Chamfort. Rivarol.
_18th-Century Theology._--To devote a section to the history of the
theological literature of the 18th century in France may seem something
of a contradiction; for, indeed, all or most of such literature was
anti-theological. The magnificent list of names which the church had been
able to claim on her side in the 17th century was exhausted before the
end of the second quarter of the 18th with Massillon, and none came to
fill their place. Very rarely has orthodoxy been so badly defended as at
this time. The literary championship of the church was entirely in the
hands of the Jesuits, and of a few disreputable literary freelances like
Elie Freron (1719-1776) and Pierre Francois Guyot, abbe Desfontaines
(1685-1745). The Jesuits were learned enough, and their principal
journal, that of Trevoux, was conducted with much vigour and a great deal
of erudition. But they were in the first place discredited by the moral
taint which has always hung over Jesuitism, and in the second place by
the persecutions of the Jansenists and the Protestants, which were
attributed to their influence. But one single work on the orthodox side
has preserved the least reputation; while, on the other hand, the names
of Pere Nonotte (1711-1793) and several of his fellows have been
enshrined unenviably in the imperishable ridicule of Voltaire, one only
of whose adversaries, the abbe Antoine Guenee (1717-1803), was able to
meet him in the _Lettres de quelques Juifs_ with something like his own
weapons. It has never been at all accurately decided how far what may be
called the scoffing school of Voltaire represents a direct revolt against
Christianity, and how far it was merely a kind of guerilla warfare
against the clergy. It is positively certain that Voltaire was not an
atheist, and that he did not approve of atheism. But his _Dictionnaire
philosophique_, which is typical of a vast amount of contemporary and
subsequent literature, consists of a heterogeneous assemblage of articles
directed against various points of dogma and ritual and various
characteristics of the sacred records. From the literary point of view,
it is one of the most characteristic of all Voltaire's works, though it
is perhaps not entirely his. The desultory arrangement, the light and
lively style, the extensive but not always too accurate erudition, and
the somewhat captious and quibbling objections, are intensely Voltairian.
But there is little seriousness about it, and certainly no kind of
rancorous or deep-seated hostility. With many, however, of Voltaire's
pupils and younger contemporaries the case was altered. They were
distinctively atheists and anti-supernaturalists. The atheism of Diderot,
unquestionably the greatest of them all, has been keenly debated; but in
the case of Etienne Damilaville (1723-1768), Jacques Andre Naigeon
(1738-1810), Paul Henri Dietrich, baron d'Holbach, and others there is no
room for doubt. By these persons a great mass of atheistic and
anti-Christian literature was composed and set afloat. The characteristic
work of this school, its last word indeed, is the famous _Systeme de la
nature_, attributed to Holbach (1723-1789), but known to be, in part at
least, the work of Diderot. In this remarkable work, which caps the
climax of the metaphysical materialism or rather nihilism of the century,
the atheistic position is clearly put. It made an immense sensation; and
it so fluttered not merely the orthodox but the more moderate
freethinkers, that Frederick of Prussia and Voltaire, perhaps the most
singular pair of defenders that orthodoxy ever had, actually set
themselves to refute it. Its style and argument are very unequal, as
books written in collaboration are apt to be, and especially books in
which Diderot, the paragon of inequality, had a hand. But there is an
almost entire absence of the heterogeneous assemblage of anecdotes, jokes
good and bad, scraps of accurate or inaccurate physical science, and
other incongruous matter with which the Philosophes were wont to stuff
their works; and lastly, there is in the best passages a kind of sombre
grandeur which recalls the manner as well as the matter of Lucretius. It
is perhaps well to repeat, in the case of so notorious a book, that this
criticism is of a purely literary and formal character; but there is
little doubt that the literary merits of the work considerably assisted
its didactic influence. As the Revolution approached, and the victory of
the Philosophe party was declared, there appeared for a brief space a
group of cynical and accomplished phrase-makers presenting some
similarity to that of which, a hundred years before, Saint-Evremond was
the most prominent figure. The chief of this group were Nicolas Chamfort
(1747-1794) on the republican side, and Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801) on
that of the royalists. Like the older writer to whom we have compared
them, neither can be said to have produced any one work of eminence, and
in this they stand distinguished from moralists like La Rochefoucauld.
The floating sayings, however, which are attributed to them, or which
occur here and there in their miscellaneous work, yield in no respect to
those of the most famous of their predecessors in wit and a certain kind
of wisdom, though they are frequently more personal than aphoristic.
Helvetius.
Thomas.
Vauvenargues.
_18th-Century Moralists and Politicians._--Not the least part, however,
of the energy of the period in thought and writing was devoted to
questions of a directly moral and political kind. With regard to
morality proper the favourite doctrine of the century was what is
commonly called the selfish theory, the only one indeed which was
suitable to the sensationalism of Condillac and the materialism of
Holbach. The pattern book of this doctrine was the _De l'esprit_ of
Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771), the most amusing book perhaps which
ever pretended to the title of a solemn philosophical treatise. There is
some analogy between the principles of this work and those of the
_Systeme de la nature_. With the inconsistency--some would say with the
questionable honesty--which distinguished the more famous members of the
Philosophe party when their disciples spoke with what they considered
imprudent outspokenness, Voltaire and even Diderot attacked Helvetius as
the former afterwards attacked Holbach. But whatever may be the general
value of _De l'esprit_, it is full of acuteness, though that acuteness
is as desultory and disjointed as its style. As Helvetius may be taken
as the representative author of the cynical school, so perhaps Alexandre
Gerard Thomas (1732-1785) may be taken as representative of the votaries
of noble sentiment to whom we have also alluded. The works of Thomas
chiefly took the form of academic _eloges_ or formal panegyrics, and
they have all the defects, both in manner and substance, which are
associated with that style. Of yet a third school, corresponding in form
to La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyere, and possessed of some of the antique
vigour of preceding centuries, was Luc de Clapiers, marquis de
Vauvenargues (1715-1747). This writer, who died very young, has produced
maxims and reflections of considerable mental force and literary finish.
From Voltaire downwards it has been usual to compare him with Pascal,
from whom he is chiefly distinguished by a striking but somewhat empty
stoicism. Between the moralists, of whom we have taken these three as
examples, and the politicians may be placed Rousseau, who in his novels
and miscellaneous works is of the first class, in his famous _Contrat
social_ of the second. All his theories, whatever their originality and
whatever their value, were made novel and influential by the force of
their statement and the literary beauties of its form. Of direct and
avowed political writings there were few during the century, and none of
anything like the importance of the _Contrat social_, theoretical
acceptance of the established French constitution being a point of
necessity with all Frenchmen. Nevertheless it may be said that almost
the whole of the voluminous writings of the Philosophes, even of those
who, like Voltaire, were sincerely aristocratic and monarchic in
predilection, were of more or less veiled political significance. There
was one branch of political writing, moreover, which could be indulged
in without much fear. Political economy and administrative theories
received much attention. The earliest writer of eminence on these
subjects was the great engineer Sebastien le Prestre, marquis de Vauban
(1633-1707), whose _Oisivetes_ and _Dime royale_ exhibit both great
ability and extensive observation. A more utopian economist of the same
time was Charles Irenee Castel, abbe de Saint-Pierre (1658-1743), not to
be confounded with the author of _Paul et Virginie_. Soon political
economy in the hands of Francois Quesnay (1694-1774) took a regular
form, and towards the middle of the century a great number of works on
questions connected with it, especially that of free trade in corn, on
which Ferdinand Galiani (1728-1787), Andre Morellet (1727-1819), both
abbes, and above all Turgot, distinguished themselves. Of writers on
legal subjects and of the legal profession, the century, though not less
fertile than in other directions, produced few or none of any great
importance from the literary point of view. The chief name which in this
connexion is known is that of Chancellor Henri Francois d'Aguesseau
(1668-1751), at the beginning of the century, an estimable writer of the
Port Royal school, who took the orthodox side in the great disputes of
the time, but failed to display any great ability therein. He was, as
became his profession, more remarkable as an orator than a writer, and
his works contain valuable testimonies to the especially perturbed and
unquiet condition of his century--a disquiet which is perhaps also its
chief literary note. There were other French magistrates, such as
Montesquieu, Henault (1685-1770), de Brosses (1706-1773) and others, who
made considerable mark in literature; but it was usually (except in the
case of Montesquieu) in subjects not even indirectly connected with
their profession. The _Esprit des lois_ stands alone; but as an example
of work barristerial in kind, famous partly for political reasons but of
some real literary merit, we may mention the _Memoire_ for Calas written
by J. B. J. Elie de Beaumont (1732-1786).
_18th-century Criticism and Periodical Literature._--We have said that
literary criticism assumes in this century a sufficient importance to be
treated under a separate heading. Contributions were made to it of many
different kinds and from many different points of view. Periodical
literature, the chief stimulus to its production, began more and more to
come into favour. Even in the 17th century the _Journal des savants_,
the Jesuit _Journal de Trevoux_, and other publications had set the
example of different kinds of it. Just before the Revolution the
_Gazette de France_ was in the hands of J. B. A. Suard (1734-1817), a
man who was nothing if not a literary critic. Perhaps, however, the most
remarkable contribution of the century to criticism of the periodical
kind was the _Feuilles de Grimm_, a circular sent for many years to the
German courts by Frederic Melchior Grimm (1723-1807), the comrade of
Diderot and Rousseau, and containing a _compte rendu_ of the ways and
works of Paris, literary and artistic as well as social. These _Leaves_
not only include much excellent literary criticism by Diderot, but also
gave occasion to the incomparable _salons_ or accounts of the exhibition
of pictures from the same hand, essays which founded the art of picture
criticism, and which have hardly been surpassed since. The prize
competitions of the Academy were also a considerable stimulus to
literary criticism, though the prevailing taste in such compositions
rather inclined to elegant themes than to careful studies of analyses.
The most characteristic critic of the mid-century was the abbe Charles
Batteux (1713-1780) who illustrated a tendency of the time by beginning
with a treatise on _Les Beaux Arts reduits a un meme principe_ (1746);
reduced it and others into _Principes de la litterature_ (1764) and
added in 1771 _Les Quatres Poetiques_ (Aristotle, Horace, Vida and
Boileau). Batteux is a very ingenious critic and his attempt to
conciliate "taste" and "the rules," though inadequate, is interesting.
Works on the arts in general or on special divisions of them were not
wanting, as, for instance, that of Dubos before alluded to, the _Essai
sur la peinture_ of Diderot and others. Critically annotated editions of
the great French writers also came into fashion, and were no longer
written by mere pedants. Of these Voltaire's edition of Corneille was
the most remarkable, and his annotations, united separately under the
title of _Commentaire sur Corneille_, form not the least important
portion of his works. Even older writers, looked down upon though they
were by the general taste of the day, received a share of this critical
interest. In the earlier portion of the century Nicolas
Lenglet-Dufresnoy (1674-1755) and Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-1728)
devoted their attention to Rabelais, Regnier, Villon, Marot and others.
