First among the poets of the period falls to be mentioned the shadowy

personality of Olivier Basselin. Modern criticism has attacked the

identity of the jovial miller, who was once supposed to have written and

perhaps invented the songs called _vaux de vire_, and to have also

carried on a patriotic warfare against the English. But though Jean le

Houx may have written the poems published under Basselin's name two

centuries later, it is taken as certain that an actual Olivier wrote

actual vaux de vire at the beginning of the 15th century. About

Christine de Pisan (1363-1430) and Alain Chartier (1392-c. 1430) there

is no such doubt. Christine was the daughter of an Italian astrologer

who was patronized by Charles V. She was born in Italy but brought up in

France, and she enriched the literature of her adopted country with much

learning, good sense and patriotism. She wrote history, devotional works

and poetry; and though her literary merit is not of the highest, it is

very far from despicable. Alain Chartier, best known to modern readers

by the story of _Margaret of Scotland's Kiss_, was a writer of a

somewhat similar character. In both Christine and Chartier there is a

great deal of rather heavy moralizing, and a great deal of rather

pedantic erudition. But it is only fair to remember that the intolerable

political and social evils of the day called for a good deal of

moralizing, and that it was the function of the writers of this time to

fill up as well as they could the scantily filled vessels of medieval

science and learning. A very different person is Charles d'Orleans

(1391-1465), one of the greatest of _grands seigneurs_, for he was the

father of a king of France, and heir to the duchies of Orleans and

Milan. Charles, indeed, if not a Roland or a Bayard, was an admirable

poet. He is the best-known and perhaps the best writer of the graceful

poems in which an artificial versification is strictly observed, and

helps by its recurrent lines and modulated rhymes to give to poetry

something of a musical accompaniment even without the addition of music

properly so called. His ballades are certainly inferior to those of

Villon, but his rondels are unequalled. For fully a century and a half

these forms engrossed the attention of French lyrical poets. Exercises

in them were produced in enormous numbers, and of an excellence which

has only recently obtained full recognition even in France. Charles

d'Orleans is himself sufficient proof of what can be done in them in the

way of elegance, sweetness, and grace which some have unjustly called

effeminacy. But that this effeminacy was no natural or inevitable fault

of the ballades and the rondeaux was fully proved by the most remarkable

literary figure of the 15th century in France. To Francois Villon

(1431-1463?), as to other great single writers, no attempt can be made

to do justice in this place. His remarkable life and character

especially lie outside our subject. But he is universally recognized as

the most important single figure of French literature before the

Renaissance. His work is very strange in form, the undoubtedly genuine

part of it consisting merely of two compositions, known as the great and

little Testament, written in stanzas of eight lines of eight syllables

each, with lyrical compositions in ballade and rondeau form

interspersed. Nothing in old French literature can compare with the best

of these, such as the "Ballade des dames du temps jadis," the "Ballade

pour sa mere," "La Grosse Margot," "Les Regrets de la belle Heaulmiere,"

and others; while the whole composition is full of poetical traits of

the most extraordinary vigour, picturesqueness and pathos. Towards the

end of the century the poetical production of the time became very

large. The artificial measures already alluded to, and others far more

artificial and infinitely less beautiful, were largely practised. The

typical poet of the end of the 15th century is Guillaume Cretin (d.

1525), who distinguished himself by writing verses with punning rhymes,

verses ending with double or treble repetitions of the same sound, and

many other tasteless absurdities, in which, as Pasquier remarks, "il

perdit toute la grace et la liberte de la composition." The other

favourite direction of the poetry of the time was a vein of allegorical

moralizing drawn from the _Roman de la rose_ through the medium of

Chartier and Christine, which produced "Castles of Love," "Temples of

Honour," and such like. The combination of these drifts in verse-writing

produced a school known in literary history, from a happy phrase of the

satirist Coquillart (_v. inf._), as the "Grands Rhetoriqueurs." The

chief of these besides Cretin were Jean Molinet (d. 1507); Jean

Meschinot (c. 1420-1491), author of the _Lunettes des princes_;

Florimond Robertet (d. 1522); Georges Chastellain (1404-1475), to be

mentioned again; and Octavien de Saint-Gelais (1466-1502), father of a

better poet than himself. Yet some of the minor poets of the time are

not to be despised. Such are Henri Baude (1430-1490), a less pedantic

writer than most, Martial d'Auvergne (1440-1508), whose principal work

is _L'Amant rendu cordelier au service de l'amour_, and others, many of

whom formed part of the poetical court which Charles d'Orleans kept up

at Blois after his release.

Coquillart.

While the serious poetry of the age took this turn, there was no lack of

lighter and satirical verse. Villon, indeed, were it not for the depth

and pathos of his poetical sentiment, might be claimed as a poet of the

lighter order, and the patriotic diatribes against the English to which

we have alluded easily passed into satire. The political quarrels of the

latter part of the century also provoked much satirical composition. The

disputes of the Bien Public and those between Louis XI. and Charles of

Burgundy employed many pens. The most remarkable piece of the light

literature of the first is "Les Anes Volants," a ballad on some of the

early favourites of Louis. The battles of France and Burgundy were waged

on paper between Gilles des Ormes and the above-named Georges

Chastelain, typical representatives of the two styles of 15th-century

poetry already alluded to--Des Ormes being the lighter and more graceful

writer, Chastelain a pompous and learned allegorist. The most remarkable

representative of purely light poetry outside the theatre is Guillaume

Coquillart (1421-1510), a lawyer of Champagne, who resided for the

greater part of his life in Reims. This city, like others, suffered from

the pitiless tyranny of Louis XI. The beginnings of the standing army

which Charles VII. had started were extremely unpopular, and the use to

which his son put them by no means removed this unpopularity. Coquillart

described the military man of the period in his _Monologue du gendarme

casse_. Again, when the king entertained the idea of unifying the taxes

and laws of the different provinces, Coquillart, who was named

commissioner for this purpose, wrote on the occasion a satire called

_Les Droits nouveaux_. A certain kind of satire, much less good-tempered

than the earlier forms, became indeed common at this epoch. M. Lenient

has well pointed out that a new satirical personification dominates this

literature. It is no longer Renart with his cynical gaiety, or the

curiously travestied and almost amiable Devil of the Middle Ages. Now it

is Death as an incident ever present to the imagination, celebrated in

the thousand repetitions of the _Danse Macabre_, sculptured all over the

buildings of the time, even frequently performed on holidays and in

public. With the usual tendency to follow pattern, the idea of the

"dance" seems to have been extended, and we have a _Danse aux aveugles_

(1464) from Pierre Michaut, where the teachers are fortune, love and

death, all blind. All through the century, too, anonymous verse of the

lighter kind was written, some of it of great merit. The folk-songs

already alluded to, published by Gaston Paris, show one side of this

composition, and many of the pieces contained in M. de Montaiglon's

extensive _Recueil des anciennes poesies francaises_ exhibit others.

The 15th century was perhaps more remarkable for its achievements in

prose than in poetry. It produced, indeed, no prose writer of great

distinction, except Comines; but it witnessed serious, if not extremely

successful, efforts at prose composition. The invention of printing

finally substituted the reader for the listener, and when this

substitution has been effected, the main inducement to treat unsuitable

subjects in verse is gone. The study of the classics at first hand

contributed to the same end. As early as 1458 the university of Paris

had a Greek professor. But long before this time translations in prose

had been made. Pierre Bercheure (Bersuire) (1290-1352) had already

translated Livy. Nicholas Oresme (c. 1334-1382), the tutor of Charles

V., gave a version of certain Aristotelian works, which enriched the

language with a large number of terms, then strange enough, now

familiar. Raoul de Presles (1316-1383) turned into French the _De

civitate Dei_ of St Augustine. These writers or others composed _Le

Songe du vergier_, an elaborate discussion of the power of the pope. The

famous chancellor, Jean Charlier or Gerson (1363-1429), to whom the

_Imitation_ has among so many others been attributed, spoke constantly

and wrote often in the vulgar tongue, though he attacked the most famous

and popular work in that tongue, the _Roman de la rose_. Christine de

Pisan and Alain Chartier were at least as much prose writers as poets;

and the latter, while he, like Gerson, dealt much with the reform of the

church, used in his _Quadriloge invectif_ really forcible language for

the purpose of spurring on the nobles of France to put an end to her

sufferings and evils. These moral and didactic treatises were but

continuations of others, which for convenience sake we have hitherto

left unnoticed. Though verse was in the centuries prior to the 15th the

favourite medium for literary composition, it was by no means the only

one; and moral and educational treatises--some referred to

above--already existed in pedestrian phrase. Certain household books

(_Livres de raison_) have been preserved, some of which date as far back

as the 13th century. These contain not merely accounts, but family

chronicles, receipts and the like. Accounts of travel, especially to the

Holy Land, culminated in the famous _Voyage_ of Mandeville which, though

it has never been of so much importance in French as in English, perhaps

first took vernacular form in the French tongue. Of the 14th century, we

have a _Menagier de Paris_, intended for the instruction of a young

wife, and a large number of miscellaneous treatises of art, science and

morality, while private letters, mostly as yet unpublished, exist in

considerable numbers, and are generally of the moralizing character;

books of devotion, too, are naturally frequent.

