THE SATIRICAL LITERATURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.--PASQUIL.--
MACARONIC POETRY.--THE EPISTOLÆ OBSURORUM VIRORUM.--RABELAIS.--
COURT OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE, AND ITS LITERARY CIRCLE;
BONAVENTURE DES PERIERS.--HENRI ETIENNE.--THE LIGUE, AND ITS
SATIRE: THE "SATYRE MÉNIPPÉE."
The sixteenth century, especially on the Continent, was a period of
that sort of violent agitation which is most favourable to the growth
of satire. Society was breaking up, and going through a course of
decomposition, and it presented to the view on every side spectacles
which provoked the mockery, perhaps more than the indignation, of
lookers-on. Even the clergy had learnt to laugh at themselves, and
almost at their own religion; and people who thought or reflected were
gradually separating into two classes--those who cast all religion
from them, and rushed into a jeering scepticism, and those who entered
seriously and with resolution into the work of reformation. The
latter found most encouragement among the Teutonic nations, while the
sceptical element appears to have had its birth in Italy, and even in
Rome itself, where, among popes and cardinals, religion had degenerated
into empty forms.
At some period towards the close of the fifteenth century, a mutilated
ancient statue was accidentally dug up in Rome, and it was erected
on a pedestal in a place not far from the Ursini Palace. Opposite
it stood the shop of a shoemaker, named Pasquillo, or Pasquino, the
latter being the form most commonly adopted at a later period. This
Pasquillo was notorious as a facetious fellow, and his shop was usually
crowded by people who went there to tell tales and hear news; and, as
no other name had been invented for the statue, people agreed to give
it the name of the shoemaker, and they called it Pasquillo. It became
a custom, at certain seasons, to write on pieces of paper satirical
epigrams, sonnets, and other short compositions in Latin or Italian,
mostly of a personal character, in which the writer declared whatever
he had seen or heard to the discredit of somebody, and these were
published by depositing them with the statue, whence they were taken
and read. One of the Latin epigrams which pleads against committing
these short personal satires to print, calls the time at which it was
usual to compose them Pasquil's festival:--
Jam redit illa dies in qua Romana juventus
Pasquilli festum concelebrabit ovans.
Sed versus impressos obsecro ut edere omittas,
Ne noceant iterum quæ nocuere semel.
The festival was evidently a favourite one, and well celebrated. "The
soldiers of Xerxes," says another epigram, placed in Pasquil's mouth,
"were not so plentiful as the paper bestowed upon me; I shall soon
become a bookseller"--
Armigerûm Xerxi non copia tanta papyri
Quanta mihi: fiam bibliopola statim.
The name of Pasquil was soon given to the papers which were deposited
with the statue, and eventually a _pasquil_, or _pasquin_, was only
another name for a lampoon or libel. Not far from this statue stood
another, which was found in the forum of Mars (_Martis forum_), and was
thence popularly called Marforio. Some of these satirical writings were
composed in the form of dialogues between Pasquil and Marforio, or of
messages from one to the other.
A collection of these pasquils was published in 1544 in two small
volumes.[94] Many of them are extremely clever, and they are sharply
pointed. The popes are frequent objects of bitterest satire. Thus we
are reminded in two lines upon pope Alexander VI. (_sextus_), the
infamous Borgia, that Tarquin had been a Sextus, and Nero also, and now
another Sextus was at the head of the Romans, and told that Rome was
always ruined under a Sextus--
De Alexandro VI. Pont.
_Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste:
Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit._
The following is given for an epitaph on Lucretia Borgia, pope
Alexander's profligate daughter:--
_Hoc tumulo dormit Lucretia nomine, sed re
Thais, Alexandri filia, sponsa, nurus._
[94] "Pasquillorum Tomi duo." Eleutheropoli, MDXLIIII.
In another of a rather later date, Rome, addressing herself to Pasquil,
is made to complain of two successive popes, Clement VII. (Julio de
Medicis, 1523-1534) and Paul III. (Alexandro Farnese, 1534-1549), and
also of Leo X. (1513-1521). "I am," Rome says, "sick enough with the
physician (_Medicus_, as a pun on the Medicis), I was also the prey of
the lion (_Leo_), now, Paul, you tear my vitals like a wolf. You, Paul,
are not a god to me, as I thought in my folly, but you are a wolf,
since you tear the food from my mouth"--
_Sum Medico satis ægra, fui quoque præda Leonis,
Nunc mea dilaceras viscera, Paule, lupus.
Non es, Paule, mihi numen, ceu stulta putabam,
Sed lupus es, quoniam subtrahis ore cibum._
Another epigram, addressed to Rome herself, involves a pun in Greek
(in the words _Paulos_, Paul, and _Phaulos_, wicked). "Once, Rome," it
says, "lords of lords were thy subjects, now thou in thy wretchedness
art subject to the serfs of serfs; once you listened to the oracles of
St. Paul, but now you perform the abominable commands of the wicked"--
_Quondam, Roma, tibi suberant domini dominorum,
Servorum servis nunc miseranda subes;
Audisti quondam divini oracula Παύλου,
At nunc των φαύλων jussa nefanda facis._
The idea, of course, is the contrast of Rome in her Pagan glory, with
Rome in her Christian debasement, very much the same as that which
struck Gibbon, and gave birth to his great history of Rome's "decline
and fall."[95]
[95] Pasquil and Pasquin became, during the latter part of the
sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries, a
well-known name in French and English literature. In English
popular literature he was turned into a jester, and a book was
published in 1604 under the title "Pasquil's Jests; with the
Merriments of Mother Bunch. Wittie, pleasant, and delightfull."
The pasquils formed a body of satire which struck indiscriminately at
everybody within its range, but satirists were now rising who took for
their subjects special cases of the general disorder. Rotten at the
heart, society presented an external glossiness, a mixture of pedantry
and affectation, which offered subjects enough for ridicule in whatever
point of view it was taken. The ecclesiastical body was in a state of
fermentation, out of which new feelings and new doctrines were about to
rise. The old learning and literature of the middle ages remained in
form after their spirit had passed away, and they were now contending
clumsily and unsuccessfully against new learning and literature of a
more refined and healthier character. Feudalism itself had fallen, or
it was struggling vainly against new political principles, yet the
aristocracy clung to feudal forms and feudal assumptions, with an
exaggeration which was meant for an appearance of strength. Among the
literary affectations of this false feudalism, was the fashion for
reading the long, dry, old romances of chivalry; while the churchmen
and schoolmen were corrupting the language in which mediæval learning
had been expressed, into a form the most barbarous, or introducing
words compounded from the later into the vernacular tongue. These
peculiarities were among the first to provoke literary satire. Italy,
where this class of satire originated, gave it its name also, though it
appears still to be a matter of doubt why it was called _macaronic_,
or in its Italian form _maccharonea_. Some have considered this name
to have been taken from the article of food called _macaroni_, to
which the Italians were, and still are, so much attached; while others
pretend that it was derived from an old Italian word _macarone_, which
meant a lubberly fellow. Be this, however, as it may, what is called
macaronic composition, which consists in giving a Latin form to words
taken from the vulgar tongue, and mixing them with words which are
purely Latin, was introduced in Italy at the close of the fifteenth
century.