Etienne Barbazan (1696-1770) and P. J. B. Le Grand d'Aussy (1737-1800)
gathered and brought into notice the long scattered and unknown rather
than neglected fabliaux of the middle ages. Even the chansons de geste
attracted the notice of the Comte de Caylus (1692-1765) and the Comte de
Tressan (1705-1783). The latter, in his _Bibliotheque des romans_,
worked up a large number of the old epics into a form suited to the
taste of the century. In his hands they became lively tales of the kind
suited to readers of Voltaire and Crebillon. But in this travestied form
they had considerable influence both in France and abroad. By these
publications attention was at least called to early French literature,
and when it had been once called, a more serious and appreciative study
became merely a matter of time. The method of much of the literary
criticism of the close of this period was indeed deplorable enough. Jean
Francois de la Harpe (1739-1803), who though a little later in time as
to most of his critical productions is perhaps its most representative
figure, shows criticism in one of its worst forms. The critic specially
abhorred by Sterne, who looked only at the stop-watch, was a kind of
prophecy of La Harpe, who lays it down distinctly that a beauty, however
beautiful, produced in spite of rules is a "monstrous beauty" and cannot
be allowed. But such a writer is a natural enough expression of an
expiring principle. The year after the death of La Harpe Sainte-Beuve
was born.
Buffon.
The Encyclopedie.
_18th-Century Savants._--In science and general erudition the 18th
century in France was at first much occupied with the mathematical
studies for which the French genius is so peculiarly adapted, which the
great discoveries of Descartes had made possible and popular, and which
those of his supplanter Newton only made more popular still. Voltaire
took to himself the credit, which he fairly deserves, of first
introducing the Newtonian system into France, and it was soon widely
popular--even ladies devoting themselves to the exposition of
mathematical subjects, as in the case of Gabrielle de Breteuil, marquise
du Chatelet (1706-1749) Voltaire's "divine Emilie." Indeed ladies played
a great part in the literary and scientific activity of the century, by
actual contribution sometimes, but still more by continuing and
extending the tradition of "salons." The duchesse du Maine, Mesdames de
Lambert, de Tencin, Geoffrin, du Deffand, Necker, and above all, the
baronne d'Holbach (whose husband, however, was here the principal
personage) presided over coteries which became more and more
"philosophical." Many of the greatest mathematicians of the age, such as
de Moivre and Laplace, were French by birth, while others like Euler
belonged to French-speaking races, and wrote in French. The physical
sciences were also ardently cultivated, the impulse to them being given
partly by the generally materialistic tendency of the age, partly by the
Newtonian system, and partly also by the extended knowledge of the world
provided by the circumnavigatory voyage of Louis Antoine de Bougainville
(1729-1811), and other travels. P. L. de Moreau Maupertuis (1698-1759)
and C. M. de la Condamine (1701-1774) made long journeys for scientific
purposes and duly recorded their experiences. The former, a
mathematician and physicist of some ability but more oddity, is chiefly
known to literature by the ridicule of Voltaire in the _Diatribe du
Docteur Akakia_. Jean le Rond, called d'Alembert (1717-1783), a great
mathematician and a writer of considerable though rather academic
excellence, is principally known from his connexion with and
introduction to the _Encyclopedie_, of which more presently. Chemistry
was also assiduously cultivated, the baron d'Holbach, among others,
being a devotee thereof, and helping to advance the science to the point
where, at the conclusion of the century, it was illustrated by
Berthollet and Lavoisier. During all this devotion to science in its
modern acceptation, the older and more literary forms of erudition were
not neglected, especially by the illustrious Benedictines of the abbey
of St Maur. Dom Augustin Calmet (1672-1757) the author of the well-known
_Dictionary of the Bible_, belonged to this order, and to them also (in
particular to Dom Rivet) was due the beginning of the immense _Histoire
litteraire de la France_, a work interrupted by the Revolution and long
suspended, but diligently continued since the middle of the 19th
century. Of less orthodox names distinguished for erudition, Nicolas
Freret (1688-1749), secretary of the Academy, is perhaps the most
remarkable. But in the consideration of the science and learning in the
18th century from a literary point of view, there is one name and one
book which require particular and, in the case of the book, somewhat
extended mention. The man is Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon
(1717-1788), the book the _Encyclopedie_. The immense _Natural History_
of Buffon, though not entirely his own, is a remarkable monument of the
union of scientific tastes with literary ability. As has happened in
many similar instances, there is in parts more literature than science
to be found in it; and from the point of view of the latter, Buffon was
far too careless in observation and far too solicitous of perfection of
style and grandiosity of view. The style of Buffon has sometimes been
made the subject of the highest eulogy, and it is at its best admirable;
but one still feels in it the fault of all serious French prose in this
century before Rousseau--the presence, that is to say, of an artificial
spirit rather than of natural variety and power. The _Encyclopedie_,
unquestionably on the whole the most important French literary
production of the century, if we except the works of Rousseau and
Voltaire, was conducted for a time by Diderot and d'Alembert, afterwards
by Diderot alone. It numbered among its contributors almost every
Frenchman of eminence in letters. It is often spoken of as if, under the
guise of an encyclopaedia, it had been merely a _plaidoyer_ against
religion, but this is entirely erroneous. Whatever anti-ecclesiastical
bent some of the articles may have, the book as a whole is simply what
it professes to be, a dictionary--that is to say, not merely an
historical and critical lexicon, like those of Bayle and Moreri (indeed
history and biography were nominally excluded), but a dictionary of
arts, sciences, trades and technical terms. Diderot himself had perhaps
the greatest faculty of any man that ever lived for the literary
treatment in a workman-like manner of the most heterogeneous and in some
cases rebellious subjects; and his untiring labour, not merely in
writing original articles, but in editing the contributions of others,
determined the character of the whole work. There is no doubt that it
had, quite independently of any theological or political influence, an
immense share in diffusing and gratifying the taste for general
information.
Maistre.
Joubert.
Courier.
Madame de Stael.
Chateaubriand.
_1789-1830--General Sketch._--The period which elapsed between the
outbreak of the Revolution and the accession of Charles X. has often
been considered a sterile one in point of literature. As far as mere
productiveness goes, this judgment is hardly correct. No class of
literature was altogether neglected during these stirring
five-and-thirty years, the political events of which have so engrossed
the attention of posterity that it has sometimes been necessary for
historians to remind us that during the height of the Terror and the
final disasters of the empire the theatres were open and the
booksellers' shops patronized. Journalism, parliamentary eloquence and
scientific writing were especially cultivated, and the former in its
modern sense may almost be said to have been created. But of the higher
products of literature the period may justly be considered to have been
somewhat barren. During the earlier part of it there is, with the
exception of Andre Chenier, not a single name of the first or even
second order of excellence. Towards the midst those of Chateaubriand
(1768-1848) and Madame de Stael (1766-1817) stand almost alone; and at
the close those of Courier, Beranger and Lamartine are not seconded by
any others to tell of the magnificent literary burst which was to follow
the publication of _Cromwell_. Of all departments of literature, poetry
proper was worst represented during this period. Andre Chenier was
silenced at its opening by the guillotine. Le Brun and Delille, favoured
by an extraordinary longevity, continued to be admired and followed. It
was the palmy time of descriptive poetry. Louis, marquis de Fontanes
(1757-1821, who deserves rather more special notice as a critic and an
official patron of literature), Castel, Boisjolin, Esmenard, Berchoux,
Ricard, Martin, Gudin, Cournaud, are names which chiefly survive as
those of the authors of scattered attempts to turn the Encyclopaedia
into verse. Charles Julien de Chenedolle (1769-1833) owes his reputation
rather to amiability, and to his association with men eminent in
different ways, such as Rivarol and Joubert, than to any real power. He
has been regarded as a precursor of Lamartine; but the resemblance is
chiefly on Lamartine's weakest side; and the stress laid on him
recently, as on Lamartine himself and even on Chenier, is part of a
passing reaction against the school of Hugo. Even more ambitiously, Luce
de Lancival, Campenon, Dumesnil and Parseval de Grand-Maison endeavoured
to write epics, and succeeded rather worse than the Chapelains and
Desmarets of the 17th century. The characteristic of all this poetry was
the description of everything in metaphor and paraphrase, and the
careful avoidance of anything like directness of expression; and the
historians of the Romantic movement have collected many instances of
this absurdity. Lamartine will be more properly noticed in the next
division. But about the same time as Lamartine, and towards the end of
the present period, there appeared a poet who may be regarded as the
last important echo of Malherbe. This was Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843),
the author of _Les Messeniennes_, a writer of very great talent, and,
according to the measure of J. B. Rousseau and Lebrun, no mean poet. It
is usual to reckon Delavigne as transitionary between the two schools,
but in strictness he must be counted with the classicists. Dramatic
poetry exhibited somewhat similar characteristics. The system of tragedy
writing had become purely mechanical, and every act, almost every scene
and situation, had its regular and appropriate business and language,
the former of which the poet was not supposed to alter at all, and the
latter only very slightly. Poinsinet, La Harpe, M. J. Chenier,
Raynouard, de Jouy, Briffaut, Baour-Lormian, all wrote in this style. Of
these Chenier (1764-1811) had some of the vigour of his brother Andre,
from whom he was distinguished by more popular political principles and
better fortune. On the other hand, Jean Francois Ducis (1733-1816), who
passes with Englishmen as a feeble reducer of Shakespeare to classical
rules, passed with his contemporaries as an introducer into French
poetry of strange and revolutionary novelties. Comedy, on the other
hand, fared better, as indeed it had always fared. Fabre d'Eglantine
(1755-1794) (the companion in death of Danton), Collin d'Harleville
(1755-1806), Francois G. J. S. Andrieux (1759-1833), Picard, Alexandre
Duval, and Nepomucene Lemercier (1771-1840) (the most vigorous of all as
a poet and a critic of mark) were the comic authors of the period, and
their works have not suffered the complete eclipse of the contemporary
tragedies which in part they also wrote. If not exactly worthy
successors of Moliere, they are at any rate not unworthy children of
Beaumarchais. In romance writing there is again, until we come to Madame
de Stael, a great want of originality and even of excellence in
workmanship. The works of Madame de Genlis (1746-1830) exhibit the
tendencies of the 18th century to platitude and noble sentiment at their
worst. Madame Cottin (1770-1807), Madame de Souza (1761-1836), and
Madame de Krudener, exhibited some of the qualities of Madame de
Lafayette and more of those of Madame de Genlis. Joseph Fievee
(1767-1839), in _Le Dot de Suzette_ and other works, showed some power
over the domestic story; but perhaps the most remarkable work in point
of originality of the time was Xavier de Maistre's (1763-1852) _Voyage
autour de ma chambre_, an attempt in quite a new style, which has been
happily followed up by other writers. Turning to history we find
comparatively little written at this period. Indeed, until quite its