Early sermon-writers.

Comines.

But the most important divisions of medieval energy in prose composition

are the spoken exercises of the pulpit and the bar. The beginnings of

French sermons have been much discussed, especially the question whether

St Bernard, whose discourses we possess in ancient, but doubtfully

contemporary French, pronounced them in that language or in Latin.

Towards the end of the 12th century, however, the sermons of Maurice de

Sully (1160-1196) present the first undoubted examples of homiletics in

the vernacular, and they are followed by many others--so many indeed

that the 13th century alone counts 261 sermon-writers, besides a large

body of anonymous work. These sermons were, as might indeed be expected,

chiefly cast in a somewhat scholastic form--theme, exordium,

development, example and peroration following in regular order. The

14th-century sermons, on the other hand, have as yet been little

investigated. It must, however, be remembered that this age was the most

famous of all for its scholastic illustrations, and for the early vigour

of the Dominican and Franciscan orders. With the end of the century and

the beginning of the 15th, the importance of the pulpit begins to

revive. The early years of the new age have Gerson for their

representative, while the end of the century sees the still more famous

names of Michel Menot (1450-1518), Olivier Maillard (c. 1430-1502), and

Jean Rauhn (1443-1514), all remarkable for the practice of a vigorous

and homely style of oratory, recoiling before no aid of what we should

nowadays style buffoonery, and manifesting a creditable indifference to

the indignation of principalities and powers. Louis XI. is said to have

threatened to throw Maillard into the Seine, and many instances of the

boldness of these preachers and the rough vigour of their oratory have

been preserved. Froissart had been followed as a chronicler by

Enguerrand de Monstrelet (c. 1390-1453) and by the historiographers of

the Burgundian court, Chastelain, already mentioned, whose interesting

_Chronique de Jacques de Lalaing_ is much the most attractive part of

his work, and Olivier de la Marche. The memoir and chronicle writers,

who were to be of so much importance in French literature, also begin to

be numerous at this period. Juvenal des Ursins (1388-1473), an anonymous

bourgeois de Paris (two such indeed), and the author of the _Chronique

scandaleuse_, may be mentioned as presenting the character of minute

observation and record which has distinguished the class ever since.

Jean le maire de (not _des_) Belges (1473-c. 1525) was historiographer

to Louis XII. and wrote _Illustrations des Gaules_. But Comines

(1445-1509) is no imitator of Froissart or of any one else. The last of

the quartette of great French medieval historians, he does not yield to

any of his three predecessors in originality or merit, but he is very

different from them. He fully represents the mania of the time for

statecraft, and his book has long ranked with that of Machiavelli as a

manual of the art, though he has not the absolutely non-moral character

of the Italian. His memoirs, considered merely as literature, show a

style well suited to their purport,--not, indeed, brilliant or

picturesque, but clear, terse and thoroughly well suited to the

expression of the acuteness, observation and common sense of their

author.

The Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles.

Antoine de la Salle.

Influence of the Renaissance.

But prose was not content with the domain of serious literature. It had

already long possessed a respectable position as a vehicle of romance,

and the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th centuries were

pre-eminently the time when the epics of chivalry were re-edited and

extended in prose. Few, however, of these extensions offer much literary

interest. On the other hand, the best prose of the century, and almost

the earliest which deserves the title of a satisfactory literary medium,

was employed for the telling of romances in miniature. The _Cent

Nouvelles Nouvelles_ is undoubtedly the first work of prose

belles-lettres in French, and the first, moreover, of a long and most

remarkable class of literary work in which French writers may challenge

all comers with the certainty of victory--the short prose tale of a

comic character. This remarkable work has usually been attributed, like

the somewhat similar but later _Heptameron_, to a knot of literary

courtiers gathered round a royal personage, in this case the dauphin

Louis, afterwards Louis XI. Some evidence has recently been produced

which seems to show that this tradition, which attributed some of the

tales to Louis himself, is erroneous, but the question is still

undecided. The subjects of the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ are by no

means new. They are simply the old themes of the fabliaux treated in the

old way. The novelty is in the application of prose to such a purpose,

and in the crispness, the fluency and the elegance of the prose used.

The fortunate author or editor to whom these admirable tales have of

late been attributed is Antoine de la Salle (1398-1461), who, if this

attribution and certain others be correct, must be allowed to be one of

the most original and fertile authors of early French literature. La

Salle's one acknowledged work is the story of _Petit Jehan de Saintre_,

a short romance exhibiting great command of character and abundance of

delicate draughtsmanship. To this not only the authorship,

part-authorship or editorship of the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ has been

added; but the still more famous and important work of _L'Avocat

Patelin_ has been assigned by respectable, though of course

conjecturing, authority to the same paternity. The generosity of critics

towards La Salle has not even stopped here. A fourth masterpiece of the

period, _Les Quinze Joies de mariage_, has also been assigned to him.

This last work, like the other three, is satirical in subject, and shows

for the time a wonderful mastery of the language. Of the fifteen joys of

marriage, or, in other words, the fifteen miseries of husbands, each has

a chapter assigned to it, and each is treated with the peculiar mixture

of gravity and ridicule which it requires. All who have read the book

confess its infinite wit and the grace of its style. It is true that it

has been reproached with cruelty and with a lack of the moral sentiment.

But humanity and morality were not the strong point of the 15th century.

There is, it must be admitted, about most of its productions a lack of

poetry and a lack of imagination, produced, it may be, partly by

political and other conditions outside literature, but very observable

in it. The old forms of literature itself had lost their interest, and

new ones possessing strength to last and power to develop themselves had

not yet appeared. It was impossible, even if the taste for it had

survived, to spin out the old themes any longer. But the new forces

required some time to set to work, and to avail themselves of the

tremendous weapon which the press had put into their hands. When these

things had adjusted themselves, literature of a varied and vigorous kind

became once more possible and indeed necessary, nor did it take long to

make its appearance.

_16th Century._--In no country was the literary result of the

Renaissance more striking and more manifold than in France. The double

effect of the study of antiquity and the religious movement produced an

outburst of literary developments of the most diverse kinds, which even

the fierce and sanguinary civil dissensions of the Reformation did not

succeed in checking. While the Renaissance in Italy had mainly exhausted

its effects by the middle of the 16th century, while in Germany those

effects only paved the way for a national literature, and did not

themselves greatly contribute thereto, while in England it was not till

the extreme end of the period that a great literature was

forthcoming--in France almost the whole century was marked by the

production of capital works in every branch of literary effort. Not even

the 17th century, and certainly not the 18th, can show such a group of

prose writers and poets as is formed by Calvin, St Francis de Sales,

Montaigne, du Vair, Bodin, d'Aubigne, the authors of the _Satire

Menippee_, Monluc, Brantome, Pasquier, Rabelais, des Periers, Herberay

des Essarts, Amyot, Garnier, Marot, Ronsard and the rest of the

"Pleiade," and finally Regnier. These great writers are not merely

remarkable for the vigour and originality of their thoughts, the

freshness, variety and grace of their fancy, the abundance of their

learning and the solidity of their arguments in the cases where argument

is required. Their great merit is the creation of a language and a style

able to give expression to these good gifts. The foregoing account of

the medieval literature of France will have shown sufficiently that it

is not lawful to despise the literary capacities and achievements of the

older French. But the old language, with all its merits, was ill-suited

to be a vehicle for any but the simpler forms of literary composition.