Four Italian writers in macaronic verse are known to have lived before
the year 1500.[96] The first of these was named Fossa, and he tells
us that he composed his poem entitled "Vigonce," on the second day
of May, 1494. It was printed in 1502. Bassano, a native of Mantua,
and the author of a macaronic which bears no title, was dead in 1499;
and another, a Paduan named Fifi degli Odassi, was born about the
year 1450. Giovan Georgio Allione, of Asti, who is believed also to
have written during the last ten years of the fifteenth century,
is a name better known through the edition of his French works,
published by Monsieur J. C. Brunet in 1836. All these present the
same coarseness and vulgarity of sentiment, and the same licence in
language and description, which appear to have been taken as necessary
characteristics of macaronic composition. Odassi appears to give
support to the derivation of the name from macaroni, by making the
principal character of his poem a fabricator of that article in Padua--
_Est unus in Padua natus speciale cusinus,
In maccharonea princeps bonus atque magister._
[96] The great authority on the history of Macaronic literature is my
excellent friend Monsieur Octave Delepierre, and I will simply
refer the reader to his two valuable publications, "Macaronéana,
ou Mélanges de Littérature Macaronique des differents Peuples de
l'Europe," 8vo., Paris, 1852; and "Macaronéana," 4to., 1863; the
latter printed for the Philobiblon Club.
But the great matter of macaronic poetry was Teofilo Folengo, of whose
life we know just sufficient to give us a notion of the personal
character of these old literary caricaturists. Folengo was descended
from a noble family, which had its seat at the village of Cipada, near
Mantua, where he was born on the 8th of November, 1491, and baptised by
the name of Girolamo. He pursued his studies, first in the university
of Ferrara, under the professor Visago Cocaio, and afterwards in that
of Bologna, under Pietro Pomponiazzo; or rather, he ought to have
pursued them, for his love of poetry, and his gaiety of character, led
him to neglect them, and at length his irregularities became so great,
that he was obliged to make a hasty flight from Bologna. He was ill
received at home, and he left it also, and appears to have subsequently
led a wild life, during part of which he adopted the profession of a
soldier, until at length he took refuge in a Benedictine convent near
Brescia, in 1507, and became a monk. The discipline of this house
had become entirely relaxed, and the monks appear to have lived very
licentiously; and Folengo, who, on his admission to the order, had
exchanged his former baptismal name for Teofilo, readily conformed to
their example. Eventually he abandoned the convent and the habit, ran
away with a lady named Girolama Dedia, and for some years he led a
wandering, and, it would seem, very irregular life. Finally, in 1527,
he returned to his old profession of a monk, and remained in it until
his death, in the December of 1544. He is said to have been extremely
vain of his poetical talents, and a story is told of him which, even if
it were invented, illustrates well the character which was popularly
given to him. It is said that when young, he aspired to excel in
Latin poetry, and that he wrote an epic which he himself believed to
be _superior_ to the Æneid. When, however, he had communicated the
work to his friend the bishop of Mantua, and that prelate, intending
to compliment him, told him that he had equalled Virgil, he was so
mortified, that he threw the manuscript on the fire, and from that time
devoted his talents entirely to the composition of macaronic verse.
Such was the man who has justly earned the reputation of being the
first of macaronic poets. When he adopted this branch of literature,
while he was in the university of Bologna, he assumed in writing it
the name of Merlinus Cocaius, or Coccaius, probably from the name of
his professor at Ferrara. Folengo's printed poems consist of--1. The
Zanitonella, a pastoral in seven eclogues, describing the love of
Tonellus for Zanina; 2, the macaronic romance of Baldus, Folengo's
principal and most remarkable work; 3, the Moschæa, or dreadful battle
between the flies and the ants; and 4, a book of Epistles and Epigrams.
The first edition of the Baldus appeared in 1517. It is a sort of
parody on the romances of chivalry, and combines a jovial satire upon
everything, which, as has been remarked, spares neither religion nor
politics, science nor literature, popes, kings, clergy, nobility, or
people. It consists of twenty-five cantos, or, as they are termed in
the original, _phantasiæ_, fantasies. In the first we are told of the
origin of Baldus. There was at the court of France a famous knight
named Guy, descended from that memorable paladin Renaud of Montauban.
The king, who showed a particular esteem for Guy, had also a daughter
of surpassing beauty, named Balduine, who had fallen in love with
Guy, and he was equally amorous of the princess. In the sequel of a
grand tournament, at which Guy has distinguished himself greatly, he
carries off Balduine, and the two lovers fly on foot, in the disguise
of beggars, reach the Alps in safety, and cross them into Italy. At
Cipada, in the territory of Brescia, they are hospitably entertained by
a generous peasant named Berte Panade, with whom the princess Balduine,
who approaches her time of confinement, is left; while her lover goes
forth to conquer at least a marquisate for her. After his departure
she gives birth to a fine boy, which is named Baldus. Such, as told
in the second canto, is the origin of Folengo's hero, who is destined
to perform marvellous acts of chivalry. The peasant Berte Panade has
also a son named Zambellus, by a mother who had died in childbirth
of him. Baldus passes for the son of Berte also, so that the two are
supposed to be brothers. Baldus is successively led through a series of
extraordinary adventures, some low and vulgar, others more chivalrous,
and some of them exhibiting a wild fertility of imagination, which are
too long to enable me to take my readers through them, until at length
he is left by the poet in the country of Falsehood and Charlatanism,
which is inhabited by astrologers, necromancers, and poets. Thus
is the hero Baldus dragged through a great number of marvellous
accidents, some of them vulgar, many of them ridiculous, and some,
again, wildly poetical, but all of them presenting, in one form or
other, an opportunity for satire upon some of the follies, or vices,
or corruptions of his age. The hybrid language in which the whole is
written, gives it a singularly grotesque appearance; yet from time to
time we have passages which show that the author was capable of writing
true poetry, although it is mixed with a great amount of coarse and
licentious ideas, expressed no less coarsely and licentiously. What we
may term the filth, indeed, forms a large proportion of the Italian
macaronic poetry. The pastoral of Zanitonella presents, as might be
expected, more poetic beauty than the romance of Balbus. As an example
of the language of the latter, and indeed of that of the Italian
macaronics in general, I give a few lines of a description of a storm
at sea, from the twelfth canto, with a literal translation:--
_Jam gridor æterias hominum concussit abyssos,
Sentiturque ingens cordarum stridor, et ipse
Pontus habet pavidos vultus, mortisque colores.
Nunc Sirochus habit palmam, nunc Borra superchiat;
Irrugit pelagus, tangit quoque fluctibus astra,
Fulgure flammigero creber lampezat Olympus;
Vela forata micant crebris lacerata balottis;
Horrendam mortem nautis ea cuncta minazzant.
Nunc sbalzata ratis celsum tangebat Olympum,
Nunc subit infernam unda sbadacchiante paludem._
TRANSLATION
_Now the clamour of the men shook the ethereal abysses,
And the mighty crashing of the ropes is felt, and the very
Sea has pale looks, and the hue of death.
Now the Sirocco has the palm, now Eurus exults over it;
The sea roars, and touches the stars with its waves,
Olympus continually blazes out with flaming thunder,
The pierced sails glitter torn with frequent thunderbolts;
All these threaten frightful death to the sailors.
Now the ship tossed up touched the top of Olympus,
Now, the wave yawning, it sinks into the infernal lake._
Teofilo Folengo was followed by a number of imitators, of whom it
will be sufficient to state that he stands in talent as far above his
followers as above those who preceded him. One of these minor Italian
macaronic writers, named Bartolommeo Bolla, of Bergamo, who flourished
in the latter half of the sixteenth century, had the vanity to call
himself, in the title of one of his books, "the Apollo of poets, and
the Cocaius of this age;" but a modern critic has remarked of him
that he is as far removed from his model Folengo, as his native
town Bergamo is distant from Siberia. An earlier poet, named Guarino
Capella, a native of the town of Sarsina, in the country of Forli, on
the borders of Tuscany, approached far nearer in excellence to the
prince of macaronic writers. His work also is a mock romance, the
history of "Cabrinus, king of Gagamagoga," in six books or cantos,
which was printed at Arimini in 1526, and is now a book of excessive
rarity.
