A name far less generally known, but deserving of being known very well

indeed, is that of Gerard de Nerval, or, as his right appellation was,

Gerard Labrunie. He was born in 1805, and was one of the most

distinguished pupils of the celebrated Lycee Charlemagne, where he made

the acquaintance of Theophile Gautier. Gerard (as he is most generally

called) was a man of delicate and far-ranging genius, afflicted with the

peculiar malady which weighs on some such men, and which may perhaps be

described as an infirmity of will. He was not idle, and there was no

reason why he should not be prosperous. At an early age he translated

_Faust_, to the admiration of Goethe. His _Travels in the East_ were

widely read, and every newspaper in Paris was glad of his co-operation;

yet he was frequently in distress, and died in a horrible and mysterious

manner, either by his own hand or murdered by night prowlers. He has

been more than once compared to Poe, whom, however, he excelled both in

amiability of temperament and in literary knowledge. But the two have

been rightly selected by an excellent judge as being, in company with a

living English poet, the chief masters of the poetry which 'lies on the

further side between verse and music.' Most of Gerard's work is in

prose, taking the form of fantastic but exquisite short tales entitled

_Les Filles de Feu_, _La Boheme Galante_, etc. His verse, at least the

characteristic part of it, is not bulky; it consists partly of folksongs

slightly modernised, partly of sonnets, partly of miscellaneous poems.

But, if the expression 'prose poetry' be ever allowable, which has been

doubted, it is seldom more applicable than to much of Gerard de Nerval's

work, both in his description of his travels and in avowed fiction.

Some minor names remain to be mentioned. Mery, one of the most fertile

authors of the century, was a writer of verse as well as of prose, and

displayed much the same talent of brilliant improvisation in each

capacity. Auguste Brizeux, a Breton by birth, made himself remarkable by

idyllic poetry (_Marie_, _La Fleur d'Or_) chiefly dealing with the

scenery and figures of his native province. Amedee Pommier is a fertile

and not inelegant verse writer, of no very marked characteristics.

Charles Dovalle, who was shot in one of the miserable duels between

journalists so common in France, at the age of twenty-two, would

probably have done remarkable work had he lived. Hegesippe Moreau, to

whom a life but very little longer was vouchsafed, devoted himself

partly to bacchanalian and satirical work, for which he had not the

slightest genius, but produced also some poems of country life, which

rank among the sweetest and most natural of the century. Much of his

work is little more than a corrupt following of Beranger. In the same

way the imitation of Lamartine was not fortunate for Victor de Laprade

(_Psyche_, _Les Symphonies_, _Les Voix de Silence_). This imitation is

not so much in subject (for M. de Laprade was a philosopher rather than

a sentimentalist) as in manner and versification. His verse is also much

more strongly impregnated than Lamartine's with classical culture. With

due allowance for difference of dates and countries, there is a

considerable resemblance between Laprade and Southey. Both had the same

accomplishment of style, the same unquestioning submission to the dogmas

of Christianity, the same width of literary information. It is

unfortunate for France that Laprade was somewhat deficient in humour, a

rare growth on her soil at all times.

[Sidenote: Curiosites Romantiques.]

[Sidenote: Petrus Borel.]

[Sidenote: Louis Bertrand.]

All these names are more or less widely known, but there is a class of

'oublies et dedaignes,' as one of their most faithful biographers has

called them, who belong to the movement of 1830, and whose numbers are

probably, while their merit is certainly, greater than is the case at

any other literary epoch. Few of them can be mentioned here, but those

few are worthy of mention, and it may perhaps be said that the native

vigour of most of them, though warped and distorted for the most part by

oddities of temperament or the unkindness of fortune, equals, if it does

not surpass, that of many of their more fortunate brethren. The first of

these is Petrus Borel, one of the strangest figures in the history of

literature. Very little is known of his life, which was spent partly at

Paris and partly in Algeria. He was perhaps the most extravagant of all

the Romantics, surnaming himself 'Le Lycanthrope,' and identifying

himself with the eccentricities of the _Bousingots_, a clique of

political literary men who for a short time made themselves conspicuous

after 1830. Borel wrote partly in verse and partly in prose. His most

considerable exploit in the former was a strange preface in verse to his

novel of _Madame Putiphar_; his best work in prose, a series of wild but

powerful stories entitled _Champavert_. His talent altogether lacked

measure and criticism, but it is undeniable. Auguste Fontaney was born

in 1803 and died in 1837, having, like many of the literary men of his

day, served for a short time in diplomacy. He was a frequent contributor

to the early Romantic periodicals, and somewhat later to the _Revue des

Deux-Mondes_. His work is very unequal, but at its best it is saturated

with the true spirit of poetry. Felix Arvers, like our own Blanco White,

has obtained his place in literary history by a single sonnet, one of

the most beautiful ever written. Auguste de Chatillon was both poet and

painter; his chief title to remembrance in the former capacity being a

volume of cheerful verse entitled _A l'Auberge de la Grand' Pinte_.

Napoleon Peyrat, who, after the fashion of those times (in which Auguste

Maquet, a fertile novelist, and a journalist, and a collaborateur of

Alexandre Dumas, called himself Augustus Mackeat, and Theophile Dondey

anagrammatised his surname into O'Neddy), dubbed himself Napol le

Pyreneen, survives, and justly, in virtue of a single short poem on

_Roland_, possessed of extraordinary _verve_ and spirit. Last of all has

to be mentioned Louis Bertrand, a poet possessed of the rarest faculty,

but unfortunately doomed to misfortune and premature death. Born at Ceva

in Piedmont, in 1807, and brought up at Dijon, he came to Paris, found

there but scanty encouragement, and died in a hospital in 1841. His only

work of any importance, _Gaspard de la Nuit_, a series of prose ballads

arranged in verses something like those of the English translation of

the Bible, and testifying to the most delicate sense of rhythm, and the

most exquisite power of poetical suggestion, did not appear until after

his death. He and Borel perhaps only of the names contained in this

paragraph represent individual and solid talent: the others are chiefly

noteworthy as instances of the extraordinary stimulating force of the

time on minds which in other days would probably have remained indocile

to poetry, or at least unproductive of it.

[Sidenote: Second Group of Romantic Poets.]

Three distinct stages are perceptible in French poetry since the date of

the Romantic movement, and we have now exhausted the remarkable names

belonging to the first. Another opens with those poets who, being born

in or about 1820, came to years of discretion in time to see the first

force of the movement spent, and found the necessity of striking out

something of a new way for themselves. Of this group three names stand

pre-eminently forward, those of Baudelaire, Banville, and Leconte de

Lisle, while some others may be mentioned beside them.

[Sidenote: Theodore de Banville.]

Theodore de Banville was born in 1820, of a good family, his father

being an officer in the navy. He began to write very early with the

_Cariatides_, and continued for fifty years to be active in prose and

poetry. M. de Banville displayed at once a remarkable mastery of rhyme

and rhythm, and it is in the exhibition of this that he chiefly

excelled. Under his auspices not merely the graceful metrical systems of

the Pleiade, but the older forms of the mediaeval poets, Ballades,

Rondeaux, Triolets, etc., were once more brought into fashion. But M. de

Banville was by no means only a clever versifier. His serious poetry

(_Cariatides_, _Stalactites_, _Odelettes_, _Les Exile's_, _Trente-six

Ballades_) is full of poetical language and sentiment, his lighter verse

(_Occidentales_, _Odes Funambulesques_) is charming, his prose is

excellent, and he was no mean hand at drama (_Gringoire_).

[Sidenote: Leconte de Lisle.]

As M. de Banville sought for poetical novelty in an elaborate

manipulation of the formal part of poetry, so M. Leconte de Lisle has

sought it in a wide range of subject. He is a great translator of Greek

verse. But in his original poems (_Poesies Antiques_, _Poesies

Barbares_, _Poemes et Poesies_) he has gone not merely to the classics

but to the East and to mediaeval times for his inspiration. A tendency

to load his verse with exotic names in unusual forms (he was one of the

first Frenchmen to adopt the fashion of spelling Greek names with a

strict transliteration) has brought, not perhaps altogether

undeservedly, the charge of affectation on M. Leconte de Lisle. But he

is a poet of no small power, not merely in outlandish subjects such as

_Le Massacre de Mona_, _Le Sommeil du Condor_, _Le Runoia_, etc., but in

much simpler work, such as the beautiful _Requies_.

[Sidenote: Charles Baudelaire.]

Charles Baudelaire had a more original talent than either of these.

Although a very careful writer, he is not studious of bizarre rhythm,

nor are his subjects for the most part outlandish. He chose, however, to

illustrate a peculiar form of poetical melancholy by dwelling on

subjects many of which would have been better left alone, while others

were treated in a manner unsuited to the time. His _Fleurs du Mal_,

therefore, as his chief work is entitled, had to undergo expurgation

before it was allowed to be published, and has never been popular with

the general public. But its best pieces, as well as the best of some

singular _Petits Poemes en Prose_, partly inspired by Louis Bertrand,

have extraordinary merit in the way of delicate poetical suggestion and

a lofty spiritualism. Baudelaire was also a very accomplished critic,

his point of view being less exclusively French than that of almost any

other French writer of the same class. He translated Poe and De Quincey.

[Sidenote: Minor Poets of the Second Romantic Group.]

[Sidenote: Dupont.]

The minor poets of this second Romantic school may again be grouped

together. Charles Coran, a miscellaneous poet of talent, anticipated the

school of which we shall shortly have to give some notice, that of the

_Parnassiens_. Josephin Soulary is remarkable for the extreme beauty of

his sonnets, in devoting himself to which form he anticipated a general

tendency of contemporary poets both English and French. Auguste

Vacquerie, better known as a critic, a dramatist, and a journalist,

began as a lyrical and miscellaneous poet, and achieved some noticeable

work. Gustave Le Vavasseur attempted, not without success, to revive the

vigorous tradition of Norman poetry. Pierre Dupont, better known than

any of these, seemed at one time likely to be a poet of the first rank,

but unfortunately wasted his talent in Bohemian dawdling and disorder.

His songs were the delight of the young generation of 1848, and two of

them, _Le Chant des Ouvriers_ and _Les Boeufs_, are still most

remarkable compositions. Louis Bouilhet (whose best poem is _Melaenis_)

has some resemblance to M. Leconte de Lisle, though he went still

further afield for his subjects. He had no small power, but the defect

of the old descriptive poetry revived in him, and in some of his

contemporaries and followers, the defect necessarily attendant on

forgetfulness of the fact that description by itself, however beautiful

it may be, is not poetry. With these may be mentioned Gustave Nadaud, a

song-writer pure and simple, free from almost any influence of school

literature, a true follower of Beranger, though with much less range,

wit, and depth.

[Sidenote: The Parnasse.]

Except Dupont and Nadaud, all the poets just mentioned may be said to

belong more or less to the school of Gautier--the school, that is to

say, which attached preponderant importance to form in poetry. Towards

the middle of the Second Empire a crowd of younger writers, who had

adopted this principle still more unhesitatingly, grew up, and formed

what has been known for some years, partly seriously, partly in

derision, as the _Parnassien_ school. The origin of this term was the

issue, in 1866 (as a sort of poetical manifesto preluding the great

Exhibition of the next year), of a collection of poetry from the pens of

a large number of poets, from Theophile Gautier and Emile Deschamps

downwards. This was entitled _Le Parnasse Contemporain_, after an old

French fashion. Another collection of the same kind was begun in 1869,

interrupted by the war, and continued afterwards; and a third in 1876:

while the _Parnassien_ movement was also represented in several

newspapers, the chief of which was _La Renaissance_. Another nickname of

the poets of this sect (which, however, included almost all French

writers of verse, even Victor de Laprade being counted in) was _les

impassibles_, for their presumed devotion to art for art's sake, and

their scorn of didactic, domestic, and sentimental poetry. Their numbers

were very great, and none, save a few, can be mentioned here. Perhaps

the chief of the original _Parnassiens_ were MM. Sully Prudhomme and

Francois Coppee, the former of whom experienced some reaction and

affected what is called 'thoughtful verse,' while M. Coppee, having

taken to domestic subjects, is as popular as any contemporary French

poet, and in at least one instance (_Le Luthier de Cremone_) has

achieved success at the theatre. A poet of great gifts, the latest of

the vagabond school of Villon, was Albert Glatigny, who lived as a

strolling actor, and died young. Many of his poems, but especially the

_Ballade des Enfans sans Souci_, have singular force and pathos. It

would hardly be fair to mention any other names, because a singular

evenness of talent and general characteristics manifests itself among

these poets. All sacrifice something to the perfection of form, or, to

speak more correctly and critically, most are saved only by the

perfection of their form, which is as a rule far superior to that of

English minor poets. Of late years the _Parnasse_ as a single group has

broken up somewhat, and during the last decade some isolated poets of

promise have appeared. M. Maurice Bouchor recurred to the bacchanalian

model for inspiration; M. Paul Deroulede is tyrtaean and bellicose. Both

of these may be said to be representative of reaction against the

_Parnasse_. The new naturalist school, which has produced such singular

work in prose fiction, is represented in poetry by M. Richepin and M.