Pleasant or affecting tales could be told in it with interest and

pathos. Songs of charming _naivete_ and grace could be sung; the

requirements of the epic and the chronicle were suitably furnished. But

it was barren of the terms of art and science; it did not readily lend

itself to sustained eloquence, to impassioned poetry or to logical

discussion. It had been too long accustomed to leave these things to

Latin as their natural and legitimate exponent, and it bore marks of its

original character as a _lingua rustica_, a tongue suited for homely

conversation, for folk-lore and for ballads, rather than for the

business of the forum and the court, the speculations of the study, and

the declamation of the theatre. Efforts had indeed been made,

culminating in the heavy and tasteless erudition of the schools of

Chartier and Cretin, to supply the defect; but it was reserved for the

16th century completely to efface it. The series of prose writers from

Calvin to Montaigne, of poets from Marot to Regnier, elaborated a

language yielding to no modern tongue in beauty, richness, flexibility

and strength, a language which the reactionary purism of succeeding

generations defaced rather than improved, and the merits of which have

in still later days been triumphantly vindicated by the confession and

the practice of all the greatest writers of modern France.

Marot.

Ronsard.

The Pleiade.

_16th-Century Poetry._--The first few years of the 16th century were

naturally occupied rather with the last developments of the medieval

forms than with the production of the new model. The clerks of the

Bazoche and the Confraternity of the Passion still produced and acted

mysteries, moralities and farces. The poets of the "Grands

Rhetoriqueurs" school still wrote elaborate allegorical poetry. Chansons

de geste, rhymed romances and fabliaux had long ceased to be written.

But the press was multiplying the contents of the former in the prose

form which they had finally assumed, and in the _Cent Nouvelles

Nouvelles_ there already existed admirable specimens of the short prose

tale. There even were signs, as in some writers already mentioned and in

Roger de Collerye, a lackpenny but light-hearted singer of the early

part of the century, of definite enfranchisement in verse. But the first

note of the new literature was sounded by Clement Marot (1496/7-1544).

The son of an elder poet, Jehan des Mares called Marot (1463-1523),

Clement at first wrote, like his father's contemporaries, allegorical

and mythological poetry, afterwards collected in a volume with a

charming title, _L'Adolescence clementine_. It was not till he was

nearly thirty years old that his work became really remarkable. From

that time forward till his death, about twenty years afterwards, he was

much involved in the troubles and persecutions of the Huguenot party to

which he belonged; nor was the protection of Marguerite d'Angouleme, the

chief patroness of Huguenots and men of letters, always efficient. But

his troubles, so far from harming, helped his literary faculties; and

his epistles, epigrams, _blasons_ (descendants of the medieval _dits_),

and _coq-a-l'ane_ became remarkable for their easy and polished style,

their light and graceful wit, and a certain elegance which had not as

yet been even attempted in any modern tongue, though the Italian

humanists had not been far from it in some of their Latin compositions.

Around Marot arose a whole school of disciples and imitators, such as

Victor Brodeau (1470?-1540), the great authority on rondeaux, Maurice

Sceve, a fertile author of blasons, Salel, Marguerite herself

(1492-1549), of whom more hereafter, and Mellin de Saint Gelais

(1491-1558). The last, son of the bishop named above, is a courtly

writer of occasional pieces, who sustained as well as he could the

_style marotique_ against Ronsard, and who has the credit of introducing

the regular sonnet into French. But the inventive vigour of the age was

so great that one school had hardly become popular before another pushed

it from its stool, and even of the Marotists just mentioned Sceve and

Salel are often regarded as chief and member respectively of a Lyonnese

coterie, intermediate between the schools of Marot and of Ronsard,

containing other members of repute such as Antoine Heroet and Charles

Fontaine and claiming Louise Labe (_v. inf._) herself. Pierre de Ronsard

(1524-1585) was the chief of this latter. At first a courtier and a

diplomatist, physical disqualification made him change his career. He

began to study the classics under Jean Daurat (1508-1588), and with his

master and five other writers, Etienne Jodelle (1532-1573), Remy Belleau

(1528-1577), Joachim du Bellay (1525-1560), Jean Antoine de Baif

(1532-1589), and Pontus de Tyard (d. 1605, bishop of Chalons-sur-Saone),

composed the famous "Pleiade." The object of this band was to bring the

French language, in vocabulary, constructions and application, on a

level with the classical tongues by borrowings from the latter. They

would have imported the Greek licence of compound words, though the

genius of the French language is but little adapted thereto; and they

wished to reproduce in French the regular tragedy, the Pindaric and

Horatian ode, the Virgilian epic, &c. But it is an error (though one

which until recently was very common, and which perhaps requires pretty

thorough study of their work completely to extirpate it) to suppose that

they advocated or practised _indiscriminate_ borrowing. On the contrary

both in du Bellay's famous manifesto, the _Deffense et illustration de

la langue francaise_, and in Ronsard's own work, caution and attention

to the genius and the tradition of French are insisted upon. Being all

men of the highest talent, and not a few of them men of great genius,

they achieved much that they designed, and even where they failed

exactly to achieve it, they very often indirectly produced results as

important and more beneficial than those which they intended. Their

ideal of a separate poetical language distinct from that intended for

prose use was indeed a doubtful if not a dangerous one. But it is

certain that Marot, while setting an example of elegance and grace not

easily to be imitated, set also an example of trivial and, so to speak,

pedestrian language which was only too imitable. If France was ever to

possess a literature containing something besides fabliaux and farces,

the tongue must be enriched and strengthened. This accession of wealth

and vigour it received from Ronsard and the Ronsardists. Doubtless they

went too far and provoked to some extent the reaction which Malherbe

led. Their importations were sometimes unnecessary. It is almost

impossible to read the _Franciade_ of Ronsard, and not too easy to read

the tragedies of Jodelle and Garnier, fine as the latter are in parts.

But the best of Ronsard's sonnets and odes, the finest of du Bellay's

_Antiquites de Rome_ (translated into English by Spenser), the exquisite

_Vanneur_ of the same author, and the _Avril_ of Belleau, even the finer

passages of d'Aubigne and du Bartas, are not only admirable in

themselves, and of a kind not previously found in French literature, but

are also such things as could not have been previously found, for the

simple reason that the medium of expression was wanting. They

constructed that medium for themselves, and no force of the reaction

which they provoked was able to undo their work. Adverse criticism and

the natural course of time rejected much that they had added. The

charming diminutives they loved so much went out of fashion; their

compounds (sometimes it must be confessed, justly) had their letters of

naturalization promptly cancelled; many a gorgeous adjective, including

some which could trace their pedigree to the earliest ages of French

literature, but which bore an unfortunate likeness to the new-comers,

was proscribed. But for all that no language has ever had its destiny

influenced more powerfully and more beneficially by a small literary

clique than the language of France was influenced by the example and

disciples of that Ronsard whom for two centuries it was the fashion to

deride and decry.

The Ronsardists.

Du Bartas.

D'Aubigne.

In a sketch such as the present it is impossible to give a separate

account of individual writers, the more important of whom will be found

treated under their own names. The effort of the "Pleiade" proper was

continued and shared by a considerable number of minor poets, some of

them, as has been already noted, belonging to different groups and

schools. Olivier de Magny (d. 1560) and Louise Labe (b. 1526) were poets

and lovers, the lady deserving far the higher rank in literature. There

is more depth of passion in the writings of "La Belle Cordiere," as this

Lyonnese poetess was called, than in almost any of her contemporaries.

Jacques Tahureau (1527-1555) scarcely deserves to be called a minor

poet. There is less than the usual hyperbole in the contemporary

comparison of him to Catullus, and he reminds an Englishman of the

school represented nearly a century later by Carew, Randolph and

Suckling. The title of a part of his poem--_Mignardises amoureuses de

l'admiree_--is characteristic both of the style and of the time. Jean

Doublet (c. 1528-c. 1580), Amadis Jamyn (c. 1530-1585), and Jean de la

Taille (1540-1608) deserve mention at least as poets, but two other

writers require a longer allusion. Guillaume de Salluste, seigneur du

Bartas (1544-1590), whom Sylvester's translation, Milton's imitation,

and the copious citations of Southey's _Doctor_, have made known if not

familiar in England, was partly a disciple and partly a rival of

Ronsard. His poem of _Judith_ was eclipsed by his better-known _La

Divine Sepmaine_ or epic of the Creation. Du Bartas was a great user and

abuser of the double compounds alluded to above, but his style possesses

much stateliness, and has a peculiar solemn eloquence which he shared

with the other French Calvinists, and which was derived from the study

partly of Calvin and partly of the Bible. Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne

(1552-1630), like du Bartas, was a Calvinist. His genius was of a more

varied character. He wrote sonnets and odes as became a Ronsardist, but

his chief poetical work is the satirical poem of _Les Tragiques_, in

which the author brands the factions, corruptions and persecutions of

the time, and in which there are to be found alexandrines of a strength,

vigour and original cadence hardly to be discovered elsewhere, save in

Corneille and Victor Hugo. Towards the end of the century, Philippe

Desportes (1546-1606) and Jean Bertaut (1552-1611), with much enfeebled

strength, but with a certain grace, continue the Ronsardizing tradition.