The taste for macaronics passed rather early, like all other fashions
in that age, from Italy into France, where it first brought into
literary reputation a man who, if he had not the great talent of
Folengo, possessed a very considerable amount of wit and gaiety.
Antoine de la Sable, who Latinised his name into Antonius de Arena,
was born of a highly respectable family at Soliers, in the diocese
of Toulon, about the year 1500, and, being destined from his youth
to follow the profession of the law, studied under the celebrated
jurisconsult Alciatus. He had only arrived at the simple dignity of
_juge_, at St. Remy, in the diocese of Arles, when he died in the year
1544. In fact, he appears to have been no very diligent student, and we
gather from his own confessions that his youth had been rather wild.
The volume containing his macaronics, the second edition of which (as
far as the editions are known) was printed in 1529, bears a title which
will give some notion of the character of its contents,--"_Provencalis
de bragardissima villa de Soleriis, ad suos compagnones qui sunt de
persona friantes, bassas dansas et branlas practicantes novellas, de
guerra Romana, Neapolitana, et Genuensi mandat; una cum epistola ad
falotissimam suam garsam, Janam Rosæam, pro passando tempora_"--(_i.e._
a Provençal of the most swaggering town of Soliers, sends this to his
companions, who are dainty of their persons, practising basse dances
and new brawls, concerning the war of Rome, Naples, and Genoa; with an
epistle to his most merry wench, Jeanne Rosée, for pastime). In the
first of these poems Arena traces in his burlesque verse, which is an
imitation of Folengo, his own adventures and sufferings in the war in
Italy which led to the sack of Rome, in 1527, and in the subsequent
expeditions to Naples and Genoa. From the picture of the horrors of
war, he passes very willingly to describe the joyous manners of the
students in Provençal universities, of whom he tells us, that they are
all fine gallants, and always in love with the pretty girls.
_Gentigalantes sunt omnes instudiantes,
Et bellas garsas semper amare solent._
He goes on to describe the scholars as great quarrellers, as well as
lovers of the other sex, and after dwelling on their gaiety and love
of the dance, he proceeds to treat in the same burlesque style on the
subject of dancing; but I pass over this to speak of Arena's principal
piece, the satirical description of the invasion of Provence by the
emperor Charles V. in 1536. This curious poem, which is entitled
"Meygra Enterprisa Catoloqui imperatoris," and which extends to upwards
of two thousand lines, opens with a laudatory address to the king of
France, François I., and with a sneer at the pride of the emperor, who,
believing himself to be the master of the whole world, had foolishly
thought to take away France and the cities of Provence from their
rightful monarch. It was Antonio de Leyva, the boaster, who had put
this project into the emperor's head, and they had already pillaged
and ravaged a good part of Provence, and were dividing the plunder,
when, harassed continually by the peasantry, the invaders were brought
to a stand by the difficulty of subsisting in a devastated country,
and by the diseases to which this difficulty gave rise. Nevertheless,
the Spaniards and their allies committed terrible devastation, which
is described by Arena in strong language. He commemorates the valiant
resistance of his native town of Soliers, which, however, was taken
and sacked, and he lost in it his house and property. Arles held the
imperialists at bay, while the French, under the constable Montmorency,
established themselves firmly at Avignon. At length disease gained
possession of Antonio de Leyva himself, and the emperor, who had been
making an unsuccessful demonstration against Marseilles, came to him
in his sickness. The first lines of the description of this interview,
will serve as a specimen of the language of the French macaronics:--
_Sed de Marsella bragganti quando retornat,
Fort male contentus, quando repolsat eum,
Antonium Levam trobavit forte maladum,
Cui mors terribilis triste cubile parat.
Ethica torquet eum per costas, et dolor ingens:
Cum male res vadit, vivere fachat eum.
Dixerunt medici, speransa est nulla salutis:
Ethicus in testa vivere pauca potest.
Ante suam mortem voluit parlare per horam
Imperelatori, consiliumque dare.
Scis, Cæsar, stricte nostri groppantur amores,
Namque duas animas corpus utrumque tenet,
Heu! fuge Provensam fortem, fuge littus amarum,
Fac tibi non noceat gloria tanta modo._
TRANSLATION.
_But when he returns from boasting Marseilles,
Very ill content, that she had repulsed him,
He found Antonio de Leyva very ill,
For whom terrible death is preparing a sorrowful bed.
Hectic fever tortures him in the ribs, and great pain;
Since things are going ill, he is weary of life.
Before his death he wished to speak an hour
To the emperor, and to give him counsel.
"You know, Cæsar, our affections are closely bound together,
For either body holds the two souls,
Alas! fly Provence the strong, fly the bitter shore,
Take care that your great glory prove not an injury to you."_
Thus Leyva goes on to persuade the emperor to abandon his enterprise,
and then dies. Arena exults over his death, and over the emperor's
grief for his loss, and then proceeds to describe the disastrous
retreat of the imperial army, and the glory of France in her king.
Antonius de Arena wrote with vigour and humour, but his verses are
tame in comparison with his model, Folengo. The taste for macaronic
verse never took strong root in France, and the few obscure writers
who attempted to shine in that kind of composition are now forgotten,
except by the laborious bibliographer. One named Jean Germain, wrote
a macaronic history of the invasion of Provence by the imperialists
in rivalry of Arenas. I will not follow the taste for this class of
burlesque composition into Spain or Germany, but merely add that it
was not adopted in England until the beginning of the seventeenth
century, when several authors employed it at about the same time.
The most perfect example of these early English macaronics is the
"Polemo-Middiana," _i.e._ battle of the dunghill, by the talented and
elegant-minded Drummond of Hawthornden. We may take a single example of
the English macaronic from this poem, which will not need an English
translation. One of the female characters in the dunghill war, calls,
among others, to her aid--
_Hunc qui dirtiferas tersit cum dishclouty dishras,
Hunc qui gruelias scivit bene lickere plettas,
Et saltpannifumos, et widebricatos fisheros,
Hellæosque etiam salteros duxit ab antris,
Coalheughos nigri girnantes more divelli;
Lifeguardamque sibi sævas vocat improba lassas,
Maggyam magis doctam milkare covœas,
Et doctam suepare flouras, et sternere beddas,
Quæque novit spinnare, et longas ducere threddas;
Nansyam, claves bene quæ keepaverat omnes,
Quæque lanam cardare solet greasy-fingria Betty._
Perhaps before this was written, the eccentric Thomas Coryat had
published in the volume of his Crudities, printed in 1611, a short
piece of verse, which is perfect in its macaronic style, but in which
Italian and other foreign words are introduced, as well as English. The
celebrated comedy of "Ignoramus," composed by George Ruggle in 1615,
may also be mentioned as containing many excellent examples of English
macaronics.
While Italy was giving birth to macaronic verse, the satire upon the
ignorance and bigotry of the clergy was taking another form in Germany,
which arose from some occurrences which it will be necessary to relate.
