had a remarkable talent for putting science within the reach
of ordinary people; it is this which made the success of his
Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes, a kind of astronomical
treatise. For forty-three years he was secretary of the Acad-
emy of Sciences — a post which exercised his talents agree-
ably. In his Histoire de I'Academie, he touches everything
with a light hand, and makes clear to the least cultivated
minds the most perplexing scientific questions. It was he
who first drew knowledge out of the great tomes in which it
was concealed, and made it easy of access to ordinary persons.
The Eloges des academiciens, which he was officially called on
to pronounce, are perhaps the most interesting part of this
work of Fontenelle, and one of his best claims on posterity.
His other works include Histoire des Oracles, Histoire du
Theatre Frangais, Vie de Pierre Corneille and Traite sur
le Bonheur. In his Digression sur les modernes, he espoused
the cause of the moderns in the Querelle des anciens et des
modernes.

Fontenelle was a pronounced skeptic of marvelous intel-
ligence. His thought is tinctured with a kind of discretion
compounded of prudence and good taste. He used to say:
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THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

" If my hands were full of truths, I should take care not to
open them," alluding to the persecution which has too often
assailed the innovator. Fontenelle lived to be a centenarian.
He therefore belonged to two centuries, ended the list of
writers belonging to the seventeenth century, and with Bayle
began the eighteenth century.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE EIGHTEENTH, OR PHILOSOPHIC, CENTURY

WITH reference to the preceding period, the eighteenth
century is at once a continuation, a development, and a reac-
tion. It is a continuation, inasmuch, as in certain points it
copies its predecessor, but with weakening modifications ; and
this is true, especially of three forms of art — tragedy, com-
edy, and preaching. The tragedy was that of the classic
school badly imitated. Voltaire alone gave a certain eclat to
this genre, and his tragedy shows clearly the traces of devel-
opment, though he made of it an instrument to propagate
his ideas. But with respect to comedy and, particularly,
preaching, we find only impairment of quality. Comedy
flourished, it is true, but it was an imitation of Moliere, whose
principal followers were Regnard, Dufresny, Destouches, Dan-
court, Piron, and Gresset. The oraison funebre was stilled,
and the eloquence of the pulpit ended with Massillon.

The eighteenth century is a development, because toward
its close, worn out with analysis, it saw the efflorescence of the
poetry of nature. But especially is this period a reaction;
that indeed is its dominant character. Thus it is that, among
peoples of great intellectual development, " centuries suc-
ceed one another, and the human mind accomplishes its des-
tiny." " Nothing is more different, and, nevertheless, noth-
ing is more closely connected than these two epochs," M.
Villemain has said.

Indeed, there is connection, or continuity, between action
and its consequence — reaction. All reaction is vindictive
and partial, resembling reprisals. That of the eighteenth
century is excessive. Three authorities were denied and al-
most overturned: the ancients, the religious, and social insti-
tutions. All the problems of life were solved, everything

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

was interpreted and illumined, without the preliminary labor
of study. Goethe's Gottes unbegrelflicli hohen Werken found
no echo in the France of the eighteenth century. Finally,
in politics, there was pronounced reaction against authorities
and institutions — a reaction, doubtless, purely theoretical,
a reaction solely in writing. " Absolute monarchy," says
a French critic, " seemed to exist still intact, social powers
still seemed to hold themselves upright ; only two things were
lacking — glory and faith in existing institutions.1 ' Glory
gone, the institutions that inspired it must necessarily be
questioned. But this was not always done in a subversive
spirit ; the attacks, moreover, arose from a scientific and con-
servative point of view. Thus Montesquieu wrote his book
on " The Spirit of Laws," intent on conservation and con-
solidation. (He wished to preserve while ameliorating, and in
ameliorating to consolidate.) Things were not attacked from
the front, but everything was attacked in turn — which could
not have happened in the preceding century. Some there were
who wanted nothing but the " legitimate religion of God."
But Catholicism had become incrusted in the body of society,
like the portrait of Phidias which could not be detached from
the statue of Jupiter without breaking it into pieces. The
throne rested on the altar ; the king was king only when he was
consecrated, the anointed of the Lord. The glory of dis-
playing intelligence prevailed over all else — if anything
characterized the French spirit, it was precisely this. ' ' Intel-
ligence is a dignity in the world," said Madame de La Fa-
yette. " In France it is so much the more necessary as one
occupies a more prominent position; the man who has this
esprit alone, will win out over him who possesses only rank
and fortune. ' ' In the eighteenth century, in fact, the major-
ity of men of quality loved their intellect and character better
than their rank. With some it went even further : they were
possessed with a sincere desire to see clearly, in order to cor-
rect abuses — with the love of what they were beginning

1 There are dead things which seem to live: the absolute monarchy
could no longer agree with the higher and more liberal new thought, which
was especially democratic. The nobility, the clergy, and the people, had
not a single right. The Third Estate was nothing. " What do you wish
to be? " was asked. "Everything," was the answer.

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THE EIGHTEENTH, OR PHILOSOPHIC, CENTURY

to call " the public welfare." Literature precipitated all
these elements in the same direction, or at least it hastened
their course. For literature is never the expression of con-
ventional society. It represents moral and intellectual society
— the state of customs and minds. Antiquity, religion, so-
cial institutions — these, then, were the three things on which
hinged the reaction of the eighteenth century." /

The eighteenth century has been entitled ' ' the philosophic
century." The writers of the seventeenth century were psy-
chologists, those of the eighteenth were philosophers preoccu-
pied with social life, its laws and institutions. Its master-
pieces were no longer tragedies and funeral orations, but
studies of legislation and treatises on education. Poetry held
a secondary place, and prose which had become precise and
rigorous was the instrument of propaganda. Eloquence no
longer confined to the pulpit was spread and distributed, not
so much orally as in the pamphlet. Philosophy, having broken
from tradition and prejudice, became analytic and sensual.
There is nothing more typically French than the literature
of the seventeenth century; that of the eighteenth was no
longer exclusively French, for French thought became less
profound and less concentrated. France decentralized itself
and received new ideas, first from England, then from Ger-
many. Voltaire was the first to reveal English genius and
culture, just as later Madame de Stael revealed the German.

English comedies of a moralizing tenor were being written
by Gibber, Steel, Susanna Centlivre ; and during Queen Anne 's
reign there began to appear those weekly publications whose
influence was felt throughout England and the Continent.
In 1709, appeared the Taller, and in 1711, the Spectator.1
Through all these mediums English thought and life became
known to the French, when men such as J. J. Rousseau, Vol-
taire, Maupertuis, Montesquieu, Prevost, Destouches, went
to live in England. Such writers as Marivaux, Piron, Louis
Racine (who translated Milton), d'Argenson, de la Chaussee,
Du Boccage, and Letourneur were occupied with English

1 The Spectator comprised 555 numbers, of which many were written
by Addison and Steele. Addison wrote the "Sir Roger de Coverley"
papers, and "killed that gentleman in No. 517, so that nobody else might
murder him."

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

literature by translating or imitating it. In this manner
arose a healthful middle class and moral element was injected
into the literature of France, forming a counter current to the
corruption of the times, and tending to improvement and
reform. The writers of the seventeenth century were grouped
around the king and confined to his dictum. In the eighteenth
century, the court was no longer the center of attention and
ambition, but the approbation of the public was sought after.
The society of men of letters was greatly developed, and the
number of second-rate writers was especially multiplied.

Women played a peculiar role in this society of letters.
During the reign of Louis XIV, Madame de Sevigne, Madame
de La Fayette, and other brilliant women saw disappear
before them the precedence which had been accorded them
as leaders of the literary world, during the reign of the
Precieuses of the Hotel de Rambouillet. They were no longer
at the head of the society of letters; but in the eighteenth

\century this role was again possible, and the salons of the
ladies became the great centers for the writers of the time.
The theological and literary quarrels under Louis XIV
were succeeded by social and philosophical questions. Litera-
ture became an instrument of propaganda and philosophical
theories. The eighteenth century was, above all, an epoch
of combat; the creative talents were succeeded by the de-
structive talents, which were wittier than powerful; rhetoric
replaced eloquence, wit took the place of genius. The writer
could rise to power and fame without the favor of the
court (a thing impossible in the seventeenth century), and
even in open defiance of it; yet at the same time we see the
persecution of independent writers by the men in power,
who, on the least pretext, sent the offenders to the Bastille.
The unexampled subjugation of thought and art during the
reign of Louis XIV, necessarily produced a reaction; with
his death, there first of all disappeared the reverence for
royalty; this accomplished, the political chanson, which had
begun to appear during the last ten years of his reign,
achieved a vogue it had not known for a hundred years.
The mocking songs of the Chansonnier historique, collected
by Clairambault and Maurepas, are the precursors of the
serious political literature of the ensuing decade.

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THE EIGHTEENTH, OR PHILOSOPHIC, CENTURY

In spite of the immoral life of Louis XIV, he always pre-
served a semblance of the proprieties, whereas the Regent
and Louis XV flaunted their vices shamelessly, thus encour-
aging emulation. From all this we perceive that we must
keep in mind the depravity of the court, and consequently
that of society, as well as the influence of English philosophy,
in order to understand the bulk of French literature in the
eighteenth century.

Louis XV, the Well-Beloved — third son of Louis, Duke
of Burgundy, and great-grandson of Louis XIV — first reigned
under the regency of the Duke of Orleans. The regency was
signalized by the bankruptcy of Law,1 and the war against
Spain. Louis XV married Marie Leczinska, but he let him-
self be influenced by his favorites. The Duchesse de Cha-
teauroux and her three sisters of the Nesle-Mailly family were
successively his mistresses.2 From 1745 to 1764, Jeanne
Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, exercised an un-
fortunate influence on the king, as also on the government,
and contributed to the entanglement of France in the Seven
Years' War. She cost France 40,000,000 livres by her
prodigalities, which are not excused by the protection she
skillfully accorded to the artists and writers of her time.

1 John Law, born in Edinburgh, a famous financier, controller general
of French finances under the regency. He founded the Banque gentrale
and formed the Mississippi scheme (Mississippi Bubble), controlling the
French territory in America, then called Louisiana, to pay off the national
debt of France. This company he united with the East India and China
Companies later known as the Compagnie des Indes. Law's schemes re-
sulted in a great financial panic in 1720.

1 In 1232 Eustache de St. Pol, wife of a lord of Bruges, presented the
tower of Nesle to Saint Louis (Louis IX), who ceded it to his mother, Blanche
of Castille. The pious queen could not perceive its destiny. Philippe the
Long bought it in 1308 from Amaury de Nesle for 5,000 livres. The State
built the tower, situated on the left bank of the Seine, in order to defend
the river, the property at that time belonging to the family of Nesle.
Some time after, Philip sent thither his wife, Jeanne de Bourgogne, to
punish her for certain misdeeds. The tower furnished Alexandre Dumas
the title for a celebrated drama, La Tour de Nesle, in which Marguerite de
Bourgogne, wife of Louis le Hutin, infamous for her crimes, plays the
principal role. The mausoleum of Mazarin was erected on the site three
centuries later.

279

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Jeanne Becu, Comtesse du Barry, was the king's favorite after
1768, and her extravagance was also fatal to the people.

Le Livre Rouge (the Red Book) — three large volumes
containing a secret register of the private expenses of Louis
XV and XVI, and still extant in the National Library at
Paris — mentions the expenditure of 228,000,000 livres from
May 19, 1774 to August 16, 1789. The memoranda of cash
disbursements show that 860,000,000 livres were expended, for
pensions and otherwise, without legal authority or warrant.
But, more extraordinary still, is the disclosure that Madame du
Barry enjoyed credit in the Red Book, by favor of her royal
lover, not only for herself, but for her kinsmen and proteges.
In the first place, she is listed personally for 500,000 francs,
paid by order of Louis XVI. She enjoyed, besides, an allow-
ance of 300,000 francs quarterly. Then appears a pension
of 80,000 francs for her husband; another of 150,000 livres
for her brother-in-law, and a sum of about 1,000,000 ecus for
her friend the Duchess of Polignac's family. After the
publication of the Red Book — so called because the entries
were made in red ink — Mirabeau exclaimed : 1,000 ecus to the
family of d'Assas,1 for saving the State, 1,000,000 to the fam-
ily of Polignac for having sent it to perdition! "

So the favorites reigned, while Louis XV struck at the
Jesuits and the Parlements — the two most solid supports of
the monarchy. But by the side of all this corruption that
spread to the very steps of the throne, the philosophers of
the eighteenth century, through their writings, brought about
a reaction against the abuses of the time: Voltaire, Montes-
quieu, Rousseau, the Encyclopedists, and the Physiocrates
(economists) created a powerful current of opinion, while
Franklin, Galvani, Lavoisier, Linne, Buffon, Jussien, directed
the sciences into new paths.

tradition has it that the Chevalier d'Assas' famous cry: "A moi!
Auvergne! (the name of the regiment in which he was captain) voila
les ennemis!" saved France from the enemy in October, 1760, while it
caused his death.

280

THE EIGHTEENTH, OR PHILOSOPHIC, CENTURY

THE SALONS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

During the last ten years of the reign of Louis XIV,
when he withdrew from pleasure to lead a life of piety, and
thus lost touch with the intellectual movement, society re-
trieved itself. From the debris of the court the salons were
formed; and in the eighteenth century these became a power
through which writers exercised their influence upon society.
The Cour de Sceaux expressed the need of amusement that
was felt during the last ten years of the king's life; the
Duchesse du Maine, granddaughter of the great Conde, made
of her chateau de Sceaux a sort of Versailles in miniature.
While the king's reign closed sadly amid public misfortunes
and private sorrows, at the court of Sceaux there was only
laughter and amusement. The duchess was witty and
learned ; she played comedy, bethought herself of some amuse-
ment every hour, and turned night into day. She instituted
an order of knighthood called Mouclie a miel, and presided at
feasts belonging to a series under the name of the Grandes
nuits de Sceaux. Mademoiselle de Launay, one of her ladies
in waiting, who suffered much from her caprices, wrote the
Memoires of those times in a very entertaining manner.

The great salons of the eighteenth century were those
where literature, science, philosophy, religion, and politics
were the subjects of discussion and conversation. " There
could be no more interesting history than that of the cele-
brated women of the eighteenth century," said Goethe. The
first salon in order of time is that of Anna Theresa, Marquise
de Lambert — author of works on education. She says : ' ' We
teach women to please, whereas we should teach them to
think "; and she contended that men in general abuse their
strength. The Marquise in a measure took up the work of
Madame de Rambouillet in aiming to improve morals and man-
ners. For forty years she held receptions in her apartment
of the Palais Mazarin. The Marquis de Valincourt, The Pre-
sident Renault, The Comte de Saint-Aulaire, The Abbe de
Choisy, The Marquis d'Argenson, Antoine Houdar de La
Motte, the oracle of her salon, Montesquieu, Marivaux, Ter-
rasson, Fontenelle, and many other notables frequented her
salon. As at the Hotel de Rambouillet men of letters, actors,

281

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

and actresses intermingled with the aristocrats. This the fa-
mous actress Adrienne Lecouvreur mentions in her letters
published in 1892.

The second salon to be established was presided over by
the Marquise de Tencin, sister of the Cardinal de Tencin,
Archbishop of Lyons, and mother of d'Alembert. She used
to say : ' ' Man should gain friends among women ; for through
women one can do whatever one wishes with man. ' '

The salon of Marie Therese Rodet Geoffrin was conducted
with great ability. Through her liberalities she gathered
about her a little world which considered her as its Providence.
Distinguished foreigners admitted to its circles testified to
the sentiments of gratitude and affection which she inspired;
but her indulgence never degenerated into weakness. Lord
Walpole called Madame Geoffrin "Common Sense." Stanis-
laus Poniatowski held her in great esteem, and when he became
King of Poland, he entertained her royally at his court. She
supported the Encyclopedists, but in spite of her intimate
relations with the philosophers, she was very devout. The
habitues of her salon included but one woman — Mademoiselle
de Lespinasse, for whom d 'Alembert felt something more than
friendship, despite her lack of beauty. Mademoiselle de Les-
pinasse herself opened a salon after her breaking off with
Madame du Deffand with whom she lived for ten years at the
convent of St. Joseph at Paris. Marmontel has characterized
her thus : * ' An astonishing compound of propriety, of reason,
of wisdom with the most lively mind, the most ardent soul,
the most inflammable imagination."

Marie de Vichy Chamrond, Marquise du Deffand, was
one of the most celebrated women of the eighteenth century.
After a turbulent life in Paris and at the court of Sceaux,
Madame du Deffand retired to the convent of St. Joseph, but
taking with her the great society of the epoch, the scholars,
writers, grand lords and ladies. La Harpe said of her: " It
would be difficult for one to have less sensibility and more ego-
tism. ' ' She herself said : " I have never been able to love any-
thing. ' ' To one of her best male friends she remarked : ' ' There
has never been a cloud in our relations with each other. ' ' Which
prompted her friend to explain: " That is doubtless because
we do not love each other." This friend died, and Madame du

282-

THE EIGHTEENTH, OB PHILOSOPHIC, CENTURY

Deffand went to dine in company with her associates. " He
died this evening at six o'clock," she said, " otherwise you
would not see me here." Then she ate a very hearty dinner,
for she was something of a gourmande. Indeed, Voltaire
often cautioned her, " Do not eat too much." To him she
confessed: " I fear two things — bodily pain and mental en-
nui." It was Madame du Deffand who, alluding to the epi-
grammatic form of certain chapters of the ' ' Spirit of Laws ' '
(L 'Esprit des Lois] of Montesquieu, said that it was " de
1 'esprit sur les lois. ' ' 1 Her correspondence with the greatest
minds of her time — Voltaire, Horace Walpole, Renault, and
Montesquieu — is full of interest, and bears witness to the
soundness of her judgment.

Louise Florence d'Epinay married at the age of nineteen
de La Live de Bellegarde, a gambler and a debauchee who,
according to Diderot, ran through two millions without say-
ing a good word or doing a good deed. Forsaken by him,
she found consolation among the literary reunions of her salon
frequented by Duclos, d'Holbach, Grimm who wrote of her
in his famous Correspondence, J. J. Rousseau whose bene-
factress she was and for whom she built the " Ermitage " in
her park of La Chevrette. Voltaire called her an eagle in a
cage of gauze. She published some interesting Memoires.

Mademoiselle Guinault's salon was enlivened by her talent
as a skillful conversationalist, but her tone was very free, and
her philosophy savored of atheism. This afforded an op-
portunity for a sally by J. J. Rousseau. He arose to take
leave, saying: " If it is cowardly to speak ill of an absent
friend, it is a crime to permit anyone to say anything evil of
one's God, who is present." Madame de Simiane, grand-
daughter of Madame de Sevigne, has left us some charming
letters descriptive of high society in those days.

Paul Henri Dietrich, Baron d'Holbach (a German), and
Claude Arien Helvetius, both entertained that society in
which the tone of materialism dominated. Both were of the
Maecenas type, and were patrons of men of letters. D'Hol-
bach, a philanthropist, was honored by J. J. Rousseau, who
transferred him, as Wolmar, to the pages of Julie, ou la

1 Witticisms concerning laws.
283

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Nouvelle Helo'ise. D'Holbach was a collaborator of the
Encyclopedie, and wrote a book, Le Systeme de la Nature ou
des Lois du monde physique et du monde moral, directed
chiefly against the idea of God. He was the father of all
the philosophy and of all the antireligious polemics of the
eighteenth century. D'Holbach gave two dinners a week,
and, because of the good cheer always in evidence in his house,
he received from the Abbe Galiani the cognomen of " First
Steward of Philosophy."

Claude Adrien Helvetius wrote a book entitled De I'esprit,
which was a manual of materialistic philosophy, and, accord-
ing to Madame du Deffand, ' ' told the secret of the world. ' ' In
this book man is reduced to the level of the brute, so that even
Voltaire was terrified, and disavowed these doctrines. Julien
de La Mettrie,1 a physician, surpassed the materialistic teach-
ings of d'Holbach and Helvetius, in his works L'Homme
machine and L'Homme plante. Frederick the Great called
him to the Royal Academy at Berlin. He was very rich and
very charitable, paying pensions to many poor literary men —
in particular to Marivaux. Being reproached for frequently
assisting unworthy persons, he replied: " If I were king, I
would correct them. As I am only rich, I must assist them. ' '

Madame Helvetius, a beautiful, witty, and very charitable
woman, continued her salon at her house in Auteuil after her
husband's death. The great celebrities of the day, among
them Benjamin Franklin during his stay in Paris, frequented
this salon which became the first Society of Auteuil.

The last salon of this century was that of Madame Necker,
a Swiss lady, the mother of Madame de Stael, and at one time
engaged to marry the famous English historian, Gibbon. The
frequenters of this salon included Marmontel, Diderot, Buffon,
and La Harpe. Madame Necker was very charitable; she
founded the Hopital Necker, which she administered during
ten years.

Finally, in this brief catalogue of the brilliant women of
the salons, was Madame Roland — Jeanne Manon Phlipon Ro-
land de la Platiere, daughter of an engraver — a woman of high

1 Adolph Menzel put La Mettrie in his celebrated painting of Fred-
erick's round table — on which were served the famous suppers of " Sans-
Souci."

284

THE EIGHTEENTH, OR PHILOSOPHIC, CENTURY

intelligence and great goodness, with a passion for literature
and arts. The reading of Rousseau's works greatly influenced
her imagination. A republican and stoic, the political in-
fluence of her celebrated salon was considerable. There the
Girondins were most frequently seen; she was almost the
muse of the party. "When her husband, M. Roland de la
Platiere, an estimable economist, was called to the Legislative
Assembly, and then to the Ministry of the Interior with the
Girondin party, Madame Roland became his secretary, or,
rather, his inspiration. The majority of the reports and circu-
lars which he signed were written by her — among others, a very
vivacious letter addressed to Louis XVI, which caused a great
stir and brought about the fall of the ministry. It was at her
home also that the Girondins met to draw up their resolutions.
When the party was proscribed on May 31, 1793, Roland suc-
ceeded in escaping, but his wife was arrested. It was during
the enforced leisure of prison life that she began to trace in
her Memoires the story of her childhood and her youth, with
as much serenity as if she were not on the eve of death upon
the scaffold. When she perceived that she would not have
time to recount everything with minute detail, she contented
herself with drawing the portraits of the principal politicians
whom she had known, and with depicting the revolutionary
scenes in which she had been thrown. It was all written in a
firm style, without hesitation or weakness. The letters to
Buzot, also written in prison, are of an admirable lyric elo-
quence. She went to the scaffold all undaunted, saying only
these few words of farewell which posterity has cherished:
" 0 Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name! "
Her husband, who was at Rouen, killed himself on hearing of
his wife's death. Madame Roland remains one of the dis-
tinguished personalities and intellects of the eighteenth
century.

VOLTAIRE

THE most brilliant, influential, and infinitely versatile of
all the French writers was Voltaire, whose real name was
Frangois-Marie Arouet, born at Paris in 1694. He was the
very personification of the French mind and although not a
professed philosopher, he acted more powerfully on the trend
of thought of his epoch than any of the philosophers. Vol-
taire studied with the Jesuits at the Louis le Grand College;
his professors predicted that he would some day be the high-
est authority of theism. He frequented at an early age the
society that was the most brilliant, as it was also the most
licentious in Paris— the society of the Due de Sully, the
Prince de Conti, the Due de Vendome, the Marquis de la
Fare, the Abbe de Chaulieu. He was introduced to it by the
Abbe de Chateauneuf, his godfather, and the friend of Ninon
de L'Enclos. The Abbe had presented him to her when Vol-
taire was only a child of thirteen, and Ninon was eighty-five
years old ; at her death she left the boy two thousand francs
with which to buy books.

Anne — called Ninon — de L'Enclos was born at Paris of
noble parents. Her mother wished to make her a nun; her
father, a man of intelligence and given to pleasure, succeeded
in making her an Epicurean. Ninon lost her parents at the
age of fifteen years, and practically educated herself. She
was celebrated for her intelligence, her wit, her philosophy,
her music, her dancing, and singing. Flighty in love, constant
in friendship, scrupulously honest in her worldly relations,
of an even temperament, charming deportment, faithful in
character, suited both to lead young people and to fascinate
them, intellectual without being precieuse, and — besides all
this — very beautiful, she ' ' thought in the manner of Socrates
and acted like Lai's." Her reputation for inconstancy and

286

gallantry did not prevent her from having illustrious friends.
The Coligni, the Villarceaux, the Sevigne families, the great
Conde, and many others — all admired her. Moreover, she
was sought after by the most lovable and respectable women
of her time. Madame de Maintenon wanted her to become
a nun, and repair to Versailles in order to console her for
the tedium of its grandeur and her old age; but Ninon
preferred her voluptuous obscurity to brilliant slavery. Her
home was the rendezvous of the most polished circle of the
court and city, and the most illustrious personages of the re-
public of letters. Scarron consulted her about his novels,
Saint-Evremond on his verses, Moliere on his comedies, Fon-
tenelle on his Dialogues. At the age of eighty years she had
not lost the art of inspiring love, and she died at ninety.
She left two children, one of whom died a naval officer. The
other son, not knowing that she was his mother, fell in love
with her; but when he discovered the secret of his birth, he
stabbed himself in despair.

Voltaire, in a letter about Ninon de L 'Enclos, wrote :

I shall first tell you, as an accurate historiographer, that the Car-
dinal de Richelieu was her first admirer. A quarrel between two of
her lovers was the cause of a suggestion to the queen that she be sent
to a convent. Ninon answered that she was perfectly willing pro-
vided it was a convent of Franciscan friars. When told that her
place would be at the Filles Repenties (Home for Repentant Girls), she
protested that she was neither fitte (maiden) nor repentant. Ninon
had too many friends and her company was too agreeable for such
punitive measures to prevail, and finally the queen let her live as
she wished. Huyghens, the Dutch philosopher, who discovered the
first satellite of Saturn while in France, was among those in love
with her. She soon developed a philosophical turn of mind, and they
gave her the name of the modern Leontium. Her philosophy was
veritable, firm, invariable; and above prejudice and frivolous research.
Saint-Evremond wrote beneath her picture the best known of all his
verses :

L'indulgente et sage nature
A forme" 1'ame de Ninon

De la volupte d 'Epicure
Et de la vertu de Caton.1

1 Indulgent and wise nature has formed Ninon's soul with the voluptu-
ousness of Epicurus and the virtue of Cato.

287

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

The grace of her intellect and the soundness of her sentiment lent
her such a reputation that when Queen Christina came to France, in
1654, she paid her the honor of going to see her in a little country-
house where Ninon lived at the time. Ninon's home was indeed a
kind of little Hotel de Rambouillet, only the people of her circle
spoke more naturally and were more interested in philosophy. Mothers
took pains to intrust her with the tuition of young people who wished
to enter society with approval; and it was her pleasure to educate
them. When Ninon was told that Remond, the introducer of am-
bassadors, boasted everywhere of having been trained by her, she
answered that, "like the Creator, she repented having made the man,"
and added:

De Monsieur Remond voici le portrait .

II a tout-a-fait 1'air d'un hareng soret;

II rime, il cabale;

Est homme de cour,

Se croit un Candale,1

Se dit un Saucour.'

II passe en Science

Socrate et Platon;

Ce pendant il danse

Tout comme Ballon.*

De Monsieur Re"mond voici le portrait;

II a tout-a-fait 1'air d'un hareng soret. •

Voltaire concludes his letter thus: " Say with me a little
De Profundis for her."

Voltaire wrote verses early in life. His father, treasurer
of the Chamber of Accounts, had destined him for the magis-
tracy, and, horrified at seeing him occupied with tragedy, sent
him to the Marquis of Chateauneuf, French ambassador to

1 The Due de Candale, son of the Due d'Epernon, the handsomest man
of his time.

z The Marquis de Saucour passed for the most rigorous man of his day,
and his fame became proverbial.

1 A noted dancer.

'This is the portrait of Monsieur Remond: he has quite the air of a
smoked herring. He rhymes, he plots; a courtier, he thinks himself a
Candale, he calls himself a Saucour. He surpasses Socrates and Plato in
science; meanwhile he dances like Ballon. This is the portrait of Monsieur
Remond; he has quite the air of a smoked herring.

288

VOLTAIRE

Holland, intending that he should enter a solicitor's office on
his return home. Voltaire did not stay long, but he soon knew
more serious and more salutary disgrace; he was falsely ac-
cused of being the author of a satire against Louis XIV, which
ended with this verse:

J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans. '

Voltaire was then almost twenty ; this seemed to the police
sufficient proof of his guilt, and he was shut up in the Bastille.
The regent, the Due d 'Orleans, aware of his innocence, set
him free and gave him a gratuity. It was upon his release
from the Bastile that his tragedy, (Edipe, was played in
1718. According to some authorities, he then took the name
of Voltaire from a little family estate belonging to his mother,
Marie Catherine Daumard, a noblewoman from Poitou; he
took it in conformity with the usage then general among the
bourgeoisie.2 Voltaire was sent a second time to the Bastille
— a victim not only of the arbitrary will of the government,
but of the cowardice of a great lord. The Chevalier de Rohan-
Chabot, while dining one day at the home of the Due de Sully,
and being displeased that Voltaire was not of his opinion,
said: " Who is that little gentleman who talks so loud? "
" He is a man," answered Voltaire, " who does not bear a
great name, but who honors the one he does bear." The
Chevalier de Rohan, greatly irritated, left the table. A few
days afterwards, Voltaire, being again at dinner with the Due
de Sully, was waylaid by the Chevalier's men who struck him
over the shoulders repeatedly with a stick. Voltaire took
fencing lessons, and then insulted the Chevalier, who accepted
the challenge and fixed the rendezvous ; but instead of appear-
ing there, he had Voltaire arrested, and confined in the
Bastille. Voltaire stayed there only two weeks; but he was
given his freedom only on condition that he should go to
England where he remained three years until 1729. England
gave him a warm welcome. The guest of Lord Bolingbroke,*

1 1 have seen these ills, and I am not twenty.

* Other authorities say that he derived " Voltaire " from an anagram
(Arouet 1 (e) (j) eune), after his release from the Bastille.

3 Voltaire had known him in France, at the time of Bolingbroke's brief
service in the cause of the Pretender.
20 289

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of Lord Peterborough, and of the rich merchant Falkener,
he made friends with Clarke, Gay, Pope, Swift, Congreve, and
Johnson. He came to know English literature and English
conditions; to perceive the high esteem in which writers were
held; to appreciate the value of religious freedom, of justice,
and of the courts. It was in England that he developed and
enriched his literary genius. He read ' ' Paradise Lost " ; he
was inspired by the dramatic masterpieces of Shakespeare;
he studied the philosophy of Bacon and of Locke, and ac-
quainted himself with the scientific discoveries of Newton ; he
witnessed the spectacle of liberty developing in every direction
— not only in books, but in the theater and the pulpit, in the
newspapers and in the courts of law. This sojourn in England
was of vital importance in the life of Voltaire. English litera-
ture during the time of the Stuarts was confined to an imita-
tion of the French; but from 1688, under the influence of
\ Locke, there was a change, and it is to England that we must
look for the origin of the French philosophical impulse of the
eighteenth century. From England Montesquieu brought his
politics, Condillac his philosophy of sensualism, Voltaire his
philosophical ideas and his innovations for the theater. Vol-
taire's enthusiasm for these scientific and literary marvels,
and his admiration for this country of tolerance and liberty,
exercised a lasting influence. " There is almost no work of
Voltaire," says M. Villemain, " in which the mark of these
three years in London cannot be found." It was there that
Voltaire published a new edition of La Ligue, under the new
title of La Henriade — a poem " which breathes throughout
his tolerance and his love of humanity, his hatred of war and
fanaticism. ' ' 1

On returning to France, Voltaire found again the same
arbitrary government and the persecutions inspired by re-
ligious intolerance. The tragedy of La Mort de Cesar could
not be printed because the author voiced republican senti-
ments in the work ; and his elegy on the death of Mademoiselle

1 The subject of La Henriade, to quote Voltaire himself, is "the siege of
Paris, begun by Henri de Valois and Henri le Grand, and completed by the
latter alone. The scene is laid no farther than from Paris to Ivry, where
was fought the famous battle which decided the fate of France and the
royal house."

290

VOLTAIRE

Lecouvreur, the celebrated actress, in which he opposed the
prejudice that deprived actors of Christian burial, drew upon
him a persecution that forced him to leave the capital and
seek refuge at Rouen. This elegy reads :

Ah! verrai-je toujours ma faible nation,

Incertaine en ses vceux, fletrir ce qu'elle admire;

Nos moeurs avec nos lois toujours se contredire,

Et le Fran<jais volage endormi sous 1'empire

De la superstition?

Quoi! n'est-ce done qu'en Angleterre

Que les mortels osent penser? 1

At Rouen Voltaire secretly published his Histoire de

Charles XII, and his Lettres Philosophiques sur les Anglais,
wherein he undertook to make France understand England —
its religion, sects, government ; its philosophy as expounded by
Shakespeare, Pope, Swift, and the rest. The Lettres Philoso-
phiques were suppressed by a decree of the Council. The
" Parliament " ordered the book to be burned by the hang-
man and the keeper of the seals proscribed the author, who,
warned in time, went into exile once more until he obtained
permission to return to Paris. He withdrew into Lorraine,
to the chateau of Cirey, with his friend the Marquise du
Chalet (1735). The Marquise was of a serious mind, and
of great charm and intelligence; during the fifteen years of /
her influence she inspired him .to his best works: Alzire,
Mahomet, Merope, Semiramis, lf Enfant prodigue, Bdbouc,
Micromegas, and Zadig. It was in this retirement that he
composed the Elements de la Philosophic de Newton. This
work, in the course of a few years, dethroned the official
philosophers of France and Germany, Descartes and Leibnitz.
The publication of the Epttre a Madame du Chdtelet on the
philosophy of Newton raised a new storm. There is some dif-
ficulty in explaining this when we read these verses :

1 Ah! shall I always see my weak nation, uncertain in her wishes, con-
demn what she admires; our customs always at odds with our laws, and
the volatile French asleep under the empire of superstition? What! IB
it, then, but in England that mortals dare think?

291

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Dieu parle et le chaos se dissipe a sa voix :

Vers un centre commun tout gravit a la fois;

Ce ressort si puissant, Tame de la nature,

Etait enseveli dans une nuit obscure ;

Le compas de Newton, mesurant 1'univers,

Leve enfin ce grand voile, et les cieux sont ou verts;

II deploie a mes yeux, par une main savante,

De 1'astre des saisons la robe etincelante:

L'emeraude, 1'azur, le pourpre, le rubis,

Sont rimmortel tissu dont brillent ses habits.

Chacun de ses rayons dans sa substance pure,

Porte en soi les couleurs dont se peint la nature ;

Et, conf ondus ensemble, ils eclairent nos yeux ;

Us animent le monde, ils emplissent les cieux;

Confidents du Tres-Haut, substances eternelles,

Qui brulez de ses feux, qui couvrez de vos ailes

Le trone ou votre maitre est assis parmi vous,

Parlez : du grand Newton n'etiez vous point jaloux? '

In Candide, ou I'optimisme, his most important philosoph-
ical novel, Voltaire made sport of the famous maxim of the
optimist Leibnitz: " Everything is for the best in the best
of possible worlds." The tragedy Mahomet was staged at
Lille; but Cardinal de Fleury opposed its representation at
Paris. Voltaire dedicated his play to Pope Benedict XIV,
who received it favorably and sent his blessing to the poet.

\ In this same retirement, Voltaire finished his Discours sur
I'Homme, which is considered one of the most beautiful mon-
uments of French poetry. He composed also the Histoire

\ de Charles XII which to this day is very popular. It reads

1 God speaks and chaos dissolves at His voice: all gravitates at once
toward a common center. This powerful spring, the soul of Nature, was
engulfed in night obscure. The compass of Newton, measuring the uni-
verse, at last raises this great curtain, and the heavens are opened; there
spreads before my eyes, by a wise hand, the sparkling robe of the orb of
the seasons; emerald, azure, purple, ruby, are the immortal tissue of its
brilliant garments. Each ray in its pure substance carries the colors with
which Nature paints herself; mingled together they give light to our eyes,
they animate the world, they fill the heavens. Confidants of the Most
High, eternal substances, that burn with His fires, that cover with your
wings the throne upon which your master is seated among you, speak:
Were you not jealous of the great Newton?

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more like a richly colored novel of adventure than a strictly
truthful history of the life of Charles, although written with
a strict regard to facts. Its portrayal is fascinating, and the
political views of the author are penetrating, making it a
model of historical narrative, just as his Siecle de Louis XIV
is a model of political history, and his Essai sur les moeurs,
of philosophical history.

It was at this time that Voltaire entered into relations
with the Prince Royal of Prussia, and kept up with him a
curious correspondence. This connection with Frederick pro-
cured for him a diplomatic mission to the court of the King
of Prussia. The pretext which he made, in order to conceal
the purpose of his journey, was his desire to escape the per-
secutions which Boyer had incited against him. When Boyer
complained to the king that Voltaire made him appear as a
fool, the king answered, ' ' That is a settled fact. ' '

On his return to Paris, Voltaire was elected a member of
the Academy, but his enemies again succeeded in driving him
away. He left Paris anew for Cirey, whence he betook himself
to the court of Stanislas Leczinski, father-in-law of Louis
XV. who had summoned him. After passing some time at
Sceaux with the Duchesse du Maine, he went to Berlin to be
with Frederick, the Salomon du Nord, as Voltaire named
him,1 who received him in Potsdam not as a poet, but as a
king. He was given a splendid apartment in the palace, a
sumptuous table and fine equipages, and he received the title
of chamberlain and a pension of twenty thousand francs.
In return the poet corrected the king's verses, and delighted
him at supper by the grace and prolificness of his wit and
intellect. Such men as Maupertuis, La Baumelle, La Mettrie,
le marquis d 'Argens, were gathered at the round table of the
famous suppers of Frederick, under whose presidency morals,
philosophy, and history were discussed. The first days were
full of enchantment for Voltaire: " One hundred and fifty
thousand victorious soldiers, no lawyers, opera, comedy, phi-
losophy, poetry, a hero philosopher and poet, grandeur and
graces, grenadiers and muses, trumpets and violins, repasts
of Plato, society and liberty; who would believe it? It is

1 He called Catherine of Russia "Semiramis."
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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

all true." For Voltaire this was the Palace of Alcina; but
the enchantment was brief. Maupertuis, the life president
of the Academy of Berlin, who was jealous of this French
genius, and had become his enemy, set to work to embroil
the king and the philosopher. Voltaire, in turn, pilloried
him in his Diatribe du Docteur Akakia, medecin du Pape;
but Frederick, having caused the pamphlet to be burned by
the hand of the executioner, Voltaire, outraged, sent back to
the king his cross, his key, and the certificate of his pension,
and requested permission to depart, which he finally obtained,
promising the king that he would return. At Frankfort he
found an agent of Frederick who had been ordered to recover
the collection of the king's poetic works, which Voltaire was
supposed to have taken away with him; and this emissary
kept him closely guarded in a tavern, for three weeks, until
he should restore the precious package which, as a matter of
fact, he had left behind him in his bags. Later an amicable
correspondence was reestablished between the king and the
philosopher; and it was the former who made the first ad-
vances. Voltaire's fame, contested up. to the time of his in-
timacy with the King of Prussia, soon equalled a sovereign's
after his return to France.

Voltaire had several homes — one, on Genevan territory,
a winter house at Montrion, near Ouchy; a mansion at Lau-
sanne, rue du Grand- Chene, and, finally, two estates in
France, in the immediate neighborhood of the frontier of
Geneva, one at Tournay, the other — a quasi-royal residence—
at Ferney. " All these dwellings," he wrote to d'Alembert,
" are necessary for me. I am delighted with passing freely
from one frontier to the other; were I only French, I would
depend too much on France. As it is, I have an odd little
kingdom in a Swiss valley. I am like the Old Man of the
Mountain : with my four estates I am, so to speak, on my four
paws. Montrion is my little cabin, my winter palace and shel-
ter from the cruel north wind. Then I have arranged a house
at Lausanne ; it might be called the Italian palace. Judge of
it: fifteen windows look out on the lake— on the right, on the
left, and in front; a hundred gardens are below my garden,
bathed in the blue mirror of the lake. I see all Savoy across
this little sea, and, beyond Savoy, the Alps rising in an am-

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phitheater on which the sun 's rays form a thousand effects of
light ... I should like to keep you in this delicious place.
There is no more beautiful aspect in the world; the Point
of the Seraglio in Constantinople has no lovelier view. " When
Voltaire went to install himself in his chateau of Les Delices,
he expressed the sentiments which this sojourn inspired in
him, in a poem which is a sort of hymn to Liberty, and is cer-
tainly one of the most beautiful that came from his pen. After
living for some time in Les Delices, Voltaire settled definitely
at Ferney in 1758, and it is there that he passed the last
twenty years of his life. His intellectual influence was enor-
mous : Ferney was the literary capital of Europe during the ,
twenty years of his sojourn there. He developed a great
energy: he corresponded with all the crowned heads of Eu-
rope, with ministers and with the learned, and made himself
felt as philosopher, poet, historian, and defender <3f the op-
pressed. All the world wished to see this king of literature :
philosophers, actors, princes and peasants, priests and lay-
men, came hither to look upon the man who made the world
think as well as laugh * — who had more wit, it is said, than all
the people put together. There are several distinct periods
in Voltaire's life: in his youth he was a bel-esprit, occu-
pied with the theater and light poetry; during his sojourn
at the Chateau de Cirey he turned to serious subjects, includ-
ing science ; his life with King Frederick of Prussia crowned
his celebrity; and at Ferney, Voltaire, all powerful, was
himself a king; he made his influence felt throughout the
Continent. When he died, Collin d'Harleville said: "Now
we shall again have a republic of literary men."

The years which he passed in his retreat at Ferney were
extremely fruitful. His prolific mind produced a quantity
of poems of the most varied types — satires, epistles, tales,
epigrams, commentaries, sparkling philosophic narratives, \
numerous works of religious polemics, the Dictionnaire Phi-
losophique, a number of pamphlets directed against his ene-
mies— the enemies of liberty of thought and tolerance. At ,
the same time Voltaire kept up an immense correspondence,

1 The temple of philosophy at Ermenonville has a column of Voltaire
with the inscription: " Voltaire ridicidum."

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

and animated with his spirit the Encyclopedic which d'Alem-
bert and Diderot were compiling. In this correspondence
we find reflected the whole literary economic and moral life
of his age. Of his letters,1 more than twelve thousand, ad-
dressed to seven hundred correspondents, and embracing a
period of sixty years have been preserved; and these letters,
admirably composed, with good sense, elegance, and facility,
make of Voltaire one of the greatest of French prose writers.
In 1737, he wrote the Conseils a un Journaliste, a golden book
of instruction for editors and critics. One critic who has
called him the " Journalist of all times," remarks that his
works if written in our own days would appear in the form
of brilliant leading articles or colloquial essays. As a matter
of fact, Voltaire as a writer is universal ; his output embraces
all forms of literature : lyric, epic, dramatic, poems, the novel,
philosophical and critical essays, and historical narrations.
In his tragedies, of which there are twenty-eight, he widened
the field by introducing romantic and national subjects, and
by picturing scenes not only in Greece and Rome, but in
America, Palestine, and China. He adhered to the " three
unities " of classic tradition, but swept aside theatrical con-
ventions by causing the actors to discard their large hats
with sweeping plumes, their knee breeches, silk stockings, and
buckled gaiters, for costumes appropriate to their parts. In
the seventeenth century, romantic love and ambition were the
principal themes of tragedy. Voltaire enlarged this meager
repertory of motive by making, in Zulime, Semiramis, Brutus,
I'Orphelin de la Chine, and Merope, a study of parental
affection; a portrayal of Christian sentiment in Alzire and
Zaire; and a picture of chivalrous emotion in Tancrede. As
an historian he likewise explored a new field. With Voltaire,
history became narrative, literary and philosophical. To
historical narrative, he declared, belonged not only the record
of exterior circumstances, but that account of the human
mind which exhibits man in his ascent from the barbaric
state. Voltaire was thus the first historian who recognized
that the history of civilization was an authorized factor in the

1 The most complete collection is to be found in Moland's edition, vols.
xxxiii-xlix.

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VOLTAIRE

historical narrative. In all these diverse forms of literature,
Voltaire pursued the same aim. Like the Abbe de Saint- ,,
Pierre, "He understood the necessity of always repeating
the same things in order to impress them on men's minds.
But he knew what the good abbe was ignorant of — how es-
sential it is to vary the form; and no one has so greatly
excelled in this art." His end was none other than to free *'
humanity from the yoke of superstition and fanaticism.
Swept on by his ardor, and irritated by the persecutions to
which he exposed himself, he often violated his purpose; but
he attained it, too, and, in spite of his errors, or his excesses,
his name must be inscribed among the benefactors of humanity.
His letters in verse and in prose scintillate with wit and
malice ; they bring before us the daily life of this man, whose
prodigious activity, extending to everything, made him the
self-appointed righter of all iniquities, and compelled the re-
form of the criminal procedures in law when these seemed to
him to be tainted with injustice.

The private life of Voltaire bears witness to great benefi-
cence. He made admirable use of his fortune, and his bene-
factions were distinguished by nobility and delicacy. " We
may count Voltaire," said Condorcet, " among the very few \s
men in whom the love of humanity is a veritable passion."
But, writes a French critic : ' ' not even Condorcet could quite
condone the palpable faults of Voltaire, who completely
lacked that cleanness of language and habits without which
man always lowers himself — without which there is neither
dignity nor true happiness for woman. This was a fault of
the age — an age of reaction against the monastic rigor of
an ascetic Christianity, and against the hypocrisy of the
court of Louis XIV. It was not sufficiently understood in
the eighteenth century, that the more they wished to free the
spirit and liberate the mind of man, the less they should loosen
the bonds of moral convention. Voltaire was, unfortunately, *
among those who permitted themselves the greatest license
in this respect; and his literary style often savors of the
levity of his morals."

Few authors have been the object of so much comment ^
by superficial students; and perhaps no other writer has
called forth such contradictory criticisms. The praise and

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

condemnation of opposing commentators have been alike ex-
cessive and superlative. The superficial ones are ready with
the judgment that he was a witty writer, with an excellent
literary style, but a very bad man. Yet so complex was his
nature, so many-sided was this remarkable being, that even
those who have studied him exhaustively do not fully under-
stand him. The truth is that Voltaire was something more
than an author in the ordinary sense of that term; he was
an integral part of the century itself with all its merits and
shortcomings.

" Den hb'chsten unter den Franzosen denkbaren, der
Nation gemassesten Schrif tsteller, " said Goethe of Voltaire.
Again, writing to Eckerman (January 3, 1830), Goethe has
spoken of the influence exercised upon his youth by the
genius of the great Frenchman, and how he labored to escape
it in order to develop his own individuality. Even to this
day, the numerous editors of Voltaire's works are divided
into two opposing factions ; but scan as we may the evidence
of the opposition, it is difficult to see how Carlyle could have
gone so far astray as to remark that in all of Voltaire he had
not found " one grand thought." The injustice of such a
criticism, and its incompatibility with the simple record of
Voltaire's labors in behalf of humanity, must be apparent to
anyone who recalls his crusade against torture, slavery, judi-
cial oppression, and the evils of a censored press. Here was
a man who, all alone, with no other weapons than his intel-
lect and his pen, opposed the terrible abuses rooted for
centuries in the proceedings of the French criminal courts,
who stirred all Europe with the power and the success of his
efforts for reform. Moreover, he made himself felt in other
practical affairs. During a time of erratic mercantile restric-
tions, he was the first to declare for free trade, and to exploit
the advantages of a Suez Canal.

It was in 1788, when almost eighty-four years of age, that
Voltaire made a trip to Paris to enjoy his glory. His return
was a veritable triumph, his entry into Paris that of a victo-
rious king. They tell a story that during his journey, which
took place in a rigorous winter, the postmasters wanted to
assist his progress themselves; one man, old and infirm, not
being able to mount a horse, recommended him to his postilion

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in these words : ' ' Think of the honor which is yours in guid- ,
ing this great man ; there are ten kings in Europe, but there
is only one Voltaire on earth. ' ' After he had arrived in Paris,
Voltaire stopped at the Hotel de Bernieres where the city, the
court, the Academy, the philosophers, and artists came to
pay tribute to him. " The enthusiasm with which he was
received in Paris," says Condorcet, " spread to the common
people. They paused before his windows; they passed entire
hours there, in the hope of seeing him for a moment; his
carriage, forced to advance at a walk, was surrounded by a
numerous crowd who blessed him and praised his works.
The representation of Irene, in spite of the weakness of the
tragedy, was the occasion for a new triumph for him. , His
bust was crowned in the theater with great applause, to the
accompaniment of joyful cries, and tears of enthusiasm and
tenderness. On his exit people cast themselves at his feet,
they kissed his garments. " You want to make me die with
pleasure; you smother me beneath roses! " exclaimed Vol-
taire. The Abbe Duvernet, one of his biographers present at
the scene, tells us that the people cried : ' ' Honor to the phi- ^
losopher who teaches us to think ! Glory to the defender of
Galas! Glory to the savior of Sirven and Montbailly! "*
All this proves to what extent Voltaire had influenced public
opinion by his attacks on fanaticism. When Voltaire, on
coming to Paris, met Benjamin Franklin, the American phi-
losopher presented his grandson to him, asking his blessing.
" God and liberty," said Voltaire; " that is the only bene-
diction suitable for the grandson of Mr. Franklin." God •""'
and liberty were, moreover, in two words, the sum of Vol-
taire's philosophy.

Voltaire survived this triumph but a short time. As he
had not received the sacraments of the church, his inter-
ment in the chapel of a monastery at Scellieres, of which his
nephew was the Abbe, was accomplished by a kind of fraud.
The government, rivaling the clergy in rancor, prohibited
the press, which it absolutely controlled at this time, from

1 Famous cases in which Voltaire was an indefatigable champion of
justice miscarried: among the most sensational of which were those of
Galas, Sirven, Montbailly, de La Barre, of the Comte de Lally, governor
of the French possessions in India, and of the serfs of the Jura Mountains.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

speaking of his death, and the theatrical managers had orders
not to play any of his dramas. In the time of the Terror,
his remains were exhumed and transferred to the Pantheon
with solemn pomp ; and to-day he figures in bas-relief on the
front of this edifice.

\^ Voltaire was indeed the king of his century; at this time
French literature gave tone to all Europe, and Voltaire was
the principal representative of that literature. Under his
scepter the republic of letters was transformed into a mon-
archy ; and, although tempered by the talents, the specialties,
the rivalries of contending interests, it took its general tone
from this one man. Never did literature undergo such a
royal rule. In his hands, tragedy took on an entirely new
character, although it never reached the heights of Corneille
or Racine; it became philosophic, moralizing, didactic, and
aimed to persuade, without ignoring the art of pleasing.

*• Zaire, the most beautiful tragedy of love that had been written
since Racine, is Voltaire's masterpiece — " la piece enchante-
resse," as J. J. Rousseau called it.

ZAIRE

The argument of Zaire is as follows: It is the time of the
crusades. Saladin has dethroned the last of the Lusignans,
and recaptured the Holy Land from the Christians. Oros-
mane, one of his successors, reigns in Jerusalem; but he is a
sultan who loves progress, and who wants to be loved for
himself by his subjects, by the Christians, and especially by
Zai're, a young slave who has been reared in his palace.
Lusignan, a prisoner for twenty years, is set free by Orosmane,
and recognizes his son in a Christian knight, Nerestan, who
has come from France to ransom the captives, together with
his daughter, Zaire, who has been educated in Moham-
medanism, and is about to marry the sultan. Lusignan is in
despair, and utters those famous and beautiful verses which
soften the heart of Zaire and make her promise to receive
baptism. When Orosmane comes to seek her for the marriage
ceremony, she hesitates ; he is jealous, suspects something, sur-
prises her at the moment when Nerestan comes to lead her
away for baptism, and stabs her. Nerestan explains every-

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thing to him, and Orosmane, in despair, kills himself, after
having opened the seraglio and given liberty to all his
prisoners.

MEROPE (LA MESSENIENNE)

This is the plot of Merope: Cresphonte, King of Mes-
senia, has been assassinated. The assassin, Polyphonte, has
been able to keep his crime secret for fifteen years, and seeks
to compel Merope, the widow of Cresphonte, who has remained
mistress of the throne, to give him her hand in marriage. But
she thinks only of her son, Egisthe, long since missing, who,
exposed to the murderers of his father, has been taken secretly
away from Messenia by his rescuer. One day a young man,
alleged to be the murderer of this child, is brought to Merope.
She wishes to punish him herself; but at the moment when
she lifts the dagger to strike, she recognizes him as her son,
who denounces the crimes of Polyphonte, and kills him, to
the satisfaction of all. The following verses from Merope
have become proverbial, and are frequently recalled :

Le premier qui fut roi fut un soldat heureux.1
Qui sert bien son pays n'a pas besoin d'aieux.2

Quand on a tout perdu, quand on n'a plus d'espoir,
La vie est un opprobre, et la mort un devoir.*

ALZIRE (L'AMERICAINE)

Alzire is a philosophic tragedy in which there are some
very beautiful verses on tolerance. Alzire, daughter of the
Peruvian chief, Monteze, is, like her father, a convert to
Christianity. She is pledged to wed Zamore — descended, like
herself, from the kings of Peru; but in Zamore 's absence the
Spanish governor, Don Gusman, asks for her hand. Alzire,
who thinks that Zamore has been killed, yields to the prayers
of her father and consents to the marriage; but immediately

1 The first who was king was a fortunate soldier.
J He who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.
3 When one has lost all, when one hopes no more, life is opprobrious and
death a duty.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

after the ceremony, Zamore, who Sees in Gusman a fortunate
rival, the enemy of his gods and the oppressor of his country,
reappears with his warriors. He slays Gusman, who, dying,
forgives him, and commits his widow to Zamore 's charge.

MAHOMET (L'IMPOSTEUR)

The Mahomet of Voltaire is an ambitious impostor who,
in order to elevate himself, imposes upon the credulity of
men. He explains to Zopire, chief of Mecca, which he is
besieging, his ideas and plans ; he promises to do his best for
Zopire, and to give him his due share in the great enterprise
which he has formed. Zopire answers that he will never
consent to be the accomplice of an impostor, and the struggle
between the two men begins. Mahomet believes himself lost
unless Zopire is put out of the way, and seeks to have him
assassinated. He has taken into his camp Zopire 's two
children, Sei'de and Palmire, whom Zopire has for a long time
believed to be dead. These children, not knowing that they
are brother and sister, have fallen in love with each other.
Mahomet orders Sei'de to kill Zopire when Zopire offers sacri-
fices to his gods. Sei'de consents; but at the moment when
Zopire has been wounded, he recognizes his children. Se'ide,
horrified at his own action and at that of Mahomet, wishes to
denounce him before the assembled people ; but Mahomet has
him poisoned, and when Sei'de accuses him of imposture,
Mahomet exclaims, " Thou has blasphemed against the prophet
of God ; thou shalt die ! ' ' Having been poisoned, Sei'de does
indeed die before the eyes of the people, who continue devoted
to Mahomet. This is the play which Voltaire dedicated to
Pope Benedict XIV. We cite a familiar couplet from this
play:

Les mortels sont egaux, ce n'est point la naissance,

C'est la seule vertu qui fait leur difference.1

Voltaire's other tragedies include La Mort de Cesar,
borrowed from Shakespeare; Semiramis; Oreste; Tancrede,

1 Mortals are equal; it is not birth — it is only virtue that differentiates
them.

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VOLTAIRE

borrowed from Ariosto. Among his comedies are: Nanine;
I'Ecossaise.

The most important of Voltaire's compositions is his Essai
sur les Moeurs et I' Esprit des Nations depuis Charlemagne *
jusqu'd Louis XIV. Of his Siecle de Louis XIV, Voltaire
says: "It is not only the life of the prince which I am
describing, it is not only the annals of his reign ; it is rather
the history of the human mind, drawn from the most glorious
century of intellectual life." Among his novels and prose
tales are Zadig, Candide, L'Ingenu, La Princesse de Baby-
lone, I'Homme aux Quarante Ecus. In the Dictionnaire
Philosopkique is condensed all his philosophic thought. His
poems include Le Desastre de Lisbonne, the satires, and La
Pucelle, a burlesque epic on Jeanne d'Are, which caused him
much tribulation during his lifetime. Some of his country-
men never forgave him this offense against their national
heroine. Voltaire pointedly made sport of her, whereas the
German poet, Schiller, glorified her and made her appear as
a divine being. In our day, Anatole France treats Joan of
Arc in his usual skeptical way, while Andrew Lang, like
Schiller, exalts her.

On les persecute, on les tue,
Sauf apres un long examen,
A leur dresser une statue,
Pour la gloire du genre humain.1

(Be"ranger.)

The following are a few of Voltaire's epigrams:

J'eus e"te pres du Gange esclave des faux dieux —
Chre'tienne a Paris, Musulmane en ces lieux.*

(From Zaire.)

1 They are persecuted and killed, but after a long critical examination
a statue is erected to them for the glory of the human race. Schiller's
prophecy, "Du wirst unsterblich leben," has realized itself: Joan of Arc
was beatified by Pope Pius X, in 1909.

1 On the Ganges I would have been a slave to false gods — a
Christian in Paris, a Musulman in these places.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner.1

Je vous dois tout, puisque c'est moi qui vous aime.2

M. C. Lockwood says : ' ' Popular conceptions of Voltaire
are in some respects erroneous. He is regarded as an arch-
infidel and the bitter foe of religion. On the contrary, he
was always a deist. He never assails the ' Sermon on the
Mount,' nor can one who reads him carefully believe that
there would not have been a subtle sympathy between him
and the best religious minds of later days. He never mocked
men who lived good lives, nor opposed with any bitterness
those who were the friends of liberty of conscience."

The inscription, " Deo erexit Voltaire,"3 on the church
given by him to Ferney is not a sacrilegious jest, but a re-
proof to those who dedicated churches to the Saints and
never to the Deity. Voltaire was in earnest in his Deism
because he could not conceive a well-regulated universe with-
out a supreme power ; but no religious thought seems to have
entered into his conception of God. In his Ode to the author
of the book, De tribus impostonbus, he says: " Si Dieu
n'existait pas, il faudrait Pinventer."4 In his poem to the
King of Prussia he wrote:

Nous adorions tous deux le Dieu de I'univers;

Car il en est un, quoi qu'on disc :

Mais nous n'avions pas la sottise

De le dishonorer par des cultes pervers.*

Of his Histoire de Jenni, ou I'Athee et le Sage, La Harpe
says : " It is a little philosophical novel against atheists, and
therefore very edifying for good atheists. Finally, Voltaire

1 To understand all is to forgive all.
2 1 owe you all, since it is I who love you.
\ J "Erected by Voltaire to God."

* " If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him."
5 We both worshiped the God of the universe;
For there is one, whatever may be said ;
But we did not commit the folly
Of dishonoring Him by perverse creeds.
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VOLTAIRE

himself, in his letter — August 4, 1775 — to d'Argental, says:
" I have always regarded atheists as impudent sophists; I
have said it, I have printed it. The author of Jenni cannot be
suspected of thinking like Epicurus. Spinoza himself, admits
a supreme intelligence in nature."

CHAPTER XX

MONTESQUIEU, BUFFON, AND ROUSSEAU

MONTESQUIEU

CHARLES DE SECONDAT, Baron de Montesquieu et de la
Brede, was born in 1689, at the chateau de la Brede, near
Bordeaux, of a noble family. He kept aloof from court favor,
and was therefore in a position to write as independently
as was possible in those days. Having been offered a payment
by grace of the court, he refused it, saying: " N'ayant point
fait de bassesses je n'avais pas besoin d'etre console par des
graces." (Having committed no base act, I did not need the
consolation of favors.) But he was far from being indifferent
to the prerogatives of his birth and to the privileges attached
to his manorial possessions ; and all this was made apparent in
the development of his ideas.

The Baron de Montesquieu was the apostle of political
liberty. Destined for the law, to which profession his family
belonged, he gave himself up to the study of jurisprudence
at a very early age — relieving the monotony of it by reading
books of history and travel and the works of ancient writers.
The first subject on which Montesquieu exercised his pen
was the thesis that the idolatry of the pagans did not deserve
eternal damnation. He was thus — at the age of twenty —
already manifesting his attachment for the ancients and his
hatred of religious intolerance, and, at the same time, his
critical spirit. But this essay he did not consider worthy of
publication.

Having been admitted to the Parlement of Bordeaux in
1714, he soon succeeded his uncle as the president a mortier.1

1 Mortier, formerly a round cap of black velvet, laced with gold and
with a crown in the form of a mortar-board, worn by the presidents of such

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MONTESQUIEU

He employed the leisure time which his office permitted
him in studying moral, political, and historical sciences. He
read a dissertation in the Academic de Bordeaux, of which
he was the founder, on the " Policy of the Romans in Re-
ligion " — which was, as it were, the prelude of his great
work.

The principal result of his leisure was the Lettres persanes.
This is the imaginary correspondence of three Persians, Rica,
Usbek, and Rhedi, who go to Europe to study its customs and
its institutions. Rhedi tarries in Venice, while Rica and Usbek
repair to Paris. From the time of their departure an active
correspondence is carried on between Usbek, his concubines,
Zachi, Zephis, Fatime, Roxane, Zelis, and their eunuchs: and
between the three travelers and their friends at Ispahan.
Very soon discord breaks out in the seraglio of Usbek: the
eunuchs endeavor to right matters ; one of the favorites, Rox-
ane, poisons herself after addressing some ironical farewells
to the master whom she has deceived.

Montesquieu realized that without the narrative of sala-
cious episodes peculiar to the harem, his Lettres persanes,
with all their statesmanlike wisdom, would never have at-
tained wide popularity; and he showed his perspicacity by
employing these and like incidents in order to get a popular
hearing for the serious and mighty ideas which animated
his work. In these letters he passes in review, with per-
fect freedom, the politics, the religion, and the entire society
of France. It is a bitter satire of the ridiculous charac-
teristics of European society, in which Montesquieu touches
upon the most serious questions of philosophy, politics, and
morality. For the most part the Persians, Usbek and
Rica, depict the lives and acts of the Oriental despots, and
compare them with the French monarchs, whose weaknesses
and defects are plainly shown through a thin disguise;
but occasionally the author is openly and bitterly satirical,
as, for instance, in Letter XXXVII, describing the aged King
Louis XIV:

" Le roi de France est vieux. Nous n'avons point d 'ex-
assemblies: hence — president a mortier. It is nowadays the cap worn by
the judges of the Cour de Cassation and the Cour des Comptes.

307

emple dans nos histoires d'un monarque qui ait si longtemps
regne. On dit qu'il possede a un tres-haut degre le talent
de se faire obeir: il gouverne avec le meme genie sa famille,
sa cour, son etat. On lui a souvent entendu dire que, de tous
les gouvernements du monde, celui des Turcs ou celui de
notre auguste sultan lui plairait le mieux; tant il fait cas
de la politique orientale. J'ai etudie son caractere, et j'y ai
trouve des contradictions qu'il m'est impossible de resoudre:
par exemple, il a un ministre qui u'a que dix-huit ans, et une
maitresse qui en a quatre-vingts. II aime a gratifier ceux
qui le servent; mais il paye aussi liberalement les assiduites,
ou plutot 1'oisivete de ses courtisans, que les campagnes
laborieuses de ses capitaines: souvent il prefere un homme
qui le deshabille, ou qui lui donne la serviette lorsqu'il se
met a table, a un autre qui lui prend des villes, ou lui gagne
des batailles."1

In these Letters2 Montesquieu's candor is unrestrained;
all the burning questions of politics and society are discussed,
without however, being decided. He attacks all questions,
not with an angry eloquence, but as an impersonal observer
who does not commit himself. He says: " The nature and
aim of these letters are so exposed that they will never de-
ceive people save those who wish to deceive themselves."
Villemain describes the Lettres persanes as "the most profound

1 "The King of France is old. We have no example in history of a
monarch who has reigned so long. It is said that he possesses in a very
high degree the talent of enforcing obedience: he governs with the same
genius his family, his court, his state. He has often been heard to say that
of all the governments of the world that of the Turks or that of our august
Sultan would please him best; so much does he think of Oriental politics.
I have studied his character, and I have found contradictions impossible for
me to solve: for instance, he has a minister eighteen years of age and a
mistress who is eighty. He loves to gratify those who serve him; but he
rewards as liberally the assiduities or rather the idleness of his courtiers
as he does the laborious campaigns of his captains ; often he prefers a man
who undresses him or one who gives him a napkin when seated at table,
to another who takes cities or wins battles for him."

2 A few years ago Montesquieu's descendants at last consented to the
publication of his manuscripts in the archives of the chateau de La Brede;
and from these Professor Barkhausen of the law faculty in Bordeaux has
since written a book: Montesquieu: ses idees et ses ceuvres.

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MONTESQUIEU

of frivolous books. " M. Tourneux, in his preface to the Jouaust
edition of Montesquieu's works, says it is probable that Mon-
tesquieu borrowed some of his ideas in the Lettres persanes
from the Spectator of Addison, and some from the Amuse-
ments serieux et comiques of Dufresny. He notes that the
Lettres were published in Rouen (as were Madame de Se-
vigne's letters and Voltaire's Histoire de Charles XII}, and
not in Holland, as so often recorded ; and that the Holland pub-
lication was the second edition, corrected for Cardinal Fleury
and supervised by his secretary, the Abbe Duval.1

Montesquieu's reputation was suddenly established; the
Lettres, we are told, " sold like bread." The success of the
work was so great, and the debate it provoked so prodigious,
that, according to what he himself says, the booksellers em-
ployed every means to secure a series of similar works. They
buttonholed every one they met, saying: " Write me a set
of Lettres persanes."

Montesquieu's Temple de Gnide and Arsace et Ismenie
show traces of that licentiousness characteristic of his con-
temporaries, which he himself, despite the dignity of his
character, did not escape. His Histoire Veritable is a novel
that reflects Montesquieu 's view of the world : it tells how the
servant of an Indian bonze makes use of his master's piety
to turn money into his own coffers. He lives in great splen-
dor, but is finally unmasked and becomes a fugitive. As a
punishment for his sins, he undergoes successive transmigra-
tions of the soul, assuming, by turns, the form of Apis, the
Bull of Memphis worshiped by the Egyptians ; of the elephant
of the King of Thibet; of a poet, a courtier, a man of the
world, a tramp, a gambler, a prestidigitator, a cab horse, a
eunuch, a courtesan, etc.

Montesquieu thought himself entitled to a place in the
Academy, which in the eighteenth century was considered
more important than it is at present. Cardinal Fleury, then
prime minister, had not read the Lettres persanes; but he took
exception to them on the strength of the report that they were
an offense to religion and the state. The doors of the Acad-
emy were barred to the author, for in the mouth of Rica,

1 Newest edition by H. Barkhausen, 1900.
309

Montesquieu had put the words : There is no tribunal in the
world less respected than the Academy. Then Montesquieu
resorted to a ruse to gain favor with the minister. He pub-
lished a new edition of the Lettres in which he abridged and
modified the doubtful passages, and then himself took his book
to the Cardinal who, charmed with the literary style, declared
it to be " more agreeable than dangerous." They parted on
the best of terms, and Montesquieu was received into the
Academy. Shortly afterwards he left France for a voyage
into foreign lands, in order to study the laws and the customs
of their inhabitants. He first went to Vienna, and was re-
ceived at the court of the Prince of Savoy, where he found
absolute monarchy on another soil; and thence to Hungary,
where, as M. Villemain says, he could record the waning
expressions of that feudal vigor he so vividly described in a
few lines of the Esprit des lois. He then passed over to Italy,
where he could study various forms of government: at Flor-
ence the absolute authority, easily supported, of a Grand
Duke; at Venice, the aristocratic repubb'c with its Council
of Ten and its mysterious rule ; at Rome, the pontificate. Here
he was presented to Pope Benedict XIV, who offered him
(so the story goes) a life-long dispensation from fasting.
Montesquieu, greatly flattered, hastened to accept: but when
he saw the bill of expenses connected with the papal document
in the case, he returned the papers to the Pope's secretary
saying: " Monseigneur, I thank his Holiness for his great
kindness ; but as he is such an honorable man, I shall depend
on his word."

From Italy, Montesquieu went to Switzerland — the country
of William Tell, the refuge of liberty, the land of republican-
ism par excellence; thence to Holland, where he found, in
another form, the image of liberty and republican institutions.
In Holland he met Lord Chesterfield, who took him on his
yacht to London and presented him to the queen. Here again,
in another guise, he found political liberty diffused by a mixed
constitution, the mechanism of which he himself was to ex-
plain so admirably. He arrived there in 1729, the very date
of Voltaire's departure from England, and remained two
years, during which he learned to love and understand liberty
— a thing which a Frenchman at that time could hardly com-

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MONTESQUIEU

prebend. Rich in observation and materials, Montesquieu
then retired to his chateau de la Brede, in 1731, in order to
elaborate them in peace, and compose from them the work he
was planning. He himself said : ' ' When I was out in the
world, I loved it so that I could not endure retirement ; when I
am on my estates, I no longer think of the world. ' '

Villemain has remarked that this necessity for retirement
was something felt by almost all the thinkers of the eighteenth
century. Voltaire, after trying a number of retreats, came
at last to settle down at Ferney, where he passed the last
twenty years of his life. Rousseau lived in the country al-
most constantly, and always sought solitude. Buffon pro-
duced his great works in his chateau at Montbar ; Montesquieu,
in his chateau de la Brede. They all wished to escape at once
the distractions and the importunities of the great cities;
some sought a greater liberty in their retirement. Far from
the world, they acted powerfully on it.

The first fruit of Montesquieu's retirement was the Con-
siderations sur les causes de la grandeur et de la decadence
des Romains, in which he sums up with the conciseness of
genius the institutions and customs of the Romans, and de-
scribes with a most extraordinary precision and penetra-
tion the causes that explain the growth and fall of their
empire.

In this work, Montesquieu showed himself a great historian,
and especially a profound moralist — an initiator of that
method which has since been called the psychology of nations.
But this was only a detached portrait of the vast whole.1
Montesquieu had undertaken to embrace in a single work the
laws of all nations, by reducing them to fundamental princi-
ples and revealing their spirit; whence the title, The Spirit
of Laws, a work of sociology — his capital work — which contains
all his thought and all his life. He labored on it for twenty
years: " At last," he says, " I have seen my work begin,
develop, advance, and end." It is a masterpiece of French
literature. At the outset, the author postulates laws and
justice as eternal and absolute — man being given such as he

1 The Considerations were originally meant to be a part of the Esprit
des Lois; but the author published them separately.

311

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

is organized to receive. There follows a review of various
legislations and customs which have contributed to the pros-
perity of nations or caused their fall; of circumstances, aris-
ing at the birth of nations, and moral principles which, trans-
formed into revolutions, changed the face of the world. The
author indicates in the very nature of governments the prin-
ciples that animate them ; and from these principles, combined
with the needs of peoples, he deduces the laws that have made
them live and that still sustain them. He declares for tolera-
tion of the most absolute nature in matters of religion. As
for his political ideal, after having examined the three prin-
cipal forms of government — the republic, monarchy, despo-
tism— he finds it in Great Britain's constitution, in which
democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy are happily blended.
Montesquieu in this work, makes the generalization that the
development of a people, and — above all — its laws, depend
upon conditions of the land, climate, religion, and tempera-
ment. The language he employs is that of the dispassionate
observer; for this reason the book was permitted to circulate
freely in France and became the basis for the liberal political
science of modern times; for this reason also it did not meet
with the approval of the rabid republicans who came after
him. Nevertheless, it eloquently expounded for the first
time the fundamental ideas expressed in the Revolution fifty
years later, although Montesquieu did not desire the over-
throw of the monarchy. Believing that France was not ripe
for a republic, he sought rather to bring about the English
political ideal of sound relations between the ruler and the
people. Prolem sine matre creatam was the motto of his
Esprit des lois (Spirit of Laws), which consists of thirty books.
Of these, the first eight discuss the laws in relation to govern-
ment in its three forms — the monarchy, the republic, and
despotism, with their corresponding attributes of honor, virtue,
and fear; each government perishing through an exaggera-
tion of its particular principles. Books nine to thirteen, treat
of the laws with reference to liberty, and of the British con-
stitution. Books fourteen to eighteen, consider the laws in
connection with the nature of the climate and the land, and
refer to the origin of slavery. Book fifteen is devoted to
attacking slavery, serfdom, torture, and the inquisition.

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MONTESQUIEU

Book nineteen treats of laws with reference to customs ; books
twenty to twenty -three, of laws in their bearing on commerce,
finance, and population; books twenty-four and twenty-five
of laws in relation to religion. Books twenty-six to thirty
are concerned with the history of the right of inheritance of
the Romans and the Francs, and include a study of feudal
laws.