Among their contemporaries must be noticed Jean Passerat (1534-1602), a

writer of much wit and vigour and rather resembling Marot than Ronsard,

and Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (1536-1607), the author of a valuable _Ars

poetica_ and of the first French satires which actually bear that title.

Jean le Houx (fl. c. 1600) continued, rewrote or invented the vaux de

vire, commonly known as the work of Olivier Basselin, and already

alluded to, while a still lighter and more eccentric verse style was

cultivated by Etienne Tabourot des Accords (1549-1590), whose epigrams

and other pieces were collected under odd titles, _Les Bigarrures, Les

Touches_, &c. A curious pair are Guy du Faur de Pibrac (1529-1584) and

Pierre Mathieu (b. 1563), authors of moral quatrains, which were learnt

by heart in the schools of the time, replacing the distichs of the

grammarian Cato, which, translated into French, had served the same

purpose in the middle ages.

Regnier.

The nephew of Desportes, Mathurin Regnier (1573-1613), marks the end,

and at the same time perhaps the climax, of the poetry of the century. A

descendant at once of the older Gallic spirit of Villon and Marot, in

virtue of his consummate acuteness, terseness and wit, of the school of

Ronsard by his erudition, his command of language, and his scholarship,

Regnier is perhaps the best representative of French poetry at the

critical time when it had got together all its materials, had lost none

of its native vigour and force, and had not yet submitted to the

cramping and numbing rules and restrictions which the next century

introduced. The satirical poems of Regnier, and especially the admirable

epistle to Rapin, in which he denounces and rebuts the critical dogmas

of Malherbe, are models of nervous strength, while some of the elegies

and odes contain expression not easily to be surpassed of the softer

feelings of affection and regret. No poet has had more influence on the

revival of French poetry in the last century than Regnier, and he had

imitators in his own time, the chief of whom was Courval-Sonnet (Thomas

Sonnet, sieur de Courval) (1577-1635), author of satires of some value

for the history of manners.

Regular tragedy and comedy.

Garnier.

Larivey.

_16th-Century Drama._--The change which dramatic poetry underwent during

the 16th century was at least as remarkable as that undergone by poetry

proper. The first half of the period saw the end of the religious

mysteries, the licence of which had irritated both the parliament and

the clergy. Louis XII., at the beginning of the century, was far from

discouraging the disorderly but popular and powerful theatre in which

the Confraternity of the Passion, the clerks of the Bazoche, and the

Enfans sans souci enacted mysteries, moralities, soties and farces. He

made them, indeed, an instrument in his quarrel with the papacy, just as

Philippe le Bel had made use of the allegorical poems of Jehan de Meung

and his fellows. Under his patronage were produced the chief works of

Gringore or Gringoire (c. 1480-1547), by far the most remarkable writer

of this class of composition. His _Prince des sots_ and his _Mystere de

St Louis_ are among the best of their kind. An enormous volume of

composition of this class was produced between 1500 and 1550. One

morality by itself, _L'Homme juste et l'homme mondain_, contains some

36,000 lines. But in 1548, when the Confraternity was formally

established at the Hotel de Bourgogne, leave to play sacred subjects was

expressly refused it. Moralities and soties dragged on under

difficulties till the end of the century, and the farce, which is

immortal, continually affected comedy. But the effect of the Renaissance

was to sweep away all other vestiges of the medieval drama, at least in

the capital. An entirely new class of subjects, entirely new modes of

treatment, and a different kind of performers were introduced. The

change naturally came from Italy. In the close relationship with that

country which France had during the early years of the century, Italian

translations of the classical masterpieces were easily imported. Soon

French translations were made afresh of the _Electra_, the _Hecuba_, the

_Iphigenia in Aulis_, and the French humanists hastened to compose

original tragedies on the classical model, especially as exhibited in

the Latin tragedian Seneca. It was impossible that the "Pleiade" should

not eagerly seize such an opportunity of carrying out its principles,

and one of its members, Jodelle (1532-1573), devoting himself mainly to

dramatic composition, fashioned at once the first tragedy, _Cleopatre_,

and the first comedy, _Eugene_, thus setting the example of the style of

composition which for two centuries and a half Frenchmen were to regard

as the highest effort of literary ambition. The amateur performance of

these dramas by Jodelle and his friends was followed by a Bacchic

procession after the manner of the ancients, which caused a great deal

of scandal, and was represented by both Catholics and Protestants as a

pagan orgy. The _Cleopatre_ is remarkable as being the first French

tragedy, nor is it destitute of merit. It is curious that in this first

instance the curt antithetic [Greek: stichomuthia], which was so long

characteristic of French plays and plays imitated from them, and which

Butler ridicules in his _Dialogue of Cat and Puss_, already appears.

There appears also the grandiose and smooth but stilted declamation

which came rather from the imitation of Seneca than of Sophocles, and

the tradition of which was never to be lost. _Cleopatre_ was followed by

_Didon_, which, unlike its predecessor, is entirely in alexandrines, and

observes the regular alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes.

Jodelle was followed by Jacques Grevin (1540?-1570) with a _Mort de

Cesar_, which shows an improvement in tragic art, and two still better

comedies, _Les Ebahis_ and _La Tresoriere_ by Jean de la Taille

(1540-1608), who made still further progress towards the accepted French

dramatic pattern in his _Saul furieux_ and his _Corrivaux_, Jacques, his

brother (1541-1562), and Jean de la Peruse (1529-1554), who wrote a

_Medee_. A very different poet from all these is Robert Garnier

(1545-1601). Garnier is the first tragedian who deserves a place not too

far below Rotrou, Corneille, Racine, Voltaire and Hugo, and who may be

placed in the same class with them. He chose his subjects indifferently

from classical, sacred and medieval literature. _Sedecie_, a play

dealing with the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, is held to be

his masterpiece, and _Bradamante_ deserves notice because it is the

first tragi-comedy of merit in French, and because the famous confidant

here makes his first appearance. Garnier's successor, Antoine de

Monchretien or Montchrestien (c. 1576-1621), set the example of

dramatizing contemporary subjects. His masterpiece is _L'Ecossaise_, the

first of many dramas on the fate of Mary, queen of Scots. While tragedy

thus clings closely to antique models, comedy, as might be expected in

the country of the fabliaux, is more independent. Italy had already a

comic school of some originality, and the French farce was too vigorous

and lively a production to permit of its being entirely overlooked. The

first comic writer of great merit was Pierre Larivey (c. 1550-c. 1612),

an Italian by descent. Most if not all of his plays are founded on

Italian originals, but the translations or adaptations are made with the

greatest freedom, and almost deserve the title of original works. The

style is admirable, and the skilful management of the action contrasts

strongly with the languor, the awkward adjustment, and the lack of

dramatic interest found in contemporary tragedians. Even Moliere found

something to use in Larivey.

_16th-Century Prose Fiction._--Great as is the importance of the 16th

century in the history of French poetry, its importance in the history

of French prose is greater still. In poetry the middle ages could fairly

hold their own with any of the ages that have succeeded them. The epics

of chivalry, whether of the cycles of Charlemagne, Arthur, or the

classic heroes, not to mention the miscellaneous romans d'aventures,

have indeed more than held their own. Both relatively and absolutely the

_Franciade_ of the 16th century, the _Pucelle_ of the 17th, the

_Henriade_ of the 18th, cut a very poor figure beside _Roland_ and

_Percivale_, _Gerard de Roussillon_, and _Parthenopex de Blois_. The

romances, ballads and pastourelles, signed and unsigned, of medieval

France were not merely the origin, but in some respects the superiors,

of the lyric poetry which succeeded them. Thibaut de Champagne, Charles

d'Orleans and Villon need not veil their crests in any society of bards.

The charming forms of the rondel, the rondeau and the ballade have won

admiration from every competent poet and critic who has known them. The

fabliaux give something more than promise of La Fontaine, and the two

great compositions of the _Roman du Renart_ and the _Roman de la rose_,

despite their faults and their alloy, will always command the admiration

of all persons of taste and judgment who take the trouble to study them.