In the midst of the violent religious agitation at the beginning of
the sixteenth century in Germany, there lived a German Jew named
Pfeffercorn, who embraced Christianity, and to show his zeal for his
new faith, he obtained from the emperor an edict ordering the Talmud
and all the Jewish writings which were contrary to the Christian faith
to be burnt. There lived at the same time a scholar of distinction,
and of more liberal views than most of the scholastics of his time,
named John Reuchlin. He was a relative of Melancthon, and was secretary
to the palsgrave, who was tolerant like himself. The Jews, as might
be expected, were unwilling to give up their books to be burnt, and
Reuchlin wrote in their defence, under the assumed name of Capnion,
which is a Hebrew translation of his own name of Reuchlin, meaning
smoke, and urged that it was better to refute the books in question
than to burn them. The converted Pfeffercorn replied in a book entitled
"Speculum Manuale," in answer to which Reuchlin wrote his "Speculum
Oculare." The controversy had already provoked much bigoted ill-feeling
against Reuchlin. The learned doctors of the university of Cologne
espoused the cause of Pfeffercorn, and the principal of the university,
named in Latin Ortuinus Gratius, supported by the Sorbonne in Paris,
lent himself to be the violent organ of the intolerant party. Hard
pressed by his bigoted opponents, Reuchlin found good allies, but one
of the best of these was a brave baron named Ulric von Hutten, of an
old and noble family, born in 1488 in the castle of Staeckelberg,
in Franconia. He had studied in the schools at Fulda, Cologne, and
Frankfort on the Oder, and distinguished himself so much as a scholar,
that he obtained the degree of Master of Arts before the usual age.
But Ulric possessed an adventurous and chivalrous spirit, which led
him to embrace the profession of a soldier, and he served in the wars
in Italy, where he was distinguished by his bravery. He was at Rome
in 1516, and defended Reuchlin against the Dominicans. The same year
appeared the first edition of that marvellous book, the "Epistolæ
Obscurorum Virorum," one of the most remarkable satires that the world
has yet seen. It is believed that this book came entirely from the
pen of Ulric von Hutten; and the notion that Reuchlin himself, or
any others of his friends, had a share in it appears to be without
foundation. Ulric was in the following year made poet-laureat.
Nevertheless, this book greatly incensed the monks against him, and he
was often threatened with assassination. Yet he boldly advocated the
cause and embraced the opinions of Luther, and was one of the staunch
supporters of Lutheranism. After a very turbulent life, Ulric von
Hutten died in the August of the year 1523.
The "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," or letters of obscure men, are
supposed to be addressed to Ortuinus Gratius, mentioned above, by
various individuals, some his scholars, others his friends, but all
belonging to the bigoted party opposed to Reuchlin, and they were
designed to throw ridicule on the ignorance, bigotry, and immorality
of the clergy of the Romish church. The old scholastic learning
had become debased into a heavy and barbarous system of theology,
literary composition consisted in writing a no less barbarous Latin,
and even the few classical writers who were admitted into the schools,
were explained and commented upon in a strange half-theological
fashion. These old scholastics were bitterly opposed to the new
learning, which had taken root in Italy, and was spreading abroad,
and they spoke contemptuously of it as "secular." The letters of the
obscure individuals relate chiefly to the dispute between Reuchlin
and Pfeffercorn, to the rivalry between the old scholarship and the
new, and to the low licentious lives of the theologists; and they
are written in a style of Latin which is intended for a parody on
that of the latter, and which closely resembles that which we call
"dog-Latin."[97] They are full of wit and humour of the most exquisite
description, but they too often descend into details, treated in terms
which can only be excused by the coarse and licentious character of
the age. The literary and scientific questions discussed in these
letters are often very droll. The first in order of the correspondents
of Ortuinus Gratius, who boasts of the rather formidable name, Thomas
Langschneiderius, and addresses master Ortuinus as "poet, orator,
philosopher, and theologist, and more if he would," propounds to him a
difficult question:--
"There was here one day an Aristotelian dinner, and doctors,
licenciates, and masters too, were very jovial, and I was
there too, and we drank at the first course three draughts of
Malmsey, ... and then we had six dishes of flesh and chickens
and capons, and one of fish, and as we passed from one dish to
another, we continually drunk wine of Kotzburg and the Rhine,
and ale of Embeck, and Thurgen, and Neuburg. And the masters
were well satisfied, and said that the new masters had acquitted
themselves well and with great honour. Then the masters in their
hilarity began to talk learnedly on great questions, and one
asked whether it were correct to say _magister nostrandus_, or
_noster magistrandus_, for a person fit to be made doctor in
theology.... And immediately Master Warmsemmel, who is a subtle
Scotist, and has been master eighteen years, and was in his time
twice rejected and thrice delayed for the degree of master,
and he went on offering himself, until he was promoted for the
honour of the university, ... spoke, and held that we should say
_noster magistrandus_.... Then Master Andreas Delitsch, who is
very subtle, and half poet, half artist (_i.e._ one who professed
in the faculty of arts), physician, and jurist; and now he
reads ordinarily 'Ovid on the Metamorphoses,' and expounds all
the fables allegorically and literally, and I was his hearer,
because he expounds very fundamentally, and he also reads at home
Quintillian and Juvencus, and he held the opposite to Master
Warmsemmel, and said that we ought to say _magister nostrandus_.
For as there is a difference between _magister noster_ and _noster
magister_, so also there is a difference between _magister
nostrandus_ and _noster magistrandus_; for a doctor in theology
is called _magister noster_, and it is one word, but _noster
magister_ are two words, and it is taken for any master; and he
quoted Horace in support of this. Then the masters much admired
his subtlety, and one drank to him a cup of Neuburg ale. And
he said, 'I will wait, but spare me,' and touched his hat, and
laughed heartily, and drank to Master Warmsemmel, and said,
'There, master, don't think I am an enemy,' and he drank it off at
one draught, and Master Warmsemmel replied to him with a strong
draught. And the masters were all merry till the bell rang for
Vespers."
[97] This style differs entirely from the macaronic. It consists
merely in using the words of the Latin language with the forms
and construction of the vulgar tongue, as illustrated by the
directions of the professor who, lecturing in the schools, was
interrupted by the entrance of a dog, and shouted out to the
doorkeeper, _Verte canem ex_, meaning thereby that he should
"turn the dog out." It was perhaps from this, or some similar
occurrence, that this barbarous Latin gained the name of
dog-Latin. The French call it _Latin de cuisine_.
Master Ortuin is pressed for his judgment on this weighty question. A
similar scene described in another letter ends less peacefully. The
correspondent on this occasion is Magister Bornharddus Plumilegus, who
addresses Ortuinus Gratius as follows:--
"Wretched is the mouse which has only one hole for a refuge! So
also I may say of myself, most venerable sir, for I should be poor
if I had only one friend, and when that one should fail me, then
I should not have another to treat me with kindness. As is the
case now with a certain poet here, who is called George Sibutus,
and he is one of the secular poets, and reads publicly in poetry,
and is in other respects a good fellow (_bonus socius_). But as
you know these poets, when they are not theologists like you, will
always reprehend others, and despise the theologists. And once
in a drinking party in his house, when we were drinking Thurgen
ale, and sat until the hour of tierce, and I was moderately drunk,
because that ale rose into my head, then there was one who was not
before friendly with me, and I drank to him half a cup, and he
accepted it. But afterwards he would not return the compliment.
And thrice I cautioned him, and he would not reply, but sat in
silence and said nothing. Then I thought to myself, Behold this
man treats thee with contempt, and is proud, and always wants to
confound you. And I was stirred in my anger, and took the cup, and
threw it at his head. Then that poet was angry at me, and said
that I had caused a disturbance in his house, and said I should go
out of his house in the devil's name. Then I replied, 'What matter
is it if you are my enemy? I have had as bad enemies as you, and
yet I have stood in spite of them. What matters it if you are a
poet? I have other poets who are my friends, and they are quite as
good as you, _ego bene merdarem in vestram poetriam_! Do you think
I am a fool, or that I was born under a tree like apples?' Then he
called me an ass, and said that I never saw a poet. And I said,
'You are an ass in your skin, I have seen many more poets than
you.' And I spoke of you.... Wherefore I ask you very earnestly to
write me one piece of verse, and then I will show it to this poet
and others, and I will boast that you are my friend, and you are a
much better poet than he."