Guy de Maupassant. The former, with much unworthy work, produced in _La

Mer_ and elsewhere excellent things. The latter, despite an unfortunate

licence of subject, showed himself the strongest and most accomplished

versifier who has made his appearance in France for the last twenty

years. But after his first efforts he appeared to abandon himself almost

entirely to prose. M. Paul Verlaine, a poet known from the early days of

the Parnasse, has more recently produced work of increased but very

unequal merit, exaggerating the faults but showing some of the charm of

Baudelaire; and, partly under his, partly under foreign influence, a

still younger school has begun to make experiments in prosody which are

not uninteresting, but which are too minute for notice here.

[Sidenote: Minor and later Dramatists.]

[Sidenote: Scribe.]

[Sidenote: Ponsard.]

[Sidenote: Emile Augier.]

[Sidenote: Eugene Labiche.]

[Sidenote: Dumas the Younger.]

[Sidenote: Victorien Sardou.]

The progress of French drama during the last half century is of somewhat

less importance to literature, but of even more to social history, than

that of poetry. The greatest masters of drama have already been

mentioned among the eight typical names of 1830, even Balzac having

attempted it, though without much success. The most famous and

successful playwrights, however, as distinguished from the producers of

literary dramas, have yet to be noticed[293]. Pixerecourt, a

melodramatist and a book-collector, achieved his first success with a

play on the well-known story of the Dog of Montargis (itself dating back

to the earliest days of the Chansons de Gestes), in 1814, and followed

it up with a long succession of similar pieces. Two years later Eugene

Scribe, who had been born in 1791, made his _debut_, as far as success

goes, with _Une Nuit de la Garde Nationale_. Scribe was one of the most

prolific, one of the most successful, and one of the least literary of

French dramatists. For nearly half a century he continued, sometimes

alone, and sometimes in collaboration, to pour forth vaudevilles,

dramas, and comedies, almost all of which were favourably received.

Scribe was generous to his associates, and would sometimes acknowledge

the communication of a bare idea by a share in the profits of the play

which it suggested. He had also an almost unrivalled knowledge of the

_technique_ of the theatre, and not a little wit. But his style is loose

and careless, and his dramas do not bear reading. His most important

later plays are _Valerie_, 1822; _Le Mariage d'Argent_, 1827; _Bertrand

et Raton_, 1833; _Le Verre d'Eau_, 1840; _Une Chaine_, 1841; _Bataille

de Dames_, 1851. One of the less famous partakers in the first Romantic

movement, Bouchardy, distinguished himself, in succession to

Pixerecourt, as a Romantic melodramatist, his most famous works being

_Le Sonneur de Saint Paul_, and _Lazare le Patre_. In 1843 a kind of

reaction was supposed to be about to take place, the signs of which were

the performance of the _Lucrece_ of Ponsard in that year, and of the

_Cigue_ of Emile Augier the year after. Ponsard, however, was only a

Romantic whose colour was deadened by his inability to attain more

brilliant tones. His succeeding plays, _Agnes de Meranie_, _Charlotte

Corday_, _L'Honneur et l'Argent_, showed this sufficiently. M. Emile

Augier is a more remarkable and a more independent figure. In so far as

he represents a protest against Romanticism at all (which he does only

very partially), it is because he shared in the growing tendency towards

realism, that is, to a recurrence in the Romantic sense to the _tragedie

bourgeoise_ of the preceding century, and because also he gave no

countenance to the practice, in which some of the early Romantics

indulged, of representing immoral personages as interesting. Almost all

M. Augier's dramas, such as _L'Aventuriere_, 1849, which is his

masterpiece, _Gabrielle_, 1849, _Diane_, 1852, _Le Mariage d'Olympe_,

1855, _Le Fils de Giboyer_, 1862, and others of more recent date, are

distinctly on the side of the angels. But the author does not make the

excellence of his intention a reason for passing off inferior work, and

he is justly recognised as one of the leaders of French drama in the

latter half of the century. About this same time (1845) was the date of

the appearance of a fertile and successful playwright of the less

exalted class, M. Dennery (_Don Cesar de Bazan_, _L'Aieule_). Auguste

Maquet, another of the old guard of Romanticism, distinguished himself

by helping to adapt to the stage the novels of Dumas the elder, which he

had already helped to write; and one of his colleagues on Dumas' staff,

M. Octave Feuillet, who was shortly to make a great reputation for

himself as a novelist, appeared on the boards with _Echec et Mat_.

During the whole of this decade (1840-1850) Delphine Gay, the beautiful

and accomplished wife of the journalist Emile de Girardin, was a

frequent and successful play-writer. Soon afterwards M. Legouve, son of

the academician of the same name, and himself an academician, began to

collaborate with Scribe in works of more importance (_Adrienne

Lecouvreur_) than the latter had before attempted; while George Sand and

her former friend, Jules Sandeau, were also drawn into the inevitable

theatrical vortex. In collaboration with Augier, Sandeau produced, from

one of his own novels, one of the best plays of the century, _Le Gendre

de M. Poirier_, 1855. Eugene Labiche, who had been born in 1815,

distinguished himself, in 1851, by _Le Chapeau de Paille d'Italie_, and

in it laid the foundation of a long career of success in the lighter

kind of play which, at last, conducted him to the Academy. His

best-known play is _Le Voyage de M. Perrichon_. The year 1852 was

memorable for the French stage, for it saw the production of _La Dame

aux Camelias_, the first important play of Alexandre Dumas _fils_.

Without much of his father's talent for novel-writing, M. Dumas has been

both a more successful, and perhaps a better, dramatist. Most of his

plays have been directed to some burning question of the social or

ethical kind, and it has been his practice to re-issue them after a

time, with argumentative prefaces, in a very singular style. _Diane de

Lys_, _Le Demi-Monde_, _La Question d'Argent_, _Le Fils Naturel_, _Le

Supplice d'une Femme_ (nominally composed with Emile de Girardin), _Les

Idees de Madame Aubray_, _Une Visite de Noces_, and _L'Etrangere,_ are

his chief works. In 1854 appeared a now almost forgotten work by

Victorien Sardou, who was destined to be the favourite dramatist of the

Second Empire, and to share with MM. Augier and Dumas _fils_ the chief

rank among the dramatists of the last half of the century. Seven years

later _Nos Intimes_ gave him a great success, and, in 1865, _La Famille

Benoiton_ a greater, which he followed up with _Nos Bons Villageois_,

1866. Since that time he has written many plays, of which the finest by

far, and one of the few comedies of this age likely to become classical,

is the admirable _Rabagas_--a satire of the keenest on the interested

politicians, who, in France as elsewhere, take up demagogy as a trade.

M. Sardou has attempted serious work in various plays, the best of which

is, perhaps, _Patrie_, but it is not his forte. Satirical observation of

manners, and especially of the current political and social follies of

the day, is what he can do best, and in this peculiar line he has few

equals. But he is admitted to be one of the most unequal of writers. A

peculiar offspring of the Second Empire are the brilliant burlesques of

Offenbach, which owed at least part of their brilliancy to the librettos

composed for them by MM. Meilhac and Halevy. The first-named of these

had produced successful dramas as far back as 1859. The collaborateurs

did not confine themselves to furnishing words for M. Offenbach's music,

but attempted the prose drama frequently and with success, _Froufrou_

being their most important work in this way. M. Gondinet and M.

Pailleron also deserve notice as successful manufacturers of light

plays, the latter in especial having an excellent wit (_Le monde ou l'on

s'ennuie_, _Le Chevalier Trumeau_). This may also be asserted of M.

Halevy, who has latterly, in _Les Petites Cardinal_ and other

non-dramatic sketches, shown himself to even greater advantage than on

the stage. Indeed the Cardinal family may be said to be the most

striking literary creation of its kind for years.

In a different class and earlier, Joseph Autran, a poet of the school of

Lamartine, obtained a great reputation by his tragedy of _La Fille

d'Eschyle_, which procured him a seat in the Academy, and gave him the

opportunity of writing not a few volumes of polished, but not very

vigorous, poetry. M. Theodore de Banville, who has tried most paths in

literature, produced, in 1866, a short play, with the old mystery-writer

Gringoire for hero and title-giver; a play which is admirably written,

and which has kept its place on the stage. M. Francois Coppee's graceful

_Luthier de Cremone_ has already been mentioned. Another literary

dramatist, to distinguish the class from those who are playwrights first

of all, is M. Henri de Bornier, who obtained some success, in 1875, with

_La Fille de Roland_, and, in 1880, with _Les Noces d'Attila_. Both

these are good, though not consummate, specimens of the poetical drama.

[Sidenote: Classes of Nineteenth-Century Fiction.]

Active, however, as was the cultivation of poetry proper and of the

drama, it is not likely that the nineteenth century will be principally

known in French literary history either as a poetical, or as a dramatic

age. Its most creative production is in the field of prose fiction. It

is particularly noteworthy that every one of the eight names which have

been set at its head is the name of a novelist, and that the energy of

most of these authors in novel-writing has been very considerable. Their

production may be divided into two broad classes--novels of incident, of

which Hugo and Dumas were the chief practitioners, and which derive

chiefly from Sir Walter Scott; and novels of character, which, with a

not inconsiderable admixture of English influence, may be said to be

legitimately descended from the indigenous novel created by Madame de la

Fayette, continued by Marivaux and still more by Prevost, and

maintained, though in diminished vivacity, by later writers. Of this

school George Sand and Balzac are the masters, though much importance

must also be assigned to Stendhal. At first the novelists of 1830

decidedly preferred the novel of incident, the literary success of which

in the hands of Hugo, and its pecuniary success in the hands of Dumas,

were equally likely to excite ambitions of different kinds.

[Sidenote: Minor and later Novelists.]

[Sidenote: Jules Janin.]

A rival of both of these in popularity during the reign of Louis

Philippe, though infinitely inferior to both in literary skill, was

Eugene Sue. With him may be classed another voluminous manufacturer of

exciting stories, Frederic Soulie, and somewhat later Paul Feval, with

next to them Amedee Achard and Roger de Beauvoir. A better writer than

any of these was Jules Janin, whose literary career was long and

prosperous, but not uniform. Janin began with a strange story, in the

extremest Romantic taste, called _L'Ane Mort et la Femme Guillotinee_.

This at a later period he represented as an intentional caricature,

which is not on the whole likely. He followed it up with _Barnave_, a

historical novel full of exciting incident. Both these books, however,

with grave defects, have power perhaps superior to that shown in

anything that Janin did later. Being an exceedingly facile writer, and

lacking that peculiar quality of style which sometimes precludes

popularity with the many as much as it secures it with the few, he

became absorbed in journalism, in the furnishing of miscellaneous

articles, prefaces, and so forth, to the booksellers, and finally in

theatrical criticism, where he reigned supreme for many years. None of

his later novels need remark. With Janin may be mentioned M. Alphonse

Karr, who however has been more of a journalist than of a novelist. His

abundant and lively work has not perhaps the qualities of permanence.

But his _Voyage autour de mon Jardin_, his _Sous les Tilleuls_, and the

satirical publication known as _Les Guepes_, deserve at least to be

named. Here too may be noticed M. Barbey d'Aurevilly whose works

critical and fictitious (the chief being probably _L'Ensorcelee_)

display a very remarkable faculty of style, perhaps too deliberately

eccentric, but full of distinction and vigour.

Under the Empire, a fresh group of novelists of incident sprang up. MM.

Erckmann and Chatrian produced in collaboration a large number of tales,

chiefly dealing with the events of the Revolution and the First Empire

in the north-eastern provinces of France. Criminal and legal subjects

were great favourites with the late Emile Gaboriau, who naturalised in

France the detective novel. His chief follower is M. Fortune du

Boisgobey.

[Sidenote: Charles de Bernard.]

The best novelists of the generation of 1830, outside the list of

masters, have yet to be noticed. These are Charles de Bernard and Jules

Sandeau. Charles de Bernard was at one time Balzac's secretary, but his

fashion of work is entirely different from that of his employer. He

divides himself for the most part between the representation of the

Parisian life of good society and that of country-house manners. His

shorter tales are perhaps his best, and many of them, such as

_L'Ecueil_, _La Quarantaine_, _Le Paratonnerre_, _Le Gendre_, etc., are

admirable examples of a class in which Frenchmen have always excelled.