But while poetry had in the middle ages no reason to blush for her

French representatives, prose (always the younger and less forward

sister) had far less to boast of. With the exception of chronicles and

prose romances, no prose works of any real importance can be quoted

before the end of the 15th century, and even then the chief if not the

only place of importance must be assigned to the _Cent Nouvelles

Nouvelles_, a work of admirable prose, but necessarily light in

character, and not yet demonstrating the efficacy of the French language

as a medium of expression for serious and weighty thought. Up to the

time of the Renaissance and the consequent reformation, Latin had, as we

have already remarked, been considered the sufficient and natural organ

for this expression. In France as in other countries the disturbance in

religious thought may undoubtedly claim the glory of having repaired

this disgrace of the vulgar tongue, and of having fitted and taught it

to express whatever thoughts the theologian, the historian, the

philosopher, the politician and the savant had occasion to utter. But

the use of prose as a vehicle for lighter themes was more continuous

with the literature that preceded, and serves as a natural transition

from poetry and the drama to history and science. Among the prose

writers, therefore, of the 16th century we shall give the first place to

the novelists and romantic writers.

Rabelais.

Among these there can be no doubt of the precedence, in every sense of

the word, of Francois Rabelais (c. 1490-1553), the one French writer (or

with Moliere one of the two) whom critics the least inclined to

appreciate the characteristics of French literature have agreed to place

among the few greatest of the world. With an immense erudition

representing almost the whole of the knowledge of his time, with an

untiring faculty of invention, with the judgment of a philosopher, and

the common sense of a man of the world, with an observation that let no

characteristic of the time pass unobserved, and with a tenfold portion

of the special Gallic gift of good-humoured satire, Rabelais united a

height of speculation and depth of insight and a vein of poetical

imagination rarely found in any writer, but altogether portentous when

taken in conjunction with his other characteristics. His great work has

been taken for an exercise of transcendental philosophy, for a concealed

theological polemic, for an allegorical history of this and that

personage of his time, for a merely literary utterance, for an attempt

to tickle the popular ear and taste. It is all of these, and it is

none--all of them in parts, none of them in deliberate and exclusive

intention. It may perhaps be called the exposition and commentary of all

the thoughts, feelings, aspirations and knowledge of a particular time

and nation put forth in attractive literary form by a man who for once

combined the practical and the literary spirit, the power of knowledge

and the power of expression. The work of Rabelais is the mirror of the

16th century in France, reflecting at once its comeliness and its

uncomeliness, its high aspirations, its voluptuous tastes, its political

and religious dissensions, its keen criticism, its eager appetite and

hasty digestion of learning, its gleams of poetry, and its ferocity of

manners. In Rabelais we can divine the "Pleiade" and Marot, the

_Cymbalum mundi_ and Montaigne, Amyot and the _Amadis_, even Calvin and

Duperron.

Des Periers.

The Heptameron.

It was inevitable that such extraordinary works as _Gargantua_ and

_Pantagruel_ should attract special imitators in the direction of their

outward form. It was also inevitable that this imitation should

frequently fix upon these Rabelaisian characteristics which are least

deserving of imitation, and most likely to be depraved in the hands of

imitators. It fell within the plan of the master to indulge in what has

been called _fatrasie_, the huddling together, that is to say, of a

medley of language and images which is best known to English readers in

the not always successful following of Sterne. It pleased him also to

disguise his naturally terse, strong and nervous style in a burlesque

envelope of redundant language, partly ironical, partly the result of

superfluous erudition, and partly that of a certain childish wantonness

and exuberance, which is one of his raciest and pleasantest

characteristics. In both these points he was somewhat corruptly

followed. But fortunately the romancical writers of the 16th century had

not Rabelais for their sole model, but were also influenced by the

simple and straightforward style of the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_. The

joint influence gives us some admirable work. Nicholas of Troyes, a

saddler of Champagne, came too early (his _Grand Parangon des nouvelles

nouvelles_ appeared in 1536) to copy Rabelais. But Noel du Fail (d. c.

1585?), a judge at Rennes, shows the double influence in his _Propos

rustiques_ and _Contes d'Eutrapel_, both of which, especially the

former, are lively and well-written pictures of contemporary life and

thought, as the country magistrate actually saw and dealt with them. In

1558, however, appeared two works of far higher literary and social

interest. These are the _Heptameron_ of the queen of Navarre, and the

_Contes et joyeux devis_ of Bonaventure des Periers (c. 1500-1544). Des

Periers, who was a courtier of Marguerite's, has sometimes been thought

to have had a good deal to do with the first-named work as well as with

the second, and was also the author of a curious Lucianic satire,

strongly sceptical in cast, the _Cymbalum mundi_. Indeed, not merely the

queen's prose works, but also the poems gracefully entitled _Les

Marguerites de la Marguerite_, are often attributed to the literary men

whom the sister of Francis I. gathered round her. However this may be,

some single influence of power enough to give unity and distinctness of

savour evidently presided over the composition of the _Heptameron_.

Composed as it is on the model of Boccaccio, its tone and character are

entirely different, and few works have a more individual charm. The

_Tales_ of des Periers are shorter, simpler and more homely; there is

more wit in them and less refinement. But both works breathe, more

powerfully perhaps than any others, the peculiar mixture of cultivated

and poetical voluptuousness with a certain religiosity and a vigorous

spirit of action which characterizes the French Renaissance. Later in

time, but too closely connected with Rabelais in form and spirit to be

here omitted, came the _Moyen de parvenir_ of Beroalde de Verville

(1558?-1612?), a singular _fatrasie_, uniting wit, wisdom, learning and

indecency, and crammed with anecdotes which are always amusing though

rarely decorous.

Amadis of Gaul.

At the same time a fresh vogue was given to the chivalric romance by

Herberay's translation of _Amadis de Gaula_. French writers have

supposed a French original for the _Amadis_ in some lost roman

d'aventures. It is of course impossible to say that this is not the

case, but there is not one tittle of evidence to show that it is. At any

rate the adventures of Amadis were prolonged in Spanish through

generation after generation of his descendants. This vast work Herberay

des Essarts in 1540 undertook to translate or retranslate, but it was

not without the assistance of several followers that the task was

completed. Southey has charged Herberay with corrupting the simplicity

of the original, a charge which does not concern us here. It is

sufficient to say that the French _Amadis_ is an excellent piece of

literary work, and that Herberay deserves no mean place among the

fathers of French prose. His book had an immense popularity; it was

translated into many foreign languages, and for some time it served as a

favourite reading book for foreigners studying French. Nor is it to be

doubted that the romancers of the Scudery and Calprenede type in the

next century were much more influenced both for good and harm by these

Amadis romances than by any of the earlier tales of chivalry.

_16th-Century Historians._--As in the case of the tale-tellers, so in

that of the historians, the writers of the 16th century had traditions

to continue. It is doubtful indeed whether many of them can risk

comparison as artists with the great names cf Villehardouin and

Joinville, Froissart and Comines. The 16th century, however, set the

example of dividing the functions of the chronicler, setting those of

the historian proper on one side, and of the anecdote-monger and

biographer on the other. The efforts at regular history made in this

century were not of the highest value. But on the other hand the

practice of memoir-writing, in which the French were to excel every

nation in the world, and of literary correspondence, in which they were

to excel even their memoirs, was solidly founded.

One of the earliest historical writers of the century was Claude de

Seyssel (1450-1520), whose history of Louis XII. aims not unsuccessfully

at style. De Thou (1553-1617) wrote in Latin, but Bernard de Girard,

sieur du Haillan (1537-1610), composed a _Histoire de France_ on

Thucydidean principles as transmitted through the successive mediums of

Polybius, Guicciardini and Paulus Aemilius. The instance invariably

quoted, after Thierry, of du Haillan's method is his introduction, with

appropriate speeches, of two Merovingian statesmen who argue out the

relative merits of monarchy and oligarchy on the occasion of the

election of Pharamond. Besides du Haillan, la Popeliniere (c.

1540-1608), who less ambitiously attempted a history of Europe during

his own time, and expended immense labour on the collection of

information and materials, deserves mention.

Brantome.