The war against the secular poets, or advocates of the new learning,
is kept up with spirit through this ludicrous correspondence. One
correspondent presses Ortuinus Gratius to "write to me whether it be
necessary for eternal salvation that scholars learn grammar from the
secular poets, such as Virgil, Tullius, Pliny, and others; for," he
adds, "it seems to me that this is not a good method of studying." "As
I have often written to you," says another, "I am grieved that this
ribaldry (_ista ribaldria_), namely, the faculty of poetry, becomes
common, and is spread through all provinces and regions. In my time
there was only one poet, who was called Samuel; and now, in this city
alone, there are at least twenty, and they vex us all who hold with the
ancients. Lately I thoroughly defeated one, who said that _scholaris_
does not signify a person who goes to the school for the purpose of
learning; and I said, 'Ass! will you correct the holy doctor who
expounded this word?'" The new learning was, of course, identified
with the supporters of Reuchlin. "It is said here," continues the same
correspondent, "that all the poets will side with doctor Reuchlin
against the theologians. I wish all the poets were in the place where
pepper grows, that they might let us go in peace!"
Master William Lamp, "master of arts," sends to Master Ortuinus
Gratius, a narrative of his adventures in a journey from Cologne to
Rome. First he went to Mayence, where his indignation was moved by the
open manner in which people spoke in favour of Reuchlin, and when he
hazarded a contrary opinion, he was only laughed at, but he held his
tongue, because his opponents all carried arms and looked fierce. "One
of them is a count, and is a long man, and has white hair; and they
say that he takes a man in armour in his hand, and throws him to the
ground, and he has a sword as long as a giant; when I saw him, then I
held my tongue." At Worms, he found things no better, for the "doctors"
spoke bitterly against the theologians, and when he attempted to
expostulate, he got foul words as well as threats, a learned doctor in
medicine affirming "_quod merdaret super nos omnes_." On leaving Worms,
Lamp and his companion, another theologist, fell in with plunderers who
made them pay two florins to drink, "and I said _occulte_, Drink what
may the devil bless to you!" Subsequently they fell into low amours
at country inns, which are described coarsely, and then they reached
Insprucken, where they found the emperor, and his court and army, with
whole manners and proceedings Magister Lamp became sorely disgusted.
I pass over other adventures till they reach Mantua, the birthplace
of Virgil, and of a late mediæval Latin poet, named from it Baptista
Mantuanus. Lamp, in his hostile spirit towards the "secular poets,"
proceeds,--"And my companion said, 'Here Virgil was born.' I replied,
'What do I care for that pagan? We will go to the Carmelites, and see
Baptista Mantuanus, who is twice as good as Virgil, as I have heard
full ten times from Ortuinus;' and I told him how you once reprehended
Donatus, when he says, 'Virgil was the most learned of poets, and
the best;' and you said, 'If Donatus were here, I would tell him to
his face that he lies, for Baptista Mantuanus is above Virgil.' And
when we came to the monastery of the Carmelites, we were told that
Baptista Mantuanus was dead; then I said, 'May he rest in peace!'" They
continued their journey by Bologna, where they found the inquisitor
Jacob de Hochstraten, and Florence, to Siena. "After this there are
small towns, and one is called Monte-flascon, where we drunk excellent
wine, such as I never drank in my life. And I asked the host what that
wine is called, and he replied that it is lachryma Christi. Then said
my companion, 'I wish Christ would cry in our country!' And so we drank
a good bout, and two days after we entered Rome."
In the course of these letters the theologists, the poets especially,
the character of the clergy, and particularly Reuchlin and
Pfeffercorn, afford continual subjects for dispute and pleasantry.
The last mentioned individual, in the opinion of some, had merited
hanging for theft, and it was pretended that the Jews had expelled
him from their society for his wicked courses. One argued that all
Jews stink, and as it was well known that Pfeffercorn continued to
stink like a Jew, it was quite evident that he could not be a good
Christian. Some of Ortuinus's correspondents consult him on difficult
theological questions. Here is an example in a letter from one Henricus
Schaffmulius, another of his scholars who had made the journey to
Rome:--
"Since, before I journeyed to the Court, you said to me that I am
to write often to you, and that sometimes I am to send you any
theological questions, which you will solve for me better than
the courtiers of Rome, therefore now I ask your mastership what
you hold as to the case when any one on a Friday, or any other
fast day, eats an egg, and there is a chicken inside. Because
the other day we sat in a tavern in the Campo-flore, and made a
collation, and eat eggs, and I, opening an egg, saw that there was
a young chicken in it, which I showed to my companion, and then he
said, 'Eat it quickly before the host sees it, for if he sees it,
then you will be obliged to give a carlino or a julio for a hen,
because it is the custom here that, when the host places anything
on the table, you must pay for it, for they will not take it back.
And when he sees there is a young hen in the egg, he will say,
Pay me for the hen, because he reckons a small one the same as a
large one.' And I immediately sucked up the egg, and with it the
chicken, and afterwards I bethought me that it was Friday, and I
said to my companion. 'You have caused me to commit a mortal sin,
in eating flesh on Friday.' And he said that it is not a mortal
sin, nor even a venial sin, because that embryo of a chicken is
not reckoned other than an egg till it is born; and he told me
that it is as in cheeses, in which there are sometimes worms,
and in cherries, and fresh peas and beans, yet they are eaten on
Fridays, and also in the vigils of the apostles. But the hosts
are such rogues, that they say that they are flesh, that they may
have more money. Then I went away, and thought about it. And, _per
Deum_! Magister Ortuinus, I am much troubled, and I know not how
I ought to rule myself. If I went to ask advice of a courtier [of
the papal court], I know that they have not good consciences. It
seems to me that these young hens in the eggs are flesh, because
the matter is already formed and figured in members and bodies of
an animal, and it has life; it is otherwise with worms in cheeses
and other things, because worms are reputed for fishes, as I have
heard from a physician, who is a very good naturalist. Therefore I
ask you very earnestly, that you will give me your reply on this
question. Because if you hold that it is a mortal sin, then I will
purchase an absolution here, before I return to Germany. Also you
must know that our master Jacobus de Hochstraten has obtained a
thousand florins from the bank, and I think that with these he
will gain his cause, and the devil confound that John Reuchlin,
and the other poets and jurists, because they will be against
the church of God, that is, against the theologists, in whom is
founded the church, as Christ said: Thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my church. And so I commend you to the Lord God.
Farewell. Given from the city of Rome."