But his longer works, _Gerfaut_, _Les Ailes d'Icare_, _Un Homme

Serieux_, etc., are not inferior to them in wit, in accurate knowledge

and skilful portraiture of character, in good breeding, and in satiric

touches which are always good-humoured.

[Sidenote: Jules Sandeau.]

Jules Sandeau was a novelist of no very different class, but with less

wit, with much less satiric intention, and with a greater infusion of

sentiment, not to say tragedy. His best novels, _Catherine_,

_Mademoiselle de Penarvan_, _Mademoiselle de la Seigliere_, _Le Docteur

Herbeau_, are drawn from provincial life, which, from the great size of

France and its diversity in scenery and local character, has been a

remarkably fertile subject to French novelists. These novels are

remarkable for their accurate and dramatic construction (which is such

that they have lent themselves in more than one instance to theatrical

adaptation with great success) and their pure and healthy morality.

[Sidenote: Octave Feuillet.]

[Sidenote: Murger.]

[Sidenote: Edmond About.]

[Sidenote: Feydeau.]

[Sidenote: Gustave Droz]

Next in order of birth may be mentioned Octave Feuillet, who began, as

has been mentioned, by officiating as assistant to Alexandre Dumas. His

first independent efforts in novel-writing, _Bellah_ and _Onesta_, were

of the same kind as his master's; but they were not great successes, and

after a short time he struck into an original and much more promising

path. His first really characteristic novel was _La Petite Comtesse_,

1856, and this was followed by others, the best of which are _Le Roman

d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_, 1858; _Sibylle_, 1862; _M. de Camors_, 1867;

and _Julia de Trecoeur_, 1872: the two last being perhaps his

strongest books, though the _Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_ is the most

popular. M. Feuillet wrote in a pure and easy style, and exhibited in

his novels acquaintance with the manners of good society, and a

considerable command of pathos. He was more studious of the proprieties

than most of his contemporaries, but has indulged in a somewhat

unhealthy sentimentalism. Henry Murger had a very original, though a

somewhat limited, talent. He is the novelist of what is called the

Parisian _Boheme_, the reckless society of young artists and men of

letters, which has always grouped itself in greater numbers at Paris

than anywhere else. The novel, or rather the series of sketches,

entitled _La Vie de Boheme_ is one which, from the truth to nature, the

pathos, and the wit which accompany its caricature and burlesque of

manners, will always hold a position in literature. Murger, who

experienced many hardships in his youth, was all his life a careless and

reckless liver, and died young. His works (all prose fiction, except a

small collection of poems not very striking in form but touching and

sincere in sentiment) are tolerably numerous, but the best of them are

little more than repetitions of the _Vie de Boheme_. Edmond About, a

very lively writer, whose liveliness was not always kept sufficiently in

check by good taste, oscillated between fiction and journalism, latterly

inclining chiefly to journalism. In his younger days he was better known

as a novelist, and some of his works, such as _Tolla_ and _Le Roi des

Montagnes_, were very popular. More characteristic perhaps are his

shorter and more familiar stories (_L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee_, _Le Nez

d'un Notaire_, etc.). In this same group of novelists of the Second

Republic and Empire ranks Ernest Feydeau, a morbid and thoroughly

unwholesome author, who, however, did not lack power, and once at least

(in _Sylvie_) produced work of unquestionable merit. His other novels,

_Fanny_, _Daniel_, _La Comtesse de Chalis_, are chiefly remarkable as

showing the worst side of the society of the Empire. Among writers of

short stories Champfleury, a friend and contemporary of Murger (who has

more recently betaken himself to artistic criticism of the historical

kind), deserves notice for his amusing extravaganzas, and Gustave Droz

for the singularly ingenious and witty series of domestic sketches

entitled _Monsieur_, _Madame et Bebe_, and _Entre Nous_. The range of

subject in these is wide and not always what is understood by the

English word domestic. But the fancy shown in their design and the

literary skill of their execution are alike remarkable and worthy of the

ancient reputation of France in the short prose tale. Nor have they

lacked followers.

[Sidenote: Flaubert.]

The greatest of the Second Empire novelists is unquestionably Gustave

Flaubert, who was born in 1821. Having a sufficient income he betook

himself early to literature, which he cultivated with an amount of care

and elaborate self-discipline rare among authors. In 1848 he contributed

to the _Artiste_ newspaper, then edited by Gautier, some fragments of a

remarkable fantasy-piece on the legend of St. Anthony, which was not

published as a whole till nearly a quarter of a century later. In 1859,

being then nearly forty years old, he achieved at once a great success

and a great scandal by his novel of _Madame Bovary_, a study of

provincial life, as unsparing as any of Balzac's, but more true to

actual nature, more finished in construction, and far superior in style.

It was the subject of a prosecution, but the author was acquitted. Next,

M. Flaubert selected an archaeological subject, and produced, after long

study, _Salammbo_, a novel the scene of which is pitched at Carthage in

the days of the mercenary war. This book, like the former, has a certain

repulsiveness of subject in parts; but the vigour of the drawing and the

extraordinary skill in description are as remarkable as ever.

_L'Education Sentimentale_, which followed, was Flaubert's least popular

work, being too long, and having an insufficiently defined plot and

interest. Then appeared the completed _Tentation de St. Antoine_, a book

deserving to rank at the head of its class--that of the fantastic

romance. Afterwards came _Trois Contes_, exhibiting in miniature all the

author's characteristics; and lastly, after his sudden death, in 1881,

the unfinished _Bouvard et Pecuchet_. The faults of Flaubert are, in the

first place, indiscriminate meddling with subjects best left alone,

which he shares with most French novelists; in the second, a certain

complaisance in dealing with things simply horrible, which is more

peculiar to him; in the third, an occasional prodigality of erudite

detail which clogs and impedes the action. His merits are an almost

incomparable power of description, a mastery of those types of character

which he attempts, an imagination of extraordinary power, and a singular

satirical criticism of life, which does not exclude the possession of a

vein of romantic and almost poetical sentiment and suggestion. He is a

writer repulsive to many, unintelligible to more, and never likely to

be generally popular, but sure to retain his place in the admiration of

those who judge literature as literature.

[Sidenote: The Naturalists. Emile Zola.]

The name of Flaubert has been much invoked, and his reputation has been

not a little compromised, by a small but noisy school of novelists and

critics who call themselves naturalists, and affect to preach and

practice a new crusade for the purpose of revolutionising poetry,

fiction, and the drama. These persons, whose leader is M. Emile Zola, a

busy and popular novelist, an unsuccessful dramatist, and a critic of

great industry, include the brothers Goncourt (one of whom is now dead)

and a number of younger writers who deserve no notice, except M. Guy de

Maupassant, whose prose, if too often ill employed, is as vigorous as

his verse, and who in his excellent _Pierre et Jean_ broke his

naturalist chains. The naturalists affect to derive from Stendhal,

through Balzac and Flaubert. That is to say, they adopt the analytic

method, and devote themselves chiefly to the study of character. But

they go farther than these great artists by objecting to the processes

of art. According to them, literature is to be strictly 'scientific,' to

confine itself to anatomy, and, it would appear, to morbid anatomy only.

The Romantic treatment, that is to say, the presentation of natural

facts in an artistic setting, is rigidly proscribed. Everything must be

set down on the principle of a newspaper report, or, to go to another

art for an illustration, as if by a photographic camera, not by an

artist's pencil. Now it will be obvious to any impartial critic that the

pursuance of this method is in itself fatal to the interest of a book.

The reader, unless of the very lowest order of intellect, does not want

in a novel a mere reproduction of the facts of life, still less a mere

scientific reference of them to causes. Accordingly, the naturalist

method inevitably produces an extreme dulness. In their search for a

remedy, its practitioners have observed that there are certain divisions

of human action, usually classed as vice and crime, in which, for their

own sake, and independently of pleasure in artistic appreciation of the

manner in which they are presented, a morbid interest is felt by a large

number of persons. They therefore, with businesslike shrewdness,

invariably, or almost invariably, select their subjects from these

privileged classes. The ambition of the naturalist, briefly described

without epigram or flippancy, but as he would himself say

scientifically, is to mention the unmentionable with as much fulness of

detail as possible. In this business M. Emile Zola has not hitherto been

surpassed, though many of his pupils have run him hard. Unfortunately,

for those who are proof against the attraction of disgusting subjects

merely because they are disgusting, M. Zola is one of the dullest of

writers. His style is also very bad, possessing for its sole merits a

certain vulgar vigour which is occasionally not ineffective, and a

capacity for vivid description. He is deeply learned in _argot_, or

slang, the use of which is one of the naturalist instruments, and his

works are therefore not useless as repertories of expressions to be

avoided. M. Zola's criticisms are more interesting than his novels,

consisting chiefly of vigorous denunciations of all the good writers of

his own day.

M. Victor Cherbuliez, besides political and miscellaneous work of

inferior relative power, has produced a series of novels (_Le Comte

Kostia_, _Le Roman d'une Honnete Femme_, _Meta Holdenis_, _Samuel Brohl

et Cie_) which are remarkable for style, construction, and wit. M.

Alphonse Daudet, beginning early, produced in his first stage a charming

collection of _Lettres de mon Moulin_, and a pathetic autobiographic

novel _Le Petit Chose_. In his second, attempting the manner of Dickens,

he obtained with _Jack_, 1873, and _Froment Jeune et Risler Aine_, 1874,

great popularity. His later works, _Le Nabab_, _Les Rois en Exil_, _Numa

Roumestan_, _L'Evangeliste_, _L'Immortel_, shew, in their condescending

to the satisfaction of vulgar curiosity as to living or lately dead

persons, a great falling off. The capacity of M. Daudet (whose _Tartarin

de Tarascon_ with its sequel is wholly admirable extravaganza) cannot be

doubted: his taste is deplorable. Of still more recent novelists two

only can be mentioned: M. Georges Ohnet (_Serge Panine_, _Le Maitre de

Forges_, _La Grande Marniere_) whose popularity with readers is only

equalled by the unanimous disfavour with which all competent critics

regard him, and M. Viaud ('Pierre Loti'), a naval officer, whose work

(_Aziyade_, _Le Mariage de Loti_, _Mon Frere Yves_, _Madame

Chrysantheme_), midway between the novel, the autobiography, and the

travel-book displays some elegance and much 'preciousness' of style and

fancy.

[Sidenote: Journalists and Critics.]

[Sidenote: Paul de Saint-Victor.]

[Sidenote: Hippolyte Taine.]

After the Revolution the fortune of journalism was assured, and though

under the subsequent forms of government it was subjected to a rigid

censorship, it was too firmly established to be overthrown. Almost all

men of letters flocked to it. The leading article or unsigned political

and miscellaneous essay has never been so strong a feature of French

journalism as it has been of English. On the other hand, the

_feuilleton_, or daily, weekly, and monthly instalment of fiction or

criticism, has been one of its chief characteristics. Many, if not most,

of the most celebrated novels of the last half century have originally

appeared in this form, publication in independent parts, which was long

fashionable in England, never having found favour in France. In the same

way, though weekly reviews devoted wholly or mainly to literary

criticism have, for some reason, never been successful with the French

as they have with us, daily journalism has given a greater space to

criticism, and especially to theatrical criticism. All French criticism

subsequent to 1830 may be said to derive, whether it deals with

literature, with the theatre, or with art, from three masters,

Sainte-Beuve, Gautier, and Janin. The method of the first has been

sufficiently explained. Gautier's was rather the expression of a fine

critical appreciation in the most exquisite style, and Janin's, the far

easier, and, after a short time, unimportant plan of gossiping amiably

and amusingly about, it might be the subject, it might be something

quite different. The only successor to Gautier was Paul de Saint-Victor,

who, however, was inferior to his master in appreciative power, and

exaggerated his habit of relying on style to carry him through. Paul de

Saint-Victor was not a frequent writer, and his collected works as yet

do not fill many volumes. _Hommes et Dieux_, which is perhaps the

principal of them, exhibits a deficiency of catholicity in literary

appreciation. His latest book, _Les Deux Masques_, an unfinished study

of the history of the stage, contains much brilliant writing, but is

wanting in solid qualities. As a theatrical critic, Janin was succeeded

by a curiously different person, M. Francisque Sarcey, who has chiefly

been noteworthy for severity and a kind of pedagogic common sense, as

unlike as possible to the good-humoured gossip of Janin. M. de

Pontmartin was an acrid but vigorous critic on the royalist and orthodox

side. M. Hippolyte Taine, chief of Sainte-Beuve's followers, has

somewhat caricatured his master's method. Sainte-Beuve's principle was,

it must be remembered, to examine carefully the circumstances of his

author's time, in order to ascertain their bearing upon him. In M.