There is no such poverty of writers of memoirs. Robert de la Mark, du

Bellay, Marguerite de Valois (the youngest or third Marguerite, first

wife of Henri IV., 1553-1615), Villars, Tavannes, La Tour d'Auvergne,

and many others composed commentaries and autobiographies. The

well-known and very agreeable _Histoire du gentil seigneur de Bayart_

(1524) is by an anonymous "Loyal Serviteur." Vincent Carloix (fl. 1550),

the secretary of the marshal de Vielleville, composed some memoirs

abounding in detail and incident. The _Lettres_ of Cardinal d'Ossat

(1536-1604) and the _Negociations_ of Pierre Jeannin (1540-1622) have

always had a high place among documents of their kind. But there are

four collections of memoirs concerning this time which far exceed all

others in interest and importance. The turbulent dispositions of the

time, the loose dependence of the nobles and even the smaller gentry on

any single or central authority, the rapid changes of political

situations, and the singularly active appetite, both for pleasure and

for business, for learning and for war, which distinguished the French

gentleman of the 16th century, place the memoirs of Francois de Lanoue

(1531-1591), Blaise de Mon[t]luc (1503-1577), Agrippa d'Aubigne and

Pierre de Bourdeille[s] Brantome (1540-1614) almost at the head of the

literature of their class. The name of Brantome is known to all who have

the least tincture of French literature, and the works of the others are

not inferior in interest, and perhaps superior in spirit and conception,

to the _Dames Galantes_, the _Grands Capitaines_ and the _Hommes

illustres_. The commentaries of Montluc, which Henri Quatre is said to

have called the soldier's Bible, are exclusively military and deal with

affairs only. Montluc was governor in Guienne, where he repressed the

savage Huguenots of the south with a savagery worse than their own. He

was, however, a partisan of order, not of Catholicism. He hung and shot

both parties with perfect impartiality, and refused to have anything to

do with the massacre of St Bartholomew. Though he was a man of no

learning, his style is excellent, being vivid, flexible and

straightforward. Lanoue, who was a moderate in politics, has left his

principles reflected in his memoirs. D'Aubigne, so often to be

mentioned, gives the extreme Huguenot side as opposed to the royalist

partisanship of Montluc and the _via media_ of Lanoue. Brantome, on the

other hand, is quite free from any political or religious

prepossessions, and, indeed, troubles himself very little about any such

matters. He is the shrewd and somewhat cynical observer, moving through

the crowd and taking note of its ways, its outward appearance, its

heroisms and its follies. It is really difficult to say whether the

recital of a noble deed of arms or the telling of a scandalous story

about a court lady gave him the most pleasure, and impossible to say

which he did best. Certainly he had ample material for both exercises in

the history of his time.

The branches of literature of which we have just given an account may be

fairly connected, from the historical point of view, with work of the

same kind that went before as well as with work of the same kind that

followed them. It was not so with the literature of theology, law,

politics and erudition, which the 16th century also produced, and with

which it for the first time enlarged the range of composition in the

vulgar tongue. Not only had Latin been invariably adopted as the

language of composition on such subjects, but the style of the treatises

dealing with such matters had been traditional rather than original. In

speculative philosophy or metaphysics proper even this century did not

witness a great development; perhaps, indeed, such a development was not

to be expected until the minds of men had in some degree settled down

from their agitation on more practical matters. It is not without

significance that Calvin (1509-1564) is the great figure in serious

French prose in the first half of the century, Montaigne the

corresponding figure in the second half. After Calvin and Montaigne we

expect Descartes.

Calvin.

_16th-Century Theologians._--In France, as in all other countries, the

Reformation was an essentially popular movement, though from special

causes, such as the absence of political homogeneity, the nobles took a

more active part both with pen and sword in it than was the case in

England. But the great textbook of the French Reformation was not the

work of any noble. Jean Calvin's _Institution of the Christian Religion_

is a book equally remarkable in matter and in form, in circumstances and

in result. It is the first really great composition in argumentative

French prose. Its severe logic and careful arrangement had as much

influence on the manner of future thought, both in France and the other

regions whither its widespread popularity carried it, as its style had

on the expression of such thought. It was the work of a man of only

seven-and-twenty, and it is impossible to exaggerate the originality of

its manner when we remember that hardly any models of French prose then

existed except tales and chronicles, which required and exhibited

totally different qualities of style. It is indeed probable that had not

the _Institution_ been first written by its author in Latin, and

afterwards translated by him, it might have had less dignity and vigour;

but it must at the same time be remembered that this process of

composition was at least equally likely, in the hands of any but a great

genius, to produce a heavy and pedantic style neither French nor Latin

in character. Something like this result was actually produced in some

of Calvin's minor works, and still more in the works of many of his

followers, whose lumbering language gained for itself, in allusion to

their exile from France, the title of "style refugie." Nevertheless, the

use of the vulgar tongue on the Protestant side, and the possession of a

work of such importance written therein, gave the Reformers an immense

advantage which their adversaries were some time in neutralizing. Even

before the _Institution_, Lefevre d'Etaples (1455-1537) and Guillaume

Farel (1489-1565) saw and utilized the importance of the vernacular.

Calvin (1509-1564) was much helped by Pierre Viret (1511-1571), who

wrote a large number of small theological and moral dialogues, and of

satirical pamphlets, destined to captivate as well as to instruct the

lower people. The more famous Beza (Theodore de Beze) (1519-1605) wrote

chiefly in Latin, but he composed in French an ecclesiastical history of

the Reformed churches and some translations of the Psalms. Marnix de

Sainte Aldegonde (1530-1593), a gentleman of Brabant, followed Viret as

a satirical pamphleteer on the Protestant side. On the other hand, the

Catholic champions at first affected to disdain the use of the vulgar

tongue, and their pamphleteers, when they did attempt it, were unequal

to the task. Towards the end of the century a more decent war was waged

with Philippe du Plessis Mornay (1549-1623) on the Protestant side,

whose work is at least as much directed against freethinkers and enemies

of Christianity in general as against the dogmas and discipline of Rome.

His adversary, the redoubtable Cardinal du Perron (1556-1618), who,

originally a Calvinist, went over to the other side, employed French

most vigorously in controversial works, chiefly with reference to the

eucharist. Du Perron was celebrated as the first controversialist of the

time, and obtained dialectical victories over all comers. At the same

time the bishop of Geneva, St Francis of Sales (1567-1622), supported

the Catholic side, partly by controversial works, but still more by his

devotional writings. The _Introduction to a Devout Life_, which, though

actually published early in the next century, had been written some time

previously, shares with Calvin's _Institution_ the position of the most

important theological work of the period, and is in remarkable contrast

with it in style and sentiment as well as in principles and plan. It has

indeed been accused of a certain effeminacy, the appearance of which is

in all probability mainly due to this very contrast. The 16th century

does not, like the 17th, distinguish itself by literary exercises in the

pulpit. The furious preachers of the League, and their equally violent

opponents, have no literary value.

Montaigne.

_16th-Century Moralists and Political Writers._--The religious

dissensions and political disturbances of the time could not fail to

exert an influence on ethical and philosophical thought. Yet, as we have

said, the century was not prolific of pure philosophical speculation.

The scholastic tradition, though long sterile, still survived, and with

it the habit of composing in Latin all works in any way connected with

philosophy. The _Logic_ of Ramus in 1555 is cited as the first departure

from this rule. Other philosophical works are few, and chiefly express

the doubt and the freethinking which were characteristic of the time.

This doubt assumes the form of positive religious scepticism only in the

_Cymbalum mundi_ of Bonaventure des Periers, a remarkable series of

dialogues which excited a great storm, and ultimately drove the author

to commit suicide. The _Cymbalum mundi_ is a curious anticipation of the

18th century. The literature of doubt, however, was to receive its

principal accession in the famous essays of Michel Eyguem, seigneur de

Montaigne (1533-1592). It would be a mistake to imagine the existence of

any sceptical propaganda in this charming and popular book. Its

principle is not scepticism but egotism; and as the author was

profoundly sceptical, this quality necessarily rather than intentionally

appears. We have here to deal only very superficially with this as with

other famous books, but it cannot be doubted that it expresses the

mental attitude of the latter part of the century as completely as

Rabelais expresses the mental attitude of the early part. There is

considerably less vigour and life in this attitude. Inquiry and protest

have given way to a placid conviction that there is not much to be found

out, and that it does not much matter; the erudition though abundant is

less indiscriminate, and is taken in and given out with less gusto;

exuberant drollery has given way to quiet irony; and though neither

business nor pleasure is decried, both are regarded rather as useful

pastimes incident to the life of man than with the eager appetite of the

Renaissance. From the purely literary point of view, the style is

remarkable from its absence of pedantry In construction, and yet for its

rich vocabulary and picturesque brilliancy. The follower and imitator of

Montaigne, Pierre Charron (1541-1603), carried his master's scepticism

to a somewhat more positive degree. His principal book, _De la sagesse_,

scarcely deserves the comparative praise which Pope has given it. On the

other hand Guillaume du Vair (1556-1621), a lawyer and orator, takes the

positive rather than the negative side in morality, and regards the

vicissitudes in human affairs from the religious and theological point

of view in a series of works characterized by the special merit of the

style of great orators.