While in Italy macaronic literature was reaching its greatest
perfection, there arose in the very centre of France a man of great
original genius, who was soon to astonish the world by a new form of
satire, more grotesque and more comprehensive than anything that had
been seen before. Teofilo Folengo may fairly be considered as the
precursor of Rabelais, who appears to have taken the Italian satirist
as his model. What we know of the life of François Rabelais is rather
obscure at best, and is in some parts no doubt fabulous. He was born
at Chinon in Touraine, either in 1483 or in 1487, for this seems to
be a disputed point, and some doubt has been thrown on the trade or
profession of his father, but the most generally received opinion is
that he was an apothecary. He is said to have shown from his youth a
disposition more inclined to gaiety than to serious pursuits, yet at
an early age he had made great proficiency in learning, and is said to
have acquired a very sufficient knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew,
two of which, at least, were not popular among the popish clergy, and
not only of the modern languages and literature of Italy, Germany, and
Spain, but even of Arabic. Probably this estimate of his acquirements
in learning is rather exaggerated. It is not quite clear where the
young Rabelais gained all this knowledge, for he is said to have been
educated in convents and among monks, and to have become at a rather
early age a Franciscan friar in the convent of Fontenai-le-Compte, in
Lower Poitou, where he became an object of jealousy and ill-feeling to
the other friars by his superior acquirements. It was a tradition, at
least, that the conduct of Rabelais was not very strictly conventual,
and that he had so far shown his contempt for monastic rule, and for
the bigotry of the Romish church, that he was condemned to the prison
of his monastery, upon a diet of bread and water, which, according to
common report, was very uncongenial with the tastes of this jovial
friar. Out of this difficulty he is said to have been helped by his
friend the bishop of Maillezais, who obtained for him the pope's
licence to change the order of St. Francis for the much more easy and
liberal order of St. Benedict, and he became a member of the bishop's
own chapter in the abbey of Maillezais. His unsteady temper, however,
was not long satisfied with this retreat, which he left, and, laying
aside the regular habit, assumed that of a secular priest. In this
character he wandered for some time, and then settled at Montpellier,
where he took a degree as doctor in medicine, and practised for some
time with credit. There he published in 1532 a translation of some
works of Hippocrates and Galen, which he dedicated to his friend the
bishop of Maillezais. The circumstances under which he left Montpellier
are not known, but he is supposed to have gone to Paris upon some
business of the university, and to have remained there. He found
there a staunch friend in Jean de Bellay, bishop of Paris, who soon
afterwards was raised to the rank of cardinal. When the cardinal de
Bellay went as ambassador to Rome from the court of France, Rabelais
accompanied him, it is said in the character of his private medical
adviser, but during his stay in the metropolis of Christendom, as
Christendom was understood in those days by the Romish church, Rabelais
obtained, on the 17th of January, 1536 the papal absolution for all
his transgressions, and licence to return to Maillezais, and practise
medicine there and elsewhere as an act of charity. Thus he became again
a Benedictine monk. He, however, changed again, and became a secular
canon, and finally settled down as the curé of Meudon, near Paris, with
which he also held a fair number of ecclesiastical benefices. Rabelais
died in 1553, according to some in a very religious manner, but others
have given strange accounts of his last moments, representing that,
even when dying, he conversed in the same spirit of mockery, not only
of Romish forms and ceremonies, but of all religions whatever, which
was ascribed to him during his life, and which are but too openly
manifested in the extraordinary satirical romance which has given so
much celebrity to his name.
During the greater part of his life, Rabelais was exposed to troubles
and persecutions. He was saved from the intrigues of the monks by
the friendly influence of popes and cardinals; and the favour of two
successive kings, François I. and Henri II., protected him against the
still more dangerous hostility of the Sorbonne and the parliament of
Paris. This high protection has been advanced as a reason for rejecting
the anecdotes and accounts which have been commonly received relating
to the personal character of Rabelais, and his irregularities may
possibly have been exaggerated by the hatred which he had drawn upon
himself by his writings. But nobody, I think, who knows the character
of society at that time, who compares what we know of the lives of
the other satirists, and who has read the history of Gargantua and
Pantagruel, will consider such an argument of much weight against the
deliberate statements of those who were his contemporaries, or be
inclined to doubt that the writer of this history was a man of jovial
character, who loved a good bottle and a broad joke, and perhaps other
things that were equally objectionable. His books present a sort
of wild riotous orgy, without much order or plan, except the mere
outline of the story, in which is displayed an extraordinary extent
of reading in all classes of literature, from the most learned to the
most popular, with a wonderful command of language, great imagination,
and some poetry, intermixed with a perhaps larger amount of downright
obscene ribaldry, than can be found in the macaronics of Folengo,
in the "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," or in the works of any of the
other satirists who had preceded him, or were his contemporaries. It
is a broad caricature, poor enough in its story, but enriched with
details, which are brilliant with imagery, though generally coarse,
and which are made the occasions for turning to ridicule everything
that existed. The five books of this romance were published separately
and at different periods, apparently without any fixed intention of
continuing them. The earlier editions of the first part were published
without date, but the earliest editions with dates belong to the year
1535, when it was several times reprinted. It appeared as the life of
Gargantua. This hero is supposed to have flourished in the first half
of the fifteenth century, and to have been the son of Grandgousier,
king of Utopia, a country which lay somewhere in the direction of
Chinon, a prince of an ancient dynasty, but a jovial fellow, who loved
good eating and drinking better than anything else. Grandgousier
married Gargamelle, daughter of the king of the Parpaillos, who became
the mother of Gargantua. The first chapters relate rather minutely
how the child was born, and came out at its mother's ear, why it was
called Gargantua, how it was dressed and treated in infancy, what were
its amusements and disposition, and how Gargantua was put to learning
under the sophists, and made no progress. Thereupon Grandgousier sent
his son to Paris, to seek instruction there, and he proceeds thither
mounted on an immense mare, which had been sent as a present by the
king of Numidia--it must be borne in mind that the royal race of Utopia
were all giants. At Paris the populace assembled tumultuously to
gratify their curiosity in looking at this new scholar; but Gargantua,
besides treating them in a very contemptuous manner, carried off the
great bells of Notre Dame to suspend at the neck of his mare. Great
was the indignation caused by this theft. "All the city was risen up
in sedition, they being, as you know, upon any slight occasions, so
ready to uproars and insurrections, that foreign nations wonder at the
patience of the kings of France, who do not by good justice restrain
them from such tumultuous courses." The citizens take counsel, and
resolve on sending one of the great orators of the university, Master
Janotus de Bragmardo, to expostulate with Gargantua, and obtain the
restoration of the bells. The speech which this worthy addresses to
Gargantua, in fulfilment of his mission, is an amusing parody on the
pedantic style of Parisian oratory. The bells, however, are recovered,
and Gargantua, under skilful instructors, pursues his studies with
credit, until he is suddenly called home by a letter from his father.
In fact, Grandgousier was suddenly involved in a war with his neighbour
Picrocole, king of Lerné, caused by a quarrel about cakes between some
cake-makers of Lerné and Grandgousier's shepherds, in consequence of
which Picrocole had invaded the dominions of Grandgousier, and was
plundering and ravaging them. His warlike humour is stirred up by the
counsels of his three lieutenants, who persuade him that he is going
to become a great conqueror, and that they will make him master of the
whole world. It is not difficult to see, in the circumstances of the
time, the general aim of the satire contained in the history of this
war. It ends in the entire defeat and disappearance of king Picrocole.
A sensual and jovial monk named brother Jean des Entommeurs, who has
first distinguished himself by his prowess and strength in defending
his own abbey against the invaders, contributes largely to the victory
gained by Gargantua against his father's enemies, and Gargantua
rewards him by founding for him that pleasant abbey of Thélème, a
grand establishment, stored with everything which could contribute to
terrestrial happiness, from which all hypocrites and bigots were to be
excluded, and the rule of which was comprised in the four simple words,
"Do as you like."
Such is the history of Gargantua, which was afterwards formed by
Rabelais into the first book of his great comic romance. It was
published anonymously, the author merely describing himself as
"l'abstracteur de quinte essence;" but he afterwards adopted the
pseudonyme of Alcofribas Nasier, which is merely an anagram of his own
name, François Rabelais. A very improbable story has been handed down
to us relating to this book. It is pretended that, having published
a book of medical science which had no sale, and the publisher
complaining that he had lost money by it, Rabelais promised to make
amends for his loss, and immediately wrote the history of Gargantua,
by which the same book-seller made his fortune. There can be no doubt
that this remarkable satire had a deeper origin than any casual
accident like this; but it was exactly suited to the taste and temper
of the age. It was quite original in its form and style, and it met
with immediate and great success. Numerous editions followed each
other rapidly, and its author, encouraged by its popularity, very soon
afterwards produced a second romance, in continuation, to which he
gave the title of Pantagruel. The caricature in this second romance
is bolder even than in the first, the humour broader, and the satire
more pungent. Grandgousier has disappeared from the scene, and his son,
Gargantua, is king, and has a son named Pantagruel, whose kingdom is
that of the Dipsodes. The first part of this new romance is occupied
chiefly with Pantagruel's youth and education, and is a satire on
the university and on the lawyers, in which the parodies on their
style of pleading as then practised is admirable. In the latter part,
Pantagruel, like his father Gargantua, is engaged in great wars. It was
perhaps the continued success of this new production of his pen which
led Rabelais to go on with it, and form the design of making these two
books part only of a more extensive romance. During his studies in
Paris, Pantagruel has made the acquaintance of a singular individual
named Panurge, who becomes his attached friend and constant companion,
holding somewhat the position of brother Jean in the first book, but
far more crafty and versatile. The whole subject of the third book
arises out of Pantagreul's desire to marry, and its various amusing
episodes describe the different expedients which, at the suggestion of
Panurge, he adopts to arrive at a solution of the question whether his
marriage would be fortunate or not.