Taine's hands this wise practice changed itself into a theory--the

theory that every man is a kind of product of the circumstances, and

that, by examining the latter, the man is necessarily explained. M.

Taine chose for his principal exercising ground the history of English

literature. He produced under that title a series of studies often

acute, always brilliant in style, but constantly showing the faults of

the critical method just indicated. Of other literary critics, the two

chief besides M. Taine are M. Edmond Scherer and M. Emile Montegut. The

latter is a critic of a very fine and delicate appreciation. A short

essay of his on Boccaccio may be specified as one of the best of French

contemporary critical exercises. M. Scherer has a good deal of common

sense, a considerable acquaintance with literature, and a clear,

straightforward, and vigorous style. His judgment, however, is much

limited by prejudice, and some of his studies, such as those on

Baudelaire and Diderot, show that he is an untrustworthy judge of what

is not commonplace.

[Sidenote: Academic Critics.]

A separate school of criticism, of a more academic character than that

represented by most of the names just mentioned, has existed in France

during the greater part of the century, and during a great part of it

has found its means of utterance partly in the University chairs and in

treatises crowned by the Academy, partly in a well-known fortnightly

periodical, the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_. The master of this school of

criticism may be said to have been Villemain, 1790-1870, who represents

the classical tradition corrected by a very considerable study of other

European languages besides French. Not the least part of the narrowness

of the older classical school was due to its ignorance of these

languages, and its consequent incapacity to make the necessary

comparisons. Villemain's criticism, though not quite so flexible as it

might have been, was on the whole sound, and the same variety of the

art, though with more limitations, was represented by Guizot. Not a few

critics of merit of the same kind were born at the close of the last

century, or at the beginning of this. Among them may be mentioned M.

Nisard, a bitter opponent of the Romantic movement, and a prejudiced

critic of French literature, but a writer of very considerable

knowledge, and of some literary merit; Eugene Geruzez, author of by far

the best history of French literature in a small compass, and of many

separate treatises of value; Alexandre Vinet, a Swiss, and a Protestant,

who died at no very advanced age, leaving much work of merit; and

Saint-Marc Girardin, who busied himself nearly as much in journalism and

politics as in literary criticism proper, but whose professorial _Cours

de Litterature Dramatique_ is a work of interest, exhibiting a kind of

transition style between the older and newer criticism. Michelet,

Quinet, M. Renan, and others, who will be mentioned under other heads,

have also been considerable as critics. Philarete Chasles was a lively

writer, who devoted himself especially to English literature, and whose

judgment in matters literary was not quite equal to his affection for

them. The critics of the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_ proper include, besides

not a few authors named elsewhere, Gustave Planche, a person of curious

idiosyncrasy, chiefly remarkable for the ferocity of his critiques;

Saint Rene Taillandier, a dull man of industry; and M. Caro, a man of

industry who was not dull. Latterly some younger writers have

endeavoured (chiefly in its pages) to set up a kind of neo-classical

school, which is equally opposed to modern innovations, and to the habit

of studying old French, that is, French before the sixteenth century.

The chief of these advocates of a return to the Malherbe-Boileau dungeon

is M. Ferdinand Brunetiere. We must not omit among the older generation

M. Lenient, the author of two admirable volumes on the History of French

Satire; among the younger, M. Paul Stapfer, the author of an excellent

study of 'Shakespeare et l'Antiquite,' M. Jules Lemaitre, a brilliant

critic, who is perhaps a little more brilliant than critical, and M.

Emile Faguet, whose criticism is as sound as it is accomplished.

Among the representatives of art criticism Viollet-le-Duc as a writer

on architecture, and Charles Blanc (brother of Louis) as an authority on

decorative art generally, made before their deaths reputations

sufficiently exceptional to be noticed here. Here also, as

representatives of other classes of literature, the names of Hector

Berlioz, the great composer, author of letters and memoirs of great

interest; of Henri Monnier, an artist not much less skilful with his pen

than with his pencil in satirical sketches of Parisian types (especially

his famous 'Joseph Prudhomme'); of Charles Monselet, a miscellaneous

writer whose sympathies were as wide and his temper as genial as his

literary faculty was accomplished; of X. Doudan, whose posthumous

remains and letters attracted much attention after a life of silence;

and of the Genevese diarist Amiel, selections from whose vast journal of

philosophical sentimentalism and miscellaneous reflection have also been

popular, may be cited.

[Sidenote: Linguistic and Literary Study of French.]

The revived study of old French literature just noticed is the only

department of the literature of erudition which can receive notice here,

for prose science and classical study fall equally out of our range of

possible treatment here. The _Histoire Litteraire_ was revived, and has

been steadily proceeded with. Every department of old French literature

has been studied, latterly in vigorous rivalry with the Germans. The

most important single name in this study has been that of the late M.

Paulin Paris, who edited reprints of all sorts with untiring energy, and

in a thoroughly literary spirit. The Chansons de Gestes have been the

especial care of M. Paulin Paris, his son M. Gaston Paris (_Histoire

Poetique de Charlemagne_), and M. Leon Gautier, who has written, and is

now republishing in an altered and improved form, a great work on the

early French epics. The Arthurian romances have been more studied in

Germany and Belgium than in France, though valuable work has been done

in them by M. Paulin Paris, M. Hucher, and others. The Fabliaux have

recently appeared in a nearly complete edition, by M. de Montaiglon. M.

P. Meyer has thrown new light on the _Roman d'Alixandre_. The _Roman du

Renart_, also published by Meon, has been undertaken again by M. Ernest

Martin. The separate authors of the later ages have, in almost every

case, been the subject of much careful work, and for some years past a

'Societe des Anciens Textes Francais' has existed for the express

purpose of publishing unprinted MSS. This society has undertaken the

great collection of _Miracles de Notre Dame_, the works of Eustache

Deschamps, and other important tasks. A great deal of excellent work in

the same direction has been done in Belgium by members of the various

Academies. The great classics of France, from the sixteenth century

onward, have been the object of constant and careful editing, such as

the classics of no other country have enjoyed. Nor has the linguistic

part of the study been omitted. The two chief monuments of this are the

great dictionary of Littre, and the complement of it, now in course of

publication, by M. Godefroy, which contains a complete lexicon of the

older tongue. Among the collections of old French literature, the

Bibliotheque Elzevirienne may be especially noticed. This, besides many

reprints of isolated authors, contains invaluable examples of the early

theatre, a still more precious collection of scattered poems of the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and one of miscellanies of the

sixteenth and seventeenth. Under the Empire the government began the

publication of all the Chansons de Gestes, but the enterprise was

unfortunately interrupted at the tenth volume.

[Sidenote: Philosophical Writers.]

[Sidenote: Comte.]

The branches of literature, other than the Belles Lettres, which

naturally retain, longer than those which busy themselves with science

as it is now understood, the literary interest, are philosophy,

theology, and history. In philosophy France has produced, during the

present century, only one name of the first importance. As has been the

case with all other European nations, her philosophical energies have

chiefly been devoted to the historical side of philosophy, a tendency

specially encouraged by the already-mentioned influence of Cousin.

Damiron, the chief authority in French on the materialist schools of the

eighteenth century; M. Jules Simon and Vacherot, who busied themselves

chiefly with the Alexandrian philosophers--Cousin it should be

remembered was the editor of Proclus--and Charles de Remusat, a man of

great capacity, who, among other rather unexpected literary

occupations, devoted himself to Abelard, Thomas a Becket, and other

representatives of scholasticism, illustrate this tendency. The

philosophy of the middle ages was also the subject of one of the

clearest and best-written of philosophical studies, the _De la

Philosophie Scolastique_ of B. Haureau. The name, however, of the

century in French philosophical literature is that of Auguste Comte, the

founder of what is called Positivism. He was born at Montpelier three or

four years before the end of the last century, and died at Paris in

September, 1857. Comte passed through the discipline of initiation in

the Saint Simonian views--Saint Simon was a descendant of the great

writer of that name, who developed a curious form of communism very

interesting politically, but important to literature only from the

remarkable influence it had upon his contemporaries--but, like most of

Saint Simon's disciples, soon emancipated himself. To discuss Comte's

philosophical views would be impossible here. It is sufficient to say

that the cardinal principle of his earlier work, the _Cours de

Philosophie Positive_, is that the world of thought has passed through

successively a theological stage and a metaphysical stage, and is now

reduced to the observation and classification of phenomena and their

relations. On the basis cleared by this sweeping hypothesis, Comte, in

his later days (under the inspiration of a lady, Madame Clotilde de

Vaux, if he himself be believed), developed a remarkable construction of

positive religion. This was indignantly rejected by his most acute

followers, the chief of whom was the philologist and critic Littre.

Outside of Comtism, France has not produced many writers on philosophy,

except philosophical historians. M. Taine, in his _De l'Intelligence_,

turned his acute intellect and ready pen in this direction for a moment,

but not with much success. Perhaps from the literary view the most

important philosophical writer in French for the last half century is M.

Renan, who will find his place more appropriately in the next paragraph.

Between Saint Simon and Comte, if space allowed, notice would have to be

taken of many political writers of the middle of the century, whose

visionary and for the most part communistic views had a considerable but

passing influence, such as Cabet, Fourier, Pierre Leroux, and the

violent and not wholly sane but vigorous Proudhon. Here, however,

nothing but bare mention, and that only for completeness' sake, can be

given to them.

[Sidenote: Theological Writers. Montalembert.]

[Sidenote: Ozanam.]

[Sidenote: Lacordaire.]

[Sidenote: Ernest Renan.]

In theology, as represented in literature, the dominant interest of the

period belongs at first to the continuators of the Liberal-Catholic

school of Lamennais. The greatest of these, beyond all question, was

Charles Forbes de Montalembert, whose mother was a Scotchwoman, and his

father French ambassador in Sweden. He was born in April, 1810, and died

on the 13th of March, 1870. Montalembert was young enough to come under

the influence of Lamennais only indirectly, and at the extreme end of

that writer's orthodox period. His immediate master was rather the

eloquent Abbe Lacordaire. His father was a peer of France, and

Montalembert succeeded early to his position, which gave him an

opportunity of supporting the great contention of the Liberal Catholics

under Louis Philippe, the right to establish schools for themselves.

Being devoted first of all to the defence of ecclesiastical interests by

every legitimate means, and having no anti-Republican prejudices,

Montalembert was able to accept the second Revolution, though not the

Second Empire, and he continued to be one of the most moderate, but

dangerous, opponents of the government of Napoleon III. His chief works,

which have much brilliancy and vigour, are his 'Life of Elizabeth of

Hungary,' his 'Life and Times of St. Anselm,' his _Avenir Politique de

l'Angleterre_, and, most of all, his great work on 'The Monks of the

West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard.' A fellow worker with

Montalembert, though earlier cut off, was Frederic Ozanam, a brilliant

student and lecturer in mediaeval history, who was the chief literary

critic of the Neo-Catholic movement during the later years of Louis

Philippe's reign. Ozanam's chief work was his study on Dante. About this

time a considerable resurrection of pulpit eloquence took place. Its

chief representative was the already-mentioned Jean Baptiste Henri

Lacordaire, who was born in 1802, and died in 1861. Lacordaire was a

partner of Lamennais in the _Avenir_. But, unlike his master, he took

the papal reproof obediently, and continued to preach in the orthodox

sense. He entered the order of St. Dominic in 1840, but was nevertheless

elected to the Assembly, in 1848, as a compliment, doubtless, to the

fervent radicalism he had displayed earlier. Lacordaire's literary

reputation is almost entirely confined to his sermons, the most famous

of which were preached at Notre Dame. Other celebrated preachers of the

middle of the century were, on the Catholic side, the Pere Felix, and on

the Protestant, Athanase Coquerel. Of the extreme orthodox party, during

the Second Empire, the chief names from the point of view of literature

were those of Monseigneur Dupanloup, bishop of Orleans, and the

journalist, Louis Veuillot. The former, one of the most eloquent and one

of the ablest men of his time in France, began with a certain

liberalism, but gradually hardened into extremer views, distinguishing

himself in his place in the Academy by violent opposition to the

admission of M. Littre, as a positivist. The latter, as editor of the

journal _L'Univers_, brought remarkable wit and a faculty of slashing

criticism, not often equalled, to the service of his party, indulging,

however, too often in mere scurrility. From this same literary point of

view, the chief name in the theological literature of this period is

once more on the unorthodox side. Since the days of Joseph de Maistre

the church had far more than held her own in the literary arena; but the

discouragement given at Rome to the followers of Lamennais seemed to

bring ill luck with it. Ernest Renan, who, with some faults, is one of

the most remarkable masters of French style in our time, was born in

1823, at Treguier in Britanny. He was intended for the priesthood, and

was educated for the most part at clerical seminaries. On arriving,

however, at manhood, he did not feel inclined to take orders; accepted

the place of usher at a school, and soon distinguished himself by

linguistic studies, especially on the Semitic languages. He also

exercised himself a good deal in literary criticism and as a journalist

of all work on the staffs of the _Journal des Debats_ and the _Revue des

Deux-Mondes_. His first really remarkable work, published in 1850, is

_Averroes et l'Averroisme_, a book injured by the author's want of

sympathy with the thought of the middle ages, but full of research and

of reflection. This gained him a post in the Paris Library. He then

produced several works, dealing more or less with the Hebrew Scriptures.