close, men were too much occupied in making history to have time to
write it. There is, however, a considerable body of memoir writers,
especially in the earlier years of the period, and some great names
appear even in history proper. Many of Sismondi's (1773-1842) best works
were produced during the empire. A. G. P. Brugiere, baron de Barante
(1782-1866), though his best-known works date much later, belongs
partially to this time. On the other hand, the production of
philosophical writing, especially in what we may call applied
philosophy, was considerable. The sensationalist views of Condillac were
first continued as by Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836) and Laromiguiere
(1756-1837) and subsequently opposed, in consequence partly of a
religious and spiritualist revival, partly of the influence of foreign
schools of thought, especially the German and the Scotch. The chief
philosophical writers from this latter point of view were Pierre Paul
Royer Collard (1763-1845), F. P. G. Maine de Biran (1776-1824), and
Theodore Simon Jouffroy (1796-1842). Their influence on literature,
however, was altogether inferior to that of the reactionist school, of
whom Louis Gabriel, vicomte de Bonald (1754-1840), and Joseph de Maistre
(1753-1821) were the great leaders. These latter were strongly political
in their tendencies, and political philosophy received, as was natural,
a large share of the attention of the time. In continuation of the work
of the Philosophes, the most remarkable writer was Constantin Francois
Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney (1757-1820), whose _Ruines_ are generally
known. On the other hand, others belonging to that school, such as
Necker and Morellet, wrote from the moderate point of view against
revolutionary excesses. Of the reactionists Bonald is extremely
royalist, and carries out in his _Legislations primitives_ somewhat the
same patriarchal and absolutist theories as our own Filmer, but with
infinitely greater genius. As Bonald is royalist and aristocratic, so
Maistre is the advocate of a theocracy pure and simple, with the pope
for its earthly head, and a vigorous despotism for its system of
government. Pierre Simon Ballanche (1776-1847), often mentioned in the
literary memoirs of his time, wrote among other things _Essais de
palingenesie sociale_, good in style but vague in substance. Of theology
proper there is almost necessarily little or nothing, the clergy being
in the earlier period proscribed, in the latter part kept in a strict
and somewhat discreditable subjection by the Empire. In moralizing
literature there is one work of the very highest excellence, which,
though not published till long afterwards, belongs in point of
composition to this period. This is the _Pensees_ of Joseph Joubert
(1754-1824), the most illustrious successor of Pascal and Vauvenargues,
and to be ranked perhaps above both in the literary finish of his
maxims, and certainly above Vauvenargues in the breadth and depth of
thought which they exhibit. In pure literary criticism more
particularly, Joubert, though exhibiting some inconsistencies due to his
time, is astonishingly penetrating and suggestive. Of science and
erudition the time was fruitful. At an early period of it appeared the
remarkable work of Pierre Cabanis (1757-1808), the _Rapports du physique
et du morale de l'homme_, a work in which physiology is treated from the
extreme materialist point of view but with all the liveliness and
literary excellence of the Philosophe movement at its best. Another
physiological work of great merit at this period was the _Traite de la
vie et de la mort_ of Bichat, and the example set by these works was
widely followed; while in other branches of science Laplace, Lagrange,
Hauy, Berthollet, &c., produced contributions of the highest value. From
the literary point of view, however, the chief interest of this time is
centred in two individual names, those of Chateaubriand and Madame de
Stael, and in three literary developments of a more or less novel
character, which were all of the highest importance in shaping the
course which French literature has taken since 1824. One of these
developments was the reactionary movement of Maistre and Bonald, which
in its turn largely influenced Chateaubriand, then Lamennais and
Montalembert, and was later represented in French literature in
different guises, chiefly by Louis Veuillot (1815-1883) and Mgr
Dupanloup (1802-1878). The second and third, closely connected, were the
immense advances made by parliamentary eloquence and by political
writing, the latter of which, by the hand of Paul Louis Courier
(1773-1825), contributed for the first time an undoubted masterpiece to
French literature. The influence of the two combined has since raised
journalism to even a greater pitch of power in France than in any other
country. It is in the development of these new openings for literature,
and in the cast and complexion which they gave to its matter, that the
real literary importance of the Revolutionary period consists; just as
it is in the new elements which they supplied for the treatment of such
subjects that the literary value of the authors of _Rene_ and _De
l'Allemagne_ mainly lies. We have already alluded to some of the
beginnings of periodical and journalistic letters in France. For some
time, in the hands of Bayle, Basnage, Des Maizeaux, Jurieu, Leclerc,
periodical literature consisted mainly of a series, more or less
disconnected, of pamphlets, with occasional extracts from forthcoming
works, critical _adversaria_ and the like. Of a more regular kind were
the often-mentioned _Journal de Trevoux_ and _Mercure de France_, and
later the _Annee litteraire_ of Freron and the like. The
_Correspondance_ of Grimm also, as we have pointed out, bore
considerable resemblance to a modern monthly review, though it was
addressed to a very few persons. Of political news there was, under a
despotism, naturally very little. 1789, however, saw a vast change in
this respect. An enormous efflorescence of periodical literature at once
took place, and a few of the numerous journals founded in that year or
soon afterwards survived for a considerable time. A whole class of
authors arose who pretended to be nothing more than journalists, while
many writers distinguished for more solid contributions to literature
took part in the movement, and not a few active politicians contributed.
Thus to the original staff of the _Moniteur_, or, as it was at first
called, _La Gazette Nationale_, La Harpe, Lacretelle, Andrieux,
Dominique Joseph Garat (1749-1833) and Pierre Ginguene (1748-1826) were
attached. Among the writers of the _Journal de Paris_ Andre Chenier had
been ranked. Fontanes contributed to many royalist and moderate
journals. Guizot and Morellet, representatives respectively of the 19th
and the 18th century, shared in the _Nouvelles politiques_, while
Bertin, Fievee and J. L. Geoffroy (1743-1814), a critic of peculiar
acerbity, contributed to the _Journal de l'empire_, afterwards turned
into the still existing _Journal des debats_. With Geoffroy, Francois
Benoit Hoffman (1760-1828), Jean F. J. Dussault (1769-1824) and Charles
F. Dorimond, abbe de Feletz (1765-1850), constituted a quartet of
critics sometimes spoken of as "the _Debats_ four," though they were by
no means all friends. Of active politicians Marat (_L'Ami du peuple_),
Mirabeau (_Courrier de Provence_), Barere (_Journal des debats et des
decrets_), Brissot (_Patriote francais_), Hebert (_Pere Duchesne_),
Robespierre (_Defenseur de la constitution_), and Tallien (_La
Sentinelle_) were the most remarkable who had an intimate connexion with
journalism. On the other hand, the type of the journalist pure and
simple is Camille Desmoulins (1759-1794), one of the most brilliant, in
a literary point of view, of the short-lived celebrities of the time. Of
the same class were Pelletier, Durozoir, Loustalot, Royou. As the
immediate daily interest in politics drooped, there were formed
periodicals of a partly political and partly literary character. Such
had been the _decade philosophique_, which counted Cabanis, Chenier, and
De Tracy among its contributors, and this was followed by the _Revue
francaise_ at a later period, which was in its turn succeeded by the
_Revue des deux mondes_. On the other hand, parliamentary eloquence was
even more important than journalism during the early period of the
Revolution. Mirabeau naturally stands at the head of orators of this
class, and next to him may be ranked the well-known names of Malouet and
Meunier among constitutionalists; of Robespierre, Marat and Danton, the
triumvirs of the Mountain; of Maury, Cazales and the vicomte de
Mirabeau, among the royalists; and above all of the Girondist speakers
Barnave, Vergniaud, and Lanjuinais. The last named survived to take part
in the revival of parliamentary discussion after the Restoration. But
the permanent contributions to French literature of this period of
voluminous eloquence are, as frequently happens in such cases, by no
means large. The union of the journalist and the parliamentary spirit
produced, however, in Paul Louis Courier a master of style. Courier
spent the greater part of his life, tragically cut short, in translating
the classics and studying the older writers of France, in which study he
learnt thoroughly to despise the pseudo-classicism of the 18th century.
It was not till he was past forty that he took to political writing, and
the style of his pamphlets, and their wonderful irony and vigour, at
once placed them on the level of the very best things of the kind. Along
with Courier should be mentioned Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), who,
though partly a romance writer and partly a philosophical author, was
mainly a politician and an orator, besides being fertile in articles and
pamphlets. Lamennais, like Lamartine, will best be dealt with later, and
the same may be said of Beranger; but Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael
must be noticed here. The former represents, in the influence which
changed the literature of the 18th century into the literature of the
19th, the vague spirit of unrest and "Weltschmerz," the affection for
the picturesque qualities of nature, the religious spirit occasionally
turning into mysticism, and the respect, sure to become more and more
definite and appreciative, for antiquity. He gives in short the romantic
and conservative element. Madame de Stael (1766-1817) on the other hand,
as became a daughter of Necker, retained a great deal of the Philosophe
character and the traditions of the 18th century, especially its
liberalism, its _sensibilite_, and its thirst for general information;
to which, however, she added a cosmopolitan spirit, and a readiness to
introduce into France the literary and social, as well as the political
and philosophical, peculiarities of other countries to which the 18th
century, in France at least, had been a stranger, and which
Chateaubriand himself, notwithstanding his excursions into English
literature, had been very far from feeling. She therefore contributed to
the positive and liberal side of the future movement. The absolute
literary importance of the two was very different. Madame de Stael's
early writings were of the critical kind, half aesthetic half ethical,
of which the 18th century had been fond, and which their titles,
_Lettres sur J. J. Rousseau_, _De l'influence des passions_, _De la
litterature consideree dans ses rapports avec les institutions
sociales_, sufficiently show. Her romances, _Delphine_ and _Corinne_,
had immense literary influence at the time. Still more was this the case
with _De l'Allemagne_, which practically opened up to the rising
generation in France the till then unknown treasures of literature and
philosophy, which during the most glorious half century of her literary
history Germany had, sometimes on hints taken from France herself, been
accumulating. The literary importance of Chateaubriand (1768-1848) is
far greater, while his literary influence can hardly be exaggerated.
Chateaubriand's literary father was Rousseau, and his voyage to America
helped to develop the seeds which Rousseau had sown. In _Rene_ and other
works of the same kind, the naturalism of Rousseau received a still
further development. But it was not in mere naturalism that
Chateaubriand was to find his most fertile and most successful theme. It
was, on the contrary, in the rehabilitation of Christianity as an
inspiring force in literature. The 18th century had used against
religion the method of ridicule; Chateaubriand, by genius rather than by
reasoning, set up against this method that of poetry and romance.