The revolutionary and innovating instinct which showed itself in the

16th century with reference to church government and doctrine spread

naturally enough to political matters. The intolerable disorder of the

religious wars naturally set the thinkers of the age speculating on the

doctrines of government in general. The favourite and general study of

antiquity helped this tendency, and the great accession of royal power

in all the monarchies of Europe invited a speculative if not a practical

reaction. The persecutions of the Protestants naturally provoked a

republican spirit among them, and the violent antipathy of the League to

the houses of Valois and Bourbon made its partisans adopt almost openly

the principles of democracy and tyrannicide.

Bodin.

The greatest political writer of the age is Jean Bodin (1530-1596),

whose _Republique_ is founded partly on speculative considerations like

the political theories of the ancients, and partly on an extended

historical inquiry. Bodin, like most lawyers who have taken the royalist

side, is for unlimited monarchy, but notwithstanding this, he condemns

religious persecution and discourages slavery. In his speculations on

the connexion between forms of government and natural causes, he serves

as a link between Aristotle and Montesquieu. On the other hand, the

causes which we have mentioned made a large number of writers adopt

opposite conclusions. Etienne de la Boetie (1530-1563), the friend of

Montaigne's youth, composed the _Contre un or Discours de la servitude

volontaire_, a protest against the monarchical theory. The boldness of

the protest and the affectionate admiration of Montaigne have given la

Boetie a much higher reputation than any extant work of his actually

deserves. The _Contre un_ is a kind of prize essay, full of empty

declamation borrowed from the ancients, and showing no grasp of the

practical conditions of politics. Not much more historically based, but

far more vigorous and original, is the _Franco-Gallia_ of Francois

Hotmann (1524-1590), a work which appeared both in Latin and French,

which extols the authority of the states-general, represents them as

direct successors of the political institutions of Gauls and Franks, and

maintains the right of insurrection. In the last quarter of the century

political animosity knew no bounds. The Protestants beheld a divine

instrument in Poltrot de Mere, the Catholics in Jacques Clement. The

Latin treatises of Hubert Languet (1518-1581) and Buchanan formally

vindicated--the first, like Hotmann, the right of rebellion based on an

original contract between prince and people, the second the right of

tyrannicide. Indeed, as Montaigne confesses, divine authorization for

political violence was claimed and denied by both parties according as

the possession or the expectancy of power belonged to each, and the

excesses of the preachers and pamphleteers knew no bounds.

Satire Menippee.

Every one, however, was not carried away. The literary merits of the

chancellor Michel de l'Hopital (1507-1573) are not very great, but his

efforts to promote peace and moderation were unceasing. On the other

side Lanoue, with far greater literary gifts, pursued the same ends, and

pointed out the ruinous consequences of continued dissension. Du Plessis

Mornay took a part in political discussion even more important than that

which he bore in religious polemics, and was of the utmost service to

Henri Quatre in defending his cause against the League, as was also

Hurault, another author of state papers. Du Vair, already mentioned,

powerfully assisted the same cause by his successful defence of the

Salic law, the disregard of which by the Leaguer states-general was

intended to lead to the admission of the Spanish claim to the crown. But

the foremost work against the League was the famous _Satire Menippee_

(1594), in a literary point of view one of the most remarkable of

political books. The _Menippee_ was the work of no single author, but

was due, it is said, to the collaboration of five, Pierre Leroi, who has

the credit of the idea, Jacques Gillot, Florent Chretien, Nicolas Rapin

(1541-1596) and Pierre Pithou (1539-1596), with some assistance in verse

from Passerat and Gilles Durand. The book is a kind of burlesque report

of the meeting of the states-general, called for the purpose of

supporting the views of the League in 1593. It gives an account of the

procession of opening, and then we have the supposed speeches of the

principal characters--the duc de Mayenne, the papal legate, the rector

of the university (a ferocious Leaguer) and others. But by far the most

remarkable is that attributed to Claude d'Aubray, the leader of the

_Tiers Etat_, and said to be written by Pithou, in which all the evils

of the time and the malpractices of the leaders of the League are

exposed and branded. The satire is extraordinarily bitter and yet

perfectly good-humoured. It resembles in character rather that of

Butler, who unquestionably imitated it, than any other. The style is

perfectly suited to the purpose, having got rid of almost all vestiges

of the cumbrousness of the older tongue without losing its picturesque

quaintness. It is no wonder that, as we are told by contemporaries, it

did more for Henri Quatre than all other writings in his cause. In

connexion with politics some mention of legal orators and writers may be

necessary. In 1539 the ordinance of Villers-Cotterets enjoined the

exclusive use of the French language in legal procedure. The bar and

bench of France during the century produced, however, besides those

names already mentioned in other connexions, only one deserving of

special notice, that of Etienne Pasquier (1529-1615), author of a

celebrated speech against the right of the Jesuits to take part in

public teaching. This he inserted in his great work, _Recherches de la

France_, a work dealing with almost every aspect of French history

whether political, antiquarian or literary.

Amyot.

_16th-Century Savants._--One more division, and only one, that of

scientific and learned writers pure and simple, remains. Much of the

work of this kind during the period was naturally done in Latin, the

vulgar tongue of the learned. But in France, as in other countries, the

study of the classics led to a vast number of translations, and it so

happened that one of the translators deserves as a prose writer a rank

among the highest. Many of the authors already mentioned contributed to

the literature of translation. Des Periers translated the Platonic

dialogue _Lysis_, la Boetie some works of Xenophon and Plutarch, du Vair

the _De corona_, the _In Ctesiphontem_ and the _Pro Milone_. Salel

attempted the _Iliad_, Belleau the false _Anacreon_, Baif some plays of

Plautus and Terence. Besides these Lefevre d'Etaples gave a version of

the Bible, Saliat one of Herodotus, and Louis Leroi (1510-1577), not to

be confounded with the part author of the _Menippee_, many works of

Plato, Aristotle and other Greek writers. But while most if not all of

these translators owed the merits of their work to their originals, and

deserved, much more deserve, to be read only by those to whom those

originals are sealed, Jacques Amyot (1513-1593), bishop of Auxerre,

takes rank as a French classic by his translations of Plutarch, Longus

and Heliodorus. The admiration which Amyot excited in his own time was

immense. Montaigne declares that it was thanks to him that his

contemporaries knew how to speak and to write, and the Academy in the

next age, though not too much inclined to honour its predecessors,

ranked him as a model. His Plutarch, which had an enormous influence at

the time, and coloured perhaps more than any classic the thoughts and

writings of the 16th century, both in French and English, was then

considered his masterpiece. Nowadays perhaps, and from the purely

literary standpoint, that position would be assigned to his exquisite

version of the exquisite story of Daphnis and Chloe. It is needless to

say that absolute fidelity and exact scholarship are not the pre-eminent

merits of these versions. They are not philological exercises, but works

of art.

On the other hand, Claude Fauchet (1530-1601) in two antiquarian works,

_Antiquites gauloises et francoises_ and _L'Origine de la langue et de

la poesie francaise_, displays a remarkable critical faculty in sweeping

away the fables which had encumbered history. Fauchet had the (for his

time) wonderful habit of consulting manuscripts, and we owe to him

literary notices of many of the trouveres. At the same time Francois

Grude, sieur de la Croix du Maine (1552-1592), and Antoine Duverdier

(1544-1600) founded the study of bibliography in France. Pasquier's

_Recherches_, already alluded to, carries out the principles of Fauchet

independently, and besides treating the history of the past in a true

critical spirit, supplies us with voluminous and invaluable information

on contemporary politics and literature. He has, moreover, the merit

which Fauchet had not, of being an excellent writer. Henri Estienne

[Stephanus] (1528-1598) also deserves notice in this place, both for

certain treatises on the French language, full of critical crotchets,

and also for his curious _Apologie pour Herodote_, a remarkable book not

particularly easy to class. It consists partly of a defence of its

nominal subject, partly of satirical polemics on the Protestant side,

and is filled almost equally with erudition and with the buffoonery and

_fatrasie_ of the time. The book, indeed, was much too Rabelaisian to

suit the tastes of those in whose defence it was composed.

The 16th century is somewhat too early for us to speak of science, and

such science as was then composed falls for the most part outside French

literature. The famous potter, Bernard Palissy (1510-1590), however, was

not much less skilful as a fashioner of words than as a fashioner of

pots, and his description of the difficulties of his experiments in

enamelling, which lasted sixteen years, is well known. The great surgeon

Ambrose Pare (c. 1510-1590) was also a writer, and his descriptions of

his military experiences at Turin, Metz and elsewhere have all the charm

of the 16th-century memoir. The only other writers who require special

mention are Olivier de Serres (1539-1619), who composed, under the title

of _Theatre d'agriculture_, a complete treatise on the various

operations of rural economy, and Jacques du Fouilloux (1521-1580), who

wrote on hunting (_La Venerie_). Both became extremely popular and were

frequently reprinted.