In 1860 he had a government mission to Phoenicia and Palestine, which

enabled him to examine the Holy Land very attentively. On his return he

was appointed to the chair of Hebrew at the College de France, but the

outcry against his unorthodoxy was so great that he was suspended. He

began about this time to publish his famous series of _Origines du

Christianisme_ with, for a first volume, a _Vie de Jesus_, imbued with a

curious kind of eclectic and romantic rationalism. This has been

followed by numerous volumes dealing with the early ages of

Christianity. In 1870 he made himself conspicuous by a letter to Strauss

on the subject of the Franco-German War. After the catastrophe he

confined himself for a time to literary and philosophical studies.

Recently, however, besides working at his _Origines_, which are now

completed, he has produced some half-political, half-fanciful studies of

great literary excellence, such as _Caliban_, a satire on democracy, and

_La Fontaine de Jouvence_, a brilliant mediaeval fantasy-piece, covering

a violent attack on Germany. M. Renan is, in point of style, perhaps the

most considerable prose writer of France now living who is a prose

writer only. His prejudices are strong, and his strictly argumentative

and logical faculty rather weak. In temperament he is what may be called

a sentimental rationalist. But his literary knowledge is extraordinarily

wide and very accurate, while his literary sympathies, though somewhat

irregular in their operation, are warm. These peculiarities reflect

themselves in his style, which is a direct descendant of that of

Rousseau through M. Renan's own countryman, Chateaubriand. As a

describer of scenery he is unmatched among his contemporaries. He has an

extraordinary power of vivid and interesting narration inclining

somewhat to the over-picturesque. No one is able more cleverly to seize

on the most striking and telling features of a landscape, a book, a

character, and, by adroit dwelling on these, to present the whole as

vividly as possible to his readers. No one again is more thoroughly

master of a certain rather vague but telling eloquence which deals

chiefly with the moral feelings and the domestic affections, and

exercises an amiably softening influence on those who submit themselves

to it. M. Renan in style is rather an orator than a writer, though the

extreme care and finish which he bestows on his work give him a high

place in literature proper.

[Sidenote: Historians. Thierry.]

In history a group of distinguished names, besides a still larger number

of names only less individually distinguished, deserve notice. First

among these, in order of time, may be mentioned the two brothers Amedee

and Augustin Thierry, the former of whom was born in 1787, and died in

1873, while the latter, born in 1795, died in 1856. Both devoted

themselves to historical studies. But, while Amedee employed himself

almost wholly on the history of Gaul during Roman times and on Roman

history, Augustin, who was by far the more gifted of the two, took a

wider range. He was born and educated at Blois, and for some time

devoted himself to politics and sociology, being a disciple of Saint

Simon, and a fellow-worker of Comte. He soon, however, betook himself to

history, and in 1825 published his 'History of the Norman Conquest in

England.' Blindness followed, but he was able to continue his work. In

1835 he published _Dix Ans d'Etudes Historiques_, and in 1840, what is

perhaps his best work, _Recits des Temps Merovingiens_, a book which has

few rivals as exhibiting in a fascinating light, but without any

sacrifice of historical accuracy to mere picturesqueness, the

circumstances and events of an unfamiliar time. His last work of

importance was an essay on the Tiers Etat and its origin. Thierry is an

excellent example of an historian handling, with little guidance from

predecessors, a difficult and neglected but important age.

[Sidenote: Thiers.]

Far less important as a historian, but distinguished by his double

character of statesman and _litterateur_, in which he was more fortunate

than his two rivals in the same double career, Guizot and Lamartine, was

Louis Adolphe Thiers, who was born at Marseilles, of the lower middle

class, in 1797. He was brought up for the law, being educated at

Marseilles and at Aix. Then he went to Paris, and after a short time

obtained work on the _Constitutionnel_ as supporter of the liberal

opposition during the Restoration. His _Histoire de la Revolution

Francaise_ appeared between 1823-1827, and brought him much reputation,

which was very ill deserved as far as fulness and accuracy of

information are concerned. French readers, however, have ever been

indifferent to mere accuracy, and are given to admire even a superficial

appearance of order and clearness; at any rate, the book, added to his

considerable reputation as a political writer, made him famous. A paper,

which he founded in the beginning of 1830, the _National_, had much

share in bringing about the Revolution of that year. After it Thiers was

elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Aix, and in a short time became a

renowned debater. He held office again and again under Louis Philippe,

and was believed to be in favour of a warlike policy. When he retired

from office he began his principal literary work (a continuation of his

first), 'The History of the Consulate and the Empire.' He took no part

in the Revolution of 1848, and accepted the Republic, but was banished

at the _coup d'etat_, though not for long. In 1863 he re-entered the

Chamber, having constantly worked at his History, which tended not a

little to reconstruct the Napoleonic legend. Yet he was a steady though

a moderate opponent of the Second Empire. On its downfall, Thiers, as

the most distinguished statesman the country possessed, undertook the

negotiations with the enemy--a difficult task, which he performed with

extreme ability. He then became President of the Republic, which post he

held till 1873. He died on the 3rd of September, 1877. The chief fault

of Thiers as a historian is his misleading partiality, which is

especially displayed in his account of Napoleon's wars, and reaches its

climax in that of the battle of Waterloo. He has, however, great merits

in lucidity of arrangement, in an eloquent, if rather declamatory style,

and in a faculty of conveying a considerable amount of information

without breaking the march of his narrative.

[Sidenote: Guizot]

By a curious coincidence, the chief rival of Thiers in politics (at

least during the greater part of his life) was of his own class and

condition, and, like him, primarily a man of letters. Francois Pierre

Guillaume Guizot was, however, ten years the senior of Thiers, having

been born in 1787, at Nimes. Guizot was a Protestant, and his father

perished in the Terror. He was educated at Geneva, but went to Paris

early, and produced in 1809 (being then only twenty-two) a dictionary of

synonyms. After this he did miscellaneous literary work of various

kinds, and at the Restoration filled, as a moderate Royalist, various

posts under government, being appointed, among other things, to a

history professorship at the Sorbonne. He became more and more liberal,

and in 1824 his lectures were forbidden. His literary activity, was,

however, incessant, his greatest work being a collection of early French

historical writings in thirty-one volumes. He also paid much attention

to the history of England, and published, in 1826, a _Histoire de la

Revolution d'Angleterre_. This was followed by many other works, of

which his 'History of Civilisation in Europe,' and 'History of

Civilisation in France,' are the best known. He had been elected a

member of the Chamber before the Revolution of 1830, and after it he was

appointed minister of Public Instruction, having the powerful support of

the Broglie family. He was afterwards ambassador to London, and then

Prime Minister, being, it is said, very much to blame for the Revolution

of February. He escaped to London with some difficulty, and, though he

revisited France, had to return to England at the advent of Louis

Napoleon. He was not, however, a permanent exile, but was allowed to

enjoy his estate at Val Richer in Normandy. He died in 1874, having been

incessantly occupied on literary work of all kinds (chiefly connected

with French and English history) for the last half century of his life.

The chief of these in bulk was a voluminous history of France not

completed till after his death. Guizot's enormous fertility (for not a

twentieth of his works has been mentioned) perhaps injuriously affected

his style, which is not remarkable. Sound common sense and laborious

acquaintance with facts are his chief characteristics.

[Sidenote: Mignet.]

A companion of Thiers at college, and a _protege_ of his during his

years of power, was Francois Mignet. Born a year before his friend, he

outlived him. Mignet, too, wrote, and at the same time as Thiers, a

History of the French Revolution of curiously different character. He

became secretary of the Institute, and in 1837 a member of the Academy.

His chief later works were on the 'Spanish Succession,' on Mary Stuart,

and on Charles the Fifth after his abdication, with, last of all, the

rivalry of Charles V. and Francis I. Mignet is as trustworthy as Thiers

is the reverse. But his historical manner is exceedingly dry, as also is

his style, though it is correct and not inelegant.

[Sidenote: Michelet.]

A very different writer was Jules Michelet, the most original and

remarkable historian in point of style that France has ever produced.

Born at Paris, in 1798, he was also educated there, and became a

schoolmaster. Soon after he came of age he was transferred to the Ecole

Normale. The Revolution of 1830, owing to the influence of Cousin and

Guizot, opened great opportunities for historical students, and Michelet

was enabled to publish not a few historical treatises, some of a rather

specialist nature, others popular abstracts of French history. In 1838

he was appointed to a chair in the College de France, and, in

conjunction with his friend Quinet, he took part in the violent polemic

against the Jesuits which distinguished the time. He had already for

some years begun his strange and splendid _Histoire de France_,

1833-1867, but he accompanied its progress with a crowd of little books

of a controversial and miscellaneous character. Shortly before the

Revolution of 1848 he began, and soon after the _coup d'etat_ finished,

his _Histoire de la Revolution_. He declined to take the oaths to the

Empire, and so lost the place in the Record Office which he then held.

He died in 1874, and, notwithstanding his incessant literary activity

during his life, various unpublished works have appeared since, one of

which, describing the hunger-pinched population of the Riviera, is a

masterpiece of his volcanic style. This style is characteristic not only

of his great history, but also of his smaller books, of which _Des

Jesuites_, _Du Pretre_, _Du Peuple_, _L'Oiseau_, _L'Insecte_, _L'Amour_,

_La Sorciere_ (the last perhaps the most remarkable of all), are

especially noteworthy. It is entirely unlike the style of any previous

French writer, except that of Lamennais, who was, however, rather

Michelet's contemporary than his predecessor, and that of Victor Hugo,

in some of his more recent work. Broken and irregular in construction,

it is extraordinarily vivid in colour, and striking in the outline of

its presentment. The _History of France_ is a book to which little

justice can be done in the space here available. It is strongly

prejudiced by Michelet's republican and anti-Catholic views, and, like

all picturesque histories, it brings into undue relief incidents and

personages which have happened to strike the author's imagination. But

it is extraordinarily stimulating, full of energy and life, and almost

unequalled in the power with which the writer restores and revives the

past.

[Sidenote: Quinet.]

A bosom friend of Michelet, and his compeer in the attack on the

Jesuits, was Edgar Quinet, who was born near Bourg in 1803, and died in

1875. He was brought up for the most part at his country home in a

retired situation, where he early showed not only great devotion to

literature, but a curious tendency towards philosophic mysticism. He

travelled in Germany when young, and his translation of Herder's

_Philosophie der Geschichte_ introduced him to Cousin, and gave him some

profit and much reputation. He was sent to Greece on a government

mission, and after a time received a professorship, first at Lyons, and

then at Paris, though his republicanism did not recommend him. He was an

active supporter of the Revolution of February, and a consistent

opponent of the Empire, during which he remained in exile. Quinet's

works, both in poetry and prose, are numerous. The chief are a great

prose poem, or dramatic allegory, called _Ahasuerus_, 1834, a work on

the early French epics (insufficiently informed, but appreciative and

enthusiastic), _Le Genie des Religions_, 1843 (a series of discourses

full of the widest and vaguest generalisation, but stimulating and

generous), _Les Revolutions d'Italie_, _Merlin l'Enchanteur_, 1861

(another curious book something after the fashion of _Ahasuerus_), a

nondescript miscellany on history and science entitled _La Creation_,

1869, and _La Revolution_, 1865. His poems (in verse) are _Promethee_,

_Napoleon_, _Les Esclaves_, of which the first and last are dramatic in

form. His style and thought were strongly tinged with mysticism, and

with a singular undogmatic pietism, as well as with strong but

speculative republicanism in politics. He is thus not a historian to

consult for facts (though his knowledge both of history and literature

was accurate and wide), but an inspiriting generaliser on the philosophy

of history. Both in Michelet and in Quinet there is an affectation of

the seer, as well as an undue fluency of language, and an absence of

precision in form and place, which detract from their otherwise high

literary value. The collected works of the first exceed fifty volumes,

those of the second fill nearly thirty; and much of this vast total is

ephemeral in interest and unchastened in form. Although neither was a

journalist, both exhibit the defects of a period of journalism.