"Christianity," says he, almost in so many words, "is the most poetical
of all religions, the most attractive, the most fertile in literary,
artistic and social results." This theme he develops with the most
splendid language, and with every conceivable advantage of style, in the
_Genie du Christianisme_ and the _Martyrs_. The splendour of
imagination, the summonings of history and literature to supply
effective and touching illustrations, analogies and incidents, the rich
colouring so different from the peculiarly monotonous and grey tones of
the masters of the 18th century, and the fervid admiration for nature
which were Chateaubriand's main attractions and characteristics, could
not fail to have an enormous literary influence. Indeed he has been
acclaimed, with more reason than is usually found in such acclamations,
as the founder of comparative _and_ imaginative literary criticism in
France if not in Europe. The Romantic school acknowledged, and with
justice, its direct indebtedness to him.
_Literature since 1830._--In dealing with the last period of the history
of French literature and that which was introduced by the literary
revolution of 1830 and has continued, in phases of only partial change,
to the present day, a slight alteration of treatment is requisite. The
subdivisions of literature have lately become so numerous, and the
contributions to each have reached such an immense volume, that it is
impossible to give more than cursory notice, or indeed allusion, to most
of them. It so happens, however, that the purely literary
characteristics of this period, though of the most striking and
remarkable, are confined to a few branches of literature. The character
of the 19th century in France has hitherto been at least as strongly
marked as that of any previous period. In the middle ages men of letters
followed each other in the cultivation of certain literary forms for
long centuries. The _chanson de geste_, the Arthurian legend, the _roman
d'aventure_, the _fabliau_, the allegorical poem, the rough dramatic
_jeu_, mystery and farce, served successively as moulds into which the
thought and writing impulse of generations of authors were successively
cast, often with little attention to the suitability of form and
subject. The end of the 15th century, and still more the 16th, owing to
the vast extension of thought and knowledge then introduced, finally
broke up the old forms, and introduced the practice of treating each
subject in a manner more or less appropriate to it, and whether
appropriate or not, freely selected by the author. At the same time a
vast but somewhat indiscriminate addition was made to the actual
vocabulary of the language. The 17th and 18th centuries witnessed a
process of restriction once more to certain forms and strict imitation
of predecessors, combined with attention to purely arbitrary rules, the
cramping and impoverishing effect of this (in Fenelon's words) being
counterbalanced partly by the efforts of individual genius, and still
more by the constant and steady enlargement of the range of thought, the
choice of subjects, and the familiarity with other literature, both of
the ancient and modern world. The literary work of the 19th century and
of the great Romantic movement which began in its second quarter was to
repeat on a far larger scale the work of the 16th, to break up and
discard such literary forms as had become useless or hopelessly stiff,
to give strength, suppleness and variety to such as were retained, to
invent new ones where necessary, to enrich the language by importations,
inventions and revivals, and, above all, to bring into prominence the
principle of individualism. Authors and even books, rather than groups
and kinds, demand principal attention.
The result of this revolution is naturally most remarkable in the
_belles-lettres_ and the kindred department of history. Poetry, not
dramatic, has been revived; prose romance and literary criticism have
been brought to a perfection previously unknown; and history has
produced works more various, if not more remarkable, than at any
previous stage of the language. Of all these branches we shall therefore
endeavour to give some detailed account. But the services done to the
language were not limited to the strictly literary branches of
literature. Modern French, if it lacks, as it probably does lack, the
statuesque precision and elegance of prose style to which between 1650
and 1800 all else was sacrificed, has become a much more suitable
instrument for the accurate and copious treatment of positive and
concrete subjects. These subjects have accordingly been treated in an
abundance corresponding to that manifested in other countries, though
the literary importance of the treatment has perhaps proportionately
declined. We cannot even attempt to indicate the innumerable directions
of scientific study which this copious industry has taken, and must
confine ourselves to those which come more immediately under the
headings previously adopted. In philosophy proper France, like other
nations, has been more remarkable for attention to the historical side
of the matter than for the production of new systems; and the principal
exception among her philosophical writers, Auguste Comte (1793-1857),
besides inclining, as far as his matter went to the political and
scientific rather than to the purely philosophical side (which indeed he
regarded as antiquated), was not very remarkable merely as a man of
letters. Victor Cousin (1792-1867), on the other hand, almost a
brilliant man of letters and for a time regarded as something of a
philosophical apostle preaching "eclecticism," betook himself latterly
to biographical and other miscellaneous writing, especially on the
famous French ladies of the 17th century, and is likely to be remembered
chiefly in this department, though not to be forgotten in that of
philosophical history and criticism. The same curious declension was
observable in the much younger Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893), who,
beginning with philosophical studies, and always maintaining a strong
tincture of philosophical determinism, applied himself later, first to
literary history and criticism in his famous _Histoire de la litterature
anglaise_ (1864), and then to history proper in his still more famous
and far more solidly based _Origines de la France contemporaine_ (1876).
To him, however, we must recur under the head of literary criticism. And
not dissimilar phenomena, not so much of inconstancy to philosophy as of
a tendency towards the applied rather than the pure branches of the
subject, are noticeable in Edgar Quinet (1803-1875), in Charles de
Remusat (1797-1875), and in Ernest Renan (1823-1892), the first of whom
began by translating Herder while the second and third devoted
themselves early to scholastic philosophy, de Remusat dealing with
Abelard (1845) and Anselm (1856), Renan with Averroes (1852). More
single-minded devotion to at least the historical side was shown by Jean
Philibert Damiron (1794-1862), who published in 1842 a _Cours de
philosophie_ and many minor works at different times; but the
inconstancy recurs in Jules Simon (1814-1896), who, in the earlier part
of his life a professor of philosophy and a writer of authority on the
Greek philosophers (especially in _Histoire de l'ecole d'Alexandrie_,
1844-1845), began before long to take an active and, towards the close
of his life-work, all but a foremost part in politics. In theology the
chief name of great literary eminence in the earlier part of the century
is that of Lamennais, of whom more presently, in the later, that of
Renan again. But Charles Forbes de Montalembert (1810-1870), an
historian with a strong theological tendency, deserves notice; and among
ecclesiastics who have been orators and writers the pere Jean Baptiste
Henri Lacordaire (1802-1861), a pupil of Lamennais who returned to
orthodoxy but always kept to the Liberal side; the pere Celestin Joseph
Felix (1810-1891), a Jesuit teacher and preacher of eminence; and the
pere Didon (1840-1900), a very popular preacher and writer who, though
thoroughly orthodox, did not escape collision with his superiors. On the
Protestant side Athanase Coquerel (1820-1875) is the most remarkable
name. Recently Paul Sabatier (b. 1858) has displayed, especially in
dealing with Saint Francis of Assisi, much power of literary and
religious sympathy and a style somewhat modelled on that of Renan, but
less unctuous and effeminate. There are strong philosophical tendencies,
and at least a revolt against the religious as well as philosophical
ideas of the Encyclopedists, in the _Pensees_ of Joubert, while the
hybrid position characteristic of the 19th century is particularly
noticeable in Etienne Pivert de Senancour (1770-1846), whose principal
work, _Obermann_ (1804), had an extraordinary influence on its own and
the next generation in the direction of melancholy moralizing. This tone
was notably taken up towards the other end of the century by Amiel
(q.v.), who, however, does not strictly belong to _French_ literature:
while in Ximenes Doudon (1800-1872), author of _Melanges et lettres_
posthumously published, we find more of a return to the attitude of
Joubert--literary criticism occupying a very large part of his
reflections. Political philosophy and its kindred sciences have
naturally received a large share of attention. Towards the middle of the
century there was a great development of socialist and fanciful
theorizing on politics, with which the names of Claude Henri, comte de
Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Charles Fourier (1772-1837), Etienne Cabet
(1788-1856), and others are connected. As political economists Frederic
Bastiat (1801-1850), L. G. L. Guilhaud de Lavergne (1809-1880), Louis
Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881), and Michel Chevalier (1806-1879) may be
noticed. In Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) France produced a
political observer of a remarkably acute, moderate and reflective
character, and Armand Carrel (1800-1836), whose life was cut short in a
duel, was a real man of letters, as well as a brilliant journalist and
an honest if rather violent party politician. The name of Jean Louis
Eugene Lerminier (1803-1857) is of wide repute for legal and
constitutional writings, and that of Henri, baron de Jomini (1779-1869)
is still more celebrated as a military historian; while that of Francois
Lenormant (1837-1883) holds a not dissimilar position in archaeology.
With the publications devoted to physical science proper we do not
attempt to meddle. Philology, however, demands a brief notice. In
classical studies France has till recently hardly maintained the
position which might be expected of the country of Scaliger and
Casaubon. She has, however, produced some considerable Orientalists,
such as Champollion the younger, Burnouf, Silvestre de Sacy and
Stanislas Julien. The foundation of Romance philology was due, indeed,
to the foreigners Wolf and Diez. But early in the century the curiosity
as to the older literature of France created by Barbazan, Tressan and
others continued to extend. Dominique Martin Meon (1748-1829) published
many unprinted fabliaux, gave the whole of the French _Renart_ cycle,
with the exception of _Renart le contrefait_, and edited the _Roman de
la rose_. Charles Claude Fauriel (1772-1844) and Francois Raynouard
(1761-1836) dealt elaborately with Provencal poetry as well as partially
with that of the trouveres; and the latter produced his comprehensive
_Lexique romane_. These examples were followed by many other writers,
who edited manuscript works and commented on them, always with zeal and
sometimes with discretion. Foremost among these must be mentioned Paulin
Paris (1800-1881) who for fifty years served the cause of old French
literature with untiring energy, great literary taste, and a pleasant
and facile pen. His selections from manuscripts, his _Romancero
francais_, his editions of _Garin le Loherain_ and _Berte aus grans
pies_, and his _Romans de la table ronde_ may especially be mentioned.
Soon, too, the Benedictine _Histoire litteraire_, so long interrupted,
was resumed under M. Paris's general management, and has proceeded
nearly to the end of the 14th century. Among its contents M. Paris's
dissertations on the later _chansons de gestes_ and the early song
writers, M. Victor le Clerc's on the _fabliaux_, and M. Littre's on the
_romans d'aventures_ may be specially noticed. For some time indeed the
work of French editors was chargeable with a certain lack of critical
and philological accuracy. This reproach, however, was wiped off by the
efforts of a band of younger scholars, chiefly pupils of the Ecole des
Chartes, with MM. Gaston Paris (1839-1903) and Paul Meyer at their head.
Of M. Paris in particular it may be said that no scholar in the subject
has ever combined literary and linguistic competence more admirably. The
Societe des Anciens Textes Francais was formed for the purpose of
publishing scholarly editions of inedited works, and a lexicon of the
older tongue by M. Godefroy at last supplemented, though not quite with
equal accomplishment, the admirable dictionary in which Emile Littre
(1801-1881), at the cost of a life's labour, embodied the whole
vocabulary of the classical French language. Meanwhile the period
between the middle ages proper and the 17th century has not lacked its
share of this revival of attention. To the literature between Villon and
Regnier especial attention was paid by the early Romantics, and
Sainte-Beuve's _Tableau historique et critique de la poesie et du
theatre au seizieme siecle_ was one of the manifestoes of the school.