In publishing his fourth book, Rabelais complains that his writings
had raised him enemies, and that he was accused of having at least
written heresy. In fact, he had bitterly provoked both the monks and
the university and parliament; and, as the increasing reaction of
Romanism in France gave more power of persecution to the two latter,
he was not writing without some degree of danger, yet the satire of
each successive book became bolder and more direct. The fifth, which
was left unfinished at his death, and which was published posthumously,
was the most severe of them all. The character of Gargantua, indeed,
was almost forgotten in that of Pantagruel, and Pantagruelism became
an accepted name for the sort of gay, reckless satire of which he was
looked upon as the model. He described it himself as a _certaine gaieté
d'esprit confite en mépris des choses fortuites_, in fact, neither
Romanism nor Protestantism, but simply a jovial kind of Epicurianism.
All the gay wits of the time aspired to be Pantagruelists, and the
remainder of the sixteenth century abounded in wretched imitations of
the style of Rabelais, which are now consigned as mere rarities to the
shelves of the bibliophilist.
Among the dangers which began to threaten them in France in the earlier
part of the sixteenth century, liberal opinions found an asylum at the
court of a princess who was equally distinguished by her beauty, by her
talents and noble sentiments, and by her accomplishments. Marguerite
d'Angoulême, queen of Navarre, was the only sister of François I., who
was her junior by two years, and was affectionately attached to her.
She was born on the 11th of April, 1492. She had married, first, that
unfortunate duke d'Alençon, whose misconduct at Pavia was the cause of
the disastrous defeat of the French, and the captivity of their king.
The duke died, it was said of grief at his misfortune, in 1525; and
two years afterwards, on the 24th of January, 1527, she married Henri
d'Albret, king of Navarre. Their daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, carried
this petty royalty to the house of Bourbon, and was the mother of Henri
IV.
Marguerite held her court in true princely manner in the castle of Pau
or at Nérac, and she loved to surround herself with a circle of men
remarkable for their character and talents, and ladies distinguished
by beauty and accomplishments, which made it rival in brilliance
even that of her brother François. She placed nearest to her person,
under the character of her _valets-de-chambre_, the principal poets
and _beaux-esprits_ of her time, such as Clement Marot, Bonaventure
des Periers, Claude Gruget, Antoine du Moulin, and Jean de la Haye,
and admitted them to such a tender familiarity of intercourse, as to
excite the jealousy of the king her husband, from whose ill-treatment
she was only protected by her brother's interference. The poets called
her chamber a "veritable Parnassus." Hers was certainly a great
mind, greedy of knowledge, dissatisfied with what was, and eager for
novelties, and therefore she encouraged all who sought for them. It
was in this spirit, combined with her earnest love for letters, that
she threw her protection over both the sceptics and the religious
reformers. At the beginning of the persecutions, as early as 1523,
she openly declared herself the advocate of the Protestants. When
Clement Marot was arrested by order of the Sorbonne and the Inquisitor
on the charge of having eaten bacon in Lent, Marguerite caused him
to be liberated from prison, in defiance of his persecutors. Some of
the purest and ablest of the early French reformers, such as Roussel
and Le Fèvre d'Etaples, and Calvin himself, found a safe asylum from
danger in her dominions. As might be supposed, the bigoted party were
bitterly incensed against the queen of Navarre, and were not backward
in taking advantage of an opportunity for showing it. A moral treatise,
entitled "Le Miroir de l'Ame Pécheresse," of which Marguerite was the
author, was condemned by the Sorbonne in 1533, but the king compelled
the university, in the person of its rector, Nicolas Cop, to disavow
publicly the censure. This was followed by a still greater act of
insolence, for, at the instigation of some of the more bigoted papists,
the scholars of the college of Navarre, in concert with their regents,
performed a farce in which Marguerite was transformed into a fury of
hell. François I., greatly indignant, sent his archers to arrest the
offenders, who further provoked his anger by resistance, and only
obtained their pardon through the generous intercession of the princess
whom they had so grossly insulted.
Marguerite was herself a poetess, and she loved above all things
those gay, and seldom very delicate, stories, the telling of which
was at that time one of the favourite amusements of the evening,
and one in which she was known to excel. Her poetical writings were
collected and printed, under her own authority, in 1547, by her then
_valet-de-chambre_, Jean de la Haye, who dedicated the volume to her
daughter. They are all graceful, and some of them worthy of the best
poets of her time. The title of this collection was, punning upon
her name, which means a pearl, "Marguerites de la Marguerite des
princesses, très illustre reyne de Navarre." Marguerite's stories
(_nouvelles_) were more celebrated than her verses, and are said to
have been committed to writing under her own dictation. All the ladies
of her court possessed copies of them in writing. It is understood to
have been her intention to form them into ten days' tales, of ten in
each day, so as to resemble the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, but only
eight days were finished at the time of her death, and the imperfect
work was published posthumously by her _valet-de-chambre_, Claude
Gruget, under the title of "L'Heptameron, ou Histoire des Amants
Fortunés." It is by far the best collection of stories of the sixteenth
century. They are told charmingly, in language which is a perfect model
of French composition of that age, but they are all tales of gallantry
such as could only be repeated in polite society in an age which was
essentially licentious. Queen Marguerite died on the 21st of December,
1549, and was buried in the cathedral of Pau. Her death was a subject
of regret to all that was good and all that was poetic, not only in
France, but in Europe, which had been accustomed to look upon her as
the tenth Muse and the fourth Grace:--
_Musarum decima et Charitum quarta, inclyta regum
Et soror et conjux, Marguaris illa jacet._
Before Marguerite's death, her literary circle had been broken up by
the hatred of religious persecutors. Already, in 1536, the imprudent
boldness of Marot had rendered it impossible to protect him any
longer, and he had been obliged to retire to a place of concealment,
from whence he sometimes paid a stealthy visit to her court. His
place of _valet-de-chambre_ was given to a man of talents, even more
remarkable, and who shared equally the personal esteem of the queen of
Navarre, Bonaventure des Periers. Marot's successor paid a graceful
compliment to him in a short poem entitled "L'Apologie de Marot
absent," published in 1537. The earlier part of the year following
witnessed the publication of the most remarkable work of Bonaventure
des Periers, the "Cymbalum Mundi," concerning the real character
of which writers are still divided in opinion. In it Des Periers
introduced a new form of satire, imitated from the dialogues of Lucian.