[Sidenote: Tocqueville.]

The last of the greater names calling for mention is that of Alexis de

Tocqueville, who was born, of a noble Norman family, at Verneuil, in

1805. Tocqueville was educated for the bar, and called to it after the

Restoration. But after the revolution of July he exchanged his

appointment in the magistracy for a travelling mission to America, to

examine the prisons and penitentiaries of the United States. He,

however, studied something else than prisons, and, in 1835, published

his famous work on 'Democracy in America.' He married an Englishwoman,

and soon afterwards entered the Chamber. During the Republic he occupied

positions of some importance. The Empire dismissed him from public life,

but gave him the opportunity of writing his second great book on the

_Ancien Regime_. His health was, however, weak, and he died, in 1859, of

consumption. The characteristics of Tocqueville as a historian (or

rather as a philosophic essayist on history) are great purity and

clearness of style, unusual logical power, and an entire absence of

prepossession. He is one of the few historians who have treated

democracy without either enthusiastic love for it on the one hand, or

fanatical dislike and fear of it on the other; and his two books are,

and are likely to remain, classics.

[Sidenote: Minor Historians.]

A very rapid survey must suffice for the remainder of the names in this

division. A. de Barante, among numerous other works of merit, is best

known by a careful and detailed history of the Dukes of Burgundy; J. A.

Buchon, Petitot, J. A. Michaud, and J. Poujoulat, produced invaluable

collections of the chronicles and memoirs in which France is so rich. J.

J. Ampere occupied himself chiefly with Roman history, and with the

history of France and French literature in the Gallo-Roman time. A.

Beugnot, besides other work, arranged a precious collection of feudal

law. Emile de Bonnechose wrote a good short history of France. Louis

Blanc (an important actor in the Revolution of 1848) produced an

elaborate and well-written history of the Revolution from the moderate

republican side, and afterwards reprinted from newspapers some curious

letters from England during his exile here. In opposition chiefly to

Thiers, P. Lanfrey, in a laborious history of Napoleon, entirely

overthrew the Napoleonic legend, and damaged, it would seem irreparably,

the character of its hero. Philippe de Segur gave a history of the

Russian campaign of Napoleon. Mortimer-Ternaux accomplished a valuable

history of the Terror. M. Henri Martin was the author of the only recent

history of France on a scale which challenges comparison with Michelet.

It has no extraordinary literary merit, and its author was something of

a partisan. But it is full, sober, and fairly accurate. In recent days

M. Taine, deserting literary and philosophical criticism for history,

executed a new and remarkable history of the Revolution, which, by once

more putting its horrors in a clear and fair light, very much irritated

the partisans of the 'ideas of 89.' The Duke d'Aumale has made something

more than a mere addition to the works of 'Royal and Noble Authors,' in

his History of the Princes of Conde. The Duke de Broglie, a politician,

upon whom the political changes of France enforced political retirement,

has produced a series of historical works on the 18th century and has

edited the interesting memoirs of his father, the patron of Guizot. Of

other recent memoirs by far the most remarkable, whether as literature

or history, are those of Madame de Remusat, mother of Charles de

Remusat, who died early in the Restoration period, but whose memoirs and

letters, not published till after her son's death (but already referred

to here), have given her a posthumous reputation hardly inferior to that

of any of the literary ladies before her and not likely soon to wane.

FOOTNOTES:

[292] Merimee's work is not absolutely despicable in bulk, for it

extends to some eighteen volumes pretty closely packed. But much of

these is occupied with familiar letters, and much more with merely

miscellaneous writing. His finished and definitely literary publications

do not amount to a third of the whole.

[293] In this notice of the acting drama of France, with which, as

contrasted with the literary theatre, the present writer has

comparatively little acquaintance, he is considerably indebted to Mr.

Brander Matthews' useful _French Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century_.

London and New York; 1882.

CONCLUSION.

In the five books of this _History_ the reader has, it is believed,

before him a sufficient though necessarily brief description of the

various men and works whereof knowledge is desirable to enable him to

perceive the main outlines of the course of French literature. In the

interchapters some attempt has been made to sum up the general phenomena

of that literature as distinguished from its particular accomplishments

during the chief periods of its development. Beyond this neither the

scale of the book, nor its plan as indicated in the preface, has

permitted of indulgence in generalising criticism. But it has been

suggested by authorities whose competence is not disputable that

something in the nature of a summary of these summaries, pointing out

briefly the general history, accomplishments, and peculiarities of the

French tongue in its literary aspect during the ten centuries of its

existence, is required, if only for the sake of a symmetrical

conclusion. It may be urged on the other side that the history of

literature--like all other histories, and perhaps more than all other

histories--is never really complete, and that there is consequently some

danger in attempting at any given time to treat it as finished. He must

have been a miraculously acute critic who, if he had attempted such

treatment of the present subject sixty or seventy years ago, would not

have found his results ludicrously falsified by the event but few years

afterwards. But this drawback only applies to generalisation of the

pseudo-scientific kind which attempts to predict: it can be easily

guarded against by attending to the strict duties of the historian and,

without attempting to speak of the future, dealing only with the

actually accomplished past.

The first thing, and perhaps the most important thing, which must strike

anyone who looks upon French literature as a whole, is that, taking all

conditions together, it is the most complete example of a regularly and

independently developed national literature that presents itself

anywhere. It is no doubt inferior in the point of independence to Greek,

but then it has a much longer course, considered as the exponent of

national character. It has a shorter course than English, and it is not

more generally expository of national characteristics; but then it is

for a great part of that course infinitely more independent of foreign

influences, and, unlike English, it has scarcely any breaks or dead

seasons in its record. Compared with Latin (which as a literature may be

said to be entirely modelled on Greek) it is exceptionally original:

compared with Spanish and Italian it has been exceptionally long-lived

and hale in its life: compared with German it was exceptionally early in

attaining the full possession of its faculties. Just as (putting aside

minor and somewhat pedantic considerations) no country in Europe has so

long and so independently developed a political history, so in none has

literary history developed itself more independently and for a longer

space of continuous time. No foreign invasion sensibly affects the

French tongue; no foreign influence sensibly alters the course of French

literature. It has been shown at intervals during this history how

little direct influence classical models had on the original forms of

literature in France, how completely German and Celtic contributions of

subject were assimilated, how the Provencal examples of form were rather

independently followed than literally or slavishly adopted. The dawn or

rather the twilight of the Renaissance seemed to threaten a more

powerful and dangerous admixture. But the native genius of the language

triumphed, and finally, in the Pleiade reforms, reduced to harmlessness

the Rhetoriqueur innovations and the simultaneous danger of

Italianising. The criticism of Malherbe, harmful in some ways, served as

a counterpoise to the danger of Spanish influence which was considerable

in the early years of the seventeenth century, and by the eighteenth the

idiosyncrasy of French was so strong that, great as was the effect

successively produced by English and by German, it was unable to do more

than slightly modify French literature itself. Yet again the singular

[Greek: autarkeia] of French may be seen by turning from its general

accomplishments at different times to its particular forms. No one of

these was directly adopted from any foreign, not even from any classical

example, with the doubtful exception of the classical tragedy. The

French made their own epic, their own lyric, their own comic and

miscellaneous drama. They may be said almost to have invented the

peculiar and striking kind of history called the memoir, which has

characteristics distinguishing it radically from the classical

commentary. They apparently invented the essay, and though they only

borrowed the beast-fable, they are entitled to the credit of having seen

in it the germ of the short verse tale which has no direct moral

bearing. All the nations of Europe, so to speak, sent during the middle

ages their own raw material of subject to be worked up by French or

French-speaking men into literary form. France therefore gives (next to

Greece, and in some respects even before Greece) the most instructive

and trustworthy example extant of the chronology and order of

spontaneous literary development--first poetry, then drama, then prose:

in poetry, first epic, then lyric, then didactic and miscellaneous

verse: in drama, first ceremonial and liturgic pieces, then comedy, then

artificial tragedy: in prose, first history, then miscellaneous work,

and lastly artificial and elaborate fiction. It is a curious and

somewhat complex phenomenon that the cycle which began with verse

fiction should apparently end with fiction in prose, but the foregoing

pages will have shewn sufficiently how dangerous it would be to

generalise from this.

One thing however may be safely concluded from the mere fact of this

remarkable resistance to foreign influence, or rather from the still

more remarkable power of assimilation which this resistance implies. The

literature which has been able to exert both must have very strongly

marked general characteristics of its own. As a matter of fact French

literature has these characteristics: and a brief enumeration and

description of them may complete, more appropriately than anything else

could do, the survey of its history. French literature, notwithstanding

the revolution of fifty years ago, is generally and rightly held to be

the chief representative among the greater European literatures of the

classical rather than the romantic spirit. It is therefore necessary to

define what is meant by these much controverted terms; and the

definition which best expresses the views of the present writer is one

somewhat modified from the definition given by Heine. The terms classic

and romantic apply to treatment not to subject, and the difference is

that the treatment is classic when the idea is represented as directly

and with as exact an adaptation of form as possible, while it is

romantic when the idea is left to the reader's faculty of divination

assisted only by suggestion and symbol. Of these two modes of treatment

France has always inclined to the classic: during at least two

centuries, the seventeenth and eighteenth, she relied upon it almost

wholly. But the fertility of her mediaeval and Renaissance literature in

strictly romantic examples, and the general tendency of the literature

of the nineteenth century, have shewn a romantic faculty inferior, but

only inferior, to the classical. To illustrate this statement by a

contrast, it may be pointed out that in Greek the romantic element is

almost in abeyance, while in English all without exception of our

greatest masterpieces have been purely romantic. Or to put the matter in

yet other words, the sense of the vague is, among authors of the highest

rank, rarely present to a Greek, always present to an Englishman, and

alternately present and absent, but oftener absent, to a Frenchman.

The qualities which this general differentia has developed in French may

now be enumerated.

The first is a great and remarkable _sobriety_. It is true that there is

nothing more extravagant than an extravagant Frenchman, but that is the

natural result of reaction. As a rule, the contributions of matter which

France received so abundantly from other nations are always toned and

sobered by her in their literary formation. The main materials of her

wonderful mediaeval literature of fiction were furnished by Wales, by

Germany, and by the East; all of them, to judge by the later but more or

less independent handlings which we have from indigenous sources, must

have teemed with the supernatural. In the Chansons de Gestes, in the

Arthurian romances, and even in the earlier Romans d'Aventures, the

supernatural, though recognised as became a devout age and country, is

yet to a certain extent rationalised. It rarely obtrudes itself, and it

still more rarely presents itself with exaggerated attributes. A

continual spirit of criticism exhibits itself throughout French

literature; it always, as represented by its most numerous and on the

whole most famous representatives, tends to order, to measure, to

symmetry.

The next characteristic is abundant and almost superabundant _wit_. The

terms wit and humour have been argued over even more than classical and

romantic, and it is equally impossible to enter into the controversy

here. Suffice it to say that, according to the most satisfactory

definition of humour (thinking in jest while feeling in earnest), wit

might be defined to be thinking in jest without interrogating the

consciousness as to whether the feeling is earnest or not. At a very

early period, as soon indeed as the French spirit had thoroughly emerged

from its German-Latin-Celtic swaddling clothes, this faculty of half

reckless thinking in jest made its appearance. In classical literature

wit is notoriously absent with rare exceptions (Aristophanes and Lucian

being almost the only ones of importance); in scarcely any other modern

literature does it make its appearance early. But it shows in French by

the twelfth century, and it increases during every century that

succeeds: while joined to sobriety it begets that satirical criticism,

which is so noteworthy a secondary product of French.

A third quality closely connected with the two former but not, like

satirical criticism, simply derived from them, is the close _attention

to form_ which has always distinguished French. At the present time,

despite the great advance made by other literatures and a certain

falling off in itself, French prose is on the average superior in formal

merit to any other prose written in a modern language. If we look back

for eight hundred years, French verse is found to be more carefully and

artistically arranged than the corresponding poetical beginnings of any

other European country. In the excogitation of careful rules and the

deft carrying out of those rules no literature can on the whole approach

this except Greek. No literature therefore, with that exception, gives

so much of the pleasure which is given by the spectacle of not

unreasonable difficulty skilfully overcome in a game which is well

played.

A fourth merit is to be found in the _inventiveness_ of Frenchmen of

letters. In no literature is there a greater variety, and in none is

that variety so obviously the effect not of happy blundering but of

organised and almost scientific development of the possibilities of art.