It was at Geneva that the two first editions of the Esprit
des lois were published. Its success far surpassed the author's
hopes; there were twenty-two editions in the space of a year
and a half, and the work was soon translated into all Euro-
pean languages. Objections, criticisms, epigrams, were not
lacking. Voltaire eulogized the work in this phrase: " The
human race had lost its charters; M. Montesquieu has redis-
covered and restored them." Montesquieu was furiously
attacked as an atheist in a journal entitled Nouvelles Ecclesi-
astiques, and the theologians of the Sorbonne prepared to
censure his work, but his sole reply to his critics was his
' ' Defense of the Spirit of the Laws ' ' — a masterpiece of irony
and eloquence. After the publication of the " Spirit of
Laws," which capped his glory but did not change his life
and his character, Montesquieu felt his strength declining.
He died in 1755, at the age of seventy years. The priest at
his bedside said to him a few moments before his death : " You
understand, sir, how great is God ? " " Yes," answered
Montesquieu, " and how petty men are! "

Montesquieu is one of the greatest thinkers and writers of
France — a prince in the realm of intellect. His life was that
of a sage. He loved and practised virtue because virtue is
right and leads to happiness through its regard for the just
and true ; he did much good without ostentation, and enjoyed
the peace of a clear conscience. "We know from his own words
that he was naturally happy: " I awake in the morning
with a secret joy at seeing the light; I behold the sun with a
feeling of exultation, and am content all the rest of the day. ' '
He was passionately fond of reading, study, and literary
composition. " Study," he says, " has been for me the sov-
ereign remedy for the ills of life, since I never have had a dis-
appointment which an hour's reading could not dispel."
Montesquieu was out of his element in conversation; he him-

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

self said that he was incapable of delivering a lecture, and
he was at his best only when writing. " Timidity," he con-
fesses, ' ' has been the scourge of my life ; it seems to arrest
the action of my vital organs, tie my tongue, cloud my
thoughts, and distort my expressions. Yet I have never been
less subject to these difficulties and attacks before men of
education than before fools, because I could hope that they
would understand me, and that gave me confidence." He
adds, however, with naive satisfaction, that on great occa-
sions his mind worked clearly enough. " While at Luxem-
burg," he tells us, " in the hall in which the Emperor dined,
Prince Linski said to me : ' You, sir, who come from France,
are probably astonished to see the Emperor so badly housed. '
' My lord,' said I, ' I am pleased to see a country where the
subjects of the Emperor are better lodged than their master. '
While in Piedmont, King Victor asked me: ' Sir, are you
related to the Abbe de Montesquieu, whom I have seen here
with the Abbe d'Estrades? ' ' Sire/ said I to him, ' Your
Majesty is like Caesar, who never forgot a name.' ' It comes
to us from another source that some one insisted on persuad-
ing him to believe a thing difficult to accept, and with weari-
some persistence added : " If this is not true, I will give you
my head " — " I accept it," answered Montesquieu. " Tri-
fling gifts cement strong friendships."

He could accommodate himself to the different character-
istics of peoples as he could to those of individual persons.
" When I am in France," he used to say, " I make friends
with everyone ; in England, with no one. In Italy I pay com-
pliments to everybody; in Germany I drink with every-
body." As a French critic writes: " There was in his compo-
sition something better than this adaptability to all tastes;
there was that eighteenth-century breadth of sentiment which
we call cosmopolitanism: he could easily have said with Soc-
rates, I am not only a citizen of Athens ; I am a citizen of the
world. Such was Montesquieu, whose essential moderation of
character is not to be confused with indifference, nor inter-
preted as an offspring of egotism — a moderation that did not
exclude a certain warmth, tempered but real, not only for his
friends and for the unfortunate, but for the public good and
the welfare ef humanity. It was this temperamental modera-

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MONTESQUIEU

tion that caused, or at least supported, the moderation of his
mind. Hence his impartiality, his breadth of view, his in-
telligent grasp of history, and his respect for tradition."

BUFFON

Georges Louis Le Clerc, Comte de Buffon, was born at
Montbard, Cote d'Or, in 1707. Of an ancient family of law-
yers, in easy circumstances, honorable and esteemed, he was
early in life able to choose his career. In spite of the paternal
traditions, he devoted himself unhesitatingly to science —
first of all to mathematics and general physics. After having
accompanied a young Englishman, the Duke of Kingston, and
his tutor to Italy, and then to England, he began to gain prom-
inence by the translation of two works of a scientific nature —
the Statique des vegetaux of Hales and the Traite des flexions
of Newton. When he was only twenty-six years of age, his
books gained him admission to the Academy of Sciences,
though his writings at this time gave little hint of the renown
in store for him. Appointed superintendent of the Koyal
Gardens, in 1739, he had cultivated the natural sciences very
little; it was therefore by accident, and, in a way, officially,
that Buffon became a naturalist. After ten years of research
and meditation, he published the first three volumes of his
Histoire naturelle, generale et particuliere, avec la description
du cabinet du roi. The first volume contains the Theorie de
la Terre and Systeme sur la formation des planetes; the second
volume, the Histoire generale des animaux and the Histoire
particuliere de I'homme; the third, his Description du cabinet
du roi and Les varietes de I'espece humaine. After an inter-
val of ten years, he published twelve volumes on the history
of quadrupeds; and, some years later, ten volumes of the
Histoire naturelle des oiseaux et des mineraux, together with
seven volumes of supplements. This great work established
Buffon 's fame, not only as a naturalist, but as a writer. He
devoted forty years of his life to it, and was assisted by such
collaborators as the savant Daubenton,1 the Abbe Bexon, and

1 Daubenton's special work was concerned with the anatomy and
dissection of animals.

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Guineau de Montbeliard. Yet even then he did not finish
the task, which was completed by Lacepede, from Buffon 's
notes, with the publication of Les serpents (1789), and with
Lacepede 's original work in six volumes, Les poissons et les
cetaces. Thirty years separate the Theorie de la Terre (1749)
from les Epoques de la Nature (1779, fifth volume of his sup-
plements) ; and, as if the natural historian had somehow
wrested from his study of nature the secret of eternal youth,
the style of the later volume, written by the hand of a sep-
tuagenarian, cannot be distinguished from the first, except
for its greater accuracy of observation and perfection of form.
The Theorie de la Terre had astounded the world ; the Epoques
de la Nature is perhaps, among all the works of the eighteenth
century, that which elevated most the imagination of men.
Following his argument, we see that at a date extremely
remote a comet was hurled into the sun; several fragments
were detached, and one of these fragments became the earth.
After glowing for thousands of years, like the sun, it became
gradually colder, eventually producing organic beings at
first inferior, but progressively more perfect animals. In the
sixth epoch, man appears on the scene. These six epochs
are almost in accord with the six days of the Bible, if we
admit that these days designate periods of indefinite length.
Buffon traces eloquent pictures of these imaginary epochs,
especially in the last of his works, which is considered a master-
piece of style. His ideas are, in general, conjectures ; several,
however, have been admitted by science. Less conjectural
is his history of animate beings. He begins by establishing
the difference that separates the plant from the animal — an
extremely minute difference, if we take the germ at the begin-
ning, but which is accentuated in proportion as each being
develops. Then he marks the resemblance and differences
between the man and the animal ; he shows us the genus homo
in dual form — composed of a body in which the lower appe-
tites rule and an intelligence that directs and dominates the
instincts, and, in weak natures, is sometimes dominated by
them. There is in this history a celebrated passage in which
the first man tells in what order he has acquired his ideas,
and how these ideas are entirely the result of his sensations.
Buffon then enters into the details of the human structure ; he

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BUFFON

analyzes the five senses, he follows the development of the
human being from its birth to its death. At this last point
he challenges the terrors death inspires in us, and tries to
prove, by facts and reasoning, that death in itself is not very
painful. Next he passes in review all human races. In regard
to the origin of beings, Buffon believes in spontaneous genera-
tion ; he supposes that at each instant, nature produces germs
capable of becoming organized beings by a sort of fermenta-
tion. The most popular part is that devoted to animals; he
has described in this volume two hundred species of quad-
rupeds and eight hundred species of birds. Every one of these
descriptions is a painting; he is the first among the moderns
to combine natural history with eloquence of language. Sev-
eral of his descriptions are celebrated; among those oftenest
cited are the accounts concerning the horse, which he calls
the ' ' noble warrior ' ' ; the lion, which is to him a ' ' generous
king "; the tiger, a " cruel statesman "; the fox, an " adroit
thief. ' ' All these animals are described according to the rela-
tions which Buffon found between them and men. He did for
nature what Montesquieu has done for history ; he sought for
fundamental laws by patient study of facts.

The first volumes of his Histoire Naturelle were his pass-
port to the French Academy ; on his admission to membership
in 1753, he pronounced a discourse on literary style, in which
occurs the famous phrase, " Le style est Phomme meme,"1
which has since been changed to the oft-quoted " Le style,
c'est Phomme." This is conspicuously true of Buffon: his
style reflects his pompous habits, his elevation of ideas, his
nobility, and his majestic ways. In the chateau of Montbard
he worked, from early dawn in gala costume — a powdered
periwig on his head, great lace ruffles 2 at his wrists and a
sword girded at his side; for, as he said, he could not work
unless he felt himself becomingly dressed.

Buffon toiled indefatigably fourteen hours a day, his ser-
vant calling him at five in the morning, with orders to use

1 "Les connaissances, les faits et les d6couvertes . . . sont hors de
Phomme: le style est 1'homme meme." (Discours de reception a 1'Aca-
de"mie Francaise, 1753.)

2 These lace cuffs of his have become proverbial as characterizing
affectation of style, manners, or personal behavior.

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THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

violence if necessary. This servant discharged his peculiar
duty during sixty years, which led Buffon to remark: " I
owe to Joseph at least twelve volumes of my books." In his
study the only ornament was a portrait of Newton, and here
he passed long hours meditating, correcting, and reading
aloud to assure himself of the perfect harmony of his phrases.
He wrote laboriously, often spending a whole morning in
finding the perfect expression for a thought. It is said that
he rewrote his Etudes de la Nature eleven times. This inces-
sant labor explains his numerous works, his pure and harmoni-
ous style, and his definition of genius, which he calls a " long
patience." On Sundays he went to church accompanied by
a Capuchin friar, his confessor and his steward; he walked,
with head held high among his vassals, to his lordly pew,
where he seated himself with great pomp and received the
incense, the holy water, and the other honors due his rank.
It was this habitual loftiness of demeanor, and its reflection in
his literary style, which prompted Voltaire to say that Buffon 's
natural history was not natural. Personally he seems to
have had no other religion than a calm and serious naturalism ;
no other " doctrine of morals " than obedience to necessary
and immutable laws. He has been reproached for believing
that insignificant things should be elevated by ornate diction,
which often gives his style a studied and pompous eloquence.
But in the correspondence of Buffon collected and annotated
by Nadault de Buffon (1860), one may trace the character of
the man, which is much more natural and simple than his
writings would lead one to believe. Among his letters are
some very touching ones to his son, to Madame Daubenton,
and Madame Necker, his devoted friend, in whose arms
Buffon expired.

The career of Buffon offers few events that are particu-
larly striking ; it was peaceful, worthy, and glorious. His time
was divided between the Royal Gardens (now Jardin des
Plantes), and his estate at Montbard; it would be hard to
find such an analogy in the life of any other man of letters.
He was, moreover, one of those who live wisely and calmly,
though adorned with no mean amount of glory. Buffon was
a literary man as well as a scholar; hence he was open to the
assaults of emotion. Yet he kept his mind free from such

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ROUSSEAU

conflict. His two ambitions were science and fame. Fully
convinced of the superiority of his genius, upon being asked
how many great men there were, he answered simply : ' ' Five
— Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself." His
good opinion of himself is not so surprising when we consider
that few writers have enjoyed such universal homage. The
sovereigns of Europe honored him with their visits or with
rich presents. Rousseau, during a visit to Montbard, knelt
and kissed the threshold of the door to the pavilion where
Buff on composed his Histoire Naturelle. In the course of
Great Britain 's war with her American colonies, some French
privateers captured a vessel on which was a box marked with
Buff on 's address; this box was sent intact to him at Paris.
During his lifetime, a statue was erected in his honor at the
entrance of the Museum of Natural History, with the in-
scription, Majestati naturce par ingenium (" His genius
equals the majesty of nature ") . He justified this inscription
admirably by the elevation, the fullness, and the tranqiiil
majesty of his style, in which were reflected the dignity of
his life, the grandeur of his demeanor, and the pride of
his manners.

One of the four great prose writers of the eighteenth
century, he towers above all his literary contemporaries;
though in ultimate influence he falls short of Voltaire, Mon-
tesquieu, and Rousseau. He had all the power of a talent
without passion — a talent which seeks its end only by dint of
intelligence, and appeals only to the intellect. Buffon — im-
posing through his works, the greatness of his talent, the na-
ture of his brain — died on the eve of the Revolution, in 1788.

ROUSSEAU

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born in 1712 at Geneva, was the
son of a watchmaker ; deprived of his mother, separated from
his father, for a long time he led an adventurous life. Ap-
prenticed to an engraver who maltreated him, he escaped
from his master, and was sheltered by a lady in Savoy,
Madame de Warens, who, with charming quab'ties of mind
and heart, led an irregular life and was possessed of false
ideas. Rousseau was by turns a clerk, a teacher, a music

319

master, a lackey for a countess, and a servant in a house in
Turin, where his master, discovering his abilities, made him
his secretary. But Rousseau soon tired of this, and joined a
comrade with whom he led a vagabond life in Italy and
Switzerland, eking out a livelihood by showing for a few
sous, a fountain that had the appearance of changing water
into wine. Finally, this genius and Jack-of -all-trades acted
for a time as secretary to the French Ambassador at Venice.
Ever a dreamer, and impractical, he returned at intervals
to Madame de Warens, at Chambery, and especially to her
country house of Les Charmettes, where he completed his
studies in solitude, and practiced the art of writing. He thought
that he had found, in a new method of noting music, the
means to help his benefactress, whose affairs were in disorder,
and he went to Paris to submit it to the Academy of Sciences ;
but the Academy pronounced it impracticable. He succeeded,
however, in having presented at the Opera two little pieces
of which he had composed both the music and the words:
Le Devin de village (The Village Soothsayer), and Les Muses
galantes, in imitation of Italian composers; but he did not
succeed in making a reputation as a composer of music. Le
Devin de village was received very favorably at the court of
Louis XV, and in other circles, but, as was characteristic of
Rousseau, he hurled at his supporters his Lettre sur la mu-
sique franqaise, in which he harshly criticised the productions
of French music, and thus cut off his chance for further suc-
cess. Poverty was at his door; he had contracted in Paris,
an alliance with a vulgar person in every respect unworthy
of him — an alliance that became a marriage in fact, and exer-
cised an unfortunate influence on his whole life. When chil-
dren were born to him, he placed them in the foundling asy-
lum. He himself tells us about it in his famous Confessions,
and shamelessly writes that he did it " gaillardement et
sans scrupule." Afterwards, on second thought, he explains
that neither he nor their mother could have reared them de-
cently.

Rousseau had tried everything, and succeeded in nothing.
With an extreme vivacity of imagination his power of con-
ception so outstripped his capacity for expression that he
believed the calling of a writer was unsuited to him. One

320

ROUSSEAU

day he was informed of a question propounded by a literary
society of Dijon: " Has the reestablishment of the arts and
sciences contributed to corrupt or purify morals? " This
was the spark which fired the mine. Rousseau, bursting for
utterance, exploded his pent-up powers. All the tumultuous
thoughts crowding in his brain took form; all the bitterness
of his heart overflowed. He wrote rapidly the Discours sur
Us sciences et les arts, which, at the age of thirty-seven
years, opened his career. In this work he maintained that
the development of the arts had served to corrupt customs
and institutions. The Academy was astounded; his thesis,
though false and absurd, was supported with an eloquence so
impassioned, and a style so incomparable that the prize was
given to this enemy of the sciences and arts, and, with the aid
of the attendant publicity, Rousseau found himself suddenty
famous. The Discours sur les sciences was followed by the
Discours sur I'inegalite. These two extraordinary composi-
tions rest one upon the other, and develop, under two differ-
ent aspects, the same thought. Rousseau, in his first work,
condemned the sciences; in the second, he even condemned
society. He held that the sciences and arts had corrupted the
human race. He regretted the simplicity of primitive peoples
— even the savage state, without education or progress; he
regretted that the human race had ever established society,
property, inequality. Yet his conclusions, and especially the
commentaries which he wrote to defend his two Discours, are
less excessive than his first assertions. He modified his first
exaggerated statements and held that in accordance with
the very nature of man, the savage state cannot endure,
and that society and property, once established, cannot be
suppressed; but that it is a great evil that moral progress
has not kept pace with intellectual and material progress, and
that we prefer the talents to the virtues of men.

The Contrat social, ou principes du droit politique, which
appeared shortly afterwards, hinges on the same sequence of
ideas. The subject is the same as that of the Esprit des Lois,
but the method is different. Between the epoch of savagery, in
which men were independent and equal, and the present epoch
in which they are unequal and dependent, there was con-
cluded, he said, a tacit contract between the governed and
22 321

those governing: the weak promised to obey the strong, on
condition that they be protected ; the strong promised to pro-
tect the weak, on condition that the weak obeyed them. But,
according to the author, the rights on both sides are equal:
if the weak revolt, they no longer have the right to be pro-
tected; if the strong govern badly, they no longer have the
right to be obeyed. And this is revolution.

Le Contrat social is a work which mingles dangerous er-
rors along with the great truths it contains. However, it
remains one of the most considerable monuments of the eight-
eenth century, and in it is explained definitely the true prin-
ciple of political sovereignty. It has great celebrity, and —
more or less thoroughly understood — it inspired the majority
of political doctrines during the French Revolution. It has
been said that " in Beaumarchais 's Figaro one heard the noise
of the tumbling walls of the Bastille, and in Rousseau's
Contrat social, the fall of the guillotine. ' ' It was the founda-
tion of the politics of the Jacobins that led to the Reign of
Terror with Robespierre at its head. " Qui s 'oppose a la
volonte generale doit y etre contraint par tout le corps, ce
qui ne signifie autre chose sinon qu 'on le force d 'etre libre ' ' :
in other words, political and religious liberty must be sacri-
ficed to the general will (volonte generale).

In the Contrat social, Rousseau also declares himself
against the free press. " Let us return to nature " is the
principle of the book. Voltaire said after reading it : ' ' Never
has any one applied so much genius in order to make beasts
of us. One fairly feels the desire to walk on all fours."
Rousseau, to exemplify his writings, reformed his life even
as to his costume. Discarding his sword and his lace cuffs,
he became " citizen of Geneva, man of nature, enemy of
social conventions."

Rousseau's Emile, ou de I'education is a treatise on educa-
tion which in many pages bears the marks of a philosophical
novel. It begins with the birth of the child: the author
would have the mother herself take care, for the first few
years of its life, of this being that owes her its existence.
The principle expressed in the first sentence sounds the key-
note of the whole book: " All that issues from the hands of
the Author of Nature is good, all that is in the hands of men.

322

ROUSSEAU

is degenerated ; and, the education given by society being bad,
it is time to establish a negative education as the best, or
rather the only good one." Emile was the foundation of
modern pedagogy. The first four books of this work are
devoted to the education of the two sexes in general, then to
that of Emile in particular; the fifth is given over to the
education of woman, and to Sophie, who has been chosen
as the wife of Emile. In the fourth book, the famous Pro-
fession de foi du vicaire Savoyard, depicts the religious belief
of Rousseau himself, and attacks materialism as well as ortho-
doxy. A French critic says that Rousseau is more dangerous
than Voltaire and the Encyclopedists; the latter at once ex-
cite indignation, but Rousseau, by his affectionate and senti-
mental Deism deceives the religious and sophisticates the
moral feeling by substituting vague thoughts for the positive
idea of duty. The work as a whole is full of fine and delicate
observations and excellent advice; the meeting of two young
people and the awakening of their sentiments are the occa-
sions of naive and charming scenes. It closes with the mar-
riage of Emile and Sophie. Later, Rousseau continued the
story of ]5mile, who becomes counselor for the Bey in Algiers ;
but it came to no conclusion. The book had a salutary influ-
ence on the mode of education for children, which at that
time was false. The great apostle of education, Pestalozzi,
grew up in the atmosphere of Rousseau's teachings, and ap-
plied in practice his theories. Goethe called Emile the
' ' Naturevangelium der Erziehung. ' ' 1

Rousseau composed Emile at the " Ermitage, " at the en-
trance of the forest of Montmorency, which Madame d'Epinay
had offered him, where he spent five years copying music for
a living. He closed his doors to all the world, even to his
old friends of Paris: Voltaire, Baron Grimm, Diderot, and
d'Holbach. A quarrel with Madame d'Epinay made the fur-
ther occupation of the " Ermitage " impossible and he ac-
cepted the offer of the Duke of Luxembourg, who placed the
chateau of Montlouis at his disposal. Rousseau's Lettre ft
d'Alembert sur les spectacles was his dismissal from the En-
cyclopedists and his declaration of war against the whole

1 Nature-gospel of Education.
323

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

party. The first book which solitude inspired him to write
was the celebrated epistolary novel, Julie, ou la Nouvelle
Relo'ise. It recalls the love of Heloi'se and Abelard, and is
concerned with the affections and the lives of two young peo-
ple, Julie and Saint-Preux. The scene is laid in Clarens, on
Lake Geneva. Rousseau has taken Richardson's " Clarissa "
as his model for this story, but Julie in turn served as a model
for Goethe's Werther. Rousseau himself passes a judgment
on this book in his preface: " Ce livre n'est point fait pour
cireuler dans le monde; il convient a tres peu de lecteurs.
Toute fille qui aura lu une page de ce livre est une fille
perdue." * Vinet says : " Ni 1'eclat du style ni les admirables
descriptions de la nature ne pourront jamais racheter Fim-
moralite de cet ouvrage qu'il est prudent et sage de ne jamais
ouvrir, comme 1 'auteur lui meme d 'ailleurs nous le conseille. ' ' 2
The novel had, however, an unheard-of success. Love spoke
a language unknown to the eighteenth century and to modern
literature. All hearts were profoundly affected; all women
were henceforth on the side of Rousseau. In the other novels
of the time, women were capricious and charming beings, not
to be taken seriously. Rousseau, on the contrary, placed them
on a pedestal, and showed them as always superior to men.
For three quarters of a century he remained their favorite
author.

A French critic writes: " In his Essay on the Origin of
Languages, instead of condemning society, as he had done in
his Discours, Rousseau seeks its origin, and pictures its begin-
nings with marvelous divination. He shows that at the outset,
words, poetry, music, and the expression of the feelings and
of ideas and forms by gesture, were one. Primitive languages
were sung, and gestures gave birth to the art of design and
sculpture. Rousseau continued to express in this book, his
preference for the poetic existence of pastoral tribes in the
ancient Orient to modern civilization ; but he no longer spoke

1 "This book is not made to circulate in the world; it is suitable for
very few readers. Any girl who has read a page of this book is a ruined
girl.

2 Neither the brilliancy of style nor the admirable descriptions of nature
could ever redeem the immorality of this work, which it would be prudent
never to open, as indeed the author warns us."

324

EOUSSEAU

of savage life, which is only animal life, beyond which man is
naturally drawn by the principle of perfectibility that re-
sides in him, as Rousseau recognizes. ' '

After Emile, persecution burst upon Rousseau. Royalty
and clergy felt themselves touched to the quick. The Pro-
fession de foi du vicaire Savoyard (one of the most remarkable
episodes of fimile, in which Rousseau sought to prove the
necessity of a completely personal religion) was strongly
criticised by the Catholic clergy as well as by Protestant
pastors. Rousseau replied to these criticisms with a letter
entitled, Jean-Jacques Rousseau a Cliristoplie de Beaumont
(Archbishop of Paris). Faithful to the device which he had
adopted — Vitam impendere vero (sacrifice your life to truth),
he did not hide himself under false names, but signed every-
thing that he wrote. Emile was denounced by the parliament
of Paris, by the Sorbonne, and by the archbishop, and was
ordered to be burned by the hangman. A warrant of arrest
was issued against him; but certain great personages facil-
itated his escape. Those who were charged with his arrest
saluted him, and smiled when he left his house; and were
content to report that when they had presented themselves
at his home he was no longer there. Rousseau retired to
Switzerland, where he found refuge in the village of Motiers-
Travers near Neuchatel, and a friendly welcome from Marshal
George Keith, the governor of the province. Here he wrote
the political pamphlet Lettres de la Montagne, a masterpiece
of dialectics and fine irony in answer to Tronchin's Lettres
de la Campagne. The intrigues of his enemies aroused some
of the fanatic peasants to attack his house, and Rousseau was
driven from the village. The same proscription awaited him
everywhere. Forced to abandon Jiis sojourn in the little isle
of Saint-Pierre, in the middle of the Lake of Bienne (im-
mortalized by his delightful sketch of it), whither he had
retired to avoid the annoyances imposed on him in the village,
he was about to accept an invitation from Frederick II of
Prussia, but yielded to David Hume's urgent invitation to live
in England. He was most kindly received by George III,
whb gave him a pension, and Hume established him in the
County of Derby. Unfortunately, Rousseau, always distrust-
ful, quarreled with the great Englishman, and left his place

325

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of retirement very suddenly. He then returned to France,
where he was received with enthusiasm. The Prince of Conti
established him in a residence at Trie-le-Chateau ; but again
his morbid susceptibilities got the better of him, and he re-
mained there only two months. Thence he went to Lyons,
to Grenoble, to Chambery, finally to Paris — his misanthropy
increasing the while. "Without having entirely renounced the
world, he resolved not to write any more. However, he took
up the pen again to work out a book unfortunately only too
celebrated — the Confessions (1766-1770), an autobiography
in which, with infinite literary art, he said of himself, in all
sincerity, everything good and everything evil that can be
said, revealing his most secret faults as well as his inmost
thoughts. The Confessions is not an edifying book. In it
Rousseau avows with unabashed frankness all his faults, as
the only expiation which he could impose upon himself. He
says, " J'ai ete puni ou j'ai peche "; but he writes without
humility, in fact with defiance, as the very beginning of the
book shows : ' ' May the trumpet sound the last judgment day
when it will, and I shall then appear with this book in my
hands to present myself before the Almighty Judge. I shall
say loudly : ' This is what I have done, this is what I thought,
this is what I was. . . . Eternal Being, gather about me the
numberless throng of my fellow creatures ... let anyone
of these dare say : " I was better than this man. ' '

Rousseau's cynical pride is monumental, but as to style the
work is admirable. How many pages are replete with fresh-
ness ; what heartiness of description in all his youthful adven-
tures, in his walks in which he is so well able to transmit to us
his passionate love of nature ! This work was begun in Eng-
land, at the time when his mind was already disturbed; but
his sinister visions of the present did not obscure the charm of
his reminiscences. Seized with that sad affection, both moral
and physical, which is called hypochondria, or the black
sickness, and magnifying to himself the enmities which he
had incurred by his double war against priests and atheists,
he imagined himself to be the object of universal hatred,
and put no faith in the sincere sympathy and homage that
people were ready to accord him. His state of mind,
aggravated by sad infirmities, made his last years quite pain-

326

KOUSSEAU

ful, but with his genius always brilliant, he wrote the painful
dialogues of Rousseau juge de Jean Jacques, and his Reveries
du promeneur solitaire (1777-1778). Having lived since his
return to Paris for eight years in a humble dwelling, he finally
accepted from a friend, M. de Girardin, a refuge more in con-
formity with his tastes than the tumultuous streets of Paris
— a refuge in a beautiful part of the country, at Ermenon-
ville. A month later he died (1778), without anyone being
able to determine whether his death was accidental or de-
liberate suicide.

Rousseau worked a revolution in literature and morals.
The licentious superficiality which, until then, had char-
acterized writers, disappeared entirely; men began to extol
virtue, the countryside, nature, love of country, and of
humanity; woman again won respect, and family life was
again in a position of honor. Voltaire himself, who violently
attacked this " barbarian of eloquence, 'r as he called him,
attributed to the influence of the Genevese philosopher the
renewal of his own talent. From Rousseau proceeded Roman-
ticism; he introduced new qualities into literature; for the
spirit of analysis he substituted love and the cult of nature,
passionate eloquence and personal exaltation; also, he laid
bare that lamentable vein of melancholy and restlessness
called in the nineteenth century, mal du siecle. No writer
of the eighteenth century has attained that poetic sublimity
compounded with falseness and destructiveness. No one
helped so much to emancipate the human mind from the
shackles of despotism; but neither has anyone contributed
more to the destruction of the fundamental idea of true
liberty. In politics he undermined the ancient institutions,
and gave the coup de grace to royalty by popularizing
republican ideas. In religion he rejected all revealed author-
ity, but defended the dogmas of the existence of God and
the immortality of the soul, and was an adversary of atheism
and materialism. Unfortunately his life was a tangle of in-
consistencies, as his works were a tangle of paradoxes and
sophisms. A whole school of writers depends from Rousseau
— among them: Bernardin de St. Pierre, Madame de Stae'l,
Chateaubriand. Lamartine, George Sand.

327

CHAPTER XXI

THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS

ONE of the greatest literary enterprises of the eighteenth
century was the famous French Encyclopedic. The incentive
to this work originated in a French translation of Chambers's
Cyclopedia* by John Mills and Gottfried Sellins, both resi-
dents of Paris. Jean Paul de Gua de Halves, professor of
philosophy in the College of France, was engaged as editor
to correct errors and add new discoveries, but owing to some
dispute he withdrew and the publisher offered the task to
Diderot, who persuaded the editor to undertake an original and
more comprehensive work.

In 1740 was granted the royal privilege for the Encyclo-
pedic which began to appear in 1751 under the title of
Encyclopedic, ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts
des metiers, par une societe de gens de lettres. (Methodical
Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Trades, by a Society of
Men of Letters. ) The first edition numbered 4,250 copies which
were quickly sold. It was a scientific monument that con-
tained a history of philosophy, and the technical description
of all the arts and occupations practiced in France at this
time. It was also an instrument of war. All the innovators
and free thinkers who wished to modify society from a reli-
gious or political standpoint united to work out new theories
and destroy beliefs of the past. It became identified with
the philosophic movement of the time, and the term Encyclo-
pediste became recognized as designating a certain form of
philosophy. The " Preliminary Discourse," written by
d'Alembert is an admirable synthetic picture of human

1 The most ancient encyclopedia extant is the Natural History in
thirty-seven books by Pliny, first century after Christ.

328

THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS

knowledge, and constitutes one of the chief philosophical
works of the eighteenth century. D'Alembert also wrote the
treatises on Mathematics. Voltaire, Montesquieu, Buffon, and
Rousseau who took music and philosophy for his theme, all
contributed largely to the Encyclopedic during a period of
ten years. Mallet wrote on theology and history, Yvon on
logic and ethics. Daubenton furnished articles on natural
history, Marmontel on literary subjects; the Abbe Bergier
treated theology ; the classification of the sciences was provided
by the Englishman, Bacon. Louis wrote on surgery, Eidons
on heraldry and art, Toussaint on jurisprudence, La Con-
damine on South America, Turgot on economics. These men,
together with other contributors — Condillac, Helvetius, d 'Hoi-
bach, Baron Grimm, Volney — were known as the Encyclo-
pedists. Diderot performed a giant's work; besides assigning
to himself the subject of ancient philosophy, he superintended
everything, including the corrections and the engravings, and
wrote numerous articles on the arts and trades. No writer
knew the processes of the mechanical arts; so Diderot took
this task upon himself. He went among the workshops, seeking
explanations, examining the working of machines, and even
going to work himself in order to feel assured that he had
understood perfectly; then, returning home, he would write
down what he had observed. Besides all this, he was ever
ready to help with his facile pen his numerous friends, and
thus much of what they did is due to him.

The Encyclopedic was the object of the most violent per-
secution by the church and government, and its publication
was in turn permitted and forbidden. In 1749 Diderot was
imprisoned at Vincennes for a short time. After his release
the work continued; but in 1759 the privilege was again re-
voked, and d'Alembert retired in the face of all these dif-
ficulties. In 1765 the printer, Lebreton, was put into the
Bastille, and a royal order was sent to the subscribers to
deliver their copies to the agents of the police. Owing to the
protection of Madame de Pompadour, of the bookseller, of
Lamoignon de Malesherbe, Quesnay, and of the Prefect of
police de Sartines, the Encyclopedia continued publication.
Voltaire relates that at a supper of the king's at the Trianon,
there arose a debate on the composition of gunpowder, and

329

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Madame de Pompadour said she did not know how her rouge
or her silk stockings were made. The Due de La Valliere
regretted that the king had confiscated the encyclopedias as
they would have furnished the required information and
settled the dispute. The king sent for a copy, and three
servants with difficulty brought in twenty-one volumes. The
required information was found, and the king allowed all
the confiscated copies to be returned. The Encyclopedia also
suffered atrocious mutilation at the hands of the printer,
Lebreton. Grimm tells us that in printing the last ten
volumes, Lebreton had the articles set in type just as the
authors sent them in, and when Diderot had corrected the
last proof of each sheet, the printer secretly cut out whatever
seemed to him daring or likely to give offense, burning the
manuscript as he proceeded. Most of the best articles were
ruined, and Diderot only accidentally discovered this fraud
in referring to one of his back articles.

The Encyclopedic was not constructed on a regular plan ;
many of the articles are excellent and some are inferior and
faulty, but it was an interesting and comprehensive work of
great political importance, and held a conspicuous place in the
civil and literary history of the century.

THE PHYSIOCRATES

Francois Quesnay was the principal founder of political
economy, and the chief of the school of physiocrats (econo-
mists) , a group of French philosophers and political economists
who achieved great prominence in the latter part of the
eighteenth century. The Physiocrates considered the cultiva-
tion of the land as the chief source of national wealth. Ac-
cording to Quesnay there are certain economic laws to which
the legislator must adapt himself. All autocratic interference
with the laws of production and exchange is detrimental,
hence the famous maxim of de Gournay : Laissez f aire, laissez
passer. Quesnay published his ideas on economics in the
Encyclopedic in 1756. The name Physiocracy (from the
Greek " supremacy of nature ") was first given to the doctrine
in 1767 by Dupont de Nemours.

Physiocracy was defended by the Marquis de Mirabeau

330

THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS

(the elder), Dupont de Nemours, Mercier de la Riviere. The
greatest man inspired by these principles was Anne-Robert-
Jacques Turgot, Baron de L'Aulne who not only aided in a
literary way in his Reflexions sur la formation et la distribu-
tion des Richesses, but also practically worked for this system.
Brunetiere notes the difference between the encyclopedists
and the economists : ' ' the encyclopedists are theorists and
rationalists; the economists, empiricists or utilitarians."

DIDEROT

Denis Diderot (1713-1784), the son of a cutler of Langres
— a philosopher, an author of inexhaustible fertility, endowed
with a brilliant imagination and an incredible capacity for
work — is perhaps the most powerful genius, the most marked
personality of his time, and the man who best sums up the
philosophic aspirations of the eighteenth century. It is, how-
ever, only lately, with the appearance of a complete edition
of his works by Assezat, that Diderot's genius has been fully
recognized. Born and reared a Catholic, his writings show
at various stages his gradual change from Orthodoxy to Ma-
terialism. In his Essai sur la verite et la vertu (1745), he
attacks atheism; his Pensees philosophiques (1748) show him
a deist without fixed religious belief ; and in his Lettre sur les
Aveugles he is a decided materialist. In the latter work he
forestalls Darwin's principles of evolution and of the survival
of the fittest. His stories Les Bijoux indiscrets, La Religieuse,
have been much censured, but they were written during the
reign of the reprobate Louis XV. The novel Jacques le
Fataliste, an imitation of Sterne's Tristram Shandy, was
taken by Sardou as a model for his thrilling play, Fernande.
Le neveu de Rameau became known to Germany before it was
read in France, owing to its translation by Goethe, who had a
copy of the original manuscript. The German translation was
in turn translated into French before the edition from the
original manuscript appeared some eighteen years later.

Diderot created artistic criticism by his famous Salons
(1765-67), written in response to the request of Baron
Grimm that he write some lines for a manuscript journal,
that was being sent to Germanw, concerning pictures ex-

331

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

hibited every year in Paris. It is in his Contes especially
that Diderot exhibits great power. Here we find, among other
little stories told in a charming manner, the original on which
Krylov (the Russian La Fontaine) drew for his fable, " The
Ass and the Nightingale." Two pathetic tales are Les deux
amis de Bourbonne, and L'Histoire de Mademoiselle de La
Chaux et du docteur Gardeil.

It is said that Diderot, in order to help a poor young
writer, once wrote a satire directed against himself and
addressed to the Due d 'Orleans, who hated him; and thereby
gained for the indigent author the duke's approval and a
substantial sum of money. Some of his critical essays are
fascinating, though lavish and superlative in praise, and of
annihilating severity in censure. In this genre he occupied
the place in France that Leasing held in Germany. Among
his best essays are : Reflexions sur les femmes; Regrets sur ma
vieille robe de chambre; Eloge de Richardson (his favorite
author). Of women he says: " Quand on veut ecrire sur les
femmes, il faut tremper sa plume dans l'arc-en-ciel et secouer
sur sa ligne la poussiere des ailes du papillon."1 Diderot
was a very versatile writer ; his works embrace novels, dramas,
critiques, history, philosophy, scientific works, and an ex-
tremely interesting correspondence. One of the most valuable
documents of the social life of the eighteenth century is his
correspondence, during twenty years, with Mademoiselle
Voland. His dramas, Le fils naturel, after Goldoni's comedy
11 vero amico, and Le pere de famille, are his weakest produc-
tions; but though these plays left no impression in France,
they were the inspiration for the " tearful comedies " (come-
dies larmoyantes) cultivated in Germany by Kotzebue, Iffland,
and Schroeder. Diderot possessed the power of depicting the
extraordinary, along with a rare sense of living reality, and a
remarkable ability for portraying the true family life of the
people. In these respects he greatly influenced Lessing, who
acknowledged the indebtedness and made it clear in his
dramas, Emilia Galotti and Miss Sara Sampson.

Diderot once appeared in St. Petersburg, at the invitation

1 "When one wishes to write about women he must dip his pen in the
rainbow and sand his line with the down from the wings of the butterfly."

332

THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS

of Empress Catherine; and philosopher and empress were
mutually charmed. Later, knowing that Diderot was in need,
the empress bought his library, and gave him an annual
pension for taking care of it.

Jean-le-Rond D'Alembert (1717-83), the assiduous col-
laborator and friend of Diderot, had nothing of his confrere's
fiery character ; he was of quite the opposite nature. D 'Alem-
bert was found when a child under the steps of the church of
Jean-le-Rond near Notre-Dame, in Paris; and was therefore
christened Jean-le-Rond. As he was puny, the police, instead
of putting him in the asylum for foundlings, turned him over
to be cared for by the wife of a glazier in the neighborhood.
It transpired later that his mother was Madame de Tencin,
the author of several esteemed novels. Meanwhile, the assist-
ance which the glazier secretly received enabled him to give
the child a good education ; and the grateful boy, on becoming
a man, continued to live with his foster parents, even when
he had achieved fame. After he had achieved celebrity, his
mother, Madame de Tencin, made herself known to him, and
wished to have him with her ; but the young philosopher, little
touched by this tardy recognition, did not hesitate a moment
in answering : " Madame, my real mother is the glazier's wife.
I know no other." D'Alembert 's talents and character won
for him a high place among the writers of his time. Enjoying
a merited consideration, and attaining an honest and sufficient
fortune, he saw, gathered in his drawing-room, the most dis-
tinguished politicians, soldiers, writers, of whom Paris could
boast. His reputation, however, was due less to his achieve-
ments as a man of letters than to his scholarship, and to his
prowess in the mathematical sciences, of which he made a
specialty, and to which he contributed important discoveries.
Besides his share in the Encyclopedic, d'Alembert wrote the
Elements de Philosophic, in four volumes, and the Eloges of
the scholars whom he had survived — eulogies rich in curious
anecdotes well told. A man of wisdom, of moderate ambitions,
he declined the tutorship of Paul, son of Catherine II — to
which was attached a pension of one hundred thousand livres ;
he refused the presidency of the Academy of Sciences at
Berlin, proffered by Frederick II — content with the honors
afforded him by the French Academy and by the Academic

333

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

des Sciences, of which he was life secretary. His numerous
letters to Voltaire, of which a part are found in Voltaire's
published correspondence, <Jo the greatest honor to his in-
telligence, his character, and his pen.

Frederic Melchior, baron de Grimm (1723-1807), a French
writer and critic of German origin, was a collaborator of Di-
derot, and friend of all the great French writers during his
long residence in Paris. His Correspondance litteraire, philo-
sophique et critique written in French comprises seventeen
volumes * and covers the period from 1753 to 1790. At first
this correspondence was in the form of bulletins addressed to
the Duchess of Saxony-Gotha, who wished information as to
the literary works of the French. Many of the letters were
also sent to the Empress of Russia, the Queen of Sweden, to
the King of Prussia, and to the King of Poland. Later the
correspondence became a great collection, and some other
writers contributed, principally Diderot with his Salons. It
moreover became the organ of the Encyclopedists for the for-
eign monarchs ; it included excellent sketches of the literature
of art, of music, of the authors, actors, and celebrities of the
court, and proved an inexhaustible treasure of anecdotes and
criticisms on these themes.

Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, marquis de Condorcet
(1743-94), was an Encyclopedist and the organizer of the
French system of public instruction. His writings included
scientific, economical, political works, eulogies, sketches, mem-
oirs, and correspondence. During the Revolution he was an
enthusiastic Girondist. After the fall of his party, he found
refuge during eight months in the house of a friend where he
wrote many of his works, the most important of which is his
Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progres de I'esprit
humain (1794). Finally arrested, Condorcet poisoned himself
in his prison.

1 Best edition by Maurice Tourneux, 1882.

CHAPTER XXII

TRAGEDY, COMEDY, " TEARFUL " DRAMA, POETRY, THE NOVEL,

AFTER Voltaire tragedy languished, surviving only in
feeble imitations until the genre exhausted itself and the
drama took its place. Nevertheless, for many years the poets
who essayed tragedy were as numerous as they were mediocre.
As for comedy — a new school proceeding from Diderot broke
away from the classic model and counted many disciples:
Sedaine, Mercier, Lemercier, D'Arnaud, Beaumarchais, and
others who prepared the way for the gloomy melodrama
of Caigniez, Du Cange and Pixerecourt followed by the great
romantic movement.

Michel Jean Sedaine (1719-97), life secretary of the
Royal Academy of Architecture, was one of the most modest
and charming of men. Illiterate, and absolutely incapable of
drawing his works from a source other than himself, Voltaire
said to him: " Then it is you, Monsieur, who never borrow
from anyone? " " I am no richer than if I had done so,"
answered Sedaine.

Michel Jean Sedaine * contributed two pretty comedies to
the Theatre-Frangais — La Gageure imprevue and Le Philoso-
phe sans le savoir. George Sand wrote a sequel to his comedy
Le Philosophe sans le savoir, with the title, Le Manage de
Victorine. Sedaine wrote many comic operas — among them,
Aucassin et Nicolette and Richard C&ur de Lion, in which
occurs the famous couplet:

!••

O Richard! 0 mon roi!
L'univers t'abandonne;
Sur la terre il n'est que moi

1 Alfred de Vigny introduced him into one of his prettiest contes: La
VeilUe de Vincennes.

335

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

Qui m'interesse a ta personne.
Je voudrais briser tes fers,
Et tout le reste t'abandonne.1

This was the favorite song of the royalists during the
imprisonment of Louis XVI ; and it cost many an imprudent
singer his head.

Louis-Sebastien Mercier 's comedies depicted modern society
and the people. His Deserteur earned for him the protection
of Marie- Antoinette and a pension. In his Essai sur I'art
dramatique he declared war against the classics and continued
with a bitter criticism of them in his Mon Bonnet de Nuit.

Louis-Jean Nepomucene Lemercier at the age of seventeen
became a literary celebrity with the representation of his
tragedy Meleagre at the Theatre-Frangais. His comedy Pinto
was the first French historical comedy.

Frangois Thomas Marie de Baculard D'Arnaud wrote
four plays, only one of which was produced. He was the
author of many poems, novels, and sacred odes, one of which
the Lamentations de Jeremie called forth a satirical quatrain
of Voltaire :

Savez-vous pourquoi J6r6mie

A tant pleure pendant sa vie?

C'est qu'en prophete il prevoyait

Que Baculard le traduirait."

Pierre Augustin Caron (better known as Beaumarchais),
born at Paris in 1732 (died in 1799) , was not only a writer ; he
combined, as he says himself, the love of letters with that of
affairs — manufacturing supplies and making plays, prosecut-
ing lawsuits and diplomacy, all at the same time. The son of a
watchmaker, he practiced for a time the calling of his father,
and even invented an improvement in the mechanism of
watches. As a musician, his proficiency on the harp, and his

1 O Richard, O my king! The world abandons thee; on earth I alone
am interested in thy welfare. I would break thy chains — all the rest
abandoning thee.

J Do you know why Jeremiah
Wept so much during his lifetime?
It is because, being a prophet, he foresaw
That Baculard would translate him.

336

TRAGEDY, COMEDY, POETRY AND THE NOVEL

beautiful voice caused him to be called upon to give lessons
to the sisters of Louis XV, who appointed him leader of their
little concerts at court. He also ingratiated himself with
the great banker and financier, Paris Duverney, who had
founded a military school and had made many unsuccessful
attempts to obtain royal approval of it by a visit from the
king. Caron, with the aid of the princesses, prevailed upon
the king to visit the school, and Duverney, in gratitude, al-
lowed his intercessor to share in several large ventures that
brought him immense wealth. Caron, moreover, married a
rich woman, and soon added the name Beaumarchais (the
title of one of his wife's estates) to his own, prefixing a de
which he bought for a round sum. * ' I am a noble, ' ' he said,
11 for I have the receipt for it."

The acquisition of his title excited some ridicule, but he
warded off all insults by his prowess as a duelist and his
bitter satire. Beaumarchais 's brilliant talents and his great
pecuniary success made him the object of much envy. One
day, splendidly attired, he was on his way to court in Ver-
sailles, when a courtier approached him with a sarcastic allu-
sion to his father's trade: " Ah, Monsieur de Beaumarchais,
how fortunate I am to meet you! Will you kindly examine
my watch? It seems to be wrong." " Willingly," replied
Beaumarchais, " but I must warn you that I am very awk-
ward." The courtier, still persisting, Beaumarchais took the
timepiece and let it fall. " Ah, Monsieur, a thousand par-
dons, but I have warned you, and it is you who have wished
it ! "he said, leaving the angry courtier to pick up his watch.

After Duverney 's death, Beaumarchais became involved
in a lawsuit with the heirs of the banker's estate, who did not
recognize his claim to fifteen thousand francs Duverney had
left him. He won the case in the preliminary trial court,
but at the second hearing he lost it. He then appealed to
public opinion (which he introduced into French life as a
new power) through the medium of four Memoir es, in which
he relentlessly exposed the corruption of the law courts. It
was this that suddenly earned him the reputation of a writer.
At that time it was a custom, and often a necessity, to go to
see one 's judges. Beaumarchais had in vain presented himself
several times at the house of M. Goezman,, who was to make
33 337

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

the report of his case. He was told that if a certain sum of
money were sent to Madame Goezman, an audience would be
immediately accorded him ; the lady would, moreover, promise
to return the money if Beaumarchais lost his case. The case
was lost, and the money was returned, with the exception of
fifteen gold louis, which Madame Goezman maintained had
been given to the secretary, and the secretary declared he had
not received. Beaumarchais pressed his claim to the fifteen
louis ; the lady refused to give them up. M. Goezman then
accused Beaumarchais of having wanted to bribe him. So
Beaumarehais wrote the Memoires to defend himself ; and his
opponents answered in kind, by way of accusation. Judiciary-
notes were always printed, but were not ordinarily sold.
Beaumarchais put his on sale ; they were eagerly bought, and
soon the whole of France was talking of the affair. Humor-
ous scenes, pleasant repartee, wit — not always in the best of
taste, but which covered his adversaries with ridicule — an in-
exhaustible gayety, a penetrating and irresistible logic — all this
characterizes the Memoires. With this weapon he fought, as
Voltaire said, a dozen persons at once. His ridicule of the
parliament made all Europe stare, contributing much to dis-
credit monarchy and the ancient institutions, and to pre-
cipitate the Revolution.

In 1764, he made a journey to Spain to avenge himself
on the rascal Clavijo, a writer of Madrid, who was engaged
to wed his sister, but who left her shamefully on the eve of her
marriage. Beaumarchais was successful in depriving Clavijo
of his honors and his post, and in having him banished from
court. He describes all this in his Memoires, and so dramat-
ically and so well that Goethe took from this source entire
scenes for his own Clavijo.

Beaumarchais had also busied himself in Spain with the
collection of popular melodies; and in order to utilize them
he composed a comic opera, Le Barbier de Seville. The opera
was refused, so he made a comedy of it, which became the
first part of his trilogy on Figaro l — the two other parts being

1 The words of Figaro: " Je me presse de rire de tout de peur d'etre
oblige" d'en pleurer " (" I hasten to laugh at everything lest I be obliged
to weep over it"), were taken by the journal, Le Figaro, as its motto.

338

TRAGEDY, COMEDY, POETRY AND THE NOVEL

Le Manage de Figaro, ou la folle journee and La mere
coupable, ou I'autre Tartufe, a play of the " tearful "
kind, greatly inferior to the preceding two. The characters
of the three plays are the same. Figaro is first presented
as a barber who has been, in turn, a physician, a poet, and a
journalist. Engaged in business, he wrote couplets, worked
on political economy, and pieces for the theater. Fortune
betrayed him; but this did not prevent him from waxing
round and fat, in spite of misery, or from preserving a gayety
under every trial, and an activity which embroiled him in
intrigues and enterprises of all sorts. Nevertheless, his prob-
ity remained intact, though he had a bad reputation. In the /
Barbier de Seville, the masterpiece of the French comedy of ^
the eighteenth century, Figaro brought about the marriage
of Rosina to Count Almaviva and attached himself to the
count's service. This play is a perfect type of the comedy
of intrigue, a masterpiece of satiric malice and grace. It
was used by Rossini and Paisiello in their operas, 11 Barbieri
de Siviglia. In the second piece, Le Manage de Figaro — the
most audacious of the trilogy — the hero defends his fiancee
against this same count, who wishes to take her from him.
It is in this play that Brid 'oison figures — the judge who sings
the final couplet ending with this line : ' ' Tout finit par des
chansons " (" everything ends in song "), which has become
traditional. In the third play of this trilogy, La mere cou-
pable, Figaro reconciles the countess with the count, who has
grown old, and unmasks a knave to whom Beaumarchais has
given the ill-disguised name of a lawyer, one Bergasse, who
in a lawsuit had pleaded against him with scornful emphasis.
The libretto of the little two-act opera, Les Noces de Figaro,
by Lorenzo Da Ponte, is borrowed from the Manage de Figaro
of Beaumarchais ; the music, by Mozart, is an operatic master-
piece. *

In the Manage de Figaro, the old government, the old
society, the clergy, nobility, magistracy, are given over to
the ridicule of all in a series of scenes sparkling with gayety;
we can feel the breath of revolution in every line. Louis XVI
was not mistaken ; when they sent him the manuscript he de-
clared that he would never permit the piece to be played;
that nothing less than the destruction of the Bastille would

339

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

make the representation of it consistent. But the queen and
all the court intervened, sportively applying to the king the
phrase in the monologue of the play: " II n'y que les petits
hommes qui aient peur des petits ecrits x ; " and after a delay
of four years the play was performed to the frenzied applause
of the people. A few years later the Revolution destroyed
irrevocably what Figaro had criticised.

Beaumarchais summed up in his comedies all the genres
of his predecessors, the Italians, the Spanish, Moliere, Le
Sage, Diderot, Regnard, Marivaux, to which he added his
personal qualities and the particular aspect of the life of his
epoch. Written in a brilliant style, his comedies excelled in
gayety and wit, and he became the great playwright of this
period, although he ignored almost entirely the rules of the
classicists, rejected Alexandrines, and introduced prose on
the stage, much to the astonishment and wrath of the critics.
Voltaire was jealous of him, and at the same time admired
him, saying, apropos of the Memoires: " What a man! he
includes everything: pleasantry, seriousness, reason, gayety,
force, pathos, all the kinds of eloquence in style ; and he finds
them all without effort."

" No one," says Jules Lemaitre, " has ever analyzed and
expressed with more delicacy, the most subtle questions of
vanity and love than Marivaux. Love — not violent, but
charming and coquettish in an artificial world." Pierre
Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (1688-1763) was a dra-
matic author and novelist. His style was such, that it has en-
riched the language with a new word: in French, marivau-
dage is used to express a somewhat affected manner that is,
nevertheless, not displeasing, and, if sometimes a little tedious,
by no means ridiculous. Marivaux composed a great number
of pieces characterized by an accurate and delicate psychology.
Among them are: Le jeu de I' amour et du hasard; Le Legs;
Lesjausses confidences; La surprise de I' amour; L'Epreuve;
L'Ecole des meres; Arlequin poli par I' amour. His best
novels are Vie de Marianne and the Paysan parvenu. The
prettiest of his acted nouvelles is Le jeu de V amour et du.
hasard. A young girl in the country awaits her betrothed who

1 "It is only little men who fear little writings."
340

TRAGEDY, COMEDY, POETRY AND THE NOVEL

is to be presented to her; in order to know him better, she
assumes the role and costume of her maid, while the maid,
in her turn, plays the mistress. By a strange coincidence,
the betrothed is possessed with the same queer fancy, and ar-
rives at the chateau under the name and in the costume of his
valet, while the valet plays the role of the master. The fiancee
is astonished and disappointed at finding the servant so much
more interesting than his lord, who, in the end, as might be
supposed, offers his heart and his hand to the pseudo-maid.
During these combats of love, the father and brother of the
girl, who are in the secret, play tricks on the young people.
The whole forms a very pretty little picture which, although
set in dreamland, appears quite natural.

Philippe Nericault, called Destouches (1680-1754), fol-
lowed the classic rules in twenty-seven comedies, the best of
which are Le Philosophe marie, ou Le Mari honteux de I'etre,
and Le Glorieux, his masterpiece.

Pierre Claude Nivelle de La Chaussee (1692-1754) is the
creator of the comedie larmoyante (tearful drama), a name
given, says a French critic, not without malice. Le Prejuge a
la mode, I' E cole des Meres, and Melanide, considered his mas-
terpiece, are among the twenty-nine of his plays belonging to
this new genre, which combines the comic and the tragic, and
is based on sympathy for unfortunate humanity.

While Marivaux, Destouches and La Chaussee portrayed
life among the middle classes, the Abbe Antoine Prevost
d 'Exiles (1697-1765) depicts the frivolous and immoral nobil-
ity. In his Memoires d'un homme de qualite retire du monde
he describes his own restless life. The Memoires include his
masterpiece, Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon
Lescaut, afterwards published separately. This affecting tale
relates the love of the young nobleman, Des Grieux, for the
lowborn and faithless Manon Lescaut, whom he follows to
America in the face of poverty and suffering. The story,
under the title of Manon Lescaut, has long been familiar to
English-speaking readers. Maurice Leloir made a series of
paintings depicting various incidents of the narrative, and
these were exhibited in this country and attracted wide atten-
tion. It is still regarded as a masterpiece owing to its beau-
tiful and simple portrayal of character. Manon Lescaut was

341

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

imitated by George Sand in Leone Leoni, and the German
writer, J. Brandes, employed it in his tragedy, Der Schiff-
bruch. Puccini used it for his text in his lyric drama Manon
Lescaut. The Abbe Prevost is also remembered for his jour-
nal, Le Pour et le Contre, in imitation of the Spectator, and
for his translations of Richardson's novels, Pamela, Grandi-
son, and Clarissa Harlowe.

Baptiste Louis Gresset (1709-1777) reached the height of
his fame with his comedy Le Mechant, a picture of the lan-
guage and customs of contemporary society. His humorous
conceit, Vert-Vert, is not forgotten. The subject of this poem
is a parrot, which, taught by some nuns of Nevers, has become
a prodigy of intelligence and devotion. The Sisters of Nantes
wish to see it; so it is sent to them by one of the boats that
ply the Loire. During the voyage it hears the passengers and
boatmen swear and curse, so that on arriving at Nantes it
shocks the Sisters by the coarseness of its language, and they
hasten to send it back to its teachers. Vert- Vert, obliged
to do penance, mends his ways, and obtains pardon, but dies
of indigestion from eating sugarplums. The author has enam-
eled this theme with great delicacy, and pointed it with a
quantity of epigrams, brilliant, if somewhat farfetched. He
later added two new poems to Vert-Vert, Les Pensionnaires
and L'Ouvroir.

Alexis Piron (1689-1773) was quoted for his sallies of wit
and his epigrams; his play, La Metromanie, ou la manie de
faire des vers, revolves upon unusually vulgar situations, but
in the matter of animation, it is one of the foremost comedies
of the century. Piron was himself a ' ' metromaniae " ; in his
youth, he covered with couplets and epigrams the margins
of legal papers which he was given to write or copy. Hav-
ing received his degree as lawyer, he wrote a brilliant ode, but
so obscene, that his native town, Dijon, was indignant, and he
was not allowed to practice his profession. He therefore
gained a living as copyist, and continued to write epigrams
against everybody. A candidate for the Academy, he for-
feited his place by the remark in a visit to that institution,
" There are forty of them who have the sense of four." One
day, Piron wrote on Voltaire's door, the word " Coquin "
(rascal). Whereupon Voltaire dressed himself elegantly,

342

TRAGEDY, COMEDY, POETRY AND THE NOVEL

and came to call on Piron, saying: " Monsieur, I found
your card on my door."

Piron achieved celebrity in Paris where he wrote eighteen
plays for the Theatre de la Foire and some operas-comiques,
one of which, called I'Endriague, is very extraordinary, and
has for the principal character a monster; the names of the
characters are impossible, such as: Espadavantavellados,
Elfriderigelpot, etc., but the music was by his compatriot,
the great composer Rameau. Piron was finally elected to
the Academic Francaise, but the king refused to ratify his
election, so Piron wrote his own epitaph, thus:

Ci-git Piron, qui ne fut rien
Pas meme academicien.1

The lyric poets of this epoch were rhetoricians rather
than poets. An exhaustion of the great sources of inspiration
led to descriptions of nature without enthusiasm, and de-
scriptive poetry — a kind of exercise in versification — became
the genre in vogue. Of its numerous expressions in this
period, it seems worth while to mention only the Saisons of
Saint-Lambert — a cold, monotonous poem, of careful versi-
fication— and the copious output of Delille. This is what is
called the " literature of the Empire "; and Delille is its king.
It is an extremely weak literature, in spite of the incontest-
able qualities of a style that could adapt itself to the descrip-
tion of the most ordinary objects. Gustave Lanson writes:
" The eighteenth century made over antiquity to its own
image, which resembled it like the divinities of the opera
resemble the Homeric Olympus. There was nothing but
esprit."

The Abbe Delille (1738-1813) was one of those smart,
witty abbes of whom there were so many in the eighteenth
century — abbes who shone in the salons, and were occupied
with the affairs of the church only in order to receive its reve-
nues. He outlived the Revolution without accident. His
poems include Les Jardins, L'Homme des Champs, Les Trois
Regnes de la Nature: descriptions on descriptions. " He

1 " Here lies Piron who amounted to nothing, not even to an Academician."

343

boasted toward the end of his life," said Victor Hugo, " of
having made twelve camels, four dogs, three horses, including
that of Job, six tigers, two cats, a game of chess, a backgam-
mon-board, a draught-board, a billiard table, several winters,
many summers, a number of springs, fifty sunsets, and so
many dawns that he could not count them." His amusements
in the drawing room occupy almost as much space in his
poems as do the rural descriptions; we feel that the author
" looked at the country only through the windows of the
chateau. ' '

Florian (1755-1794), also, still lives because of his Fables,
in which simplicity of narrative is united with a certain grace-
ful delicacy and a well-pointed " moral." His Fables are
easier to understand, and better adapted to the young, than
are the more poetic and more capricious compositions of La
Fontaine. Their titles embrace: Les Deux Voyageurs (The
Two Travelers) ; Le Chat et le Miroir (The Cat and the Mir-
ror) ; Le Singe qui montre la lanterne magique (The Monkey
with the Magic Lantern) ; L'Ane qui joue de la flute (The
Ass that Plays the Flute), etc.

Ecouchard Lebrun called Lebrun-Pindare, which name
has been preserved for him by posterity not without ironical
intent, and Le Franc de Pompignan wrote odes. Of the
latter 's sacred poems Voltaire said, " sacres ils sont, car
personne n'y touche."1 Jean Francois Marmontel is remem-
bered for two mediocre novels: Belisaire and Les Incas.
Finally, Malfilatre and Gilbert were — like Chatterton in Eng-
land and Calderon in Spain — young poets consumed by mis-
ery before their genius had fully ripened. Malfilatre com-
posed a pretty poem of a mythological character. Narcisse.
Narcisse is the son of the river Cephise. He falls in love
with his own image while looking at himself in the waters of
a spring, to the bottom of which he plunges, and is changed
into the flower which bears his name.

Gilbert (1751-1780) is the author of satires. The strophes
of his Adieux d la Vie have become classic; a well-known
stanza, and which is inscribed over the supposed remains of
Gilbert in the catacombs of Paris, is this one:

1 Sacred they are for no one touches them.
344

TRAGEDY, COMEDY, POETRY AND THE NOVEL

Au banquet de la vie, infortune convive,
J'apparus un jour et je meurs:
Je meurs, et sur ma tombe ou lentement j 'arrive,
Nul ne viendra verser des pleurs.1

ANDRE CHENIER

On the eve of the Revolution, a great poet Andre Chenier,
le dernier des classiques, appeared. Gustave Lanson writes:
" If it has been so difficult to classify Andre Chenier, so that
he has been frequently called romanticist a quarter of a cen-
tury before that literary movement, it is because it has not
been recognized how little the pseudo-classicists from 1780 to
1829 have the right to be called inheritors or disciples of the
seventeenth century — that of Boileau and Racine. Chenier
is not to be distinguished from his contemporaries, except in
that he goes back to the sources of great classic art. This
genuine poet who read Virgil, Homer, and Theocritus in such
exquisite sympathy with the antique world, and knew how to
become enthusiastic about Malherbe as well — this curious mas-
ter of form who imparted to degenerate classic verse such
delicate and powerful rhythm and harmony, is the very man
who understood " 1'Art poetique " as Racine and La Fon-
taine understood it, and who brought into realization Boi-
leau's original theories."

Andre Chenier was born — as was his brother, Marie-
Joseph, who was also a poet — in Constantinople, where their
father was consul-general. Their mother, a Greek, ac-
quainted Andre at an early age with the literature of her
country; hence the originality of his poetry at a time when
all verses seemed cast in the same mold. Having studied and
cherished the literature of ancient Greece from his childhood,
he was a real renovator of poetic sentiment. On his return
to France, the Revolution broke out ; he greeted it with ecstasy,
but fought its excesses with anger, in his Odes and lambes.
He was arrested on account of some articles he had published

1 At life's banquet, unfortunate guest,
I appeared one day and I die:
I die, and over my grave where I slowly descend,
No one will come to shed a tear.

345

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

in Le Mercure, voicing his indignant protest against the ex-
cesses of the Terror. He would probably have been forgotten
in prison and been released, with so many others, after the
Ninth Thermidor, if his father, uneasy for his son 's fate, had
not gone to solicit his pardon. This step proved fatal; the
very next day he was sent to the scaffold, in company with his
friend, Roucher, the poet of the Mois. Just before his execu-
tion, Andre struck his forehead with his hand and said : "It
is unfortunate ; there was something in here. ' ' The guillotine,
by cutting off that head, deprived France of a poet whose
beginnings had given the greatest hopes. His ode on the Ser-
ment du Jeu de Paume (The Oath of Tennis Court1), and
especially the lambes, written in prison while awaiting death,
and the exquisite elegy of the Jeune Captive, are in the first
rank of satiric poetry, and of the most sublime lyric quality.
The young captive was Aimee de Coigny, a companion of
Chenier's captivity, who grieved at losing her life so early,
and wished, like the flower which had only seen the dawn, to
finish the day that was scarcely begun. Andre Chenier was
only thirty-two years old when he died, in 1794. It was he
who sang:

L'art ne fait que des vers, le coeur seul est poete.2

Le Sage had founded the novel of observation, J. J. Rous-
seau had introduced the sentimental, moral, and philosophical
genre, Prevost, the tragic passion ; Marivaux, the subtle anal-
ysis of love, and with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre the pic-
turesque and descriptive characterized the novel.

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre — the greatest of Rousseau's
pupils in the eighteenth century, and the disciple most di-
rectly inspired by him — is a true poet in prose. During Jean-
Jacques Rousseau's last stay in Paris the constant companion
of his walks was Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, with whom, in
tastes and character, he had much in common. Born at Havre in
1737, he came of a family who professed to be descendants of
Eustache de Saint-Pierre of Calais — famous for his devotion

1 Where the deputies of the Third Estate took the oath not to separate
until a constitution had been granted.

2 Art makes but verse, the heart alone is a poet.

346

TRAGEDY, COMEDY, POETRY AND THE NOVEL

to his compatriots when Edward III, in 1347, took that town
and, irritated by its long resistance, demanded that six nobles
of the city place themselves, with ropes around their necks,
at his mercy. Adventurous and undisciplined, Bernardin
de Saint-Pierre attempted several careers, sailor, soldier,
and traveler. At one time he conceived the project of erecting
a model city on the shores of Lake Aral in Russia, in which
virtue and freedom should hold sway. Orloff, the man in
power during the reign of Empress Catherine, to whom the
imaginative Frenchman unfolded his plans, regarded him as a
dreamer, and sent him as an artillery officer to Finland; but
Bernardin did not like the conditions in Russia, and soon re-
signed his commission. In the course of his travels he made long
journeys through Prussia, Austria, and the French colonies.
Everywhere his contemplative mind had been impressed more
by the works of nature than by those of man ; and it is these
impressions and reflections that we find in his Etudes de la
Nature and his Harmonies de la Nature. The countries he
visited are depicted in his Voyage a l'Ile-de-France; in his
stories, Le Cafe de Surate and La Chaumiere Indienne; and
especially in the story — the title to his fame — Paul et Vir-
ginie, included in the fourth volume of his Etudes de la
Nature. In this work he was able, with infinite art, to interest
the reader in the life of two children whose mutual affection,
brotherly and sisterly in its origin, develops unconsciously
into love, and is at last rudely broken by an accidental death.
The suavity of this touching idyll, to which the author has
given as a setting the wild beauties of tropical nature, is
unsurpassed. It voiced a protest against the superficialities
and hypocrisies of society, and made a despairing appeal for
nature and quiet that was re-echoed throughout Europe. The
novel won for Saint-Pierre a swift and an immense popular-
ity, and still occupies a place of honor among the literary
productions of the eighteenth century. It is said that when
the author read his book in the salon of Madame Necker, to
the assembled elite of the social and the literary world, it
fell flat. Thomas went to sleep, Buffon demanded his carriage
in a loud voice, and Madame Necker superficially compli-
mented him. The author was in despair, but, encouraged
afresh by some old friends, he had the story published. In

347

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

the first year it ran through upward of fifty editions. Every
baby was christened Paul or Virginie.

This story and La Chaumiere Indienne are the two works
in which Rousseau's influence is most strikingly revealed.
In the Chaumiere Indienne, the author's antipathy to cul-
ture is also evident: an Englishman goes to India to search
for truth, only to find the people imbued with the egotistical
idea of caste. During his sojourn he is caught in a storm
in the woods, and seeks shelter in an Indian hut. The occu-
pant, a pariah capable of generous thoughts for those who
have made him an outcast, proves to be in the possession of
the true wisdom. He teaches that real happiness consists in
being pure and unsophisticated. Chenier has described this
philosophical story as the best, the most moral, and the short-
est of novels. It is much less sentimental than Paul et Vir-
ginie, and is not lacking in humor; and for these reasons
many persons prefer it to his more famous tale. Les VCKUX
d'un Solitaire, which appeared on the eve of the Revolution,
is a chimera of social reform.

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Etudes de la Nature (Studies
of Nature) contain brilliant descriptions, but they are worth-
less from a scientific point of view and sentimental to the
point of weariness. He points out the harmonies of human
beings in their relation to one another — the things, physical
and moral, in which they correspond and differ; the similar-
ities and contrasts which, in consonances and accords, he likens
to music. Finally, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre — like his master,
Rousseau — rekindled, especially among the women of his gen-
eration, the love of morality and religion. He died in 1814.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE REVOLUTION AND ITS LITERATURE

WITH the meeting of the States-General on May 5, 1789,
prophecy, preaching, and the mutterings against misrule, took
at last the form of action. What Montesquieu, Voltaire,
Rousseau, and the Encyclopedists so eloquently foretold had
come to pass. What the daring Beaumarchais 1 — the storm-
bird — proclaimed through the puppets of the mimic stage,
was emphasized and made awful by the mob of living men.
Presently all the pent-up protests of the people against the
crimes of profligate monarchy were to be expressed in acts
of savage fury, unbridled license, and cruel murder, done in
the name of liberty. It was not until two republics and four
monarchies had been successively created and destroyed that
France, with the establishment of the Third Republic, at-
tained political stability, and with it prosperity and peace.
As the literature of a nation is interwoven with the expres-
sions of its society and government, it will not be amiss to keep
in mind the state of France during these periods of conflict
and change. To this end, let us refresh our memory with a
brief historical review.

The First Republic was proclaimed on September 21,
1792, and lasted for twelve years, ,with three successive forms
of administration: (1) The Convention, which condemned
Louis XVI and is identified with the Revolutionary Tribu-
nal's " Reign of Terror." (2) The Directory, established
on October 26, 1795, and overthrown by the coup d'etat of
General Bonaparte on the 18th Brumaire, in the year VIII
of the Republic— November 9, 1799. (3) The Consulate

1 Napoleon I called his play Le Manage de Figaro "la Revolution
en action."

349

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

(declared on November 11, 1799), of which Bonaparte was
First Consul, lasting until 1804. The First Empire that fol-
lowed saw Napoleon crowned as hereditary emperor of the
French; after gaining the mastery over the greater part of
Europe, he was compelled to abdicate at Fontainebleau on
April 11, 1814. The First Restoration, as the reign of the re-
instated Bourbons was called, beheld Louis XVIII seated
on the throne; but Napoleon returned from Elba in March,
1815, and expelled him. The ensuing period, from the middle
of March to June 22d, is known as the ' ' Hundred Days " ; it
witnessed the unavailing struggles of Napoleon to reestablish
his empire. "With Napoleon 's defeat at Waterloo, Louis XVIII
resumed his rule, by the will of the allied armies, and con-
tinued to reign until 1824. His successor and brother, Charles
X, was dethroned by the July Revolution (July 27-29, 1830) ;
this ended the Second Restoration, and concluded the rule of
the elder branch of the Bourbons. Louis Philippe, the " cit-
izen king, ' ' representing the Orleans branch of the Bourbons,
came into power with the July government, and was deposed
by the Revolution of February, 1848. He had abdicated in
favor of his grandson, the Comte de Paris; but a provisional
government proclaimed at the Hotel de Ville (February 25th) ,
the birth of the Second Republic. Its life was brief. By a
coup d'etat (1851), Louis Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I,
had himself named President for ten years ; then in December,
1852, he was crowned emperor — Napoleon III. In 1870 he
was taken prisoner by the Germans at the battle of Sedan,
and following the capitulation of Sedan, on September 4th,
the Third Republic was established, with Adolph Thiers as
President.

POLITICAL ELOQUENCE AND PAMPHLETS

The French Revolution and the devastating wars of Napo-
leon did not promote literary development in France. But
the Revolution gave birth to political eloquence ; and foremost
among the orators of the tribune and the pamphlet was Mira-
beau, the " French Demosthenes/' whose eloquence domi-
nated whole assemblies and whose voice inclined everyone to
his wishes.

350

REVOLUTION AND ITS LITERATURE

Honore Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau (1749-91),
belonged to an Italian family long settled in France. His
father, the Marquis de Mirabeau, was called the " friend of
men " — an appellation derived from the title of one of his
works, L'Ami des Homines. He was one of those anomalous
beings who furthered the interest of humanity, but let no occa-
sion pass to harass and ill-treat his own family; and he exer-
cised, by reason of his obdurate and despotic character, a per-
nicious influence over his son. Fathers, at that time, had the
authority to put their sons in prison when they were not satis-
fied with them, even if these sons were of age and married.
Honore 's father, who was very harsh to him, exercised this
authority repeatedly ; but Honore escaped, and settled in Hol-
land. On returning to France he was imprisoned again, by
virtue of a lettre de cachet.1 Thus he acquired that hatred of
despotism and that ardent love of liberty which inspired his
eloquence. In his Essai sur le despotisme he preaches the Revo-
lution. In the prison of St. Vincennes, where he was obliged
to remain three years, he wrote his Essai sur les lettres de
cachet et les prisons d'etat, and his famous letters, published
later under the title of Lettres originates de Mirabeau ecrites
au donjon de Vincennes pendant les annees 1777-1780. These
letters embrace his correspondence with the Marquise Sophie
de Monnier, to whom he dedicated his Erotica biblion. When
he was ambassador to Berlin, where Frederick William II
reigned, he wrote a series of official reports important to
Prussian history: Histoire secrete de la cour de Berlin, and
De la Monarchic prussienne sous Frederic le Grand.

It is, however, his eloquence that brought him the greatest
fame. When he spoke the whole assembly was breathless
with surprise and admiration. It was he who uttered the
famous words, when the Third Estate, assembled in the Salle
du Jeu de Paume (Tennis Court) received orders from the
king to disperse: " Go tell your master that we are here
by the will of the people, and that we shall not depart save

1 A lettre de cachet was a slip of paper, closed by the royal seal, containing
an arbitrary warrant of imprisonment or exile without accusation or trial.
These letters, it is said, were sold by some of the kings for large sums of
money, a blank being left on the paper to be filled in by the purchaser
with the victim's name.

351

by the force of bayonets." Subsequently, during a period
of twenty months, he delivered one hundred and fifty speeches,
always forceful and fiery. It is said that the first proof of
his eloquence was furnished at his own trial for divorce, when
he pleaded for himself with such eloquence that his wife's
lawyer cried with rage.

Mirabeau sometimes received help in the preparation of
his speeches; Chamfort was among those whose collaboration
was most useful to him. When Mirabeau mounted the plat-
form it was often after a conversation with Chamfort ; it was
Chamfort, speaking through Mirabeau, who said: " From
here you see the window through which Charles IX shot at
the Huguenots." " Facility is a fine thing," said Chamfort
to Mirabeau, " provided that we never waste it." Mirabeau
ascends the platform : ' ' Gentlemen, ' ' he says, ' ' it has been
a long time since I said to myself that facility is one of the
finest gifts of nature, but only on condition that it be never
wasted. ' ' Yet the very gestures of Mirabeau were commands ;
his motions the strokes of statesmanship. It was Chamfort
who translated, " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death,"
into ' ' Be my brother or I will kill you. ' ' * He was a radical
pessimist who astonished, amazed, and saddened his con-
temporaries. Mirabeau used to say of him: " I polish my
intellect by contact with this mind, the most electric I have
known. ' '

Nicolas Chamfort is not so well remembered for his dra-
matic works as for his political pamphlets, his sharp sayings,
and his connection with Mirabeau. It was he who gave to
the Revolutionary army the motto: " Guerre aux palais,
paix aux chaumieres. ' ' 2 The Abbe Sieyes 's famous pamphlet
on the rights of the Third Estate owes its title to Chamfort :
Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-Etatf — Rien! — Que doit-il etre? —
Tout! 3

1 Herr von Billow, the German chancellor, translated it thus:

" Willst Du nicht mein Bruder sein,
Schlag' ich Dir den Schadel ein."