Since the appearance of that work in 1828 editions with critical
comments of the literature of this period have constantly multiplied,
aided by the great fancy for tastefully produced works which exists
among the richer classes in France; and there are probably now few
countries in which works of old authors, whether in cheap reprints or in
_editions de luxe_ can be more readily procured.
Beranger.
Lamartine.
Lamennais.
_The Romantic Movement._--It is time, however, to return to the literary
revolution itself, and its more purely literary results. At the
accession of Charles X. France possessed three writers, and perhaps only
three, of already remarkable eminence, if we except Chateaubriand, who
was already of a past generation. These three were Pierre Jean de
Beranger (1780-1857), Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), and Hugues
Felicite Robert Lamennais (1782-1854). The first belongs definitely in
manner, despite his striking originality of _nuance_, to the past. He
has remnants of the old periphrases, the cumbrous mythological
allusions, the poetical "properties" of French verse. He has also the
older and somewhat narrow limitations of a French poet; foreigners are
for him mere barbarians. At the same time his extraordinary lyrical
faculty, his excellent wit, which makes him a descendant of Rabelais and
La Fontaine, and his occasional touches of pathos made him deserve and
obtain something more than successes of occasion. Beranger, moreover,
was very far from being the mere improvisatore which those who cling to
the inspirationist theory of poetry would fain see in him. His studies
in style and composition were persistent, and it was long before he
attained the firm and brilliant manner which distinguishes him.
Beranger's talent, however, was still too much a matter of individual
genius to have great literary influence, and he formed no school. It was
different with Lamartine, who was, nevertheless, like Beranger, a
typical Frenchman. The _Meditations_ and the _Harmonies_ exhibit a
remarkable transition between the old school and the new. In going
direct to nature, in borrowing from her striking outlines, vivid and
contrasted tints, harmony and variety of sound, the new poet showed
himself an innovator of the best class. In using romantic and religious
associations, and expressing them in affecting language, he was the
Chateaubriand of verse. But with all this he retained some of the vices
of the classical school. His versification, harmonious as it is, is
monotonous, and he does not venture into the bold lyrical forms which
true poetry loves. He has still the horror of the _mot propre_; he is
always spiritualizing and idealizing, and his style and thought have a
double portion of the feminine and almost flaccid softness which had
come to pass for grace in French. The last of the trio, Lamennais,
represents an altogether bolder and rougher genius. Strongly influenced
by the Catholic reaction, Lamennais also shows the strongest possible
influence of the revolutionary spirit. His earliest work, the _Essai sur
l'indifference en matiere de religion_ (1817 and 1818) was a defence of
the church on curiously unecclesiastical lines. It was written in an
ardent style, full of illustrations, and extremely ambitious in
character. The plan was partly critical and partly constructive. The
first part disposed of the 18th century; the second, adopting the theory
of papal absolutism which Joseph de Maistre had already advocated,
proceeded to base it on a supposed universal consent. The after history
of Lamennais was perhaps not an unnatural recoil from this; but it is
sufficient here to point out that in his prose, especially as afterwards
developed in the apocalyptic _Paroles d'un croyant_ (1839) are to be
discerned many of the tendencies of the Romantic school, particularly
its hardy and picturesque choice of language, and the disdain of
established and accepted methods which it professed. The signs of the
revolution itself were, as was natural, first given in periodical
literature. The feudalist affectations of Chateaubriand and the
legitimists excited a sort of aesthetic affection for Gothicism, and
Walter Scott became one of the most favourite authors in France. Soon
was started the periodical _La Muse francaise_, in which the names of
Hugo, Vigny, Deschamps and Madame de Girardin appear. Almost all the
writers in this periodical were eager royalists, and for some time the
battle was still fought on political grounds. There could, however, be
no special connexion between classical drama and liberalism; and the
liberal journal, the Globe, with no less a person than Sainte-Beuve
among its contributors, declared definite war against classicism in the
drama. The chief "classical" organs were the _Constitutionnel_, the
_Journal des debats_, and after a time and not exclusively, the _Revue
des deux mondes_. Soon the question became purely literary, and the
Romantic school proper was born in the famous _cenacle_ or clique in
which Hugo was chief poet, Sainte-Beuve chief critic, and Gautier,
Gerard de Nerval, the brothers Emile (1791-1871) and Antony (1800-1869),
Deschamps, Petrus Borel (1809-1859) and others were officers. Alfred de
Vigny and Alfred de Musset stand somewhat apart, and so does Charles
Nodier (1780-1844), a versatile and voluminous writer, the very variety
and number of whose works have somewhat prevented the individual
excellence of any of them from having justice done to it. The objects of
the school, which was at first violently opposed, so much so that
certain academicians actually petitioned the king to forbid the
admission of any Romantic piece at the Theatre Francais, were, briefly
stated, the burning of everything which had been adored, and the adoring
of everything which had been burnt. They would have no unities, no
arbitrary selection of subjects, no restraints on variety of
versification, no academically limited vocabulary, no considerations of
artificial beauty, and, above all, no periphrastic expression. The _mot
propre_, the calling of a spade a spade, was the great commandment of
Romanticism; but it must be allowed that what was taken away in
periphrase was made up in adjectives. Musset, who was very much of a
free-lance in the contest, maintained indeed that the _differentia_ of
the Romantic was the copious use of this part of speech. All sorts of
epithets were invented to distinguish the two parties, of which
_flamboyant_ and _grisatre_ are perhaps the most accurate and expressive
pair--the former serving to denote the gorgeous tints and bold attempts
of the new school, the latter the grey colour and monotonous outlines of
the old. The representation of _Hernani_ in 1830 was the culmination of
the struggle, and during great part of the reign of Louis Philippe
almost all the younger men of letters in France were Romantics. The
representation of the _Lucrece_ of Francois Ponsard (1814-1867) in 1846
is often quoted as the herald or sign of a classical reaction. But this
was only apparent, and signified, if it signified anything, merely that
the more juvenile excesses of the Romantics were out of date. All the
greatest men of letters of France since 1830 have been on the innovating
side, and all without exception, whether intentionally or not, have had
their work coloured by the results of the movement, and of those which
have succeeded it as developments rather than reactions.
_Drama and Poetry since 1830._--Although the immediate subject on which
the battles of Classics and Romantics arose was dramatic poetry, the
dramatic results of the movement have not been those of greatest value
or most permanent character. The principal effect in the long run has
been the introduction of a species of play called _drame_, as opposed to
regular comedy and tragedy, admitting of much freer treatment than
either of these two as previously understood in French, and lending
itself in some measure to the lengthy and disjointed action, the
multiplicity of personages, and the absence of stock characters which
characterized the English stage in its palmy days. All Victor Hugo's
dramatic works are of this class, and each, as it was produced or
published (_Cromwell_, _Hernani_, _Marion de l'Orme_, _Le Roi s'amuse_,
_Lucrece Borgia_, _Marie Tudor_, _Ruy Blas_ and _Les Burgraves_), was a
literary event, and excited the most violent discussion--the author's
usual plan being to prefix a prose preface of a very militant character
to his work. A still more melodramatic variety of _drame_ was that
chiefly represented by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), whose _Henri III_
and _Antony_, to which may be added later _La Tour de Nesle_ and
_Mademoiselle de Belleisle_, were almost as much rallying points for the
early Romantics as the dramas of Hugo, despite their inferior literary
value. At the same time Alexandre Soumet (1788-1845), in _Norma_, _Une
Fete de Neron_, &c., and Casimir Delavigne in _Marino Faliero_, _Louis
XI_, &c., maintained a somewhat closer adherence to the older models.
The classical or semi-classical reaction of the last years of Louis
Philippe was represented in tragedy by Ponsard (_Lucrece_, _Agnes de
Meranie_, _Charlotte Corday_, _Ulysse_, and several comedies), and on
the comic side, to a certain extent, by Emile Augier (1820-1889) in
_L'Aventuriere_, _Le Gendre de M. Poirier_, _Le Fils de Giboyer_, &c.
During almost the whole period Eugene Scribe (1791-1861) poured forth
innumerable comedies of the vaudeville order, which, without possessing
much literary value, attained immense popularity. For the last
half-century the realist development of Romanticism has had the upper
hand in dramatic composition, its principal representatives being on the
one side Victorien Sardou (1831-1909), who in _Nos Intimes_, _La Famille
Benoiton_, _Rabagas_, _Dora_, &c., chiefly devoted himself to the
satirical treatment of manners, and Alexandre Dumas _fils_ (1824-1895),
author in 1852 of the famous _Dame aux camelias_, who in such pieces as
_Les Idees de Madame Aubray_ and _L'Etrangere_ rather busied himself
with morals and "problems," while his _Dame aux camelias_ (1852) is
sometimes ranked as the first of such things in "modern" style. Certain
isolated authors also deserve notice, such as Joseph Autran (1813-1877),
a poet and academician having some resemblance to Lamartine, whose
_Fille d'Aeschyle_ created for him a dramatic reputation which he did not
attempt to follow up, and Gabriel Legouve (b. 1807), whose _Adrienne
Lecouvreur_ was assisted to popularity by the admirable talent of
Rachel. A special variety of drama of the first literary importance has
also been cultivated in this century under the title of _scenes_ or
_proverbes_, slight dramatic sketches in which the dialogue and style
are of even more importance than the action. The best of all of these
are those of Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), whose _Il faut qu'une porte
soit ouverte ou fermee_, _On ne badine pas avec l'amour_, &c., are
models of grace and wit. Among his followers may be mentioned especially
Octave Feuillet (1821-1890). Few social dramas of the kind in modern
times have attained a greater success than _Le Monde ou l'on s'ennuie_
(1868) of Edouard Pailleron (1834-1899). (See also DRAMA.)
Victor Hugo.
Musset.
Gautier.