The wonderful fertility with which the early Trouveres handled and

re-handled the motives of the Arthurian and Carlovingian legends has

been noticed; and, as a very different but complementary instance, the

surprising success and variety with which a scheme so limited as that of

the classical tragedy was applied, deserves mention. At the present day

in one important department of literature (the drama) inventiveness is

almost limited to Frenchmen, and there are few periods of their present

history at which they have not in this respect led the van in one

department or in another.

Yet another characteristic must be noted, which is, in respect to

matter, the complement of the already mentioned attention to form. This

is the singular _clearness_ and _precision_ with which not merely the

greatest Frenchmen of letters, but all save the least, are accustomed to

put their meaning. Whereas the two great classical languages, from the

licence of order given by their abundant inflections and complicated

syntax, are sometimes enigmatic; whereas German notoriously lends itself

to the wrapping up of a simple meaning in a cloud of words; whereas

English seems to encourage those who use it not indeed to obscurity but

to desultoriness and beating about the bush, French properly used is

almost automatically clear and precise. Rivarol's somewhat sententious

conceit that the French language has a 'probite attachee a son genie' is

not a conceit merely. That this lucidity is sometimes accompanied by

want of depth is quite true, but it is equally true that it is often

mistaken for it. There is no want of depth in Descartes or in

Malebranche, yet there are no clearer writers in the whole range of

philosophic literature.

To these main characteristics others which are in a way corollaries

might be added, such as urbanity, ease, ready adaptation to different

classes of subject, and the like. But those already dwelt upon are the

principal, and they have sufficed to make French, as far as general

usefulness and interest go, the best vehicle of expression in prose

among European languages. In poetry it is not quite the same. Most of

the qualities just enumerated are in poetry but of secondary use, some

of them are almost directly unfavourable to the vagueness, the

indefinite suggestion, the 'making the common uncommon,' which are

necessary to poetry. The clearness of French prose has a tendency to

become colourless in French poetry, its sobriety turns to the bald, its

wit to conceits and prettinesses, its inventiveness to an undue reliance

on complicated devices for creating an artificial attraction, its sense

of form and rule to dryness and lack of passion. Moreover the merely

sonorous qualities of French render it a difficult instrument for the

production of varied poetical sounds. It is almost wholly destitute of

quantity, and the intonation which supplies that want is of such a kind

that hardly any foot but the iambus is possible in it. On the other hand

its terminations admit of elaborate and harmonious rhymes (indeed French

poetry without rhyme is a practical impossibility), and the abundance of

mute _e_ endings has facilitated the adoption of an artificial source of

variation of sound in the so-called 'masculine and feminine' rhyming

which is in its perfection almost peculiar to the language. With these

aids and by the most elaborate attention to metre and euphony, the great

poets of France have been enabled to surmount to a very large extent the

corresponding difficulties of their prosody. But they have not on the

whole been equally fortunate in surmounting the difficulties caused by

the very genius of the language--the clear, sober, critical _ethos_ of

French. This is an enemy to mystery, to vagueness, to what may be called

the twilight of sense--all things more or less necessary to the highest

poetry. It will not I think be alleged by any impartial reader of this

book that its author is insensible to the majesty or to the charm of

French verse. But it is impossible for me to admit that that majesty and

that charm are shewn in the highest degree (in the degree in which not

merely Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Shelley, Heine, shew them, but many minor

names in Greek, in English, and in German), by any but a very few

Frenchmen, and by these in more than comparatively few places. A very

competent and obliging French critic has said that it is impossible for

any Frenchman to agree with me exactly in my estimate of La Fontaine,

and probably there is no better instance than La Fontaine of the

fundamental difference of conception of poetry which corresponds to the

English channel. Inexhaustibly inventive, full of criticism of life, a

master of harmonious language, managing rhythms and metres with a skill

only the more artful that it seems so artless, La Fontaine yet has too

little of dawn or sunset, still less of twilight or moonlight, too much

of the light of common day to deserve, according to my estimate, the

title of poet in the highest degree. The same may be said of most other

French poets except a few who are to be found almost exclusively in the

middle ages, in the Renaissance, and in the nineteenth century. Only in

one form of the highest poetry, the passionate declamation which is in

effect oratory of the most picturesque kind, France has never been

wanting, and in this she has for half the time been mightily helped by

the possession of the magnificent Alexandrine metre.

[294]At the close of the eleventh century and at the beginning of the

twelfth we find the vulgar tongue in France not merely in full

organisation for literary purposes, but already employed in most of the

forms of poetical writing. An immense outburst of epic and narrative

verse has taken place, and lyrical poetry, not limited as in the case of

the epics to the north of France, but extending from Roussillon to the

Pas de Calais, completes this. The twelfth century adds to these

earliest forms the important development of the mystery, extends the

subjects and varies the manner of epic verse, and begins the

compositions of literary prose with the chronicles of St. Denis and of

Villehardouin, and the prose romances of the Arthurian cycle. All this

literature is so far connected purely with the knightly and priestly

orders, though it is largely composed and still more largely dealt in by

classes of men, trouveres and jongleurs, who are not necessarily either

knights or priests, and in the case of the jongleurs are certainly

neither. With a possible ancestry of Romance and Teutonic _cantilenae_,

Breton _lais_, and vernacular legends, the new literature has a certain

pattern and model in Latin and for the most part ecclesiastical

compositions. It has the sacred books and the legends of the saints for

examples of narrative, the rhythm of the hymns for a guide to metre, and

the ceremonies of the church for a stimulant to dramatic performance. By

degrees also in this twelfth century forms of literature which busy

themselves with the unprivileged classes begin to be born. The fabliau

takes every phase of life for its subject; the folk-song acquires

elegance and does not lose raciness and truth. In the next century, the

thirteenth, mediaeval literature in France arrives at its zenith and

remains there until the first quarter of the fourteenth. The early epics

lose something of their savage charm, the polished literature of

Provence quickly perishes. But in the provinces which speak the more

prevailing tongue nothing is wanting to literary development. The

language itself has shaken off all its youthful incapacities, and,

though not yet well adapted for the requirements of modern life and

study, is in every way equal to the demands made upon it by its own

time. The dramatic germ contained in the fabliau and quickened by the

mystery produces the profane drama. Ambitious works of merit in the most

various kinds are published; _Aucassin et Nicolette_ stands side by side

with the _Histoire de Saint Louis_, the _Jeu de la Feuillie_ with the

_Miracle de Theophile_, the _Roman de la Rose_ with the _Roman du

Renart_. The earliest notes of ballade and rondeau are heard; endeavours

are made with zeal, and not always without understanding, to naturalise

the wisdom of the ancients in France, and in the graceful tongue that

France possesses. Romance in prose and verse, drama, history, songs,

satire, oratory, and even erudition, are all represented and represented

worthily. Meanwhile all nations of Western Europe have come to France

for their literary models and subjects, and the greatest writers in

English, German, Italian, content themselves with adaptations of

Chretien de Troyes, of Benoist de Sainte More, and of a hundred other

known and unknown trouveres and fabulists. But this age does not last

long. The language has been put to all the uses of which it is as yet

capable; those uses in their sameness begin to pall upon reader and

hearer; and the enormous evils of the civil and religious state reflect

themselves inevitably in literature. The old forms die out or are

prolonged only in half-lifeless travesties. The brilliant colouring of

Froissart, and the graceful science of ballade- and rondeau-writers like

Lescurel and Deschamps, alone maintain the literary reputation of the

time. Towards the end of the fourteenth century the translators and

political writers import many terms of art, and strain the language to

uses for which it is as yet unhandy, though at the beginning of the next

age Charles d'Orleans by his natural grace and the virtue of the forms

he used, emerges from the mass of writers. Throughout the fifteenth

century the process of enriching or at least increasing the vocabulary

goes on, but as yet no organising hand appears to direct the process.

Villon stands alone in merit as in peculiarity. But in this time

dramatic literature and the literature of the floating popular

broadsheet acquire an immense extension--all or almost all the vigour of

spirit being concentrated in the rough farce and rougher lampoon, while

all the literary skill is engrossed by insipid _rhetoriqueurs_ and

pedants. Then comes the grand upheaval of the Renaissance and the

Reformation. An immense influx of science, of thought to make the

science living, of new terms to express the thought, takes place, and a

band of literary workers appear of power enough to master and get into

shape the turbid mass. Rabelais, Amyot, Calvin, and Herberay fashion

French prose; Marot, Ronsard, and Regnier refashion French verse. The

Pleiade introduces the drama as it is to be and the language that is to

help the drama to express itself. Montaigne for the first time throws

invention and originality into some other form than verse or than prose

fiction. But by the end of the century the tide has receded. The work of

arrangement has been but half done, and there are no master spirits left

to complete it. At this period Malherbe and Balzac make their

appearance. Unable to deal with the whole problem, they determine to

deal with part of it, and to reject a portion of the riches of which

they feel themselves unfit to be stewards. Balzac and his successors

make of French prose an instrument faultless and admirable in precision,

unequalled for the work for which it is fit, but unfit for certain

portions of the work which it was once able to perform. Malherbe,

seconded by Boileau, makes of French verse an instrument suited only for

the purposes of the drama of Euripides, or rather of Seneca, with or

without its chorus, and for a certain weakened echo of that chorus,

under the name of lyrics. No French verse of the first merit other than

dramatic is written for two whole centuries. The drama soon comes to its

acme, and during the succeeding time usually maintains itself at a

fairly high level until the death of Voltaire. But prose lends itself to

almost everything that is required of it, and becomes constantly a more

and more perfect instrument. To the highest efforts of pathos and

sublimity its vocabulary and its arrangement are still unsuited, though

the great preachers of the seventeenth century do their utmost with it.

But for clear exposition, smooth and agreeable narrative, sententious

and pointed brevity, witty repartee, it soon proves itself to have no

superior and scarcely an equal in Europe. In these directions

practitioners of the highest skill apply it during the seventeenth

century, while during the eighteenth its powers are shown to the utmost

of their variety by Voltaire, and receive a new development at the hands

of Rousseau. Yet, on the whole, it loses during this century. It becomes

more and more unfit for any but trivial uses, and at last it is employed

for those uses only. Then occurs the Revolution, repeating the mighty

stir in men's minds which the Renaissance had given, but at first

experiencing more difficulty in breaking up the ground and once more

rendering it fertile. The faulty and incomplete genius of Chateaubriand

and Madame de Stael gives the first evidence of a new growth, and after

many years the romantic movement completes the work. That movement

occupied almost the whole of two generations and though at the close of

the second its force may appear to be spent, the results remain, and no

new or reactionary movement is visible, and the efforts of the Romantics

themselves have been crowned with an almost complete regeneration of

letters, if not of language. The poetical power of French has been once

more triumphantly proved, and its productiveness in all branches of

literature has been renewed, while in that of prose fiction there has

been almost created a new class of composition.

Finally, we may sum up even this summary. For volume and merit taken

together the product of these eight centuries of literature excels that

of any European nation, though for individual works of the supremest

excellence they may perhaps be asked in vain. No French writer is lifted

by the suffrages of other nations--the only criterion when sufficient

time has elapsed--to the level of Homer, of Shakespeare, or of Dante,

who reign alone. Of those of the authors of France who are indeed of the

thirty but attain not to the first three, Rabelais and Moliere alone

unite the general suffrage; and this fact roughly but surely points to

the real excellence of the literature which these men are chosen to

represent. It is great in all ways, but it is greatest on the lighter

side. The house of mirth is more suited to it than the house of

mourning. To the latter, indeed, the language of the unknown minstrel

who told Roland's death, of him who gave utterance to Camilla's wrath

and despair, and of him who in our day sang how the mountain wind makes

mad the lover who cannot forget, has amply made good its title of

entrance. But for one Frenchman who can write admirably in this strain

there are a hundred who can tell the most admirable story, formulate the

most pregnant reflexion, point the acutest jest. There is thus no really

great epic in French, few great tragedies, and those imperfect and in a

faulty kind, little prose like Milton's or like Jeremy Taylor's, little

verse (though more than is generally thought) like Shelley's or like

Spenser's. But there are the most delightful short tales, both in prose

and in verse, that the world has ever seen, the most polished jewellery

of reflexion that has ever been wrought, songs of incomparable grace,

comedies that must make men laugh so long as they are laughing animals,

and above all such a body of narrative fiction, old and new, prose and

verse, as no other nation can show for art and for originality, for

grace of workmanship in him who fashions, and for certainty of delight

to him who reads.