2 War with the palace, peace with the cottages.

3 What is the Third Estate?— Nothing!— What should it be?— Every-
thing!

352

REVOLUTION AND ITS LITERATURE

Camille Desmoulins instigated the storming of the Bastille,
and his pamphlet, Revolutions de France et de Brabant was
influential in overthrowing the Girondists and royalty.

THE THEATER: SONGS

The French are a nation of theater-goers. Even while
countless heads were falling under the guillotine, the passion
for theatrical performances no wise diminished. In fact it
grew; but the plays were political expressions of the day,
and passed with the day.

Marie- Joseph Chenier (1764-1811) is the dramatist of the
Revolution whose works most vividly portray its hatreds and
its hopes. Danton said of his play, Charles IX, ou I'ecole des
rois: " If Figaro has killed the nobility, Charles IX will kill
royalty." This drama (1790), important in subject, but mis-
erably executed, was immensely popular because it violently
attacked tyrants, and in its titular subject the public saw
Louis XVI. Chenier is also the author of the Chant du depart
— a battle song of the Republic that made him famous, but
which, nevertheless, contains no true poetry.

Antoine Vincent Arnault became the idol of the populace
in 1791 because of his tragedy Marius a Minturnes, and his
revolutionary play, Lucrece, ou Rome libre. Under Napo-
leon he held a post of honor, and wrote a Napoleonic play,
Scipion; but his sentiments were seen to undergo a change in
his Germanicus, written after Napoleon's downfall. Jean
Baptiste Legouve gained favor with his tragedy, La Mort
d'Abel; and Jean Frangois de la Harpe favored the Revolu-
tion in both his tragedies and comedies. The political and
satirical play, L'Aml des lois, by Laya (1793), was a violent
satire on the Revolution, and caused a tumult at every per-
formance— the royalists applauding and the republicans hiss-
ing it. With the execution of the king its representations
ceased. The greatest success of the times was an obscene
drama, Jugement dernier des rois, by Marechal, which mocked
the downfall of royalty. It was staged immediately after the
execution of Marie- Antoinette. Jean Frangois Ducis, at the
beginning of the " Terror " made known to the French some
24 353

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of Shakespeare's greatest characters. When Othello was
played and the scene of Desdemona's murder enacted, ter-
rified screams arose from the audience, and many women
fainted. The translations made by Ducis are very bad;
critics have called him the Shakespearean bungler. Neverthe-
less, he achieved a certain purpose. Among the playwrights
who eschewed politics, are Jean Francois Collin d 'Harleville,
whose most effective comedy is Les Chateaux en Espagne, and
Philippe Fabre d 'Eglantine, who wrote seventeen plays, of
which La Philinte de Moliere is the best contemporary comedy.
The suffix Eglantine — meaning the golden rose — was acquired
by him as the winner of that emblem in the poetical contest
of the Jeux floraux in Toulouse.

Tout finit par des chansons en France. The royal power,
absolute power, the oppression of the people, ended with
songs — the songs inspired by the Revolution. In the Archives
of the Conservatoire arJl libraries of France there have been
found about one hundred and fifty such chansons. Of these
the earliest is the QQ ira, sung on the 14th of July, 1790,
at the Fete de la Federation, the first anniversary of the
storming of the Bastille. The words were suggested to the
street-singer, Ladre, by an exclamation uttered by Benjamin
Franklin, who, on learning from time to time, of his country-
men's victories in the war of American Independence, during
his sojourn in Paris, rubbed his hands, saying " Qa ira," " Qa
ira " ("It will go, it will go," i. e., we shall succeed). The
music of the Qa ira was that of a popular eontre danse
called the Carillon national, composed by Becourt. At first
the words were temperate, and merely designed to inspire
courage; but by degrees the refrains added to the song took
on a threatening nature, and became more and more ferocious
as the Revolution progressed. Originally, the Qa ira ran
thus:

Ah! <ja ira, <?a ira, $a ira!
Le peuple en ce jour sans cesse repete:

Ah! ga ira, c.a ira, <;a ira!
Malgre" les mutins, tout r£ussira!
Nos ennemis confus en restent la;
Et nous aliens chanter alleluia!

Ah! §a ira, ga ira, §a ira!
354

REVOLUTION AND ITS LITERATURE

Quand Boileau jadis du clerge parla,
Comme un prophete il a predit cela:
En chantant ma chansonnette,
Avec plaisir on dira :

Ah! §a ira, ga ira, c.a ira!
Malgre les mutins, tout reussira!

Later, the refrain became:

Ah! ga ira, ga ira, ga ira!
Les aristocrat' a la lanterne;
Ah! ga ira, ga ira, ga ira!
Les aristocrat' on les pendra!

The Carmagnole was a song and dance, rivaling in popu-
larity the Qa ira during the Revolution. The original song,
written in 1792, was of a military character, and received
its name from a dance popular in Carmagnola, a town in
Italy, but the revolutionary song La Carmagnole, owes its
name to the name of a jacket introduced into Southern France
by Piedmontese workmen. Its innocuous nature as a popu-
lar dancing song was transformed, in 1793, into the bloody
Carmagnole des Royalistes. The refrain, however, to all the
verses has remained the same :

Vive le son! vive le son!
Dansons la carmagnole,
Vive le son du canon!

The most famous of the patriotic songs is the Marseillaise,
which breathes patriotic fervor and love of country. The
words and music were composed by Rouget de Lisle, a young
officer in the garrison of Strasburg, in the midst of the mil-
itary preparations at the time of the declaration of war
between France and Austria. Rouget de Lisle called it
Chant de guerre pour I'armee du Rhin. Soon afterwards, the
singer Mireur sang it at a civic banquet at Marseilles, and it
caused such a sensation that it was at once printed and dis-
tributed among the volunteers of the battalion just leaving
Marseilles for Paris. They sang it marching to the attack
of the Tuileries, on August 10, 1792; then it spread spon-

355 *

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

taneously throughout France, under the name of La Mar-
seillaise. Its last verse, wrongly attributed to J. Chenier, was
added by the Girondins, who sang it on their way to the guillo-
tine. The Bourbons proscribed it, but the people of the July
revolution of 1830, by which Charles X was forced to ab-
dicate, marched to its music. So did the revolutionists of
1848, who deposed Louis-Philippe. Napoleon III tried to
substitute for it the Partant pour la Syrie, by Jean Laborde ; x
but since the Third Republic, in 1870, it has been officially
recognized as the national hymn of France. Its first couplet
runs:

Aliens, enfants de la patrie,

Le jour de gloire est arrival

Centre nous de la tyrannic

L'etendard sanglant est leve"! (bis)

Entendez-vous, dans les campagnes,

Mugir ces fe"roces soldats?

Us viennent jusque dans nos bras

Egorger nos fils, nos compagnes!
Aux armes, citoyens! formez vos bataillons!
Marchons! (bis) qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!

The composer Salieri has used the Marseillaise in the open-
ing chorus of his opera, Palmira; Grison employed it in the
introduction to the oratorio of Esther (Racine) ; Schumann
drew upon it in his song of the Two Grenadiers, and in his
overture to Hermann and Dorothea (Goethe). Carlyle
wrote: " The sound of it did tingle in men's veins, and
whole armies and assemblies did sing it, with eyes weeping
and burning, with hearts defiant of death, despot, and devil. ' '

1 " Partant pour la Syrie,
Le jeune et beau Dunois
Venait prier Marie
De be"nir ses exploits."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

IN the middle of the sixteenth century ''at last Mal-
herbe came, ' ' 1 and reformed the French language ; and not
until two hundred years later was it freed from its classic
"bondage. Dramatic poetry especially, was fettered by the
French misconception of Aristotle's " unities," the unin-
telligible interpretation of the dramas of antiquity, and the
imperious mandates of royalty. It became in effect a kind of
court poetry, the readers of which were limited to a few
thousand persons, mostly in Paris. The classic form was,
moreover, kept intact by the exclusion of all foreign influ-
ences.

But with the close of the eighteenth century and the be-
ginning of the nineteenth, literature was revivified by imag-
ination and sentiment. In the reaction from the bloody trage-
dies of the Revolution, people turned their minds to peace
and nature, and sought new modes of expression adapted to
new conditions. The terrors and the miseries that Frenchmen
had undergone quickened their sensibilities. Softened by the
anguish of exile and suffering, men " looked in their hearts
and wrote," touching a responsive chord in the hearts of
others. Along with the ideas liberated by the social ferment
was mingled the influence of that foreign literature brought
to France during the wars of the Republic and of Napoleon.
England, Germany, and the Orient all contributed to the
great change that came in French literature; most notable
was the influence exercised by Shakespeare and Goethe. The
plays of Shakespeare had been performed for upward of

1 Boileau.
357

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

a century before they were known in France. Not until
Voltaire dared to proclaim them as works of high art, were
they recognized by a people to whom classicism seemed su-
preme and unassailable. The Theatre anglais of Delaplace,
published in 1746, contained a translation of some of Shake-
speare's best plays; but the works of this translator left no
lasting impression. It remained for Voltaire to set in motion
an influence that became world-wide ; his revelation of Shake-
speare's genius spread to Germany, where Wieland (the
German Voltaire) first translated the great dramas, some
twenty years subsequent to Lessing's " discovery " of the
bard of Avon. Meanwhile, Mercier, in his Du theatre, ou
nouvel essai sur I' art dramatique, called attention to the plays
as true tragedy, and attacked the French classic drama, with
its hampering rules. Finally, Pierre Letourneur lent a de-
cisive impetus to the movement with his twenty volumes of
prose translations of Shakespeare. In his preface he says:
" Shakespeare could appear in the country of Corneille,
Racine, and Moliere, and demand of the French the tribute
of glory each nation pays to genius, which he would have
received from these three great men had he been known to
them."

Goethe's influence on the literature of France at this
time is recognized by the French as of great importance.
His Werther, though inspired by the Nouvelle Helo'ise, sur-
passed that Gallic production in significance, and left its
impress on all the poets of the early nineteenth century im-
bued with the sentiment of Weltschmerz. Napoleon greatly
admired Werther. It was one of the few books he carried
with him on his campaigns, and it was the subject of an an-
imated discussion when he met Goethe in Erfurt. Werther
affected the fashions as well as the literature of the French:
the Werther costume and the hat a la Charlotte were much in
vogue. Yet it must be admitted that Goethe's infinitely
greater work, Faust, although translated some sixty times into
French, achieved its greatest popularity in France through
Gounod's operatic treatment of the Gretchen episode. The
public, naturally, devours a novel in preference to philo-
sophical poetry. Both Shakespeare and Goethe have been well
translated and interpreted in France by A. Mezieres whose

358

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Predecesseurs et contemporains de Shakespeare was awarded
the prix Montyon; in 1898 M. Jusserand supplied a special
need with his excellent work, Shakespeare dans I'ancien
regime."

As we have seen, the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars
were not actually productive of much important literature,
but prepared the soil for its production. The literature of
the First Empire was singularly sterile. It found its chief
expression in descriptive poetry and" in metrical translation.
Its most honored exponents were petty poets, story writers,
anecdote mongers, composers of the semi-elegiac — men like
Fontanes, Arnault, Parny, Andrieux, and Delille, yet they
were already antiquated. The advent of a new society, with
new ideas and new tastes, was bound to introduce a new liter-
ary form.

However, at first, the reformers had few disciples. Under
the Republic and the Empire, minds which were absorbed in
political convulsions, and eager for glory, had little leisure
for poetic works ; literature continued to be only a faint copy
of the two preceding centuries. It was during the peaceful
years of the Restoration that it began to take on a new
character : so long separated by war from the other states of
Europe, the French now hastened to renew that intercourse
which is the life of nations. They came to know the ancient
and modern treasures of Germany and England ; the sixteenth
century was made an object of study, and the productions of
the Middle Ages, so long ignored, were studied anew. The
French mind thus prepared, the innovators undertook to in-
troduce into poetry more imagination, more feeling and con-
templation, and that individualism which marked the re-
awakening of lyric poetry. They received the name of
Romanticists, and their merit consisted in freeing poetry
from the restricting rules of classicism; they enriched the
language, making truth and nature the essential features of
form and topic, and thereby created a literature for the people.
Yet this desire to create strong impressions and to lay hold of
the popular imagination often led to grave faults, among them
that of overstepping the normal. The subjects then became
grotesque and loathsome, the language lost its simplicity and
lucidity, and the style was involved and ambiguous. Victor

359

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Hugo declared that the characteristic and not the beautiful,
the realistic and not the ideal things of life should be
portrayed. This naturally led into the paths of realism.

The romantic school originated in Germany, toward the
end of the eighteenth century with a number of poets, critics,
and philosophers : August von Schlegel, Tieck, Novalis, Schel-
ling, and others. Its greatest German representatives were
Goethe and Schiller. These men worked to repudiate the
French classic influence to which their literature,1 as well as
the English, had been subjected since the seventeenth century.
They assumed the name romantic, as pertaining to the signifi-
cation evolved from romances — fabulous, fantastic, poetically
fanciful — the popular literature of the Middle Ages. This
name was introduced into France by Madame de Stael, and
given to a similar school. In France the movement was not
accomplished until another revolution — confined, however, to
literary territory — had occurred : the bitter fight between the
adherents of the old classic school and those of the new school
— the Romanticists. It raged from 1820 to 1830, the Roman-
ticists finally winning a victory with the memorable per-
formance of Victor Hugo's Hernani at the Theatre-Francais.
A petition signed by seven Classicists 2 had been sent to King
Charles X, asking that his theater at least be reserved ex-
clusively for the classic drama ; but the king answered that in
the playhouse his position was but that of any other citizen.
So the performance took place; and those who would learn
the incidents of that eventful evening will be repaid by the
perusal of Theophile Gautier's Histoire du Romantisme.

The reaction in literature spread to the arts and sciences.
David d 'Angers was deposed — David, dictator of arts during
the Revolution and the Empire, who was celebrated for the
classic purity of his drawings; the rebels against the antique
were led by artists such as Delacroix, Gros, Gericault. In
music the foremost innovators were Chopin, Von Weber,

1 French language in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, says A.
Rambaud, " became the language of diplomacy, of the courts, of philosophy,
of science, and of society, to that degree that the European aristocrats
forgot their national languages."

2 Lemercier, Viennet, Arnault, Jouy, Leroy, Jay, and Andrieux.

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THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Wagner, Schumann. The science born with the century had
its share in the new order, and its effect was visible in history
and literary criticism. ^

To return to literature, it may be divided in the nineteenth
century into three periods. The first — the romantic period —
extends to 1850 ; the second — the naturalistic period — to 1880 ;
the third period is difficult to define concretely as it embraces
various artistic tendencies. The chief precursor of roman- .
ticism was J. J. Rousseau. The two great pioneers of the new
movement were Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael, in the -
very beginning of the century, although the literary traditions
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries continued to play
an important role for the next thirty years. These two authors '
were followed by the Romanticists proper: Lamartine, Victor
Hugo, de "Vigny, de Musset, and the rest. The later Roman-
ticists— Gautier, Balzac, George Sand, Flaubert — were af-
fected by influences, very foreign to romanticism, which
announced a new art. Chateaubriand created a world of
images by associating the Christian Middle Ages with pagan
antiquity. He sought to awaken in men strong and generous
beliefs; to lead them to religion through nature and poetry.
He expounded a criticism that explored the human heart, and
applied local color and imagination to historical pictures and
recollections. He modified the language. He enriched it with
expressions, figures, forms, of a new character; he gave prose
a coloring, a brilliance, and a melody that were unknown be-
fore. Madame de Stael likewise upheld the moral as well as
the religious principles which were to direct the social regen-
eration; like Chateaubriand, she discovered unknown realms,
and acquainted France with the German genius. J

Chateaubriand was the father not only of romanticism,
but, pretty nearly, of all the forms of literary art in the
nineteenth century. A passionate lover of every kind of
beauty, a dweller in the solitudes of the New World, a writer
who looked to the Orient, to Greece and Rome, ancient and
modern, and to Italy — he came to reveal to his countrymen a
sphere which included the whole earth. In doing so he in-
troduced a cosmopolitan art instead of an art too excessively
national. Francois Rene, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, was born
at Saint-Malo in Brittany, in 1768, of an ancient and noble

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

family. When the Revolution broke out he was a captain in
the regiment of Navarre. He left France in 1791, and em-
barked for North America, ostensibly with the purpose of
solving a geographical problem — the sea passage to India by
way of Hudson Bay. He had letters of introduction to many
eminent persons in the United States. Washington, who lived
unpretentiously, without guards or servants in livery, gave the
Frenchman a cordial welcome, and greatly impressed him by
the simplicity of his character and surroundings. Chateau-
briand made several unavailing attempts to discover a north
passage, and then buried himself in the primeval forests of
the wilderness — visiting the region of the Great Lakes and the
country near the mouth of the Mississippi, and studying
the Indians whose portraits he has left us. But hearing of
the flight of Louis XVI and his arrest at Varennes, he returned
to Europe, and went to join the army of the emigres * at
Coblentz. Wounded at the siege of Thionville, and taken to
England, where he lived several years in penury, he published
in London his first work, Essai sur les Revolutions. Return-
ing to France in 1800, he published Atala in the following
year in the Mercure de France. It was enthusiastically re-
ceived, as was his succeeding work, Rene; and his literary
reputation was established. His Le Genie du Christianisme
embraced these two episodes relating to the author's voyage
in America. He had brought back from this country an im-
mense quantity of literary material ; and he drew upon it for
all the works we have mentioned, and for his Indian tale,
Les Natchez.

Atala is the story of a young savage girl, secretly con-
verted to Christianity, who, in compliance with her mother's
wish, has vowed solemnly not to marry. Falling in love with
Chactas, a young half-breed warrior taken prisoner by her
father and condemned to be burned, she lets him escape, and
goes with him. But, rather than violate her vow, she poisons
herself, and dies in his arms. Atala contains a magnificent
description of the primeval forest; and in MescJiacebe we
have the real name of the Mississippi. The story exhaled the

1 The royalists who left France in 1789 and succeeding years, and took
refuge in England, Germany, Switzerland, and other countries.

362

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

wild and mysterious fragrance of the American forests and
revealed a new literature. Its freshness and brilliant style
announced the author's genius. In it he appears as the
originator of the idealized Indian whom Fenimore Cooper has
portrayed in his " Leatherstocking Series." Atala is still
popular in France, and is accounted a French classic. Criti-
cism is unanimous in declaring that Chateaubriand excels in
description of wild nature and the depiction of mystical, pas-
sionate characters.

Rene is the story of a young European who finds himself
beset by an incurable ennui ; whether he travels or remains at
home, whether he works or dreams, this ennui consumes him.
A sister of Rene has fallen in love with him ; and in order to
escape this unholy love, she retires into a convent. But at
the moment when she makes her vows, Rene hears the fatal
secret escape from her lips. Rene is one of the most beauti-
ful and also morbid works of Chateaubriand. In it the
author himself appears under the name of the hero. This
personal note sounded by Chateaubriand was echoed especially
by French poetry in the nineteenth century, and was produc-
tive of the modern lyricism. 1^ is Rene, issuing from Goethe's
Werther, whom we see through a veil in Lamartine, Victor
Huga, and Alfred de Musset. Hugo says : ' ' You say, * Speak
of us.' — Speaking of me is speaking of yourself; human-
ity is a chain." The poet, in picturing his own sorrows,
pictures the sorrows common to the human heart. This sub-
jective poetry has inspired an entire school, the heads of which
are Lamartine, who has feeling; Victor Hugo, who has im-
agination; and Alfred de Musset, who has passion.

This malady of Rene for a long time affected the youth
of all countries, since we find this, type in Germany, in
Goethe's Werther; in Italy, in the Ortis of Foscolo; in Eng-
land, in several characters of Byron; in Russia, in the works
of Pushkin and Lermontov.

Les Natchez is the continuation of Rene; the hero marries
an Indian girl and dies in battle. This tale, a poem in
prose, is a pathetic romance, and affords a curious portrait
of savage life.

In the Genie du Christianisme, ou la beaiite de la religion
chretienne, Chateaubriand undertakes to prove the existence

363

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of God by the marvels of nature. This work was an immense
success. Its eloquent and poetic " apology " for the Christian
religion conformed to the wishes and plans of Napoleon Bona-
parte, who was at that time (1801) negotiating the famous
Concordat with Pius VII. Napoleon rewarded Chateaubriand
with the post of secretary to the ambassador in Rome, and
later made him minister plenipotentiary to Valais. But when
the Due d'Enghien was put to death by order of the First
Consul, Chateaubriand at once sent in his resignation; and
his discourse on his reception at the French Academy, in
which he criticised the government, finally put an end to all
friendly relations. Napoleon exiled the new academician,
and his place in the Academy remained vacant for twenty-
four years. During the Restoration, Chateaubriand devoted
himself to political life, and wrote for the royalist cause his
De Buonaparte et des Bourbons, He accompanied Louis XVIII
in his flight to Ghent during the One Hundred Days, and upon
that monarch's restoration was advanced to the dignity of
minister and peer of France.

Chateaubriand's Les Martyrs, ou le triomphe de la reli-
gion chretienne is a brilliant ^pic in prose on the triumph of
the Christian religion and the fall of paganism; but it does
not equal his other works. Before writing Les Martyrs,
Chateaubriand had wished to see for himself the scenes he
proposed to describe. He has beautifully recorded the story
of his trip in his Itineraire de Paris a Jerusalem. To begin
with he goes to Greece, and imagines himself as the first to
discover the ruins of Sparta; then to Constantinople and
Palestine, where he wished to get inspiration for his work
already prepared. He returns by way of Egypt, Tunis (con-
juring up the past in his study of the ruins of Carthage),
and Spain, where he finds the subject of one of his best
nouvelles, the Aventures du dernier Abencerage.

Chateaubriand could embellish, through his great gift of
imagination, all the places he visited, yet without lapsing
from historical and geographical accuracy, or destroying the
local " atmosphere." Le dernier Abencerage is a story of the
chivalrous type, the action of which takes place at Grenada
in the sixteenth century, and tells the fate of the last Moorish
prince. In this fresh and touching tale the author has been

364

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

able skillfully to put in relief the triple character of the Arab,
in Aben-Hamet; the Spaniard, in Don Carlos; the French-
man, in Lautrec. Dona Blanca, by her beauty and her mis-
fortune, crowns this little picture with a vivid and charming
interest.

The last years of Chateaubriand's life were filled with the
editing of his Memoires d' outre-tomb e, which as the title in-
dicates, were not to appear until after his death. They are
in twelve volumes, and comprise the years 1811 to 1833.
These Memoires are intensely disappointing, imbued as they
are with presumptuous vanity and a kind of self-glorification.
Above all, they emphasize the faults of bombast and labored
effort which in his other works are only occasionally dis-
cernible. As we read the works of Chateaubriand in the
numerical order of their production, we observe his political
evolution. In 1800 he is very loyal to monarchy; later he
gradually becomes liberal, and ends by being almost a
republican. He himself says : " I am republican by inclina-
tion, Bourbon through duty, and monarchist by force of
reason. ' ' He died in 1848 and his body was interred opposite
Saint-Malo, on Le Grand Bey, an island rock which he had
bought with this intention; later a statue was erected to him
not far from his tomb.

MADAME DE STAEL

Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baroness de Stael-Hol-
stein, was born at Paris in 1766. She was the daughter of
the Genevese banker, Necker, who became Secretary of the
Treasury under Louis XVI. As a child she heard the con-
versations of the men most distinguished in letters, science,
and politics, who gathered in her mother's drawing-room.
Reared at a time when mind was held to be the only thing
of value, her rare intelligence had received the most preco-
cious training. Her marriage with the Baron de Stael-Hol-
stein, ambassador to Sweden, was a very unhappy one — and
after ten years of wedded life she separated from him. Her
salon became the rendezvous of all the distinguished men of
the Directory. The star of Napoleon began to rise and
Madame de Stael dreamed of being the " Egeria of the new

365

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

power." But soon a silent antipathy resulting in open war-
fare separated " the generous ideologist and the authoritative
Caesar." And during the entire reign of Napoleon the life
of Madame de Stael was one long series of persecutions and
exile.

Madame de Stael was a great conversationalist. She talked
better than she wrote: the animation of social intercourse,
the play of repartee, gave to her elocution a color and a
vivacity she did not always succeed in conveying with the pen.
Her books have the fault of resembling conversations, and of
seeming to be improvised ; the habit of philosophical specula-
tion has given her literary style, even in descriptions and
romantic stories, something of an abstract character which
ends by becoming tedious. The Lettres sur le Caractere et les
(Euvres de J. J. Rousseau appeared when the author was
twenty -two years old. The fundamental thought of her work,
De la littcrature consideree dans ses rapports avec les con-
stitutions sociales (Literature in its Relation to Social Institu-
tions), which appeared in 1799, is the idea of the indefinite
progress of the human species. This last book did not greatly
please Napoleon, and as her salon had become the rendezvous
of the Liberals who discountenanced the military coup d'etat
by which General Bonaparte had come into power, he gave
orders to Madame de Stael to leave Paris, and not to approach
it nearer than forty leagues. This was a terrible punishment
for her ; Paris, with the conversation of its brilliant men, was
her world. She went to Switzerland, and then to Germany,
where she gathered material for a work on that country. Her
curiosity was unlimited, and she often bored her hosts because
she wanted to know everything, and to fathom all the
phenomena of the German mind.

Before going to Germany she had published Delphine, an
epistolary novel, in which she advanced an argument of
Madame Necker, her mother: " A man must know how to
brave public opinion; a woman must submit to it." In this
book she portrayed her own unhappy marriage and advocated
divorce. A trip to Italy inspired another novel, Corinne, ou
I'ltalie — interesting especially as an autobiography, and full
of ideas. In this celebrated book concerning great Italians and
their work Madame de Stael sought to prove that literary

366

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

glory is not compatible with the happiness incident to family
affection. In the opening pages we see Corinne — a celebrated
improvisatore in music and poetry — about to be crowned in
the Capitol, as Petrarch was before her. She is given a sub-
ject: " The glory of Italy," and improvises beautiful verses.
Her triumph is complete. A young Englishman, Oswald,
devotes himself to her ; and they travel together through Italy,
talking of art, history, archaeology, and sometimes of love.
Oswald is recalled to England on a brief mission; but his
absence is prolonged. So Corinne, who is of English origin,
goes to seek him there, and arrives in time to be present, with-
out being seen, at the marriage of her own sister Lucile, to
Oswald. Lucile lacks the brilliant talents of Corinne, but her
modest qualities seemed to Oswald to give greater assurance
of domestic happiness. Corinne dies of a broken heart. This
tale is an original work, and a touching one, savoring at once
of the novel, the poem, and the philosophic treatise ; but it has
one noticeable fault : its intended enthusiasm too often seems
to be declamation. In it Madame de Stael portrays her ideal
self, in contradistinction to Delphine, wherein she describes
her real self.

The success of Corinne was brilliant. Napoleon was so
affected by the furor caused by the book that he himself
wrote a criticism of it which was inserted in the Moniteur.

Before Madame de Stael, German literature was unknown
to the French. She took a glorious initiative, and her book
De I'Allemagne (1810) is a revelation of German art and
civilization. It was a great service that she rendered her
countrymen: to them she revealed the literary world of
Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Wieland, and Klopstock, the philo-
sophic systems of Kant, Schelling, and Fichte, together with
a highly interesting picture of the manners and customs of
the German people. When De I'Allemagne appeared, by per-
mission of the censor, the Emperor had all the copies seized
and reduced to pulp. He reproached Madame de Stael osten-
sibly for ignoring him, yet speaking well of Germany, with
which country he was at war. The real cause of his dis-
pleasure was the liberal ideas advanced, and the transparent
allusions to his military despotism. A single copy escaped,
which made it possible to print the book in England later.

367

Madame de Stael had resolved to go to that country ; but this
was difficult, as at that moment all central Europe was occupied
by the French armies. She succeeded in escaping from Switzer-
land, an umbrella in her hand, as if she had gone out for a
walk ; she traversed Austria, meeting with many vexations, and
breathed freely only when she reached Russia. She has told
us, in her Dix annees d'exil (Ten Years in Exile), of her
wanderings on this journey, and has recorded her impressions
of the people and the Russian cities through which she passed.
She was well received in Moscow, where the French had not
yet come, and was feted by the Emperor Alexander and his
family at St. Petersburg.

In 1812, at the age of forty-six, Madame de Stael had
secretly married a young officer of twenty-three, Albert de
Rocca. After the fall of Napoleon, she returned to Paris,
where she received a compensation of two million francs due
her father from the public treasury. In Paris Madame de
Stael again resumed her salon, dispersed by Napoleon, but in
1817 she died without having been able to finish her two
works: Dix annees d'exil and Considerations sur la Revolution
frangaise. The last-named book together with Corinne and
De I'Allemagne are her three best productions.

Of the many salons scattered by the Revolution, the salon
of Madame Helvetius continued during the formation of the
different governments, and became the society of the ideolo-
gists,1 who exercised such an important role from 1792 to 1802,
and whose most celebrated expounders were Condorcet, Saint-
Lambert, Destut de Tracy,2 Garat, Volney. Napoleon was
antagonistic to their doctrine and denounced them as im-
practical theorists.3

After the Revolution other salons were again formed, but
with the new political and literary conditions, their influence
was never again so great. The most important were those of

1 Followers of ideology, a mental philosophy which derives knowledge
exclusively from sensation.

2 In Les Elements d'ideologie.

1 Mrs. Browning voices the same sentiments in Aurora Leigh :
" Some domestic ideologue who sits
And coldly chooses empire, where as well
He might republic ! "

368

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Madame de Girardin, Madame de Genlis, Madame de Beau-
mont, Madame de Custine, and Madame Recamier. Madame
de Beaumont 's salon called ' ' la petite societe, ' ' was frequented
by Joubert, the incomparable conversationalist, and Chateau-
briand who immortalized her in his Memoir es d'outre-tombe.
Madame de Custine and her Chateau de Fervacques also find
a place in this work as well as in Le Dernier Abencerage,
where the writer describes a poetic rendezvous with her at the
ruins of the Alhambra.

The salon of Madame Recamier was particularly cele-
brated. Although " la belle Juliette J>1 was not a literary
woman, she was a remarkable conversationalist with a marvel-
ous aptitude of comprehension. Her husband, a rich banker,
surrounded her with great luxury, and at her hotel in the
rue des Saint-Peres, her visitors moved in a " quasi-religious
awe of this rare flower of Paris." After the loss of her
husband 's fortune, Madame Recamier withdrew to the country
estate of Madame de Stael at Coppet. Later she retired to
the Abbaye-aux-Bois, a convent reserved not only for a reli-
gious order of nuns, but as a place of seclusion for the great
ladies of the world, who did not wish entirely to renounce
society. Here Madame Recamier continued her famous salons
at which shone Chateaubriand and Lamartine, and where
Victor Hugo made his debut as " 1'enfant sublime."

1 Madame Recamier was the model for the famous portrait by David in
the Louvre, which is, however, only a sketch, and for Canova's bust of
Beatrix. The Souvenirs et Correspondence tires des Papiers de Madame
Rtcamier, is the work of Madame Lenonnand, gathered from the papers
of Madame Recamier after her death.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ROMANTICISTS

THE Romantic movement found its best expression in four
great poets: Lamartine, " a revolutionist without knowing
it " ; Hugo, ' ' an exclusive and passionate genius, ' ' who under-
took to renew poetry and prose; de Musset, the poet of love
and fantasy; and de Vigny, who gave romantic poetry its
philosophical and symbolical form. After these great masters
came Auguste Barbier, Brizeux, Theophile Gautier, Sainte-
Beuve, and others.

Alphonse de Lamartine, born at Macon in 1790, was by
parentage Alphonse du Prat ; but he inherited the fortune and
the name of his maternal uncle, de Lamartine. He studied
at the Jesuit college in Belley, and completed his education
by travel. In 1814 he entered the King's Bodyguards as an
officer of cavalry ; then, after two years of service, he took to
traveling once more. In turn historian, publicist, diplomat,
orator, and politician, he was a participant in the stormy crises
of 1848, his name being a watchword of peace and security.
When it was learned that King Louis-Philippe had just left
Paris, he was put at the head of the Provisional Government,
and twelve departments named him representative of the
people. He owed this favor, on the one hand, to his modera-
tion, and, on the other, to his Histoire des Girondins, which
had appeared several years before, and had been read with
passionate eagerness. But his popularity was not of long
duration ; when a President of the Republic was to be chosen
he obtained only a small number of votes compared with the
support given him who was to become Napoleon III. So
Lamartine reentered private life.

His first literary work, published in 1820, was a volume
of poems entitled Meditations poetiques. This little collection,

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THE ROMANTICISTS

says a French critic, revealed to France a new poetry coming
from the heart in fine contrast with the factitious and myth-
ological lyrics of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau and of Lebrun. The
editor was persuaded that this book would find no buyers
because it " resembled nothing "; yet forty-five thousand
copies of it were sold in four years. Its vogue, however, was
ephemeral. In fact, not a few of Lamartine's productions
were written with the immediate purpose of paying his debts,
and are no longer read. Lamartine imitated Byron, but
Byron's power of passionate speech was beyond him: the
Dernier chant du pelerinage de Cliilde Harold, and the Chute
d'un ange, a fantastic poem in which the angel Cedar,
charged with watching over Dai'dha, a daughter of the earth,
is smitten with love to the point of renouncing his divine na-
ture and sharing his lot with her, are obviously weak in com-
parison with his models. Lamartine 's Chant du sacre, an ode
on the coronation of Charles X, won for him the cross of the
Legion of Honor. One of his best lyric productions is Le Lac,
written in memory of Elvira, the lost love of his youth. In
his Preludes he sings :

Un vent caresse ma lyre:
Est-ce 1'aile d'un oiseau?
Sa voix dans le cceur expire,
Et 1'humble corde soupire
Comme un flexible roseau.

The style of these poems is easy, abundant, brilliant; yet
wanting in precision and simplicity. Lamartine's rhymes are
often bad, his expressions vague, and his style meek and
melancholy. His great merits are his rich imagination, his
wonderfully melodious language, and his harmonious versifica-
tion; Lamartine was spoken of as the embodiment of poetry.
He himself expressed this idea :

Je chant ais, mes amis, comme 1'homme respire.1

In his Harmonies poetiques et religieuses he seems to have
attained the acme of his lyric talents. Lamartine's Jocelyn,

1 1 sang, my friends, as men breathe.
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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

a tragic poem in Alexandrine verse, is, according to Beranger,
the best work of French narrative poetry.

His novels are Les Confidences, Raphael, Genevieve, Le
Tailleur de pierre de Saint-Point, Graziella. The last-named
tale was inspired by his first love, Graziella, the daughter of a
fisherman of the Isle of Ischia. Among his historical works
are the Voyage en Orient and the Histoire des Girondins. His
literary criticisms embrace: Le Civilisateur and Portraits
litteraires — the Portraits including Bossuet, Cicero, Homer,
Socrates, Byron, Nelson. Lamartine, by way of national com-
pensation, received the interest on a fund of 500,000 francs,
which he enjoyed from 1867 up to the time of his death
in 1869.

VICTOR HUGO

Victor Hugo (born in 1820 at Besancon) was, at different
times, a royalist, like his mother ; a Bonapartist, like his father
(who was a general of the Republic) ; and a democratic
Republican at his death.

The works of Victor Hugo, as numerous as they are varied,
attest his great imagination and his extraordinary power of
thought. He is one of the first among the French lyric poets ;
it is, perhaps, through his poetry, rather than his prose, that
his fame will endure. He was a great colorist, a great
musician; his inspiration is true, profound, and powerful.
But sometimes his style lacks purity and elegance ; in general,
style with him is enriched too much at the expense of the
idea and feeling. There is an exuberance of words, figures,
images, found in no other French writer. In his preface to
Cromwell he says : ' ' Poetry has three ages, of which each cor-
responds to an epoch of society : the ode, the epic, the drama.
Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times are epic, modern
times are dramatic. The ode sings eternity, the epic solemnizes
history, the drama paints life. The characteristic of the first
poetry is naivete; of the second, simplicity; of the third,
truth. The ode lives on the ideal, the epic on the grandiose,
the drama on the real. This triple poetry flows from three
great sources: the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare." He adds:
' ' All that is in nature is in art ' ' ; which has led a French
critic to comment: " With this last principle, which ends in

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THE ROMANTICISTS

a gross realism, Victor Hugo could dare everything. He did
indeed dare everything: by the side of pathetic and sublime
scenes he placed enormous improbabilities, absurdities, hor-
rors ; he made to triumph on the stage the excesses of a brutal
and repulsive materialism. It is to be regretted that a talent
so beautiful and so great should have thus let itself be led
astray by the spirit of system, by a badly understood imita-
tion of Shakespeare. Without considering criticism (criticism
never affected Victor Hugo) and the protests of people of
taste, he persisted in his course; he fabricated successively
several dramas based on antithesis and lyrical tirade — dramas
which, galvanized by impossible passions, fell flat almost at
their origin despite the uproar of sectarians. His plays are
the least meritorious of his works — wanting in dramatic
development, and presenting showy characters without the
semblance of real life. In all his personages the studied use
of antithesis is too apparent : we see in Ruy Bias a valet and
a man of genius, hi Triboulet the sublime father who is also a
ridiculous fool, in Marion Delorme a courtesan who loves
purely. Of all his dramas, Hernani and Ruy Bias are the
only ones still performed, and even these are saved from
oblivion by virtue of the lyric passages. ' ' On the day of the
first performance of Hernani there was a veritable battle
on the floor of the Theatre-Francais between the partisans
of Racine, of the classic school, and the admirers of Victor
Hugo, of the Romantic School. Younger and more numerous,
Hugo's adherents prevailed, and the dramatic innovation
triumphed.1 His plays include: Hernani — the best of them;
Cromwell; Le Roi s'amuse; Lucrece Borgia; Ruy Bias;
Angelo; Marie Tudor; Marion Delorme; Les Burgraves — his
weakest drama.

HERNANI

The action is laid in Spain in the sixteenth century. Dona
Sol, the heroine, is courted by a king in disguise ; by Hernani,

1 Hugo has set forth the doctrines of the Romantic School in the preface
of his drama Cromwell. He defines Cromwell as "an Attila made by
Machiavelli."

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

a bandit; and by the duke, old Ruy Gomez, her uncle (in
whose house she is living), who wishes to make her his wife.
One evening, while she is awaiting the bandit, the king, Don
Carlos, arrives, and conceals himself in a closet, while Dona
Sol and Hernani converse. She is ready to leave everything
and follow Hernani into the mountains. But old Gomez comes
in, and is furious on seeing two men with his niece. The king,
who is Charles V, calms him by saying that he came to consult
him on a matter of importance: the Emperor Maximilian is
dead, he wishes .to get into line to succeed him, and he has
come to talk it over. As for Hernani, says the king, he is a
gentleman of his suite; and so he is allowed to go. This
bandit, Hernani, is a great personage, Don Juan of Aragon,
who, offended with the king, has gone to live as an outlaw in
the mountains. He returns the next day, in order to bear
away Dona Sol; but the king spoils it all, Hernani 's band is
dispersed and a price is set on his head. Dona Sol decides to
accept the hand of Ruy Gomez, but is resolved to stab herself
afterwards. In the midst of the preparations for the wedding
a pilgrim enters to whom Gomez extends hospitality ; but the
pilgrim, seeing what is going on, reveals his identity: he is
Hernani. Suddenly the sound of trumpets announces Don
Carlos, who is seeking the celebrated bandit ; but Ruy Gomez
will not violate the laws of hospitality, and refuses to deliver
his enemy. In retaliation, the King of Spain seizes Dona Sol.
On condition that he will aid Ruy Gomez to punish the king,
the bandit's life is spared. Hernani gives his horn to Ruy
Gomez, swearing on his honor to die on the day the duke
sounds the signal. The duke and the brigand join a con-
spiracy which is on the point of breaking forth against Don
Carlos in Aix-La-Chapelle. The conspirators meet at night
in the vaults of the ancient cathedral where the ashes of
Charlemagne rest. The king, who has gotten wind of the
enterprise, is there before them; and while awaiting their
coming he thinks of Charlemagne, and in a celebrated mono-
logue asks him for inspiration. The conspirators assemble,
and the king, hidden behind a pillar, hears them swear his
death. Hernani is designated by lot to assassinate him. Then
Don Carlos comes out of the shadow, and his soldiers sur-
round the conspirators, who would be lost if the tomb of

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Charlemagne had not inspired the king to generosity. He
pardons his enemies, restores Hernani's title, and yields Doila
Sol to him. The marriage is celebrated; but Gomez, still
jealous, sounds the horn in the midst of their happiness.
Hernani requests a respite ; the old man will not grant it. So
Hernani takes poison, and Dona Sol, seizing the vial from his
hand, drinks what remains, and they die together. Verdi's
opera Ernani is founded on Hugo's play. When it came
to be performed in France, in 1864, the characters were made
Italian and the title was changed to II Proscritto, at Victor
Hugo's request.

RUY BLAS

This is the only drama in which Hugo, acting on his own
theory, mingled the tragic and the comic. The action takes
place in Spain during its decadence. The queen, in her walk
through the park, finds each day a bouquet of flowers on a
bench — blue flowers from her native Germany, and very rare
in Spain. An unknown person brings her this gift at the
peril of his life; the walls are marked with fragments of his
lace cuffs. With the last bouquet is a note in which he com-
pares himself to a moth in love with a star. Several days
thereafter the queen discovers the unknown lover in a mes-
senger who has come to bring her a letter from the king
(Charles II), who is hunting, and does not appear in the
play. The queen has had cause to complain of the minister
of police, Don Salluste ; she has had him removed from office,
and exiled. He, in turn, has sworn to be avenged, and having
by chance learned the sentiments of his servant (the unknown
lover) for the queen, he manages to bring him in contact with
her. Don Salluste then has his own cousin, Don Cesar de
Bazan, taken by the police and conducted far from Spain;
and presents to the court his servant, Ruy Bias, under the
name of Don Cesar, returned from a long voyage. The queen
becomes the protectress of the spurious Don Cesar, and soon
makes him her premier, meanwhile remaining quite invisible
to him. Ruy Bias, now become a chancellor of the kingdom,
reforms abuses, and governs with a firm hand. The queen, at

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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

the end of a scene in which he has shown himself truly great,
can no longer conceal her love for him. But Don Salluste
suddenly appears ; he has returned to Madrid under a disguise,
and meets Ruy Bias in a mysterious house. Salluste indeed
wishes to lure the queen into this house, reveal to her the iden-
tity of Ruy Bias, and get her to leave Spain with him. The
queen falls into the trap; Don Salluste explains how he has
avenged himself, and what he expects of her. Ruy Bias there-
upon runs him through with a sword, and, taking poison, casts
himself at the feet of the queen, asking her grace and pardon.
The queen embraces him and avows her love for him; and
Ruy Bias dies, happy in this love.

In Le Roi s'amuse 1 — an historical drama introducing
Francis I and his fool Triboulet — Hugo displays his pre-
dilection for contrasting the beautiful with the ugly ; it proved
so repulsive to contemporary taste that only two performances
of it were permitted. Marie Tudor is also an " historical "
drama, setting forth the invented story of Mary's love for
an Italian, Fabiani, who in turn loves a peasant girl. He
is therefore arrested and condemned to death, but escapes.

Hugo's works in prose are very numerous, and quite in-
ferior to his poetry. His two great novels are Notre-Dame de
Paris and Les Miserables; the others are: I'Homme qui rit
(The Man who Laughs) ; Quatre-vingt-treize (Ninety-three) ;
Les Travaillcurs de la mer (The Toilers of the Sea) ; Claude
Gueux; Le dernier jour d'un condamne (The Last Day of a
Condemned Man) ; Han d'Islande; Bug Jar gal.

Notre-Dame de Paris is one of the most powerful and most
dramatic works of this type. It is a magnificent archaeological
study.2 The story opens with the representation of a ' ' mora-
lite " play; then he who is able to make the most hideous
grimace is elected pope of the fools. The successful candidate

1 The libretto of Verdi's opera, Rigoletto, is based on this play.

2 Robert Louis Stevenson writes: "The moral end that the author had
before him in the conception of Notre-Dame de Paris was to denounce the
external fatality that hangs over men in the form of foolish and inflexible
superstitions. To speak plainly, this moral purpose seems to have mighty
little to do with the artistic conception; moreover, it is very questionably
handled, while the artistic conception is developed with the most consum-
mate success."

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appears at a window ; it is Quasimodo who is chosen, and we
are astonished to see that this grimace we have applauded is
his natural expression. He is the bell ringer of Notre-Dame ;
hump-backed, lame, and deaf, but devoted to the man who
picked him up as a child on the steps of the cathedral, and
also to Esmeralda, who gave him water to drink one day when
he was dying of thirst in the pillory. Esmeralda is a beautiful
and wild young gypsy, who dances in public places, accom-
panied by a goat which she has taught to imitate certain great
persons and to write by means of movable letters. These
gifts cause her to be accused of sorcery and brought to the
scaffold. The dramatic interest consists in the circumstance
that Quasimodo is forced to sacrifice one of the two persons
to whom he is devoted, in order to save the other. Claude
Frollo (an archdeacon of the Church of Notre-Dame), his
foster-father, and the benefactor of his youth, persecutes
Esmeralda with offensive attentions. Kepulsed by the young
woman, his passion is changed to hate, and he obtains her
condemnation by his efforts. Although Quasimodo cannot
save her from punishment, he avenges her by hurling Claude
Frollo from the top of the tower of Notre-Dame on the very
place of Esmeralda 's execution. Two years later Quasimodo's
skeleton is found in Esmeralda 's grave.

Les Miserables, a social novel, has for its hero Jean Val-
jean, condemned to the convict prison for stealing bread, one
day when his sister's children were hungry. He is released
at an advanced age, and with a passport which, in setting
forth that he had been a felon, closes all doors to him. One
person, however, does not turn him away — the holy Bishop,
Myriel, worthy of the earliest period of Christianity. Valjean
repays the bishop 's charity by stealing his silver plate. When
arrested and brought before the bishop, the holy man declares
that his candlesticks were not stolen, but that he had given
them to the convict. Valjean is touched deeply; henceforth
he is an honest man. Through his energy and ability he
becomes rich, and occupies an honorable place in society, only
to learn that an innocent man is about to be condemned to
the galleys in his stead. So he makes himself known, and
once more becomes a convict. But he escapes, and returns to
Paris, in order to take care of a little girl, Cosette, whom a

377

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

wretched woman, on her deathbed in a hospital, had previously
confided to his care. After many efforts, he finds her, rears
her with loving care, and then disappears that she may wed
her lover, Harms, who, together with Cosette, forget Jean
Valjean in the egotism of their love.

Les Miserables is a sort of humanitarian novel, containing
very beautiful passages and also some unnecessary chapters.

Le Dernier jour d'un condamne is a psychological study
of the pangs of death. Claude Gueux is a realistic novel. In
the Travailleurs de la mer the terrible phenomena of the sea
constitute the principal interest. The chapter descriptive of
the fight with the devilfish is one of the most remarkable in
the book. The basis of the novel, L'Homme qui rit, is an
antithesis between moral beauty and physical deformity — a
characteristic trait of Hugo's style. Bug Jargal, wrhich deals
with the rebellion of the negroes of San Domingo against the
French, and Han d'Islande, whose hero is a man-eater, are
examples of the author's skill in treating the atrocious and the
horrible, a tendency which led Heine to call Hugo a " de-
formed genius. ' ' * Quatre-vingt-treize is an episode of the in-
surrection of the people of La Vendee and Brittany against
the First Republic.

Among Hugo 's critical works and pamphlets are Napoleon
le petit, a virulent attack on Napoleon III, in which he
describes the coup d'etat. The Histoire d'un crime is a de-
tailed recital of the coup d'etat of 1851.

Hugo's real glory lies in his gifts as a lyric poet. The
most of the poems in the Odes and Ballades are political and
royalist, but in the Ballades the author has also tried to give
us some idea of what the poems of the first troubadours were
like. Les Orientates is a collection of brilliant and magnifi-
cent verses. It opens with Le Feu du del, in which the poet
describes the terrible catastrophe that engulfed Sodom and
Gomorrah. A great number of the poems are related to the
Orient, Turkey, Greece — which was then struggling for its
independence — and to Moorish Spain. Les Tetes du Serail,
in this collection, describes the frightful dialogue of three

1 Renouvier declared that Hugo was "more craftsman than artist," and
Amiel called him "half genius, half charlatan."

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amputated heads — the heads of three Greek chieftains hung
on the gratings of a palace. But the gem of this volume is
Fantomes. In Les Feuilles d'autonme (Leaves of Autumn)
are collected many poems of melancholy charm. Les Chants
du Crepuscule (Songs of Twilight) are poems inspired by
this thought: " Everything to-day, in ideas as in things, in
society as in the individual, is at the stage of dawn." This
' ' stage of dawn ' ' was not only in society ; it was especially at
this time in the soul of the poet.

Les Ckdtiments (Chastisement) is a violent satire against
the men of the Second Empire, and Hugo's masterpiece as a
satirical poet. That part of the poem known as I' Expiation is
especially grand. The collection is divided into seven books,
the subjects of which indicate ironically the different moral
phases of the coup d'etat: " Society is Saved "; " Order is
Reestablished "; " The Family is Restored "; " Religion is
Glorified"; "Authority is Sacred"; "Stability is As-
sured " ; ' ' The Deliverers will Deliver Themselves. ' '

In L'Annee terrible the poet has pictured the stirring
events of "the terrible year," from the capitulation of Sedan
in 1870 until the end of July, 1871. La Legende des siecles
(The Legend of the Ages) is a magnificent and prodigious epic
written as a series of narratives which embrace all history
since creation. Among other poems are : Les Voix interieures
(Inner Voices) ; Les Rayons et les ombres (Rays and Shad-
ows) ; Les Contemplations; Les Religions et la Religion;
I'Ane (The Ass) ; Les Quatre vents de I'esprit (The Four
Winds of the Mind).

Hugo 's amazing egotism — a curious feature of his genius —
finds characteristic expression in his poem, Mon Enfance (My
Childhood). It is further illustrated in an anecdote related
by Mr. Henry "Wellington Wack : " In Les Travailleurs de la
mer you will find the picture of a Scotch Highlander playing
the bagpipe. Throughout the novel the author calls it a ' bug-
pipe.' Some of the people of Guernsey who sprang from the
North Country protested against the burlesque upon their
national musical instrument : ' There is no such word as bug-
pipe; it is bagpipe — bagpipe — bag — ! ' ' It is bugpipe,' re-
torted the poet, ' because I, Victor Hugo, poet, dramatist, peer
of France, etc., say so. What I write becomes right because I

379

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

write it. The howling hullabaloo looks like a bug, and I say
it shall be a bugpipe.' '

Some of Hugo 's poems are eloquent with his ineffable ten-
derness for children; there is nothing more charming of this
kind than his verses in Les Feuilles d'Automne:

II est si beau, 1'enfant, avec son doux sourire,
Sa douce bonne foi, sa voix qui veut tout dire;

Ses pleurs vite apaise's,
Laissant errer sa vue 4tonnee et ravie,
Offrant de toutes parts sa jeune ame a la vie

Et sa bouche aux baisers!

Hugo began to write poetry when he was fourteen years
old, and at the age of twenty-two he had received three prizes
from the Academy. The prix des jeux floraux of Toulouse
was awarded him for his odes: Les Vierges de Verdun, Le
Retablissement de la statue de Henri IV, and Mo'ise sur le Nil
(Moses on the Nile).

These odes also brought him material success in the form of
a pension of two thousand francs from Louis XVIII ; and this
enabled him to marry the playmate of his youth, Adele
Foucher. Mr. Henry Wellington Wack, in his Romance of
Victor Hugo and Juliette Drouet, writes : ' ' Madame Hugo died
in 1868, thirty-five years conscious of Juliette Drouet 's * part
in her husband's life. . . . That the legal wife should submit
to a mistress being installed in a house a few hundred feet from
her own, and even consent to visit her and permit her sons
and daughters to do so throughout a long term of years — all
as a concession to the waywardness of genius — is an example
of wifely self-abnegation which would have done credit to
Chaucer 's patient Griselda. He generally dined with Madame
Drouet, often with his sons and friends. The latter would
generally pay their respects to Madame Hugo first, then pass
on down the street to the livelier social condition of Madame
Drouet 's " petit salon." That strange and uncouth combina-
tion— the beautiful and the sublime hand in hand with the
ugly, the grotesque, the uncanny — thus characterizes not only
Hugo 's works, but his life as well. ' '

Honor and glory attended Hugo's career. In 1841 he was

1 Madame Drouet was an actress of mediocre talent.
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received as a member of the French Academy ; two years later
he was raised to the dignity of a peer of France. Then he
entered politics, and embraced the most radical ideas; his
name is identified with various episodes of the national history
of France. Under the Second Empire he was proscribed for
twenty years, and took refuge in Guernsey.

Hugo rose at three o 'clock in the morning and worked un-
til noon. The rest of the day was devoted to reading, corre-
spondence, and walks; he retired every evening at half past
nine. Of an iron constitution, he worked in an immense
glass cage, without blinds, which opened on the sparkling sea,
"with a broiling sun and a roar that would daze anyone else."
It is related of him that when in Guernsey he was accustomed
to bathe standing in a tub of water on the roof, near the
rain gutter, even in winter when it was freezing.

Greeted by Chateaubriand as the enfant sublime, his lit-
erary career endured for more than sixty years. He was the
soul of the Cenacle — a society of young poets whom love
of letters and a certain community of tastes and sentiment
brought into close relation. The Cenacle flourished about
1828, and among its members were A. de Vigny, Soumet,
Sainte-Beuve, Resseguier, Beauchesne, Guiraud, J. Lefevre,
E. Deschamps, and de Musset.

When Hugo died in 1885, at the age of eighty-three years,
the entire world took part in his funeral. Behind the poor
man 's hearse on which his coffin had been placed, more than a
hundred thousand persons followed. His body, after lying in
state under the Arc de Triomphe, which had been transformed
into a mortuary chamber, was transfered to the Pantheon.
All France mourned the death of its great poet.

DE MUSSET

After Villon, lyric poetry in France suffered an eclipse from
which it did not emerge for three hundred years : not until the
coming of Chenier and the poets of the early part of the nine-
teenth century. Of its three foremost modern interpreters,
Hugo is perhaps the most popular by virtue of his variety and
his command of words. In elevation of thought he is some-
what below Lamartine. Musset — who was not at first fully ap-
preciated by the French — surpasses him in lightness, elegance,

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THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

and facility. Rhythmically, says one critic, Musset is the most
fascinating poet of France — a poet who fills the soul with his
magical music. Musset was the poet par excellence of love
and passion. Sainte-Beuve in his Causeries du lundi writes:
' ' So long as there is a France and French poetry, the passions
of Musset will live as do the passions of Sappho."

Louis Charles Alfred de Musset, born at Paris in 1810, of a
family of men of letters, was a brilliant student, and com-
pleted his studies at the age of seventeen years, winning the
" grand prix " for philosophy. He tried his hand at several
careers — medicine, law, banking, painting, and in each case
unsuccessfully. In 1830, at the age of twenty years, he was
the youngest and one of the most brilliant among the habitues
of the Cenacle, in the salon of Victor Hugo. There one
evening, he won recognition as a poet by reading, before the
Cenacle, to its astonishment and delight, a poem in eulogy of
the Master, Victor Hugo. Happy and proud at being ap-
plauded, Alfred de Musset, until then idle and dissipated, set
seriously to work, and entered upon literary life by publish-
ing a volume of verse entitled Conies d'Espagne et d'ltalie.
This blustering and mocking collection of poems was followed
by Un Spectacle dans un fauteuil, dedicated to his friend
Tattel, containing a drama, La coupe et les levres (The Cup
and the Lips) ; a comedy, A quoi revent les jeunes files; an
elegy, Le Saule (The Willow) ; and a narrative poem, ATa-
mouna, very much in the style of Byron's Don Juan. His
four Nuits (Mai, Decembre, Aout, Octobre) are his master-
pieces— the most pathetic songs that love and suffering have
ever inspired.

Musset published in the Revue des Deux Mondes a series of
Nouvelles and stories which were later combined in two vol-
umes. The Poesies Nouvelles express all the melancholy, bit-
ter regret, and lost hopes that his heart contained. His grace-
ful Comedies et Proverbes are dramatic pieces which he had
not written to be performed. On ne badine pas avec V amour
(Trifle not with Love), perfect in conception and language,
and La Quenouille de Barberine (Barberine's Distaff) are
among the prettiest of his comedies.

The drama, Andre del Sarto, is a masterpiece of truth
and passion. One of the most celebrated Italian painters of

382

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the sixteenth century, Andre, has received from Francis I of
France considerable sums of money with which to buy pic-
tures in Italy. His young wife loves pleasure, and Andre
gratifies her cravings without counting the cost — promising
himself to make good by his work what she has spent. Con-
fronted with the loss of his honor, he discovers at the same
time that this woman, for whom he sacrificed so much, loves
another — his favorite pupil, whom he had brought up in his
own house. The sorrow of the old painter is the more poign-
ant inasmuch as he can blame neither his wife nor her lover,
who have not ceased to respect and venerate him. So he
leaves them free to marry by killing himself.

In prose de Musset wrote a great autobiographic novel,
La Confession d'un enfant du siecle, in which, under the
transparent veil of romance, he narrates the history of his
stormy youth. It is the record of the disenchantment he ex-
perienced during his breaking off with George Sand, who had
taken care of him when he was dangerously ill at Venice.
They soon separated, but the following year, in Paris, they
were again the best of friends. In his Lettres de Dupuis d
Cotonnet, Musset pokes fun at the Romanticists.

Musset 's is an original lyric talent compounded of strange-
ness and beauty. He set great store by his originality, and
indignantly denied that in Namouna he had imitated Byron.
In verses addressed to a friend he says:

On m'a dit Tan passe" que j'imitais Byron;

Vous, qui me connaissez, vous savez bien que non.

Je hais comme la mort 1'etat de plagiaire ;

Mon verre n'est pas grand, mais je bois dans mon verre.1
Again :

Byron, me direz-vous, m'a servi de modele.

Vous ne savez done pas qu'il imitait Pulci?

Rien n'appartient a rien, tout appartient a +ous.

C'est imiter quelqu'un que de planter des choux.2

1 It has been said to me in the past year that I imitate Byron; you who
know me, know well that it is not so. I have a mortal hatred for plagia-
rism; my glass is not large, but I drink in my (own) glass.
2 Byron, you tell me, has served me as a model.
Do you not know then that he imitated Pulci?
Nothing belongs to anybody, everything belongs to everybody.
Planting cabbages is imitating somebody.
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THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

This was a variation of Moliere's famous saying: " Je
prends mon bien on je le trouve " ("I take my own where I
find it ") ; nevertheless, we cannot help perceiving that his
Mardoche and Namouna are very much in the manner of
Byron.

Musset took especial delight in scoffing at the critics. In
his Ballade a la Lune, he commences by putting this strophe
before them to feed on :

C'e"tait dans la nuit brune;
Sur un clocher jauni

La lune
Comme un point sur un i . . . etc.

We can imagine the concert of critical declamation that
this violation of the classic rules provoked. The poet, who
had sought to mystify his critics, replied :

On dit, maitres, on dit qu' alors votre sourcil,
En voyant cette lune et ce point sur cet i,
Prit 1'effroyable aspect d'un accent circonflexe.1

A critic says of de Musset : ' ' He is an adorable and imper-
tinent frolicsome child; he defies, braves, and banters at the
same time the bewildered reader, who tires himself out trying
to follow him in his rapid and fantastic course.

Musset died in 1857, and was buried in the Pere-Lachaise,
where, according to his wish, expressed in his poem Lucie, a
weeping willow shades his grave : ' ' ou la bouche sourit et les
yeux vont pleurer," with the following stanza carved in the
stone :

Mes chers amis, quand je mourrai,

Plantez un saule au cimetitire.

J'aime son feuillage e'plore',

1 These verses and the preceding ones, rather too fantastic for success-
ful rendering into English, are easy to understand however: "The moon
standing out in the sky over a steeple and looking like a dot over an i";
and " 'tis said, my masters, that upon seeing that moon and that dot over
the i, your brows knit into a frightful circumflex accent."

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Sa p&leur m'en est douce et chere,
Et son ombre sera 16gere
A la terre ou je dormirai.

"Be assured," says Rocheblave, "that, on calm nights, the
somber yew tree of Nohant1 and the pale willow of Pere
Lachaise bend toward each other, attracted, as it were, by
instinct; and that, despite the distance, the same caressing
breeze comes to kiss them and murmur in their foliage fra-
ternal words. ' ' 2

ALFRED DE VIGNY

Count Alfred de Vigny was born of a patrician family, at
Loches in Touraine, in 1797. His father was an old cavalry
officer, distinguished in the Seven Years' War; his mother was
the daughter of an admiral. In his youth he was fed with
tales of battle and the sea. "I always loved to listen," he
has said, ' ' and when I was a child I early contracted the taste
for these things while seated on the wounded knees of my old
father. At first he told me stories of his campaigns, and, on
his lap, I found war seated beside me. He showed me war
in his wounds, war in the parchments and blazons of his
fathers, war in the great ancestral portraits of men in armor,
which were hung in Beauce in an old chateau."

Alfred de Vigny was a royal musketeer, then an infantry
captain; but, a stranger to every favor, he retired from the
service in 1828, to devote himself more freely to poetry. At
the age of twenty-six years, his beautiful imagination had al-
ready taken its poetic flight; and when Victor Hugo, at the
height of his glory, opened his salon to younger talent, de
Vigny was among the first in the Cenacle.

An adept in Romanticism, de Vigny approaches the classic
by his carefulness of form and the elegance of his verse; his

1 George Sand is buried there, with a yew tree on her tomb.

2 The best translation of lyric poetry is necessarily such a feeble render-
ing of the original that it is quite impossible for readers unfamiliar with
French to comprehend the poetic genius of Hugo and Musset. It may be
added that Taine, while admitting that France has produced no great poet,
puts Musset above Tennyson.

26 385

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

lyric poems have an exquisite grace and purity. He drew
his inspiration from the Bible, Dante, Milton, Klopstock and
Ossian. The majority of the poems in Poemes antiques et
modernes were written during the military life of the author,
and were reclassified as follows: Poemes mystiques: Mo'ise,
Eloa, Le Deluge; Poemes Antiques: La Fille de Jephte, La
femme adultere, Le Bain de Suzanne, La Dryade, La Som-
nambule, Le Bain d'une dame romaine, Symetha; Poemes
modernes: La Neige, Le Cor, Le Bal, Dolorida, Madame de
Soubise, La Prison, Le Trappiste, La Serieuse.

Mo'ise is the eternal complaint of genius misunderstood by
the masses :

Et, debout devant Dieu, Moise ayant pris place,
Dans le nuage obscur lui parlait face & face.
II disait au Seigneur: "Ne finirai-je pas?
Je vivrai done toujours puissant et solitaire,
Laissez-moi m'endormir du sommeil de la terre." '

La Neige is a tradition of the love of Eginhard and
Emma, daughter of Charlemagne. La Serieuse is a mag-
nificent picture of the poetic side of a sailor's life. The sub-
ject of Le Cor is the death of Roland at Roneevaux.

The scene of the longest of these poems, Eloa, ou la sceur
des anges, takes place in the celestial world, in the midst of
the stars and planets. Eloa is an angel, born of a tear which
Jesus shed at the death of Lazarus, and to which God gave
life. In converse with her sisters, she has heard the chief of
the fallen angels spoken of; and she feels that if she saw this
great culprit, she would console him, and lead him back to
righteousness. Tormented with this thought she wanders in
the solitudes of the sky. One day she meets an angel of bril-
liant beauty and seductive melancholy. They converse ; then,
seeing that she cannot save Satan, Eloa perishes with him.

In his last volume of verse, Les Destinees, de Vigny be-
comes the "poet of despair" — a great philosophic poet with

1 And, standing before God, Moses
Spoke to Him face to face in the dark cloud.
He said to the Lord: "Shall I not end?
Shall I then always live powerful and lonely?
Let me sleep the sleep of the earth."

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THE ROMANTICISTS

a marvelous gift for expressing the infinite sadness of life.
Among the most remarkable of the poems in Les Destinees
are: La mort du loup, La Flute, La Maison du berger, and
especially La Colere de Samson.

De Vigny 's novels are : Cinq-Mars, Stello, ou les consulta-
tions du docteur noir and Servitude et grandeur militaires.
Cinq-Mars is the best historical novel of French literature ; the
story runs thus: Louis XIII has left Richelieu as regent in
his stead. Richelieu had placed near the king, in order to
amuse his leisure and to watch him, the young and brilliant
Cinq-Mars, who, taking his position seriously, has sought to
displace Richelieu. The king and the king's brother, the Due
d 'Orleans, enter into the conspiracy with Cinq-Mars, who be-
lieves that to insure its success it is imperative to accept the
proffered aid of Spain. Richelieu is warned of the plan : the
king disavows his favorite, the Due d 'Orleans disavows his ac-
complice. Cinq-Mars is arrested with his friend, de Thou, and
Richelieu has them both put to death. Episodes of this novel
are the love of Cinq-Mars for Marie de Gonzague ; the case of
the priest, Urbain Grandier, who is put to death for having
bewitched the nuns of Loudun; and the incident known in
history as the Journee des Dupes (November 11, 1630) -1

In Stello the author seeks to prove that under all gov-
ernments the poet is ignored and deserted. He tells the story
of Gilbert, dying of poverty in the hospital, under an abso-
lute monarchy ; of Chatterton, poisoning himself from despair
and shame, under a constitutional monarchy; and, finally, of
Andre Chenier, conducted to the scaffold under the Republic.
Each of these recitals is a masterpiece of style; this novel is
the most popular work by de Vigny, and expresses the domi-
nant thought of his life.

Servitude et grandeur militaires is a collection of episodes
in which the author exalts military honor.

Attracted by the theater, de Vigny made a translation of
Othello; he wrote La Marechale d'Ancre, an original drama
on the death of Henry IV, and Chatterton — brilliant and

1 So called because the enemies of Richelieu, including Marie deMe'dicis,
mother of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, his wife, were completely duped
in their plans for the minister's downfall.

387

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

eloquent plays only in respect to their literary style. He
also wrote a comedy, Quitte pour la peur. His dramatic
masterpiece, Chatterton, was received with great favor. He
shows us Chatterton as the great unrecognized poet, strug-
gling against the sordid miseries of life. The youth has
taken lodgings in the house of a rich, coarse-mannered mer-
chant, who has married a melancholy and gracious young
woman, Kitty Bell. Always trembling before her husband,
but full of sympathy for all who suffer, Kitty pities this
young man whom all the world neglects, and this pity grad-
ually becomes love. The other characters are an old Quaker,
a friend of Chatterton ; Lord Talbot ; and the Lord Mayor of
London, who, in a fit of generosity, comes to offer the poet a
situation as valet de chambre. Chatterton, in despair, poisons
himself, and Kitty dies.

Alfred de Vigny was a great man, a great poet, a great
prose writer. During the last twenty-five years of his life he
condemned himself to complete silence — shut "in his ivory
tower," enveloped in mystery and solitude. The publication
of his posthumous work, Les Destinees, in which appears
a noble and great poetic talent, revealed in part the secret
sufferings, the bitterness, the disillusion and disappointment
of his life. He died in 1863.

Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843), one of the most brilliant
of the early nineteenth century Pleiade, attained the sort of
popularity that is perishable : his name, rather than his works,
survives. Influenced by the romantic school, he did not shake
off the traditions of classicism; and so he fell between two
stools. He caught the popular fancy with the political ideas
of the moment and with his skill in versification; but he is
no longer in fashion. After the Invasion (by the Allied
Armies), he wrote a number of songs, collected under the title
of Les Messeniennes,1 in which he bewailed the fate of
France, her king, and her people ; later he published a second
collection, with the same title, celebrating her victory: these
poems were enthusiastically received because they expressed
the national sentiment. The July Revolution inspired him to

1 It was Tyrtaeus, the elegiac poet, whose songs inspired the Spartans
to victory over the Messenians.

388

THE ROMANTICISTS

compose certain patriotic hymns: La Parisienne (the music
by Auber) with which he fondly hoped to replace the Mar-
seillaise; the Varsovienne, composed for the Poles ; La Bruxel-
laise, and others. His tragedies and comedies were staged
with a success in great measure attributable to the art of their
interpreters1— Mademoiselle Mars and the great Talma. The
tragedies include Louis XI — Delavigne's best play, which
proved to be one of the most suitable mediums for the acting
of the late Henry Irving; Les Vepres Siciliennes; Le Paria;
Marino Faliero; La fille du Cid; Les Enfants d'Edouard.
The comedies are: Les Comediens; L'Ecole des Vieillards; La
Princesse Aurelie. Later in life, Delavigne, with pecuniary
regard in view, collaborated with Scribe in Le Diplomate, La
Somnambule, and other plays.

GAUTIER

Theophile Gautier (1811-72), born at Tarbes in the south
of France, began his career as a painter — working for two
years in the studio of Rioult. He soon laid aside the brush
for the pen ; but in his exercise of the literary art he sought
and obtained effects which can be described only in terms
of his earlier profession; he was a great painter in words,
a wonderful artist in his employment of color. If his work
does not live it will not be for lack of literary form and
style, but because of its deficiency in ideas and soul. As a
journalist his contributions were of extraordinary worth; in
criticism and in descriptive writing for the press he revealed
exceptional gifts of insight and expression. Gautier was the
doughty champion who led the Romantic hosts in their battles
with the defenders of classicism; it was Le grand Theo, of
heroic bulk with flowing locks, red waistcoat, and pale-green
trousers, who dominated the claque (men hired to clap) that
rallied around Hugo at the memorable performance of
Hernani, on the 23d of February, 1830, and this red
waistcoat obtained for him immediately a proverbial reputa-
tion. In reference to it Gautier wrote : ' ' Yes, our poetry, our
books, our essays will be forgotten, but our red waistcoats will
endure. This spark will be seen long after everything which
concerned us will have become extinguished in darkness and

389

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

will distinguish us from our contemporaries whose works were
not better than ours, but who wore somber waistcoats."
Gautier, in turn, himself became the head of a new school,
and profoundly influenced the younger men who came after
him. In his poetry he expressed the transition from the per-
sonal and subjective attitude of the Romantic school to the
impersonal and objective verse of the Parnassiens, whose
apostle he was, and for whom his ~fimaux et Camees summed
up his conception of poetry — structure and color, according to
this creed, being more important than sentiment and ideas.
His earliest poems include the Comedie de la mort and Al~
bertus, in both of which the fantastic is pushed to an extreme.
In the preface to his very improper novel, Mademoiselle de
Maupin, Gautier enunciates principles antagonistic to ac-
cepted canons of morality and upholds the fundamental plea
of naturalism, ''Art for Art's sake." He defines himself as
" un homme pour qui le monde exterieur existe. " Gautier 's
Conies et Nouvelles resemble in style and sentiment the
Conies fantastiques of Hoffman,1 who, after Goethe, was the
German poet best known to French readers. The romantic
novel of adventure, Le Capitaine Fracasse (the source of
which is Searron's Roman Comique) is a vivid and brilliant
picture of the life of a company of strolling players in the
days of Louis XIII. Captain Fracasse is the name assumed
by the hero of the tale — de Sigognac, and it has become syn-
onymous with boaster and braggart. In Fortunio, Gautier has
described luxury in its extreme manifestations. Readers who
have little French can perhaps best get a glimpse of this
author's opulent style and sensuous imagery through the
medium of Lafcadio Hearn's sympathetic translations of cer-
tain short stories — a genre of which Gautier was a master.
His studies entitled Les Grotesques are singular examples of
his skill. Besides his literary and art criticisms for La Presse
and Le Figaro, a remarkable product of his journalistic ac-
tivity, should be mentioned his highly original articles descrip-
tive of his travels throughout Europe — in Spain, England,

1 Hoffman's fantastic tales are one of the few literary productions in
which the most bizarre imagination and the widest digressions from the
theme do not impair the merit of the work.

390

THE ROMANTICISTS

Belgium, Holland, Italy, Russia. His works comprise about
three hundred volumes. Gautier had merits and defects that
have given rise to no little confusion of critical opinion; but
his mastery of style and form, and his ability to make the
reader share in his power of visualization seem to establish his
fame as something more than ephemeral, and ought to have
secured for him, it would seem, a seat in the Academy.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE HUMORISTS AND THE SATIRISTS

A GROUP of writers who may be classed as the humorists
were Charles Nodier, Xavier de Maistre, Rudolph Toepffer,
and Alphonse Karr.