In poetry proper, as in drama, Victor Hugo showed the way. In him all
the Romantic characteristics were expressed and embodied--disregard of
arbitrary critical rules, free choice of subject, variety and vigour of
metre, splendour and sonorousness of diction, abundant "local colour,"
and that irrepressible individualism which is one of the chief, though
not perhaps the chief, of the symptoms. If the careful attention to form
which is also characteristic of the movement is less apparent in him
than in some of his followers, it is not because it is absent, but
because the enthusiastic conviction with which he attacked every subject
somewhat diverts attention from it. As with the merits so with the
defects. A deficient sense of the ludicrous which characterized many of
the Romantics was strongly apparent in their leader, as was also an
equally representative grandiosity, and a fondness for the introduction
of foreign and unfamiliar words, especially proper names, which
occasionally produces an effect of burlesque. Victor Hugo's earliest
poetical works, his chiefly royalist and political _Odes_, were cast in
the older and accepted forms, but already displayed astonishing poetical
qualities. But it was in the _Ballades_ (for instance, the splendid _Pas
d'armes du roi Jean_, written in verses of three syllables) and the
_Orientales_ (of which may be taken for a sample the sixth section of
_Navarin_, a perfect torrent of outlandish terms poured forth in the
most admirable verse, or _Les Djinns_, where some of the stanzas have
lines of two syllables each) that the grand provocation was thrown to
the believers in alexandrines, careful caesuras and strictly separated
couplets. _Les Feuilles d'automne_, _Les Chants du crepuscule_, _Les
Voix interieures_, _Les Rayons et les ombres_, the productions of the
next twenty years, were quieter in style and tone, but no less full of
poetical spirit. The Revolution of 1848, the establishment of the empire
and the poet's exile brought about a fresh determination of his genius
to lyrical subjects. _Les Chatiments_ and _La Legende des siecles_, the
one political, the other historical, reach perhaps the high-water mark
of French verse; and they were followed by the philosophical
_Contemplations_, the lighter _Chansons des rues et des bois_, the
_Annee terrible_, the second _Legende des siecles_, and the later work
to be found noticed _sub nom_. We have been thus particular here because
the literary productiveness of Victor Hugo himself has been the measure
and sample of the whole literary productiveness of France on the
poetical side. At five-and-twenty he was acknowledged as a master, at
seventy-five he was a master still. His poetical influence has been
represented in three different schools, from which very few of the
poetical writers of the century can be excluded. These few we may notice
first. Alfred de Musset, a writer of great genius, felt part of the
Romantic inspiration very strongly, but was on the whole unfortunately
influenced by Byron, and partly out of wilfulness, partly from a natural
want of persevering industry and vigour, allowed himself to be careless
and even slovenly in composition. Notwithstanding this, many of his
lyrics are among the finest poems in the language, and his verse,
careless as it is, has extraordinary natural grace. Auguste Barbier
(1805-1882) whose _Iambes_ shows an extraordinary command of nervous and
masculine versification, also comes in here; and the Breton poet,
Auguste Brizeux (1803-1858), much admired by some, together with
Hegesippe Moreau, an unequal writer possessing some talent, Pierre
Dupont (1821-1870), one of much greater gifts, and Gustave Nadaud
(1820-1893), a follower of Beranger, also deserve mention. Of the school
of Lamartine rather than of Hugo are Alfred de Vigny (1799-1865) and
Victor de Laprade (1812-1887), the former a writer of little bulk and
somewhat over-fastidious, but possessing one of the most correct and
elegant styles to be found in French, with a curious restrained passion
and a complicated originality, the latter a meditative and philosophical
poet, like Vigny an admirable writer, but somewhat deficient in pith and
substance, as well as in warmth and colour. Madame Ackermann (1813-1890)
is the chief philosophical poetess of France, and this style has
recently been very popular; but for actual poetical powers, Marceline
Desbordes-Valmore (1786-1859) perhaps excelled her, though in a looser
and more sentimental fashion. The poetical schools which more directly
derive from the Romantic movement as represented by Hugo are three in
number, corresponding in point of time with the first outburst of the
movement, with the period of reaction already alluded to, and with the
closing years of the second empire. Of the first by far the most
distinguished member was Theophile Gautier (1811-1872), the most perfect
poet in point of form that France has produced. When quite a boy he
devoted himself to the study of 16th-century masters, and though he
acknowledged the supremacy of Hugo, his own talent was of an individual
order, and developed itself more or less independently. _Albertus_ alone
of his poems has much of the extravagant and grotesque character which
distinguished early romantic literature. The _Comedie de la mort_, the
_Poesies diverses_, and still more the _Emaux et camees_, display a
distinctly classical tendency--classical, that is to say, not in the
party and perverted sense, but in its true acceptation. The tendency to
the fantastic and horrible may be taken as best shown by Petrus Borel
(1809-1859), a writer of singular power almost entirely wasted. Gerard
Labrunie or de Nerval (1808-1855) adopted a manner also fantastic but
more idealistic than Borel's, and distinguished himself by his Oriental
travels and studies, and by his attention to popular ballads and
traditions, while his style has an exquisite but unaffected strangeness
hardly inferior to Gautier's. This peculiar and somewhat quintessenced
style is also remarkable in the _Gaspard de la nuit_ of Louis Bertrand
(1807-1841), a work of rhythmical prose almost unique in its character.
One famous sonnet preserves the name of Felix Arvers (1806-1850). The
two Deschamps were chiefly remarkable as translators. The next
generation produced three remarkable poets, to whom may perhaps be added
a fourth. Theodore de Banville (1823-1891), adopting the principles of
Gautier, and combining with them a considerable satiric faculty,
composed a large amount of verse, faultless in form, delicate and
exquisite in shades and colours, but so entirely neutral in moral and
political tone that it has found fewer admirers than it deserved.
Charles Marie Rene Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894), carrying out the
principle of ransacking foreign literature for subjects, went to Celtic,
classical or even Oriental sources for his inspiration, and despite a
science in verse not much inferior to Banville's, and a far wider range
and choice of subject, diffused an air of erudition, not to say
pedantry, over his work which disgusted some readers, and a pessimism
which displeased others, but has left poetry only inferior to that of
the greatest of his countrymen. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), by his
choice of unpopular subjects and the terrible truth of his analysis,
revolted not a few of those who, in the words of an English critic,
cannot take pleasure in the representation if they do not take pleasure
in the thing represented, and who thus miss his extraordinary command of
the poetical appeal in sound, in imagery and in suggestion generally.
Thus, by a strange coincidence, each of the three representatives of the
second Romantic generation was for a time disappointed of his due fame.
A fourth poet of this time, Josephin Soulary (1815-1891), produced
sonnets of rare beauty and excellence. A fifth, Louis Bouilhet
(1822-1869), an intimate friend of Flaubert, pushed even farther the
fancy for strange subjects, but showed powers in _Melaenis_ and other
things. In 1866 a collection of poems, entitled after an old French
fashion _Le Parnasse contemporain_, appeared. It included contributions
by many of the poets just mentioned, but the mass of the contributors
were hitherto unknown to fame. A similar collection appeared in 1869,
and was interrupted by the German war, but continued after it, and a
third in 1876.
The first _Parnasse_ had been projected by MM. Xavier de Ricard (b.
1843) and Catulle Mendes (1841-1909) as a sort of manifesto of a school
of young poets: but its contents were largely coloured by the inclusion
among them of work by representatives of older generations--Gautier,
Laprade, Leconte de Lisle, Banville, Baudelaire and others. The
continuation, however, of the title in the later issues, rather than
anything else, led to the formation and promulgation of the idea of a
"Parnassien" or an "Impassible" school which was supposed to adopt as
its watchword the motto of "Art for Art's sake," to pay especial
attention to form, and also to aim at a certain objectivity. As a matter
of fact the greater poets and the greater poems of the Parnasse admit of
no such restrictive labelling, which can only be regarded as
mischievous, though (or very mainly because) it has been continued.
Another school, arising mainly in the later 'eighties and calling itself
that of "Symbolism," has been supposed to indicate a reaction against
Parnassianism and even against the main or Hugonic Romantic tradition
generally; with a throwing back to Lamartine and perhaps Chenier. This
idea of successive schools ("Decadents," "Naturists," "Simplists," &c.)
has even been reduced to such an _absurdum_ as the statement that
"France sees a new school of poetry every fifteen years." Those who have
studied literature sufficiently widely, and from a sufficient elevation,
know that these systematisings are always more or less delusive.
Parnassianism, symbolism and the other things are merely phases of the
Romantic movement itself--as may be proved to demonstration by the
simple process of taking, say, Hugo and Verlaine on the one hand,
Delille or Escouchard Lebrun on the other, and comparing the two first
mentioned with each other and with the older poet. The differences in
the first case will be found to be differences at most of individuality:
in the other of kind. We shall not, therefore, further refer to these
dubious classifications: but specify briefly the most remarkable poets
whom they concern, and all the older of whom, it may be observed, were
represented in the _Parnasse_ itself. Of these the most remarkable were
Sully Prudhomme (1839-1907), Francois Coppee (1842-1908) and Paul
Verlaine (1844-1896). The first (_Stances et poemes_, 1865, _Vaines
Tendresses_, 1875, _Bonheur_, 1888, &c.) is a philosophical and rather
pessimistic poet who has very strongly rallied the suffrages of the
rather large present public who care for the embodiment of these
tendencies in verse; the second (_La Greve des forgerons_, 1869, _Les
Humbles_, 1872, _Contes et vers_, 1881-1887, &c.) a dealer with more
generally popular subjects in a more sentimental manner; and the third
(_Sagesse_, 1881, _Parallelement_, 1889, _Poemes saturniens_, including
early work, 1867-1890), by far the most original and remarkable poet of
the three, starting with Baudelaire and pushing farther the fancy for
forbidden subjects, but treating both these and others with wonderful
command of sound and image-suggestion. Verlaine in fact (he was actually
well acquainted with English) endeavoured, and to a small extent
succeeded in the endeavour, to communicate to French the vague
suggestion of visual and audible appeal which has characterized English
poetry from Blake through Coleridge. Others of the original Parnassiens
who deserve mention are Albert Glatigny (1839-1873), a Bohemian poet of
great talent who died young; Stephane Mallarme (1842-1898), afterwards
chief of the Symbolists, also a true poet in his way, but somewhat
barren, and the victim of pose and trick; Jose Maria de Heredia
(1842-1905), a very exquisite practitioner of the sonnet but with
perhaps more art than matter in him; Henri Cazalis (1840-1909), who long
afterwards, under his name of Jean Lahor, appeared as a Symbolist
pessimist; A. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, another eccentric but with a
spark of genius; Emmanuel des Essarts; Auguste de Chatillon (1810-1882);
Leon Dierx (b. 1838) who, after producing even less than Mallarme,
succeeded him as Symbolist chief; Jean Aicard (b. 1848), a southern bard
of merit; and lastly Catulle Mendes himself, who has been a brilliant
writer in verse and prose ever since, and whose _Mouvement poetique
francais de 1867 a 1900_ (1903), an official report largely amplified so
that it is in fact a history and dictionary of French poetry during the
century, forms an almost unique work of reference on the subject. Among
the later recruits the most specially noticeable was Armand Silvestre
(1837-1901), whose verse (_La Chanson des heures_, 1878, _Ailes d'or_,
1880, _La Chanson des etoiles_, 1885), of an ethereal beauty, was
contrasted with prose admirably written and sometimes most amusing, but
"Pantagruelist," and more, in manners and morals. This declension from
poetry to prose fiction was also noticeable in Guy de Maupassant, Andre
Theuriet, Anatole France and even Alphonse Daudet.