FOOTNOTES:

[294] The courtesy of Messrs. A. and C. Black allows me to repeat the

following passage from an article of mine in the _Encyclopaedia

Britannica_. For this repetition I may borrow from a better writer than

myself the excuse that a man cannot say exactly the same thing in two

different sets of words so as to please himself, or perhaps others.

INDEX.

About, Edmond (1828-1885), novelist and journalist, 559.

Academic influences, 486, 506-508.

criticism, 564.

Academie Francaise, 334, 353, 367, 504-508.

Actors, societies of, 122.

Adalbert, St., 3.

_Adam, mystery of_, 111.

Adam de la Halle (13th cent.), trouvere and dramatist, 69, 70.

Adenes le Roi (13th cent.), trouvere, 23 note 1, 93, 95.

_Adolescence Clementine_, 174.

_Adolphe_, 435.

Aguesseau, H.F. d' (1668-1751), orator, 457, 480.

Aisse, Mlle. (1693-1733), letter-writer, 445.

Alba, 31.

_Albigensian War, Chronicle of_, 30.

Alembert, Jean le Rond d' (1717-1785), encyclopaedist, 419, 462, 481,

483, 499.

Alexander of Bernay (12th cent.), trouvere, 43.

Alexandrines, 75, 76, 213, 300.

_Aliscans_, 19, 22.

_Alixandre, Chanson d'_, 43.

Allainval, Leonor J. C. Soulas d' (1700-1753), dramatist, 412.

Allegory, 81.

_Almanach de nos Grands Hommes_, 466.

_Alzire_, 408.

_Amphitryon_, 312.

_Amadas et Idoine_, 97.

_Amadis of Gaul_, 237, 319, 320.

_Amants Magnifiques_, 312.

Amerval, Eloy d' (15th cent.), poet, 172.

_Amis et Amiles_, 12, 21, 147.

story of, 16.

passage from, 18.

Amyot, Jacques (1513-1594), translator, 232, 234, 246, 270.

_Ancien Theatre Francais_, 117 seqq.

_Anciennes Poesies Francaises_, 181, 182.

Andrieux, Francois G. J. S. (1759-1833), dramatist and poet, 403, 414.

_Andromaque_, 302.

_Andromede_, 298.

_Antioche, Chanson d'_, 20, 39, 48, 99.

_Antiquites de Rome_, 203.

_Antony_, 530.

_Apologie pour Herodote_, 166, 194.

Argenson, Rene Louis de Voyer, Marquis d' (1694-1757), memoir-writer, 442.

Arnauld, A. (1612-1694), Port Royalist, 338, 374.

Arnault, A. V. (1766-1834), poet and fabulist, 403.

Arthur, 34.

tale of, its origins, 34, 151.

ARTHURIAN ROMANCES, 34-42, 46 note.

Arthurian cycle, French order of, 35, 97.

Romances, spirit and literary value of, 38.

comedy of, 48.

social characteristics of, 46.

Arvers, Felix (1806-1851), poet, 548.

_Asseneth_, 147.

_Assises de Jerusalem_, 144.

Assonance, 11, 27, 63.

_Astree_, 319.

_Athalie_, 302, 303, 306.

Auberi of Besancon (12th cent.), poet, 28.

Aubignac, Francois Hedelin, Abbe d' (1604-1676), dramatist, novelist,

and critic, 293, 322.

Aubigne, Agrippa d' (1550-1630), poet and historian, 212, 213, 253, 254.

_Aucassin et Nicolette_, 66, 149.

extract from, 150.

Audefroy le Bastard (12th cent.), trouvere, 63.

Augier, E. (b. 1822), dramatist, 553.

Aulnoy, Marie C., Comtesse d' (d. 1720), tale-teller, 328.

Autran, Joseph (1813-1877), poet and dramatist, 555.

Baif, Jean Antoine de (1532-1592), poet, 196, 198, 205, 206, 210, 226.

---- Lazare de (?-1547) translator, 219.

Balada, 31.

Ballade, 101.

_Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis_, 158.

Balzac, Honore de (1799-1850), novelist, 532, 535, 537, 542.

Balzac, Jean Guez de (1594-1655), essayist and letter-writer, 355, 356.

Banville, Th. de (b. 1820), poet, 549.

Barbey d'Aurevilly, J. (b. 1808), miscellaneous writer, 557.

Barbier, Auguste (1805-1882), poet, 545.

_Barbier de Seville_, 413.

_Barlaam and Josaphat_, 81.

Baron (1643-1729), comic writer and actor, 317.

Bartas, Guillaume de Saluste du (1544-1590), poet, 211, 212.

Barthelemy, Louis, Abbe (1750-1812), scholar, 427.

Bassompierre, Francois, Marechal de, memoir-writer, 337.

_Bastard de Bouillon_, 20, 99.

Baude, Henri (1430-1495), poet, 163.

Baudelaire, C. (1821-1866), poet and critic, 549, 550.

_Baudouin de Sebourc_, 20, 99.

Bayle, P. (1647-1706), philosopher and encyclopaedist, 375.

Beaumarchais, Caron de (1731-1799), dramatist, 413.

_Bele Erembors_, 63.

_Belisaire_, 458.

Bellay, Guillaume (1491-1543) and Martin (?-1559) du, memoir-writers, 256.

Bellay, Joachim du (1524-1560), poet, 202, 204, 207, 210, 219, 270.

Belleau, Remy (1528-1577), poet, 204, 226.

Belloy, Burette de (1727-1775), dramatist, 408.

Benedictine students, 503.

Benoist de Sainte More (1154-1189), trouvere and chronicler, 44, 45, 79.

Benserade, Isaac de (1612-1691), poet, 278.

Beranger, Pierre Jean de (1780-1857), poet, 511, 512.

Bergerac, Cyrano de (1620-1655), dramatist and novelist, 308, 324.

Bergier, Nicolas Sylvestre (1718-1790), theologian, 460.

Berlioz, H. (1803-1869), miscellaneous writer, 566.

Bernard, C. de (1805-1850), novelist, 557.

Beroalde de Verville (1558-1612), tale-teller, 194.

Bersuire, Pierre (1290-1352), translator, 143.

Bertaut, Jean (1552-1611), poet, 338.

_Berte aux grans Pies_, 21, 93.

Bertin, Antoine (1752-1790), poet, 401.

Bertrand, L. (1807-1841), poet, 548.

Berwick, James Fitzjames, Duke of (1660-1734), memoir-writer, 344.

Besenval, Pierre Victor, Baron de (1722-1791), memoir-writer, 442.

Bestiaries, 79, 145.

Beyle, Henri (1783-1842), novelist and critic, 517.

Beza, Theodore (1519-1605), dramatist and translator, 218, 231.

Bible, 78.

_Bibliotheque des Romans_, 502.

Billaut, A. (1600-1662) poet, 280.

Bichat, M. F. X. (1771-1802), scientific writer, 501.

Blanc, L. (1813-1882), historian, 577.

_Blancandin et l'Orguilleuse d'Amour_, 96.

_Blandin de Cornoalha_, 30.

Blason, 210.

_Blasphemateurs_, 121.

_Blonde d'Oxford_, 98.

Blot (1610-1655) poet, 278.

Bodel, Jean (b. 1269), trouvere, 42, 91, 111.

Bodin, Jean (1530-1596), lawyer, 248.

_Boethius_, Provencal poem on, 28, 29.

Boetie, Etienne de la (1530-1563), poet and political writer, 209, 242,

243, 249.

Boileau, Nicolas (1636-1711), poet and critic, 284-287.

Boisrobert, F. Le Metel de (1592-1662), poet and dramatist, 278.

Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de (1754-1840), political

writer, 498, 515.

Bordigne, Charles de (16th cent.), poet, 171.

Borel, P. (1809-1859), poet and novelist, 547.

Bornier, H. de (b. 1825), dramatist, 556.

Borron, Robert and Helie de (12th and 13th cent.), 35, 36.

Bossuet, Jacques Benigne (1627-1704), theologian and preacher, 380-383.

Bouchardy, Joseph (1810-1870), dramatist, 553.

Bouchet, Guillaume (d. 1607), tale-teller, 194.

Bouchet, Jehan (1476-1555), historian and poet, 171, 172, 194.

Bouciqualt, Jean le Maigre (d. 1421), memoir-writer, 105.

Bougainville, Louis Antoine de (1729-1811), traveller, 502.

Bouilhet, L. (1821-1872), poet, 550.

Boulainvilliers, Henri de (1658-1722), historian and political writer,

438.

Bourdaloue, Louis (1632-1704), theologian, 387.

_Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, 312.

Boursault, Edme (1638-1708), dramatist, 315.

_Bradamante_, 224.

Brantome, Pierre de Bourdeilles, Abbe de (1540-1614), memoir-writer,

249-252.

Brebeuf, Guillaume de (1618-1661), poet, 287.

Breu-doble, 31.

Brienne, Comte de (17th cent.), memoir-writer, 339.

Brizeux, Auguste (1803-1858), poet, 546.

Brodeau, Victor (1470-1540), poet, 177.

Brosses, Ch. de (1709-1777), miscellanist, 503.

Brunetiere, F., critic, 565.

Brueys, D. A. de (1640-1725), dramatist, 317.

_Brun de la Montaigne_, 26, 92.

Brunetto Latini (1220-1294), scholar, 145, 152.

_Bueves de Commarchis_, 93.

Buffon, George Lewis Leclerc, Count de (1707-1788), naturalist, 499.

_Bug Jargal_, 521.

Buttet, Claude (16th cent.), poet, 209.

Cabanis, J. P. G. (1757-1808), scientific writer, 501.

Calmet, Dom Augustin (1672-1757), biblical historian, 440.

Calvin, Jean (1509-1564), theologian, 230, 231.

Campistron (1656-1737), dramatist, 307, 316.

_Candide_, 423.

Canso, 30.

Cantilenae, 7, 62.

_Caracteres_ of La Bruyere, 365.

Carloix, Vincent (16th cent.), memoir-writer, 254.

_Carte de Tendre_, 321.

Cassel, glossary of, 3.

Castelnau, Michel de (1500-1592), memoir-writer, 257.

_Castoiement d'un Pere a son Fils_, 81.

Caylus, Madame de (1673-1729), memoir-writer, 344.

Cazotte, Jacques (1720-1792), novelist, 426.

_Cenacle_, the, 530, 540.

_Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, 148, 283.

Chamfort, N. (1741-1794), moralist and critic, 465, 466.

Champcenetz, (1759-1794), journalist, &c., 464, 465.

Champier, Symphorien (1472-1535), poet, 171.

Chanson, 66, 511, 512.

_Chanson d'Alixandre_, 42, 43, 46.

_Chanson d'Amour_, 66.

_Chanson de Roland_, argument of, 13.

passage from, 14.

_Chanson des Albigeois_, 30, 31.

Chansonnettes, 66.

CHANSONS DE GESTES, 2, 6, 7, 9-24, 37, 43, 47, 50, 75, 76, 99.

_Chanson des Rues et des Bois_, 524.

_Chansons du XV'ieme Siecle_, 166.

Chapelain, Jean (1595-1674), poet, 279, 285, 301, 349.

Chapelle, C. E. L. (1626-1686), poet, 278.

Chardry (13th cent.), trouvere, 81.

_Charlemagne a Constantinople, Voyage de_, 21.

Charlemagne in _Chansons_, 13, 14, 19, 22.

Charleval, C. J. L. Faucon de Risseigneur de (1612-1693), poet, 278.

_Charroi de Nimes, le_, 19.

Charron, Pierre (1541-1603), moralist and theologian, 247, 248.

Chartier, Alain (1390-1458), poet, 102, 105, 144, 165, 169, 270.

ballade from, 108.

extract from _Curial_, 150.

Chasles, P. L. (1798-1873), critic, 565.

Chassignet, J. B. (1578-1620), poet, 276.

Chastellain, Georges (1403-1475), chronicler, 134, 148, 164.

Chateaubriand, Francois Auguste de (1768-1848), novelist and miscellaneous

writer, 429, 430.

Chatillon, A. de (1810-1884), poet, 548.

Chaulieu, Abbe de (1639-1720), poet, 288.

Chaussee, Nivelle de la (1692-1754), dramatic poet, 411, 415.

_Chef d'oeuvre Inconnu_, 533.

Chenedolle, C. de (1769-1833), poet, 403, 468.

Chenier, Andre Marie de (1762-1794), poet, 402, 403.

Chenier, Marie Joseph (1764-1811), poet, critic, and journalist, 401, 403,

519.

Cherbuliez, V. (b. 1832), novelist, 562.

_Chetifs_, 20.

_Cheval de Fust_, 93.

_Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche, la_, 20.

_Chevalier a la Charrette_, extract from, 40, 41.

_Chevalier as Deux Espees_, 97.