Charles NodiS- (1783-1844) had manifold talents. He
was a novelist, poet, historian, philologist, entomologist,
scholar, and journalist; and he diffused his gifts with the
greatest vivacity and intelligence. Louis XVIII appointed
him librarian of the Bibliotheque de 1 'Arsenal; and, at the
end of the year 1823, Nodier became for a time the center of
the literary movement which had taken the name of Roman-
ticism, his salon being the rendezvous of the Cenacle. Alfred
de Musset loved to recall those days to Nodier :

Lorsque rassembles sous ton aile paternelle,
Echappes de nos pensions

Nous dansions,
Gais comme 1'oiseau sur la branche,

Le dimanche,
Nous rendions parfois matinal

L'Arsenal!1

Nodier encouraged all these young and enthusiastic
writers by his example. He had written so much that he
himself did not know the names of all his works. What he
published was sufficient to make a library. Nodier was a bril-
liant stylist and a most successful writer of fantastic short
stories: Trilby, oil le lutin d'Argail, in which a little Scotch
imp is in love with Jeanne, the farmer's wife; Histoire d'un

1 Nodier's salon was called the Arsenal, name of the Bibliotheque de
I' Arsenal, of which he was the librarian.

392

THE HUMORISTS AND THE SATIRISTS

roi de Boheme et de sept chateaux, a quaint fantasy in the
manner of Sterne ; Mademoiselle de Marsau; Les quatre talis-
mans; La Neuvaine de la Chandeleur; Le Chien de Brisquet;
Smarra, ou les demons de la nuit. Among his other works
are: Le Dernier banquet des Girondins; Etudes sur la Revo-
lution frangaise; Jean Sbogar, the story of a robber chieftain
— copied after Schiller's Karl Moor. Nodier also wrote a
Dictionnaire des onomatopees de la langue frangaise, Melanges
tires d'une petite bibliotkeque, and a Dictionnaire universel
de la langue fran$aise.

Vapereau says: "Allowing for the publications inspired
by circumstances, and improvised under the influence of the
impressions or even of the interest of the moment, there re-
mains in the person of Charles Nodier one of the most charm-
ing and delicate of our story writers. He was a true chiseler
of the language, and his most whimsical works are those which
are the most carefully worked out. Open to the most diverse
influences, and suited to transmit them all, he represents very
well the convulsive epoch into which he was thrown, and is
one of the masters of his generation in literature. He has
the curious, mobile, capricious, humoristic spirit; he has the
love of paradox, and yet the feeling for regularity ; ardor yet
patience; the requisite reverence for the traditions of the
language and literature. An observer of the beginnings of
French Romanticism, he excites and encourages it, but does
not enter its ranks; he springs directly from those masters,
ancient or modern, national or foreign, who have united form
with the caprices of the imagination."

But Nodier lacked conception, seriousness, and force. For
him form was all; the graces of the language were his pas-
sion. Very well versed in the French language, he was an
excellent writer, and restored to current usage a number of
words fallen into desuetude at the end of the eighteenth
century. It is said that in order to improve his handwriting
he copied thrice the Gargantua and Pantagruel of Rabelais,
thus acquiring a command of sixteenth century words and
phrases which he put into circulation, greatly to the enrich-
ment of the language.

Count Xavier de Maistre was born in 1763 at Chambery,
Savoy, but lived most of his life in Russia. He wrote several

393

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

little works distinguished by naivete, grace, and simplicity.
The Voyage autour de ma ckambre has immortalized the name
of its author. This literary trifle, in the manner of Sterne,
abounds in delightful observations, expressed in a delicate,
lucid style. Since Hamilton * no foreigner had written French
with equal grace and lightness. He published also: L' Expe-
dition nocturne; Le Lepreux de la cite d'Aoste, an admirable
moral analysis ; Les Prisonniers du Caucase, in which are de-
scribed the adventures of an officer who succeeds, by dint of
bravery and skill, in escaping from the hands of the Tche-
tchenques; Prascovie, ou la jeune Siberienne, the story of a
young Siberian girl who came to St. Petersburg, alone and
on foot from Tobolsk, to ask for her father's pardon from the
Emperor Paul. De Maistre's complete works fill but one large
volume.

Rudolph Toepffer, born in Geneva, in 1799, was first intro-
duced to the French in a letter written by Xavier de Maistre,
commending him as a writer of his own school. Sainte-Beuve
pronounced Toepffer 's tale, Le Presbytere, a masterpiece;
this work along with the Bibliotheque de mon oncle, won him
recognition. La Traversce, L'Heritage, Eose et Gertrude —
collected under the title of Nouvelles genevoises — are all
charming reveries in which mirth and melancholy, didacticism
and ironical humor, are happily mingled. His Menus propos
d'un peintre genevois are humorous art talks. Toepffer was
an artist as well as a writer and a master at an excellent
school; and his illustrations for the Voyages en zigzag (de-
scriptive of summer journeys with his pupils) enhance the
pleasing quality of these narratives. His album of caricatures
with fantastic text attracted the attention of Goethe.

Alphonse Karr (born 1801), the humorist of the romantic
school, gained reputation as a satirist of society; in his de-
clining years he turned to the culture of flowers at Nice — de-
riving a respectable income from the sale of artistic bouquets.
Karr's first literary success was inspired by his emotions on
being jilted by his sweetheart, who had promised to wait un-

1 The French author, Count Anthony Hamilton, born in Ireland, son of
Sir George Hamilton, and brother-in-law of the Comte de Gramont, whose
Memoires he wrote.

394

THE HUMORISTS AND THE SATIRISTS

til he had made his fortune: his Sous les tilleuls — a poem
which he afterwards turned into prose — was his ironic answer
to her inconstancy. In other stories, too, he has drawn upon
his own life for "copy." The Chemin le plus court, which
proved very successful, sets forth the miseries of unhappy
marriage. His epistolary tale, Voyage autour de mon jardin,
is an engagingly humorous account of flowers and insects, in-
terleaved with stories grave and gay. Genevieve is his most
poetic work, and Fort en theme, the one by which he is perhaps
best known. The scenes of nearly all his tales are on the sea-
shore of Normandy. For several years he followed his pet
pursuit of social satirist in a very bright and readable
monthly journal, Les Guepes (The Wasps), of which he was
editor and publisher. It enjoyed a large circulation, and made
him many enemies.

•4 Beranger and Barbier, poets, and Courier, political
pamphleteer, were the most daring satirists of the age.

Beranger, the supreme chansonnier of France, though re-
garded as a classicist, found admirers among the adherents
of the Romantic school. He appealed not only to the popular
ear, but to poets as well. Heine adored him; Goethe knew
his songs by heart. " Wise and prudent like Franklin,"
remarks one critic, " amiable epicurean like Horace and La
Fontaine, Beranger lifted up the song to the dignity of the
ode." For fifteen years he tried his hand at all kinds of
poetry, from the idyl to the epic, before he discovered that
the chanson was his natural medium of expression. As he
himself says in his beautiful poem, La Vocation:

Jete sur cette boule
Laid, chdtif et souffrant:
Etouffe dans la foule
Faute d'etre assez grand;
Une plainte touchante
De ma bouche sortit.
Le bon Dieu me dit : " Chante,
Chante, pauvre petit!

His songs produced a more powerful effect than any
satirist in prose may hope to attain; for prose satire is read
by the few, whereas song ' ' is made for the masses, and, with

395

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

the aid of music and the refrain, it runs, it flies, it engraves
itself on the memories of all." In his refrains, Beranger
usually expresses the whole intent of his songs. They reflect
the life of the people :

Mes chansons c'est moi.

Le peuple c'est ma muse.1

Pierre Jean de Beranger, the son of an impoverished noble-
man, was born in Paris in 1780 at the house of his grand-
father, a poor tailor. In his youth he knew great misery, and
was educated chiefly by his own efforts. At last, in dire
distress, he sent a collection of poems to Lucien Bonaparte,
himself a poet and a patron of the arts. Bonaparte was de-
lighted with the poems, and yielded to Beranger his own
income of one thousand francs which he received as a mem-
ber of the French Academy. Later, Beranger also obtained a
small stipend as secretary of the University of Paris, and he
was thus enabled to pursue his vocation as poet. Le Roi
d'Yvetot, " who took pleasure for his code," established his
reputation, and thereafter his chansons became immensely
popular.-N:.His satirical songs of a political nature were written
chiefly during the Restoration, after the fall of Napoleon.
The songs of a social character composed prior to that period
embrace Man Habit (My Coat) ; Ma Vocation; Les Hiron-
delles (The Swallows), a favorite with the French soldiers in
Algiers ; Le Grenier ( The Garret) ; Le Dieu des bonnes gens;
Le vieux sergent; La Grand-Mere. Some of his love songs are
lewd and vulgar. His satirical songs include : Les En f ants de
la France; La Cocarde blanche (The White Cockade), di-
rected against the royalist banquet celebrating the anniversary
of the entry of the allied forces into Paris; Nabuchodonosor,
a formidable mockery of Louis XVIII; Le Marquis de Cara-
bas, and La Sainte-Alliance barbaresque.

Beranger was the most inspired of the panegyrists of
Napoleon I; he glorified the Petit Caporal in many songs,
and thus created a veritable Napoleon Cult. The titles of

1 My songs are myself.
The people, that's my muse.

396

THE HUMORISTS AND THE SATIRISTS

some of these famous chansons are : Les souvenirs du peuple;
Le cinq mai; 11 n'est pas mort; Le vieux drapeau (The oldi
flag) ; Les deux grenadiers. Perhaps the most touching of
them all is the one on the return of the exiled Napoleon to
France :

France adoree!

Douce contree!
Puissent'tes fils te revoir ainsi tous!

Enfin j 'arrive,

Et sur la rive
Je rends au ciel, je rends grace a genoux.

Beranger composed a bewildering variety of chansons.1
We mention a few more titles: Roger Bontemps; Jeanne la
Rousse (Red-haired Joan) ; Les Gueux (The Beggars) ; Les
Adieux de Marie Stuart; Le Juif -Errant (The Wandering
Jew) ; and finally La Sainte- Alliance, which begins with the
beautiful lines:

J'ai vu la Paix descendre sur la terre,

Semant de Tor, des fleurs et des epis.
L'air etait calme, et du dieu de la guerre

Elle 6touffait les foudres assoupis.
Ah! disait-elle, e"gaux par la vaillance,

Francais, Anglais, Beige, Russe ou Germain,
Peuples, formez une sainte alliance,

Et donnez-vous la main.

During the Restoration, Beranger attacked the policy of
the Bourbons, and worked assiduously for their downfall.
With this purpose he chose the greatest of all weapons, satire ;
for there are many who

Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne,
Are touched and shamed by ridicule alone.

For these attacks he was twice imprisoned and fined, once

1 At his death, in 1857, he left, in addition to his biography, some ninety
unpublished songs.

397

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

on account of the song, L'Enrhume, in which two dotted lines
were sufficient to convict him of lese-majeste :

Mais la Charte encor nous defend ;
Du roi c'est Timmortel enfant.
II 1'aime, ou le presume.

Amis, c'est la,
Oui, c'est cela,
C'est cela qui m'enrhume.

His last sentence of imprisonment was for nine months,
with the additional penalty of ten thousand francs' fine; but
this only seemed to heighten his popularity. His punishment
was transformed into a veritable triumph: the great men
of the day came to pay him homage in his prison; Victor
Hugo, Dumas, de Vigny, and his many more obscure admirers
sent him delicacies; the young people of France opened a
subscription which in a few days was sufficient to pay the
fine. His imprisonment, far from intimidating him, inspired
him to launch his bitterest satire against the enemy from
within his prison walls, and the people applauded his courage.

Beranger several times refused the offer of membership
in the French Academy. He seemed to prefer the atmosphere
of the Caveau, a Parisian literary and convivial club of which
Desaugiers was the president.1 The majority of French critics
do not acknowledge Beranger as a poet of the first rank; the
English critic, Saintsbury, is disposed to ridicule the critical
French attitude of grudging appreciation of Beranger. He
11 was not in the least a literary poet," says Professor Saints-
bury. ' ' But there is room in literature for other than merely
literary poets, and among these Beranger will always hold a
very high place." His songs thrilled the multitude, and for
many years after his death, in 1857, he was the idol of the
people, whose emotions he so characteristically expressed.

Paul-Louis Courier de Mere (1722-1825), the wittiest and

1 This club, founded in 1729 by Piron, the elder Cre'billon, Colle", and
others, was dissolved in 1739 and reorganized some twenty years later by
Pelletier, the younger Cre'billon, Marmontel, and their companions.

398

THE HUMORISTS AND THE SATIRISTS

most gifted prose writer and a defender of liberal ideas,
reached middle age before he discovered that he had a genius
for political satire. When this was fully established by his
Petition aux deux Chambres, descriptive of the crimes of the
' ' White Terror, " 1 he published pamphlet after pamphlet
against the government of the Restoration — pouring into the
wounds made by Beranger the salt of his own biting prose.
His style, of marvelous simplicity and directness, and glit-
tering with epigrams, was that of the Satire Menippee; he
had the wit of Rabelais, the irony of Junius. Courier had
served in the army under Napoleon, but during the Restora-
tion he resigned his commission to engage in farming on his
little estate at Veretz in Touraine. It was under the name of
Paul-Louis, vigneron (wine grower) that he issued his most
sensational pamphlet, the Simple Discours, in criticism of the
national project to present the Chateau de Chambord to the
Due de Bordeaux. The effect of Courier 's telling style is height-
ened by the form in which this pamphlet is cast — the author
representing himself ingenuously as a peasant arguing political
questions with his fellows. It cost Courier two months in jail
at Sainte-Pelagie, where he spent some happy days in company
with Beranger, composing another satire concerning the ex-
penses of his trial. His other productions of this kind in-
clude the famous Pamphlet des pamphlets and his Petition
a la Chambre des Deputes pour les villageois qu'on empeche de
danser. His immensely clever and popular letters embrace
the Lettre d M. Eenouard, on the subject of a mutilated manu-
script; the Conversation chez la duchesse d' Albany; and the
Aventure en Caldbre, comprised in a letter to Madame
Pigalle. Under the last of these titles is related the thrilling
adventures of himself and a companion housed overnight with
some peasants of a village in the kingdom of Naples : Courier
and his comrade are overcome with terror when their host, in
the middle of the night, ascends a ladder to their room, and,
with a large knife in his hand, stealthily approaches their bed
— in order to cut down a ham that happens to be hanging
above them.

1 The Terreur blanche was a term applied to the period of excesses com-
mitted by the Royalists during the first years of the Restoration.

399

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

It was the opinion of Sainte-Beuve that Courier would
endure as a rare and unique example in French literature.

Auguste Barbier (1805-82), a young poet of little repu-
tation, "awoke to find himself famous" with the publication
of his satires entitled lambes.1 These appeared in 1831, a
year after the July Revolution. Brilliant in rhetoric and
pungent with a satire worthy of Juvenal, the poems made a
tremendous sensation; nothing comparable to them had been
produced in France. The lambes were directed against Louis-
Philippe, and exposed the corruption and weakness of the
government. In all, there are nineteen of these poems. La
Curee satirizes the office-seeking courtiers who waxed rich
under the new government without having taken part in the
war. La Curee is a striking picture of the corruption of
Paris, Melpomene an eloquent censure of the debaucheries that
dishonored the theater at this time. In L'Idole, Barbier bit-
terly attacks Napoleon I upon the occasion of the erection of
his statue on the Colonne Vendome. He calls him a scourge
of God — a figure in striking contrast to the Napoleon defined
by most of the celebrated writers of the beginning of the cen-
tury. Barbier 's hatred of the emperor finds intense expres-
sion in these lines of L'Idole:

Eh bien! Dans tous ces jours d'abaissement, de peine,
Pour tous ces outrages sans nom,
Je n'ai jamais charge qu' un 6tre de ma haine. . . .
Sois maudit, 6 Napoleon!

Some of his other poems, notably II Pianto, in which he
bewails the political misfortunes of Italy, and Lazare, which
depicts the misery of the English people, contain beautiful
lines; but Barbier did not again attain the height of his
lambes, of which Nettement says : " Never had French poetry
shown that cynical boldness of representation and that brutal
energy of expression which live in this democratic maledic-
tion."

1 Iambics, a metrical form first employed in Greece as the verse most
appropriate to satire.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE MODERN NOVEL

THE astonishing growth of the novel in the nineteenth cen-
tury proceeded in a great measure from the desire of the
French people, weary of political strife, for some form of lit-
erary relaxation. The response to that desire found its first
expression in the portrayal of the ideal; this, in turn, led to
the study of morals and manners and an analysis of the human
heart: hence the novels of realism, of naturalism, and of
psychology. The surpassing exponent of idealistic fiction was
a woman — George Sand. She possessed a rich inventive fac-
ulty and keen powers of observation, and while her gift of
fancy conducted her into the realm of the ideal, she did not
fall into the exaggerations of the romantic school. A writer
of extraordinary powers, she had an innate love for nature
and humanity ; within her peculiar province she was a master
of French prose.

Aurore Dupin (George Sand) was born at Paris in 1804.
She was the great-granddaughter of Maurice de Saxe.1 On the
death of her father, the young Aurore, from the age of four
years, was brought up in the country, at the chateau of No-
hant, in Berri, by her grandmother, Madame Dupin de Fran-
cueil. Free from all constraint, and subject to no surveillance,
she divided her time between long trips in the fields and
the books which she chose for herself. When she was thirteen
years old, Madame Dupin de Francueil, frightened at the ig-

1 Maurice de Saxe, son of Augustus II and the Countess Konigsmarken,
left his country on account of a political quarrel; he served France and
became Marshal de Saxe. George Sand's father, Maurice Dupin,
served with distinction under the Republic and the Empire; her mother
was a woman inferior to him in position and intellect, but whom he married,
in spite of the lively opposition of his family.

27 401

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATUK

norance and rustic manners of her granddaughter, put her in
a convent in Paris, where she spent three years. Aurore en-
rolled herself in the company of certain boarders who were
called "the devils" — students who defied the authority of
the Sisters, and refused to work. At the end of a year, how-
ever, she became tired of "deviltry," and began to like the
pious exercises, and even entertained the idea of becoming a
nun ; but she left the convent after three years, and returned
to the Chateau of Nohant, where she resumed the wayward
habits of her childhood. Under her tutor's direction she
began to read the principal works of Mably, Locke, Bacon,
Montesquieu, J. J. Rousseau, Aristotle, Leibnitz, Pascal,
Montaigne; and to devour, without method, the poems of
Pope, Milton, Dante, Shakespeare, Byron. Her literary talent
proceeds from these authors ; personal inspiration has added to
it a stamp of originality. As her mind expanded, the freedom
of her tastes led her into eccentric ways; she began to dress
like a boy, with cloth trousers and leather gaiters, in order
to be able to ride with greater comfort. Her studies soon
took a turn as masculine as her pleasures; a young student
of medicine supplied her with human arms, heads and legs,
and for a long time she kept a skeleton in her room. Her ec-
centric charms, her mysterious studies, her merry, free, and
easy relations with young people, all this scandalized the in-
habitants of La Chatre, and bred the storm of calumnies
which was to break upon her later in life. When her grand-
mother died, Mademoiselle Dupin went to live with her moth-
er in Paris, where she suffered keenly from the social and in-
tellectual inferiority of her environment. She was soon mar-
ried to the baron Casimir Dudevant; but this union was not
happy, and she separated from him. Madame Dudevant, with
her husband's consent, lived sometimes in Paris with her
daughter, and sometimes at Nohant with her son; but her
means were very limited, and she had recourse to several ex-
pedients to increase her income. In order to economize, she
once more donned the male costume,1 in which she could

1 This so-called "male costume" is said to have consisted in a long coat
such as any woman might wear, hair cut short and a round felt hat which
gave her, at a distance, the appearance of a man.

402

THE MODERN NOVEL

mingle with the crowds who witnessed the presentation
of the first Romantic dramas, and in which she could
frequent the streets of the Latin quarter, at night,
together with its happy inhabitants. At this time
she was twenty-eight years old. At first she made trans-
lations; then she began to do portraits in crayon and in
water color. Finally, she tried literature, but met with little
encouragement: an old novelist, to whom she had been re-
ferred, told her dryly that a woman should not write. Balzac,
to whom she was introduced, paid no great attention to her
projects. Latouche gave her a place on the editorial staff of
Le Figaro, with indifferent results. It was then that she met,
in the offices of the newspaper, a young writer, Jules Sandeau,
who collaborated with her in a romance, Rose et Blanche,
under the pseudonym of ' ' Jules Sand. ' ' This was a success,
and an editor asked " Jules Sand " for a new novel. Madame
Dudevant submitted the manuscript of a novel which was hers
alone; but the publisher clung to the pseudonym in order to
assure the success of the book. Latouche arranged the diffi-
culty by bestowing on the authoress the name of Sand, with
the privilege of adding to it whatever name should please her ;
and so the novel, Indiana, was published under the name of
George Sand. It created a sensation even amid the victories
of Romanticism ; a new talent had appeared stamped with an
individual style and infused with idealism and feeling. In
Indiana she uttered a passionate protest against marriage as it
is contracted in a badly organized society. The story was a
popular success; and the same year saw the appearance of
Valentine, which contains touching situations and a delicate
analysis of character, and likewise attacks the institution of
marriage. Lelia, which is less a novel than a kind of philo-
sophic poem, was written in an hour of discouragement. After
her break with de Musset in Italy, George Sand published her
impressions of the journey in the Lettres d'un voyageur,
which made a great stir. Jacques, Andre, Le Secretaire in-
time, Leone Leoni, Mauprat, Lavinia, etc., are novels that be-
long to her initial period of productiveness — that of passion
in its first outbreak. Lelia dominates all her works of this
period, which ends with the Lettres d'un voyageur.

The second phase of George Sand 's genius and ideas is ex-

403

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

pressed in her activities during the succeeding eight years.
It is the period in which she entered into relations with emi-
nent men whose social and religious ideas she could adorn by
the marvelous power of her imagination and the eloquence
of her style . She, in her turn, became a philosopher and
socialist. Under the influence of the Abbe de Lamennais, who
had turned democrat, she wrote Le Compagnon du tour de
France (The Itinerant Journeyman), in which a workingman
marries a young girl of the aristocratic class. The ideas of
Pierre Leroux on the rebirth of souls in new bodies, for the
achievement of progress, recur in Spiridion and the Sept
cordes de la lyre. Le Meunier d'Angibault (The Miller of
Angibault) is almost communistic, and in the Peche de M.
Antoine (The Transgression of M. Antoine) George Sand
preaches the socialistic theories of Charles Fourier. Her
musical preoccupations and the mystic Czech compositions
of Chopin may be recognized in her novels Consuelo and La
Comtesse de Rudolstadt, which are full of surprise and mys-
tery. During her romantic liaison with Chopin, she took him
to Majorca for his health, and cared for him there. While in
Spain, she was often obliged to perform the most arduous
household duties, on account of the impossibility of obtaining
domestic service, such was the hatred of the Spaniards for the
French, kept alive by the clergy, because Napoleon had abol-
ished the Tribunal of the Inquisition in Spain.1 The revolu-
tion of 1848 interrupted her democratic and social propaganda

1 Napoleon suppressed feudal taxation and feudal rights. He held that
the priests ought to limit themselves to guiding the conscience, without
exercising any other jurisdiction. Conquered Spain was mute; but the
Inquisition answered with this catechism: Tell me, my child, who are you?
A Spaniard by the grace of God. — What do you mean by that? An honest
man. — Who is the enemy of our happiness? The Emperor of the French. —
How many natures has he? Two: the human nature and the diabolic. —
How many emperors of the French are there? One real emperor in three
deceptive persons. — What are their names? Napoleon, Murat, and
Manuel Godoy. — Which of the three is the most wicked? They are all
three equally so. — Whence does Napoleon come? From sin. — Whence is
Murat derived? From Napoleon. — Whence does Godoy originate? From
the formation of these two. — What is the spirit of the first? Pride and
despotism. — Of the second? Rapine and cruelty. — Of the third? Cupid-
ity, treason, and ignorance. — What are the French? Former Christians

404

THE MODERN NOVEL

arid George Sand wrote some political works. But this period
was of short duration, and she soon returned to her country
place at Nohant (Berri), and began to describe the customs
and the passions of the peasants who surrounded her. These
descriptions evidenced an incomparable freshness combined
with ease and simplicity of style, and revealed a genius for
the idyl. Here she wrote Francois le Champi (Francis the
Foundling) ; Les Maitres Sonneurs (The Master Bellringers) ;
La Petite Fadette, and La Mare au Didble (The Devil's Pool)
— a sketch of rural life that almost attains the simple beauty
of the antique.

George Sand, in ten volumes, told the story of her past
life in Histoire de ma vie and in Elle et Lui, a novel
which caused a stir because Lui was considered to be Al-
fred de Musset, who had just died. The brother of de Musset
replied in a cruel pamphlet : Lui et Elle. Madame Dudevant
now entered on the third period of her literary career. It
embraced: Jean de la Roche; Valvedre, the counterpart
of Indiana; La Confession d'une jeune file; Mademoiselle de
la Quintinie, a novel of religious discussion in reply to Sibylle
by Octave Feuillet; Malgre tout (In spite of all) ; Cesarine
Dietrich; S&ur Jeanne, etc. These novels are purely romantic.

The best drama by George Sand is the Marquis de Ville-
mer, which she drew from her novel of the same name. Her
other plays include Claudie; La Petite Fadette; Le Manage
de Victorine; Les Beaux Messieurs de Boisdore. During the
last years of her life she gave another proof of her versatility
in the pleasing fairy tales, La Eeine Coax and Le Nuage Rose
(The Pink Cloud). Her old age was very peaceful and
happy. She was of an amiable, optimistic nature, incapable
of meanness, always protecting the weak and needy. She died
in 1876 at her castle of Nohant, known to the people far and
wide as la l>onne dame de Nohant. A fine statue of George
Sand, by Clesinger, decorates the entrance hall of the Theatre-
FranQais in Paris.

who have become heretics. — Is it a sin to put a Frenchman to death? No,
father, we win heaven by killing one of these dogs of heretics. — What
punishment does a Spaniard deserve who fails in this duty? Death and
the infamy of a traitor. — What will deliver us from our enemies? Con-
fidence in ourselves and in our arms.

405

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

George Sand's literary fertility is almost past belief. She
wrote eighty novels, twenty plays, ten volumes of the His-
toire de ma vie, the travels in Italy and Majorca, besides
dialogues, stories, society comedies. Yet in the forty-four
years of her literary life her powers did not deteriorate.

Apropos of the letters of de Musset and herself, George
Sand wrote to Sainte-Beuve : "A true story, which perhaps
masks the folly of one and the affection of the other — the
folly of both, if you wish ; but nothing odious or cowardly in
our hearts, nothing which might stain sincere souls."

She wrote to de Musset : ' ' Ascend to God on the rays of
your genius, and send your muse to earth to tell men the
mysteries of love and faith."

Musset wrote to her : ' ' Be a brother, my great and good
George. You have made a man of a child ; where would I be
without you, my love? Look where you took me, and where
you left me. How you took me by the hand to replace me
on my path. . . . Think of that; I have but you."

Jules Sandeau (1811-83), who began by collaborating
with George Sand, is the author of some twenty novels of
provincial life, wholesome in theme and treatment, and dra-
matic in structure. It was from one of these that the ad-
mirable comedy, Le Gendre de Monsieur Poirier, was adapted
by Augier. The greater number of Sandeau 's novels ap-
peared originally in the Revue des Deux-Mondes and other
periodicals; among them are: Mademoiselle de la Seigliere,
Valcreuse, Madame de Sommerville, Le Docteur Herbaut,
Catherine, La Maison de Penarvan. Sandeau became a mem-
ber of the Academy in 1858.

Dumas pere, Sue, and Soulie were the principal repre-
sentatives of those Romanticists, called " les violents," whose
special achievement was dramatic effect and the portrayal
of exaggerated passion.

Alexandre Dumas, the elder, is without doubt the most
productive of modern novelists; he is also celebrated as a
dramatic author. Born in 1803 at Villers-Cotterets, he was
the son of a general of the Republic, and the grandson of
a negress. His preliminary education was very incomplete.
When he came to Paris at the age of twenty to seek his for-
tune, he made application to General Foy, then a member of

406

THE MODERN NOVEL

the Chamber of Deputies. The general questioned him con-
cerning his abilities, and the conversation was pretty much as
follows: " First, I must know for what you are fitted."
" Oh, not for very much! " — " Well, what do you know?
A little mathematics? " "No, General."—" You have, at
least, some notion of geometry and physics? " " No, General."
— " You know Latin and Greek? " " Very little."—" Then
perhaps you have some knowledge of bookkeeping? " " Not
the least in the world." — " Give me your address," the Gen-
eral said, in desperation, " and I shall try to think of some-
thing for you to do." Dumas wrote his address. " We are
safe ! ' ' the general exclaimed, clapping his hands. ' ' You
write beautifully." So he got Dumas a clerkship, at twelve
hundred francs, in the house of the Duke of Orleans. Refer-
ring to this interview with General Foy, Dumas used to say :
" At each question, I felt the blood rushing to my head ; it was
the first time I had been put face to face with my ignorance. ' '

Conscious of his defective education, Dumas spent his
evenings in learning the dead languages, and in reading the
principal works of French literature. After three years of
arduous and persistent toil, he tried his hand as a writer by
publishing a volume of Nouvelles and several plays. His
first dramatic success was the performance, at the Theatre-
Francais, of his Henri III et sa cour, an historical drama
in prose. Its initial presentation was a literary event, as it
expressed a reaction against the classic traditions of the old
tragedy. Quite new to the French theater was his employ-
ment of historical personages, of scenes of brutal violence, of
the fashions and furnishings of the period represented in the
play. During the ensuing ten years he wrote twenty-two
dramas, mostly in five acts. Four were in verse ; one, in nine-
teen scenes, pictured the whole life of Napoleon I.

Among his dramatic works are : La Tour de Nesle; Richard
Darlington; Le Mari de la veuve; Teresa; Catherine Howard;
Caligula; Un Mariage sous Louis XV; Mademoiselle de Belle-
Isle; and Antony, his most brilliant success during this first
period of his productivity. The titular hero of Antony —
grave, mysterious, always armed with a poignard, always a
prey to his exalted sentiments — was accepted, for the moment,
as the type of fashionable youth. This Antony is a foundling

407

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

(but not a poverty-stricken foundling) who, on returning
from a journey, finds the woman he loves married to another.
He pursues her, compromises her honor, and ends by stabbing
her to save her reputation. In La Tour de Nesle, the in-
terest centers in a young man who succeeds in escaping from a
sack in which he was inclosed and thrown into the river. The
situations are theatrical, and disclose as the instigators of the
attempted murder, the wife and sisters-in-law of King Louis
X, "the Quarreler."

Dumas traveled for a time in foreign lands, and recorded
his impressions of these travels in Impressions de Voyage;
La Suisse; Au midi de la France; Les Bords du Bhin; I'ltalie;
I'Espagne; I'Afrlque; De Paris a Astrakan; Le Caucase.
But his fancy carried him too far ; and these tales of a traveler
cannot be taken seriously.

Dumas fairly flooded France and the rest of Europe with
his novels. Equipped with a boundless fancy, a fertile in-
vention, and a facility for the delineation of uncommon and
piquant situations and events, he fascinated the fiction read-
ers of all nations. Yet his novels are prolix, often contain-
ing explanatory passages of great length; were it not for his
magic in making the impossible plausible, and in throwing a
glamour over characters that bear little relation to life, his
tales would fall to the level of Miinchausen's. As R. L. Ste-
venson has aptly remarked: " The bony fist of the showman
visibly propels them, their bellies are stuffed with bran; and
yet we eagerly partake of their adventures." Most of these
novels first appeared in the feuilletons of the great Paris
dailies ; often Dumas published three or four of them at once
in as many different journals, so that at the end of the year
they filled fifty or sixty volumes. Their familiar titles in-
clude : Les Trois Mousquetaires; Vingt ans apres; Le Vicomte
de Bragelonne; 1 Le Comte de Monte-Cristo; La Eeine Margot;
Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge. Les Trois Mousquetaires and
Monte-Cristo contributed chiefly to the author's popularity
and fortune. Monte-Cristo especially has enjoyed a constant

1 Les Trois Mousquetaires, original edition, 1844, in eight volumes.
Vingt ans apres, original edition, 1845, in ten volumes. Le Vicomte de
Bragelonne, original edition, 1848-50, in twenty-six volumes.

408

THE MODERN NOVEL

vogue the world over, and is still devoured, even in the trans-
lated versions, by countless persons who read books only to
be amused. As for Les Trois Mousquetaires, who that reads
at all does not know D 'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis ?
These stories, with the others in the series, are pure tales of
adventure; whatever their faults, the author had a trick of
compelling the attention that none of his numerous imitators
has quite succeeded in acquiring. Altogether, the novels of
Dumas brought him an income of nearly two hundred
thousand francs, which was quickly consumed in ostenta-
tious follies. His chateau of Monte-Cristo cost him fabulous
sums; he spent money without reckoning. Hence he had to
write continuously; and he wrote too much: that was his
mistake and the source of his faults. He abused his life
and his robust constitution, and left nothing of very high
value. Often his novels, after appearing first as feuilletons
and then in book form, were cut up into scenes and staged as
interminable dramas. One of them, Monte-Cristo, was pro-
longed through two evenings.

Dumas drew liberally upon French history, and, though he
did not pretend to adhere to historical facts, many ill-ad-
vised readers have gone to his pages for instruction. The his-
torical novel, it is perhaps needless to say, is more likely to
confuse than to assist the student of epochs gone by; in the
case of Dumas it is not even germane to literature. In his
Memoires d'un Medecin he has given us a portrait of the char-
latan Cagliostro, together with the story of Marie- Antoinette 's
famous necklace. A royalist novel, Le Chevalier de Maison-
Rouge, supplied the Revolution of 1848 with its republican
song, Mourir pour la patrie! — which has become a second
Marseillaise. This revolution, of which Dumas was a warm
partisan, wrecked his fortune. In 1860 he took part in the
expedition of Garibaldi, and was present at the battles he
described. In the midst of his travels he did not cease to have
his drama played, and to publish novels in feuilleton and in
book form. To cap his activities, he wrote an amusing and
useful work on cooking.

Our astonishment at seeing such a prodigious number of
works — often three or four at a time — issue from the brain
of a single man is modified when his method is explained.

409

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

The secret was disclosed during the progress of a lawsuit
against two Parisian journals which he had agreed to supply
with stories. It transpired that he was not the sole author of
his tales, but that he employed anonymous collaborators or
secretaries, whose writings he recast. Dumas defended his
course in this respect by saying that he relied on his assistants
only for the rough sketch of the work, to which he himself
gave the finishing touches. E. de Mirecourt exposed him in
his pamphlets, Le Mercantilisme litteraire, and Fabnque de
Romans: Maison Dumas et Compagnie. It was facetiously
remarked that no one had ever read Dumas 's entire works —
not even Dumas himself. Indeed, Dumas is reported as saying
of a book which bears his name : ' ' I signed it, but I have not
read it." There have likewise been revelations of audacious
plagiarisms of works by Schiller, Sir Walter Scott, Chateau-
briand, and others. But Dumas justified himself on the theory
that " the man of genius does not steal, but conquers." And
after all the Les Trois Mousquetaires remains one of the most
popular works in the literature of all nations.

Frederic Soulie is the author of some thirty sensational
novels. A characteristic product of his gloomy imagination
is his Memoires du diable, in which Satan, disclosing the secrets
of men 's lives, reveals the vices of those reputed virtuous, and
the virtues of those reputed vicious. Of his plays, La Closerie
des Genets 11846) conveys a faithful picture of Breton
customs. \i>u.»L l/Sryi *- %A%f4$liwW*r'Uw pVjfiSl

Marie Joseph Sue \ 1.804-57), best known as Eugene Sue
— a pen name borrowed from his sponsor, Prince Beauharnais
— f was also a contributor of the^ feuilleton novel. Hejtried the
practice of medicine with indifferent success, toyecHFor a time
with art, and for six years found employment as a surgeon in
the navy. Sue's own father, before him, was a simple ship's
doctor. Yet the author of Le Juif Errant (The Wandering
Jew) , who took to novel writing almost by accident, could not
at first forget that his patroness was the Empress Josephine.
Some of his earlier works — Arthur, Mathilde, Le Marquis de
Letoriere — are imbued with the aristocratic spirit; they sig-
nalize, moreover, the triumph of evil. Later, he experienced
a change of heart, and became a social democrat. We note a
corresponding increase in his fortunes : to name one instance,

410

Le Juif Errant (1845) alone brought him two hundred thou-
sand francs. The imaginative qualities of this tale have given
it a certain vitality ; though in its grotesque exaggerations, in
order to support his anti- Jesuitical thesis, the author's imag-
ination outran his art. His Les Mysteres de Paris (1843) —
an offense to common sense and sound moral sentiment — ap-
peared, curiously enough, in the dignified Journal des Debats,
and was devoured alike by persons of high and low degree..——
Three prolific writers who have met with great pecuniary
success are Paul de Kock (1794-1871), who reveled in
descriptions of the seamy side of lower middle-class life
in Paris; Hector Malot, whose Sans famille circulated
throughout Europe; and Georges Ohnet. The last-named
novelist (born in Paris, 1848) is what our American pub-
lishers would call a " best seller." His popularity, extend-
ing to Germany, and emphasized by the dramatization of
his fictions, has long been a thorn in the side of French literary
critics. Jules Lemaitre remarks : " II a 1 'elegance des chromo-
lithographes, la noblesse des sujets de pendule, les effets de
cuisse des cabotins, le sentimentalisme des romances ' ' * — damn-
ing specifications of literary infamy which lose their flavor in
an English translation. Meanwhile, Le Maitre de forges
thrives on Lemaitre 's excoriation with 250,000 copies sold;
while Serge Panine; Lise Fleuron; La Comtesse Sarah, and

I Le Docteur Rameau have all helped toward enriching their

< author. $yffrt4^^(/*^^

The great popularity in Franc! of Le Roman d'un Jeune
> Homme Pauvre, by Octave Feuilleii (1821-90), has not served

foi to strengthen him in the esteem of nis more critical country-
men; just as in our own country its repute as a classic for
young ladies has perhaps distracted attention from Feuillet's
more robust productions. The favor, still enjoyed, among
French women by this optimistic romancier mondain is
not without warrant. Feuillet knew fashionable society, and
recorded his observations of it in a good and facile literary
style. He had, moreover, his moments of power. His works

1 " He has the elegance of a chromolithograph, the nobleness of a figure
on a (French) clock, the poses of a cheap actor, the mawkishness of senti-
mental songs."

411

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

include Scenes et Comedies, patterned after Musset; Dalila;
Le Pour et le Centre; Sibylle — to which George Sand replied
with Mademoiselle de La Quintinie. In two of his later and
better novels — Julia de Trec&ur and M. de Camors — he leans
to realism.

Joseph Xavier Saintine (1798-1865), whose real name was
Boniface, earned the croix d'honneur and the Montyon prize
of three thousand francs with his novel, Picciola — the story
of a prisoner who found comfort in fostering a flower blossom-
ing in a crevice of his cell. He collaborated with Scribe in
some two hundred plays.

Henri Monnier (1799-1877), who, in the domain of carica-
ture and satire, wielded the pen and brush with equal facility,
is remembered as the creator of the celebrated Joseph Prud-
homme (Memoir es de M. Joseph Prudhomme) — the modern
type of a self-satisfied nonentity ; pompous, arrogant, trite, and
vulgar of speech. Monnier 's Scenes Populaires contain true
and witty pictures of Parisian life.

Edmond About (1828-85), novelist, playwright, and
journalist, has been called the greatest blagueur of modern
times. He studied archaeology in Athens, and upon his return
to France published La Grece contemporaine, a satire on the
morals and manners of the Greeks — followed, a year later,
by his best novel, Le Roi des montagnes, in which he de-
scribed with infinite drollery the banditti of modern Greece.
L'Homme a I'oreille cassee; Tolla; Le Nez d'un notaire, are
among his other novels. His dramatic pieces, most of which
were included in the collection, Theatre impossible, are of no
great consequence. He was a brilliant journalist, and founded,
with Sarcey, Le XlXme Siecle — the most humorous French

\journal of the period. \^

Emile Erckmann (born 1822) and Alexandre Chatrian
A (1826-90), collaborators under the name of Erckmann-
Chatrian, deserve passing mention for their novels of the
Revolutionary and first Napoleonic period — including Madame
Therese and Le Consent de 1813 — in which they protested
against the horrors of war; and for their plays, including
L'Ami Fritz; Les Rantzau, and other adaptations from their
tales, chiefly concerned with Alsace.

Emile Souvestre (1806-36), whose Tin Philosophe sous les

412

. i

THE MODERN NOVEL

toils won him recognition from the Academy, has, in Lcs
derniers Bretons, his best novel, left us some delightful descrip-
tions of the legendary Armorica. His novels, written in a
graceful style and thoroughly wholesome, voiced a virile pro-
test against the greed and heartlessness of a time when the cry
was everywhere Enrichissez-vous!

Jules Verne (1828-1905) has happily commingled scientific
knowledge with the fancy of the novelist; and though his
works cannot be taken very seriously as literature, their in-
genuity, and their complete success within the intention of
the author, cannot be denied. Verne, it may be said, had the
scientific imagination. Employing this with no little skill,
and refraining from a too great distortion of fact, he succeeded
in anticipating some of our " modern improvements." A
multitude of young people have been vastly entertained, and
not unprofitably, by Le Voyage au centre de la terre; Cinq
semaines en ballon; Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours:
\DeJa terre a la lune} e£§l

Of Henry Greville (Madame Alice Durand), born in 1842,
and long a resident in Russia, it is perhaps sufficient to note
that she wrote a number of novels (Dosia; Suzanne; Cephise,
etc.), mostly concerned with Russian " high life," that were
accounted attractive in their day.

Victor Cherbuliez (1825-99), a Genevan by birth, and dis-
tantly related to J. J. Rousseau, brought back from the Orient
a fund of archaeological information which he put forth in
the form of novels — among them, A propos d'un cheval and
Un Cheval de Phidias. He also attempted a kind of philo-
sophical fiction. His output was copious — a part of it of
considerable merit, but revealing a higher talent for disserta-
tion than for creation. Samuel Brohl et Cie; Le Roman d'une
Honnete Femme; La Bete; Le Comte Kostia, are character-
istic. Cherbuliez was elected a member of the Academy in
1881.

Andre Theuriet (born at Marly, 1833, died 1907) pub-
lished in 1867 a volume of poems, Le Chemin du bois, for
which the Academy bestowed upon him the Vitel prize.
Twenty years later he became an Academician. Theuriet lived
in the country for upward of thirty years, and it is the coun-
try that inspired not only his poems, but the numerous novels

413

which he began to write when he was approaching middle age.
These tales, written in a melodious style, and portraying the
gentler emotions and aspects of rural life, are restful in the
reading. ' ' His novels in general, ' ' says a French critic, ' ' are
not founded on some complicated intrigue. They exhale the
sweet perfume of new hay and of ripe wheat ; they awaken in
the reader the memory of the mysterious life of the forest —
always the same and yet so variant with the change of the
hour and the season." Some of his principal novels are Toute
seule; Mademoiselle Guignon; Sauvageonne; Michel Ver-
neuil; Rose-Lise Chanteraine (1903).

In his discourse upon entering the Academy (in 1891 as
Feuillet's successor), Pierre Loti said that he belonged to no
school and knew little of the literature of the day. It is, in-
deed, apparent from his writings that Loti * — whose real name
is Julien Viaud — has no literary lineage, and that he stands
apart in the peculiar vehicle he has made his own. An exotic,
like Chateaubriand and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, his resem-
blance to these writers is otherwise remote. Born at Rochef ort
in 1850, he was for many years a naval officer, and gathered
at first hand, in foreign lands, the impressions he had so ex-
quisitely inscribed. His literary style is exceedingly simple
and direct, yet so delicate and elusive in the thought it conveys
that his stories lose much in the translation. Read in French,
his tales transport us to the scene of his selection ; and whether
we fall under the spell of his sensuous sentiment, or, with
Professor Saintsbury, find it somewhat " rancid," we cannot
escape the cobweb of illusion that he weaves about us. Loti's
heroines are, with one exception (Gaud, in Pecheur d'Islande),
women of foreign climes: in Aziyade and Les Desenchantes,
the Turkish beauties screened with jaslimaJc and ferejeh;
in the captivating Japonneries d'automne and in Madame
Chrysantheme, the bewildering Japanese. How far this
Frenchman has succeeded where so many writers have failed,
in exploring the field of Nippon, may perhaps in some measure
be inferred from the comment of Laf cadio Hearn, contained in
a letter published by Mr. Osman Edwards :

1 His companions nicknamed him thus because of his modesty; the
Indian flower hides its head under its leaves.

414

THE MODERN NOVEL

" There is not much heart in Loti; but there is a fine
brain; and there is a nervous system so extraordinary that
it forces imagination back to the conditions of old Greek life,
when men had senses more perfect than now. Very possibly
this Julien Viaud has in his veins the old blood of Magna
Graecia. No other literary man living sees and hears and
smells and thrills so finely as he. ... As for what he says of
the Japanese women, it is perfectly impeccably accurate so
far as it consists of a record of observations of senses. Loti's
senses can never err any more than the film on a photographic
plate with a sensitivity of one hundred. But he keeps to sur-
faces; his life is surfaces. Almost in the way that some
creatures have their skeletons outside of themselves instead
of inside, so his plexuses of feeling are. What the finer
nature of the Japanese woman is, no man has told. Those
who know cannot tell : it would be too much like writing
of the sweetness of one's own sister or mother. One must
leave it in sacred silence — with a prayer to all the gods."

Loti 's Ramuntcho is a tragic love idyl suggested to him by
his long sojourn in the Basque country. L'Exilee contains a
charming description of Venice. In L'Inde sans les Anglais
he has dwelt upon those Oriental religions which seem to have
turned him from his own faith. Man frere Yves, in which a
tipsy sailor marries a girl in every port where his ship touches,
and Pecheur d'Islande, the pathetic tale of a Breton fisherman
sent to Iceland, are wonderful tales of the sea.

Anatole Thibaut (born in Paris, 1844), better known as
Anatole France, is the son of a bookseller, and, when still a
very young man, began to lay the foundation of his abundant
literary knowledge by browsing among the bookshops. In
the '60's we find him associated as a poet with the Parnas-
siens. Thereafter he developed a prose style of marvelous
finish and lucidity, and, both as critic and novelist, has es-
tablished himself among the foremost modern writers of
France. He was for a long time an idealist drawing upon
the past for his themes; but, latterly, the life of to-day has
engaged his subtle and ironic turn of mind, with the result
that as a realist he is second to none. Anatole France is first
of all a critic. As he says himself in the Preface to his articles
collected under the title of La Vie litteraire, criticism is the

415

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

latest of all literary forms, and will ultimately absorb them
all. Hence his novels are, not only in the author's attitude
but in their actual form, more akin to criticism than to fiction
as we ordinarily understand it. This applies to one of his
most notable novels, the artistic and admirable La Rotisserie
de la Reine Pedauque, in which he has evoked the philo-
sophical and libertine spirit of eighteenth-century Paris.
Frankly subjective as a critic, he has in his novel Le Crime de
Sylvestre Bonnard, sketched a portrait of himself. In Thais
he has given his irony full play in a pyschological study of
the early Christians of Thebes. Le Mannequin d 'osier is a
piquantly satirical exposition of the France of to-day; L'Orme
du Mail, a running fire of ironical and witty comment, be-
longs to the same category. Crainquebille, the simple but
dramatic story of a wretched huckster of carrots and cabbages,
was staged with great success at the Theatre Antoine.

The polymorphous and gifted Jules Lemaitre (born in
1853) is a bit of a poet, a playwright of some pretensions, a
writer of agreeable tales, and, above all, an immensely clever
critic of literature and the drama. His acute and lively Les
Contemporains (containing his celebrated depreciation of
Georges Ohnet) and the Impressions de theatre are widely
quoted, and somewhat variously estimated in respect to their
value as permanent critical contributions. Among his collected
tales — characterized by daintiness and delicacy — are Serenus,
the history of a martyr; Dix contes; Myrrha; Conies d'au-
jourd'hui. He has written a rather remarkable novel, Les
Rois. " This writer, Lemaitre," says Gaston Deschamps, " is,
I believe, with Anatole France, that one among our elders who
knows best the resources and mischievous tricks of the French
language."

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE REALISTIC NOVEL,

ROMANTICISM ' ' having been consumed by its own flames, ' '
a reaction took place which soon led to realism, by which
is understood the endeavor to portray life — people, manners,
conversation — in its everyday aspects, and with a photo-
graphic accuracy of detail. The master of this new school was
Balzac ; its other chief representatives were Me'rimee, Stendhal,
Flaubert, the Goncourts, and Daudet.

Honore de Balzac, born at Tours in 1799, was a brilliant
and very fertile novelist. Vapereau tells us that at five years
of age he read the Scriptures, and lost himself with delight in
their mysterious depths. All books that fell into his hands
he devoured in a wink. Often at dawn he set out, laden with
books, with a piece of bread in his pocket, and went into the
woods, where he read until nightfall. At the College de
Vendome, which he entered at an early age, he continued to
give himself up to this passion ; he made it a point to incur the
punishment of solitary confinement in one of the college rooms,
in order that he might pursue his reading free from distrac-
tions and interruption. Endowed with a prodigious memory,
he retained everything: places, names, faces, the most unim-
portant things. Disquieting mental phenomena for a time
arrested the overactivity of his youthful brain. In the chaos
produced by a myriad of ideas, reason was suddenly threat-
ened with eclipse; and it became necessary to suspend his
studies temporarily. Nevertheless, at eighteen, he had already
taken his degree of bachelor of letters, and was at the same
time pursuing a course in the Law School of the Sorbonne
and of the College de France. The father left his son to his
own resources, because he had wished to make an attorney of
him, and young Honore refused absolutely to become one, al-
28 417

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

though he was clerk in a notary 's office for about three years.
Entering without means into the life of Paris, the young man
installed himself in a garret, and began to write with eager-
ness in the midst of his privations. He published several
mediocre novels,1 and attempted playwriting, but without
success; his toil did not even procure him food. So he bor-
rowed some money from a friend, and speedily lost it in a
printing enterprise. Finally, after ten years, during which
he did not let himself be discouraged, he achieved glory. The
success of Les Chouans 2 showed him that he could depict only
contemporary institutions and customs; and from that time
on he devoted himself entirely to this field, choosing preferably
exceptional lives, observing the least explored quarters of
Paris and the provincial cities, and bringing from these a
curious new world filled with moral infirmities, incomplete
beings, degraded and abandoned types.

In his Breton novel, Les Chouans, he was under the in-
fluence of Scott and Cooper. But he came into his own with
the publication of La Peau de Chagrin — that curious philo-
sophic study which forms the first of the psychologic trilogy
completed with Louis Lambert and Seraphita, whose heroine,
a disciple of the celebrated Swedish mystic, Swedenborg, tells
what she has seen in heaven and hell.

Balzac had the habit of locking himself up in his room,
and spending days and nights in unceasing labor, attired in a
Dominican's gown. It was his peculiarity to write with the
aid of a lamp, even in broad day. He retired early, rose
to work at one o'clock in the night, and took strong coffee
to keep himself awake and excite his imagination. In six years
he published more than sixty volumes, of which several are
masterpieces. His eccentric method of composition proved too
expensive for his publishers to bear. He would make a rough
sketch of a novel, and send it to the printer ; and this process
he would repeat a dozen, even twenty, times, until the book
was finished.3

1 Under the pseudonym of Lord Roone.

1 Les Chouans first appeared under the name of Le Dernier Chouan.

' This method employed by Balzac is frequently commented upon as
extraordinary. But if we except his somewhat unusual number of re-
visions it does not essentially differ from the custom of certain of our

418

THE REALISTIC NOVEL

The aim of Balzac, in all his novels, was to depict every
possible phase of the life and manners of the French during
the first half of the nineteenth century ; and, in accord with an
all-embracing plan, he gave his works the general title of La
Comedie Humaine. The novels are classified in eight groups ;
the first part — Etudes de Moeurs (Studies of Manners) — em-
braces six series: first, Scenes de la vie privee, twenty-seven
short stories of which the most famous is La Femme de trente
ans. Second, Scenes de la vie de province, in which are found
his most agreeable works. Eugenie Grandet is a delicious and
original picture of provincial life. The heroine, Eugenie,
has become the personification of filial devotion, and her father
the type of the miser. In Le Lys dans la Vallee (The Lily of
the Valley) , one of the few productions of the author written
with delicacy of feeling, Balzac has described his childhood.
Third, Scenes de la vie parisienne. These include two of Bal-
zac's most famous novels: Le Pere Goriot, his masterpiece, an
exposition of the too indulgent father who sacrifices himself
for daughters unworthy of his kindness, and Cesar Birotteau
(Histoire de la grandeur et de la decadence de Cesar Birot-
teau, parfumeur), in which Balzac exhibits the type of the
good, but weak man, dazzled by fortune, and the victim of
false friends. Histoire des Treize and Les Parents pauvres
are of this series. Fourth, Scenes de la vie de campagne, in-
cluding Le Medecin de Campagne, one of his principal novels,
and Les Paysans. Fifth, Scenes de la vie politique. Sixth,
Scenes de la vie militaire, to which Les Chouans belongs. The
second part — Serie des etudes philosophiques — embraces La
Recherche de I'dbsolu, in which the alchemist, Balthazar Claes,
sacrifices his honor and his family to his search for the philoso-
pher's stone; together with the psychologic trilogy already
mentioned. The third part contains the Etudes analytiques
des grandes et des petites vniseres du manage.

Balzac also wrote for the theater, but only two of his plays

contemporary authors, whose rough drafts of a novel are typewritten
before elaboration. The typewriting machine had not been invented in
Balzac's time, and so he had recourse to the printer. It was a question of
the psychology of attention; and Balzac, who like his own Louis Lambert,
could take in a printed page at a glance, doubtless understood very well
the immense advantage of revising a manuscript in type.

419

were successful : La Mardtre and Mercadet le faiseur. Apart
from his novels, but not inferior in art to the very best of
them, are the gross Conies drolatiques — some thirty short tales
teeming with vitality and Rabelaisian humor, in which Balzac
brilliantly reproduced in mediaeval French the sensual manner
of the sixteenth century.

Balzac's faculty of poetic invention is greater than that
of any other French writer; but seldom do we find in any
one author so much that is admirable in close proximity with
the mediocre. Of this genius capable of " producing mon-
strosities as well as masterpieces, ' ' Mr. Henry James remarks :
" He is one of the finest artists and one of the coarsest.
Viewed in one way, his novels are ponderous, shapeless, over-
loaded; his touch is graceless, violent, barbarous. Viewed
in another, his tales have more color, more composition, more
grasp of the reader's attention than any other's. Balzac's
style would demand a chapter apart. It is the least simple
style, probably, that ever was written; it bristles, it cracks,
it swells and swaggers; but it is a perfect expression of the
man's genius. Like his genius, it contains a certain quantity
of everything, from immaculate gold to flagrant dross. He
was a very bad writer, and yet unquestionably he was a very
great writer."

Balzac was one of the founders of the Societe des gens de
lettres in France, of which he was called the " Grand
Marshal." In twenty years he published ninety-seven works.
M. Taine has thus described his method of composition : ' ' He
did not set out in the manner of artists, but in that of
scholars; instead of painting, he dissected. He did not begin
violently, at the first bound — as did Shakespeare and Saint-
Simon — in respect to the soul of his characters ; he turned them
about, patiently, deliberately, like an anatomist — lifting a
muscle, then a bone, then a vein, then a nerve, coming to the
brain only after having covered the whole system of organs
and functions. He described the city, then the street, and the
house. . . . There was in him something of the archaelogist,
the architect, the upholsterer, the tailor. . . . These different
factors of his powers of analysis came one after the other, each
one reading his report — the most detailed and exact possible ;
the artist listened scrupulously, laboriously, and his imagina-

420

THE REALISTIC NOVEL

tion was ignited only after he had accumulated as for a fire
this elaborate scaffolding of paper scraps. . . . From this
source arose several defects and several merits : in many places
he fatigues many people. . . . What is worse, the book be-
comes obscure ; a description is not a painting . . . the enu-
meration of all the stamens of a flower never puts in our minds
the image of a flower. . . . But also what power ! what promi-
nence and what relief this interminable enumeration gives to
the character! How real he becomes! His characters live;
they have entered into familiar conversation: Nucingen,
Rastignac, Philippe Bridau, Phellion, Bixiou, and a hundred
others, are men whom we have seen, whom we mention to
give the idea of a certain real person. ' ' Brunetiere tells us :
" As a writer Balzac1 is not of the ' first rank/ nor is he
even of those of whom it may be said that they receive from
heaven at their birth the gift of * style.' . . .

' ' In attempting to be witty,2 he often fails to exhibit good
taste; in like manner in attempting to display ' style,' he at
times forgets the proper meanings of words and often the
rules of grammar, and the very laws of the French syn-
tax." To the reproach of immorality in Balzac's novels,
Brunetiere 's apt defense is this : ' ' Ought a representation of
life be more moral than life itself ? For what reasons, in the
name of what principles? And if it were decided that it
ought to be, what then would become of that exactness of
reproduction without which there can be no representation
of life? "

Balzac tells us that he created about two thousand char-
acters; in this, his creative power, he has excelled even Dick-
ens and Turgenieff. Some French critics are inclined to regard
his portraits of women as his happiest characterizations, yet
it must be confessed that his conception of woman's part in
the terrestrial plan is not flattering, and his women sink into
insignificance when compared with such masterly creations

1 Honor? de Balzac by Ferdinand Brunetiere, translated by Prof. R. L.
Sanderson (French Men of Letters series).

2 "In the role of a man of wit," says Brunetieire, elsewhere, "Balzac is
downright unbearable, and even Victor Hugo's humor is no heavier than
Balzac's."

421

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

as le Pere Goriot, Vautrin, de Rastignac, le Pere Grandet,
Baron Hulot, etc. (except, however, such a woman as Madame
Marneffe) .

Money was the great aim of Balzac's life, and he was its
slave. This consuming ambition appears in his correspond-
ence, published in 1876, in two large volumes. The majority
of these letters covering a period of thirty years, are
addressed to his sister Madame de Surville ; to an Alien, Lettres
a VEtrangere (Eveline Rzewuska, Countess Hanska, later his
wife), and to others. To his sister's criticism on Eugenie
Grandet, he wrote : ' ' You tell me there are too many millions
in Eugenie Grandet. But, foolish one, since the story is true,
would you have me do better than truth ? ' " Balzac was cease-
lessly occupied with schemes to get rich quick. Having read
in Tacitus that the Romans had formerly exploited silver
mines in Sardinia, he borrowed a hundred thousand francs,
and left Paris on a prospecting trip. During the sea voyage,
he communicated his idea to the captain of the vessel, who
found it excellent. On his return to Paris with specimens of
ore containing a large amount of silver, he applied to the
government for authority to exploit these mines, only to learn
that the captain had anticipated him, and supplanted him
entirely. Then he formed the project of cultivating pine-
apples, estimating that it would yield him an income of two
hundred thousand francs ; but this tropical fruit does not ripen
in France. He also planned to go to Corsica to cultivate
opium. As further evidence of his failure in practical affairs,
he insisted on being his own architect for a house he was
building at Ville-d 'Avray, but when it was completed there
was no staircase.

Balzac finally achieved wealth, and was able to marry the
Countess Hanska, whom he had loved for many years. The
letters he wrote to her are among the best productions of
his pen. It is generally supposed to have been a love match,
for the countess made over her fortune to her children by
her first husband, but Brunetiere speaks skeptically of this
" love " match. Balzac writes of the countess in a letter
to his sister: " Napoleon said we pay for everything here
below ; nothing is stolen. It seems to me that I have paid very
little. Twenty-five years of toil and struggle are nothing as

422

THE REALISTIC NOVEL

the purchase money of an attachment so splendid, so radiant,
so complete. ' ' Soon afterwards a disease of the heart suddenly
cut short his career at the age of forty -nine.

Taine declared this master of the novel to be, after Shake-
speare and Saint-Simon, the greatest storehouse of documents
on human nature in existence. Sainte-Beuve writes: " How-
ever rapid and great the success of Balzac in France, it was
perhaps still greater and more undisputed throughout Europe.
The details that might be given in regard to this would seem
fabulous.1 . . .

Prosper Merimee (1803-70) — novelist, historian, play-
wright and scholar — was a sober, precise writer, of a pure and
vigorous style which is, however, sometimes hard and dry. At
the time of the struggle between the champions of the classic
and the romantic schools, he espoused Romanticism, and pub-
lished his first work, the Theatre de Clara Gazul, comedienne
espagnole. Merimee represented Clara Gazul as a real person
— a Spanish actress, persecuted by the clergy of her country,
and on the point of taking refuge in England. The air of
reality with which he invested her in this collection of plays
was heightened by the biographical account he supplied in
the form of a preface. Clara Gazul was a great success, and
everybody believed in the existence of the actress. Meri-
mee was even more successful in La Guzla — a collec-
tion of so-called Illyrian poems which he said he had
gathered in Dalmatia, and attributed to an imaginary
poet, Hyacinthe Maglonorvitch, whose history he duly set
forth.

In his Chronique du temps de Charles IX (from which the
opera of Les Huguenots is drawn) he pictured life and in-
stitutions during the religious wars. Among his novels and
shorter stories are found: La Jacquerie, an historical novel
describing the revolts of the French peasants against the
nobles in the fourteenth century ; Matteo Falcone, in which a
Corsican peasant kills his son because he betrayed a fugitive
concealed in his house; La Venus d'llle; Le Vase etrusque;
L'Enlevement de la redoute; Carmen, a pathetic and pic-

1 The lives of his heroes and heroines were emulated, rooms were furnished
a la Balzac, etc.

423

turesque novel, upon which Meilhac and Halevy drew for the
libretto of Bizet's opera.

Colombo, — Merimee's masterpiece — is a striking picture of
Corsican life : a story of the revenge pursued by Colomba the
heroine, with a bitter savagery not unmixed with a strange
piety. Walter Pater says: " It showed intellectual depth of
motive, firmly conceived structure, faultlessness of execution,
vindicating the function of the novel as no tawdry light lit-
erature, but in very deed a fine art." Merimee's stories leave
a sad impression, but they are considered perfect models of
narrative power.

Merimee was the head of a Department of the Ministry
for Foreign Affairs, and, owing to his knowledge of archaeol-
ogy, occupied the post of inspector of historical monuments.
During his stay in Spain he was received by Madame de
Monti jo, mother of the future Empress Eugenie; and this
friendship afterwards gained him admission to the intimate
circle at the Tuileries. Much valuable •information respecting
the court life of Napoleon III is contained in Merimee's
Lettres a une Inconnue — a series of letters addressed to
Mademoiselle Jenny Dacquin during a period of thirty years.
His Lettres a une autre Inconnue, addressed to the Countess
Przedrzerska, cover a period of three years.

Marie-Henri Beyle (1783-1842), who took the pseudonym
of Stendhal from the birthplace of the German scientist
Winckelmann, whom he greatly admired, was a writer of
great power and originality, and exercised a marked in-
fluence on the later writers of the naturalistic school. Zola
called him ' ' the father of us all " ; Balzac proclaimed his
genius ; Merimee, incomparably his superior in style, was in a
measure his pupil; Bourget's indebtedness is obvious. Yet
he wrote abominably, and it was not till long after his death
that literary criticism awoke to his importance. " I will not
say he writes badly," says Faguet, " but that he does not
write at all. He regards neither form nor method. He drafts,
he never writes. Nevertheless, he is a great novelist."
Stendhal himself has remarked, with more truth and less pose
than his autobiographical notes commonly reveal, that he
set about writing as he would smoke a cigar. His indif-
ference to literary style — singular failing for a Frenchman —

424

THE REALISTIC NOVEL

blinded Victor Hugo to his merits. "Is he still alive? "
asked the author of Les Miser ables. " No? That is unfor-
tunate, because I should have requested you to tell him that
I shall wait to read his works until he writes French. ' ' Hugo
was not the only one who waited, in another sense. Sten-
dhal himself prophesied in a letter to Balzac in 1840 that his
books would not be read till about 1880, and the prophecy
came to pass.

Stendhal, whose idol was Napoleon, served in the com-
missary department of the army during the Napoleonic cam-
paigns; he was present at the battle of Jena, and wrote, as
an eyewitness, a description of the burning of Moscow. His
life, indeed, was by no means eventless ; he knew war, and he
suffered the emotions of love in a series of amatory ex-
periences which seem to have yielded him more literary
" copy " than contentment. He appears to have craved ex-
citement with an expectation that outran reality. M. Rod tells
us that he displayed great coolness and courage during his
first battle beneath the fort of Bard, and that when the fight
was done he asked himself in all sincerity, " Is this all? "
Subtle and artificial, Stendhal was essentially a psychologist,
but his analytical penetration overlooked everything which
did not pertain to the intellect or to passion. He loved
mystery, so that real facts concerning his character have only
gradually come out; both the man and his works afford too
many complexities for brief exposition. Stendhal traveled
extensively, and was well acquainted with English literature.
He lived much of the time in Paris, but his heart was in
Italy, where he served as consul in Civita Vecchia. It was
characteristic of him that he wrote his own epitaph, describ-
ing himself as a Milanese, and caused it to be engraved on
his tombstone : ' ' Qui giace Arrigo Beyle, Milanese. Scrisse,
Amo, Visse." (" Here lies Henri Beyle, Milanese. He wrote,
loved, lived.")

Of Stendhal's novels, La Chartreuse de Parme (immortal-
ized by its description of the battle of Waterloo) and Le
Rouge et le Noir are generally regarded as his most important
fiction, and as having paved the way for the French psychol-
ogists of our own time. The Chartreuse de Parme, which, in-
Balzac's opinion, might have been written by Machiavelli had

425

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

he lived in exile in the nineteenth century, describes the in-
trigues of Italian court life. Its exaggerated and sensational
plot suggests the novel of adventure ; its merit lies in Stendhal 's
extraordinary power of analysis. Le Rouge et le Noir indicates
in its title the red trappings of the soldier, the black frock of
the priest. Stendhal as a youth was educated by priests,
whom he disliked and who misunderstood him, and in this
tale he has ironically exhibited the clergy, after the fall
of Napoleon, as paramount to the army. In the principal
character, Julien Sorel, the author has drawn a remarkable
portrait of an ambitious and egotistical man, of which Fer-
dinand Brunetiere writes : ' ' I should not like to decide
which is more to be marveled at, the incoherence of this
character or the conceit of the author. ... I will also take
note, if you like, of Stendhal's influence, but I will also re-
mark that his influence was not very deep, and that it finally
ended only in an immoderate glorification of the author of
La Chartreuse de Parme — that masterpiece of pretentious
tedium — rather than in any modification of the novel."

Stendhal's best work, perhaps, is his minutely analyti-
cal study, De I' Amour, which fell flat at the time of publica-
tion, but has come to be recognized as unsurpassed of its kind.
In his critical and biographical works on music and painting
he was an unblushing plagiarist. His " lives " of Haydn
and Mozart, published under the pen name of Bombet, were
coolly appropriated from Carpani ; in writing his De la pein-
ture en Italie he borrowed freely, and without credit from
Lanzi. But all that he did in this kind was interwoven with
his personality and his art as a raconteur. He was an ad-
mirable tourist, and his books of travel — including the
Promenades dans Rome and the Memoir es d'un Tourist e —
are methodless, but highly agreeable records of an accom-
plished dilettante. Stendhal's writings are not popular, but
at the present time he has become a cult with an increasing
circle of admirers. Prof. Benjamin W. Wells and Mr. James
Huneker, in this country, have gone far in supplying criti-
cal estimates of his works and analyses of his character ; while
in France his performance and his personality have variously
engaged the pens of Taine, Zola, Sainte-Beuve, Balzac, Bour-
get, and Edouard Rod.

426

THE REALISTIC NOVEL

If the deranged nervous system of Gustave Flaubert
(1821-80) had not belied a body that bespoke the robust
giant, he might have been the king of the Romanticists; for
romantic he was by inclination and equipment. Instead, he
wrote Madame Bovary — a dreary, sordid tragedy of provincial
life in Normandy. This story, which the critic, J. J. "Weiss,
classed among the " brutal literature," and upon which
Flaubert had spent six years, first appeared (1857) in the
Revue de Paris, and made such a scandal that author and
publisher were haled into court on a charge of immorality.
They were, however, acquitted; people were not long in per-
ceiving that Flaubert had an ethical, not a prurient, purpose,
in his exhibits of unpleasant subjects and characters, and that
an author of genius, with a marvelous style, had pointed the
way to a new literary method. Flaubert, however, though
he has been acclaimed the high priest of realism, does not
really belong to the school of disciples who afterwards hailed
him as master. His undying hatred of the bourgeoisie, his
revolt against the mediocrity of modern environment, his
overpowering sense of futility, led him far from the idols of
his youth — Hugo and Chateaubriand. His analytic mind
warred with his imagination. The malady (epilepsy) that
corroded his soul, that made his presentment of life, as he
himself has confessed, " a smell escaping from the vent of a
nauseating kitchen," influenced his intellect in the selection
of material from humanity's great storehouse. But the
poetic sentiment that linked him with the Romanticists was not
extinguished; and so he was a realist and a romanticist by
turns. In one of his romantic reactions he took refuge in
antiquity, and wrote Salammbo. For this he visited Tunis,
dwelt among the ruins of Carthage, ransacked a thousand
books, and then for six years toiled interminably — building,
polishing, recasting his sentences, till the ancient city and its
picturesque civilization were recreated in the glowing pages
of his fiction. Salammbo, sister of Hannibal, is the central
figure; the period is that immediately following the first
Punic war; the story relates to the uprising of the merce-
naries against Rome.

In his L'Education sentimentale (1869), Flaubert again
made provincial life the subject of his satirical scorn ; but this

427

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

time his literary skill did not redeem the depressing quali-
ties of his work. " To think," remarks Mr. Henry James,
" of the talent, the knowledge, the experience, the observa-
tion that he buried, without hope of resurrection, in these
pages, is to pass a comfortless half hour."

Flaubert's great fantastic tale, La Tentation de Saint-
Antoine, was begun in 1848, and finished in 1874. Its mel-
ancholy view of humanity throughout the ages, conveyed in
pictures of extraordinary power, is a document of all-em-
bracing pessimism. The same theme, with a contemporary
application, is worked out in the uncompleted Bouvard et
Pecuchet, which appeared in 1881. Trois conies (1877) con-
tains the three novelettes, Un c&ur simple, La legende de
Saint-Julien I'Hospitalier, and Herodias — condensed ex-
amples of Flaubert's manner in which some critics find the
most satisfactory expression of his powers.

Flaubert has been called the " writer of writers." His
works exercise a potent fascination for all persons susceptible
to the charm of literary style. His passion for the right word
— the one and only word that will express the author's
thought — became for him a kind of religion. He spent hours
on a single phrase until he had made it perfect in expres-
sion and harmony, and after he had written it he would read
it aloud. After visiting him on a certain occasion, Taine
wrote: " He declaimed and shouted so this night that his
mother could not sleep."

Flaubert had no love affairs — unless his epistolary rela-
tions with the poetess Mademoiselle Louise Colet, may be con-
sidered as such — and he remained a bachelor. Aside from six
years spent in Paris, he passed his life at Croisset, near Rouen,
his birthplace. He had private means, and was thus enabled to
produce slowly ; but the last ten years of his life, in addition
to misfortunes of friendship and the serious impairment of
his health, were passed in comparative poverty.

Those curious literary twins, the brothers Goncourt (Ed-
mond, 1822-96; Jules, 1830-70), afford a singular example
of collaboration: each took the same subject, and elaborated
it on the same plan, and then together they fused their sep-
arate productions into one work issued under both their names.
The literary method which they introduced, and applied to

428

THE REALISTIC NOVEL

the writing of history, as well as fiction, was microscopic in
observation, and infinitely laborious and tortured in the
record. They set themselves to interpreting modern life with
the most minute fidelity, and neither the clinic nor the gutter
escaped the zeal of their research. It was their theory that
no thing or person which they could not themselves examine
was material proper to fiction; the characters which they
transferred to the pages of a novel were real persons whose
speech, manners, and conduct they had studied at close range.
In the pursuit of the veritable, Edmond even made innumer-
able notes with the aid of an opera glass. Among the novels
which they jointly produced were S&ur Philomene (1861),
descriptive of the hospital life of a Sister of Charity ; Renee
Mauperin (1864), a study of social life; Germinie Lacerteux
(1865), a characteristic exposition of the morals of a domestic
servant who had been employed in the Goncourt household;
Manette Salomon (1867), in which is traced the degeneration
of an artist who married a model; Madame Gervaisais (1869),
a study in mysticism, in the preparation of which Edmond
devoured numerous works of religious devotion. These stories
are made up of sketches or impressions of particular episodes
or incidents in the lives of the characters, and contain bits of
vivid delineation after the manner of naturalism. As for the
style, it is I'ecriture artiste, abounding in coined words, and
in devious turns and twists of expression — in short, it is a
new kind of French. A critic of that nation has called their
novels romans particularistes, and has/ described their mode
of expression as " labored, inverted, unexpected, disconcert-
ing, always affected and seeming to strive to the utmost to
find all possible ways how not to be natural." (jElie dramas
produced jointly are Henriette Marechal and La Patrie en
danger, protestations against romanticism?)

The Goncourts made a specialty of the eighteenth century,
and their art criticisms and historical studies are of consider-
able value. Their passion for patient research and for docu-
mentary evidence is given a brilliant setting in Histoire de la
Societe fran$aise pendant la Revolution et sous le Directoire;
f La Revolution dans les moeurs; Portraits intimes du
XVI 1 1 erne Siecle; Les Mattresses de Louis XV; La femme
au XVllleme Siecle; L'Art au XVllleme Siecle, which con-

429

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

tains thirteen sketches of the principal painters and engravers

of the eighteenth century. The life of the great painter Wat-
teau, heretofore almost unknown, the incomparable Greuze,
Boucher, and Fragonard— ^Me petit poete de 1'art d 'aimer du
temps, le Cherubim de la peinture erotiguej? — are among
those who have found marvelous interpreters in these brilliant
chroniclers, the de Goncourts.

After Edmond had watched the lingering death of his
brother Jules, noted each symptom of mental decay, and
diagnosed the disease as " literature," he continued his
labors alone. f Between 1878 and 1884 he produced the nov-
els, La Fille Elisa, Les Freres Zemganno, La Faustin, Cherie;
and he lived to see a fungous growth of the naturalistic fiction
he had helped to nourish. From 1887 until his death he was
occupied with the nine volumes of Le Journal des Goncourt,
which is packed with information — more or less indiscreet —
concerning the lives of himself and his literary contempora-
ries. Among those who frequented his reunions were Daudet,
Zola, Paul Margueritte, Rosny, and Loti. In order that these
associations should not be broken up he bequeathed his prop-
erty— including the house at Auteuil and his valuable collec-
tions of bric-a-brac and Japanese art — to ten of his friends,
composing the Academic Goncourt.1 By the terms of his
will each of the ten was to receive a life annuity of six thou-
sand francs, to be forfeited, however, if he entered the French
Academy.