Yet another flight of poets may be grouped as those specially
representing the last quarter of the century and (whether Parnassian,
Symbolist or what not) the latest development of French poetry. Verlaine
and Mallarme already mentioned were in a manner the leaders of these.
Perhaps something of the influence of Whitman may be detected in the
irregular verses of Gustave Kahn (b. 1859), Francis Viele Griffin,
actually an American by birth (b. 1864), Stuart Merrill, of like origin,
and Paul Fort (b. 1872). But the whole tendency of the period has been
to relax the stringency of French prosody. Albert Samain (1859-1900), a
musical versifier enough; Jean Moreas (1856-1910) who began with a
volume called _Les Syrtes_ in 1884; Laurent Tailhade (b. 1854) and
others are more or less Symbolist, and contributed to the Symbolist
periodical (one of many such since the beginning of the Romantic
movement which would almost require an article to themselves), the
_Mercure de France_. An older man than many of these, M. Jean Richepin
(b. 1849), made for a time considerable noise with poetical work of a
colour older even than his age, and harking back somewhat to the
Jeune-France and "Bousingot" type of early Romanticism--_La Chanson des
gueux_, _Les Blasphemes_, &c. Other writers of note are M. Paul
Deroulede (b. 1846), a violently nationalist poet; M. Maurice Bouchor
(b. 1864), who started his serious and respectable work with _Les
Symboles_ in 1888; while M. Henri de Regnier, born in the same year, has
received very high praise for work from _Lendemains_ in 1886 and other
volumes up to _Les Jeux rustiques et divins_ (1897) and _Les Medailles
d'argile_ (1900). The truth, however, perhaps is that this extraordinary
abundance of verse (for we have not mentioned a quarter of the names
which present themselves, or a twentieth part of those who figure in M.
Mendes's catalogue for the last half-century) reminds the literary
historian somewhat too much of similar phenomena in other times. There
is undoubtedly a great diffusion of poetical dexterity, and not perhaps
a small one of poetical spirit, but it requires the settling, clarifying
and distinguishing effects of time to separate the poet from the minor
poet. Still more perhaps must we look to time to decide whether the
_vers libre_ as it is called--that is to say, the verse freed from the
minute traditions of the elder prosody, admitting hiatus, neglecting to
a greater or less extent _caesura_, and sometimes relying upon mere
rhythm to the neglect of strict metre altogether--can hold its ground.
It has as yet been practised by no poet at all approaching the first
class, except Verlaine, and not by him in its extremer forms. And the
whole history of prosody and poetry teaches us that though similar
changes often come in as it were unperceived, they scarcely ever take
root in the language unless a great poet adopts them. Or rather it
should perhaps be said that when they are going to take root in the
language a great poet always does adopt them before very long.
Dumas.
Balzac the younger.
_Prose Fiction since 1830._--Even more remarkable, because more
absolutely novel, was the outburst of prose fiction which followed 1830.
Madame de Lafayette, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire, the Abbe Prevost,
Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Fievee had all of
them produced work excellent in its way, and comprising in a more or
less rudimentary condition most varieties of the novel. But none of them
had, in the French phrase, made a school, and at no time had prose
fiction been composed in any considerable quantities. The immense
influence which Walter Scott exercised was perhaps the direct cause of
the attention paid to prose fiction; the facility, too, with which all
the fancies, tastes and beliefs of the time could be embodied in such
work may have had considerable importance. But it is difficult on any
theory of cause and effect to account for the appearance in less than
ten years of such a group of novelists as Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Merimee,
Balzac, George Sand, Jules Sandeau and Charles de Bernard, names to
which might be added others scarcely inferior. There is hardly anything
else resembling it in literature, except the great cluster of English
dramatists in the beginning of the 17th century, and of English poets at
the beginning of the 19th; and it is remarkable that the excellence of
the first group was maintained by a fresh generation--Murger, About,
Feuillet, Flaubert, Erckmann-Chatrian, Droz, Daudet, Cherbuliez and
Gaboriau, forming a company of _diadochi_ not far inferior to their
predecessors, and being themselves not unworthily succeeded almost up to
the present day. The romance-writing of France during the period has
taken two different directions--the first that of the novel of incident,
the second that of analysis and character. The first, now mainly
deserted, was that which, as was natural when Scott was the model, was
formerly most trodden; the second required the genius of George Sand and
of Balzac and the more problematical talent of Beyle to attract students
to it. The novels of Victor Hugo are novels of incident, with a strong
infusion of purpose, and considerable but rather ideal character
drawing. They are in fact lengthy prose _drames_ rather than romances
proper, and they have found no imitators. They display, however, the
powers of the master at their fullest. On the other hand, Alexandre
Dumas originally composed his novels in close imitation of Scott, and
they are much less dramatic than narrative in character, so that they
lend themselves to almost indefinite continuation, and there is often no
particular reason why they should terminate even at the end of the score
or so of volumes to which they sometimes actually extend. Of this purely
narrative kind, which hardly even attempts anything but the boldest
character drawing, the best of them, such as _Les Trois Mousquetaires_,
_Vingt ans apres_, _La Reine Margot_, are probably the best specimens
extant. Dumas possesses, almost alone among novelists, the secret of
writing interminable dialogue without being tedious, and of telling the
story by it. Of something the same kind, but of a far lower stamp, are
the novels of Eugene Sue (1804-1857). Dumas and Sue were accompanied and
followed by a vast crowd of companions, independent or imitative. Alfred
de Vigny had already attempted the historical novel in _Cinq-Mars_.
Henri de La Touche (1785-1851) (_Fragoletta_), an excellent critic who
formed George Sand, but a mediocre novelist, may be mentioned: and
perhaps also Roger de Beauvoir, whose real name was Eugene Auguste Roger
de Bully (1806-1866) (_Le Chronique de Saint Georges_), and Frederic
Soulie (_Les Memoires du diable_) (1800-1847). Paul Feval (_La Fee des
greves_) (1817-1877) and Amedee Achard (_Belle-Rose_) (1814-1875) are of
the same school, and some of the attempts of Jules Janin (1804-1874),
more celebrated as a critic, may also be connected with it. By degrees,
however, the taste for the novel of incident, at least of an historical
kind, died out till it was revived in another form, and with an
admixture of domestic interest, by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. The last and
one of the most splendid instances of the old style was _Le Capitaine
Fracasse_, which Theophile Gautier began early and finished late as a
kind of _tour de force_. The last-named writer in his earlier days had
modified the incident novel in many short tales, a kind of writing for
which French has always been famous, and in which Gautier's sketches are
masterpieces. His only other long novel, _Mademoiselle de Maupin_,
belongs rather to the class of analysis. With Gautier, as a writer whose
literary characteristics even excel his purely tale-telling powers, may
be classed Prosper Merimee (1803-1870), one of the most exquisite
19th-century masters of the language. Already, however, in 1830 the tide
was setting strongly in favour of novels of contemporary life and
manners. These were of course susceptible of extremely various
treatment. For many years Paul de Kock (1793-1871), a writer who did not
trouble himself about Classics or Romantics or any such matter,
continued the tradition of Marivaux, Crebillon _fils_, and Pigault
Lebrun (1753-1835) in a series of not very moral or polished but lively
and amusing sketches of life, principally of the bourgeois type. Later
Charles de Bernard (1804-1850) (_Gerfaut_) with infinitely greater wit,
elegance, propriety and literary skill, did the same thing for the
higher classes of French society. But the two great masters of the novel
of character and manners as opposed to that of history and incident are
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) and Aurore Dudevant, commonly called George
Sand (1804-1876). Their influence affected the entire body of novelists
who succeeded them, with very few exceptions. At the head of these
exceptions may be placed Jules Sandeau (1811-1883), who, after writing a
certain number of novels in a less individual style, at last made for
himself a special subject in a certain kind of domestic novel, where the
passions set in motion are less boisterous than those usually preferred
by the French novelist, and reliance is mainly placed on minute
character drawing and shades of colour sober in hue but very carefully
adjusted (_Catherine_, _Mademoiselle de Penarvan_, _Mademoiselle de la
Seigliere_). In the same class of the more quiet and purely domestic
novelists may be placed X. B. Saintine (1798-1865) (_Picciola_), Madame
C. Reybaud (1802-1871) (_Clementine_, _Le Cadet de Colobrieres_), J. T.
de Saint-Germain (_Pour en epingle_, _La Feuille de coudrier_), Madame
Craven (1808-1891) (_Recit d'une soeur_, _Fleurange_). Henri Beyle
(1798-1865), who wrote under the _nom de plume_ of Stendhal and belongs
to an older generation than most of these, also stands by himself. His
chief book in the line of fiction is _La Chartreuse de Parme_, an
exceedingly powerful novel of the analytical kind, and he also composed
a considerable number of critical and miscellaneous works. Of little
influence at first (though he had great power over Merimee) and never
master of a perfect style, he has exercised ever increasing authority as
a master of pessimist analysis. Indeed much of his work was never
published till towards the close of the century. Last among the
independents must be mentioned Henry Murger (1822-1861), the painter of
what is called Bohemian life, that is to say, the struggles,
difficulties and amusements of students, youthful artists, and men of
letters. In this peculiar style, which may perhaps be regarded as an
irregular descendant of the picaroon romance, Murger has no rival; and
he is also, though on no extensive scale, a poet of great pathos. But
with these exceptions, the influences of the two writers we have
mentioned, sometimes combined, more often separate, may be traced
throughout the whole of later novel literature. George Sand began with
books strongly tinged with the spirit of revolt against moral and social
arrangements, and she sometimes diverged into very curious paths of
pseudo-philosophy, such as was popular in the second quarter of the
century. At times, too, as in _Lucrezia Floriani_ and some other works,
she did not hesitate to draw largely on her own personal adventures and
experiences. But latterly she devoted herself rather to sketches of
country life and manners, and to novels involving bold if not very
careful sketches of character and more or less dramatic situations. She
was one of the most fertile of novelists, continuing to the end of her
long life to pour forth fiction at the rate of many volumes a year. Of
her different styles may be mentioned as fairly characteristic, _Lelia_,
_Lucrezia Floriani_, _Consuelo_, _La Mare au diable_, _La Petite
Fadette_, _Francois le champi_, _Mademoiselle de la Quintinie_.