Malherbe.

_17th-Century Poetry._--It is not always easy or possible to make the

end or the beginning of a literary epoch synchronize exactly with

historical dates. It happens, however, that for once the beginning of

the 17th century coincides almost exactly with an entire revolution in

French literature. The change of direction and of critical standard

given by Francois de Malherbe (1556-1628) to poetry was to last for two

whole centuries, and to determine, not merely the language and

complexion, but also the form of French verse during the whole of that

time. Accidentally, or as a matter of logical consequence (it would not

be proper here to attempt to decide the question), poetry became almost

synonymous with drama. It is true, as we shall have to point out, that

there were, in the early part of the 17th century at least, poets,

properly so called, of no contemptible merit. But their merit, in itself

respectable, sank in comparison with the far greater merit of their

dramatic rivals. Theophile de Viau and Racan, Voiture and Saint-Amant

cannot for a moment be mentioned in the same rank with Corneille. It is

certainly curious, if it is not something more than curious, that this

decline in poetry proper should have coincided with the so-called

reforms of Malherbe. The tradition of respect for this elder and more

gifted Boileau was at one time all-powerful in France, and,

notwithstanding the Romantic movement, is still strong. In rejecting a

large number of the importations of the Ronsardists, he certainly did

good service. But it is difficult to avoid ascribing in great measure to

his influence the origin of the chief faults of modern French poetry,

and modern French in general, as compared with the older language. He

pronounced against "poetic diction" as such, forbade the overlapping

(_enjambement_) of verse, insisted that the middle pause should be of

sense as well as sound, and that rhyme must satisfy eye as well as ear.

Like Pope, he sacrificed everything to "correctness," and, unluckily for

French, the sacrifice was made at a time when no writer of an absolutely

supreme order had yet appeared in the language. With Shakespeare and

Milton, not to mention scores of writers only inferior to them, safely

garnered, Pope and his followers could do us little harm. Corneille and

Moliere unfortunately came after Malherbe. Yet it would be unfair to

this writer, however badly we may think of his influence, to deny him

talent, and even a certain amount of poetical inspiration. He had not

felt his own influence, and the very influences which he despised and

proscribed produced in him much tolerable and some admirable verse,

though he is not to be named as a poet with Regnier, who had the

courage, the sense and the good taste to oppose and ridicule his

innovations. Of Malherbe's school, Honorat de Bueil, marquis de Racan

(1589-1670), and Francois de Maynard (1582-1646) were the most

remarkable. The former was a true poet, though not a very strong one.

Like his master, he is best when he follows the models whom that master

contemned. Perhaps more than any other poet, he set the example of the

classical alexandrine, the smooth and melodious but monotonous and

rather effeminate measure which Racine was to bring to the highest

perfection, and which his successors, while they could not improve its

smoothness, were to make more and more monotonous until the genius of

Victor Hugo once more broke up its facile polish, supplied its stiff

uniformity, and introduced vigour, variety, colour and distinctness in

the place of its feeble sameness and its pale indecision. But the

vigour, not to say the licence, of the 16th century could not thus die

all at once. In Theophile de Viau (1591-1626) the early years of the

17th century had their Villon. The later poet was almost as unfortunate

as the earlier, and almost as disreputable, but he had a great share of

poetical and not a small one of critical power. The _etoile enragee_

under which he complains that he was born was at least kind to him in

this respect; and his readers, after he had been forgotten for two

centuries, have once more done him justice. Racan and Theophile were

followed in the second quarter of the century by two schools which

sufficiently well represented the tendencies of each. The first was that

of Vincent Voiture (1598-1648), Isaac de Benserade (1612-1691), and

other poets such as Claude de Maleville (1597-1647), author of _La Belle

Matineuse_, who were connected more or less with the famous literary

coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Theophile was less worthily

succeeded by a class, it can hardly be called a school of poets, some of

whom, like Gerard Saint-Amant (1594-1660), wrote drinking songs of merit

and other light pieces; others, like Paul Scarron (1610-1660) and

Sarrasin (1603? 4? 5?-1654), devoted themselves rather to burlesque of

serious verse. Most of the great dramatic authors of the time also wrote

miscellaneous poetry, and there was even an epic school of the most

singular kind, in ridiculing and discrediting which Boileau for once did

undoubtedly good service. The _Pucelle_ of Jean Chapelain (1595-1674),

the unfortunate author who was deliberately trained and educated for a

poet, who enjoyed for some time a sort of dictatorship in French

literature on the strength of his forthcoming work, and at whom from the

day of its publication every critic of French literature has agreed to

laugh, was the most famous and perhaps the worst of these. But Georges

de Scudery (1601-1667) wrote an _Alaric_, the Pere le Moyne (1602-1671)

a _Saint Louis_, Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (1595-1676), a dramatist

and critic of some note, a _Clovis_, and Saint-Amant a _Moise_, which

were not much better, though Theophile Gautier in his _Grotesques_ has

valiantly defended these and other contemporary versifiers. And indeed

it cannot be denied that even the epics, especially _Saint Louis_,

contain flashes of finer poetry than France was to produce for more than

a century outside of the drama. Some of the lighter poets and classes of

poetry just alluded to also produced some remarkable verse. The

_Precieuses_ of the Hotel Rambouillet, with all their absurdities,

encouraged if they did not produce good literary work. In their society

there is no doubt that a great reformation of manners took place, if not

of morals, and that the tendency to literature elegant and polished, yet

not destitute of vigour, which marks the 17th century, was largely

developed side by side with much scandal-mongering and anecdotage. Many

of the authors whom these influences inspired, such as Voiture,

Saint-Evremond and others, have been or will be noticed. But even such

poets and wits as Antoine Baudouin de Senece (1643-1737), Jean de

Segrais (1624-1701), Charles Faulure de Ris, sieur de Charleval

(1612-1693), Antoine Godeau (1605-1672), Jean Ogier de Gombaud

(1590-1666), are not without interest in the history of literature;

while if Charles Cotin (1604-1682) sinks below this level and deserves

Moliere's caricature of him as Trissotin in _Les Femmes savantes_,

Gilles de Menage (1630-1692) certainly rises above it, notwithstanding

the companion satire of Vadius. Menage's name naturally suggests the

_Ana_ which arose at this time and were long fashionable, stores of

endless gossip, sometimes providing instruction and often amusement. The

_Guirlande de Julie_, in which most of the poets of the time celebrated

Julie d'Angennes, daughter of the marquise de Rambouillet, is perhaps

the best of all such albums, and Voiture, the typical poet of the

coterie, was certainly the best writer of _vers de societe_ who is known

to us. The poetical war which arose between the Uranistes, the followers

of Voiture, and the Jobistes, those of Benserade, produced reams of

sonnets, epigrams and similar verses. This habit of occasional

versification continued long. It led as a less important consequence to

the rhymed _Gazettes_ of Jean Loret (d. 1665), which recount in

octosyllabic verse of a light and lively kind the festivals and court

events of the early years of Louis XIV. It led also to perhaps the most

remarkable non-dramatic poetry of the century, the _Contes_ and _Fables_

of Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695). No French writer is better known

than la Fontaine, and there is no need to dilate on his merits. It has

been well said that he completes Moliere, and that the two together give

something to French literature which no other literature possesses. Yet

la Fontaine is after all only a writer of fabliaux, in the language and

with the manners of his own century.

All the writers we have mentioned belong more or less to the first half

of the century, and so do Valentin Conrart (1603-1675), Antoine

Furetiere (1626-1688), Chapelle (Claude Emmanuel) l'Huillier

(1626-1686), and others not worth special mention. The latter half of

the century is far less productive, and the poetical quality of its

production is even lower than the quantity. In it Boileau (1636-1711) is

the chief poetical figure. Next to him can only be mentioned Madame

Deshoulieres (1638-1694), Guillaume de Brebeuf (1618-1661), the

translator of Lucan, Philippe Quinault (1635-1688), the composer of

opera libretti. Boileau's satire, where it has much merit, is usually

borrowed direct from Horace. He had a certain faculty as a critic of the

slashing order, and might have profitably used it if he had written in

prose. But of his poetry it must be said, not so much that it is bad, as

that it is not, in strictness, poetry at all, and the same is generally

true of all those who followed him.

Hardy.

Rotrou.

Corneille.

Moliere.

Racine.

The Academy.