Alphonse Daudet (1840-97), one of the most engaging
figures in modern French literature, combined the imagi-
nation and fancy of an idyllic poet with the faculty of ob-
serving and recording modern life in some of its sinister as-
pects. The exuberance of the Provencal was tempered and
restrained by his Parisian environment and associations; his
impressionable temperament and his keen perception of hu-
man suffering were held in check by a sense of humor that,
in the main, saved him from errors of intolerance and dis-
proportion. Zola's description of his appearance in early

1 Daudet and Hennique were named as presidents. The other eight
members were the two Rosny brothers, Paul Margueritte, J. K. Huysmans,
Gustave Geoffrey, Lucien Descaves, filemir Bourges, Octave Mirbeau.

430

THE REALISTIC NOVEL

youth well accords with the mental pictures produced by a
perusal of his writings: " He had the delicate, high-strung
beauty of an Arabian horse. His hair was flowing, his silky
beard divided. He had large eyes, a narrow nose, an am-
orous mouth — a countenance illuminated with a tender light
that lent it individuality, and a smile that expressed intellect
and the joy of living. There was something in him of the
French urchin and something of the Oriental woman."

Daudet, who was born in Nimes, in Southern France, was
thrown on his own resources, through the failure of his
father, a silk manufacturer. Leaving school at Lyons when
he was sixteen, he undertook to make his living as an usher
at a small college in Alais ; but such was the drudgery of the
task, and so mean were the conditions imposed upon him,
that after a year of misery he fled to Paris, where his elder
brother, a journalist, had already preceded him. He reached
Paris half starved, and with but two francs in his pocket;
but he was not destined to great privations. His brother
succored him ; de Villemessant, the editor of Le Figaro, recog-
nized his talent at once, and made a place for him ; and at the
age of twenty he became one of the secretaries of his power-
ful patron, the Due de Moray, whom he afterwards lam-
pooned in Le Nabob (1878). At first he wrote poems, col-
lected in book form, in 1858, with the title Amoureuses.
This brought him some celebrity, but he did not long pursue
the vocation of poet. In these first years he essayed the
drama, to which he returned from time to time — always with
indifferent success; earned his bread in journalism; and pro-
duced some fairy tales, including Le Roman du Chaperon
rouge. Then in 1868-69 — having secluded himself for a
time in a ruined windmill in the country in Provence— there
appeared two works that made him famous. The first of
these, Le Petit Chose, was a pathetic leaf from his own life;
the second, Lettres de Mon Moulin (Letters from my Wind-
mill), a collection of tales and sketches — idyllic, realistic,
humorous, analytic — that marked him a master of the conte.
Daudet thereafter wrote many short stories — a vehicle in
which his varied powers are seen in miniature, and in which
he has not been surpassed by any of his contemporaries. With
the publication of Jack (1873) — a poignant story of an illegit-

431

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

imate child, that profoundly affected George Sand — he real-
ized that his metier was the novel. A year later, Fromont
jeune et Risler ame was a popular success, and revealed him
as a realistic novelist of penetration and power. Les Rois en
Exil (1879), the least popular of his works, is a satiric fling
at certain bankrupt kings who had sought the consolations of
life in Paris. Numa Roumestan (1882) is a wonderful study
(in which Gambetta sat for the portrait) of the lights and
shades of Provencal character. In some respects it is Daudet
at his best. In L'Evangeliste (1883) inspired, it is said, by
the visit to Paris, of the Salvation Army, he pictured, in
pessimistic strokes, the effect on a simple mind of misdirected
religious enthusiasm. Sapho (1884), dedicated " to my sons
when they are twenty," is a deterrent portrait, delicately
executed, of the French courtesan. Though L'Immortel
(1889), a bitter, personal satire on the French Academy and
its members, enjoyed a large sale, it is the least happy of
Daudet 's productions. It represents indeed, in an extreme
degree, his most serious sin against art — his tendency in his
novels to exhibit, under a too transparent disguise, the weak-
nesses of well-known persons in real life. It has also been held
against Daudet that he imitated Dickens and Thackeray rather
too closely. Like Dickens, he possessed the power of mingling
tears with laughter. It may further be remarked that the
sentimentalism of Dickens 's pathos is not that author's strong-
est point; and that those who love to dwell on these things
may find some instruction in comparing the death of Little
Nell with Daudet 's La Mort du Dauphin in the Lettres de
mon Moulin.

In Tartarin de Tarascon (1872) and its sequels — Tartarin
sur les Alpes (1886) and Port-Tarascon (1890) — Daudet em-
ployed his skill in satire and characterization, not in sounding
the depths of human weakness and suffering, but in holding
up to joyous ridicule the peculiar foibles of the Southern
Frenchman. As a piece of sustained humor, faithful to a
local type, yet ingrained with elements of world-wide truth,
there is nothing in modern French literature comparable to
Tartarin.

Daudet 's literary style is vivacious, expressive, and ap-
pealing. " II touche, il plait, il charme, il possede ce don d'at-

432

THE REALISTIC NOVEL

tendrir qui est d'un si grand prix," says Anatole France. He
wrote at a time when the public demanded realism, but he did
not adhere very closely to the tenets of Zola and his school,
with whom he was connected more by association than by
sympathy. As Augustin Filon has remarked: " He bor-
rowed from it all that was good and sound ; he accepted real-
ism as a practical method, not as an ultimate result and a con-
summation. Again, he was prevented from the danger of
going down too deep and too low into the unclean mysteries
of modern humanity, not so much perhaps by moral delicacy
as by an artistic distaste for all that is repulsive and un-
seemly."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE NATURALISTIC NOVEL
EMILE ZOLA

' ' NATURALISM, ' ' says a distinguished critic, ' ' is still real-
ism, but realism advertising scientific pretensions; or rather,
it is an attempt to assimilate the proceedings of literature
and the proceedings of science. It is, therefore, experimental.
In short, the naturalistic novelists have been attentive ob-
servers of modern life, but have unfortunately paid atten-
tion only to its obscenities."

The chief representative of this school is Emile Zola
(1840-1902), whose so-called scientific method — a libel on
the exact proceedings of true science — was especially directed
to expounding human motives and conduct with reference to
heredity. It is pretty generally agreed that he was the vic-
tim of his own theories — which he defined in his Roman ex-
perimental and in his Romanciers naturalistes — and that in
failing to demonstrate them in his own writings he also
failed to obtain the lasting recognition which he might other-
wise have achieved through a happier employment of his
powers. These consist of a prodigious talent for description
— particularly in descriptions of the crowd in action, of mobs
and men in battle ; of a gloomy imagination that impelled him
to write as a kind of epic poet masquerading as a scientific ob-
server; of a vigor in composition, a fecund creative ability.
His sternest critics admit the effectiveness of his imagery;
those whose stomachs revolt at his grossness, his vulgarity,
his deliberate delight in the nauseous, his lugging in of de-
pravity by the heels — point, nevertheless, if somewhat ironic-
ally, to a novelette, L'Attaque du Moulin, as a little classic
among battle pieces. Zola was either congenitally incapable
of seeing the true proportions by which a balance is struck

434

THE NATURALISTIC NOVEL

between the ugly and the base and the beautiful and noble
in life, or in his obsession by a theory he willfully blinded him-
self to the virtues and aspirations of humanity. He did not
even possess the saving grace of that immature conception of
character which sees people both as wholly good and wholly
bad — but saw them, for the most part, as simply vicious.
His style is lacking in lightness of touch, and unrelieved by
the play of humor and fancy; ponderous in manner, his mat-
ter when concerned with minute details is often tedious.

Zola was born in Paris, but spent his school days in Aix,
where his father, a Venetian engineer with a Greek strain,
was engaged in building a canal. On returning to Paris he
suffered great privations, spending at times an entire week
in bed because his clothing was in pawn. Finally, he ob-
tained employment as a clerk in the publishing house of
Hachette, and devoted his leisure hours to writing — his criti-
cisms on art and literature, contributed to the press, attract-
ing some attention. After the appearance of Mes Haines,
Mon Salon, and Edouard Manet (an appreciation of the im-
pressionistic painter), he produced a volume of short stories,
Conies a Ninon (1864) that are not inferior in literary value
to his later and more celebrated work, together with several
novels, of which Therese Raquin (1867) will bear compari-
son with some of his most vivid creations.

From 1871 until 1893 Zola occupied himself in writing the
series of twenty novels on which his reputation chiefly rests
— novels comprising a separate story in each volume, but
linked by the same purpose, and introducing members of the
same family under the general title, Les Rougon-Macquart,
histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le second Em-
pire. The Rougon-Maequart novels, in the order of their ap-
pearance, are : La Fortune des Rougon, La Curee, Le Venire
de Paris, La Conquete de Plassans, La Faute de I'Abbe
Mouret, Son Excellence Eugene Rougon, L'Assommoif, Une
Page d' Amour, Nana. Pot-Bouille, Au Bonheur des Dames,
La Joie de Vivre, Germinal, L'(Euvre, La Terre, Le Reve, La
Bete Humaine, L' Argent, La Debacle, Le Docteur Pascal.
This plan — pursued partly by the methods of naturalistic
observation, and also in a great measure by devouring books
on the subject in hand — was to demonstrate scientifically and

435

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

with reference to hereditary laws how a certain number of
people of the same origin would conduct themselves in dif-
ferent environments. With two exceptions, these novels are
repulsive and distorted pictures of life, often deformed, even
their most brilliant passages, by coarseness and bad taste.
' The gross and repulsive realism of La Terre, in which the
I French peasants are pictured as beasts, disgusted even some
of the author's adherents. These peasants depicted in their
bloody debauches, their ribaldry, their brutality, and with an
absolute lack of moral sense — that which in man is superior
to his nature — are unnatural distortions. Zola appears to
much better advantage in La Debacle, in which the fall of the
Napoleonic dynasty and the Franco-Prussian War are de-
scribed with great intensity and power. Le Reve and Une
Page d' Amour, in which Zola restrained his tendency to nas-
tiness, scarcely warrant the assumption that he might have
attained great celebrity by eschewing the gross and sensa-
tional. It is impossible here to treat in detail the defects of
his method. But take the one instance of La Bete Humaine.
John Addington Symonds, who discovered in Zola " an
idealist of the purest water " — that is to say, one who treated
reality from an ideal point of view, has remarked that this
novel of murder confounded with sexual desire " has all
those qualities of the constructive reason by which an ideal is
distinguished from the bare reality. Not only does it violate
our sense of probability in life that ten persons should be
either murderers or murdered, or both together, when all of
them exist in close relations through their common connec-
tions with one line of railway, but the short space of time re-
quired for the evolution ofvthis intricate drama of blood and
appetite is also unnatural.'*)

Zola's trilogy of tfie cities — Lourdes, Rome, Paris — has
not enhanced his reputation^^while Fecondite, Travail, Verite
— the three novels of the uncompleted Quatre Evangiles (Four
Gospels) — betray the decline of his imagination and descrip-
tive powers. 1 In 1898, four years before his death, he startled
France Tiy his daring and eloquent espousal of the cause of
Dreyfus — his famous letter in the Aurore, beginning " J 'ac-
cuse "... leading to an investigation and exposure of the
conspiracy against the long-suffering army officer.

436

THE NATURALISTIC NOVEL

Zola's novels have enjoyed a tremendous vogue, which
may in part be accounted for by their very deficiencies and
by the persistent and flamboyant advertising which attended
their production in France, where the unspeakable Nana,1 La
Debacle and La Terre were the most popular of all his works ;
but L'Assommoir and Germinal are considered his two mas-
terpieces. Zola was a tireless worker, and though his actual
daily output is said to have been but five hundred words, he
had no idle days, but lived up to the motto inscribed over the
hearth in his study at Medan : ' ' Nulla dies sine linea. ' ' He
repeatedly sought admission to the Academy, but in vain.
After his death France decreed the removal of his remains
from the Pere-Lachaise to the Pantheon, as a recognition of his
service in the cause of justice rather than of his literary
merits.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

Both in his person and in his work Guy de Maupassant
(1850-93) presents a paradox. Outwardly a ruddy ath-
lete, a powerful oarsman and swimmer, he was in reality a
neurasthenic; in his literary labors he found no joy, but
only, as he has himself confessed, a refuge from the emptiness
of life. We are told that he had no powers of invention, no
theories of art, that he was neither a thinker nor a reader —
even that he had no ideas. " He was born," says Faguet,
' ' to see and to paint that which he saw — and only that. But
he saw it with a fullness and a miraculous intensity of vision,
and he described it with a breadth and at the same time with
a precision which enraptured and stupefied." Maupassant,
in fact, as one critic has expressed it, was great because of his
very limitations : his fancy did not war with his habit of acute
observation; he made no excursions beyond his chosen prov-
ince of the actual; he did not concern himself with morals;
his outlook was objective always. After serving a literary
apprenticeship of seven years (1873-80) to Flaubert, who was
his godfather and an old friend of his mother, he put forth a
volume of poems (Des Vers) of marked originality. In the

1 One hundred and sixteen editions show its popularity.
437

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

same year he astonished the literary world with his story,
Boule de Suif, contributed to the Soirees de Medan—a, collec-
tion of short tales by Zola, J. K. Huysmans and others. This,
together with the two novels, Une Vie (1883) — a very painful
but convincing picture of an average woman's tragic life —
and Pierre et Jean (1888), are among the most remarkable
of his productions. Maupassant's fame rests principally on
his short tales, of which he composed over two hundred.
Very many of these are models of concision and style.
Some of the best of them, are stories of the peasants of Nor-
mandy, where he was born and reared; others are far afield,
covering a wide range of human emotion and experience. In
these, as in his novels, appears the pessimism that dominated
his attitude toward life, coupled with a licentiousness in
choice of subject that is redeemed only by an exquisite irony
and art. Some of his studies in the emotion of fear express
the vague dread that haunted him all his life. He especially
feared old age. He feared also that he might cease to enjoy
the sensuous things in life. The morbid and haunting fancies
of La Horla (1887) disclosed him in the clutch of the mental
malady that finally overpowered him; aggravated by drugs
and other excesses, his disease took the form of violent in-
sanity, and he perished very miserably. Among the titles of
his sixteen volumes of short stories are: La Maison Tellier;
Mademoiselle Fifi; M. Parent; Yvette; La Petite Rogue. His
play, Musotte (1891), written in collaboration with J. Nor-
mand, met with a considerable success.

J. K. HUYSMANS, MARCEL PROVOST

Among the talented young men who rallied around Zola
in his soirees of Medan * was a pupil who surpassed the pre-
ceptor in living up to the tenets of naturalism. To Joris
Karl Huysmans (1848-1907)— born in Paris, but of Flemish
origin — belongs the distinction of producing some of the
foulest works of fiction with which the French nation has
ever been afflicted. His earlier novels — Marthe, Les Soeurs

1 Zola's home near Paris.
438

THE NATURALISTIC NOVEL

Vatard, En menage — are of the slime, slimy, and may be dis-
missed as such. After the publication of Zola's La Terre
Huysmans developed a taste for the occultism run mad that
became at this time a fad of the Parisians, and in his novel,
La-Bos presented a repulsive study of Satanism, in which the
writer, Durtal, is so disgusted with the world that he turns to
the devil for consolation. It is a phenomenon of such tempera-
ments that after a time the pendulum swings the other way.
Huysmans, self-nauseated, found relief in mysticism. He
entered a Trappist monastery, and recorded his moral ex-
perience, with no little beauty and sincerity, in the pages of
En Route (1895). In the drift of the novel of to-day Huys-
mans declared that he saw only " anarchy and confusion."
As a matter of fact, a more wholesome and rational concep-
tion of life and letters had begun to make itself felt in the
reaction that always takes place when men grow weary of
wading in the mire.

Marcel Prevost (born 1862), whose Zolaesque tendencies
became diverted under the influence of Bourget, has wavered
between an ethical purpose and the inclination to rest content
with his searching and popular exposition of the feminine
heart. He is an accomplished writer of love stories, told with
great delicacy and ease of style. Chonchette (1888) estab-
lished his success, and his Lettres de femmes (1892) earned
him a reputation as one of the wittiest men of his period.
Demi-merges (1894) enjoyed a brief trans- Atlantic vogue.
His later novels, Frederique and Lea, rank with the best of
contemporary fiction, and disclose an advance in nobility of
sentiment and ideas.

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL
BOURGET, ROD. MARGUERITTE

The narrow views of the naturalists, their exaggerated
concern for externals and their coarseness of touch brought
about an inevitable reaction that expressed itself through
fiction in analysis of the mind and of sentiment, and, above
all, in the study of moral problems. This movement began
about 1885, when M. Brunetiere, in an article on the English
novelist, George Eliot, introduced to the French a realism
as exact as theirs, but informed with human sympathy and
a more refined method of ethical inquiry. At the same time
the materialism and determinism of Taine, whose philosophy
had been reflected in a somewhat distorted fashion by Zola
and his disciples, gave way to the cultured skepticism and
dilettanteism of Renan, among whose pupils are Lemaitre and
Anatole France. The Russian novelists, too, were a factor in
shaping the tendencies of French fiction, which has not in re-
cent years looked to any one leader for its ideas and formulas,
but has followed various currents — psychological, mystical,
symbolical, decadent, and has lost perhaps in robustness and
conviction what it has gained in idealism.

In the preface to his novel, Trois co&urs, Edouard Rod
calls the psychological method " Intuitivism." Its foremost
exponent — the leader of the reaction against the naturalists
of fiction — is Paul Bourget (born 1852), who derives both
from Renan and Taine. Bourget has the broad equipment
supplied by travel, study, and recreation, and his gift of
subtle and acute analysis has contributed to make his essays
of more importance than his novels. His Essais de Psycho-
logie Contemporaine (1883), the Nouveaux Essais (1885)
and the Pastels d'Hommes et de Femmes (1890-91), are
psychological presentments of literary men and of lay types,
both masculine and feminine, in which the author has been
described as writing the history of his own soul as well as some
chapters of the moral history of his times. In some of his
earlier novels— as in Cruelle Enigme (1885), he betrays his
fatalism, but in Le Disciple (1889) and La Terre Promise

440

THE NATURALISTIC NOVEL

(1892) he indicates that such doctrines may lead one into
crime. Still later — in Le Fantome, Drames de Famille and
L'Etape — he strikes a more human note that is none the less
psychological in its analysis. In his last novel L'Emigre,
Bourget advocates a return to the church and the throne as a
panacea for France's social troubles. His especial field in fic-
tion is the fashionable world, and he has found a large audi-
ence among women. Bourget was admitted to the Academy
in 1894.

Edouard Rod (born 1857) was at first a follower of Zola,
but later employed his talent for delicate analysis in the
treatment of moral ideas and questions of conscience. La
Vie privee de Michel Teissier, together with its sequel, La
seconde Vie de Michel Teissier, represent his earlier manner.
Of his later work, L'Inutile Effort (1903) is one of the most
touching novels of the day.

Paul Margueritte (born 1860) explored for a time the
depths of naturalism; but in 1887 he abjured the teachings
of that school, and in La Force des Choses (1891) produced
a strong and wholesome work. Ma Grande (1893) is a story
of simple pathos, relieved by effective humor. In 1898, in
Le Desastre, he turned his hand to an historical study of the
Franco-Prussian War, followed by a sequel, Les Tronqons du
Glaive (1900), written in collaboration with his brother
Victor.

BARRES, ROSNY, FABRE, CLARETIE

Maurice Barres (born 1862) in Sous I'CEil des Barbares
(1888), Un Homme Libre (1889), and Le Jardin de Berenice
(1890), began by writing beautifully — if somewhat vaguely
and unintelligibly — about himself. In these novels of " le
culte du moi " * he undertook to adapt to the French under-
standing the subversive ideas of the philosopher Nietzche.
Les Deracines (1898) — a protest against individualism — ex-
hibits the development of another and a more practical
attitude — " le culte du pays natal " (the cult of the father-
land). This novel, together with L'Appel au Soldat, belongs
to the series called L'Energie Nationale. M. Barres is con-
spicuous among the literary companions who stand for " na-

1 The cult of self.
441

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

tional energy." He is one of the political " old guard "
of Nationalists, and we see him in the French Chamber of
Deputies (March, 1908) vigorously, but hopelessly, opposing
the appropriation of funds to pay for the removal of Zola's
bones to the Pantheon.

J. H. Rosny (1856- ) (a name that stands for the com-
bined work of two brothers) is another deserter from the
doctrines of Zola, and a writer of uneven merit who has made
a cult of science and ethics.

To go back a little, we have in Ferdinand Fabre (1827-
98) the incomparable painter of priests and peasants of
the Cevennes. Among his best works are Mon Oncle Celestin,
Le Chevrier, and L'Abbe Tigrane.

Passing mention suffices for the work of Jules Renard,
lately made a member of the Academic Goncourt; of the
realistic Willy (pseudonym of Henry Gauthier-Villars),
whose novel, Claudine a I'ecole, was a great popular success;
of Leon Daudet (son of Alphonse Daudet), who developed a
vein of naturalistic satire in Les Morticoles; of the versatile
and proficient Jules Claretie, critic, historian, playwright,
chronicler, and especially a novelist of fecundity and no little
merit, whose twenty-five works of fiction include Monsieur le
Ministre, L' Assassin, and Les Ornieres de la Vie.

With every new tendency in literature there arises in
France a " school." The latest manifestation of this striving
for novel methods is the Ecole Naturiste, founded in 1900 by
George de Bouhelier, who regards the events and expressions
of life and nature as so many revelations of the will of God.
Bouhelier, who has many ardent disciples, is the author of
La Tragedie du Nouveau Christ, in which Christ is depicted
as a modern man in relation to modern circumstances. Lucie,
fille perdue et crimimelle is regarded as his best novel.

THE NOVEL OF THE PROVINCES

French writers, with some few exceptions, have confined
themselves to Paris and its immediate environment. Their
occasional exploration of the provinces has been chiefly for
purposes of caricature and ridicule. But of recent years their
eyes have been opened to a wealth of neglected beauty in town

442

THE NATURALISTIC NOVEL

and country. Paul Adam, in his new book, La Morale de
Paris, notes that, without official sanction, no one had formerly
dared to approve a sonnet of Picardy, a play of Toulouse, an
opera of Marseilles, a Vendean narrative, or a novel of
Beauce. Now, Fabre has sounded the praises of the Cevennes.
Loti celebrates the loveliness of Brittany. Theuriet has taken
Lorraine for his theme; so also has Emile Moselly (pseudonym
of Emile Chenin), the " Poet of the Moselle," whose novel,
Terres Lorraines, was recently awarded the Goncourt prize.
In Le Deuil du Clocher, Joseph Ageorges has described the
ancient province of Berry; Fils cLe la Terre is a Bearnaise
novel by Capdeville; Pierre Vernon pictures the customs of
Brittany in Aux Creux des Sillons. In the peasantry and
scenery of Anjou, Rene Bazin (recently elected to the
Academy) has found a congenial field for the exercise of an
uncommon talent. The elegance of his style and the elevation
of his ideas are displayed in La Terre qui meurt, Les Oberle,
and Le Ble qui leve. His latest novel, L'lsolee, which has
passed its fifty-eighth edition in France, is the story of five
nuns thrown upon the world through the closing of their
school by the French law. Finally — in La Che'vre d'or, Jean
des Figues, and Au Bon Soleil—ihat charming conteur, Paul
Arene, has given us stories " perfect in form, and as clear
and pure as a Provencal day."

Of the five thousand women writers of France, the most
widely known is Gyp,1 the "gamin " of the Faubourg St.
Germain, who has already published about ninety volumes of
satiric fiction. The " explosion of feminine sincerity," as a
French critic expresses it, and which Nietzche prophesied,
has taken place, and Madame Rachilde led the way. It is
the expression of woman 's views of life, morality, and passion
from her own standpoint and not as heretofore, from man's;
thus Stendhal's ungallant criticism of women writers no
longer holds good : ' ' Ce qui fait que les f emmes, quand elles
se font auteurs, atteignent rarement au sublime, c'est que
jamais elles n'osent etre f ranches qu'a demi: etre f ranches
serait pour elles comme sortir sans fichu."

1 Pen name for Countess Gabrielle de Martel de Janville, a descendant
of Mirabeau.

443

CHAPTER XXX

RECENT POETRY1

LYRIC poetry, revived by the Eomanticists, has been in-
fluenced by the various tendencies in literature. At first it
was personal, subjective, as true lyric poetry should be ; then,
toward the middle of the century, it became " scientific,"
impersonal. In this transformation Leconte de Lisle (1820-
1894) was an important factor. In theory he sought to be
impassive to his own sentiments and emotions as well as to
those of others. He aimed at precision, and his style became
exaggerated, though his verses, like Gautier's, showed great
perfection of form. This studied, methodic impeccability,
reduced to a system in the pursuit of art for art's sake, ex-
ercised its sway over a group of young poets variously known
as the " Parnassiens " and as " les impassibles. " They took
the name of Parnassiens from the name of their collection of
poems, published by the editor under the title, Parnasse
Contemporain. The thirty-four poets of this school — if such
it can be called — acknowledged as their masters, Baudelaire,
de Banville, Gautier, and Leconte de Lisle. They sacrificed
everything to form — striving after a plastic, pictorial beauty
that often charms the ear, but is lacking in passion and ideas,
and does not reach the heart. Furthermore, though they
rallied around Leconte de Lisle, not one of them resembled
him, nor did any two of them resemble each other. The most
distinguished and best known of the group were : Sully-Prud-
homme (1839-1907), a poet of great distinction and delicacy
of sentiments, who made poetry a medium for philosophy

1 A "Salon of Poetry" was inaugurated in 1907 to be held in the Palaia
des Beaux- Arts, and to have an annual spring gathering, just as the Salon
of Fine Arts. At the head of this movement are: Francois Coppe'e, Catulle
Mendes (both dead since), and Edmond Rostand.

444

RECENT POETRY

in sonnet and epic; Paul Verlaine (1844-96), a mixture of
the sensualist and mystic, in life as in his art, who rebelled
against the hard and fast rules of French versification, often
striking in his musical effects the true lyric note — an echo
of Villon, a near cousin of Beaudelaire — melodious, repellant,
exquisite, alarming; the Cuban, Jose-Maria de Heredia (born
1842), an artificer of finely wrought sonnets, whose Trophees
are considered the masterpiece of the Parnassiens; Anatole
France, more widely known as novelist and critic; Catulle
Mendes (1841-1909), who has been likened to Swinburne
without Swinburne's genius; Frangois Coppee (1842-1908),
Academician, the poet of the humble and lowly. These sev-
eral poets emerged from the cenacle of the " impassibles " to
cultivate each his own particular manner.

The reaction against the principles of the Parnassiens
made itself felt about 1880 with the appearance of the
Decadents. " Je suis 1'Empire a la fin de la Decadence,"
wrote Verlaine, who with Mallarme, were the principal masters
of this poetic school, later called the Symbolists. De Vigny
and Beaudelaire were its precursors in France, but this
tendency of poetry was influenced to some extent by German
Wagnerism and the English Preraphaelites.1 The Symbolists
wished to create a poetry more supple and unrestrained than
the old; and to attain vagueness and subtlety they held that
objects should not be named, but suggested by pictures or
symbols. Everything that no one understands — not even the
poet himself — is called symbolism, says a critic of this eccen-
tric " school," which Verlaine himself facetiously termed
" Cymbalists." G. Vicaire under the pseudonym of Flou-
pette cleverly parodied the Decadents, in Les deliquescences.
These poets never touched the great questions of the age. If
they had an aim, it is not apparent; only obscurity emerges
from their misty theories. When you have read their poems
you feel only that nothing has been said. Verlaine, in his
Art Poetique, sets forth that in the credo of Symbolism the
dreams and mysteries of the poet's recorded thought should

1 A brotherhood originally consisting (1848) of J. E. Millais, Holman
Hunt, and Rossetti, who advocated a closer study of nature, and protested
against academic dictum.

445

seek an affinity no longer with painting, but with music : " De
la musique avant toute chose." The younger generation of
Symbolists and Decadents have pushed this theory to an
extreme, until their verses became an incredible jargon. Very
few persons profess to understand Maeterlinck's first work,
Les Serres chaudes—a, poem without rhyme, rhythm, or— it
is scarcely necessary to add — reason. Only the elect in the
circle of Arthur Rimbaud have confessed to admiration for his
sonnet Voyelles, beginning:

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, TJ vert, 0 bleu, voyelles,
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes.
A, noir corset velu des manches eclatantes

Qui bombillent autour des puanteurs cruelles,

" There is no joy in this new world " (of the decadents),
wrote Lafcadio Hearn — " and scarcely any tenderness: the
language is the language of art, but the spirit is of Holbein
and the Gothic ages of religious madness." The Aphrodite
and the Chansons de Bilitis of Louys appear to him as crimes.

Among the most important Symbolists are Verlaine, the
recognized head of the school; de Regnier; Jean Moreas, a
Greek ; two Americans — Viele-Griffin and Merrill ; and Maeter-
linck, a Fleming, whose genius in other vehicles of expression
sets him quite apart from the others. Jean Moreas abandoned
this school to found the ecole romane franqaise, and counted
among his disciples Maurice de Plessys, Raymond de La
Talliede, Ernest Raynaud. This school repudiated the Roman-
ticists, the Symbolists and the Parnassiens and renewed the
Greco-Latin culture.

Jean Richepin (born 1849), a poet of pagan proclivities,
and of a somewhat riotously romantic imagination, whose La
Chanson des Gueux (1876) was deemed an outrage on public
morality, has become a sober lecturer to young ladies, and
lately was elected to the seat in the Academy vacated by
Theuriet.

With Edmond Rostand (born 1864), whose title to poet
in the highest sense is disputed, Semain, who died in 1900,
and Rodenbach, ideas are no longer neglected, but are ad-
mitted to an equal consideration with form and harmony.

French genius does not lean to lyricism. In the first place,

446

the admirable clearness and precision of French as a vehicle
of prose is, as Professor Saintsbury points out, an obstacle
to poetical utterance. Its very sobriety and lucidity is "an
enemy to mystery, to vagueness, to what may be called the
twilight of sense — all things more or less necessary to the
highest poetry." Moreover, in the France of to-day the
drama and the novel are the dominant expressions of litera-
ture. Another factor not commonly considered is the neglect
of folklore— the subordination of the human and the homely
to what is purely artificial in subject and treatment. It was
the peasants of Southern Europe who for centuries kept
lyric poetry alive; French classicism has never cherished it.
Malherbe, followed by Boileau, expelled the traditions of folk-
lore from the circles of the learned, and the Revolution
administered the final blow. In Germany, Goethe, Uhland,
Heine found much of their inspiration in these traditions;
in France it has been otherwise. We miss it in the poems
of her greatest lyric singers; it is a note that Hugo, Musset,
Lamartine, did not strike. Too often have the poets, like the
prose writers, of France addressed themselves, for the most
part, not to the people, but to the sophisticated circle of
Parisians, to the cafes-chantants of the capital and provinces.1
The greatest modern singer of France — far superior to
the Parnassiens and the Decadents, from the point of view
of poetic sentiment, not artistic style — is Mistral, the Pro-
venc,al poet. Since the beautiful poetry of the troubadours
spent itself and was overcome by the devastating wars in the
South of France, an attempt has been made by the people of

1 Through the efforts of the third Napoleon, a collection of folklore was
assembled in manuscript form, but though still preserved in the Biblio-
theque Nationale in Paris, it has never been printed. S^billot and Gaudoz,
however, have edited an admirable collection of these traditions, with
the title La France merveilleuse et Ugendaire, and the "Mother Goose"
stories of Perrault have been continued by S4billot in the Contes des
provinces de France. The increasing vogue for songs in the caf£s and
artistic cabarets have produced new genres in the chanson: the "scie," an
oft-recurring refrain, the "chanson £grillarde" (subtle and licentious), and
the " chanson rosse," a cynically realistic song disclosing with biting sarcasm
the foibles of humanity. Rosse is also used in that sense to designate a
play, an author, or a genre in literature.

447

Provence to restore the Provengal patois to the dignity of a
language (once spoken by perhaps one fourth of the French
people) and to revive Provencal literature. What were for-
merly the troubadours are to-day known as the Felibres: in
1854, seven Provencal poets, Roumanille, Aubanel, Mistral,
Brunet, Mathieu, Tavan, and Giera met at the Chateau of
Fontesgugne near Avignon to found a society for the restora-
tion and maintenance of the Provencal language (a branch of
the langue d'oc) and literature. They called themselves "feli-
bres, ' ' from a word found by Mistral in an old Provengal poem
which stated that the Virgin Mary met Jesus " erne le set
felibre de la lei " (among the seven doctors of the law). Ac-
cording to Ducange " felibres " in low Latin means " nurs-
ling fed on milk "; by extension, as applied to the Provencal
poets, " nurslings of the Muses." Their reunions are called
" felibriges," and an annual commemoration festival is held
on St. Stella's day (twenty-first of May), the date of their
organization.1

Jasmin (Jacques Boe, 1789-1864), called le perruquier
poete (the barber poet), continued that trade even after he
had been the recipient of two great honors: the cross of the
Legion of Honor, and the title of ' ' Prince of Poets, ' ' awarded
by the Jeux Floraux. His poems, Jasmin collected under the
title of Les Papillotos (the Curl-Papers, with allusion to his
trade), and gave recitations of them in the Gascon dialect,
throughout France. Everywhere he was enthusiastically ap-
plauded, even in Paris at the Court, where Louis-Philippe
accorded him a reception. The profits of his recitations
amounted to a million and a half francs, all of which Jasmin
gave to charity, thus adding another cognomen to his name —
philanthropist. Lamartime called him the Homere sensible
des proletaires. Longfellow translated his poem L'Ablugo
de Castel-Culie* (L'Aveugle de Castel-Culie) ,

1 In 1876 this was subdivided into maintenances placed under the au-
thority of a consistory of fifty members whose shield bears a golden locust.

2 " The Blind Girl of Castel CuilleV' Longfellow writes:

Only the Lowland tongue of Scotland might
Rehearse this little tragedy aright;
Let me attempt it with an English quill,
And take, O Reader, for the deed the will.

448

RECENT POETRY

In 1852, the Academic Franchise, awarded to Jasmin the prix
extraordinaire for his Provencal poems.

The most celebrated of the felibres is Frederic Mistral
(born 1830). His works are Mireio (in French Mireille),
a beautiful epic in which he revives, with many picturesque
episodes, the popular traditions of Provence; Les isclo d'or
(in French Les iles d'or), a collection of poems published in
1871; together with Lous Tresor dou Felibrige (in French,
Le Tresor du Felibrige), and a Provencal-French dictionary.
Felix Gras (1841-1901) was the most brilliant of the second
generation of felibres.1 After Mistral and Roumanille, he
was proclaimed the chief of the felibrige. Though seventy-
nine years of age, Mistral, who refused to accept a seat in
the French Academy, is still active in literary work, and re-
cently shared the Nobel prize with Echegaray and Sienkiewicz,
the funds of which he contributed to the establishment of a
museum at Aries. This contains a costly collection of P^o-
vengal costumes and general productions typical of the sunny
Provengal country,2 and was opened by Mistral during the
festival inaugurated May 1909 in his honor, at Aries. The
unveiling of his statue erected by his compatriots, and the
fiftieth anniversary of the appearance of his famous poem
Mireio, were the occasions for the celebration.

In the northern part of France, a branch of the langue
d'oil — the Walloon language — also aspires to its own language
and literature. The " Societe Liegeoise de Litterature Wal-
lonne," founded in 1856, has largely contributed to the con-
tinued use of the Walloon in parts of Northern France,
Belgium, and Rhenish Prussia.

1 An Irishman, William Bonaparte Wyse, acquired the Provencal
language and published a collection of poems li Parpaioun blu (les Papittons
bleus, The blue Butterflies).

2 From Provence came the inspiration of the Minnesingers — German
lyric poets of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries — who sang chiefly of
love, and were succeeded by the Meistersingers.

CHAPTER XXXI

PHILOSOPHERS

THE philosophy of the first part of the nineteenth century
was Christian and spiritual — in direct contrast to that of the
eighteenth century, which was atheistic and materialistic. Two
schools contributed to this change : ' ' 1 'ecole catholique, ' ' whose
leaders were Joseph de Maistre, Lamennais, de Bonald, and
Ballanche; and " 1 'ecole eclectique," with Victor Cousin,
Royer-Collard, and Jouffroy at the head. Joseph, Count de
Maistre (1754-1821), in his most popular work, the Soirees de
St. Petersburg, exploited the theories of theocracy and ab-
solute monarchy. This book (written, as were his others, in
the early years of the century, at St. Petersburg, where he
served as minister for the King of Sardinia) is composed of
eleven imaginary conversations, in which the increasing de-
pravity of mankind is set forth in dismal hues — the interloc-
utors being three Catholics : a Russian senator with a leaning
to mysticism, a French emigre and man of the world, and the
Count de Maistre himself. The idea of expiation, which
dominates all his works, is developed in his Considerations sur
la France — one of the most profound historic philosophical
treatises of the nineteenth century. His Du Pape presents
an apology for the spiritual and temporal power of the Pope
as a protection against the oppression of their sovereigns.
The Count de Maistre was not only a great thinker, but a
writer gifted with extraordinary literary ability. He suf-
fered many reverses and disappointments, but he never ceased
to call France the most beautiful kingdom after Heaven.

The Abbe de La Mennais, known as Lamennais, (1782-
1854) experienced the most stirring developments in his relig-
ious, philosophical, and political views. In his first work,
Essai sur I' indifference en matter e de religion (1817), his opin-

450

PHILOSOPHERS

ions on absolutism and Papal supremacy coincided with those
of de Maistre. He attacked atheists, deists, and Protestants,
with energetic eloquence — even refusing to class the Protes-
tants as Christians; and declared that in the infallibility of
the Pope lay the only escape from anarchy. The book caused
an immense sensation, and Lamennais was hailed as a second
Bossuet. In reality, the germ of skepticism and revolt lurked
behind his argument of " the universal consent," and not
reason, nor the senses, as the criterion of ecclesiastical author-
ity. Pretty soon he found himself in the ranks of the Liberals;
and in his articles in the Avenir (to which Lacordaire, who
carried romanticism into the pulpit, and Montalembert, con-
tributed in the same spirit), he met with Rome's disapproval.
A complete revolution took place in his religious views, ex-
pressed in the Affaires de Rome, and in the poetical-biblical
Paroles d'un croyant, in which he broke completely with the
Papacy. In his Livre du Peuple he proclaimed the funda-
mental principles of social democracy. It is interesting to
note how the literary style of Lamennais — ardent, exuberant
at all times, changes with his change of faith. Its brilliance
and beauty in his earlier works becomes clouded and dis-
organized in the productions following his apostasy, and satu-
rated with bitterness and the spirit of rebellion.

Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Bonald (1754-1840),
an ardent defender of orthodox religion and monarchy, was
instrumental in modifying the law of divorce. His chief
work is the Legislation primitive. Bonald defined man as an
intellect supplied with organs. Pierre Simon Ballanche
(1776-1847), author of the Essai sur les institutions sociales
and other works, was one of the wits of Madame Recamier's
salon, at 1 'Abbaye-aux-Bois. He believed in the expiation of
original sin through suffering and remorse, and that in the
eventual rehabilitation of the world man would enjoy a per-
fect life.

Victor Cousin (1792-1867), proclaimed by one of his
adversaries, Mgr. Maret, as the greatest philosopher of
modern times, was the son of a watchmaker and a laundress.
He became a member of the royal council of public instruc-
tion, reorganized the national system of primary studies, was
elected to the French Academy in 1830, and two years later,

451

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

at the age of forty, was made a Peer of France. Cousin as a
philosopher drew his inspiration from the Scotchmen, Dugald
Stewart and Thomas Reid, and fortified it by a study of
Kant, Fichte, and particularly Hegel — making two visits to
Germany for this purpose. His theory of eclecticism is some-
what in disfavor to-day; but his introduction of the German
philosophers through the medium of his own eloquent style
had an important influence on the French philosophy of his
times. As professor in the Sorbonne, his lectures aroused the
greatest enthusiasm. These were afterwards published under
the title, Sur le fondement des idees absolues du vrai, du
beau et du bien. This book contains a kind of condensation
of his doctrines, and has become a classic for the beauty of
its style and thought. Briefly, his philosophy was deduced
from what he held to be the partial truths embodied in the
four systems of materialism, spiritualism, skepticism, and
mysticism. The student of literature will be more interested
in his stimulating Biographies of seventeenth-century per-
sonages, written as a recreation when he had passed the age
of sixty. His passionate regard for one of his subjects,
though no longer in the flesh — the lovely Duchesse de Longue-
ville — has been the occasion for some chaffing on the part of
his literary contemporaries.

Pierre Paul Royer-Collard (1763-1845) was the chief of
the doctrinaires, among whom are numbered Guizot, Cousin,
and Jouffroy.

Auguste Comte (1798-1856), the founder of Positivism,
indicated his purpose in the motto: Reorganiser, sans Dieu
ni roi, par le culte systematique de I'humanite. His Cours
de philosophie positive, which contains a very lucid exposition
of his system, is one of the principal philosophical works of
the nineteenth century; his influence, unlike that of his con-
temporaries, persists to the present day. When Comte created
positive philosophy (in which phenomena, observed and
classified, replace theological and metaphysical speculation),
Emile Littre (1801-81) was one of his most zealous dis-
ciples; but when Comte took to mysticism Littre rebelled, and
eventually succeeded him as the head of the positivist school.

Here we may speak of Joseph Joubert (1754-1824), who
belongs more properly to literature than do some of the

452

PHILOSOPHERS

writers just enumerated. The underlying thought of his Pen-
sees — when those thoughts are concerned with ethics — is that
nothing in the moral world is lost, just as in the material
world nothing is actually destroyed. Joubert's " Thoughts "
take a very wide range. All his studious, contemplative life
was devoted to compressing his reflections on literature,
morals, affairs, into the nutshells of his polished and incisive
paragraphs. They are essays in miniature — keen, clear,
judicious — in which the critical faculty is very highly de-
veloped, and the talent for compression perhaps unexampled.

Joseph Ernest Renan (1823-92) — acknowledged chief of
the school of critical philosophy in France — has, because of
his profound knowledge, been compared to Montaigne; like
Montaigne, his exhaustive researches in the field of thought
led him to the same conclusion: " What do I know? " Edu-
cated by priests, and, for a time, entertaining some notion
of entering the priesthood, his inquiring and scientific spirit
soon led him beyond the pale of orthodox religion. He re-
mained, however, as Anatole France has phrased it, in posses-
sion of a faith that did not possess him. Lacking convictions,
he was swayed by sentiment; he could not escape the
memories and impressions of his early training. As he him-
self says in the delightful Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse
(one of the permanent contributions to French literature),
these memories of his youth came back to him like the bells
of a lost city rung under water.

Renan 's scholarship and broad literary sympathies were
united to a charm and warmth of style that is not only agree-
able to the critical intelligence, but to popular taste as well.
The Vie de Jesus, written after a visit to Syria, contains
passages representative of the unorthodox views that cost
him the chair of Hebrew in the College de France; but its
circulation was enormous, and was the foundation of his
popularity. This work was the first in a series of seven (1863-
1881), with the general title, Histoire des Origines du Chris-
tianisme, the other separate titles being: Les Apotres; L'An-
teclirist; St. Paul et sa Mission; Les Evangiles et la seconde
generation chretienne; L'Eglise chretienne; Marc-Aurele.
These were followed (1888-94) by what is really the intro-
duction to the series — the five volumes of the Histoire du

453

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

peuple d' Israel. In the interval, his fancy, philosophy and
satire found an outlet in the less worthy dramatic composi-
tions collected under the title of Drames Philosophiques, and
embracing Caliban, L'Eau de Jouvence, L'Abbesse de Jouarre,
Le Pretre de Nemi.

In an admirable sketch of M. Renan by the late Theodore
Child,1 we are told that Renanism, among other things, stands
for ' ' a refined skepticism so delicately developed that it trans-
forms itself into an instrument of pleasure. . . . The basis
of dilettanteism is the doctrine of the legitimacy of many
points of view; or, in other words, the consciousness that
phenomena are too numerous to allow us to make absolute
and exclusive affirmations, at least with our present intel-
lectual apparatus. . . . Great and exquisite as may be the
joys procured by dilettanteism, they are of a noncreative
and unvisible kind. . . . We should be tempted to call atten-
tion to the harmony of M. Renan 's physical and intellectual
personality, and to compare that great shapeless body to
some huge polyp or anemone, floating helplessly in the sea
of probabilities, rising or sinking, inclining to the right or
to the left, as instinct or a ray of sunlight or the hazards of
a current may inspire; but in any case merely floating, and
otherwise incapable of choosing a direction or following it."

Renan found much to amuse him in the human comedy;
but Taine — his moral and temperamental antithesis — was
horrified and saddened by it. Renan 's optimism was the
product of his physical nature, of sentiment, of a skepticism
tolerant and easy-going; Taine 's pessimism arose from the
operations of an intellect absorbed in scientific classification
and committed to a system from which the emotions are rig-
idly excluded. With a passion for formula and abstraction,
and a mind committed to materialistic doctrines, he sought
to explain all the productions of literature and art with ref-
erence to " the race, the environment, and the moment."
From a nation 's climate, food, period of production, he would
undertake to deduce its poetry and its paintings. His famous
formula, that " virtue and vice are products, like sugar and
vitriol," so shocked the Academy (in 1863) that he was not

1 Harper's Magazine, August, 1892.
454

PHILOSOPHERS

admitted to membership in that body until 1878. In philos-
ophy and criticism he was the representative of his period,
applying to these the same general principles of minute fi-
delity that Flaubert employed in the novel, Meissonier in
painting, and the Parnassiens in poetry. But though he
inspired the naturalistic school of novel writers, it is too much
to say that their sins are on his head. Indeed, one of his
most valorous champions was M. Brunetiere, who, having
no love for Zola, perceived in Taine's determinist doctrines
merely the unbiased, objective attitude of the naturalist who
excludes, for intellectual purposes, every esthetic or moral
consideration. Taine's honor and glory, according to this
distinguished critic, of Catholic faith, rest in this: that he
" renewed the methods of criticism," and helped to escort
literature from the nebulous regions of exaggerated Romanti-
cism to the solid ground of reality. Taine's supreme test in
estimating the value of a work was the " degree of benefi-
cence of its character." Not Victor Cousin himself, re-
marks M. Brunetiere, has said as much. " They simply ar-
rived at analogous conclusions by wholly different roads."

To the American reader, Hippolyte Taine (1828-93) is
perhaps the best known of all the modern French critics and
philosophers. His Histoire de la litterature anglaise (1865),
admirably translated by Van Laun, has been vigorously at-
tacked because of its generalizations, and because it is only
nominally a history. On the other hand it has been, and
will long continue to be, a vade mecum for innumerable read-
ers, young and old, who delight in an author never dull yet
never sensational, learned yet always clear, whose opinions
are never ex-cathedra, who is brilliant without pedantry, and
forceful without dogmatism.

Among the other principal productions of his immensely
active and vigorous life are: Les Philosophes classiques du
XIXme Siecle en France (1856) ; Notes sur Paris, ou Vie et
Opinions de Thomas Graindorge (1857) a charming book —
a humoristic and satirical criticism of Parisian society;
Notes sur I'Angleterre (1872) ; and De I'Intelligence, his prin-
cipal philosophical work. His several works on the Philoso-
phic de I' Art f are the product of his celebrated course of lec-
tures at the Ecole des Beaux- Arts.

455

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

The war of 1870 transformed the philosopher into an
historian, and henceforth Taine determined with patriotic
fervor to uproot the causes of France's defeat, which gave
rise to his most important work Origines de la France contem-
poraine (1875-90), comprising L'Ancien Regime, La Revo-
lution and the unfinished Le Regime Moderne. In this work
Taine points out that the French Revolution was a misfortune
for France and severely criticises the Jacobin and Napoleon
regimes. He also derogates the motto of the French Repub-
lic: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.

Taine learned English as a boy from an uncle who had
lived in America. When he was fourteen he devised a scheme
of study, to which he rigorously adhered and afterwards ap-
plied with all the power of his brilliant mind. M. Vacherot,
director of studies at the Ecole Normale, predicted that he
would be a savant — that, like Spinoza, he would " live in
order to think." Taine, indeed, was " an intellect." His
one recreation appears to have been music; but his devotion
to that art can hardly be said to have been emotional. It is
altogether characteristic of him that in praising a sonata by
Beethoven he remarked, with well-restrained rapture: " It's
as beautiful as a syllogism."

CHAPTER XXXII

HISTORIANS

ONE of the greatest achievements of the nineteenth cen-
tury in France was the impulse to historical study, and its
consequent evolution first as romantic literature and, later,
as a critical science. The treatment of history as a science
was quite unknown at the outset of the century; history, in
fact, even in its general aspects, was scarcely comprehended
at all. The Greeks and Romans were known chiefly in re-
lation to classical literature; the people of the Orient were
little more than a myth; even the history of France was im-
perfectly studied and understood.

The awakening began with the romantic interest of Cha-
teaubriand's Etudes sur la chute de I' Empire romain and his
Analyse raisonnee de I'Histoire de France; and with the popu-
larity of Sir Walter Scott's historical novels. Nowadays we
do not go to fiction for our history; we are warned even to
accept with caution such sugar-coated facts as the novelist
provides. But at the time of which we speak, romance, as
the great Scotchman purveyed it, was hailed as the hand-
maiden of true history. Indeed, Villemain — the master critic
of his school — told his Sorbonne audience (enamored of
Sir Walter) that history was less true than the historical
novel. Which may be taken as in some sort supplementary
to the epigram attributed to Napoleon — that " history is fic-
tion agreed upon."

With Ivanhoe and Les Martyrs as a leaven, we see also, in
the years of the Restoration, the ferment of intelligence work-
ing in the wars along with imagination to evoke a lesson no
less than a pageant from the chronicles of the past — scholar-
ship was admitted to new privileges — rubbing elbows with
men of affairs, and burrowing in the archives of the state,
hitherto closed to the people.

457

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

This passion for historical reconstruction produced three
schools of historians: the narrative school — devoted to accu-
racy of narration and local detail — of which de Barante, with
his Histoire des dues de Bourgogne, is the conspicuous repre-
sentative; the philosophical school of Thierry, de Sismondi,
Guizot, who endeavored to establish the connection of cause
and effect in historical events; and the fatalistic school, of
which Thiers and Mignet were the chiefs. This somewhat
arbitrary classification does not include Michelet — the most
remarkable historian of them all considered with relation to
literature — a man whose glowing imagination and extraor-
dinary style set him apart from and above the more sober and
scientific chroniclers of the past.

The real founders of the new historical school were
Thierry and Guizot — the first historians who laid stress on
the social and political development of the people, instead
of centering attention on the royal families and the dynastic
wars. We observe the application of this new method — made
possible by the Revolution — in the Lettres sur I'histoire de
France of Augustin Thierry (1795-1856). Thierry himself
has told us the impression made on his boyish imagination
by a page of Chateaubriand's Martyrs. In his enthusiasm he
arose, chanting the song: Pharamond! Pharamond! nous
avo-ns combattu avec I'epee — and marching to its rhythm.
From that moment he was determined to be an historian.
Thierry's style in the Histoire de la Conquete de I'Angleterre
par les Normands is almost dramatic; by the vividness of
his descriptive powers he makes the dead past live again. Yet
the scientific nature of his work is one of its greatest merits;
it is, first of all, based on the patient and scholarly examina-
tion of chronicles and ancient documents. He was a breaker
of new ground, and his ceaseless researches and study of old
manuscripts so affected his eyesight that he became totally
blind. To this affliction he resigned himself without a mur-
mur, saying, J'ai fait amitie avec les tenebres (I made a friend
of darkness). Nor did it curtail his labors. Such men as
Paul-Louis Courier, Carrel, Beranger, lent him their assist-
ance ; the young woman he married became his devoted secre-
tary— reading aloud to him, sometimes for fifteen hours a
day. Thus, with his epic imagination, he was able to produce

458

HISTORIANS

such masterpieces as the Recits des temps merovingiens (1840)
— a beautiful and accurate description of France at the very
beginning of her history, in which he overturned the puerile
conceptions that had prevailed concerning the first Frankish
kings. His Dix ans d' etudes historiques and the essay on the
formation and progress of the Tiers-tftat have the purely his-
torical rather than the literary flavor.

Frangois Guizot (1787-1874) — austere, solemn, dogmatic
— is the philosopher first and last, the interpreter of history in
the light of theories and ideas. He explains rather than de-
scribes the tumultuous course of events. Guizot, whose touch
is heavy, busied himself with literary work during all of his
useful life ; but he was not primarily a writer, and he did not
pretend to be. Common sense and a solid array of impos-
ing facts philosophically presented are the uppermost quali-
ties in those vast syntheses, the Histoire generate de la civili-
sation en Europe, and the Histoire de la civilisation en
France. He is the founder of political and social history in
France. Aside from his own personal contributions to the
subject, he greatly stimulated historical research during his
term of office as minister of public instruction; committees
were appointed, the state archives were overhauled, and their
precious contents scrutinized, edited, printed.

Sentiment has no place in the oratory and writings of
Guizot, yet his private life discloses a pretty romance. Hear-
ing that two distinguished women, Madame de Meulan and
her daughter, were in pecuniary distress, owing to Mademoi-
selle de Meulan 's illness, which incapacitated her as a regular
contributor to the Publiciste, Guizot himself (then a youth of
twenty) wrote an article, in her style, and sent it to her with
an explanatory letter signed " Inconnu." He followed it
up with similar contributions, until she had recovered her
strength. These articles duly appeared in the Publiciste, be-
ginning with the issue of March, 1807, and were signed with
the initial " F." Eventually the ladies discovered the iden-
tity of the man who had committed this gallant fraud, and a
few years later Pauline de Meulan became Madame Guizot.

Guizot, who was ambassador to London, and afterwards
prime minister, was greatly respected for his honesty and
disinterestedness. His last words to his grandchildren were:

459

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

' ' Serve your country. The task is sometimes hard ; but serve
your country well."

Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877), eulogist of his countrymen,
whose failings are not apparent to him, was the first historian
to deal with questions of finance, diplomacy, and administra-
tion. He was the political rival of Guizot, from whom he dif-
fered in the faculty of his talent and the fertility of his ex-
pedients. His Histoire de la Revolution fran$aise, completed
when he was but thirty years of age, made him famous, and
holds its place with his trustworthy Histoire du Consulat et de
I' Empire, a work remarkable as a narrative, but somewhat in-
ferior from a philosophical or scientific standpoint. Like
Mignet, he was a fatalist. The historian par excellence of
aff airs, his style is simple, clear, and natural. Thiers was alone
among the deputies of the Chamber in opposing the declara-
tion of war against Prussia. But later the wisdom of his
course, as seen in the perspective of national humiliation, was
acknowledged, and he was chosen President of the Republic.
To him belongs the glory of extinguishing the revolutionary
spirit of the Commune, and of freeing French territory from
foreign occupation.

Francois Mignet (1796-1884) in his Histoire de la Revolu-
tion frangaise produced a work that has been widely trans-
lated (in Germany alone it has had six translators), and is
regarded as the best of the brief histories on the subject. His
style is the reverse of picturesque, his distinctive merit con-
sisting in his talent for condensation. He treats the Revolu-
tion as a natural and inevitable development. Among his
other works are three concerned with important episodes of
modern history: La Conquete de la Germanie au Christia-
nisme, La Formation territoriale de la France, and La Re~
forme.

Jules Michelet (1798-1874), of whom it has been said that
he combined the learning of a Benedictine monk with the
humorous fancy of a poet, is one of the most brilliant and
original writers of modern prose. His style, which has been
likened to that of Hugo and Carlyle, is spasmodic, but highly
decorative, picturesque, and vivid. His power of visualiza-
tion, the sympathy and intensity of his mind, are such, that
he reanimates the past, and makes the dead walk again. An

460

HISTORIANS

historian with such a temperament is not without his faults,
and Michelet's faults are palpable. He was a priest hater,
an Anglophobe, an uncompromising democrat. For the Jes-
uits he entertained much the same feeling the devil is sup-
posed to have for holy water. This passion, indeed, so grew
with what it fed upon that it distorted his later work. In
the earlier volumes of his elaborate Histoire de France (which
appeared at intervals from 1833 to 1867) his imagination and
literary skill were supremely employed in his account of the
Middle Ages. But from the time of his attacks on the clergy,
in the early forties, in which he was associated with Edgar
Quinet, his historical manner suffered from his vehemence.
He apologized for his sympathetic treatment of mediaeval
times, and forthwith produced a Histoire de la Revolution
Frangaise that is altogether unreliable.

Aside from his great history (for great it is in spite of its
defects), Michelet wrote a number of poetical and imagina-
tive studies in physical science and sociology that are charac-
teristic of his genius. Among them are: La Her, La Mon-
tague, L'Oiseau, L' Amour, La Sorciere. These studies were
the product of his self-imposed exile in Brittany and on the
Riviera, after his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to
Napoleon, in 1851, had cost him his government offices.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59), whose dispassionate and
penetrating study of American institutions, La Democratic
en Amerique, has become a classic, came to the United States
with the primary object of studying our prison system. His
later work, of equal importance, L'Ancien Regime et la Re-
volution is a philosophical exposition of the subject exact
in research and illuminating in treatment. In elegance and
directness of style he resembles Montesquieu, and his " De-
mocracy in America " has been called a continuation of the
Espnt des lois.

Fustel de Coulanges (1830-89), who, according to Lan-
son, is a great historian and a great writer, is distinguished
by his La Cite Antique and the Histoire des institutions poli-
tiques de I'ancienne France — profound and comprehensive
studies of ancient societies written in a concise style of severe
simplicity.

Lanfrey has contributed an iconoclastic history of Napo-

461

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

leon; Henri Martin an elaborate and impartial history of
France. A belated, but notable publication is the Memoires
of Madame de Remusat. The last years of the nineteenth
century teem with historical works of no mean order, written
for the most part in the modern naturalistic and scientific
manner that is or is not, as the case may be, associated with
the literary faculty in the highest sense of that term. We
may mention the Due de Broglie's facile recountal of
eighteenth-century intrigues of the court: Le Secret du Roi,
Louis XV, Marie-Therese ; Albert Sorel's descriptions of
diplomacy in revolutionary times; Thureau Dangin's admir-
able narrative, La Monarchic de Juillet, and the eighteenth-
century studies of Ernest Lavisse. In conclusion, there are
critics who lean to the view of our own Professor Wells, when
he says : ' ' The naturalistic evolution has doubtless been a gain
to history as a science, but it has been at the cost of its lit-
erary value. . . . Never have single movements or periods
been studied with more zeal or acumen; yet our diligent in-
vestigators do not command the place in literature nor in
popular esteem that was won by their romantic predecessors. ' '

CHAPTER XXXIII

CRITICS

" LA critique est aisee et 1'art est difficile," wrote Des-
touches, who, it is needless to say, was no critic, but a play-
wright. Destouches, writing a century before modern criti-
cism had cut loose from the hard-and-fast traditions of the
absolute, could not foresee the time when the true critic
would be defined as " an artist, a philosopher, a moralist — in
short, something more than a judge." Criticism, indeed, was
to become a rare and difficult art, no longer employing the
measuring rule of abstract conventions and rigid formulas,
but calling for wide sympathies and knowledge, a perception
and understanding of both men and books. Two centuries
after the birth of Destouches it was to find in Anatole France,
himself a creative writer, a practitioner who sees criticism as
the issue of philosophy and history — " of all literary forms
the last in date, and eventually absorbing them all." It was
to make itself felt through the philosophy of men like Renan
and Taine, and to inspire and stimulate entire schools of
critics, novelists, poets. In one form or another it was fo
animate and enrich the newspaper and periodical press with
the standards set by the genius of Gautier and the abiding
talent of the lively Janin.

The French critics of the First Empire were Madame de
Stael, who considered literature in its relation to social in-
stitutions, and Julien Louis Geoffroy (1743-1814), a dra-
matic critic of some importance in his day and generation,
but of no special significance in the development of criticism.
He is chiefly interesting as the first of the dramatic spe-
cialists in that department of criticism which the French have
made their own, its most notable exponents being Jules Janin,
Jules Lemaitre, and Francisque Sarcey. The severity of

463

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

Geoffrey's criticisms, which were not exclusively dramatic,
earned for him the surname of " the terrible." A certain
poet, stung by his attacks, retorted with an epigram addressed
to the street of Geoffroy-Anier, to which Gcoffroy replied with
these verses :

Oui, je suis un anier, sans doute,
Et je le prouve & coups de fouet,
Que j 'applique a chaque baudet
Que je rencontre sur la route.1

Under the Restoration criticism began to take an impor-
tant place in the history of letters. With the triumph of the
Romantic movement it became a guiding influence that has
suffered little interruption ; towards the end of the century it
renewed its vigor and its vogue. Villemain (1790-1870),
professor of literature at the Sorbonne, was the pioneer of
the newer academic criticism; he broadened and humanized
the critical treatment of history by making it descriptive and
pictorial. His younger contemporary, D. Nisard (1806-84),
clung to the old traditions, and did his best to stem the rising
tide of Romanticism. With these must be mentioned the
Swiss, Alexandre Vinet (1797-1847), whose methods were
allied to Nisard 's; Saint-Marc Girardin, who held to a mid-
dle course; Gustave Planche, an uncompromising dogmatist;
Philarete Chasles, who discussed English literature with some
animation of style: E. M. Caro, some of whose interesting
studies of French writers have found their way into English
translations; Eugene Geruzez, who left us a short history of
French literature that has not been excelled in its kind.

Meanwhile, Charles Augustin Saiute-Beuve (1804-69),
by far the greatest literary critic that France has yet pro-
duced, had lent the weight of his great authority and revo-
lutionary method to the principles espoused by the rebellious
Romanticists of 1830. In poetry and fiction those principles
have suffered from the invasions of succeeding creative
schools, but the critical method inaugurated by Sainte-Beuve

1 Yes, I am an ass-driver, without doubt, and I prove it with blows of
the whip which I apply on every donkey that I meet on the road.

464

CRITICS

has remained a model that no assault of dogmatism has under-
mined. That method consisted, in the first place, in ignoring
the traditional rules and theories to which the various kinds
of literature were supposed to conform, and in taking into
consideration the author's purpose and particular accom-
plishment, without reference to an artificial standard. Re-
jecting such a standard, Sainte-Beuve arrived at his estimate
through a catholic and universal view of literature, fortified
by tolerance and sound taste. In the second place, his criti-
cism took into account the life of the writer, and the special
circumstances attending the production of his work. It was
biographical criticism in the best sense — a kind of natural his-
tory of each author's genius. His works comprise some fifty
volumes, including the comprehensive Histoire de Port-Royal.
He was the Boileau of his century, and his critical essays —
many of them first published in the columns of the press —
dominated the literary judgments of the times. The seven vol-
umes of the Portraits litteraires and the thirteen volumes of
the Causeries du lundi contain estimates — masterly and sym-
pathetic—of nearly all the great French writers, together
with many foreign ones.

French criticism has met with the reproach that however
brilliant and sound it may be, it suffers in a measure from
that national conservatism, or self-sufficiency, which judges
the literature of France according to its own standards, and
without knowledge of foreign productions. One of the critics
who does not fall under this reproach is Edmond Scherer
(1815-89), whose numerous studies of contemporary writers
— contributed to various French journals — possess a special
value. Scherer had strong and singular prejudices, and cer-
tain limitations of sympathy that disqualified him as a critic
of more than one great writer who offended his notions of
propriety and ordered genius; but, if one keeps in view his
pet animosities, he will be seen to rank among the foremost
of the critical fraternity.

The critical work of Renan and Taine has been touched
upon in preceding pages. No critic of their stature has
arisen in the France of to-day; but this special function of
letters is brilliantly discharged by Anatole France, Jules
Lemaitre, and !Emile Faguet. In Anatole France the dil-
31 465

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

ettantism of Renan is perpetuated in a style charming for
its grace and effective in its insinuating irony; his criticisms—
mainly allied to journalism — are in part collected in the two
volumes of La Vie litteraire. Lemaitre is, above all, the apostle
of cleverness; the scintillations of his style, as first exhibited
in the literary essays collected under the title, Les Contem-
porains (1886), captured the Parisian fancy. In the numer-
ous volumes of Impressions de theatre are assembled the
opinions of a dramatic critic who has made the stage his
pretext for lively dissertations upon society — the essays of a
witty moralist whose actual value as a censor of life and art
is still to be determined. Very different in manner is
Lemaitre 'a successor as dramatic critic on the Journal des
Debats — the sober and scholarly Faguet, whose analytic
method is a compromise between the severity of Brunetiere
and the temperamental transcriptions of the impressionists.
His studies of sixteenth-, seventeenth-, eighteenth, and nine-
teenth-century writers are his most important work.

In the death of Ferdinand Brunetiere (1849-1907)
French letters lost a critical leader whose influence on con-
temporary thought was very considerable. M. Brunetiere
in his methods was the antithesis of the school represented by
Anatole France. His cardinal qualities are logic, learning,
and a rigorous habit of mind that tolerates no trifling by the
decadents of literature. He stood for the best traditions of
the Revue des Deux-Mondes, with which he was so long
associated, and his great erudition, loftiness of purpose and
intellectual grasp were respected even by those who attacked
him because of his dogmatism and somewhat pedagogic
attitude. M. Brunetiere 's logical powers, capacity for syn-
thesis, and solid literary attainments find their highest ex-
pression in his comprehensive Evolution des Genres dans
I'Histoire de la Litterature Frangaise. Some acquaintance
with his copious output of essays is needful to those readers
who would rightly observe the various forces at work in
modern France.

The doctrinal and the impressionistic schools of critics
have for twenty years waged a controversy always acute and
occasionally bitter. In illustration of their opposing attitudes
a French writer offers this example: Two spectators witness

466

CRITICS

a performance of the melodrama, ' ' The Two Orphans. ' ' Both
are moved to tears. One of them says: " I have been in-
terested, touched; I have wept: therefore, this play is a
masterpiece." He is an impressionist. The other one says:
" It is true I have wept ; doubtless I would weep if I returned
to-morrow. Nevertheless, on reflection, I must tell myself
that the devices employed by the author to make me weep are
artificial, and that there is in his play only the appearance
of human truth. It is not, then, a literary work. " This critic
is a doctrinaire.

Faguet says : ' ' The flood of critical literature of the nine-
teenth century is one of the scourges of this period, and in
the eyes of posterity it will appear ridiculous that the nine-
teenth century produced fewer books in the proper sense of
the word than books dedicated to their criticism. But all real
novelty incurs this misfortune, and in our day there is a
deluge of critical works, just as in the seventeenth century
there was a deluge of tragedies, and in 1830 of elegiac verse. ' '

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE MODERN DRAMA

CORNEILLE, Racine, Voltaire not only dominated the stage
in their day, but held unchallenged sway over the theater-
going public until 1827, when the insurrectional proclamation
in the Preface de Cromwell heralded the romantic drama —
" everything which is in nature is in art." The classicists
were only for a time obscured, but tragedy as a genre was
lost in this vigorous and trivial form of the melodrama.

The apparent great victory of Romanticism had but an
ephemeral existence, however, and with the failure of Les
Burgraves in 1843, it suffered a rapid decline; Racine and
Corneille, momentarily eclipsed, were restored to favor, and
shone with enhanced beauty through the marvelous interpreta-
tion of the great Rachel. These tragedies still endure, but
the dramas of Hugo are fast becoming obsolete. Hugo's
conception of the truth — the natural combination of the sub-
lime and the grotesque which must meet in the drama as they
occur in life and in creation — characterizes his entire drama-
turgy. Of the many dramatists: de Vigny, de Musset,
Alexandre Dumas pere, Prosper Merimee, who followed in
Hugo 's footsteps, not one has been able to hold the stage. A
decadence began and melodrama finally sustained only by the
genial interpretation of great actors deteriorated so markedly,
that public taste soon turned to the comedy of manners and
the psychological play.

Since the time of Victor Hugo, France has produced three
men whom general consent accords a place above their
brethren in the long list of her brilliant modern playwrights.
These three, in the order of critical esteem, are Augier, Dumas
fils, and Sardou. A rapid survey — less with regard to
chronology than to other considerations which seem upper-

468

THE MODERN DRAMA

most in an attempt to comprehend the complicated and
contradictory expressions of the modern French dramatic
literature — will perhaps suffice to make clear why it is at the
same time so wondrous and so weak. The circumstance that
Victorien Sardou 1 is assigned a niche in the dramatic Pantheon
as one of the three surpassing playwrights seems at first
glance to involve a paradox, and to constitute in itself an in-
dictment of that French dramatic genius which, whatever
its limitations, outshines by far the rush-candle of sister
nations. The analytical criticism of a distinguished con-
tributor to the London Saturday Review, Mr. George Bernard
Shaw, sums up the notorious defects of M. Sardou 's methods
in one irreverent word — " Sardoodledom, " an epithet sug-
gesting in its etymology the reprisal of a Yankee vexed by
Sardou 's satire L'Oncle Sam (1873). It is not, however,
American flippancy, but British conservatism that speaks in
the Saturday Review. The play is Merivale's English version
of Fedora, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell in the title part. ' ' I
had seen Diplomacy Dora, and Theodora, and La Toscadora,
and other machine dolls from the same firm," says Mr. Shaw.
" And yet the thing took me aback. To see that curtain
go up again and again only to disclose a bewildering pro-
fusion of everything that has no business in a play was an
experience for which nothing could quite prepare me. The
postal arrangements, the telegraphic arrangements, the police
arrangements, the names and addresses, the hours and seasons,
the tables of consanguinity, the railway and shipping time-
tables, the arrivals and departures, the whole welter of
Bradshaw and Baedeker, Court Guide and Post Office Direc-
tory, whirling round one little incredible stage murder and
finally vanishing in a gulp of impossible stage poison, made
up an entertainment too Bedlamite for any man with settled
wits to preconceive."

This depreciation of one of M. Sardou 's most popular and
thrilling plays2 was delivered in May, 1895. Lest it seem

1 Born in Paris, September 7, 1831, died 1908.

2 "With its superbly tragic end," writes a German critic; with a death
scene which " begins like a feeble drawing-room plagiarism of the murder
of Nancy by Bill Sikes, and ends with Gilbertian absurdity," remarks the
spokesman for the Review.

469

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

an expression of that singular prejudice 1 reproved by Mrs.
Browning,2 it is interesting to observe that some years
antecedent to that date — namely, in May, 1878 — this deprecia-
tion was anticipated by a confrere of M. Sardou, on the
occasion of the playwright's admission to the Academy.
Addressed orally and directly to his human subject, and not
from the vantage of the critic's office chair, M. Charles Blanc's
ironic response to M. Sardou 's reception speech was necessarily
veiled in terms of adroit and subtle raillery that to duller
apprehensions would have passed for praise. A brief extract
from this " address of welcome " is worth quoting here for
more than one reason. It not only sustains the judgment of
Mr. Shaw, but is a model of that polite criticism which Prof.
Brander Matthews (to whom we are indebted for the extract)
long ago held to be the only proper attitude of a critic who
would also be a gentleman. M. Blanc said :

" I admire the skillful ordering of the room in which
passes the action of your characters, the care you take in
putting each in his place, in choosing the furniture which
surrounds them, which is always not only of the style required
—that goes without saying— but significant, expressive, fitted
to aid in the turns of the drama. . . . The letter! — it plays
a part in most of your plots; and all of it is important, the
wrapper as well as its contents. The envelope, the seal, the
wax, the postage stamp, and the postmark, and the tint of
the paper and the perfume which rises from it, not to speak
of the handwriting, close or free, large or small — how many
things in a letter, as handled by you, may be irrefutable evi-
dence to betray the lovers, to denounce the villains, and to
warn the jealous ! ' '

But though Sardou is a past master of " properties," a
" supremely skillful contriver and arranger," a " journal-
istic " playwright, with an eye to what an American manager
would call " contemporaneous human interest," a theatrical
prestidigitator whose art consists in diverting your attention,

1 A prejudice which, in the case of the Saturday Review, intermittently
breaks out in symptoms of disapproval of things American.
2 The English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. — Aurora Leigh.

470

by wit and mystification, from a mechanism otherwise too
obvious; though he is, as it were, a Deus ex machina, it
must not be overlooked that he is a great deal more than this.
His immense and varied output since the early period of
obscurity and starvation (1850-60) — since his first poetic
play, La Taverne des Etudiants, was hissed from the stage
of the Odeon (1854) — has embraced some fifty-five plays of
many types, ranging through farce, satire, opera, melodrama,
and the poetic spectacular. If we must put, say Odette, and
Delia Harding, and Theodora — to name no others — in the
category of artistic failures, and pass over in silence some
plays condemned to a failure still more comprehensive, we
must remember that his best work affords the truest criterion
of his powers. Eabagas (1871) — in which the dramatist im-
paled the demagogue on a pen of merciless satire and ridicule
— is pronounced by a German critic to be " the best political
comedy since Aristophanes." Prof. Saintsbury regards it as
" one of the few comedies of this age likely to become
classical." Sardou's dominant motive in writing this play
was to hold up Gambetta, the Republican leader, to ridicule
and contempt. But the playwright builded better than he
knew, and the thirst for personal reprisal became, in his
picture of political hypocrisy, a bid for more than fleeting
fame. His delightful La Famille Benoiton (1865) is a social
satire in which he exposes the immoral love for luxury of a
pleasure-mad family in the days of the Second Empire. In
the same vein of abounding wit and satire are his first great
successes, Nos Intimes1 (1861), Nos Eons Villageois (1866),
and Fernande (1870). The latter, which is to some extent a
departure from Sardou's customary technical methods, pic-
tures " the exquisite elevation of a young soul which has
preserved itself pure in the midst of all the impurities of
a gambling hell." Sardou's innocent young women (in
Seraphine, in Patrie, in Nos bons Villageois, for example) are
indeed some compensation to the morally fastidious for his

1 Variously adapted in England and America as " Peril," " Friends or
Foes?" and "Bosom Friends." The famous love scene in Nos Intimes was
taken by Sardou from one of his early attempts, submitted to the manager
of the Gymnase, with the title, Paris & I'Envers.