Considering the shorter length of his life the productiveness of Balzac
was almost more astonishing, especially if we consider that some of his
early work was never reprinted, and that he left great stores of
fragments and unfinished sketches. He is, moreover, the most remarkable
example in literature of untiring work and determination to achieve
success despite the greatest discouragements. His early work was worse
than unsuccessful, it was positively bad. After more than a score of
unsuccessful attempts, _Les Chouans_ at last made its mark, and for
twenty years from that time the astonishing productions composing the
so-called _Comedie humaine_ were poured forth successively. The
sub-titles which Balzac imposed upon the different batches, _Scenes de
la vie parisienne_, _de la vie de province_, _de la vie intime_, &c.,
show, like the general title, a deliberate intention on the author's
part to cover the whole ground of human, at least of French life. Such
an attempt could not succeed wholly; yet the amount of success attained
is astonishing. Balzac has, however, with some justice been accused of
creating the world which he described, and his personages, wonderful as
is the accuracy and force with which many of the characteristics of
humanity are exemplified in them, are somehow not altogether human.
Since these two great novelists, many others have arisen, partly to
tread in their steps, partly to strike out independent paths. Octave
Feuillet (1821-1890), beginning his career by apprenticeship to
Alexandre Dumas and the historical novel, soon found his way in a very
different style of composition, the _roman intime_ of fashionable life,
in which, notwithstanding some grave defects, he attained much
popularity and showed remarkable skill in keeping abreast of his time.
The so-called realist side of Balzac was developed (but, as he himself
acknowledged, with a double dose of intermixed if somewhat transformed
Romanticism) by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), who showed culture,
scholarship and a literary power over the language inferior to that of
no writer of the century. No novelist of his generation has attained a
higher literary rank than Flaubert. _Madame Bovary_ and _L'Education
sentimentale_ are studies of contemporary life; in _Salammbo_ and _La
Tentation de Saint Antoine_ erudition and antiquarian knowledge furnish
the subjects for the display of the highest literary skill. Of about the
same date Edmond About (1828-1885), before he abandoned novel-writing,
devoted himself chiefly to sketches of abundant but not always refined
wit (_L'Homme a l'oreille cassee_, _Le Nez d'un notaire_), and sometimes
to foreign scenes (_Tolla_, _Le Roi des montagnes_). Champfleury (Henri
Husson, 1829-1889), a prolific critic, deserves notice for stories of
the extravaganza kind. During the whole of the Second Empire one of the
most popular writers was Ernest Feydeau (1821-1873), a writer of great
ability, but morbid and affected in the choice and treatment of his
subjects (_Fanny_, _Sylvie_, _Catherine d'Overmeire_). Emile Gaboriau
(1833-1873), taking up that side of Balzac's talent which devoted itself
to inextricable mysteries, criminal trials, and the like, produced _M.
Le Coq_, _Le Crime d'Orcival_, _La Degringolade_, &c.; and Adolphe Belot
(b. 1829) for a time endeavoured to out-Feydeau Feydeau in _La Femme de
feu_ and other works. Eugene Fromentin (1820-1876), best known as a
painter, wrote a novel, _Dominique_, which was highly appreciated by
good judges.
During the last decade of the Second Empire there arose, continuing for
varying lengths of time till nearly the end of the century, another
remarkable group of novelists, most of whom are dealt with under
separate headings, but who must receive combined treatment here; with
the warning that even more danger than in the case of the poets is
incurred by classing them in "schools." Undoubtedly, however, the
"Naturalist" tendency, starting from Balzac and continued through
Flaubert, but taking quite a new direction under some of those to be
mentioned, is in a manner dominant. Flaubert himself and Feuillet (an
exact observer of manners but an anti-Naturalist) have already been
mentioned. Victor Cherbuliez (1829-1899), a constant writer in the
_Revue des deux mondes_ on politics and other subjects, also
accomplished a long series of novels from _Le Comte Kostia_ (1863)
onwards, of which the most remarkable are that just named, _Le Roman
d'une honnete femme_ (1866), and _Meta Holdenis_ (1873). With something
of Balzac and more of Feuillet, Cherbuliez mixed with his observation of
society a dose of sentimental and popular romance which offended the
younger critics of his day, but he had solid merits. Gustave Droz (b.
1832) devoted himself chiefly to short stories sufficiently "free" in
subject (_Monsieur, madame et bebe_, _Entre nous_, &c.) but full of
fancy, excellently written, and of a delicate wit in one sense if not in
all. Andre Theuriet (1833-1907) began with poetry but diverged to
novels, in which the scenery of France and especially of its great
forests is used with much skill; _Le Fils Maugars_ (1879) may be
mentioned out of many as a specimen. Leon Cladel (1835-1892), whose most
remarkable work was _Les Va-nu-pieds_ (1874), had, as this title of
itself shows, Naturalist leanings; but with a quaint Romantic tendency
in prose and verse.
The Naturalists proper chiefly developed or seemed to develop one side
of Balzac, but almost entirely abandoned his Romantic element. They
aimed first at exact and almost photographic delineation of the
accidents of modern life, and secondly at still more uncompromising
non-suppression of the essential features and functions of that life
which are usually suppressed. This school may be represented in chief by
four novelists (really _three_, as two of them were brothers who wrote
together till the rather early death of one of them), Emile Zola
(1840-1903), Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897), and Edmond (1822-1897) and
Jules (1830-1870) de Goncourt. The first, of Italian extraction and
Marseillais birth, began by work of undecided kinds and was always a
critic as well as a novelist. Of this first stage _Contes a Ninon_
(1864) and _Therese Raquin_ (1867) deserve to be specified. But after
1870 Zola entered upon a huge scheme (suggested no doubt by the _Comedie
humaine_) of tracing the fortunes in every branch, legitimate and
illegitimate, and in every rank of society of a family, _Les
Rougon-Macquart_, and carried it out in a full score of novels during
more than as many years. He followed this with a shorter series on
places, _Paris_, _Rome_, _Lourdes_, and lastly by another of strangely
apocalyptic tone, _Fecondite_, _Travail_, _Verite_, the last a story of
the Dreyfus case, retrospective and, as it proved, prophetic. The
extreme repulsiveness of much of his work, and the overdone detail of
almost the whole of it, caused great prejudice against him, and will
probably always prevent his being ranked among the greatest novelists;
but his power is indubitable, and in passages, if not in whole books,
does itself justice.
MM. de Goncourt, besides their work in Naturalist (they would have
preferred to call it "Impressionist") fiction, devoted themselves
especially to study and collection in the fine arts, and produced many
volumes on the historical side of these, volumes distinguished by
accurate and careful research. This quality they carried, and the elder
of them after his brother's death continued to carry, into novel-writing
(_Renee Mauperin_, _Germinie Lacerteux_, _Cherie_, &c.) with the
addition of an extraordinary care for peculiar and, as they called it,
"personal" diction. On the other hand, Alphonse Daudet (who with the
other three, Flaubert to some extent, and the Russian novelist
Turgenieff, formed a sort of _cenacle_ or literary club) mixed with some
Naturalism a far greater amount of fancy and wit than his companions
allowed themselves or could perhaps attain; and in the _Tartarin_ series
(dealing with the extravagances of his fellow-Provencaux) added not a
little to the gaiety of Europe. His other novels (_Fromont jeune et
Risler aine_, _Jack_, _Le Nabab_, &c.), also very popular, have been
variously judged, there being something strangely like plagiarism in
some of them, and in others, in fact in most, an excessive use of that
privilege of the novelist which consists in introducing real persons
under more or less disguise. It should be observed in speaking of this
group that the Goncourts, or rather the survivor of them, left an
elaborate _Journal_ disfigured by spite and bad taste, but of much
importance for the appreciation of the personal side of French
literature during the last half of the century.
In 1880 Zola, who had by this time formed a regular school of disciples,
issued with certain of them a collection of short stories, _Les Soirees
de Medan_, which contains one of his own best things, _L'Attaque du
moulin_, and also the capital story, _Boule de suif_, by Guy de
Maupassant (1850-1893), who in the same year published poems, _Des
vers_, of very remarkable if not strictly poetical quality. Maupassant
developed during his short literary career perhaps the greatest powers
shown by any French novelist since Flaubert (his sponsor in both senses)
in a series of longer novels (_Une Vie_, _Bel Ami_, _Pierre et Jean_,
_Fort comme la mort_) and shorter stories (_Monsieur Parent_, _Les
Soeurs Rondoli_, _Le Horla_), but they were distorted by the Naturalist
pessimism and grime, and perhaps also by the brain-disease of which
their author died. M. J. K. Huysmans (b. 1848), also a contributor to
_Les Soirees de Medan_, who had begun a little earlier with _Marthe_
(1876) and other books, gave his most characteristic work in 1884 with
_Au rebours_ and in 1891 with _La-bas_, stories of exaggerated and
"satanic" pose, decorated with perhaps the extremest achievements of the
school in mere ugliness and nastiness. Afterwards, by an obvious
reaction, he returned to Catholicism. Of about the same date as these
two are two other novelists of note, Julien Viaud ("Pierre Loti," b.
1850), a naval officer who embodied his experiences of foreign service
with a faint dose of story and character interest, and a far larger one
of elaborate description, in a series of books (_Aziyade_, _Le Mariage
de Loti_, _Madame Chrysantheme_, &c.), and M. Paul Bourget (b. 1852), an
important critic as well as novelist who deflected the Naturalist
current into a "psychological" channel, connecting itself higher with
Stendhal, and composed in its books very popular in their way--_Cruelle
Enigme_ (1885), _Le Disciple_, _Terre promise_, _Cosmopolis_. As a
contrast or complement to Bourget's "psychological" novel may be taken
the "ethical" novel of Edouard Rod (1857-1909)--_La Vie privee de Michel
Tessier_ (1893), _Le Sens de la vie_, _Les Trois Coeurs_. Contemporary
with these as a novelist though a much older man, and occupied at
different times of his life with verse and with criticism, came Anatole
France (b. 1844), who in _Le Crime de Silvestre Bonnard_, _La Rotisserie
de la reine Pedauque_, _Le Lys rouge_, and others, has made a kind of
novel as different from the ordinary styles as Pierre Loti's, but of far
higher appeal in its wit, its subtle fancy, and its perfect French.
Ferdinand Fabre (1830-1898) and Rene Bazin (b. 1853) represent the
union, not too common in the French novel, of orthodoxy in morals and
religion with literary ability. Further must be mentioned Paul Hervieu
(b. 1857), a dramatist rather than a novelist; the brothers Margueritte
(Paul, b. 1860, Victor, b. 1866), especially strong in short stories and
passages; another pair of brothers of Belgian origin writing under the
name of "J. H. Rosny"--Zolaists partly converted not to religion but to
science and a sort of non-Christian virtue; the ingenious and amusing,
if not exactly moral, brilliancy of Marcel Prevost (b. 1862); the
contorted but rather attractive style and the perverse sentiment of
Maurice Barres (b. 1862); and, above all, the audacious and inimitable
dialogue pieces of "Gyp" (Madame de Martel, b. 1850), worthy of the best
times of French literature for gaiety, satire, acuteness and style, and
perhaps likely, with the work of Maupassant, Pierre Loti and Anatole
France, to represent the capital achievement of their particular
generation to posterity.
Sainte-Beuve.