471

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

offenses of bad taste, insincerity, and questionable judgment
in such plays as Divorgons (1880), Maison Neuve (1866), and
Les Bourgeois de Pont-Arcy (1878). Dora (1877) — some-
what mutilated in the English versions — is well known to
Americans under the title of " Diplomacy." A factor in its
Anglo-American success was the acting of the Kendals and,
later, of Charles Coghlan. It is a good specimen of the
Sardou craftsmanship. As an entertainer pure and simple,
Sardou has perhaps produced nothing better than Les Pattes
de Mouche (1860), known to the German stage as " The Lost
Letter," and in the United States — where it has enjoyed a
considerable vogue — as ' ' A Scrap of Paper. ' ' *

Sardou 's endeavors in serious drama of the romantic-
historical type are represented by several works, of which the
sixteenth-century play Patrie (1869) — concerned with the
theme illumined by Motley in his " Rise of the Dutch Re-
public " — is the best. Patrie proceeded from a profounder
observation of life and a larger power for historical recon-
struction than we find in his Thermidor (1891) and his Robes-
pierre. Provoked by the failure of some of his plays in Paris,
Sardou confined the production of Robespierre (1899) and
Le Dante (1903) to London.

The purely theatrical effectiveness of La Tosca (1887),
is severely criticised by Jules Lemaitre, who says of Scarpia :
" He is atrocious; he is of a supernatural atrocity. Do not,
I beg of you, compare him with Richard III, with lago, with
Nero, who are men of parts, complex, artists. ' ' Bernard Shaw
calls La Gismonda, Sardou 's " latest edition of the Kiralfian
entertainment . . . and which is surpassingly dreary, although
it is happily relieved four times by very long waits between
the acts. ' ' 2 This critical scrutiny by aliens goes back much

1 The germ of this play is contained in Edgar Allan Poe's short story,
"The Purloined Letter"; but Sardou, in refuting accusations of culpable
plagiarism in this and other instances, successfully defended himself in the
courts. In 1883 he wrote Mes Plagiats by way of reply to such charges.
As a matter of fact, he has rather preferred to borrow from himself — many
of his characters and ideas being but slight variations of his earlier works.

z See Dramatic Opinions and Essays, by G. Bernard Shaw (Brentano's,
1906), who further remarks: "The scene being laid in the Middle Ages,
there are no newspapers, letters, or telegrams; but this is far from being

472

THE MODERN DRAMA

farther than the period of these particular triumphs — namely,
in 1877 — a British critic of reputation put himself on record
thus : ' ' Whatever style will best succeed with the public is
the style of V. Sardou." Quoting Jules Claretie — who calls
Sardou a " barometer dramatist " — Professor Matthews,
applying the methods of a dramatic archaeologist and noting
that Sardou 's plays are written distinctly to suit the taste
of the moment, suggests that " it would not be difficult for
anyone familiar with politics and society in France for the
last score of years to declare the date of almost any of M.
Sardou 's five-act comedies from a cursory inspection of its
allusions. ' '

With respect to his latest productions, including some flat
failures, Sardou is perhaps at his happiest when he drops
melodrama and spectacle, and reverts to farce (historically
flavored) as in Madame Sans-Gene* (1893). The semi-comic
Napoleon of this play may, it is true, seem little more than
a lay figure; but Sardou, we believe, had the immediate and
concrete Mademoiselle Jane Hading in mind, rather than the
evasive and tantalizing Thalia — and this accomplished actress,
together with Miss Ellen Terry, has doubtless justified to
many persons the plan of " writing around " an individual
player.

Professor Saintsbury calls Sardou " a Beaumarchais,
partly manque " — an expression which we can translate only
by availing ourselves of the American vernacular — a near-
Beaumarchais. A survivor of his period and his group, he
has taken no part in shaping anew the unknown destinies of
the French drama, and cannot be put on the same level as
Dumas and Augier.

In view of the recent propaganda by certain zealous
Frenchmen, who are fearful that Americans derive their no-
tions of French domestic life from the popular novel of

an advantage, as the characters tell each other the news all through, except
when a child is dropped into a tiger's cage as a cue for Madame Bernhardt's
popular scream; or when the inevitable stale, puerile love scene is turned
on to show off that voix celeste stop which Madame Bernhardt, like a
sentimental New England villager with an American organ, keeps always
pulled out."

1 Written, as was CtiopAlre, in collaboration with M. Emile Moreau.

473

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

intrigue, it does not seem likely that the plays of Alexandre
Dumas fils would be recommended by them as representative
of the national genius. Yet the younger Dumas (1824-95)
was, by intention, a moralist and reformer first of all, and,
within the narrow limitations of his choice of subjects, he
succeeded in establishing for himself a reputation second
only to that of Augier. French criticism has reproached
English literature in some of its most cherished manifestations
with the fault of didacticism, yet it would be hard to discover
a more complete example of art with an ethical purpose than
is afforded by the preaching playwright, Alexandre Dumas
fils. It was a tendency in which the elder Dumas, given over
to romanticism, saw, or affected to see, the ultimate ruin of
his son 's reputation. Francisque Sarcey took it less seriously.
He perceived very clearly that the younger man's superb
craftsmanship, and his ability to write brilliant, telling
dialogue, outweighed his shortcomings as a profound ex-
ponent of human life. Sarcey pointed out that the astonish-
ing prefaces to the printed plays are ' ' a chaos of clear ideas ' '
— that is to say, an assemblage of ideas without logical rela-
tion. He saw in Dumas an agitator rather than a philosopher ;
but — ' * he stirred up a great many questions ; he drew upon
them our distracted attention; he compelled us to think of
them. Therein he did his duty as a dramatist."

Curiously enough, Dumas is best known to Americans by
his first and weakest play, La Dame aux Camelias (1848>,
which was performed at the Vaudeville only after successive
rejections. Camille, as it is known to us in the Anglicized,
and somewhat Bowdlerized, versions, is a sentimental idealiza-
tion of the courtesan; and probably owes its enduring popu-
larity to the opportunities it affords " emotional " actresses.
It is interesting to recall that Paris theatrical managers of
the mid-nineteenth century regarded it as rather too shock-
ing for Paris audiences; but it met with an instantaneous
success, due in a measure to its departure from cut-and-dried
traditions of characterization.

Dumas had already written a book of youthful poems, and
several novels of some merit; but his fame as a playwright
has quite eclipsed the Aventures de Quatre Femmes et d'un
Perroquet (1847), the Affaire Clemenceau (1846), and

474

THE MODERN DRAMA

Tristan le Roux (1849). La Dame aux Camelias had first
appeared as a novel, and as such it is still widely read ; Dumas
tells us that it took him just eight days to transform it into
a play. In 1853 he attempted to follow up his first dramatic
success by dramatizing his novel, Diane de Lys, written in
1851 ; he was so far successful that he was enabled to work at
his leisure on Le Demi-Monde (1855). This play, which some
readers will recognize under the title of " The Crust of
Society, ' ' is perhaps his most important work. The term ' ' de-
mi-monde " was invented by him to describe a social class (la
classe des declassed ), "who wish to have it believed that
they have been what they are not, and who do not wish to
appear what they are. ' ' But in spite of the author 's attempt
to force his definition on the public, the term demi-monde is
usually applied to that class of women known as femmes
galantes. The author's conception of the term is clearly
brought out in the following celebrated passage from Le Demi-
Monde, an example of the playwright 's brilliant style :

" Raymond. — In what world are we? In truth, I do
not understand it at all.

" Olivier. — Ah, my dear fellow, it is necessary to live for
a long time in intimacy with the Parisian world to under-
stand its various shades; and even then it is not easy to
explain matters. Do you care for peaches?

" Raymond. — Peaches? Yes.

" Olivier. — Very well. Go to a fruiterer, to Chevez or
Potel, and ask for his best peaches. He will show you a basket
containing magnificent specimens of fruit, placed at some
distance one from the other, and carefully separated by
partitions, so that they will not touch each other, and become
spoiled by contact. Ask the price, and he will say, ' Twenty
sous a piece,' I suppose. Look, then, and you will surely
see in the neighborhood of this basket another basket filled
with peaches just as fine in appearance as the first, only
placed closer together, and so arranged that they cannot be
seen from all sides, which the dealer has not offered you at
all. Say to him, ' How much are these? ' He will answer,
4 Fifteen sous.' You will naturally ask him why these
peaches, as large, as fine, as ripe, as appetizing, cost less than
the others. Then he will take up one at random most deli-

475

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

cately, and poising it between two fingers, he will turn it and
will show you a small black spot which is the cause of the
inferior price. Well, my dear fellow, you are now in the
basket of peaches at fifteen sous. The women by whom you
are surrounded have all committed some indiscretion in the
past; each one has a blot on her fair name. You see them
close together, so they are as little conspicuous as possible.
And thus, with the same birth, the same appearance, the same
tastes as the women of society, they are not of them, but
compose what we may call the demi-monde, which is neither
the aristocracy nor the bourgeoisie, but forms a floating island
in the ocean of Parisian life, and recruits itself from those
who have fallen, those who seek refuge here, all who have
come here from two continents, whom one meets everywhere,
who have come, one knows not from where. ' '

The early environment of Dumas determined in a measure
his selection of dramatic themes. An illegitimate son, his
schools days were embittered by the cruel gibes of his com-
panions; and it is not surprising that in later years he fre-
quently employed his pen to secure the rights of the illegiti-
mate child. His prefaces to La Femme de Claude (1873),
and L' Affaire Clemenceau are eloquent on the subject. In
his preface to Monsieur Alphonse (1873), a typical concep-
tion, he says: " In the midst of the diverse horrors arising
from human cupidity and human stupidity, there is but one
creature deserving of continuous and repeated, and incessant
aid, because, when in misery, it is rendered so wholly without
any fault of its own — the child." His material for La Dame
aux Cornelias was gathered at first hand during the days of
tumultuous experience, before he was confronted with the
problem of earning a living. Thereafter the problem play,
rather than the play of sheer sentimentality, engaged his
energies ; and, in one form or another, the problem was much
the same — woman in her sexual relation to man. An avowed
preacher and reformer, no one has yet discovered that he
formulated a consistent code of ethics. His raisonneur — the
character put forward in each of his plays as a mouthpiece
for his arguments — assumes protean shapes. In Les Idees de
Madame Aubray (1867) Dumas inculcated the duty of the
seducer to marry his victim. In La Femme de Claude, the in-

476

THE MODERN DRAMA

junction is a repetition of his advice to hoodwinked husbands
(as set forth in his pamphlet, L'Homme-Femme a year
earlier) : " Tue-la! "* The various plays in which the hus-
band, wife, or lover — as the case may be — is killed would re-
quire some tabulation. ' ' More attracted, ' ' says Jules Lemai-
tre, " by the moral question, than by life itself, and occupied
in comprehending life rather than in depicting it, it follows
that the plays of M. Dumas have too much of the personality
of M. Dumas."

From the Anglo-Saxon point of view, it can hardly be said
that Dumas " saw life steadily and saw it whole." In a
greater degree even than most of the other modern French
playwrights he saw it as it is reflected from a certain angle
in Paris. Meanwhile the problem play has crossed the
Channel, where its influence is manifest in the works of some
of the most eminent English playwrights. That Dumas was
very much in earnest in his pursuit of an ethical purpose
cannot perhaps be questioned, but unfortunately, as Doumic
says, to back his just and even sound ideas, he was often
paradoxical, and his situations were almost always ticklish
(scabreuses) . In his preface to Un pere prodigue (1859)
Dumas has made a candid confession: " A man may lack
merit as a thinker, a moralist, a philosopher, an author,
yet, nevertheless, become a playwright of the first class —
that is to say, in setting in motion before you the purely
external movements of humanity. ' '

Among other plays of this master craftsman are La Ques-
tion d'argent (1857) ; Le Fits naturel (1858), one of his most
effective dramas; L 'Ami des femmes (1864), a very strong,
subtle play written in a superb style; La Supplice d'une
femme (1865), a three-act play palpitating with movement,
and^ occupying but an hour and a half in the performance ;
L'Etrangere (1876). Dumas was instrumental in bringing
about the divorce laws of France (1884). In his introduction
to L'Etrangere he wrote: " The Chambers need only ratify
divorce, an immediate result would be the complete transposi-

1 " Kill her! " The French law, as a matter of fact, permitted a wronged
husband to take just such summary revenge, and the unwritten law not
unfrequently does here.

477

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

tion of our stage. The deceived husbands of Moliere and the
unhappy women of the modern plays, would completely dis-
appear from the scene." Denise (1885), is considered one
of his strongest and most dramatic plays, in which, however,
repugnant truths are made too aggressively prominent; in
Francillon (1887), Dumas 's skill in construction is matched
only by his adroitness in the surprise of the climax. Dumas
was admitted to the French Academy in 1874.

Where Dumas, despite, or because of, his brilliant rhetoric,
falls short as an ethical teacher, Emile Augier (1820-89)
succeeds by virtue of his larger outlook, his sound morality,
and his happier and more wholesome treatment of social
qu'estions. Angier, says a French critic, has a " sanguine "
temperament. He becomes angry and tranquil, he flies into
a passion, but he is merciful; Dumas is choleric; he is merci-
less and takes fierce revenge; Sardou, is above all nervous:
he has passing caprices and paroxysms of gayety.

Augier 's art is an inheritance from Moliere and Beau-
marchais. In the hands of Dumas a delicate and dangerous
subject was apt to take on the tones of melodrama; under
Augier 's treatment it became a picture of life. Dumas and
Sardou 's effects are respectively attained through appeals
to the emotions and to ingenious devices of plot; Augier 's
bid for immortality is through the analysis and exposition of
character. Hence he enjoys a preeminence at home, while
abroad he is little more than a name.

Augier rejoiced in a grandfather (Pigault-Lebrun) who
wrote a great many popular novels now forgotten. To this
ancestral strain, it is presumed, he owed his literary bent,
which set him to writing plays before he began to practice
law, and pretty soon justified his change in the choice of a
profession. Augier 's great merit lay in his excellent por-
traiture of French bourgeois society. Common sense was the
dominant feature in his plays. This tendency did not find
favor with the critics, led by Theophile Gautier, Vacquerie,
and other romanticists, who called it " 1'ecole du bon sens."

Augier was above all a man of domestic tastes ; devoted to
his home, it was the sanctity of the home that he upheld in
his dramatic work. After a century of ill usage, by French
dramatists, the husband finally came into his rights on the

478

THE MODERN DRAMA

stage with Augier. While other playwrights were the
apologists of libertinage, Augier courageously undertook the
defense of the family and protested against conjugal in-
fidelity. This spirit animates his plays L'Aventuriere (1848)
regarded by some critics as his masterpiece, and Gabrielle
(1849), for which he was awarded the Monty on prize for
virtue. The latter play called forth cries of admiration for
the author from the spectators in the words of the play : ' ' 0
pere de famille! 0 poete! je t'aime! "

Augier became famous when he was but twenty-four years
of age; his play, La Cigue (1844), unanimously rejected by
the committee of the Theatre-Frangais, was triumphantly
produced at the Odeon. Singularly enough, its classic theme
(like the subject of his Joueur de flute, written at the same
period, but not produced till 1850) comprehended the re-
demption of the courtesan by love. In 1855, when his
dramatic development had become apparent, it was the false
gentimentalism in which such a thesis may be enveloped that
impelled him to counteract Dumas 's Dame aux Camelias with
his own vigorous and startling Le Manage d'Olympe (1855).
In this play (which contributed to his election to the French
Academy) Augier relentlessly exposed the pretensions of the
" demi-mondaines, " who were attempting to force their way
into respectable society. The Dame aux Camelias was in line
with the tendency — made fashionable by Prevost's Manon
Lescaut, and Victor Hugo's Marion Delorme, and endur-
ing for a century — to glorify the impure woman. Augier
presented a far different, and a more convincing portrait in
that of the adventuress who seeks to besmirch the honor of a
noble family, and is shot down by the protector of that honor.

Three of Augier 's plays are accounted classics: Le Gendre
de M. Poirier (1854), one of the most delightfully and
naturally sketched pictures of contrasting social ranks — the
ambitious bourgeois and the ruined aristocrat— and which
still holds a first place on the roster of the Theatre-Franc.ais ;
L'Aventuriere (1848), a comedy in verse; and Le Fits de
Giboyer (1862). The latter play is a sequel to Les Eff routes
(1861), both plays being directed against corruptible journal-
ists. In Le Fils de Giboyer, Augier rose to his full height as a
satirist in what was regarded as an attack on the clerical party,

479

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

and in which he unhappily slandered the ultramontane jour-
nalist Louis Veuillot, who answered him in a strong pamphlet,
Le Fonds de Giboyer. According to Jules Lemaitre, les
Eff routes is the ' ' most powerful, the liveliest and soundest of
Augier's comedies. . . . The uprightness of mind and of heart,
the generous honesty which is, as one generally admits, the
soul of Augier's entire dramaturgy, is particularly apparent
in this beautiful, satirical comedy."

Among Augier's other plays written wholly by himself
or in collaboration, are Les Lionnes pauvres (1858), with its
lesson to pleasure-mad, faithless wives; Un Beau Manage
(1859) ; La Contagion (1866), in the personality of whose
adventurous hero, society thought to recognize the Due de
Morny. Augier's four-act comedy, Madame Caverlet (1875),
is a masterpiece and a strong defense in favor of divorce.
Jean de Thommeray (1873), with its touching scene of a
prodigal son's enlistment in the ranks of his Breton country-
men marching to the defense of Paris, is taken from a novel
by Jules Sandeau. Les Fourchambault (1878) had an im-
mense success; it is concerned with the problem of the rights
of illegitimate children. After Les Fourchambault, Augier
ceased to write for the stage, feeling that he had put forth
the best that was in him. Augier never made his art his trade,
but he had enjoyed a career of uninterrupted success for forty
years. His first play had been a revelation, writes Pailleron,
his last, a triumph, and this victor did not even cease con-
quering when he had stopped writing, for his repertory never
lost its popularity. Viewed after a lapse of over thirty years,
not one of his best plays has gone out of favor. Of his
twenty-seven plays, nine are written in verse, and these nine
include at least two of his best dramas ; yet it was dramatically
effective verse rather than great poetry. His prose — better
suited to plays with modern themes — is both lively and power-
ful, and is the vehicle for his clear and vigorous thought.

Augier never posed as a reformer nor as an apostle; he
never preached nor pleaded, but kept in view the good sound
moral sense of the people. The strength of a play, he him-
self said, consists in being the resounding echo of the whisper-
ings of society, in formulating general sentiments which are
still vague, and in directing the confused observation of the

480

THE MODEKN DRAMA

majority. Of the three or four masters of the stage, notes
Jean Fleury, Augier was the most human, the finest poised,
and the one who kept himself best in hand.

To go back a little: the most popular playwright of the
nineteenth century in France was one who did not bother
himself about social problems, or search for the secret springs
of human action, but simply strove to entertain. Augustin
Eugene Scribe (1791-1861) was a success in the most com-
plete commercial sense of the word. He possessed in a super-
normal degree the faculty of knowing exactly what would
please the multitude, together with an amazing facility for
supplying it, and a fertility of production that is almost in-
credible. Were he living to-day as an American playwright,
he would be in himself a syndicate, and a rival in wealth to
our most industrious millionaires. It is said that the self-
contained actor-manager can " count the house " during the
progress of a play without losing his cue — Scribe had the
prophetic vision, and foresaw, as he wrote, the exact relation
between the box-office returns and the lines or situations that
he was at that moment contriving. It was not that he was
wholly mercenary, for no man greedy for money would so
generously have shared it with his numerous collaborators,
to some of whom he was indebted only for the merest sugges-
tions, and to whom he gave freely both the profits and the
credit of authorship. The truth is, perhaps, that he could
not help being superficial; he lacked the inspiration and the
perception of genius, and he made the most of the talents he
possessed. These included supreme skill in the construction
of a play, and the gift of entertaining an audience without
making it think. He preached no false morality, and did
not sin against good taste ; his virtuous characters were very,
very good, and his vicious ones never really " horrid."
People did not sleep during his plays ; but they slept very well
afterwards.

The consequence is that Scribe has proved to be as perish-
able as he was popular. Few of his plays are performed, or
even remembered to-day. We say few because the pieces to
his credit number, according to various estimates, from three
hundred and fifty to five hundred, whereas the titles of the
more important do not occupy much space in the printing.
32 481

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

They include Le Mariage d' Argent (1827) ; Bertrand et
Eaton (1833) ; La Camaraderie (1837) ; Le Verre d'Eau
(1840) ; line Chaine (1841) ; Les Conies de la Reine de
Navarre (1850) ; Bataille de Dames (1851) ; Les Doigts de
Fee (1858); and Adrienne Lecouvreur (1849), which is
concerned with the love of Maurice de Saxe for the famous
' ' tragedienne ' ' who gives the play its name. The four plays
last named were written in collaboration with Ernest Le-
gouve ; * some of those enumerated had their first production
at the Comedie-Franc.aise.

Scribe's later work is his best; but as early as 1836 the
French Academy had opened its doors to this prosperous son
of a silk merchant, who for a matter of forty years was the
foremost playwright of France.2 His astonishing variety
knew no bounds. As a librettist his words are still sung in
such operas as Auber's Fra Diavolo; Meyerbeer's Les Hugue-
nots, and L'Africaine; Donizetti's La Favorite, and in other
musical works less familiar in the current repertory. He com-
posed farces, melodramas, comedies, without number; he
essayed the historical drama. He wrote a dozen plays before
his first success, Une Nuit de la Garde Nationale — a one-act
sketch or vaudeville — produced in 1816. Thereupon he
devoted himself chiefly to the elaboration of vaudeville, to
which he gave substance and dramatic form. In the ten years
of his exclusive connection with the Gymnase theater, he con-
tributed some one hundred and fifty plays, most of which
were vaudevilles, or what we would call farce comedies. A
signal example of his skill was Valerie (1822), a one-act
vaudeville which, with little change, he divided into three
acts, and, presto! behold a comedy for the Theatre-Francais.
That there was repetition of character and situation in such
a copious output it would seem to go without saying ; yet his
art resembled a kaleidoscope, in which the same bits of colored
glass take on innumerable variations in design.

1 Ernest Legouv6, an Academician, wrote the tragedy Medee for the
great actress, Rachel.

2 Scribe's imposing Chateau de Sericourt bears the following original
inscription:

"Le Theatre a paye cet asile ehampe'tre;
Vous qui passez, merci! je vous le dois peut-etre."

482

THE MODERN DRAMA

Meanwhile, tragedy for a moment lifted its head, and
there was promise of a compromise between Romanticism run
mad and the classicism it had dethroned. Francois Ponsard
(1814-67), after attempting a translation of Byron's " Man-
fred," produced in Lucrece (1843) a tragic drama which won
the applause of the critics, but in which the fire of genius was
presently discerned to be only a flicker. His Agnes de Meranie
(1847) and Charlotte Corday (1850) likewise burned with an
intermittent flame; for all Musset's amiable tribute to Pon-
sard's poetry, the torch had not been passed on from Corneille.
It was the expiring cry of tragedy. In France, as elsewhere,
the modern has sought a less exalted form of expression;
when the Theatre-Francais feels impelled to invoke the tragic
muse, it must fall back on the seventeenth-century classics, or
trust to a Bernhardt to vitalize the antiquated plays of Hugo.
Ponsard had been hailed as the founder of the " school of
common sense "; but though he fared somewhat better with
his comedies, L'Honneur et I' Argent (1853) ; La Bourse
(1856), Le Lion amoureux (1866), an historical study of the
morals of the Directoire — effective by virtue of vivacious and
powerful dialogue — he is an interesting memory rather than
a living tradition. It must not be forgotten, however, that
Joseph Autran was made an Academician because of his
tragedy, La Fille d'Eschyle (1848). In the poetic drama,
Henri de Bornier (1825-1901) met with a great immediate
success that has by no means endured. Beauty of language
and loftiness of conception have not sufficed as preservatives
of La Fille de Roland (1875), in which history was gro-
tesquely distorted. Its popularity is in part accounted for by
its political allusions. De Bornier's Les Noces d'Attila (1880)
was received with less enthusiasm; dramatic poetry cast in
the old classic molds, without the divine spark of genius could
not move a modern audience even when served with political
sauce. Of Jean Richepin's (1849-) several plays in verse,
Le Chemineau (1897) has attained more than a fleeting popu-
larity. The poetic play has in recent years experienced a
kind of revival in France, and, curiously enough, seems to be
on even terms with the essays of the naturalistic school. The
evidence of this taste has been emphatically shown in the case
of M. Rostand, as we shall presently see.

483

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Melodrama, from time to time, has had its vogue in
France. Ere the Romantic movement was precipitated by
Hugo, Pixerecourt pleased the populace with a number of
plays quite outside the pale of literature. Then came
Bouchardy, who in Lazare le Pdtre and other prose dramas
borrowed something of the plumage worn by the greater
Romanticists. Dennery, who appeared on the scene about the
middle of the century, possessed something of Scribe's con-
structive skill. His melodramas have a wonderful vitality;
two of them — Don Cesar de Bazan (1844), and Les deux
Orphelines (1875) (The Two Orphans) — have been popular
exhibits on the American stage in comparatively recent years.

Octave Feuillet (1821-90), who lent a hand in the fiction
factory of the elder Alexandre Dumas, is best known to Amer-
icans through the translation of his popular tale, Le roman
d'un jeune homme pauvre, and the play, A Parisian Romance,
to which the late Richard Mansfield gave a long lease of
theatrical life by emphasizing the character of Baron Chevrial.
Feuillet 's reputation rests on much more important work —
on such novels as M. de Cantors (1867), and Julia de Trecoeur
(1872), which disclosed an agreeable sentiment and style, and
on his comedies in the manner of Musset.

The comedy of the mid-century was enlivened by the fre-
quent contributions of Delphine Gay (Madame de Girardin) ,
the beautiful and brilliant wife of Entile de Girardin. At
least one of her plays — which include Lady Tartu ffe (1853),
and La Joie fait Peur (1854) — seemed to possess a value that
would endure. The titular character of Lady Tartuffe dis-
closed an uncommon creative power, and Madame de Girar-
din's humor is still applauded by the fastidious; but pos-
terity has proved to be ungallant and neglectful of her fame.

Eugene Labiche (1815-88), the most distinguished pro-
vider of the broad farce with a literary flavor, had enter-
tained his audiences for many years before Augier discovered
in him ' ' the Grand Master of Laughter. ' ' A collected edition
of his plays was issued in 1897, and the following year the
French Academy elected him an Immortal. There cannot
be much difference of opinion as to the literary merits of
Labiche, but everybody likes him because of his inexhaustible
and infectious humor coupled with wholesome common sense.

484

THE MODEKN DRAMA

It is generally granted that his vaudeville was a great ad-
vance over that of Scribe, and that no one since Moliere in
his most frivolous mood had caused such tempests of laughter.
Labiche made his first success, in 1851, with Le Chapeau de
Faille d'ltalie; one of the funniest and best known of his in-
numerable plays is Le Voyage de M. Perrichon.

A contemporary writer of farces was Edmond Gondinet
(1828-88), who lacked Labiche 's powers of creation, but
whose name is still associated with the gayety of the French
theater in the nineteenth century. The laughable Gavant,
Minard et Cie, was especially characteristic.

llldouard Pailleron (1834-99), the biographer of Augier
and a poet as well as a playwright, occupies a higher place.
It is not, alas ! in America alone that the public turns a deaf
ear to true merit; in Paris also one sometimes hears the ap-
plause of the groundlings prevail. So Pailleron, during a
period of twenty years wrote some delightful plays that met
with indifferent success. But in 1881 (the year of his elec-
tion to the Academy) his reputation was made secure with
the performance of Le monde ou I' on s'ennuie, a comedy of
exquisite construction, brilliant wit, and telling satire.

For the twenty years from 1860 to 1881, Ludovic Halevy
(1834-1908), and Henri Meilhac (1832-97), supplied the
French stage with some of its most joyful entertainment in
the form of operettas, farces, and comedies. In 1858 Halevy
had already made a reputation as one of the collaborators in
the libretto for Offenbach's Orphee aux enfers. In the
first ten years of the partnership with Meilhac, they jointly
concocted the Offenbach librettos for La Belle Helene, Barbe
Bleue, La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein, and La Perichole,
in which, under cover of satirizing social sins and follies, they
displayed an aptitude for wit that bordered on indecency.
Both writers were Parisians to the core, and their gifts of
humor, fancy, and imagination, found congenial expression
in airy sketches such as Madame attend Monsieur, Toto chez
Tata, La Boule. Their one great success in attempting a
more serious manner was Frou-Frou; in the hands of the ac-
tress, Aimee Desclee, it made a great sensation, nor has it
yet lost its vogue. They were also the joint contributors of
the libretto for Bizet's opera, Carmen. Upon the expiration

485

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

of the partnership with Meilhac, Halevy displayed his origi-
nal gifts in two remarkable stories of the Parisian lower
middle class. The Cardinal family, in Monsieur et Madame
Cardinal, and Les Petites Cardinal, have become by-words
for a well-recognized type. Halevy 's bid for an orthodox
reputation was L'Abbe Const antin (1882), a kind of French
" Vicar of Wakefield " in which some persons profess to see
a classic, but which is in reality merely a wholesome story,
prettily written. As one of the French novels which may
safely be recommended to the " young lady " for whom
Dumas fits disdained to write, it has obtained a wide circula-
tion in our own country. Halevy was made, in consequence
of this short novel, a member of the French Academy in 1888.

If Emile Zola's critical endeavors to stir the dramatic
pool were lacking in any considerable accomplishment, his
personal attempts to storm the stage were even less effectual.
Of the dramatizations of his novels only Therese Raquin need
be noted here. As John Addington Symonds pointed out
long ago, Zola in his novels was a romanticist, masquerading
as a realist ; and so in Therese Raquin he betrayed himself as
a genius whose power was employed in fashioning a repulsive
melodrama constructed on the outworn traditions.

Henri Becque (1837-99), was a realist who commanded
the technical resources of the stage, and left his impress on
the younger generation. Disdaining claptrap, and never ob-
truding his opinions in the puppets he infuses with life, his
plays are vital with truth and human nature. His pessi-
mism precluded popularity; yet it is the sort of pessimism
we find interwoven in the tales of the great English novelist,
Thomas Hardy — a pessimism whicli consists in regarding men
and women as the ironical sport of Destiny, and is not forced
to fit the theories, ideals, or arguments of the playwright or
fictionist. Becque looked to life rather than to the formulas
which the dramatists of his day were frantically seeking;
and his method derives less from naturalism than from
Moliere and the ancient classical writers. He was a long time
getting a hearing, and he persisted in the face of many de-
feats. L' 'Enfant Prodigue, a vaudeville first performed
in 1868, is replete with wit and clever characterization.
L'Enlevement (1898), a problem play, paved the way for

486

THE MODERN DRAMA

Les Corbeaux, performed at the Comedie-Frangaise in 1882,
and La Parisienne (1885). Of these two comedies, the first
named is concerned with an impoverished family of women
who fall a prey to human vultures; the portraiture is admir-
able, and it is a model of realism at its best. Neither this
play nor La Parisienne — which presents the domestic " tri-
angle " without rhetoric or sentimental gloss— was a popular
success. Becque was too gloomy and too outspoken for the
Parisians. But time, which adjusts these matters, has decided
that both plays are of permanent value.

The influence of the Theatre Libre, founded in 1887 by
Antoine, is variously estimated. M. Antoine, together with
the young playwrights of the new school who rallied around
him, sought to put naked realism on the stage, and to de-
velop a naturalistic drama free from conventional device and
restraint. The first performance took place in a passageway,
near Montmartre, known as the Elysee des Beaux-Arts. It
may be interjected that this apostle of realism was hospitable,
in the beginning, to plays of other and diverse kinds.1 It
was a " free stage " — independent of the censor because it
was a private enterprise, supported by subscribers; and so a
complete test of the new dramatic movement could be made.
This test seems to have been both a success and a failure.
Antoine 's admirers remind us that most of the celebrated
playwrights and actors of the last twenty years served their
apprenticeship in his theater, and that many of the German
cities have successfully emulated his example. Gustave Lan-
son recognizes that Antoine has taught his audiences the sense
of real dramatic imitation. Other critics say that the ex-
periment did not proclaim the triumph of realism, that on the
contrary, the enthusiasts of the Theatre Libre pushed their
theories to an extreme : the representatives of the ' ' eomedie
rosse " — Becque, Ancey, Courteline, Jullien, Metenier and
others — endeavored to dramatize demoralizing human types

1 Among these plays were La Reine Fiammetta, by Catulle Mendes; Le
Baiser, a fairy play in verse by Th. de Banville; Une Evasion, by Villiers
de I'lsle-Adam; L'Ornement des noces spirituelles de Rysbroeck I' Admirable,
of Maeterlinck; La mart du due d'Enghien, by Hennique, and La Patrie en
danger, by the brothers Goncourt.

487

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

offensive to public taste; the performances of the free stage
became gross and repulsive, and, after eight years of an ex-
periment that attracted wide attention, M. Antoine aban-
doned it for a time. After an interval, he resumed the ex-
periment with considerable modifications, at the playhouse
which since 1897 has been known as the Theatre Antoine,
which some persons regard as the most interesting theater
in Paris.1

Many of the plays produced at the Theatre Libre (where
the number of performances of any one piece was rigidly
restricted) found a welcome elsewhere, and some of the con-
tributors to its stage were men of an original and striking
talent. Frangois de Curel reverted rather than returned to
nature when in La file sauvage (1902), he placed on the
stage the erstwhile human mate of an orang-outang; but he
gained critical approval for his analysis of emotion and his
dramatic strength in L'Envers d'une Saint e and Les Fossiles.
Eugene Brieux has come to be accepted as a satirist of a cer-
tain sort; universal suffrage, charity, and law, are respec-
tively the targets in L'Engrenage, Les Bienfaiteurs, and La
Robe Rouge. He has even shot his bolt (in Les Rempla$antes)
at the practice of substituting a wet nurse for the mother.
George Courteline and George Ancey, in Boubouroche and La
Dupe were contrivers of a humor styled the ' ' comique cruel. ' '
It was Courteline who, with his one-act plays, La Paix du
menage and Un Client serieux, gave the impulse to the small
theaters now so numerous in Paris.

The Theatre Libre introduced to Parisians the plays of
Ibsen,2 Bjornson, Tolstoy, Hauptmann, and Sudermann. Ib-
sen 's craftsmanship was quickly recognized and applauded by

1 It was in the preceding year, 1896, that M. Antoine undertook to ex-
ploit the social drama (in which M. Leblond perceived the redemption of
dramatic literature), producing La Guerre au village, by Trarieux, and other
plays of this nature.

J Peer Gynt was produced at the Theatre de 1'GEuvre, in 1896, by a
company under the direction of the actor-manager M. Lugne'-Poe', who had
previously given performances in London of other plays by Ibsen, notably
Rosmersholm. Le Canard Sauvage (The Wild Duck) was put on at the
Theatre Libre as early as 1891, but it is only lately that it has been per-
formed at the Ode"on.

488

THE MODERN DRAMA

French playgoers, though his philosophy and mysticism per-
plex and baffle them. In what measure these currents from
the north will ultimately affect the stream of French dra-
matic production no man may say; they have at least exer-
cised some immediate influence in modifying the native
inclination to rhetoric and purely theatrical effects. Paris an-
ticipated London in welcoming Ibsen ; and M. Augustin Filon
notes with emphasis that, following upon the unfavorable
attitude of Sarcey and Jules Lemaitre, " John Gabriel
Borckmann " has been warmly applauded in the Journal des
Debats by Emile Faguet, and that the Ibsen influence can
clearly be traced in such dramatists as Paul Hervieu and de
Curel. M. Filon also perceives in a little group of play-
wrights of whom Hervieu is the most important, an intellec-
tual and moral stimulation derived through observation of
the Theatre Libre experiments. Of this group, Henri Lave-
dan * has shown proficiency in light comedy ; George de Por-
to-Riche has revealed in Amoureuse an unsuspected talent;
Maurice Donnay,2 in Amants, rather more than in his other
plays, has displayed originality and charm in the treatment of
an old theme. Paul Hervieu (born 1857) has established
himself as one of the foremost living playwrights of France,
and has written two notable novels — Flirt and L' Armature.
Les Tenailles (" The Nippers "), a grim and terrible drama
of marital unhappiness endured for the sake of the wife's il-
legitimate child, afforded a hint of Hervieu 's power. A later
play, Le Dedale (1903), in which the child again dominates
the theme of domestic misery, revealed a climax bordering
dangerously on the melodramatic, but was nevertheless filled
with a sincerity and animated by an art that entitle it to rank
among the most significant dramatic contributions of recent
years. Hervieu 's treatment of the problem play differs from
that or Dumas fits, inasmuch as he does not thrust the moral

1 The first of the Antoine playwrights to win success in the regular
theaters, his great triumph was Le Duel, performed at the The'atre-Francais.
Of his Nouveau Jeu, which gained him admission to the French Academy,
a Paris critic said that it was "de'collete' jusqu" £ la ceinture."

• La Patronne is the latest of Donnay's plays and La Clairiere the joint
production of Donnay and Descaves.

489

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

down your throat, and maintains the attitude of an observer
rather than a preacher. On the whole, he suggests Becque
rather than Ibsen. He has not, however, escaped the impu-
tation of that wordiness which disfigured some of the plays
by Dumas fits. This appears in Les Paroles Restent, La Loi
de I'Homme, and in that singular puzzle play which has
least contributed to M. Hervieu's artistic reputation —
L'Enigme. " In their revolt against the so-called ' well-
made play/ " remarks Mr. James Huneker, " the newer
Parisian dramatists have gone to the other extreme." Rene
Doumic writes : ' ' the theater is becoming the vehicle of
social predication: every time an author is inspired with
the muse of Thalia, he finds it necessary to evolve a social
question: the reform of the family, education, marriage,
divorce, magistrature, army, finances, penal methods, in-
telligence offices for nurses, what x not. If our society is
not redeemed it is not for the want of having exposed
before the footlights a hundred different expedients. . . .
The object of the stage is not to preach nor to create
laughter, it is to portray in verity the customs of average
society. ' '

Maurice Maeterlinck, poet, essayist, playwright, was born
in Belgium (1862), and did not go to live in Paris until
1886; but he is properly classed among French writers. His
earlier plays — vague, formless, mystic — were written to be
performed by marionettes ; to minds unreceptive to mysticism
they remain incomprehensible. His first drama, La Prin-
cesse Maleine (1889), is a jumble of ideas and words, scarcely
more coherent than his early volume of poems, Serres
Chaudes; more than ten years of evolution and dramatic
symbolism separate it from the lucid and impressive Monna
Vanna (1902), written for Madame Maeterlinck.1 It may
be said of this play— of almost unrivaled popularity in
Europe, and not unfamiliar to the American public— that
the chief obstacle to its successful performance in English is
the difficulty of assembling a company of actors adequate to
the delivery of its poetry and the interpretation of its heroical-

1 Madame Georgette Leblanc, the famous actress. The play has lately
been set to music for an opera by the composer Henry F6vrier.

490

THE MODERN DRAMA

ly wrought characters. Maeterlinck's other plays include
L'Intruse (1890) ; Pelleas et Melisande (1892), beautiful but
bizarre in sentiment; Smur Beatrice (1901) ; and Joyzelle
(1903), a love story in which the playwright has returned in
some measure to his earlier manner. Maeterlinck expressly
eschews action in the plays other than Monna Vanna;
11 theatre statique " (as opposed to the dynamic) is the term
he himself applies to them. He is ' ' rather a philosopher who
has turned dramatist than a dramatist who has turned philos-
opher," says Arthur Symons; he " has made the stage at
once more subjective and more pictorial than it ever was be-
fore." A word of digression concerning the essays: Maeter-
linck has described his philosophy of life and his literary
theories in his three works Le Tresor des Humbles, La Sagesse
et la Destinee, and Le Temple enseveli. Theater goers who
turn away bewildered from the dream plays, readers to whom
mysticism is meaningless, may nevertheless find enchantment
in the delightful, perspicuous pages of his greatest produc-
tion, La vie des abeilles — a " life of the bee " that discloses a
poet and thinker equipped with the magic of a seductive lit-
erary style.

Ten years have passed since M. Faguet, speaking for criti-
cism, found himself in accord with popular taste in pro-
nouncing Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), the finest dramatic
poem in fifty years. Edmond Rostand, its author, born in
1868, was, because of it, acclaimed a genius, and four years
later — following L'Aiglon — he was elected a member of the
French Academy. In ten years, however, enthusiasm cools,
and of late there has been a disposition to view M. Rostand's
work more critically, especially as in L'Aiglon (1900) — with
its interminable recitations and its curious historical perver-
sities— he did not sustain the expectations aroused by his
earlier play. Cyrano de Bergerac is not perhaps an epoch-
making drama. It has not signalized a new movement to
those who stand anxiously alert for a sign in the dramatic
heavens ; analysis of its ethical value has found it wanting in
the elements that go to make a great play. Yet its captivating
qualities are undeniable. It is rife with capricious fancy and
imagination, and blends pure joy with passages of engaging
sentiment and telling pathos. Its verse is verse, not the

491

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

poetry of great poets, but of its kind it is not excelled in
grace and buoyancy, and it has this especial merit — that it
is theatrically effective, with none of the monotony peculiar
to the traditional Alexandrine. Indeed, it is quite possible
that M. Faguet might reaffirm his first impression. M. Ros-
tand, who always has been a semi-invalid, produces little. His
plays antedating his masterpiece embrace Les Romanesques,
La Princesse Lointaine, and La Samaritaine, and display
talent, but do not reveal the author of Cyrano save as a poet
of great facility.

Probably no play has been so much talked or written
about before its production as Chanticler. Its long-delayed
appearance called forth many satirical comments from the
anti-Rostandites : ' ' "Whatever the beauty of the work may
be," wrote Henri Mairet, "it is impossible that when it is
known, it will bring nearly so much renown to its author
as it did while it was unknown. The author therefore has
every reason to keep it as long as possible in a concealment
so conducive to its glory." However this may be, Rostand,
according to the French dramatist de Caillavet, has attained
in Chanticler lyric effects as good as in the best of his former
works, and some poetic flights, but no dramatic qualities. The
subject of the play was suggested by the Fowl Congresses
popular in the literature of the Middle Ages. The title Chan-
ticler, is Rostand's adaptation of the old French spelling of
Chantecler. The play is in four acts with a prologue in verse,
which is delivered by one of the actors, who steps before the
curtain and announces that it is a play of animals. The chief
character is the Cock (Chanticler), who takes the command-
ing position as herald of the dawn, and even more than that,
for he impresses his brother fowls to such an extent that they
believe him to actually command the dawn which appears at
his summons.

There is a love motive very delicately managed. In fact,
the finest quality of the play — on the authority of those who
have heard passages recited — is the lyrical delicacy of han-
dling, which has prevented a play of animals from being
ridiculous. The heroine is, of course, a hen, and in a more
naive time, the Norman-French " Parliament of Fowls " was
received with complete seriousness ; but the times have changed,

492

THE MODERN DRAMA

and the incongruity of cocks, hens and dogs speaking mod-
ern French pentameters is only too easily perceived as an
element of humor. So far as the reading of the play is
concerned this incongruity no longer strikes the persons
most concerned, the actors — for there is no doubt about
their cordial enthusiasm on the subject of the charm of
Chanticler.

It was long evident from certain indications in the plays
and from private utterances of Rostand that he intended to
go back farther in the atmosphere of the drama than the
time of Richelieu. It is surmised by some of his friends that
he repented of I'Aiglon as too modern, and as a French
dramatic writer recently said, the author who could impose
the impossibility of Cyrano on the audience, and make a
gallant compose a complicated ballade in the act of the ex-
quisite feints of an accomplished master of the fence, could
easily go farther and make lyrical addresses to the sun and
to all the powers of earth and heaven coming from the mouths
of fowls, appear probable.

Chanticler is an appeal to that latent romance and naivete
in the minds of the most sophisticated, which make the
dreams of Maeterlinck and Rostand's own Princesse Loin-
tame agreeable in this over-analytical age. Brunetiere, speak-
ing of such poetry as Rostand writes, says that his province
was to take us out of ourselves and into new, unknown, and
ever-impossible worlds. In Cyrano, while following the form
of drama in vogue among the Precieuses of the Hotel de
Rambouillet and reviving their spirit, Rostand captivated
his analytical Parisian with an impossible world, and in
Chanticler he revives the atmosphere of the dramatic fable,
which his ancestors in France, and his ancestors in Norman
England, looked on as one of the most important forms of
the play, and threw themselves heartily into its motives and
atmosphere. The play as read, evidently restores this atmos-
phere, and forces the hearers to be of it. The question as
to whether the play-acting can produce so complete an il-
lusion, cannot be solved until the actors speak their parts
and attempt to simulate an entirely unreal life under very
real conditions.

The passion for playgoing in France has created a health-

493

ful appetite for performances out of doors. Theaters in the
open air have been established by M. Jules Rateau at Peri-
gueux, and Limoges; in the mountains at Cauterets; and at
Biarritz, where the tragedy, Phedre, performed in the sum-
mer of 1907, enjoyed a stage setting of great natural beauty
at the Theatre de la Mer. M. Albert Darmont has organized
the Theatre Antique de la Nature at Champigny-la-Bataille,
and produced the tragedy by Paul Souchon, Le nouveau Dieu.
Souchon, who has met with some success in the performance
of Phyllis, in verse, announces his desire to create a modern
tragedy ; * and Joachim Gasquet, in his prologue to his an-
tique tragedy, Dionysos, affirms his intention to renew the
cult of the philosophical and religious drama.

The Theatre des Poetes, organized by Maurice Magre and
his followers, and devoted almost exclusively to the romantic
drama, has not proved an unqualified success; but it has
served the purpose of introducing to the public certain play-
wrights of progressive tendencies. The plays produced under
these auspices include L'Or, by Magre; Imperia, by Jean
Valmy-Boysse ; La Peur d'aimer, by G. Frejaville ; and Louis
XVII, by G. Frauchois.

This roster of modern French playwrights is far from
complete. To make it fairly so one must include the names
of Frangois Coppee, Jules Claretie, A. Parodi, E. Bergerat,
P. Deroulede, J. Aicard, G. Ohnet, A. Bisson,2 Jules Le-
maitre, J. Jullien, A. Capus,3 L. Gandillot, G. Feydeau, Mir-
beau, Rivoire,* Bernstein,5 Bourget, Cury,6 and others.
These, with varying degrees of merit, and representing many

1 A new tragedy, La Furie, by Jules Bois, was lately produced at the
Th^atre-Francais.

2 The vaudevillist whose latest play, La Femme, is considered a superior
melodrama.

3 L'Oiseau blesse, the most recent of Capus's comedies.

• Le ban Roi Dagobert.

* La Rafale, Samson, Le Voleur, and Israel, some of Bernstein's recent
plays.

• The joint production of Bourget and Cury, Le Divorce, a vehicle for
the expression of four theories — orthodox catholic, free love, liberal
thought, and toleration — which find eloquent apologists in the various
characters, caters to all tastes.

494

THE MODERN DRAMA

streams of tendency, are all enrolled in the Quarante ans de
theatre of the late Franeisque Sarcey. The list might easily
be amplified by enumerating the authors of certain fairy
plays — including Richepin, Lorrein, Bouchor; the authors of
the drama injouable— unadapted to the frivolous public taste ;
together with the playwrights who, in varying degree and
of various schools, are successfully contributing to the drama
of the day. But their place at present is a subject for cur-
rent criticism rather than for the pages of a book.

Whether or not the drama may be regarded as the high-
est form of literary expression, it certainly seems to be the
most difficult, and — in its successful exercise of truly great
creative gifts — the rarest. The disproportion between the
dramatic productions of English genius and the contemporary
development and output in other branches of literature is
especially noticeable in the nineteenth century, so rich in
poetry, fiction, and scientific works. This disproportion — in
an indeterminate degree — exists also in France: the French
poets and novelists of that century outweigh the contents of
the dramatic scale. There is nothing, for example, in the
plays of this period made of such enduring stuff as the tales
of Balzac and the poetry of Hugo and Musset. Excepting
transcendent genius — and even transcendent genius is not
wholly free from the reproach — there seems to be something
in the practical and contemporary requirements and, we may
add, the temptations, of the stage, that pales the divine fire,
clips the wings of inspiration, and cheapens the art of the
imaginant. Can this be so, or is it merely an inexplicable
whim of nature which gives us not so often as once in a cen-
tury, a man who unites technical dramatic proficiency with
the largest gifts of literary expression?

It is only within the last fifteen years that the German
and Scandinavian drama has to some extent affected the pres-
tige so long enjoyed by the French plays in the theaters of
Europe and the United States. This has a special significance
in view of the decline in literary value noted by some of the
Paris critics, who declare that in this respect the French stage
is deteriorating. Two expressions invented by the playwrights
themselves may perhaps be taken as implying their recogni-
tion of the situation: " Ce n'est pas du theatre " is said of

495

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

a play possessing literary and dramatic merit, but lacking
qualities that would make it ' ' take ' ' with the public ; whereas
the affirmative, " c'est du theatre " is employed to designate
a piece obviously destined to success because of its vul-
gar gayety, questionable moral, and its appeal to the popu-
lar emotions. Not " will it play? " but rather, " will it
pay ? " is the uppermost issue of the hour. It is customary to
blame the public for the degeneracy of the stage, the authors
being obliged to cater to its taste. " Convenient excuse! "
exclaims Doumic, " the public has never prescribed any form
of art, it takes what is given; it is docile and needs to be
guided. It has that need more than ever for it is growing
larger. ' '

The future of the drama in France is not foreshadowed
by contemporary productions: no supreme master points the
way, and no considerable body of dramatists has developed a
set tendency. Only this we know: that a century has passed
rich and varied in achievement, without supplying one great
and enduring addition to the dramatic literature of the
world. This statement holds true of all other nations with
the difference that their dramatic output has been smaller and
poorer than that of the French.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE FRENCH PRESS
THE ORIGIN OF NEWSPAPERS

WHEN we remember that the Chinese had developed a lit-
erature at a time when our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, in a bar-
baric state, were painting their skins blue, it does not seem
astonishing that the Chinese also had originated the art of
printing as early as the sixth century of the Christian era,
and that the Peking Gazette— the oldest daily newspaper in
the world — dates from about 1340 A.D. This journal, still in
existence as an official organ, is printed from wooden types,
just as it was in the fourteenth century, and on one side of the
paper only, with a colored cover. Strictly speaking, how-
ever, it affords no real connecting link between modern typog-
raphy and journalism. The newspaper is the product of
modern civilization, and was not called into being until long
after the discovery of the New World had opened un-
trodden avenues of trade and quickened the activities of
men. The first newspaper, in the actual sense of the term,
was the weekly Frankfurter Journal, established by Egenolph
Emmel in 1615; and the example set by Germany was soon
followed in England, in 1622, by Nathaniel Butler and his
associates, in the founding of the Weekly News; while in
France journalism began with the Gazette (1631). Journal-
ism did not become a power till much later, when it under-
took to inform and direct public opinion through the medium
of the " leading article " or political " editorial." This had
its beginnings in England early in the eighteenth century, in
the stirring times of Swift and Defoe ; but France did not in-
voke its aid till the Revolution of 1789— Germany following
ten years later.

The progenitor of the newspaper was the letter of the six-

33 497

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

teenth century, and it is not without profit to note its in-
fluence in preparing the way for the Press. It is true that
the Roman Empire had produced in its bulletins a sort of in-
cipient journalism. The Ada Diurna, recording the achieve-
ments of the army ; the Act a Senatus, a sort of Parliamentary
report incorporated in the Government Gazette by Julius
Csesar ; and the Ada Publica, which, under the Imperial sanc-
tion, embraced a variety of statistical, economical and fin an -
cial reports, together with certain matters of public impor-
tance: these, indeed, savored of a newspaper. We may even
see a certain analogy between our modern newspaper bulle-
tins, scanned by the eager crowd, and the huge affairs set up
by Ca?sar in public places, about 59 B.C. But the time was
not ripe for the continuous development of such an idea.
It must needs wait not only for Gutenberg's discovery of
metal types, but for the production of paper in sufficient
quantity and of sufficient cheapness. So not till the Renais-
sance was the means of communication between persons dis-
tantly separated accomplished through any better medium
than the letter.

After the discovery of America the need of news and
of means for its dissemination became insistent, particularly
among men of business. The fashion grew of writing letters
which were in part of a personal nature and in part a brief
chronicle of important events occurring within the writer's
vicinity. The letters had obviously a great value and in-
terest. " Scraps " or " supplements," " nova " or " avise,"
as they were called in the various countries of their origin
and transmission, these precious chronicles of war and trade
were so passed from hand to hand for perusal that it is a
wonder any of them remain to the antiquarian.

It came to pass that in Venice — a news center for Europe
— the Fogli di Avvisi, or news leaflets, took the form of a
small daily sheet put forth on the Rialto for the price of a
gazzetta — a small coin equivalent to a little more than a cent
of our own money. Then leaflet and coin became interchange-
able terms, and to this day in Italy the newspaper is a " gaz-
zetta."1

1 At a later period, in England, toward the close of the seventeenth
century, news leaflets made up from the news of the coffee-houses were

498

THE FRENCH PRESS

At Augsburg the Fugger family of merchant princes,
whose commercial connections kept them in touch with
travelers and traders everywhere, were constant contributors
of news letters, some of which are still preserved in the Court
Library at Vienna. Melanchthon, Luther's collaborator, was
an indefatigable correspondent at Wittenberg. From his
letters and from Luther's we learn that when some bit of
news was of special interest, it was not infrequently printed on
a loose sheet. Such a letter, bearing the date of 1505, and
entitled " New Paper," has been preserved; but the designa-
tion is misleading if we seek to connect it with the modern
newspaper.

The news letters emanating from Venice, Augsburg,
Wittenberg, Nuremberg, Brussels, Antwerp, Frankfurt-on-
the-Main, and Paris, were diversified in contents, and, con-
sidering their brevity, conveyed a surprising quantity of
information. These quasi-reporters of the period had the
" nose for news," and sometimes a taste for the sensational
not unlike that of our contemporary newspaper makers ad-
dicted to " Extras " and adjectival debauches. They reveled
in " bloody rains," murders, monstrosities, and mirages.
They kept Christendom on edge with reports of the victorias
of the Turks, whose prowess at that time was a constant
menace to Europe. Letter-writing had, in fact, become a
trade, and many of the " avise " writers were regularly paid
for their services. One such reporter in Cologne, who kept
well informed concerning the Netherlands and France, re-
ceived an annual salary of two hundred guilders from Rudolf
II.

To write such letters was comparatively easy; their dis-
patch and transmission were attended by many difficulties.
Princes, dignitaries of the church, the monasteries and the
towns — all were pressed into service to supplement the efforts
of the merchants' messengers. Then, in 1425, Fillippo Maria
Visconti organized at Milan a chain of ducal relay stations.
Maximilian, with the aid of the Italian, Ian de Sassis, es-

hawked about the streets; but penny journalism had no sooner showed its
head than it perished under the imposition of a government tax of a half-
penny per sheet.

499

tablished a route that in 1491 connected Milan with Inns-
bruck; and later, under the management of Franz of Taxis,
Innsbruck was linked with the Netherlands.

The Taxis family pushed their enterprise. A line of relay
stations was extended to the French and Spanish courts; the
system was put in operation throughout Germany. Gradually
the service ceased to be monopolized for royal purposes. By
1510 it was available for private uses, and in 1595 Leonard
of Taxis, was appointed Postmaster General of the Empire
by Rudolf II. Thereafter, individual efforts to maintain
delivery routes were abandoned, for the Taxis service had
come into general use in Germany and throughout much of
Southwestern Europe.

FRENCH JOURNALS

The tumultuous course of events in France during the
past three centuries has been a decisive factor in shaping
French journalism. Its evolution has not been as continuous
as in America and England, and the circumstances attending
its development, no less than the idiosyncrasies of the French
character and temperament, have produced a press which,
measured by Anglo-Saxon ideals and prejudices, has been
limited in scope and achievement. For one thing, it is the
nature of the French to manifest a greater interest in persons
than in conditions and circumstances, and to feel a deeper
concern in some distinguished author's opinions of a subject
than in the subject itself. The greater the violence displayed
by the several exponents of a theory or a cause — culminating,
perhaps, in a duel — the greater is the joy derived therefrom
by the French public. Moreover, journalists in France have
been compelled by law to sign their productions, thereby
placing the person of the writer in a position of peculiar
eminence unattainable in England and America, where all
political articles appear anonymously. Hence the person of
the French journalist has enjoyed a significant distinction.
It is not the journal for which he writes, not L'Autorite, or
the La Libre Parole, but he himself, Paul de Cassagnac, or
l^douard Drumont, who constitutes a political power; and
therefore it is not unusual in France for a journalist to be

500

THE FRENCH PRESS

called to political position, which in Germany or in Austria
would be wholly out of the question. It is coming to be
recognized, however, that such a state of affairs is against
public policy. For, as certain critics have pointed out, the
power of the press in France is exercised directly upon the
Parliament rather than upon the people, so that it is possible
under the prevailing system for journalistic adventurers to
shape the course of Government without reference to real
public opinion.

Perhaps the principal distinction between journalism in
France and that in England and the United States has been
the indifference of the French to what we call " news,"
which in American eyes, especially, is the first essential req-
uisite. Until recently the Parisian has been content if his
chosen journal provided him with political articles, and with
that species of brilliant gossip, criticism, and comment in
which the French excel — above all, with the beloved and in-
evitable feuilleton, or romance, without which no Parisian
paper could go to press. What bread and the circus were to
the Roman populace in the time of the Caesars, so to the bour-
geois and his betters have been the political outpourings of
the pamphleteers, and the feuilleton, in its various expressions
of the journalistic-literary art, from the time of the first
Napoleon to the period of the Third Republic. But times
change, and even in France men change with them. Tradi-
tions are being overturned with the rise of the democracy and
the infusion of ideas from abroad. The faculties of imagina-
tion and fancy, so long enthroned in the intellectual temple
of French life, are giving way before the new and strange
worship of facts, and the common mind does not stop at
demanding that telegraphic news from St. Petersburg shall
actually be prepared at the Russian capital, and not in a
boulevard cafe.

So passes the glory of French journalism. For the news
instinct, once aroused, is insatiable and terrible — growing
with what it feeds upon. " The news of last week under the
date of to-morrow " is an old arraignment of the Parisian
press that may presently seem obsolete enough. Even the
good old tradition, that a dog fight in Paris is more important
as news than a battle in America, is dying. The " new

501

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

journalism," following the lead of the Echo de Paris, has its
correspondents at the Continental capitals, as well as in
London, and the political utterances of the most reckless
journals are coming to conform in some measure to the
actualities of the news. Even the Intransigeant is not all
Rochefort since it has become an evening paper, with tele-
grams; and that column of fag ends, the Derniere Heure of
the morning dailies, is in a fair way to be abolished.

The real beginning of French journalism, is found in La
Gazette, established in Paris May 30, 1631, by Theophraste
Renaudot, physician to Louis XIII. It was a periodical news-
paper written in manuscript, in imitation of the Italian news
letters, and which Renaudot circulated among his patients.
The aim of this journal was to espouse the interests of a mon-
archy hard pressed by the ambitious nobility of the Fronde ;
and Richelieu, if he did not actually inspire the project, at
least became its patron. The great Cardinal, and, after him,
Mazarin, lent it their active cooperation; Anne of Austria
conferred upon its editor the honorary title ' ' Historiographer
of Her Majesty ' ' ; even Louis XIII himself contributed brief
articles, and — like a child enjoying a new toy — sometimes took
them in person to the printer and saw them set up in type.

Renaudot had many enemies to contend with, not alone
among the French nobility, but among foreign princes as well.
Nevertheless, La Gazette, consisting of eight pages in small
quarto, grew from a weekly into a semi-weekly — ultimately
into a daily. A page was reserved for advertisements, and
once a month a supplement was issued. Goaded by his ad-
versaries who sought to curtail the circulation of the journal,
Renaudot, in a certain issue, published this defiance : ' ' I
hereby request all foreign princes and states to waste no
more time in futile attempts to bar my chronicles from their
territory. For mine is a ware whose sale it has never been
possible to restrict, and it has this in common with large
rivers — its strength grows with the barriers it encounters."

Renaudot prevailed in the end, and, dying in 1653, passed
on the paper to his sons. In the political storms of ensuing
years its name was changed more than once, but under the
title adopted in 1762 — La Gazette de France — it still endures
to-day, the organ of that dwindling little band of Frenchmen

502

THE FRENCH PRESS

who constitute the survivors of the old Legitimist party. The
files of the paper, from the first number — more than three
hundred volumes in all — have fortunately been preserved,
and are an invaluable record of the times.

It is necessary to note but briefly some of the early con-
temporaries of La Gazette. These include Loret's rhymed
Gazette (1650-65), containing crude but vivid pen pictures
of the period; Le Mercure Galant (1672), afterwards Le
Nouveau Mercure, which, still later, as Le Mercure de France,
attained in 1790 a circulation of 13,000 copies, suspend-
ing publication in 1792, and thereafter alternately revived
and suppressed till its final suspension in 1853; Le Journal
Etranger (expired in 1763), numbering among its contrib-
utors Rousseau, Grimm and Prevost. The first French daily
was Le Journal de Paris; born with the New Year of 1777,
it had an innocuous career for half a century, ceasing to
exist in 1825.

In 1789 Mirabeau's Courrier de Provence was the fore-
runner of a veritable rain of newspapers. With the over-
throw of the old social regime and the " Proclamation con-
cerning the Freedom of the Press," by the Powers of 1791,
the highly charged atmosphere spent its thunder showers
of journals. Marat's most violent Ami du Peuple, together
with L'Orateur du Peuple, Le Patriote Francois, La Tribune
du Peuple, Les Revolutions de Paris, were among the countless
ephemeral newspapers that embraced among their editors
such leaders as Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, Prudhomme.
It is estimated that some three hundred and fifty journals,
including seventy-three political publications, were pre-
cipitated in Paris at this time. Nearly all these newspapers
had expired by the fall of 1793; one lived till late in the
nineteenth century; two — Le Moniteur Universel, and Le
Journal des Debats — have survived to our own day.

With the passing of the Terror the reaction set in. ' ' Let
the French amuse themselves and dance," said Napoleon,
" and let alone the plans of Government." We see him
politely pointing out the frontier to Madame de Stael, and
ungallantly retorting with an arrow from her own quiver
when she complained that he had no respect for women:
" Madame, art is sexless." It is said that Napoleon secretly

503

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

feared and admired journalists, and even solicited their sup-
port. Nevertheless, during the Consulate sixty political papers
were suppressed, and, of those remaining, thirty-nine dis-
appeared during the Empire, so that in 1811 only four were
left, not counting La Gazette, Le Journal de Paris, Le Moni-
teur, and Le Journal des Debats. These four papers were
under strict censorship, a function officially reintroduced by
the decree of February 5, 1810, but which had been practi-
cally in existence for some time before. Thus, at Napoleon 's
instigation, the press was degraded into the merest tool.
Henceforth, politics were almost completely banished from
the papers; reports on music, theaters, balls, festivals, con-
stituted their principal contents.

After the fall of Napoleon, during the Restoration and
the July Monarchy, the French press enjoyed a speedy
renascence. Almost all eminent personages, such as Thiers,
Mignet, Chateaubriand, Rossi, Tocqueville, took a personal
interest of some sort or other in journalism, and, in conse-
quence, a newer and finer note was sounded in the newspapers.
The most brilliant of these publications, which gloried in the
display of a subtly academic character, was the Le Journal des
Debats, founded in August, 1789, by the printer, Baudouin,
and acquired a year later, for twenty thousand francs, by
Louis Bertin, a literary man of means and good birth. It
was a brilliant success from the beginning, and it has ever
maintained that standard of literary excellence and political
character and stamina which led Lamartine to say that it had
" made itself part of French history." Even Napoleon, who
tolerated rather than approved the Debats, did not work it
serious injury when, finding the title " inconvenient," he
caused it to be altered to Le Journal de V Empire (the old
name was resumed in 1815), or again, when, under the threat
of a special censorship, he informed Fievee, one of its editors,
that the only safe course was " to avoid the publication of
any news unfavorable to the Government, until the truth of
it is so well established that the publication became needless. ' '
Later, with Sylvestre de Sacy as editor, a journalist whose
exquisite diction was united with a dignity and reserve un-
impaired in the most trying circumstances, the Debats was
purged of all petty feuds and rivalries, and rose to a power

504

THE FRENCH PRESS

that did not wane until the days of the Third Republic. Then
came a political disruption of owners and readers, just as in
1815 a similar disagreement had led to the founding of Le
Const it utionnel. Those who remained at the helm sought to
regain the prestige enjoyed under Louis-Philippe by a re-
course to popular methods. The policy of the paper was
changed to the sensational, the price reduced, and an evening
edition was brought out on pink paper. But these methods
only succeeded in horrifying the old clientele without alluring
a new one. To-day the Debats, conservative Republican, of
moderate circulation, sells for three cents to all who still
enjoy a journal that adheres to the most delightful traditions
of the French press. It is the newspaper in which Jules
Janin brought the feuilleton to the highest pitch of perfec-
tion ; in which Chateaubriand addressed ' ' Unhappy France ' '
and the Malheureux Roi; whose contributors have included
Guizot and Heine, Renan, and Taine; in which the Baron
Jacques de Reinach conducted a financial page of supreme
integrity and authority — and, for the first time, a page in-
telligible to the public. It is the newspaper which, above all
others, enrolled among its writers the mental aristocracy of
France, so that de Sacy could say to the youthful Renan,
* ' Believe me, whoever has once written for the Debats cannot
remain away; it would be a misfortune for him."

Cheap journalism in France goes back to 1836, when
Emile de Girardin founded La Presse, reducing the customary
annual subscription price of eighty francs to half that sum.
Le Siecle followed suit, and ten years later had become the
most popular paper of the French lower middle classes, with
a circulation of more than forty thousand; in the Paris of
to-day it has lost its importance. The Presse, also, which in
its early days was noted for its vivacity and brightness, and
included Balzac, Gautier, Hugo, and Sophie Gay (Madame
de Girardin, author of La Joie Fait Peur) among its con-
tributors, has been overtaken by mediocrity. Within recent
years it was conspicuous in Paris as an example of French
" yellow " journalism; it is even said that our most flagrant
American journal of this class borrowed its headlines from
France — a damning indictment we are unable to confirm.
The Presse, however, is doing penance for its sins, as it has

505

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

lately been absorbed in the Roman Catholic newspaper syn-
dicate conducted by M. Vrau in conjunction with La Croix.

The immense early popularity of La Presse and Le Siecle
was attained in part through the publication in their feuil-
letons of novels by Alexandre Dumas, Eugene Sue and other
distinguished authors. At the same time Le Constitutionnel,
established early in the Restoration period, was revived under
A the direction of Dr. Veron, who paid Eugene Sue one hundred
thousand francs x for Le Juif Errant, reduced the price of the
paper, and engaged Sainte-Beuve as literary critic. It is
worthy of note that this amazing literary enterprise of three
French journals, at a time when the aggregate of subscribers
in Paris was but 70,000, was not imitated till late in the nine-
teenth century; and then not by individual newspapers, but
by a syndicate of American journals which published novels of
minor importance.

La Patrie appeared in 1842 — a paper originally designed
for the lesser bourgeoisie, and degenerating into a Chauvin-
istic agitator. The poet, Francois Coppee, and the Comtesse
de Martel (Gyp), have helped to make it conspicuous.
Le National, a journal founded in 1830 and now forgotten,
was a great political power in its day, and helped to over-
throw first the government of Charles X and afterwards the
rule of Louis-Philippe. The revolution of February, 1848,
like the first revolution, produced a great crop of new papers,
some of them with names similar to those used in the '90s.
In 1848 no less than four hundred and fifty new journals
appeared, and in 1849 two hundred more were started;
but an ordinance of the Second Empire, passed February
17, 1852, disposed of most of these petty brawlers, and abro-
gated the freedom of the press which the Second Republic
had reinstated. In 1853 the number of Parisian daily papers
had fallen to fourteen. Chief among these were: Les De-
bats, Le Siecle, La Presse, Le Pays, La Patrie, Le Constitu-
tionnel, L'Univers, La Gazette de France, Le Charivari, L'As-
semblee Nationale, L 'Union. The identical conditions exist-
ing under Napoleon I were developed under Napoleon III,
whose coup d'etat killed Le National and other liberal or-

1 Scribe received six thousand francs for his novel Piquillo Aliaga.

506

THE FRENCH PRESS

gans. Freedom of speech was practically inhibited, and po-
litical views could be aired only when properly toned down
and doctored. The subscription list of Les Debats fell from
12,000 to 9,000 ; that of La Presse from 25,000 to 15,000. The
papers endeavored heroically to cover the paucity of political
material by amusing feuilletons. The performances at the
theaters, actors and actresses, the belles of the public balls,
scandals of high life, were dissected in the airiest way, and
with a circumstantiality and sense of importance that would
have befitted affairs of state. Raconteurs like Jules Janin and
Alphonse Karr developed a virtuosity as splendid as it was
striking, in the recounting of this small talk.

The relative circulation of the six principal newspapers
in Paris in 1858 was in this order: Le Siecle, La Presse, Le
Constitutional, La Patrie, Les Debats, L'Assemblee Natio-
nale. The number of journals, so greatly diminished in 1853,
was again augmented in the '60s, owing to the pecuniary suc-
cess of Girardin's commercialism, which lowered the tone of
the press, just as sensational methods have affected our own
American press to-day. The most admirable papers of the
traditional style made the least money. The times were ripe
for Le Figaro (1854), and for Rochefort's Lanterne (the
weekly pamphlet, 1868; the daily paper, 1877), which marked
the return to power of the political press. The few other im-
portant papers established during the eighteen years of the
Second Empire were Le Temps (first founded in 1829 — dis-
continued 1842 — reappeared 1861), La France (1862), Le
Petit Journal (1863), Le Gaulois (1866). During the closing
days of the third Napoleon's reign the press received a new
impetus, and many political papers of more or less vitality,
such as Le Rappel, La Marseillaise, and Le Journal de Paris,
appeared. The revolution of September, 1870, also called
forth its quota of new journals, as in 1848, and the insurrec-
tion of the Commune similarly evoked a journalistic ephemera
that flourished for a day and passed from view.

A curious phenomenon of French journalism is the one-
man paper, which owes its amazing influence and popularity
to the truculence of its editor, and his capacity for amusing
and original abuse. Its foremost exponent is Victor Henri,
Marquis de Rochefort-Lugay, commonly known as Henri

507

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

Rochefort, born in 1830, and who, after more than forty
years of extravagant denunciation and political somersault-
ing, has not quite exhausted his vocabulary of invective or
his capacity for inconsistency. Aristocrat by birth, idol of
the cabman and the waiter, a professional opponent of the
Government, assailant, by turns, of the Emperor and the
army, the church, and the Jew, a duelist of renown, a po-
litical exile to whom prison and transportation have been the
alternate episodes of a triumphant career — Henri Rochefort
has thrived on excitement. We can conceive of no one to
whom the newspaper " Interviewer " might put with more
relish, if with questionable profit, the perennial question,
" To what, venerable sir, do you attribute your longevity? "
The records of serene senility will not be complete without
it. Henri Rochefort has not perhaps greatly enriched the
dictionary of the Academy, but American and British visi-
tors in the French capital insist that the cabman has found
in him a constant source of comfort and inspiration. To
attempt more than the briefest recountal of his tempestuous
career would make his place in these pages seem dispropor-
tionate. His peculiar genius first illuminated the pages of
Le Charivari. In the '60s we see him as ' ' chroniqueur " to Le
Figaro, expanding with a verbal intemperance which pres-
ently caused the conversion of that paper from a sheet for
the delectation of the " boulevardier " to an avowed political
journal. He received at that time an annual salary of thirty
thousand francs. Many years later, in 1896, it transpired in
court proceedings that Rochefort of L'Intransigeant had, since
1889, drawn as editor and shareholder, a sum equivalent to
three hundred and forty-two thousand francs a year. A
tyrannical government has at various times suppressed the
property and sequestered the person of this blue-blooded ami
du peuple, though without permanent effect. It was to save
Le Figaro from seizure that he left its service in 1865 and
started La Lanterne, printed on pink paper, which was other
than a symbol of propriety. Its first nine weekly issues
reached a circulation of more than 1,150,000 copies, when
the Government forbade its further publication in Paris, and
M. Rochefort took it with him to Brussels. It now flourishes
in Paris as a rabid organ of the anti-clericals. On his return to

508

THE FRENCH PRESS

Paris in 1880, after one of his temporary eclipses— it was New
Caledonia, London, and Geneva this time— M. Rochefort took
charge of the radical Intransigeant, which, with some inter-
ruptions, including the Boulanger episode of exile, he con-
tinues to direct. Some critics have compared M. Rochefort to
Mirabeau ; others content themselves with an expletive or two
from his own thesaurus.

We have approached that period, already alluded to, in
which we observe the radical transformation of the French
press from a literary supplement or feuilleton, plus the news
and a broadside of opinion, to a newspaper in which the news
threatens to predominate. It does not seem likely that the
literary character of French journalism at its best shall be
really lost. It is even reasonable to suppose that from the ad-
justment of new and old conditions there may arise an ideal
press combining accuracy and freshness of information with
the sprightliness, fancy, and grace of presentation with
which the Parisian writer so happily clothes the most trivial
of occurrences. Dullness is not in the blood of the French-
man. If at times life is not gay, why then it becomes to him
too serious to be taken seriously. One thing seems sure: if
the journal d' in formations kills the journal of the feuilleton,
it must first kill the Parisian's wit and taste, and inherent
gayety of disposition. A Frenchman who does not want to
be amused is almost as inconceivable as a Frenchman who
would find amusement in the banalites of our " yellow "
journalism, or in the dullness of its more respected contem-
poraries.

The causes that have brought about the radical changes
in the French press within the last few years are open to
speculation. Some observers ascribe them to the less leisurely
ways of life in the French capital, as expressed especially in
rapid transit. A significant factor, too, is the growth of re-
publican ideas, which in removing restrictions from the press,
have left it free to extend its functions as a purveyor of news
and opinions. The feuilleton, it is recalled, was a device of
Bertin, owner of the Debats, and he was inspired to employ
it, in 1800, because under the despotic rule of Napoleon, it
was not possible to publish a newspaper otherwise than in-
nocuous, or, in other words, devoid of information and opin-

509

THE HISTORY OP FRENCH LITERATURE

ion. The tradition of the feuilleton has held, and recurring
periods of restriction have continued to impose it somewhat
disproportionately upon a public awakening more and more
to the means for the diffusion of news. As yet, journalistic
polemics — a euphemism when applied to the one-man jour-
nals— have precedence; but, as it is not possible always and
ever to defy facts, the publication of the news is beginning
to exercise a wholesome influence on those editors who have
heretofore found it convenient to ignore them.

When we come to catalogue the contemporary newspapers
of Paris, the task at first sight seems appalling. The period
has not yet passed in France when one can found a newspaper
with no more substantial capital than an original talent for
vituperation and printer's ink enough for your limited
edition. In the United States the projection of a newspaper
in any considerable city is an undertaking of pecuniary con-
sequence. It must, in the first place, print the news ; and this,
provided the thing can be done at all, with the assistance of
an Associated Press franchise — involves a large outlay. But
in Paris a journal may be the impulsive creation of a poli-
tician with a grievance, of a free lance who has found a pa-
tron, or a pamphleteer who finds it profitable to espouse a
cause or to denounce an idea. The so-called news service of
the ' ' Agence Havas ' ' is easily and cheaply procured ; two or
three reporters constitute the staff. For the rest, it is the
editor's own personality that counts; and the journal is born,
and sometimes achieves a circulation, with little travail. Thus,
in the Paris of recent years, as in certain former periods we
have noted, the ephemeral fraction of the press may be lik-
ened, in its multiplicity, to a swarm of flies. Newspapers ap-
pear and disappear, change their political opinions, pass from
one owner to another, from morning to evening editions, with
a rapidity that is mystifying to the Anglo-Saxon looker on.
Moreover, the Paris press is in a state of transition, and of
such quick transition that five years of its record becomes
a cycle in significance.

No less than 2,400 newspapers were published in France
in 1900, of which 240 appeared in Paris, including 146 dailies
of all descriptions. In 1903 the number of the Parisian polit-
ical daily organs is placed by one authority at sixty, in round

510

THE FRENCH PRESS

numbers. In circulation these journals vary from the 500
lithographed sheets (distributed to as many newspapers
throughout France) of La Correspondance Nationale et
Nouvelles — official organ of the Due d 'Orleans — to Le Petit
Journal, variously credited with a daily issue of from
1,000,000 to 1,250,000 copies. This paper of the populace,
founded by Millaud in 1863, was the precursor of the penny
press. Millaud had the knack of providing the sort of cheap
and entertaining reading relished by the concierge and the
ouvrier. Not only in Paris, but in all the little towns of
France, it was especially made welcome in the homes of the
humble. If its business agents were Americans, they would
say it had become a " household word." It does not meddle
much in politics, preferring the safe course of offending no
one. Yet, it is not without great political influence, with the
strength of such a constituency behind it. The control of Le
Petit Journal passed long ago from Millaud to Marinoni, in-
ventor of the rotary printing press, and finally to Senator
Privet, a Nationalist. On one of the few occasions when it
took a political stand, and opposed the cause of Dreyfus, it
suffered in popularity. Senator Jean Dupuy, former Minis-
ter of Agriculture and principal owner of Le Petit Parisien,
perceived his opportunity, and his paper, which had relied
on the patronage of the cabman and market gardener, was
enlarged to six pages and soon became a formidable rival of
Le Petit Journal, reaching a circulation of 700,000 copies a
day at the beginning of this century.

But Le Matin, dating from 1884, and devoting more at-
tention to news than to politics, is the paper most significant
of the new journalism in France. It rose from the ruins of
The Morning News,1 the unsuccessful venture of the Ameri-

1 When James Gordon Bennett founded the Paris Herald it gave the coup
de grace to The Morning News and Galignani's Messenger. No less a person
than Thackeray was once a subeditor on Galignani's Messenger. He refers
to it in a letter to Mrs. Brookfield, in 1848, in which he speaks of an
old acquaintance, a Mr. Longueville Jones, as "an excellent, worthy, ac-
complished fellow. . . . We worked on Galignani's Messenger for ten
francs a day very cheerfully, ten years ago." It was in those days that
Thackeray gathered his notes for his Paris Sketch Book and the Ballad of
Bouillabaisse.

511

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

can dentist, Dr. Thomas Evans,1 and was viewed as a trans-
Atlantic enterprise. Regarded as the competitor of the
Paris edition of the New York Herald, and by some per-
sons identified with its ownership, Le Matin was until recently
looked upon as a somewhat nondescript publication. To-day
it takes the lead in the printing of foreign news, and is en-
gaged in the promotion of such adventures as the Pekin-Paris
automobile race. It has likewise enlisted the services of many
distinguished contributors on current topics, and, with M.
Hugues Leroux, took a leading part in the campaign for the
correction of certain misconceptions supposed to be enter-
tained in England and the United States respecting the char-
acter of French literature. Le Matin is owned by a company
under the control of M. Bunau-Varilla, brother of the distin-
guished engineer, and is edited by M. Stephane Lauzanne,
nephew of the late M. de Blowitz. A rival and imitator of
Le Matin is the anti- Anglo-Saxon L'Eclair. It has also a
competitor, both in news and circulation, in Le Journal,
which is one of the important moderate Republican morning
dailies ; it reached an enviable standard of literary excellence
under the editorship of the late Ferdinand Xau, and in ex-
ploiting the news it has not suffered a decline in ideals. Its
present owner is a rich Government contractor, M. Letellier.
L'ficho de Paris, an organ of Nationalism, and originally a
competitor of Le Gil Bias, has enrolled itself among the jour-
naux d'in formations, and is credited with an excellent for-
eign news service.

It is scarcely possible to recount in a paragraph the sin-
gular vicissitudes and varied characteristics of that chame-
leon of Parisian journalism, Le Figaro. A gay cynicism and
a buoyant determination to keep its columns free from the
hampering shackles of principles and views have marked its
erratic and entertaining career. " The policy of the paper "
— vague and formidable phrase — is assumed to represent,
more or less concretely, the form and direction of the moral
and political vehicle we call journalism, as impelled by cer-

1 It was Dr. Evans who, after the fall of the Second Empire, helped the
Empress Euge'nie to reach Sir John Burgoyne's yacht, in order that she
might take refuge in England.

512

THE FRENCH PRESS

tain individuals of avowed responsibility. But to have no
policy at all, and not to deny it, is vastly more convenient,
and, not infrequently, less hypocritical. When we say that
Le Figaro has been thus unrestricted, a good deal is ex-
plained. When we add that its primary function has been
to amuse and to shock, and that no one takes it over-
seriously, its influence can be better estimated and under-
stood. It is, of all Parisian journals, the best known to the
foreigner; and it appears to the Briton and the American
(who, as a rule, know only that side of it), to be typical of
the French temperament.

De Villemessant, a semi-illiterate adventurer and journal-
istic genius, who refounded Le Figaro in 1854, and turned it
into a daily twelve years later, had the courage of his lack
of convictions. He understood the weaknesses of human na-
ture, and the foibles of his countrymen; and he played upon
them adroitly. The world to him was a fancy-dress ball, and
he, the master of ceremonies, wore the most ingenious cos-
tume. In the early '70s we see him, as it were, two persons at
once — half his head shaved into the likeness of a monk, the
other half of it painted to resemble Harlequin. A Legitimist
praying for the restoration of " le roi," he intoned a chant
that brought him the patronage of the pious ; a Merry Andrew,
with suggestive wink, the ultraworldly thrived on the enter-
tainment he provided them. It is said that when Louis Veu-
illot proclaimed his Univers as the greatest organ of Catho-
licity, de Villemessant flourished his subscription list, with the
offer to wager that it, and not Veuillot's, contained the greater
number of clerical names. And the bet was not taken up.
De Villemessant undoubtedly made his paper readable. To
this end he secured the services of the most brilliant writers
of the moment, dropping them quickly when they had served
his turn. He exploited the imitators of Eug&ne Guinot (who
had revived the Chronique system) ; Jules Janin, Karr, About,
Fouquier, and Albert Wolff — a German who wrote admirably
in French, and a celebrated chronicler of Le Figaro. On the
theory " tout homme a un article dans le ventre " (every
man knows something he can write about) , he one day pressed
a chimney-sweep into his service, and somehow extracted from
him an article that aroused the curiosity of Paris. He was
84 513

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

all things to all men, and nothing long by turns. His suc-
cessor, Francis Magnard, upheld the traditions ably; and
the foremost journal of the boulevards shone with even a
brighter luster. In his personal contributions to the paper
he brought to perfection, says one critic, " the art of jumping
with the cat." Also he procured the assistance of the ablest
writers of the day, including Jules Simon, and in other ways
maintained the journal 's popularity. It is only in recent years
that this popularity has suffered. One cannot always " jump
with the cat." In the days of the bitter Dreyfus controversy,
the new editors of Le Figaro, with de Rodays as the chief, at-
tempted the still more difficult feat of holding with the hare
and running with the hounds. In their brief championship
of Zola and Dreyfus they erred in their observation of the
public's attitude, and though a quick change of front was ef-
fected, Le Figaro's circulation was diminished. To-day it is
under the control of Gaston Calmette, and is reported to be
recovering its ground. Le Figaro has not lost its animation
of tone. Perhaps like its progenitor, the hero of Beaumar-
chais, if it ever becomes wholly virtuous it will also be dull.
Lacking the " esprit gaulois " of Le Figaro, and yet re-
garded in a measure as a rival, is that boulevard journal, Le
Gaulois, born to the Royalist purple in 1866, with Henri de
Pene as sponsor, and — under Arthur Mayer, its editor to-day
—a doughty champion of the Church and the Due d 'Orleans.
M. Mayer is something of an anomaly. A Jew himself, his
journal is anti-Semitic. Snubbed by the Pretender to the
throne, he defends him and proclaims his cause none the less
zealously. A rich man, he has not lost his enthusiasm or his
relish for work. Le Gaulois is the favorite paper of the Fau-
bourg St. Germain, and this is some compensation to M.
Mayer for the duke's eccentric behavior in advocating an
alliance with perfidious Albion. Another imperialistic paper
is L'Autorite, of Paul de Cassagnac, duelist and pamphleteer.
He, too, is against the Government and the Jew ; but a milder
and saner type than the more optimistic Mayer. With a sen-
timental regard for the setting sun of monarchy is Le Soleil,
spokesman of the Orleanists, a journal which shone resplen-
dent under the direction of the late Edouard Herve, a mem-
ber of the French Academy. With Jules Lemaitre and Fran-

514

THE FRENCH PRESS

gois Coppee on its staff, its literary flavor was not lost after
the death of its editor; but it, too, suffered in the Dreyfus
affair, and is on the decline.

What shall we say of Drumont, whose daily battle cry in
La Libre Parole is " down with the Jew and the Briton! "?
His paper would be quite impossible in this country; for,
quite aside from our ideas of tolerance, an anti-Jewish jour-
nal would not enjoy much advertising patronage. But in
France, where journals are supported by subsidies, and where
" la reclame," or the paid " puff," has been fostered in a
way quite foreign to American notions of propriety, it is
possible to make such a newspaper pay. La Libre Parole,
which fomented the Dreyfus affair, is prosperous, and wields
great political influence. Drumont, whose published photo-
graphs suggest the bomb-throwing anarchist, is a man of
scholarly attainments. But his learning and style are nullified
by reckless mendacity and venom of utterance. Yet such is
the feeling against the Jew in France — stimulated, perhaps,
by Drumont 's extravagant book, La France Juive — that the
clergy has been conspicuous in the list of his subscribers.

Some mention must be made of L'Humanite, the organ of
the Socialist leader, Jaures, whose unquenchable oratory is
thereby spread far and wide; La Republique Franqaise, in
which the torch of Gambetta is borne on by Joseph Reinach ;
L 'Aurore* of which Georges Clemenceau was a former editor ;
the anti-clerical Le Radical, and Le Rappel; Le Gil Bias,2 a
naughty paper somewhat diminished in consequence; La
Liberte, a Republican paper with a leaning to the news, and
Le XlXeme Siecle, founded by Edmond About. The cata-
logue degenerates into a gazetteer.

The solid, substantial, and most important newspaper in

1 It was L' Aurore that, in 1898, published 6mile Zola's famous letter,
J' accuse, in which he attacked the officers of the Dreyfus court-
martial, and for which both Zola and the Aurore's editor, M. Perreux,
were fined and imprisoned.

2 Le Gil Bias made its appearance as a literary weekly, a quarter of a
century ago, with Gambetta as a backer, and became so successful that its
daring purchasers converted it into a daily devoted wholly to literature.
Maupassant, Zola, Mendes, and Anatole France were among its contribu-
tors. Then it took a hand in politics, but that has not enlarged its
reputation.

515

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

France is, of course, Le Temps, which, like Les Debats, is pub-
lished in the afternoon. It is able, it is heavy, it is dignified
— it has, in short, many of the characteristics of its London
namesake, including the tendency to publish parliamentary
addresses and other sober orations in full. No one who wishes
to read a verbatim report of the maiden address of a new Im-
mortal will begrudge it its price of three cents. It prints
the semi-official Government announcements, and upholds the
dignity of the nation. It is nothing, if not intellectual — it
has been the medium of Sainte-Beuve and of Sarcey ; and it is
ever informing and accurate, and only those persons who in-
sist upon being entertained as well as instructed — and who
may be dismissed with the frivolous majority in France — find
it dull. Le Temps is mildly anti-clerical, and is the only
French paper of consequence that is Protestant in policy. It
was established by Alsatian Protestants, in 1861, at a time
when Napoleon III had come to feel that a modification of the
rigid press censorship would be judicious. Its editor, A. Nefft-
zer, with several associates, made its influence felt at once ; but
the loss of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War de-
moralized the patriotic staff. Nefftzer dropped his pen and
died, and in 1871 the journal, greatly impaired in prestige
and fortune, was bought for a small sum by a company formed
by Adrien Hebrard. His capacity as a manager, united with
a breadth of view and a thorough knowledge of world politics
that his service in the Senate has enriched, have made it pos-
sible for him to put Le Temps on the eminence it occupies
to-day.

The religious press is an important factor in France. La
Croix, the organ of the Roman Catholic clergy, has its head-
quarters in Paris, and nearly two hundred local editions in
as many provincial towns. Its circulation is rivaled only by
that of the Le Petit Journal, and its influence is, of course,
considerable. Obviously, it is anti-Republican ; at the time of
the disaffection of the South in the early summer of 1907,
the enemies of La Croix in the Chamber of Deputies charged
it with sowing the seeds of dissension by evoking visions of a
happier France under kingly rule.

L'Univers, moderate and dignified in tone, became famous
through its great editor, the late Louis Veuillot. Guarding

516

THE FRENCH PRESS

the interests of the Catholics, and espousing the Orleanist
cause, it makes a secular appeal in its columns devoted to
literature and the drama, and even to the horse-races, and is,
on the whole, political rather than religious.

The provinces no longer look wholly to Paris for news
and views, and the provincial press has made great strides
since 1880. La Depeche, of Toulouse prints twelve daily
editions, and circulates through a large area. Two other Re-
publican dailies are Le Nouvelliste de Lyon and Le Petit Mar-
seillais. These, with other provincial papers, have their rep-
resentatives in Paris, and receive news reports by wire.

FRENCH PERIODICALS

The unillustrated French magazines and reviews, at their
best, represent a higher order of merit than the contemporary
French Press, and are not excelled by those of any country.
Periodical literature originated in France, and the magazines
of other European nations have followed French models.
The great Journal des Savants, first issued on January 5,
1665, by Denis de Sallo, scholar and nobleman, under the
nominal editorship of his secretary, d'Hedouville, and con-
tinued by the Abbe Jean Gallois and others, soon became the
mouthpiece of letters and science. It made all knowledge
its own. History, mechanics, medicine, the natural sciences,
poetry — there was nothing in the domain of the intellect that
it did not seek to exploit. Curiously enough, its constituency
took exception to poetry, as beneath the serious considera-
tion of a scientific journal. The intellectual aristocracy of
France were its supporters, and — suppressed and revived at
intervals— it remained the foremost exponent of contem-
porary life and thought until the appearance of La Revue
des Deux-Mondes. This magazine is now the best publication
of its kind in France — perhaps the best in the world as a
purveyor of pure literature and criticism. Started in 1831
by Frangois Buloz, it soon became the forum of literary and
scientific France. Buloz (1804-77), was a shepherd in his
youth, and was educated by a patron who took a fancy to
him. On coming to Paris he worked as a compositor, and
saved enough money to buy the moribund Revue. A born

517

THE HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE

editor, he possessed in a remarkable degree all the qualifica-
tions for managing an enterprise of this description. He was
painstaking, far-sighted, and endowed with a singularly keen
scent for matters of current interest, for everything that was
" actuel." It was Buloz, who, when a philosopher handed
him a treatise on the nature and substance of the Godhead,
rejected it with the remark, " Dieu n'est pas actuel." He
did not, however, like some of our American editors, fall a
victim to " timeliness " by trespassing on the functions of
journalism. The literary integrity of the great journal was
kept intact. In 1833 La Revue des Deux-Mondes began the
publication of political articles, and from that time on it be-
came a perfect mirror of the times. All men of literary con-
sequence— Alfred de Musset, Mignet, Guizot, Villemain, de
Vigny, Augustin Thierry, de Remusat, Sainte-Beuve, Jules
Sandeau, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Balzac, Octave
Feuillet, Taine, Renan, Havet — contributed to it, and all of
them subordinated themselves to the despotic will of Buloz,
who used his blue pencil without mercy whenever the interests
of his paper so demanded. In 1845 La Revue was reorganized
and converted into a stock company, and the undertaking now
represents an annual net earning capacity of five hundred
thousand francs. Upon the death of Buloz, his son assumed
the management, and retained it until 1893, when the dis-
tinguished litterateur, Ferdinand Brunetiere (born 1849 at
Toulon, recently deceased), became the editor. For a time,
Madame Adam's La Nouvelle Revue and La Revue Politique
et Litteraire endeavored to outstrip La Revue des Deux-
Mondes, but without success.

The growth of the illustrated French magazines is unim-
portant. L'lllustration, Le Monde Illustre, Le Magasin Pit-
toresque, etc., are excellent of their kind. The humorous
publications, Le Charivari (1832), Le Petit Journal pour
Rire, Le Journal Amusant, etc., although they possess the
distinguishing French characteristic of spontaneous grace
and recklessness, do not rise to the level one might expect in
a nation of such lively imagination and delicate art. Often,
indeed, these publications seem not only pointless to the
Americans, but shockingly vulgar as well. A satirical jour-
nal worthy of the French literary genius is yet to be born.

518

APPENDIX

THE FORTY IMMORTALS OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY

Year
Elected.

Name.

1870
1874
1886
1888
1888
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1894
1895
1896
1896
1896
1897
1897
1899
1899
1900
1900
1901
1901
1903
1903
1905
1906
1906
1906
1907
1907

Emile Oilivier.

Alfred Jean Francois Mezieres.

Comte d'Haussonville (Oth6nin P. de Cleron).

Jules Arnaud Arsene Claretie.

Vicomte de Vogue (Eugene Marie Melchior).

Charles Louis de Saulses de Freycinet.

Louis Marie Julien Viaud (Pierre Loti).

Ernest Lavisse.

Paul Louis Thureau-Dangin.

* Paul Bourget.

. Henri Houssaye.

4 Jules Lemaitre.

^ Jacques Anatole Thibault (Anatole France).

Marquis de Beauregard (Marie C. A. Costa).

Comte Vandal (Louis Jules Albert).

Comte de Mun (Albert).

Gabriel Hanotaux.

Henri Le"on Emile Lavedan.

Paul Deschanel.

Paul Hervieu.

Auguste Emile Faguet.

Marquis de Vogue (Charles Jean Melchior).

* Edmond Rostand.
Fre'de'ric Masson.
Rene Bazin.
Etienne Lamy.

•^Alexandra Felix Joseph Ribot.
Maurice Barres.

Cardinal Mathieu (Francois Desire").
Marquis de Segur.
Maurice Donnay.
519

APPENDIX

Year
Elected.

Name.

1907

Maitre Andre Barboux.

1908

Francis Charmes.

34
35

1908
1908

Jean Richepin.
Henri Poincare".

36
37
38

1909
1909
1909

\ Raymond Poincare*.
^Eugene Brieux.
Jean Aicard.

39
40

1909
1909

* Rene Doumic.
A Marcel Prevost.

RULERS OF FRANCE

MEROVINGIAN DYNASTY
481-751 (TEUTONIC RULERS)

Clovis (First Christian King) 481-511

Division of Gaul into several kingdoms. Mayors of
palace (chiefs of the leudes or nobles) becoming actual
rulers and reducing the kings to "do-naughts" (row
faineants) 511-751

CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY
751-987

Pepin the Short (Le Bref) .. 751-768

Charles I, the Great (Charlemagne) 768-814

Louis I, the Pious (Le Pieux or Le Debonnaire) . . 814-840

Division of kingdom by three sons of Louis I. . . 840-843

Charles II, the Bald (Le Chauve) ..... 843-877

Louis II, the Stammerer (Le Begue) 877-879

Louis III, and his brother Carloman 879-884

Charles the Fat (Le Gros) 884-887

Eudes, or Odo, Count of Paris 887-898

Charles III, the Simple (Le Simple or le Sot) . . . 898-923
(Robert I, the "Fame-bright," was chosen king of
France in opposition to Charles the Simple in 922)

Raoul of Burgundy 923-936

520

APPENDIX

Louis IV, from beyond the Seas (D'Outre-Mer) . . . 936-954

Lot-hair 954-986

Louis V, the Sluggard (Le Faineant) .... 986-987

III

CAPETIAN DYNASTY
987-1328

Hugh Capet 987- 996

Robert II, the Pious (Le Pieux) 996-1031

Henry I 1031-1060

Philip I 1060-1108

Louis VI, the Fat (Le Gros) 1108-1137

Louis VII, the Young (Louis-Flores or Le Jeung) . . 1137-1180

Philip II, Augustus 1180-1223

Louis VIII, the Lion (Le Lion) 1223-1226

Louis IX, Saint Louis (Canonized 1279) .... 1226-1270

Philip III, the Bold (Le Hardi) 1270-1285

Philip IV, the Fair (Le Bel) 1285-1314

Louis X, the Quarreler (Le Hutin) 1314-1316

Philip V, the Tall (Le Long) 1316-1322

Charles IV, the Fair (Le Bel) 1322-1328

THE HOUSE OF VALOIS

(INCLUDING THE VALOIS-DIRECT — THE VALOIS-ORLEANS — AND THE
VALOIS- ANGOULEME)

1328-1589

Philip VI (Valois) 1328-1350

John II, the Good (Le Bon) 1350-1364

(John I (le Posthume), was the posthumous son of
Louis X, and lived only a few days) ....

Charles V, the Wise (Le Sage) 1364-1380

Charles VI, the Well-Beloved, also the Mad (Le Bien-

Aime" or Le Fou) 1380-1422

Charles VII, the Victorious (Le Victorieux) . . . 1422-1461

Louis XI 1461-1483

Charles VIII 1483-1498

Louis XII, the Father of the People (le Pere du peuple) 1498-1515

521

APPENDIX

Francis I
Henry II
Francis II
Charles IX
Henry III

1515-1547
1547-1559
1559-1560
1560-1574
1574-1589

THE BOURBONS

1589-1793

Henry IV

Louis XIII, the Just (Le Juste)

(Regency of Marie de Medicis 1610-1614) .

Louis XIV, the Great, the Sun King (Le Grand)
Regency of Anne of Austria, 1643-1661) .

Louis XV, the Well-Beloved (Le Bien-Aime) .
(Regency of Duke of Orleans, 1715-1723) .

Louis XVI

(Louis XVII proclaimed King of France by the
Emigres after the execution of Louis XVI ; supposed
to have died 1795)

FIRST REPUBLIC

1792-1804

1589-1610
1610-1643

1643-1715
1715-1774
1774-1792

National Convention.
Directory .
The Consulate .

VII
FIRST EMPIRE

Sept. 1792-Oct. 1795
Oct. 1795-Nov. 1799
Nov. 1799-Oct. 1804

1804-1814

Napoleon I 1804-1814

(Napoleon II, titular Emperor of the French, born
1811, died 1832)

VIII

THE RESTORATION
1814-1830

First Restoration: Louis XVIII 1814-1824

Second Restoration: Charles X 1824-1830

Louis-Philippe I, the Citizen King (le Roi Citoyen) . 1830-1848

522

APPENDIX

SECOND REPUBLIC
1848-1852

Provisional Government Feb. to Dec. 1848

Louis Napoleon, President 1848-1852

SECOND EMPIRE

1852-1870
Napoleon III 1852-1870

THIRD REPUBLIC
Committee of Public Defense 1870-1871

Presidents

L. A. Thiers 1871-1873

Marshal MacMahon 1873-1879

Jules Grevy 1879-1887

Marie F. S. Carnot 1887-1894

Jean Casimir Perier 1894-1895

Felix Fransois Faure 1895-1899

Emile Loubet 1899-1906

Armand Fallieres . 1906-

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GASTON PARIS
Pio RAJNA
LEON GAUTIER .

EMIL SEELMAN .

FRANZ SCHOLLE .
GUIZOT ....
KR. NTROP

D. NISARD
JEAN FLEURY

PETIT DE JTJLLEVILLE

AUGUSTIN THIERRY .
EMILE FAGUET

GUSTAVE LANSON

Histoire litteraire de la France; La liMera-
ture francaise au moyen-age; La poesie
du moyen-age; Les romans de la table
ronde; Francois Villon.

Contribute alia Storia dell'Epopea e del
romanza medievale; Le origini dell'Epo-
pea Francese; Richerche intorno di Reali
di Francia.

La Chanson de Roland; Bibliographic des
legendes epiques; Les Epopees frangaises.

Bibliographic des altfranzosischen Rolands-
lieds.

Zur Kritik des Rolandslieds.

Essais sur I'histoire de France.

Grammaire historique de la langue fran-
caise; Den Old-franske Heltedigtning —
Italian translation, Storia dell'Epopea
Francese nel medio evo.

Histoire de la litterature francaise.

La litterature francaise; Marivaux et le
marivaudage.

Histoire de la langue et de la litterature fran-
yaises des origines a 1900, publiee sous
la direction de Petit de Julleville; Les
mysteres; Les comedies en France au
moyen-age.

Lettres sur I'histoire de France.

Histoire de la litterature francaise; Etudes
sur leXVIe siecle; Le dix-neuvieme siecle;
La Fontaine.

Corneille; Voltaire; Boileau; Nivellede la
Chaussee et la comedie larmoyante (Les
Grands Ecrivains Fran$ais).

524

BIBLIOGRAPHY

JULES LEMAITRE
G. PELLISSIER

ANDREA DE MAGNABOTTI
CH. AUBERTIN

SAN MARTE

JOHN RHYS .
H. ZIMMER
EDUARD ENGEL
A. FRANKLIN
F. LOT . .
TH. BENFEY

JOSEPH BEDIER .
SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN

A. VlLLEMAIN . .

E. LANGLOIS ....
C. BEAUFILS

A. MOLINIER
MAX MULLER . . .
REINHOLD KOEHLER
TEN BRINK ....
ANATOLE DE MONTAIGLON

C. HIPPEAU . .
HENRY CARRINGTON

SlSMONDIS

Impressions de theatre; Decadents-Deliqu-
escents-Symboliques.

Le mouvement litteraire au XIXe siede;
Morceaux choisis des poetes du XV Ie
siede.

Reali di Francia.

Histoire de la langue et de la litterature
franfaises au moyen-age.

Die Artussage und die Marchen des Roten
Buches von Hergest; Gottfrieds von Mon-
mouth Historia regum Britaniae.

Studies in the Arthurian legend.

Keltische Studien.

Geschichte der franzosischen Literatur,

La Sorbonne, ses origines, etc.

Etudes sur Merlin.

Pantchatantra funf Bucher indischer Fabeln,
Marchen und Erzahlungen ubersetzt mii
Einleitung.

Les fabliaux; Les legendes epiques.

La Fontaine et les Fabulistes; J. J. Rous-
seau, sa vie et ses ouvrages.

Discours et melange litteraires; M. de Cha-
teaubriand, sa vie, ses ouvrages et son
influence; Cours de litterature.

Origines et sources du Roman de la Rose;
Essais sur les danses des morts.

Etude sur la vie et les poesies de Charles
d'Orleans.

Etudes d'histoire du moyen-age.

Essays.

Aufsdtze uber Marchen und volkslieder.

Geschichte der Englischen Literatur.

Recueil general et complet des fabliaux des
XIHe et XIVe siedes; Recueil de potsies
fran$aises des XVe et XV Ie siedes, mo-
rales, facetieuses, etc.

Le Bestiaire divin de Guittaume; Ie Bestiaire
d'amour de Richard.

. Anthology of French poetry.

Historical view of the Literature of the South
of Europe — Roscoe's translation.
525

BIBLIOGRAPHY

HARRIET W. PRESTON
G. SAINTSBURY .
S. DE SACY

E. RATHERY .
H. P. JUNKER

P. TOLDO . .

J. J. JUSSERAND
VOLTAIRE
A. MENNUNG
RENE DOUMIC

P. PELLISSON

F. L. CROUSLE .
DESNOIRESTERRES

R. MAHRENHOLTZ

Troubadours New and Old.

French Literature.

Varietes litteraires, morales et historiques;

Lettres de Madame de Sevigne.
De I'influence de la litterature et du genie de

I'ltalie sur les lettres fran$aises.
Grundriss der Geschichte der franzosischen

Literatur.
Contributo alia studio della Novella Fran-

cese del XV et del XVI secoli.
Shakespeare en France sous I'ancien regime.
Le siecle de Louis XIV.
Der Sonettenstreit und seine Quellen.
Portraits d'Ecrivains; Histoire de la littera-
ture fran^aise.

Histoire de V Academic franyaise.
Fenelon et Bossuet.
Voltaire et la societe franc, aise du XVI I Ie

siecle.

Voltaire's Leben und Werke; Die Revolution
auf der Schaubuhne und in der Tages-
dramatik.

MAYNARD Voltaire, sa vie et ses ceuvres.

L. PEREY ET G. MATJGRAS La vie intime de Voltaire aux Delices et a

Ferney.
J. BARNI ..... Histoire des idees morales et politiques en

France au XVIIIs siecle.
H. NADAULT DE BUFFON Buffon, sa famille, ses cottaborateurs et ses

familiers.

CONDORCET .... ffitude biographique de Voltaire.
PENNING . . . . . Duds als Nachahmer Shakespeares.
P. MARIETON .... Une Histoire d'amour: les Amants de Ve-

nise; Jacques Jasmin.
S. ROCHEBLAVE . , ^ Lettres de George Sand a A. de Musset et a

Sainte-Beuve.

PH. CHASLES . . . fitudes de litterature comparie.
RAMBERT . . . . . ficrivains nationaux.

J. JANIN Franf ois Ponsard.

E. RIGAL Alexandre Hardy et le Theatre fran^ais a la

fin du XVIe et au commencement du
XVII* siecle.

526

BIBLIOGRAPHY

P. LACROIX .... Bibliographic Molieresque.

M. TOURNEUX . . . Etudes de critique et de bibliographic.

A. THIEROT .... Voltaire en Prusse.

K. SCHNEIDER . . . Rousseau und Pestalozzi.

A. MEZIERES .... Vie de Mirabeau.

F. GROSS Goethe's Werther in Frankreich.

E. PAILLERON. . . . Smile Aug/ier.

FR. SARCEY ... La Comedie Franfaise; Theatres divers.

L. LACOUR .... Gaulois et Parisiens.

E. LEGOUVE .... Eugene Scribe.

G. MAUGRAS . . . . Trois mois a la cour de Frederic.

E. GERUZEZ .... Histoire de la litterature frangaise jusqu'en

1789.
A. ROCHE .... Histoire des principaux ecrivains }ran$ais

depuis I'origine jusqu'a nos jours.
A. SCHULTZ .... Das hofische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesdn-

ger.
M. SEPET Les Origines catholiques du theatre moderne;

Le drame chretien au moyen-dge.

FABRE tltudes historiques sur les clercs de la basoche.

JULIEN TRAVERS ET AUG.

ASSELIN .... Olivier Basselin.
GASTE Olivier Basselin et les compagnons de Vaux-

de-Vire.

PEIGNOT Recherches sur les danses des marts.

H. F. M ASSMANN . . Literatur der Totentdnze; die Baseler Toten-

tdnze.

DELAUNAT Etude sur Alain Chartier.

EUGENE DE BUDE . . Vie de Guillaume Bude, fondateur du College

de France.
A. LEFRANC .... Histoire du College de France.

LIARD L'Enseignement superieur en France.

WADDINGTON . . . P.deLa Ramie.

C. A. DESMAZE . . . P. Ramus, sa vie, ses ecrits, sa mort.

ALFRED FOUILLEE . . Histoire de la philosophic.

F. BOUILLIER. . . . Histoire de la philosophic cartesienne.
LE DUCHAT .... Rabelais.

DES MARETS ET RATHERY Rabelais.

E. GEBHART .... Rabelais, la Renaissance et la Reforme.
P. STAFFER .... Rabelais, sa personne, son genie, son aeuvre,
A. TILLEY . . . . Francois Rabelais.

527

P. BOUHOURS .... Vie de Saint Ignace.

CAPEFIGUE .... Saint Ignace et les Jesuites.

BONNEFON .... Montaigne et ses amis; Beaumarchais (Les

ficrivains celebres de France).
E. DOWDEN .... Michel de Montaigne.
FUNCK-BRENTANO . . Le Drame des Poisons.

VITET Clement Marot.

DOUEN Clement Marot et le psautier huguenot.

RACAN Vie de Malherbe.

J. VIANEY .... Mathurin Regnier.

P. ALBERT .... La Literature franchise des origines a la fin

du XV le siecle; La Litterature francaise

au XVHIe siecle.
GENIN Lettres et nouveUes lettres de Marguerite

d'Angouleme.
C. LENIENT .... La Satire en France au moyen-dge; La Satire

en France au XV le siecle.
SAINTE-BEUVE . . . Cauteries du Lundi; Nouveaux Lundis;

Critiques et Portraits litteraires; Port-
Royal.
BOUILLET Porphyre; son role dans I'ecole neoplatoni-

cienne.

HAUREAU Sur la philosophic scolastisque.

ROUSSELOT .... fitudes de la philosophic dans le moyen-age.
CH. DE REMUSAT. . . Abelard, savie, sa philosophic, et sa theologie.
A. SCHWEGLER . . . History of Philosophy with Annotations by

J. H. Stirling.
SAINTE-AULAIRE . . . Histoire de la Fronde.

COUSIN La societe frangaise du XVIIs siecle.

CH. LIVET Precieux et Precieuses.

SOMAIZE Dictionnaire des Precieuses.

LAVISSE Sully.

LESSING Hamburgische Dramaturgic.

LALANNE Brantome, sa vie et ses ecrits.

L. ARNOULD .... Racan.

COMTE HORRIC DE BEAU-

CAIRE Memoires du Cardinal de Richelieu.

FERDINAND BRUNETIERE Manuel de I'histoire de la litterature fran-

$aise; L' evolution de la poesie lyrique en
France au dix-neuvibme siecle; Honore
de Balzac (French Men of Letters; trans-
lation by R. L. Sanderson).

528

G. BRANDES . .

THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
P. MORILLOT .

PIERRE BRUN.

Aucoc

P. MESNARD .
J. DEMOGEOT .
RACINE ....
GUSTAVE LARROUMET

BIBLIOGRAPHY

. Die Haupstromungen der Liter atur des

Jahrhunderts.

. Les grotesques; Histoire du Romantisme.
. Scarron et le genre burlesque; Emile Augier,
etude bwgraphique et critique; Le Roman
en France de 1610 jusqu'a nos jours.
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac.
L'Institut de France.
. Histoire de I'Academie franchise.
. Histoire de la litterature francaise.

Histoire de Port-Royal.
. Racine (Les Grands Ecrivains Franc, ais);

La comedie de Moliere.
La Fontaine et ses fables; Essais de critique

et d'histoire.

. Charles Le Brun et les arts sous Louis XIV.
. La Bruyere dans la maison de Conde.
. Le Roman en France au debut du XVIIIe
siecle; A. Dumas fils; Moliere, sa vie et ses
ceuvres.

La vie et les aeuvres de J. J. Rousseau.
. Diderot's Leben und Werke.
D'Alembert.
Florian.
Le Poete Jean Regnard en son chateau de

Grillon.

. Notes on Madame de Stael.
. Madame de Stael et Napoleon.
. Les Ideologues franfais.

Biographic a" Alfred de Mussel.
. A. de Mussel (Les Grands Ecrivains Fran-

H. TAINE . . .

H. JOUIN .
ETIENNE ALLAIRE
J. CLARETIE .

BEAUDOUIN
ROSENKRANZ .
J. BERTRAND .
LEO CLARETIE
GUYOT

E. RlTTER

PAUL GAUTIER .

F. J. PICAVET
PAUL DE MUSSET
ARVEDE BARINE .

ROD Stendhal.

P. BOURGET .... Essais de psychologic contemporaine.

SMILES Jasmin — Barber, Poet, Philanthropist.

BERNARD SHAW . . . Dramatic Opinions and Essays.

INDEX

NOTE. — References to the biographies of authors are indicated by
heavy type.

A Propos d'un Cheval (V. Cherbu-

liez), 413.
A Quoi Revent Les Jeunes Filles

(A. de Musset), 382.
Abb£ Constantin, L', (L. HaleVy),

486.

Abbe" Tigrane, L', (F. Fabre), 442.
ABELARD, P., 101 n. 1, 183.
Ablugo de Castel-Culi6, L', (Jas-
min), 448.

ABOUT, E., 412, 513, 515.
ACADEMIE FRAN^AISE, 163-165.
ACADEMIE GONCOUKT, 430, 442.
Actes des Ap6tres (Arnold and

Simon Gre'ban), 66.
ADAM, P., 443.
ADAM DE LA HALLE, 91.
ADDISON, 277 n. 1, 309.
Adelphi (Terence), 218.
Adrienne Lecouvreur (E. Scribe

and E. Legouv6), 482.
.Eneid (Vergil), 160.
^SOP, 39, 234.
Affaire Galas, 299 n. 1.
Affaire Ctemenceau, L', (A. Dumas

fils), 474, 476.
Affaire des Placards, 131.
Affaires de Rdme (Lamennais), 451.
AGEORGES, J., 443.
Agesilas (P. Corneille), 173.
Agnes de Meranie (F. Ponsard), 483.
AICARD, J., 494.

Aiglon, L', (E. Rostand), 491, 493.
Ailes de la Prouesse (Raoul de Hou-

dan), 48.
AILLY, P. d', 238.
ALBERIC DE BESAN<JON, 32 n. 2.
ALBERT, P., 32, 113.
Albertus (T. Gautier), 390.
ALEMBERT, d', 282, 296, 328, 329,

333-334.

Alexandre (J. Racine), 197.
ALEXANDRE DE BERNAY, 32.
Alzire (Voltaire), 291, 296, 301.
Amants (M. Donnay), 489.
Ami des Femmes, L', (A. Dumas

fils), 477.
Ami des Hommes, L', (Mirabeau,

the elder), 351.

Ami des Lois, L', (Laya), 353.
Ami Fritz, L' (Erckmann-Chatrian),

412.

AMIEL, 378 n. 1.
Amour, L', (J. Michelet), 461.
Amour Medecin, L', (Moliere), 229,

230.

Amoureuse (G. de Porto-Riche), 489.
Amoureuses (A. Daudet), 431.
Amours de Psych6 et de Cupidon,

Les, (La Fontaine), 233.
Amphitryon (Moliere), 218, 221.
Amusements seneux, etc. (Dufres-

ny), 309.
AMYOT, J., 118, 125.

531

INDEX

Analyse raisonnee, etc. (Chateau-
briand), 457.
Anatomy of Melancholy (Burton),

236.

ANCEY, G., 487.
Ancien Regime, etc., L', (A. de

Tocqueville), 461.
Andre (G. Sand), 403.
Andr<§ del Sarto (A. de Musset), 382-

383.

ANDRIEUX, 359, 360 n. 2.
Andromaque (J. Racine), 197, 198.
Ane, L', (V. Hugo), 379.
Angelo (V. Hugo), 373.
Annee Terrible, L', (V. Hugo),

379.

ANSELME, 182, 183.
Anthology of French Poetry (H.

Carrington), 85 n. 1.
Antique Cycle, 31.
Antony (A. Dumas pere), 407.
Aphrodite (Louys), 446.
APOLLINAKIS SIDONIUS, 2 n. 1.
Appel au Soldat, L', (M. Barres),

441.

AQUINAS, SAINT-THOMAS, 183.
Arcadia (Sannazaro), 153.
ARENE, P., 443.
ARGENSON, d', 277, 281, 293.
Argent, L', (E. Zola), 435.
ARIOSTO, 26, 31 n. 1, 45.
ARISTOPHANES, 236, 471.
ARISTOTLE, 110, 167, 183, 185 n. 6,

357, 402.
Arlequin Poll par 1'Amour (Mari-

vaux), 340.

Armature, L', (P. Hervieu), 489.
ARNAUD, BACULARD d', 335.
ARNAUD, DANIEL, 88, 89.
ARNAUD DE MARVEIL, 80-81.
ARNAULD, ANTOINE, 190, 192, 193,

256.

ARNAULD d'ANDiLLY, 190.
ARNAULT, A. V., 353, 359, 360 n. 2.

Arsace et Ismenie (Montesquieu),

309.
Art au XVTIIeme Siecle, L', (E. and

J. de Goncourt), 429.
Art Po6tique (Boileau), 93, 96 n. 1,

210, 215, 345.

Art Poelique (Verlaine), 445.
Arthur (E. Sue), 410.
ARTHUR, King, 10 n. 1, 27, 28.
ASSAS, Chevalier d', 280 n. 1.
Assassin, L', (J. Claretie), 442.
Assommoir, L', (E. Zola), 435, 437.
Assouci, C. d', 161.
ASTIE, 194.

Astree, L', (H. d' Urfe), 153.
Atala (Chateaubriand), 362, 363.
Athalie (J. Racine), 201, 208.
Atree et Thyeste (Crdbillon), 267.
Attaque du Moulin (E. Zola), 434.
Attila (P. Corneille), 173.
Au Bon Soleil (P. Arene), 443.
Au Bonheur des Dames (E. Zola),

435.

AUBANEL, 448.
AUBERTTN, C., 25.

AUBIGNAC, d', 167.

AUBIGNE, A. d', 118, 142, 146-148.

AUBRI DE BOURGOING, 20.

Aucassin et Nicolette, 43, 44.
Aufsatze iiber Marchen, etc. (R.

Koehler), 34 n^7.

AUGIER, E., 468, 473, 474, 478-481.
Augustinus (Jansenius), 189.
Aulularia, The, (Plautus), 228 n. 1.
Aurora Leigh (Mrs. Browning), 368

n. 3, 470 n. 2.
AUTRAN, J., 483.
Aux Creux des Sillons (P. Vernon),

443.

Avare, L', (Moliere), 218, 221.
Aventures de Quatre Femmes, etc.

(A. Dumas fils), 474.
Aventures du Baron de Foeneate

(A. d'Aubigne), 147.

532

INDEX

Aventuriere, L', (E. Augier), 479.
Aziyade" (P. Loti), 414.

Babouc (Voltaire), 291.

BABRIUS, 234.

BACON, F., 186, 290, 319, 329, 402.

BACON, R., 184.

Bague de 1'Oubli, La, (Rotrou), 168.

BAIF, 132, 141.

Baiser, Le, (T. de Banville), 487 n. 1.

BAJARDO, 26.

Bajazet (J. Racine), 199, 203, 206-

207.
Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis

(F. Villon), 98, 100-102.
Ballade des Pendus (F. Villon), 98-

100.

BALLANCHE, P. S., 450.
BALZAC, G. de, 138 n. 3, 157, 171.
BALZAC, H. de, 236, 361, 417-423,

424, 425, 426, 495, 505, 518.
BALZAC, HONORE de (Brunetiere),

421 n. 1.

BANVILLE, T. de, 444, 487 n. 1.
BAKANTE, de, 458.
BARBIEK, A., 370, 395, 400.
Barbier de Seville, Le, (Beaumar-

chais), 338, 339.
BARRES, M., 441.
BASOCHE, 69.
BASSELIN, O., 92-94.
Bataille de Dames (E. Scribe and

E. Legouve), 482.
BAUDELAIRE, 444.
BAYLE, P., 51, 273-273.
BAZIN, R., 443.
BEAUCHESNE, 381.
BEAUMARCHAIS, 322, 335, 336-340,

349, 473, 478.
BEAUMONT, Mme. de, 369.
Beaux Messieurs de Boisdore", Les,

(G. Sand), 405.
BECQUE, H., 486-487, 490.
BEDIER, J., 18, 35.

Be'lisaire (Marmontel), 344.
BELLATJ, R., 132.
BENFEY, T., 34, 39 n. 1.
BENOIT DE SAINTE-MORE, 32.
BENSERADE, 156, 212.
BERANGER, 36 n. 1, 123 n. 2, 395-

398, 399, 458.

Berenice (J. Racine), 199, 205-206.
BERGERAC, C. de, 161.
BERGERAT, E., 494.
BERGIER, Abbe", 329.
BERNARD DE VENTADOUB, 80, 86-87.
BERNARDIN de SAINT-PIERRE, 327,

346-348, 414.
BERNIER, 37.
BERNSTEIN, 494.
BEROUL, 30.
BERQUIN, L. de, 110.
BERTAUT, 137.

BERTRAND DE BORN, 80, 82-83.
Bertrand et Raton (E. Scribe), 482.
Bestiaires, 47.

Bete, La, (V. Cherbuliez), 413.
B6te Humaine, La, (E. Zola), 435,

436.

BEZE, de, 110 n. 1, 118.
Bible de Vatable, 109.
Bible du Soldat, La, 118 n. 3.
Bibles, 45.
Bibliotheque de mon Oncle, La, (R.

Toepffer), 394.

Bienfaiteurs, Les, (E. Brieux), 488.
Bijoux Indiscrets, Les, (Diderot),

331.

Biographies (V. Cousin), 452.
BISSON, A., 494.
BJORNSON, 488.
BLANC, C., 470.
BLANCHET, P., 73 n. 1.
Bte Qui Leve, Le, (R. Bazin), 443.
BOCCACCIO, 31 n. 3, 38, 45, 70 n. 1,

105, 106, 148, 236.
BODEL, J., 31, 44, 91.
BOETHIUS, 182.

533

INDEX

BOILEATJ, 53, 93, 96 n. 1, 135, 142,
161, 167, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201,
309-216, 222, 226, 233, 244, 255,
261, 268, 345, 447.

BoiSROBERT, 164.
BOLINGBROKE, 289.

Bon Roi Dagobert, Le, (Rivoire),

494 n. 4.
BONALD, de, 450.
BORNIER, H. de, 483.
BOSSUET, 158, 189, 237, 239-244,

247 n. 1, 250, 255, 261, 372, 451.
Boubouroche (G. Courteline), 488.
BOUCHARDY, 484.
BOUCHER, 430.
BOTJCHOR, 495.
BOUHELIER, G. de, 442.
Boule, La, (Meilhac and Halevy),

485.
Boule de Suif (G. de Maupassant),

438.
BOURDALOUE, 239, 344-245, 249,

250.
Bourgeois de Pont-Arcy, Les, (V.

Sardou), 472.
Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Le, (Mo-

liere), 221, 229.
BOURGES, E., 430 n. 1.
BOUGET, P., 424, 426, 440-441,

494.

BOURGOING, le Pere, 239.
Bourse, La, (F. Ponsard), 483.
Bouvard et P6cuchet (G. Flaubert),

428.

BRANTOME, 144, 145-146.
Breton Cycle, 26-31.
BRIEUX, E., 488.
Britannicus (J. Racine), 199, 204-

205.

BRIZEUX, 370.
BROGLIE, due de, 462 .
BROWNING, Mrs., 368 n. 3, 470.
BRUEYS, Abbe", 73.
BRUNET, 448.

BRUNETIERE, F., 102, 119, 175, 225,

266, 421, 422, 440, 455, 466, 493,

518.

Brutus (Voltaire), 296.
BUDE, G., 108, 109.
BUFFON, 280, 284, 315-319, 329,

347.

Bug Jargal (V. Hugo), 376, 378.
Burgraves, Les, (V. Hugo), 373, 468.
BURIDAN, J., 101 n. 2, 184.
BYRON, 363, 371, 372, 382, 383, 384,

402, 483.

£a Ira, 354-355.

Cabale des Importants, 150.

Cafe" de Surate, Le, (Bernardin de

Saint-Pierre), 347.
CAIGNIEZ, 335.
CALDERON, 1, 344.
Caligula (A. Dumas pere), 407.
Calila et Dimna (Silvestre de Sacy),

34 n. 4.
CALVIN, J., 110-114, 118, 132, 161

n. 2, 239.

Camaraderie, La, (E. Scribe), 482.
CAMPISTRON, J. G. de, 266.
Canard Sauvage, Le, (Ibsen), 488

n. 2.

Candide (Voltaire), 292, 303.
Cantilene de Sainte-Eulalie, 14.'
Cantilene Saucourt, 14.
Cantiques Spirituels (J. Racine),

201.

CAPDEVILLE, 443.
Capitaine Fracasse (T. Gautier),

160, 390.
CAPUS, A., 494.
Caracteres, Les, (La Bruyere), 263-

265.

CARDENAL, P., 90.
Carmagnole, La, 355.
Carmen (P. M6rimee), 423.
CARO, E. M., 464.
CARPANI, 426.

534

INDEX

CARREL, A., 458.
CASTRO, Guilhelm de, 177 n. 1.
Catherine (J. Sandeau), 406.
Catherine Howard (A. Dumas pere),

407.

CATINAT, N. de, 145.
Causeries du Lundi (Sainte-Beuve),

382, 465.
CAVEATT, Le, 398.
CAYLUS, Mme. de, 255.
CENACLE, Le, 381, 382, 385, 392.
Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (A. de La

Salle), 105.
CENTLIVRE,.S., 277.
Cephise (H. Greville), 413.
Cesar Birotteau (Balzac), 419.
Cesarine Dietrich (G. Sand), 405.
CHAMBRE ARDENTE, 121.
CHAMBRE BLEUE, 152, 156, 158.
CHAMFORT, N., 352.
Champion des Dames, Le, (M. Le

Franc), 105.
Chanson d'Aliscans, 19.
Chanson de Roland, 13, 19, 20-23,

25.
Chanson des Gueux (J. Richepin),

446.

Chanson des Saisnes (J. Bodel); 31.
Chansonnier Historique, Le, 278.
Chansons de Bilitis (Louys), 446.
Chansons de Geste, 11, 18, 21, 25,

107.

Chansons de Toile, 77.
Chant du Depart, Le, (M. J. Ch&-

nier), 353.

Chanticler (E. Rostand), 492^493.
Chants du Cre'puscule (V. Hugo),

379.
Chapeau de Faille d'ltalie, Le, (E.

Labiche), 485.

CHAPELAIN, 152, 157, 163, 167, 218.
CHAPELLE, 161 n. 2, 197, 214.
Characteristics of Virtues, etc.

(Hall), 263 n. 1.

Characters or Witty Descriptions,

etc. (Overbury), 263 n. 1.
CHARLEMAGNE, 2, 15, 17, 20, 24, 26,

27, 136, 375.

Charles IX (M. J. Chenier), 353.
CHARLES d'ORLEANS, 92, 94-95.
CHARLIER, see GERSON.
Charlotte Corday (F. Ponsard), 483,
CHARTIER, Alain, 61-62, 103.
Chartreuse de Panne, La, (Stendhal),

425, 426.
CHASLES, P., 464.
CHATEAUBRIAND, 144, 266, 327,

361-365, 369, 381, 410, 414, 427,

457, 458, 504, 505.
Chateaux en Espagne, Les, (Colin

d'HarleviUe), 354.
CHATELET, marquise du, 291.
Chatiments, Les, (V. Hugo), 379.
CHATTERTON, 344, 387.
Chatterton (A. de Vigny), 387-388.
CHAUCER, 38, 45, 380.
Chaumiere Indienne, La, (Bernar-

din de Saint-Pierre), 347, 348.
Chemin, Le Plus Court, Le, (A.

Karr), 395.
Chemin du Bois, Le, (A. Theuriet),

413.

Chemineau, Le, (J. Richepin), 483.
CHENIER, Andrg, 345-346, 381, 387.
CHENIER, M. J., 353.
CHERBULIEZ, V., 413.
CHERIE (E. de Goncourt), 430.
Chevalier au Barizel, Le, 37.
Chevalier au Chainse, Le, 35.
Chevalier au Lion, Le, 28.
Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, Le, (A.

Dumas pere), 408.
Chevre d'Or, La, (P. Arene), 443.
Chevrier, Le, (F. Fabre), 442.
CHILD, T., 454.

Chonchette (M. PreVost), 439.
CHOPIN, 360, 404.
Chouana, Les, (Balzac), 418.

535

INDEX

CHRESTIEN DE TROYES, 27, 28, 29.
Christian Institution (Calvin), 117.
CHRISTINE DE PISAN, 54.
Chronicles, 55-61.
Chroniques du Temps de Charles IX

(P. Merimee), 423.
Chute d'un Ange, La, (Lamartine),

371.

ClBBER, C., 277.

Cid, Le, (CorneUle), 167, 170, 171,

173, 176-177, 212.
Cigiie, La, (E. Augier), 479.
Cinna (Corneille), 172, 173, 179-

180.
Cinq Semaines en Ballon (J. Verne),

413.

Cinq-Mars (A. de Vigny), 387.
Cit6 Antique, La, (Fustel de Cou-

langes), 461.
Clairiere, La, (M. Donnay and L.

Descaves), 489 n. 2.
CLARA D'ANDXJZE, 80.
CLARETIE, J., 442, 473, 494.
Clarissa Harlowe (Richardson), 342.
Claude Gueux (V. Hugo), 376, 378.
Claudie (G. Sand), 405.
Claudine a 1'Ecole (Willy), 442.
Clavijo (Goethe), 338.
Clelie (Mile, de Scudery), 154.
CLEMANGIS, de, 238.
CLEMENCE ISATJRE, 134 n. 2.
Cleopatre (V. Sardou and Moreau),

473 n. 1.

Cleopatre Captive (Jodelle), 140.
Clitandre (Corneille), 169, 173.
Closerie des Genets, La, (F. Soulie'),

410.

COLBERT, 164, 200.
COLLEGE DE FRANCE, 108 n. 2.
COLLETET, 170.

COLLIN d'HARLEVILLE, 295, 354.
Colomba (P. Merimee), 424.
Comedie de la Mort (T. Gautier),

390.

Comedie des Come'diens, La, (Scud-

6ry), 168.
Comedie des Tuileries, La, (Rich-

eh'eu), 170.

Comectie Francaise, 68 n. 1, 218.
Comedie Humaine, La, (Balzac),

419.

Comediens, Les, (C. Delavigne), 389.
Comeclies et Proverbes (A. de Mus-

set), 382.

Commentaires (Montluc), 144.
COMMINES, P. de, 56, 61, 144.
Compagnon du Tour de France, Le,

(G. Sand), 404.
COMTE, A., 452.
Comte Kostia, Le, (V. Cherbuliez),

413.
Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, La, (Mo-

liere), 223.
Comtesse de Rudolstadt (G. Sand),

404.
Comtesse Sarah, La, (G. Ohnet),

411.
Condamnation de Banquet, La,

(Nicolas de La Chesnaye), 71.
CONDE, Prince de, 154, 200, 220,

231, 243, 244, 261, 281, 287.
CONDILLAC, 290, 329.
CONDORCET, 297, 299, 334, 368.
Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle

(A. de Musset), 383.
Confession d'une Jeune Fille, La,

(G. Sand), 405.
Confession du Sieur de Sancy, La,

(A. d'Aubigne), 147.
Confessions (J. J. Rousseau), 320,

326.
Confidences, Les, (Lamartine), 372.

CONPRERIE DE LA PASSION, 68.
CONGREVE, 290.

Conjuration de Fiesque (de Retz),

260.
ConquSte de Constantinople, De la,

(Villehardouin), 56.

536

INDEX

ConquSte de la Gennanie, etc. (F.

Mignet), 460.
Conquete de Plassans, La, (E. Zola),

435.

CONRABT, V., 163.

Consent de 1813, Le, (Erckmann-

Chatrian), 412.
Conseils a nn Journaliste (Voltaire),

296.
Considerations, etc. (J. de Maistre),

450.
Considerations, etc. (Mme.deStael),

368.

Consuelo (G. Sand), 404.
Contagion, La, (E. Augier), 480.
Contemplations, Les, (V. Hugo),

379.
Contemporains, Leg, (J. Lemaitre),

416, 466.

Contes & Ninon (E. Zola), 435.
Contes d'Aujourd'hui (J. Lemaitre),

416.
Contes d'Espagne et d'ltalie (A. de

Musset), 382.
Contes de la Reine de Navarre, Les,

(E. Scribe and E. Legouve"), 482.
Contes de ma Mere POye (C. Per-

rault), 70 n. 1.
Contes des Provinces de France

(S<5billot), 447 n. 1.
Contes Drdlatiques (Balzac), 236,

420.
Contes Fantastiques (Hoffman),

390.
Contes et Nouvelles (La Fontaine),

233, 236.
Contes et Nouvelles (T. Gautier),

390.
Contrat Social, Le, (J. J. Rousseau),

52, 321-322.
Controverse des Sexes, etc. (Gratien

du Pont), 105.
COOPER, F., 363, 418.
COPERNICUS, 185.

COPPEE, F., 444 n. 1, 445, 494, 506,

515.

Corbeaux, Les, (H. Becque), 487.
Corinne (Mme. de Stael), 366, 367,

368.
CORNEILLE, P^-T3<j\141, 142, 156,

157, 159,(l66-18ll 190, 197, 199,

202, 206, 2Wr362, 255, 267, 273,

300, 358, 468, 483.
CORNEILLE, T., 172.
Correspondance Litte'raire, etc.

(Grimm), 334.
COSPIAN, 158.
Country Wife, The, (Wycherly),

219 n. 3.
Coupe et les Levres, La, (A. de

Musset), 382.
Cour de Paradis, La, 36.
COURIER, P. L., 395, 398-400, 458.
Couronnement de Renart, 43.
Cours de Philosophic Positive (A.

Comte), 452.
Court Mantel, Le, 36.

COURTELINE, G., 487.

COUSIN, V., 194, 450, 451-452, 455.
Coverley, Sir R. de, (Addison), 277

n. 1.

Crainquebille (A. France), 416.
CRAPELET, 90 n. 2.
CREBILLON, P. J. de, 266, 267-268,

398 n. 1.
CRETIN, G., 103.
Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, Le,

(A. France), 416.
Crispin, Rival de son Maitre (Le

Sage), 271.

Critical Essays (Diderot), 332.
Critics, 463-467.
Critique de PEcole des Femmes, La,

(Moliere), 219.

Cromwell (V. Hugo), 372, 373.
Cruelle Enigme (P. Bourget), 440.
Curee, La, (E. Zola), 435.
CUREL, F. de, 488, 489.

537

INDEX

Curial, Le (Alain Chartier), 61.
CURY, 494.

OUSTING, Mme. de, 369.
Cyclopoedia (Chambers), 328.
Cyrano de Bergerac (E. Rostand),
162, 491, 492, 493.

DACIER, Mme., 213.

Dalila (O. Feuillet), 412.

Dame aux Camelias, La, (A. Dumas
fils), 474, 475, 476, 479.

Dancing Songs, 77.

DANCOURT, F. D., 271, 275.

DANES, 109.

Danse Macabre, 71.

DANTE, 5, 51, 53, 82, 88, 89, 106,
386, 402.

Dante, Le, (V. Sardou), 472.

DARWIN, 331.

DAUBENTON, 315, 329.

DATTDET, A., 417, 430-433, 442.

DAUDET, L., 442.

David (A. de Montchre'tien) , 140.

DAVID, d'Angers, 360, 369 n. 1.

De Arte Amandi (Ovid), 48.

De Arte Amatoria, etc. (Andre), 84.

De Buonaparte, etc. (Chateaubri-
and), 364.

De 1'Allemagne (Mme. de Stael),
367, 368.

De 1' Amour (Stendhal), 426.

De 1'Esprit (Helvetius), 284.

De 1'Intelligence (H. Taine), 455.

De la Litterature, etc. (Mme. de
Stael), 366.

De la Peinture en Italic (Stendhal),
426.

De la Terre a la Lune (J. Verne),
413.

De Vulgari Eloquentia, etc. (Dan-
te), 5.

Debacle, La, (E. Zola), 435, 436,
437.

De"bat de 1'Ame et du Corps, 47.

DECADENTS, 445, 446, 447.

Decameron (Boccaccio), 70 n. 1,
105, 148, 236.

Dedale, Le, (P. Hervieu), 489.

Defense et Illustration, etc. (Du
Bellay), 132.

DEFFAND, Mme. du, 282, 283.

DEFOE, 497.

DELACROIX, 360.

DELAVIGNE, C., 388-389.

DELILLE, Abbe1, 343-344, 359.

Deliquescences, Les, (Floupette),
445.

Delphine (Mme. de Stael), 366, 367.

DELPHINE GAY, 484.

Demi-Monde, Le, (A. Dumas fils),
475.

Demi-Vierges, Les, (M. PreVost),
439.

Democratic en AmeVique, La, (A.
de Tocqueville), 461.

DEMOGEOT, 78, 174, 252.

Denise (A. Dumas fils), 478.

DENNERY, 484.

De"pit Amoureux, Le, (Moliere), 217.

Der Schiffbruch, (J. Brandes), 342.

Deracin6s, Les, (M. Barres), 441.

Dernier Abence>age, Le, (Chateau-
briand), 80 n. 1, 364, 369.

Dernier Banquet des Girondins, Le,
(C. Nodier), 393.

Dernier Jour d'un Condamne1, Le,
(V. Hugo), 376, 378.

Derniers Bretons, Les, (E. Souves-
tre), 413.

DEROULEDE, P., 494.

Des Vers (G. de Maupassant), 437.

De'sastre, Le, (P. Margueritte), 441.

Desastre de Lisbonne, Le, (Vol-
taire), 303.

DESAUGIERS, 398.

T>ESCARTES, R., 186-187, 193, 210A
V 252, 291.

DESCAVES, L., 430 n. 1.

538

INDEX

DESCHAMPS, E., 381.

DESCHAMPS, G., 416.

De'senchante's, Les, (P. Loti), 414.

De'serteur, Le, (Mercier), 336.

DESMARETS de Saint-Sorlin, 163,
166, 198.

DESMOULINS, C., 353, 503.

DESPERIEES, B., 111.

DESPORTES, 137.

Destinies, Les, (A. de Vigny), 386,
388.

DESTOUCHES, 275, 277, 341, 463.

Deuil du Clocher, Le, (J. Ageorges),
443.

Deux Changeurs, Les, 35.

Deux Orphelines, Les, (Dennery),
484.

Devin de Village, Le, (J. J. Rous-
seau), 320.

Diable Boiteux, Le, (Le Sage), 271.

Dialogue des Morts (Fe"nelon), 246.

Diana enamorada (Montemayor),
153.

Diane (Rotrou), 168.

Diane de Lys (A. Dumas fils), 475.

DIANE de Poitiers, 130.

DICKENS, C., 421, 432.

Dictionnaire des Onomatope'es (C.
Nodier), 393.

Dictionnaire Historique, etc.(Bayle),
273.

Dictionnaire Philosophique (Vol-
taire), 295.

Dictionnaire Universel, etc. (C.
Nodier), 393.

DIDEROT, 283, 284, 296, 323, 329,

330, 331-333, 335, 340.
Didon se sacrifiant (Jodelle), 140.
Digression sur les Modernes (Fon-

tenelle), 273.

Dionysos (J. Gasquet), 494.
Diplomats, Le, (Scribe and Dela-

vigne), 389.
Disciple, Le, (P. Bourget), 440.

Discours de la M6thode (Descartes), \

186.
Discours de Reception, etc. (Buffon),

317 n. 1.
Discours des Trois Unites (Cor-

neille), 206.
Discours Politiques et Militairea

(La Noue), 145.
Discours sur 1'Histoire Universelle

(Bossuet), 240-241, 243.
Discoura sur rHomme (Voltaire),

292.
Discours sur rin^galite", etc. (J. J.

Rousseau), 52, 321.
Discours sur les Miseres, etc. (Ron-
sard), 142.
Discours sur les Sciences, etc. (J. J.

Rousseau), 321.
Distrait, Le, (Regnard), 270.
Dit de BeYenger, 36.
Dits, 45.
Divorce, Le, (P. Bourget and Cury),

494 n. 6.

Divorgons (V. Sardou), 472.
Dix Annees d'Exil (Mme. de Stael),

368.
Dix Ans d'Etudes Historiques (A.

Thierry), 459.

Dix Contes (J. Lemaitre), 416.
Docteur Akakia, Le, (Voltaire),

294.
Docteur Herbaut, Le, (J. Sandeau),

406.

Docteur Pascal, Le, (E. Zola), 435.
Docteur Rameau, Le, (G. Ohnet),

411.
Doigts de Fee, Les, (Scribe and Le-

gouv6), 482.
DOLET, E., 110, 113.
Don Ce'sar de Bazan (Dennery),

484.
Don Japhet d'Anne'nie (Scarron),

216.
Don Juan (Byron), 382.

539

INDEX

Don Juan ou le Festin de Pierre

(Moliere), 219, 229.
DONNAY, M., 489.
Doon de Mayence, 19.
Dora (V. Sardou), 472.
DORAT, J., 109, 132.
Dosia (H. Gr^viHe), 413.
DOTTMIC, R., 477, 490, 496.
Dramatic Opinions (B. Shaw), 472

n. 2.

Drame d'Adam, Le, 64.
Drame des Prophetes du Christ,

Le, 63.
Drames de Famille (P. Bourget),

441.
Drames Philosophiques (E. Renan),

454.

Droits Nouveaux (Coquillart), 73.
DRYDEN, 215.
Dtr BARRY, Mme., 280.
Du BARTAS, 118.
Du BELLAY, G., 144.
Du BELLAY, J., 129, 132-133, 140,

142.

Du BOCCAGE, 277.
Du CANGE, 83 n. 1, 335.
Du CERCEAU, 253 n. 2.
Du Pape (J. de Maistre), 450.
Du PERRON, 239.
Du RYER, 166.

Du Theatre, etc. (Mercier), 358.
Du Vrai, du Beau, etc. (V. Cousin),

452.

Ducis, 353-354.
DUCLOS, 283.

DUFRESNY, 271, 275, 309.
DUMAS, A., fils, 468, 473, 474-478,

479, 486, 490.
DUMAS, A., pere, 398, 406-410, 468,

474, 484, 506, 518.
DUNS SCOTUS, 183.
Dupe, La, (G. Ancey), 488.
DUPONT de Nemours, 330, 331.
DUVERNET, Abbe", 299.

ECHEGAKAY, 449.

Ecole des Femmes, L', (Moliere),
219.

Ecole des Maris, L', (Molifere), 219.

Ecole des Meres, L', (Nivelle de La
Chauss<§e), 341.

Ecole des Vieillards, L', (C. Dela-
vigne), 389.

Ecole Naturiste, 442.

Ecossaise, L', (Montchre"tien), 140.

Ecossaise, L', (Voltaire), 303.

Edouard Manet (E. Zola), 435.

Education Sentimentale, L', (Flau-
bert), 427.

Effrontes, Les, (E. Augier), 479, 480.

EGINHARD, 20 n. 3.

EIDONS, 329.

EILHARD Von OBERGE, 30.

El Diablo Cojuelo (Guevara), 271.

Elements de Philosophie (d'Alem-
bert), 333.

Elements de la Philosophie de New-
ton (Voltaire), 291.

Elements d'Ide'ologie (Destut de
Tracy), 368 n. 2.

Elevations sur les Mysteres (Bos-
suet), 243. .

ELIOT, G., 440.

Elle et Lui (G. Sand), 405.

Eloges (d'Alembert), 333.

Eloges des Acade"miciens (Fonte-
nelle), 273.

Emaux et Camees (T. Gautier), 390.

Emigre, L', (P. Bourget), 441.

Emile (J. J. Rousseau), 322-323,
325.

Emilia Galotti (Lessing), 332. .

Emperor Who Condemned To
Death His Nephew, The, 70.

En Manage (Huysmans), 439.

En Route (Huysmans), 439.

ENCLOS, Ninon de L', 255, 286-288.

Encyclopedic, 284, 296, 328-330,
333.

540

INDEX

ENCYCLOPEDISTS, 127, 161, 280,

282, 323, 334.

Endriague, L', (Piron), 343.
Endymion (Gombaud), 157.
Enfant Prodigue, L', (H. Becque),

486.
Enfant Prodigue, L', (Voltaire),

291.
Enfants d'Edouard, Lea, (C. Dela-

vigne), 389.

ENFANTS SANS Souci, 69.
Enfer, L', (Marot), 130.
Engrenage, L', (E. Brieux), 488.
Enigme, L', (P. Hervieu), 490.
Enlevement, L', (H. Becque), 486.
Enlevement de la Redoute, L',

(Merimee), 423.
Entretiens, etc. (Fontenelle), 161,

273.
Envers d'une Sainte (F. de Curel),

488.

EPICURUS, 185 n. 9.
EPINAY, Mme. d', 283, 323.
Epitres (Boileau), 209.
Epreuve, L', (Marivaux), 340.
ERASMUS, 112.
ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, 412.
Erec and Enide, 28.
Esprit des Lois, L', (Montesquieu),

276, 283, 310, 311-313, 321.
Esprits, Les, (Larivey), 142.
Esquisse, etc. (Condorcet), 334.
Essai sur 1'Art Dramatique (Mer-

cier), 336.
Essai sur la Ve'rite', etc. (Diderot),

331.
Essai sur le Despotisme (Mirabeau),

351.
Essai sur les Institutions Sociales

(Ballanche), 451.
Essai sur les Lettres de Cachet, etc.

(Mirabeau), 351.
Essai sur les MOBUTS (Voltaire), 293,

303.

Essai sur les Revolutions (Chateau-
briand), 362.

Essais (Montaigne), 126.

Essais de Psychologic Contempo-
raine (P. Bourget), 440.

ESTEVANVILLB GONZALEZ, 272.

Esther (Racine), 201, 207-208, 356.

ESTIBNNE, H., 118.

ESTIENNE, R. and H., 109.
Etape, L', (P. Bourget), 441.
Ethici Charakteres (Theophrastua),

263 n. 1.

Ethics (Aristotle), 47.
Ethics (Spinoza), 187.
Etourdi, L', (Moliere), 142, 217.
fitrangere, L', (A. Dumas fils), 477.
Etudes, etc. (Chateaubriand), 457.
Etudes Analytiquea, etc. (Balzac),

419.
Etudes de la Nature (Bernardin de

Saint-Pierre), 347.
Etudes sur la Revolution Fran-

caise (C. Nodier), 393.
Eugenie Grandet (Balzac), 419, 422,
Euphues (Lyly), 154.
Evangeliste, L', (A. Daudet), 432.
Evolution des Genres, etc. (Brune-

tiere), 466.

Exilee, L', (P. Loti), 415.
Explication des Maximes, etc. (F4n-

elon), 242.
Exposition de la Foi Catholique

(Bossuet), 240.

Fables (Fenelon), 246.
Fables (Florian), 344.
Fables (La Fontaine), 233-235.
Fabliaux, 34-54.

Fabliaux, Les, (J. Beclier), 35 a. 1.
FABRE, F., 442.
FABRE d'EaLANTiNB, 354.
Fdcheux, Les, (Moliere), 219.
FAGUET, E., 82, 127, 174, 202, 424,
437, 465, 466, 467, 491.

541

INDEX

Famille Benoiton, La, (V. Sardou),

471.
Famine, La, etc. (Jean de la Taille),

140.

Fantome, Le, (P. Bourget), 441.
Farce de Maitre Pathelin, La, 73-74.
Farces, 72-74.
FAREL, 111.
Fatraisies, 45.
FAUGERE, 194.
FAURIEL, 80.
Fausses Confidences, Les, (Mari-

vaux), 340.

Faust (Goethe), 65, 358.
Faustin, La, (E. de Goncourt), 430.
Faute de 1'Abbe Mouret, La, (E.

Zola), 435.

Fecondite (E. Zola), 436.
Fedora (V. Sardou), 469.
FELIBRES, 448.

Femme, La, (A. Bisson), 494 n. 2.
Femme au XVIIIeme Siecle, La,

(E. and J. de Goncourt), 429.
Femme de Claude, La, (A. Dumas

fils), 476.
Femme de Trente Ans, La, (Balzac),

419.
Femmes Savantes, Les, (Moliere),

155, 223, 225, 227-228.
FENELON, 213, 239, 242, 245-247,

255, 266.

Fernande (V. Sardou), 331, 471.
Feuilles d'Automne (V. Hugo), 379,

380.
FEUILLET, O., 405, 411-412, 414,

484, 518.

FEYDEAXJ, G., 494.
FICHTE, 452.
Fille d'Eschyle, La, (J. Autran),

483.
Fille de Roland, La, (H. de Bornier),

483.
Fille du Cid, La, (C. Delavigne),

389.

Fille Elisa, La, (E. de Goncourt),

430.
Fille Sauvage, La, (F. de Curel),

488.

FILON, A., 433, 489.
Fils de Giboyer, Le, (E. Augier),

479.

Fils de la Terre (Capdeville), 443.
Fils Naturel, Le, (Diderot), 332.
Fils Naturel, Le, (A. Dumas fils),

477.

Flatteur, Le, (J. B. Rousseau), 269.
FLAUBERT, G., 361, 417, 427-428,

437, 455.

FLECHIER, E., 239, 247-248, 255.
FLEURY, J., 481.
Flirt (P. Hervieu), 489.
Floovant, 14, 19.
Folie du Sage, La, (Tristan L'Her-

mite), 168.
Fonds de Giboyer, Le, (L. Veuillot),

480.

FONTAINE, N., 190.
FONTANES, 359.
FONTENELLE, 161, 161 n. 2, 273-

274, 281, 287.
Force des Choses, La, (P. Marguer-

itte), 441.
Formation Territoriale, etc., La,

(F. Mignet), 460.
FORMET, J., 263.
Fort en Theme (A. Karr), 395.
Fortune des Rougon, La, (E. Zola),

435.

Fortunio (T. Gautier), 390.
Fossiles, Les, (F. de Curel), 483.
Foulke Fitz-Warin, 34.
FOUQUET, 231, 251, 256.
Fourberies de Scapin, Les, (Moliere),

161, 168, 223.
Fourchambault, Les, (E. Augier),

480.

FOURIER, C., 404.
FRAGONARD, 430.

542

INDEX

Franc Archer de Bagnolet, Le, 105.
FRANCE, A., 35, 303, 415-416, 433,

440, 445, 453, 463, 465, 466, 515

n. 2.
France Merveilleuse, La, (Se"billot

and Gaudoz), 447 n. 1.
Francesca da Rimini (Dante), 27

n. 2.

Franciade, La, (Ronsard), 135.
Francillon (A. Dumas fils), 478.
FRANCIS I, King, 70, 108, 109, 110,

121, 123, 125, 130, 131, 132, 146,

376.

Francois le Champi (G. Sand), 405.
FRANKLIN, B., 280, 284, 299, 395.
FREDERICK THE GREAT, 284, 293,

294, 295.

Frederique (M. Provost), 439.
French Press, 497-518.
Freres Ennemis, Les, (J. Racine),

197.
Freres Zemganno, Les, (E. de Gon-

court), 430.

FROISSART, 25, 59, 88, 144, 266.
Fromont jeune et Risler ain6 (A.

Daudet), 432.

FRONDE, La, 150, 151, 191, 252, 260.
Frou-Frou (Meilhac and HaleVy),

485.

FURETIERE, A., 162, 197.
Furie, La, (J. Bois), 494 n. 1.
FUSTEL de COULANGES, 461.

Gabrielle (E. Augier), 479.
Gageure ImpreVue, La, (Sedaine),

160, 335.

Gai Savoir, Gaie Science, 57 n. 1.
Galerie du Palais, La, (Corneille),

169, 173.

GALIANI, Abbe", 284.
GALILEO, 185.
GALLIOT DU PHE, 105.
GALVANI, 280.
GAMBETTA, 471.

GANDILLOT, L., 494.

GARAT, 368.

Gargantua, 119-120, 393.

Garin de Monglane, 19.

GARNIER, R., 140.

GAUTHIER-GARGUILLE, 168, 216.

GAUTIER, L., 15, 18, 20, 21, 25 n.
1, 26.

GAUTIER, T., 160, 360, 361, 370,
389-391, 444, 463, 478, 505.

GAUTIER DE COINCY, 65.

GAUTIER LE LONG, 36, 44.

Gavant, Minard et Cie (Gondinet),
485.

GAY, 290.

Gazette de Soret, 158 n. 1.

Gendre de M. Poirier, Le, (E. Aug-
ier), 406, 479.

Genevieve (A. Karr), 395.

Genevieve (Lamartine), 372.

G£nie du Christianisme, Le, (Cha-
teaubriand), 362, 363,

GENLIS, Mme. de, 369.

GEOFFRIN, Mme., 282.

GEOFFROY, G., 430 n. 1.

GEOFFROY, J. L., 463-464.

George Dandin (Moliere), 36, 72,
221.

GERICAULT, 360.

Germanicus (A. V. Arnault), 353.

Germinal (E. Zola), 435, 437.

Germinie Lacerteux (E. and J. de
Goncourt), 429.

GERSON, 51, 53, 238.

Gerusalemme Liberata (Tasso), 26.

GERUZEZ, 257, 464.

Geschichte der Englischen Literal ur
(Ten Brink), 34 n. 8.

Gesta Dagoberti, 15.

GIBBON, 284.

GIERA, 448.

Gil Bias (Le Sage), 272.

GILBERT, 344, 387.

GIRARDIN, Mme. de, 369.

543

INDEX

GlRARDON, 255.

Girart de Roussillon, 20, 80 n. 2.

Girart de Viane, 19.

Giratrz de Rousilho, 26.

GIRONDINS, 285, 356.

Gismonda (V. Sardou), 472.

GH Sdegni Amorosi, 217 n. 2.

GLICHEZARB, H., 45.

Glorieux, Le, (Destouches), 341.

GODARD, 141.

GODEAU, 129, 158, 163.

GODFREY OP MONMOUTH, 28, 30.

GOETHE, 42 n. 1, 160, 221 n. 2, 276,
281, 298, 323, 324, 331, 338, 356,
357, 358, 360, 363, 367, 394, 395,
447.

Goffredo (Tasso), 26.

GOMBAUD, 157, 163.

GONCOURT, E. and J., 417, 428-430,
487 n. 1.

GONDINET, E., 485.

GONGORA, 153, 154.

GOTTFRIED Von STRASSBTJRG, 30.

GOTTSCHED, 215.

GOUDIMEL, 118.

GOURNAY, de, 330.

Grail, The, (Robert de Boron), 29.

Grand Careme (Massillon), 250.

Grand Testament (F. Villon), 97.

Grandeur et Decadence, etc. (Mon-
tesquieu), 311.

Grandison (Richardson), 342.

GRANDS RHETORIQUEURS, 129.

GRAB, F., 449.

Graziella (Lamartine), 372.

Grece Contemporaine, La, (E.
About), 412.

CRESSET, 275, 343.

GREVILLE, H., 413.

GRIMM, Baron, 283, 323, 329, 330,
331, 334, 503.

GRINGOIRE, 70.

Griselidis, 70.

GROS, 360.

GROS-GmLLATTME, 168, 216.

GROSS, Erhart, 70 n. 1.
Grotesques, Les, (T. Gautier), 390.
GRUET, J., 112.
Gu6pes, Les, (A. Karr), 395.
Guerre au Village, La, (Trarieux),
488 n. 1.

GtTILBERT DE BERNEVILLE, 91 D.. 1.

Guillaume au Faucon, 35.

GTJILLAUME DE LORRIS, 45, 48-50.

GUINAXTLT, Mile., 283.

GOTRAUD, 381.

GUIRAUT DE BORNEIL, 88.

Guirlande de Julie, 156.

GTJIZOT, 164, 452, 458, 459-460, 518.

Gulliver's Travels (Swift), 161.

GUTENBERG, 107 n. 1.

GUYON, Mme., 242, n. 1.

GUYOT DE PROVINS, 45.

Guzla, La, (P. MerimSe), 423.

GYP, 443, 506.

HABERT, 163.
HALEVY, L., 485, 486.
Hamburgische Dramaturgic (Les-

sing), 206 n. 1.
HAMILTON, 394.
HAMON, 196.

Han d'Islande (V. Hugo), 376, 378.
HARDY, A., 141, 166.
HARDY, T., 486.
Harmonies de la Nature, Les, (Ber-

nardin de Saint-Pierre), 347.
Harmonies Poe'tiques (Lamartine),

371.

HAUPTMANN, 488.
HAURANNE, Duvergier de, 188.
HAVET, 194, 518.
HEGEL, 452.
HEINE, 75, 395, 447.
HELVETIUS, C. A., 283, 329.
HELVETIUS, Mme., 368.
HENAULT, 283.
HENNIQUE, 430 n. 1, 487 n. 1.

544

INDEX

Henri III et sa Cour (A. Dumas

pere), 407.

Henriade, La, (Voltaire), 290.
Henriette Marshal (E. and J. de

Goncourt), 429.
HENRY IV, 118 n. 3, 142 n. 2, 145,

146, 153.
Heptameron (Marguerite de Valois),

148.

HEREDIA, J. M. de, 445.
Hermann and Dorothea (Goethe),

356.

Heraani (V. Hugo), 360, 389.
HERVIEU, P., 489-490.
Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules

(Bussy-Rabutin), 255.
Histoire Ancienne, L', (Rollin), 268.
Histoire Comique, etc. (Cyrano de

Bergerac), 161.
Histoire de Charles XII (Voltaire),

291, 292-293, 309.
Histoire de France (Michelet), 461.
Histoire de Jenni (Voltaire), 304.
Histoire de I'Acad&nie (Fontenelle),

273.
Histoire de la Civilisation, etc.

(Guizot), 459.
Histoire de la Conquete de 1'Angle-

terre, etc. (A. Thierry), 458.
Histoire de la Litte'rature Anglaise

(H. Taine), 455.
Histoire de la Revolution Fran-

caise (Michelet), 461.
Histoire de la Revolution Fran-

caise (F. Mignet), 460.
Histoire de la Revolution Fran-

Saise (A. Thiers), 460.
Histoire de la Soci6t6 Francaise,

etc. (E. and J. de Goncourt), 429.
Histoire de ma Vie (G. Sand), 405.
Histoire de Port-Royal (Sainte-

Beuve), 465.
Histoire de Saint-Louis (Joinville),

56.

Histoire des Dues de Bourgogne
(Barante), 458.

Histoire des Girondins (Lamartine),
370.

Histoire des Institutions Politiques,
etc. (Fustel de Coulanges), 461.

Histoire des Origines, etc. (E. Re-
nan), 453.

Histoire des Treize (Balzac), 419.

Histoire des Variations, etc. (Bos-
suet), 240.

Histoire du Consulat, etc. (A.
Thiers), 460.

Histoire du Peuple d'Israel (E.
Renan), 453.

Histoire du Romantisme (T. Gau-
tier), 360.

Histoire d'un Crime (V. Hugo), 378 .

Histoire G6n6rale, etc. (Guizot),
459.

Histoire Natureile, etc. (Buffon),
315-317.

Histoire Veritable (Montesquieu),
309.

Historia Regum Britanniae (God-
frey of Monmouth), 28, 30.

HISTORIANS, 457-462.

History of English Poetry (Court-
hope), 48 n. 1.

History of Philosophy (Schwegler),
182 n. 3.

HOLBACH, d', 283, 284, 323, 329.

HOLBEIN, 72 n. 2, 110 n. 3, 446.

HOMER, 51, 136, 171, 345, 372.

Homme a TOreiHe Cassee, L', (E.
About), 412.

Homme aux Quarante Ecus, L',
(Voltaire), 303.

Homme-Femme, L,' (A. Dumas
fils), 477.

Homme Machine, L', (La Mettrie),
284.

Homme Plante, L', (La Mettrie),
284.

545

INDEX

Homme Qui Kit, L', (V. Hugo), 149
n. 1, 376, 378.

Honneur et 1'Argent, L', (Ponsard),
483.

HORACE, 395.

Horace (Corneille), 172, 173, 177-178.

Housse Partie, La, (Bemier), 37.

HTJET, 213.

HUGO, V., 149 n. 1, 159, 167 n. 2,
360, 361, 369, 370, 372-381, 382,
385, 385 n. 2, 389, 398, 421 n. 2,
425, 447, 468, 479, 483, 484, 495,
505.

HUGUES DE BERZY, 45.

HUME, D., 325.

HUMORISTS, 392-395.

HUNEKER, J., 426, 490.

HUTTEN, Ulrich von, 113.

HUYGHENS, 287.

HUYSMANS, 430 n. 1, 438-439.

lambes (A. Barbier), 400.
lambes (A. Che'nier), 345.
IBSEN, 488, 489, 490.
Ide"es de Mme. Aubray, Les, (A.

Dumas fils), 476.
Idylls of the King (Tennyson), 28

n. 2.

IFFLAND, 332.

II Filocopo (Boccaccio), 31 n. 3.
II Pianto (A. Barbier), 400.
II Vero Amico (Goldoni), 332.
Iliad, 13, 213.
Ille et Galeron, 34.
Illusion Comique, L', (Corneille),

170, 173.

Immortel, L', (A. Daudet), 432.
Imperia (Valmy-Boysse), 494.
Impressions de Theatre (J. Lemai-

tre), 416, 466.
Impressions de Voyage (A. Dumas

pere), 408.
Impromptu de Versailles, L', (Mo-

liere), 219.

Inavvertito, L', (Barbieri), 217 n. 1.

Incas, Les, (Marmontel), 344.

Inde sans les Anglais, L', (P. Loti),
415.

Indiana (G. Sand), 403, 405.

Inge"nu, L', (Voltaire), 303.

Institution Chre"tienne (Calvin), 111,
239.

Interesse, L', (Seccbi), 217 n. 2.

Introduction to the Categories (Por-
phyry), 182.

Intruse, L', (Maeterlinck), 491.

Inutile Effort, L', (E. Rod), 441.

Iphige'nie (Racine), 199.

Irene (Voltaire), 299.

Isclo d'Or, Les, (Mistral), 449.

Isolee, L', (R. Bazin), 443.

Israel (Bernstein), 494 n. 5.

Itine"raire, etc. (Chateaubriand),
364.

Ivanhoe (W. Scott), 457.

Jack (A. Daudet), 431.

Jacquerie, La, (P. Me'rim^e), 423.

Jacques (G. Sand), 403.

JACQUES DE BAISIEUX, 44.

Jacques le Fataliste (Diderot), 331.

JAMES, H., 420.

JANIN, J., 463, 505, 507, 513.

JANSENISTS, 188-193, 240.

JANSENIUS, 188.

Jardin de Be're'nice, Le, (M. Barres),

441.

JASMIN, 448-449.
Jean de la Roche (G. Sand), 405.
JEAN DE MEUNG, 11, 46, 49-54.
Jean de Thommeray (E. Augier),

480.

Jean des Figues (P. Arene), 443.
JEAN THE GAUL, 44.
JEANNE D'Aac, 60 n. 1.
Jeu de PAmour, etc., Le, (Mari-

vaux), 340.
Jeu de la Resurrection, Le, 64.

546

INDEX

Jeu de Saint-Nicholas, Le, (J. Bo-
del), 64.

Jeu du Prince des Sots, Le, (Grin-
goire), 70.

Jeune Veuve, La, (Gautier le Long),
36.

JEUX FLORAUX, 134, 354, 380, 448.

Jocelyn (Lamartine), 371.

Jodelet ou le Maitre Valet (Scarron),
160.

JODELLE, 132, 140, 141.

JOHNSON, 290.

Joie de Vivre, La, (E. Zola), 435.

Joie Fait Peur, La, (Delphine Gay),
484, 505.

JOINVILLE, 25, 57, 144.

Jongleur de Notre-Dame, Le, (A.
France), 66 n. 1.

JONGLEURS, 15-18.

Joseph of Arimathea, 29.
JOUBERT, J., 244, 369, 452-453.
Joueur, Le, (Regnard), 270.
Joueur de Flute, Le, (E. Augier),

479.

JOTJFFROY, 450, 452.
Journal des Goncourt (E. de Gon-

court), 430.

Joyzelle (Maeterlinck), 491.
Judgment of Renart, 42.
Jugement Dernier, Le, (Marshal),

353.

Juif Errant, Le, (E. Sue), 410, 506.
Juives, Les, (R. Gamier), 140.
Julia de Trecoeur (O. Feuillet), 412,

484.
Julie ou la Nouvelle He'loise (J. J.

Rousseau), 283, 324.
JULLIEN, J., 487, 494.
JUNTOS, 399.

JtJSSIEN, 280.

JUVENAL, 51, 400.

Kabbala, The, 185 n. 11.
KANT, 452.

Karl Moor (Schiller), 393.

KARR, A., 392, 394-395, 507, 513.

KEPLER, 185.

King Lear, 37.

KLOPSTOCK, 367, 386.

KOCK, P. de, 411.

KOEHLER, Reinhold, 34.

KOTZEBUE, 332.

KRILOFP (KRILOV), 235 n. 4, 332.

LA BARRE, de, 299 n. 1.

LA BAUMELLE, 293.

LA BRUYERE, 123, 174, 219 n. 1,

243, 255, 261-265, 266.
LA CALPRENEDE, 166, 257.
LA CHAUSSEE, N. de, 277, 341.
LA CONDAMINE, 329.
LACTJRNE de SAINTE-PALAYE, 90
, n. 1.
LA FAYETTE, Mme. de, 155, 201,}

255, 257-258, 276, 278.
'LA FONTAINE, 38, 43, 45, 103 n. 1,

129, 196, 197, 213, 214, 223, 225,

231-237, 255, 345, 395.
La Fontaine et ses Fables (H.

Taine), 236.

LA HARPE, 234, 282, 284, 353.
La Horla (G. de Maupassant), 438.
LA METTRIE, 284, 293.
LA MONNOYE, B. de, 162.
LA MOTTE, A. de, 281.
LA NOUE, F. de, 145.
LA PERUSE, 140 n. 1.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, due de, 156,

255, 258-260, 286.
LA SALLE, A. de, 73 n. 1, 105.
La-Bas (Huysmans), 439.
LABE, LOUISE, 129.
LABICHE, 484.
LAC£PEDE, 316.
LACORDAIRE, 451.

Lady Tartuffe (Delphine Gay), 484.
LAFCADIO HEARN, 390, 414, 446.
LAFOSSE, A. de, 266-267.

547

INDEX

LAGRANGE-CHANCEL, 266.

Lais, 27, 60.

LALLY, Comte de, 299 n. 1.

LAMARTINE, 327, 361, 363, 369, 37O-

372, 381, 447, 448, 504.
LAMBERT, Mme. de, 281.
LAMBERT 11 TORS, 32.
LAMBIN, D., 109.

LAMENNAIS, Abbe" de, 404, 450-451.
Lancelot (Chrestien de Troyes), 27,

28.

LANCELOT, C., 190, 196.
LANFREY, 461.
LANG, A., 43, 134 n. 1, 303.
Langue d'Oc, 5, 6-7.
Langue d'O'il, 5-6.
LANSON, G., 11, 46, 53, 75, 96, 167

n. 2, 175, 176, 213, 215, 343, 345,

487.

LANZI, 426.
Lapidaires (Marbode, Bishop of

Rennes), 47.
LARIVEY, 141.
LAROUSSE, 106 n. 3.
LARROUMET, 202, 203.
LASCARIS, 106, 108.
LAUNAY, Mile, de, 281.
LAVEDAN, H., 489.
Lavinia (G. Sand), 403.
LAVISSE, E., 462.
LAVOISIER, 280.
LAW, J., 279 n. 1.
Lazare (A. Barbier), 400.
Lazare le Patre (Bouchardy), 484.
LE FRANC DE POMPIGNAN, 344.
LE Houx, J., 94.

LE MAISTRE de SACY, 190, 191, 196.
LE NOTRE, 254.
LE SAGE, 271-272, 340, 346.
L'ESTOILE, 170.
Lea (M. Prevost), 439.
Leatherstocking Series (F. Cooper),

363.
LEBRTTN, C., 253-254, 255.

LEBRUN, Ecouchard, 269, 344, 371.
LECONTE DE LISLE, 444.
LECOUVREUR, Adrienne, 282, 291.
LEFBVRE, J., 381.
LSgataire Universel, Le, (Regnard),

270.
L6gende des Siecles, La, (V. Hugo),

379.
LSgendes Epiques, Les, (J. B6dier),

18.

Legislation Primitive, La, (de Bon-
aid), 451.
LEGOUVE, E., 482.
LEGOUVE, J. B., 353.
Legs, 45.

Legs, Le, (Marivaux), 340.
LEIBNITZ, 281, 292, 319, 402.
LEJEUNE, le Pere, 239.
Lelia (G. Sand), 403.
LEMAIRE DE BELGES, 103.
LEMA!TRE, J., 96, 159, 340, 411, 440,

463, 472, 477, 480, 489, 494, 514.
LEMERCIER, N6pomucene, 335, 336,

360 n. 2.

LEMMERCIER, 253 n. 2.
LENA, M., 66 n. 1.
LENIENT, 51.
LEONARDO DA VINCI, 109.
Leone Leoni (G. Sand), 342, 403.
Lgpreux de la Cit6 d'Aoste, Le, (X.

de Maistre), 394.
LERMONTOV, 363.
LEROUX, P., 404.
LESCOT, P., 253 n. 2.
LESPINASSE, Mile, de, 282.
LESSING, 206 n. 1, 215, 332, 358,

367.

LETOURNETTR, 277, 358.
Lettre & 1'Academie (F6nelon), 266.
Lettre sur les Aveugles (Diderot),

331.
Lettre sur les Spectacles (J. J.

Rousseau), 323.
Lettres (G. de Balzac), 157.

548

INDEX

Lettres (P. L. Courier), 399.
Lettres (Mirabeau), 351.
Lettres (Mme. de Stael), 366.
Lettres (Voiture), 156.
Lettres a 1'Etrangere (Balzac), 422.
Lettres a une Autre Inconnue (P.

Merimee), 424.
Lettres a une Inconnue (P. Me'ri-

mee), 424.
Lettres de Dupuis a Cotonnet (A.

de Musset), 383.
Lettres de Femmes (M. PreVost),

439.
Lettres de la Campagne (Tronchin),

325.

Lettres de la Montague (J. J. Rous-
seau), 325.
Lettres de mon Moulin (A. Daudet),

431, 432.
Lettres d'un Voyageur (G. Sand),

403.
Lettres Persanes (Montesquieu),

307, 309.
Lettres Philosophiques (Voltaire),

291.
Lettres sur 1'Histoire de France (A.

Thierry), 458.
Lettres sur la Musique Fransaise

(J. J. Rousseau), 320.
Lettres sur le Roman de la Rose

(Christine de Pisan), 54.
L'HOSPITAL, 119, 146.
Li Parpaioun Blu (W. B. Wyse),

449 n. 1.

Life of Bertrand Du Guesclin, 56.
Life of Saint Le"ger, 1.
LINGENDES, le Pere de, 239.
LINNE, 280.

Lion Amoureux, Le, (Ponsard), 483.
Lionnes Pauvres, Les, (E. Augier),

480.

Lise Fleuron (G. Ohnet), 411.
Litte"rature FranQaise au Moyen-

Age (G. Paris), 34 n. 5.

LITTRE, E., 452.

Livre des Quatre Dames, Le, (Alain

Chartier), 61.
Livre du Peuple, Le, (Lamennais),

451.

Livre Rouge, Le, 280.
LOCKE, J., 184 n. 3, 290, 402.
LOCKWOOD, M. C., 304.
Loi de 1'Homme, La, (P. Hervieu),

490.

LONGEPIEHRE, 266.
LONGFELLOW, 448.
LONGUEVILLE, Duchess of, 154, 155,

157, 158 n. 1, 191, 192, 192 n. 1,

260, 452.
LORET, 503.
LORRAIN, LE, 255.
Lorrains, Les, 20.
LORREIN, 495.

Lon, P., 414-415, 430, 443.
Louis, 329.
Louis IX, Saint, 10.
Louis XI, 61, 70, 95 n. 1, 144.
Louis XI (C. Delavigne), 389.
Louis XIV, 150, 151, 159, 163, 164,

181, 192, 196 n. 1, 198, 200, 201,

202, 205, 209, 212, 213, 215, 239,
I 240, 241, 244, 247, 249, 251, 252-

255, 278, 279, 281, 289, 297,

307.

Louis XV, 279, 320, 331, 337.
Louis XV (Due de Broglie), 462.
Louis XVI, 339.
Louis XVII (G. Frauchois), 494.
Louis Lambert (Balzac), 418.
Lourdes (E. Zola), 436.
Lous Tre'sor dou F61ibrige (Mistral)

449.

Lours, 446.
LOYOLA, I. de, 117.
Lucie, etc. (G. de Bouh^lier), 442.
Lucrece (A. V. Arnault), 353.
Lucrece (Ponsard), 483.
Lucrece Borgia (V. Hugo), 373.

549

INDEX

Ludwigslied, 14 n. 2.
Lui et EUe (P. de Musset)> 405.
LULLI, 221, 268.
LUTHER, 499.
Lutrin, Le, (Boileau), 210.
LUZAN, 215.

Lys dans la Vall6e, Le, (Balzac),
419.

MABLY, 402.

MACHIAVELLI, 425.

MACROBIUS, 48.

Madame Attend Monsieur (Meilhac

and Halevy), 485.
Madame Bo vary (Flaubert), 427.
Madame Caverlet (E. Augier), 480.
Madame Chrysantheme (P. Loti),

414.
Madame Gervaisais (E. and J. de

Goncourt), 429.
Madame de Sommerville (J. San-

deau), 406.
Madame Sans-Gene (V. Sardou and

Moreau), 473.
Madame The'rese (Erckmann-Cha-

trian), 412.

Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle (A. Du-
mas pere), 407.
Mademoiselle de Maupin (T. Gau-

tier), 390.
Mademoiselle de la Quintinie (G.

Sand), 405, 412.
Mademoiselle de la Seigliere (J.

Sandeau), 406.

Mademoiselle Fifi (G. de Maupas-
sant), 438.
Mademoiselle Guignon (A. Theur-

iet), 414.
MAETERLINCK, M., 446, 487 n. 1,

490-491, 493.

Ma Grande (P. Margueritte), 441.
Mahabharata, 13.
Mahomet (Voltaire), 291, 292, 302.
MAILLARD, O., 238.

MAINTENON, Mme. de, 146 n. 2, 159,
201, 215, 287.

MAIRET, J., 166, 167.

Maison de Penarvan, La, (J. San-
deau), 406.

Maison Neuve (V. Sardou), 472.

Maison Tellier, La, (G. de Maupas-
sant), 438.

MAISTRE, J. de, 450.

MAISTRE, X. de, 392, 393-394.

MaJtre de Forges, Le, (G. Ohnet),
411.

Maitres Sonneurs, Les, (G. Sand),
405.

Maitresses de Louis XV, Les, (E.
and J. de Goncourt), 429.

Malade Imaginaire, Le, (Moliere),
223, 225.

MALEBRANCHE, 268.

MALFILATRE, 344.

Malgre Tout (G. Sand), 405.

MALHERBE, 78, 129, 138-139, 152,
153, 345, 357, 447.

MALLARME, S., 445.

MALLET, 329.

MALLEVILLE, 129, 163.

MALOT, H., 411.

Man in the Moon, The, (F. Good-
win), 161 n. 3.

Manette Salomon (E. and J. de
Goncourt), 429. .

Manfred (Byron), 483.

Manlius Capitolinus (Lafosse), 266.

Mannequin d 'Osier, Le, (A. France),
416.

Manon Lescaut (PreVost), 341, 479.

MANSARD, J. H., 253, 255, 261.

Maratre, La, (Balzac), 420.

MARCABRUN, 89.

Mardoche (A. de Musset), 384.

Mare au Diable, La, (G. Sand),
405.

Mar6chale d'Ancre, La, (A. de Vig-
ny), 387.

550

INDEX

MARGUERITE DE NAVARRE, or de

Valois, 45, 111, 130, 148.
MARGUERITTE, P., 430, 440, 441.
Mari de la Veuve, Le, (A. Dumas

pere), 407.
Mariage d 'Argent, Le, (E. Scribe),

482.
Mariage de Figaro, Le, (Beaumar-

chais), 339, 349 n. 1.
Mariage de Victorine, Le, (G. Sand),

335, 405.
Mariage d'Olympe, Le, (E. Augier),

479.

Mariamne (Tristan 1'Hermite), 166.
Marianne (A. Hardy), 141.
MARIE DE CHAMPAGNE, 27.
MARIE DE FRANCE, 27, 40, 70 n. 1.
Marie Tudor (V. Hugo), 373.
Marie-The'rese (Due de Broglie), 462.
MARINI, 153, 154.

Marino Faliero (C. Delavigne), 389.
Marion Delorme (V. Hugo), 373,

479.
Marius a Minturnes (A. V. Arnault),

353.
MARIVAUX, 277, 281, 284, 34O-341,

346.

MARK TWAIN, 101 n. 1.
MARLOWE, 65.
MARMONTEL, 282, 284, 329, 344,

398 n. 1.

MAROT, C., 54, 70, 96, 111, 129-132.
MAROT, J., 103, 130.
Marquis de Le'toriere, Le, (E. Sue),

410.
Marquis de Villemer, Le, (G. Sand),

405.
Marquis Ridicule, Le, (Scarron),

216.

MARS, Mile., 389.
Marseillaise, La, (Rouget de Lisle),

355-356.

Marthe (Huysmans), 438.
MARTIN, H., 462.

MARTIN, J., 144.

Martyrs, Les, (Chateaubriand), 364,
457, 458.

MASCARON, 239.

MASSENET, J., 66 n. 1.

MASSILLON, 239, 245, 249-251, 275.

MATHIEU, 448.

Mathilde (E. Sue), 410.

Matteo Falcone (P. MeVimee), 423.

MATTHEWS, Brander, 470, 473.

MAUPASSANT, G. de, 437-438, 515
n. 2.

MAUPERTUIS, 277, 293, 294.

Mauprat (G. Sand), 403.

Mauvais Riche et le Ladre, Le, 70.

Mauvaise Femme, La, 36.

Maximes (La Rochefoucauld), 259.

Maximes des Saints (F6nelon), 247.

MAYNAHD, 129, 139.

MAZARIN, 150, 151 n. 1, 253, 268,
502.

Mazarinade, La, (Scarron), 160

Mazarinades, 151.

Mechant, Le, (Cresset), 342.

Medecin de Campagne, Le, (Bal-
zac), 419.

Meclecin Malgrg Lui, Le, (Moliere),
38, 221.

MSdee (Corneille), 170.

M6dee (E. LegouvS), 482 n. 1.

Meditations Poe'tiques (Lamartine),
370.

Meditations sur 1'Evangile (Bos-
suet), 243.

MEILHAC and HALEVY, 424, 485-
486.

MEISTERSINGERS, 449 n. 2.

MELANCHTHON, 499.

Melanges, etc. (C. Nodier), 393.

Melanide (La Chaussee), 341.

Me'le'agre (Lemercier), 336.

Me"liador (Froissart), 60.

Melite (Corneille), 169.

M6moires, 144-147.

551

INDEX

Me'moires (Beaumarchais), 337, 338,

340.

Me'moires (Commines), 56.
Meinoires (Pellisson), 251.
Me'moires (Mme. de Reinusat), 462.
Me'moires (de Retz), 255.
Memoires (Saint-Simon), 265-266.
Memoires (Villehardouin), 56.
Me'moires de M. Joseph Prudhomme

(H. Monnier), 412.
Me'moires d'Outre-Tombe (Chateau-
briand), 365, 369.

Memoires du Diable (F. Soulie), 410.
Me'moires d'un Homme de Qualit£,

etc. (Provost), 341.
Me'moires d'un M6decin (A. Dumas

pere), 409.
Memoires d'un Touriste (Stendhal),

426.
Me'moires sur les Grands Jours

d'Auvergne (Fleshier), 248.
MENAGE, 218, 256.
MENANDER, 218.
MENDES, C., 444 n. 1, 445, 487 n.

1, 515 n. 2.

Me'nechmes, Les, (Regnard), 270.
MENNECHET, 168, 273.
MENOT, 238.
Menteur, Le, (Corneille), 168, 173,

216.

Menus Propos, etc. (Toepffer), 394.
MENZEL, A., 284 n. 1.
MEON, 54.

Mer, La, (Michelet), 461.
Mercadet, (Balzac), 420.
MERCIER, L. S., 335, 358.
MERCIER de la RIVIERE, 331.
Mere Coupable, La, (Beaumarchais),

339.

MERIMEE, P., 417, 423-424, 468.
MERIVALE, 469.

MERLIN, 10 n. 1, 28, 29, 30-31.
Merope (Voltaire), 291, 296, 301.
MERRILL, 446.

Mes Haines (E. Zola), 435.

Mes Plagiats (V. Sardou), 472 n. 1.

MEBCHINOT, J., 103.

Mess6niennes, Les, (C. Delavigne),

388.

Metamorphoses (Ovid), 48.
METENIER, 487.

M6tromanie, La, (Piron), 269, 342.
Meunier d'Angibault, Le, (G. Sand),

404.

MICHEL, F., 21, 54.
Michel Verneuil (A. Theuriet), 414.
MICHELET, J., 110 n. 3, 460-461.
Microcosmographie (Earle), 263 n.

Microme'gas (Voltaire), 161, 291.
MIGNET, F., 460, 504, 518.
Migration of the Fable, The, (Max

Miiller), 34 n. 6.
MILLET, Abb£, 80.
MILLOT, 90 n. 1.
MILTON, 386, 402.
Minerve Frangaise, 144.
MINNESINGERS, 449 n. 2.
MIRABEAU, 280, 350-352, 443 n. 1,

503, 509.

MIRABEAU, the elder, 330, 351.
Miracles, 64-68.
Mirame (Richelieu), 170.
MIRBEAU, O., 430 n. 1, 494.
MIRECOURT, E. de, 410.
Mireio (Mistral), 449.
Misanthrope, Le, (Moliere), 212,

220, 225-227.
Mis<§rables, Les, (V. Hugo), 376,

377-378, 425.

Miss Sara Sampson (Lessing), 332.
MISTRAL, 447, 448, 449.
Mithridate (Racine), 199.
Modern Drama, 468-496.
Modern Novel, 401-116.
Mois, Les, (Roucher), 346.
MOLIERE, 36, 53, 72, 137, 155, 160,

161, 168, 196, 197, 206, 209, 212,

552

INDEX

213, 214, 216-230, 233, 236, 255,
266, 270, 275, 287, 340, 358, 384,
478, 485, 486.

MOLINET, J., 103.

MOLINOS, 242 n. 1.
Mon Bonnet de Nuit (Mercier), 336.
Mon Oncle Celestin (F. Fabre), 442.
Mon Salon (E. Zola), 435.
Monarchic de Juillet, La, (Thureau-

Dangin), 462.
Monde ou Ton S'ennuie, Le, (Pail-

leron), 485.
MONDOR, 168.
MONIOT, 91.
Moniia Vanna (Maeterlinck), 490,

491.

MONNIER, H., 412.
Monologue, 105.
Monsieur Alphonse (A. Dumas fils) ,

476.
Monsieur de Camors (P. Feuillet),

412, 484.
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (Mo-

liere), 221.
Monsieur et Madame Cardinal (L.

Halevy), 486.
Monsieur le Ministre (J. Claretie),

442.

Monsieur Parent (G. de Maupas-
sant), 438.

MONSTRELET, 60.

Montagne, La, (Michelet), 461.
MONTAIGNE, 53, 118, 125-128, 144,

161 n. 2, 402, 453.
Montaigne (Dowden), 127.
MONTAUSIER, due de, 156, 226.

MONTCHRETIEN, A. de, 140.

Monte-Cristo (A. Dumas pere), 408,

409.

MONTESPAN, Mme. de, 256.
MONTESQUIEU, 127, 246, 268, 276,

277, 280, 281, 290, 306-315, 319,

329, 349, 402, 461.
Montesquieu (Barkausen), 308 n. 2.

MONTLUC, B. de, 118, 144.
MONTPENSIER, Mile, de, 154, 255,

259.

Morale de Paris, La, (P. Adam), 443.
Moralites, 68-70.
MOREAS, J., 446.
MORETO, 219.

Morgante Maggiore (Pulci), 26.
Mort d'Abel, La, (J. B. Legouv£),

353.
Mort d'Agrippine, La, (Cyrano de

Bergerac), 161.
Mort d'Alexandre, La, (A. Hardy),

166.
Mort de Cesar, La, (Voltaire), 290,

302.
Mort de Pompee, La, (Corneille),

173.
Mort du Due d'Enghien, La, (Hen-

nique), 487 n. 1.
Morte d'Arthur, 31 n. 1.
Morticoles, Les, (L. Daudet), 442.
MOSELLY, E., 443.
MOTTEVILLE, Mme. de, 25?.
MOZART, 339.
MULLER, Max, 34.
Muses Galantes, Les, (J. J. Rous-Q

seau), 320.
Musotte (G. de Maupassant and J.

Normand), 438.
MUSSET, A. de, 137 n. 1, 209 n. 2,

361, 363, 370, 381-385, 392, 403,

405, 406, 447, 468, 483, 484, 495,

518.

Myrrha (J. Lemaltre), 416.
Mysteres, 64-68.
Mysteres de Paris, Les, (E. Sue),

411.

Nabab, Le, (A. Daudet), 431.
Namouna (A. de Musset), 382,

383.

Nana (E. Zola), 435.
Nanine (Voltaire), 303.

553

INDEX

NAPOLEON, 58, 267, 349, 350, 358,
364, 366, 368, 400, 404, 407, 422,
425, 426, 456, 457, 461, 473, 501,
503, 504.

Napoleon le Petit (V. Hugo), 378.

Natchez, Les, (Chateaubriand), 362,
363.

Natural History (Pliny), 328 n. 1.

Naturalistic Novel, 434-439.

NECKER, Mme., 284, 318, 347, 366.

NENNIUS, 27.

NETTEMENT, 400.

Neveu de Rameau, Le, (Diderot),
331.

NEWTON, 290, 319.

Nez d'un Notaire, Le, (E. About),
412.

Nibelungen, 13.

NICOLE, 190, 192, 196, 198.

Nicomede (Corneille), 173.

NIETZCHE, 441, 443.

NISARD, D., 95, 464.

NlTHAKD, 3.

Noces d'Attila, Les, (H. de Bor-

nier), 483.
Noces de Figaro, Les, (Lorenzo da

Ponte), 339.
Noctes Atticae (Aulus Gellius), 196

n. 1.

NODIER, C., 392-393.
Nos Bons Villageois (V. Sardou),

471.

Nos Intimes (V. Sardou), 471.
NOSTRADAMUS, J., 84.
Notes sur 1'Angleterre (H. Taine),

455.
Notes sur Paris, etc. (H. Taine),

455.
Notre-Dame de Paris (V. Hugo),

376-377.
Nouveau Dieu, Le, (P. Souchon),

494.
Nouveau Jeu, Le, (H. Lavedan),

489 n. 1.

Nouveaux Essais (P. Bourget), 440.

Nouvelle Heloise, La, (J. J. Rous-
seau), 52, 358.

Nouvelles (A. de Musset), 382.

Nouvelles (A. Dumas pdre), 407.

Nouvelles Ge'nevoises (Toepffer),
394.

NOVALIS, 360.

Novel of the Provinces, 442-443.

Nuage Rose, Le, (G. Sand), 405.

Nuits (A. de Musset), 382.

Numa Roumestan (A. Daudet),
432.

NYROP, 135.

Oath of Strasburg, 1.

Oberle", Les, (R. Bazin), 443.

OCCAM, William of, 184.

Odes (A. Chenier), 345.

Odes Sacre"es (J. B. Rousseau), 269.

Odes et Ballades (V. Hugo), 378.

Odette (V. Sardou), 471.

Odyssey, 13, 234, 246.

CEdipe (Corneille), 173.

CEdipe (Voltaire), 289.

(Euvre, L', (E. Zola), 435.

OHNET, G., 411, 416, 494.

Oiseau, L', (Michelet), 461.

Oiseau Bless6, L', (A. Capus), 494

n. 3.
On Ne Badine Pas Avec L' Amour

(A. de Musset), 382.
Oncle Sam, L', (V. Sardou), 469.
Or, L', (M. Magre), 494.
Oraisons Funebres (Bossuet), 243.
Oreste (Voltaire), 302.
Orientales, Les, (V. Hugo), 378.
Origines, etc., Les, (H. Taine), 456.
Origins of French Poetry (Auber-

tin), 25.
Orlando Furioso (Ariosto), 26, 31 n.

Orlando Innamorata (Bajardo), 26.
Orme du Mail, L', (A. France), 416.

554

INDEX

Ornement des Noces, etc. (Maeter-
linck), 487 n. 1.

Ornieres de la Vie, Les, (J. Claretie),
442.

Orphelin de la Chine, L', (Voltaire),
296.

Ortis (Foscolo), 363.

OBSIAN, 386.

Othello (Shakespeare), 354.

Othon (Corneffle), 173.

PAILLERON, E., 485.

Paix du Manage, La, (G. Courte-

line), 488.
PAXISSY, 118.
Pamela (Richardson), 342.
Pamphlet des Pamphlets (P. L.

Courier), 399.
Pantagruel (Rabelais), 117, 120-

122, 393.

Pantagrue'line Pronostication (Rab-
elais), 119.
Pantchatantra (T. Benfey), 34 n.

3, 39 n. 1.

Papillotos, Les, (Jasmin), 448.
PARADIN, 145.
Parallele des Anciens, etc. (Ch.

Perrault), 212.

Parents Pauvres, Les, (Balzac), 419.
PARFAICT, brothers, 69.
Paria, Le, (C. Delavigne), 389.
Paris (E. Zola), 436.
PARIS, Gaston, 7, 18, 19, 25, 30, 34,

35, 44, 54, 90 n. 2, 96.
Parisienne, La, (H. Becque), 487.
Parnasse Contemporain, 444.
PARNASSIENS, 390, 415, 444, 445,

447, 455.
PARNY, 359.
, PARODI, A., 494.
Paroles d'un Croyant (Lamennais),

451.
Paroles Restent, Les, (P. Hervieu),

490.

PASCAL, B., 191, 193-195, 219 n. l\

252, 255, 402. I

PASQUIER, E., 62, 119.
Passion, The, (Arnold Gre'ban), 66.
Passion of Christ, The, 1.
Pastels, etc. (P. Bourget), 440.
Pastourelle, 77.
PATER, W., 424.
Patrie (V. Sardou), 471.
Patrie en Danger, La, (E. and J. de

Goncourt), 429, 487 n. 1.
Patronne, La, (M. Donnay), 489 n.

PATRU, O., 157, 251.
Pattes de Mouche, Les, (V. Sardou),

472.
Paul et Virginie (Bernardhi de

Saint-Pierre), 347, 348.
PATTLET, Mile., 156.
Pauvre Diable, Le, (Voltaire), 303.
Paysan Parvenu, Le, (Marivaux),

340.

Paysans, Les, (Balzac), 419.
Peau de Chagrin, La, (Balzac), 418.
P&he" de M. Antoine, Le, (G. Sand),

404.

Pecheur d'Islande (P. Loti), 414.
P&iant Joue", Le, (Cyrano de Ber-

gerac), 161, 168.
Peer Gynt (Ibsen), 488 n. 2.
Pelerinage de Charlemagne, Le, 19,

23.
Pelteas et Melisande (Maeterlinck),

491.

PELLISSON, P., 251. _*
fPens6es (Pascal), 193.)
Pens£es Philosophiques (Diderot) t

331.

PENTAUR, 13 n. 1.
Pere de Famille, Le, (Diderot), 332.
Pere Goriot, Le, (Balzac), 419.
PERRAULT, Charles, 212, 447 n. 1.
PERRAULT, Claude, 253 n. 2, 255.
Pertharite (Corneille), 173.

555

INDEX

PETIT de JTJLLEVILLE, 45, 69.

Petit Car6me (Massillon), 249.

Petit Chose, Le, (A. Daudet), 431.

Petit Testament (F. Villon), 97.

Petite Fadette, La, (G. Sand), 405.

Petite Rogue, La, (G. de Maupas-
sant), 438.

Petites Cardinal, Les, (L. Halevy),
486.

PETRAKCH, 70 n. 1, 84, 88, 106, 367.

Peur d'Aimer, La, (G. Frejaville),
494.

PaEDRUS, 43.

Phedre (Racine), 199, 206, 209, 494.
Philinte de Moliere, La, (Fabre

d'Eglantine), 354.
Philosophe Marie1, Le, (Destouches),

341.
Philosophe Sans le Savoir, Le, (Se-

daine), 335.
Philosophe Sous les Toits, Un, (E.

Souvestre), 412.
PHILOSOPHERS, 450-456.
Philosophes Classiques, Les, (H.

Taine), 455.
Philosophic de 1'Art, La, (H. Taine),

455.

Phyllis (P. Souchon), 494.
PHYSIOCRATES, 330-331.
Picciola (Saintine), 412.
PIERRE DE SAINT-CLOUD, 32.
PIERRE I/ERMITE, 238.
Pierre et Jean (G. de Maupassant),

438.

PILPAY, 39 n. 1.
Pinto (Lemercier), 336.
Pio RAJNA, 13.

Piquillo Aliaga (E. Scribe), 506 n. 1.
PIRON, A., 269, 275, 277, 342-343,

398 n. 1.

PlXERECOURT, 335, 484.

Place Royale, La, (Corneille), 170,

173.
Plaideurs, Les, (Racine), 198, 251.

PLANCHE, G., 464.

PLANUDE, 234.

PLATO, 171, 185 n. 4, 233 n. 2, 293.

PLAUTUS, 218, 221 n. 2, 224 n. 2,

228 n. 1.
Playdoyer de la Simple, etc. (Co-

quillart), 73.

PLEIADE, La, 109, 132, 137, 140.
PLESSYS, M. de, 446.
PLUTARCH, 128.
POE, E. A., 472 n. 1.
Poema del Cid, 13.
Poemes Antiques et Modernes (A.

de Vigny), 386.
Poe'sies Nouvelles (A. de Musset),

382.

Poissons, etc., Les, (Lace'pede), 316.
Politique Tiree de L'Ecriture Sainte

(Bossuet), 240, 241.
Polyeucte (Corneille), 173, 180.
Pomone (Perrin and Cambert), 268.
POMPADOUR, Mme. de, 279, 329,

330.

PONSARD, F., 483.
PONTUS de THIARD, 132.
POPE, 215, 290, 402.
PORPHYRY, 182.
PORTO-RICHE, G. de, 489.
PORT-ROYAL, 188-193, 198.
Port-Tarascon (A. Daudet), 432.
Portraits Intimes, etc. (E. and J.

de Goncourt), 429.
Portraits Litteiaires (Lamartine),

372.
Portraits Litteiaires (Sainte-Beuve),

465.

Pot-Bouille (E. Zola), 435.
Pour et le Centre, Le, (O. Feuillet),

412.
Pour et le Centre, Le, (PreVost),

342.

POUSSIN, 255.
PRADON, 199.
Prascovie, etc. (X. de Maistre), 394.

556

INDEX

PRECIETJSES, 152-158, 267, 278, 493.

Pr6cieuses Ridicules, Les, (Moliere),
155, 218, 227.

Prectecesseurs et Contemporains de
Shakespeare (A. MSzieres), 359.

Preface de Cromwell (V. Hugo), 167
n. 2, 468.

Prejug^ a la Mode, Le, (La Chaus-
see), 341.

Preliminary Discourse (d'Alem-
bert), 328.

PRERAPHAELITES, 445.

Presbytere, Le, (Toepffer), 394.

PREVOST, Marcel, 439.

PREVOST d'Exiles, Abb<$, 277, 341,
346, 479, 503.

Princesse Aurelie, La, (C. Dela-
vigne), 389.

Princesse de Babylone, La, (Vol-
taire), 303.

/Princesse de Cleves, La, (Mme.
I La Fayette), 258.

Trincesse d'Elide, La, (Moliere),
219.

Princesse Lointaine, La, (E. Ros-
tand), 91, 492, 493.

Princesse Maleine, La, (Maeter-
linck), 490.

Prisonniers du Caucase, Les, (X.
de Maistre), 394.

Profession de Foi, etc. (J. J. Rous-
seau), 323, 325.

Promenades dans Rome (Stendhal),
426.

Proslogium (Anselm), 183.

Provencale, La, (Regnard), 270.

Provinciates (Pascal), 191.

Psalms (Marot), 131.

Psychological Novel, The, 440-441.

Pucelle, La, (Chapelain), 157.

Pucelle, La, (Voltaire), 303.

PUGET, 255.

Pulchene (CorneiUe), 173.

PULCI, 26, 383.

PUSHKIN, 363.

Pyrame et Thisb6 (Th6ophile de

Viau), 166.
PYRRHO, 185 n. 8.
PYTHAGORAS, 185 n. 7.

Quadriloge Invectif (Alain Char-
tier), 61.

Quarante Ans de Theatre (F. Sar-
cey), 495.

Quarrel of the Ancients, etc., 212,
213, 266, 273.

Quarrel of the Cid, 171.

Quart d'Heure de Rabelais, 123.

Quatre Evangiles, Les, (E.Zola), 436.

Quatre Fils Aimon, Les, 19.

Quatre Vents de 1'Esprit, Les, (V.
Hugo), 379.

Quatre- Vingt-Treize (V. Hugo), 376,
378.

Quenouille de Barberine, La, (A.
de Musset), 382.

Querelle des D6sesp6res, La, (Ma-
rim), 153.

Q0ESNAY, F., 330.

Question d'Argent, La, (A. Dumas

fils), 477.
Quietism, 242.
QUINAULT, 268.
QUINET, E., 16.
Quitte Pour la Peur (A. de VIgny),

388.

Rabagas (V. Sardou), 471.
RABELAIS, 38, 45, 53, 60, 72, 103,

113, 118, 119-124, 142, 236, 237,

393, 399.

Rabelais (Tilley), 124.
RACAN, 129, 139, 157, 166.
RACHILDE, Mme., 443.
RACINE, J., 129, 167, 190, 196-208,

209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 233,

251, 255, 266, 267, 300, 345, 356,

358, 468.

557

INDEX

RACINE, L., 200, 214, 277.
Rafale, La, (Bernstein), 494 n. 5.
Ramayana, 13.
RAMBOUILLET, Hotel de, 152-158,

239, 278, 281, 288, 493.
Ramuntcho (P. Loti), 415.
RAMUS, 110.
Rantzau, Les, (Erckmann-Chatri-

an), 412.

Raoul de Cambrai, 20.
Raphael (Lamartine), 372.
RAYNAUD, E., 446.
RAYNOUARD, 80, 85.
Rayons et les Ombres, Les, (V.

Hugo), 379.
Reali di Francia, 26.
Realistic Novel, The, 417-433.
RECAMIER, Mme., 369, 451.
Recent Poetry, 411 419.
Recherche de 1'Absolu, La, (Bal-
zac), 419.
Re'cits des Temps Me>ovingiens (A.

Thierry), 459.
Recueil General des Fabliaux (A.

de Montaiglon and G. Raynaud),

34 n. 9.

Red Book of Hergest, 28 n. 3.
Reflexions, etc. (Turgot), 331.
Reflexions sur Longin (Boileau),

212.

REFORMATION, 110-116.
Refonne, La, (F. Mignet), 460.
REGNAHD, 270-271, 275, 340.
REGNIEB, H. de, 446.
REGNIER, M., 137, 142, 214.
REID, T., 452.
Reinaert de Vos, 42 n. 1.
Reine Coax, La, (6. Sand), 405.
Reine Fiammetta, La, (C. Mendes),

487 n. 1.
Reine Margot, La, (A. Dumas pere),

408.

Reineke Fuchs (Goethe), 42 n. 1.
Religieuse, La, (Diderot), 331.

Religions et la Religion, Les, (V.

Hugo), 379.
Remarques sur la Langue TYan-

caise (Vaugelas), 157.
Remplac.antes, Les, (E. Brieux),

488.

REMUSAT, de, 518.
RENAISSANCE, 105-116.
RENAN, E., 440, 453-454, 463, 465,

466, 505, 518.
RENARD, J., 442.
Renart le Contrefait, 43.
Renart le Nouveau (Jacquemard

Gelee), 43.

Renaud de Montauban, 19.
RENAUDOT, Theophraste, 502.
Rene (Chateaubriand), 362, 363.
Renee Mauperin (E. and J. de Gon-

court), 429.
RENOUVIER, 378 n. 1.
Reponses a un Provincial (Bayle),

273.

RESSEGUIER, 381.
RETZ, de, 255, 260-261.
Reve, Le, (E. Zola), 435, 436.
R6veries du Promeneur Soh'taire (J.

J. Rousseau), 327.
Revolution dans les Moeurs, La, (E.

and J. de Goncourt), 429.
Revolutions de France, etc. (C.

Desmoulins), 353.
Rhadamiste et Zenobie (Crebillon),

267.

RICHARD DE LISON, 41.
RICHARD CCEUR DE LION, 80, 87.
Richard Darlington (A. Dumas

pere), 407.

Richard Sans Peur, 33.
RICHELIEU, 58, 158, 163, 170, 171,

173, 190, 253, 260, 287, 387,

502.

RICHEPIN, J., 446, 483, 495.
Richeut, 35.
RIMBAUD, A., 446.

558

INDEX

RIVOIRE, 494.

Robe Rouge, La, (E. Brieux), 488.
Robert le Diable, 33.
Robespierre (V. Sardou), 472.
Robin Hood, Tales of, 34 n. 1.

ROCHEBLAVE, 385.

ROD, E., 425, 426, 440, 441.

RODENBACH, 446.

Rodogune (Corneille), 173.

Roi des Montagues, Le, (E. About),

412.

Roi Louis, Le, 19.
Roi S'Amuse, Le, (V. Hugo), 373.
Rois en Exil, Les, (A. Daudet), 432.
ROLAND, Mme., 284-285.
ROLLIN, Ch., 268.
Roman Bourgeois, Le, (Furetiere),

162.
Roman Comique, Le, (Scarron),

160, 166, 390.

Roman de Brut (Wace), 28.
Roman de la Charrette (Chrestien

de Troyes), 31 n. 2.
Roman de la Rose (G. de Lorris

and J. de Meung), 45, 48-54, 61,

105, 116.

Roman de Renart, 40, 116.
Roman de Rou (Wace), 17.
Roman de Troie (Benott de Sainte-

More), 32.
Roman du Chaperon Rouge, Le,

(A. Daudet), 431.
Roman d'un Honne'te Femme, Le,

(V. Cherbuliez), 413.
Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre,

Le, (O. Feufflet), 411, 484.
Roman Experimental, Le, (E. Zola),

434.
Romance of Cliges (Chrestien de

Troyes), 29.
Romance of Percevale (Chrestien de

Troyes), 28.
Romance of Victor Hugo, etc. (H.

W. Wack), 380.

Romanciers Naturalistes, Les, (E.

Zola), 434.
Romanesques, Les, (E. Rostand),

492.

ROMANTICISTS, The, 370-391.
Rome (E. Zola), 436.
Rondeaux, 60.
RONSARD, 109, 129, 132, 133, 134-

137, 141, 142.
ROSCELLINUS, 182.
Rose et Blanche (G. Sand and J.

Sandeau), 403.
Rose-Use Chanteraine (A. Theur-

iet), 414.

Rosmersholm (Ibsen), 488 n. 2.
Rosmonda (Rucellai), 140.
ROSNY, J. H., 430, 441^142.
ROSTAND, E., 162, 444 n. 1, 446,

483, 491-493.
Rotisserie de la Reine PeVlauque,

La, (A. France), 416.
ROTROU, 166, 168, 169, 171.
ROUGHER, 346.
Rouge et le Noir, Le, (Stendhal),

175, 425, 426.
Rougon-Macquart, Les, (E. Zola),

435.

ROUMANILLE, 448, 449.
Round Table, 10, 27, 28, 29.
ROUSSEAU, J. B., 269-270, 280, 371.
ROUSSEAU, J. J., 52, 127, 246, 262,

277, 283, 285, 300, 319-327, 329,

346, 348, 349, 361, 402, 413, 503.
Rousseau, Juge de Jean-Jacques (J.

J. Rousseau), 327.
ROUSSEL, 111.
Royal Cycle, 19.
ROYER-COLLARD, 450, 452.
RUDEL DE BLAYA, 80, 90.
RUTEBEUF, 11, 44, 64.
Ruy Bias (V. Hugo), 373.

SABLE, Mme. de, 156, 259.
SACY, Silveetre de, 34, 504, 505.

559

INDEX

Sagesse et la Destined, La, (Maeter-
linck), 491.
SAINT- AMANT, 162.
SAINT-ARMAND, 129.
SAINT-BERNARD, 238.
SAINT-BONAVENTURE, 184.
SAINT-CYRAN, 188, 190.
SAINT-EVREMOND, 161 n. 2, 268,

287.

SAINT-LAMBERT, 343.
SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN, 464.
SAINT-PIERRE, Abbe1 de, 297.
SAINT-SIMON, 175, 245, 253, 255,

261, 365-266, 420, 423.
SAINT- VINCENT de PAUL, 149, 239.
SAINTE-BEUVE, 40, 125, 139, 194,

256, 370, 381, 382, 394, 400, 406,

423, 426, 464-465, 506, 516,

518.

SAINTINB, 412.
SAINTSBURY, 121, 143 n. 2, 225,

398, 414, 447, 471, 473.
Saisons, Les, (Saint-Lambert), 343.
Salammbo (G. Flaubert), 427.
SALES, Francois de, 239.
SALLO, Denis de, 517.
SALONS, 281-285, 368-369.
Salons (Diderot), 331, 334.
Samaritaine, La, (E. Rostand), 492.
Samson (Bernstein), 494 n. 5.
Samuel Brohl et Cie (V. Cherbu-

liez), 413.
SAND, George, 327, 335, 342, 361,

383, 385 n. 1, 401^06, 432.
SANDEAU, J., 403, 406, 480, 518.
Sans Famille (H. Malot), 411.
Sapho (A. Daudet), 432.
SARCEY, F., 412, 463, 474, 489, 495,

516.

SARDOU, V., 331, 468, 469-473, 478.
SARRAZIN, 129, 158.
Satira Menippea (Varro), 142.
Satire Me'nippe'e, 119, 142-144, 399.
Satires (Boileau), 142, 209.

Satires (RSgnier), 142.

Saul le Furieux (Jean de la Taille),

140.

Saule, Le, (A. de Musaet), 382.
Sauvageonne (A. Theuriet), 414.
SCARRON, P., 129, 158, 159-161,

216, 287, 390.
Scenes et Comedies (O. Feuillet),

412.
Scenes Populaires (H. Monnier),

412.
SCEVE, M., 129.

SCHELLING, 360.

SCHERER, E., 465.
Schi-King, 13 n. 1.
SCHILLER, 260, 303, 360, 367, 393,

410.
SCHLEGEL, Von, 360.

SCHOLLE, F., 15.
SCHROEDER, 332.

Scipion (A. V. Arnault), 353.
SCOTT, Walter, 219 n. 3, 230, 410,

418, 45r.
SCRIBE, E., 389, 412, 481-482, 484,

485, 506 n. 1.
SCUDERY, 129, 168, 171.
SCUDERY, Mile, de, 154, 158 n. 1,

163, 257, 258, 259.
Secchia Rapita, La, (Tassoni), 210,

n. 1.
Seconde Vie de Michel Teissier, La,

(E. Rod), 441.
Secret du Roi, Le, (Due de Broglie),

462.
Secretaire Intime, Le, (G. Sand),

403.

SEDAINE, 160, 335-336.
SEMAIN, 446.
SEMIPELAGIANS, 189.
Semiramis (Voltaire), 291, 296, 302.
SENAULT, le Pere, 239.
SENECA, 62, 128, 140, 141.
Sentiments de I'Acad^mie, 171.
SEPET, M., 15.

560

INDEX

Sept Cordes de la Lyre, Lea, (G.

Sand), 404.

Sept Sages de Rome, 34.
Sequence of Saint Eulalie, 1.
Seraphine (V. Sardou), 471.
Seraphita (Balzac), 418.
Serge Panine (G. Ohnet), 411.
SERICOURT, de, 190.
SEBIZAY, 163.
SERRES, O. de, 118.
Serres Chaudes, Les, (Maeterlinck),

446, 490.

Sertorius (Corneille), 173.
SERVETUS, M., 112.
Servitude et Grandeur Militaires

(A. de Vigny), 387.
SEVIGNE, Mme. de, 155, 190, 191,

213, 244, 256-257, 278, 283,

309.

SEYSSEL, C. de, 95 n. 1.
SHAKESPEARE, 11, 96, 219, 290, 302,

354, 357, 358, 372, 373, 402, 420,

423.
Shakespeare dans 1'Ancien Regime

(Jusserand), 359.
SHAW, G. B., 469, 470, 472.
Sibylle (O. Feuillet), 405, 412.
Siecle de Louis XIV, Le, (Vol-
taire), 255, 293, 303.

SlENKIEWICZ, 449.

SIEYES, Abbe", 352.
SIMON, 32.
SIMON, Jules, 514.
Simple Discoura (P. L. Courier),
399.

SlNGLIN, 190.

SIRVEN, 299 n. 1.
Sirventes, 83.

SISMONDI, 82 n. 2, 85 n. 1, 87 n. 1.
SOCRATES, 248, 286, 372.
Soeur Beatrice (Maeterlinck), 491.
Soeur Jeanne (G. Sand), 405.
Soeur Philomele (E. and J. de Gon-
court), 429.

Soeurs Vatard, Les, (Huysmans),

438.

Sofonisba (Trissino), 140.
Soirees de M&ian, Les, (E. Zola,

Huysmans, etc.), 438.
Soirees de Saint-Pe'tersbourg, Les,

(J. de Maistre), 450.
Somnambule, La, (E. Scribe and C.

Delavigne), 389.
Son Excellence Eugene Rougon

(E. Zola), 435.
Songe d'Enfer (Raoul de Houdan),

48.

Sophonisbe (Corneille), 173.
Sophonisbe (J. Mairet), 166.
Sophonisbe (Montchr6tien), 140.
SORBON, Robert de, 57 n. 2.
Sorciere, La, (Michelet), 461.
SOREL, 166.
SOREL, A., 462.
Soties, 68-70.
SOUCHON, P., 494.
SOULIE, F., 406, 410.
SOUMET, 381.

Sous 1'CEil des Barbares (M. Bar-
res), 441.

Sous les Tilleuls (A. Karr), 395.
Souvenirs, etc. (Mme. Lenormand),

369 n. 1.

Souvenirs d'Enfance, etc., 453.
SOUVESTRE, E., 412.
Spectacle dans un Fauteuil, Un, (A.

de Musset), 382.
Spectator, The, (Addison), 277,

309, 342.

SPINOZA, 305, 456.
Spiridion (G. Sand), 404.
Spiritual Exercises (Loyola), 117.
STAEL, Mme. de, 277, 284, 327, 360,

361, 365-368, 369, 463, 503.
Statique des Ve'ge'taux (Hales), 315.
STEELE, 277.

Stello (A. de Vigny), 387.
STEMHOWEL, H., 70 n. 1.

561

INDEX

STENDHAL, 175 n. 1, 417, 424-426,

443.

STERNE, 394.

STEVENSON, R. L., 376 n. 2, 408.
STEWART, Dugald, 452.

SUDERMANN, 488.

SUE, E., 406, 41O-411, 506.
Suivante, La, (Corneille), 169.
SULLY, 119, 145.
SULLY-PRUDHOMME, 444.
SULPICIUS SEVERUS, 2 n. 1.
Supplice d'une Femme, Le, (A.

Dumas file), 477.
SurSna (Corneille), 173.
Surprise de 1'Amour, La, (Mari-

vaux), 340.

Suzanne (H. Gre>ille), 413.
SWEDENBORG, 418.
SWIFT, 161, 290, 497.
SWINBURNE, 103, 104, 445.
SYMBOLISTS, 445, 446.
SYMONDS, J. A., 436, 486.
SYMONS, A., 491.
Systeme de la Nature, Le, (d'Hol-

bach), 284.

TABARIN, 168.

TABLE DE MARBRE, 69 n. 2.

TACITUS, 14 n. 1, 422.

TAILLE, Jean de la, 140, 141.

TAILLEFER, 17.

Tailleur de Pierre, etc., Le, (Lam-

artine), 372.
TAINE, H., 234, 236, 261, 385 n. 2,

420, 426, 440, 454-456, 463, 465,

518.
Tales of Canterbury (Chaucer), 70

n. 1.

TALLEMANT DEB REAUX, 152, 239.
TALLIEDE, R. de la, 446.
TALMA, 266, 267, 389.
Tancrede (Voltaire), 296, 302.
Tartarin de Tarascon (A. Daudet),

432.

Tartarin sur les Alpes (A. Daudet),

432.
Tartuffe (Moliere), 220, 220 n. 1,

225, 227.
TASSO, 26.
Tatler, The, 277.
TAVAN, 448.
TAVANNES, G. de, 145.
Taverne des Etudiants, La, (V.

Sardou), 471.

Te'le'maque (FSnelon), 213, 246.
Temple de Gnide, Le, (Montes-
quieu), 309.
Temple Enseveli, Le, (Maeterlinck),

491.

Tenailles, Les, (P. Hervieu), 489.
TENCIN, Mme. de, 282, 333.
TENNYSON, 28 n. 2, 385 n. 2.
Tensons, 84.
Tentation de Saint- Antoine, La,

(Flaubert), 428.
TERENCE, 218, 224 n. 2.
Te're'sa (A. Dumas pere), 407.
TERRASSON, 281.
Terre, La, (E. Zola), 435, 436, 437,

439.
Terre Promise, La, (P. Bourget),

440.
Terre Qui Meurt, La, (R. Bazin).

443.

Terres Lorraines (P. Moselly), 443.
THACKERAY, 432, 511 n. 1.
Thais (A. France), 416.
Theatre Anglais, Le, (Delaplace),

358.

THEATRE ANTOINE (THEATRE LI-
BRE), 416, 487-190.
Theatre de Clara Gazul, etc., Le,

(P. M4rimee), 423.
THEATRE DES POETES, 494.
Theatre Impossible, Le, (E. About),

412.
The'atre-Francais, see Come'die-

Francaise.

562

INDEX

Th£baide, La, (Racine), 197.

THEOCRITUS, 345.

Theodora (V. Sardou), 471.

THEOPHILE, 129.

The>ese Raquin (E. Zola), 435,

486.

Thermidor (V. Sardou), 472.
THEURIET, A., 413-414, 443, 446.
THIEBAUT IV, 87.
THIERRY, A., 8, 61, 458-459, 518.
THIERS, A., 350, 460, 504.
THOMAS, 30.
THOU, de, 119, 145.
TIECK, 360.

TOCQUEVILLE, A. de, 461, 504.
TOEPFFER, R., 392, 394.
Tolla (E. About), 412.
TOLSTOY, 488.

Tombe'or de Nostre Dame, Le, 66.
Tosca, La, (V. Sardou), 472.
Toto Chez Tata (Meilhac and Hal-

evy), 485.
Tour de Nesle, La, (A. Dumas pere),

407, 408.
Tour du Monde, etc., Le, (J. Verne),

413.

TOUROULDE (THEROULDE), 21.
TOUSSAINT, 329.
Toute Seule (A. Theuriet), 414.
Trage'die du Nouveau Christ, La,

(G. de Bouhelier), 442.
Tragiquea, Les, (A. d'Aubigne),

142, 148.
Trait4 de la Connaissance de Dieu,

etc. (Bossuet), 240, 241.
Traite des Etudes (Rollin), 268.
Traite1 des Flexions (Newton), 315.
Travail (E. Zola), 436.
Travailleurs de la Mer, Les, (V.

Hugo), 376, 378, 379.
Tresor des Humbles, Le, (Maeter-
linck), 491.

Trilby, etc. (Ch. Nodier), 392.
Tristan de Leonnais, 28.

Tristan le Roux (A. Dumas fils),
475.

Tristan and Yseult (Wagner), 30.

Tristram Shandy (Sterne), 331.

TROGUS POMPEJUS, 2 n. 1.

Trois Cceurs, Les, (E. Rod), 440.

Trois Contes (Flaubert), 428.

Trois Mousquetaires, Les, (A. Du-
mas pere), 408, 410.

Trompeur Puni, Le, (Scude'ry), 168.

Tronsons du Glaive, Les, (P. and
V. Margueritte), 441.

Trophees, Les, (J. M. de Heredia),
445.

TROUBADOURS, 90-91.

Troubadours and Trouveres (H. W.
Preston), 85 n. 1.

TROUVERES, 15-18.

Turcaret (Le Sage), 271-272.

TURENNE, 243, 248, 256.

TURGENIEFF, 421.

TURGOT, 329, 331.

TURLUPIN, 169.

TURNEBE, Odet de, 141.

Typhon ou la Gigantomachie (Scar-
ron), 160.

TYRT^US, 388 n. 1.

UHLAND, 447.

Un Beau Mariage (E. Augier), 480.

Un Cheval de Phidias (V. Cherbu-

liez), 413.
Un Client S6rieux (G. Courteline),

488.

Un Homme Libre (M. Barres), 441.
Un Mariage sous Louis XV (A.

Dumas pere), 407.
Un Pere Prodigue (A. Dumas fils),

477.

Une Chaine (E. Scribe), 482.
Une Evasion (Villiers de L'lsle-

Adam), 487 n. 1.
Une Page d'Amour (E. Zola), 435,

436.

563

INDEX

Une Vie (G. de Maupassant), 438.
UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, 58, 183.
URANISTES ET JOBELJNS, 157.
URFE, H. d', 153.

VACQUERIE, 478.

Vair Palefroi, La, 35.

Valcreuse (J. Sandeau), 406.

Valentine (G. Sand), 403.

Valvedre (G. Sand), 405.

VAPEREATJ, 393, 417.

Vase Etrusque, Le, (P. Me'rime'e),

423.

VATJGELAS, 153, 157, 251.
Vaux de Vire, 93.
Veill^e de Vincennes, La, (A. de

Vigny), 335 n. 1.

Venice Preserved (T. Otway), 266.
Ventre de Paris, Le, (E. Zola),

435.

V£nus d'llle, La, (P. Merimee), 423.
VSpres Siciliennes, Les, (C. Dela-

vigne), 389.
Ve>ite (E. Zola), 436.
VERLAINE, P., 445.
VERNE, J., 161, 413.
VERNON, P., 443.
Verre d'Eau, Le, (E. Scribe), 482.
Vert-Vert (Cresset), 342.
VETTER, H. J., 123 n. 1.
Veuve, La, (Corneille), 169, 173.
VIATJ, The'ophile de, 161 n. 2.
Vicar of Wakefield, The, (Gold-
smith), 486.
Vicomte de Bragelonne, Le, (A.

Dumas pere), 408.
Vie d'Henriette d' Angle terre (Mme.

de La Fayette), 258.
Vie de J6sus (E. Renan), 453.
Vie de Marianne (Marivaux), 340.
Vie de Saint- Alexis, 15.
Vie de Saint-Thomas de Cantorbery

(Gamier de Pont Sainte-Max-

ence), 55.

Vie Litteraire, La, (A. France), 415,

466.
Vie Privee de Michel Teissier, La,

(E. Rod), 441.
Vie des Abeilles, La, (Maeterlinck),

491.

VIELE-GRIFFIN, 446.
Vies des Dames Galantes (Bran-
tome), 146.
Vies des Hommes Illustres, etc.

(Brantome), 146.
VIGNT, A. de, 335 n. 1, 361, 370,

381, 385-388, 398, 445, 468, 518.
Vilain Mire, Le, 38.
Vilain Qui Conquit Paradis, etc.,

Le, 36.

ViLLEHAKDOtriN, G. de, 25, 56.
VILLEMAIN, 8, 59, 61, 82, 248, 266,

275, 290, 308, 310, 311, 457, 464,

518.

VlLLEROI, 145.

VILLON, F., 73 n. 1, 92, 95-104,

129, 214, 381, 445.
VINET, A., 324, 464.
Vingt Ans Apres (A. Dumas pere),

408.

Virelais, 60.
VIRGIL, 136., 160, 345.
Virgile Travesti (Scarron), 160.
VISCONTI, 253 n. 2.
VISHNU-SARMA, 234.
Visionnaires, Les, (Desmarets de

Saint-Sorlin), 216.
Vo3iix d'un Solitaire, Les, (Bernar-

din de Saint-Pierre), 348.
Voie du Paradis, La, (Raoul de

Houdan), 48.

VOITXJRE, 129, 152, 156, 212, 239.
Voix Inte"rieures (V. Hugo), 379.
Voleur, Le, (Bernstein), 494 n. 5.
VOLNET, 329, 368.
VOLTAIRE, 52, 53, 127, 161, 163, 191,

204, 210, 236, 249, 255, 267, 269,

270, 275, 277, 280, 283, 286-305,

564

INDEX

309, 310, 313, 318, 322, 323, 327,

329, 334, 335, 340, 342, 349, 358,

468.

Volucraires, 47.
Voyage & 1'Ile de France (Bernar-

din de Saint-Pierre), 347..
Voyage au Centre de la Terre (J.

Verne), 413.
Voyage Autour de ma Chambre (X.

de Maistre), 394.
Voyage Autour de mon Jardin (A.

Karr), 395.
Voyage de M. Perrichon, Le, (La-

biche), 485.

Voyage en Orient (Lamartine), 372.
Voyages en Zigzag (Toepffer), 394.

WAGE, 17.
WAGNER, 30.
WALPOLE, H., 282, 283.
WAKENS, Mme. de, 319, 320.
Wasps, The, (Aristophanes), 198.
WATTEAU, 430.

WEBER, Von, 360.
WEISS, J. J., 427.
WELLS, B. W., 426, 462.
Werther (Goethe), 324, 358, 363.
WIELAND, 358, 367.
Wilhelm Meister (Goethe), 160.
William of Orange, 19.
WILLIAM OF POITIERS, 85-86.
WILLY, 442.

WlNCKELMAN, 424.

Ysopets, 39.

Yvain, 28.

Yvette (G. de Maupassant), 438.

YVON, 329.

Zadig (Voltaire), 291, 303.
Zaire (Voltaire), 296, 300-301.
Zayde (Mme. de La Fayette), 257.
ZENO, 185 n. 10.
ZOLA, E., 424, 426, 430, 433, 434-

437, 438, 440, 441, 442, 455, 486,

514, 515 n. 1 and n. 2.
Zulime (Voltaire), 296.

THE END

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//.?

THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Santa Barbara

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW.

JUN 111989

RETDJUN161989

Series 9482

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