The book consists of four dialogues, written in language which forms a
model of French composition, the personages introduced in them intended
evidently to represent living characters, whose names are concealed
in anagrams and other devices, among whom was Clement Marot. It was
the boldest declaration of scepticism which had yet issued from the
Epicurean school represented by Rabelais. The author sneers at the
Romish church as an imposture, ridicules the Protestants as seekers
after the philosopher's stone, and shows disrespect to Christianity
itself. Such a book could hardly be published in Paris with impunity,
yet it was printed there, secretly, it is said, by a well-known
bookseller, Jean Morin, in the Rue St. Jacques, and therefore in the
immediate vicinity of the persecuting Sorbonne. Private information
had been given of the character of this work, possibly by the printer
himself or by one of his men, and on the 6th of March, 1538, when it
was on the eve of publication, the whole impression was seized at the
printer's, and Morin himself was arrested and thrown into prison. He
was treated rigorously, and is understood to have escaped only by
disavowing all knowledge of the character of the book, and giving up
the name of the author. The first edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi" was
burnt, and Bonaventure des Periers, alarmed by the personal dangers
in which he was thus involved, retired from the court of the queen of
Navarre, and took refuge in the city of Lyons, where liberal opinions
at that time found a greater degree of tolerance than elsewhere. There
he printed a second edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," which also was
burnt, and copies of either edition are now excessively rare.[98]
Bonaventure des Periers felt so much the weight of the persecution in
which he had now involved himself, that, in the year 1539, as far as
can be ascertained, he put an end to his own existence. This event cast
a gloom over the court of the queen of Navarre, from which it seems
never to have entirely recovered. The school of scepticism to which Des
Periers belonged had now fallen into equal discredit with Catholics and
Protestants, and the latter looked upon Marguerite herself, who had
latterly conformed outwardly with Romanism, as an apostate from their
cause. Henri Estienne, in his "Apologie pour Herodote," speaks of the
"Cymbalum Mundi" as an infamous book.
[98] A cheap and convenient edition of the "Cymbalum Mundi," edited
by the Bibliophile Jacob (Paul Lacroix), was published in Paris
in 1841. I may here state that similar editions of the principal
French satirists of the sixteenth century have been printed
during the last twenty-five years.
Bonaventure des Periers left behind him another work more amusing to us
at the present day, and more characteristic of the literary tastes of
the court of Marguerite of Navarre. This is a collection of facetious
stories, which was published several years after the death of its
author, under the title of "Les Contes, ou Les Nouvelles Récréations et
Joyeux Devis de Bonaventure des Periers." They have some resemblance
in style to the stories of the Heptameron, but are shorter, and rather
more facetious, and are characterised by their bitter spirit of satire
against the monks and popish clergy. Some of these stories remind us,
in their peculiar character and tone, of the "Epistolæ Obscurorum
Virorum," as, for an example, the following, which is given as an
anecdote of the curé de Brou:--
"This curé had a way of his own to chant the different offices
of the church, and above all he disliked the way of saying the
Passion in the manner it was ordinarily said in churches, and he
chanted it quite differently. For when our Lord said anything to
the Jews, or to Pilate, he made him talk high and loud, so that
everybody could hear him, and when it was the Jews or somebody
else who spoke, he spoke so low that he could hardly be heard
at all. It happened that a lady of rank and importance, on her
way to Châteaudun, to keep there the festival of Easter, passed
through Brou on Good Friday, about ten o'clock in the morning,
and, wishing to hear service, she went to the church where the
curé was officiating. When it came to the Passion, he said it
in his own manner, and made the whole church ring again when
he said _Quem quæritis_? But when it came to the reply, _Jesum
Nazarenum_, he spoke as low as he possibly could. And in this
manner he continued the Passion. The lady, who was very devout,
and, for a woman, well informed in the holy scriptures, and
attentive to the ecclesiastical ceremonies, felt scandalised
at this mode of chanting, and wished she had never entered the
church. She had a mind to speak to the curé, and tell him what
she thought of it; and for this purpose sent for him to come to
her after the service. When he came, she said to him, 'Monsieur
le Curé, I don't know where you learnt to officiate on a day like
this, when the people ought to be all humility; but to hear you
perform the service, is enough to drive away anybody's devotion.'
'How so, madame?' said the curé. 'How so?' said she, 'you have
said a Passion contrary to all rules of decency. When our Lord
speaks, you cry as if you were in the town-hall; and when it is a
Caiaphas, or Pilate, or the Jews, you speak softly like a young
bride. Is this becoming in one like you? are you fit to be a curé?
If you had what you deserve, you would be turned out of your
benefice, and then you would be made to know your fault!' When the
curé had very attentively listened to her, he said, 'Is this what
you had to say to me, madame? By my soul! it is very true, what
they say; and the truth is, that there are many people who talk of
things which they do not understand. Madame, I believe that I know
my office as well as another, and I beg all the world to know that
God is as well served in this parish according to its condition,
as in any place within a hundred leagues of it. I know very well
that the other curés chant the Passion quite differently; I could
easily chant it like them if I would; but they do not understand
their business at all. I should like to know if it becomes those
rogues of Jews to speak as loud as our Lord! No, no, madame; rest
assured that in my parish it is my will that God be the master,
and He shall be as long as I live; and let the others do in their
parishes according to their understanding.'"
Another story, equally worthy of Ulric von Hutten, is satirical enough
on priestly pedantry:--
"There was a priest of a village who was as proud as might be,
because he had seen a little more than his Cato; for he had read
_De Syntaxi_, and his _Fauste precor gelida_ [the first eclogue
of Baptista Mantuanus]. And this made him set up his feathers,
and talk very grand, using words that filled his mouth, in order
to make people think him a great doctor. Even at confession, he
made use of terms which astonished the poor people. One day he
was confessing a poor working man, of whom he asked, 'Here, now,
my friend, tell me, art thou ambitious?' The poor man said 'No,'
thinking this was a word which belonged to great lords, and almost
repented of having come to confess to this priest; for he had
already heard that he was such a great clerk, and that he spoke
so grandly, that nobody understood him, which he now knew by this
word _ambitious_; for although he might have heard it somewhere,
yet he did not know at all what it was. The priest went on to
ask 'Art thou not a fornicator?' 'No,' said the labourer, who
understood as little as before. 'Art thou not a gourmand?' said
the priest. 'No.' 'Art thou not superbe [_proud_]?' 'No.' 'Art
thou not iracund?' 'No.' The priest seeing the man answer always
'No,' was somewhat surprised. 'Art thou not concupiscent?' 'No.'
'And what art thou, then?' said the priest. 'I am,' said he, 'a
mason; here is my trowel!'"
At this time "Pantagruelism" had mixed itself more or less largely in
all the satirical literature of France. It is very apparent in the
writings of Bonaventure des Periers, and in a considerable number of
satirical publications which now issued, many of them anonymously, or
under the then fashionable form of anagrams, from the press in France.
Among these writers were a few who, though far inferior to Rabelais,
may be considered as not unequal to Des Periers himself. One of the
most remarkable of these was a gentleman of Britany, Noel du Fail, lord
of La Hérissaye, who was, like so many of these satirists, a lawyer,
and who died, apparently at an advanced age, at the end of 1585, or
beginning of 1586. In his publications, according to the fashion of
that age, he concealed his name under an anagram, and called himself
Leon Ladulfil (doubling the _l_ in the name Fail). Noel du Fail has
been called the ape of Rabelais, though the mere imitation is not very
apparent. He published (as far as has been ascertained), in 1548,
his "Discours d'aucuns propos ruftiques facétieux, et de singulière
récréation." This was followed immediately by a work entitled
"Baliverneries, ou Contes Nouveaux d'Eutrapel;" but his last, and most
celebrated book, the "Contes et Discours d'Eutrapel," was not printed
until 1586, after the death of its author. The writings of Noel du Fail
are full of charming pictures of rural life in the sixteenth century,
and, though sufficiently free, they present less than most similar
books of that period of the coarseness of Rabelais. I cannot say the
same of a book which is much more celebrated than either of these,
and the history of which is still enveloped in obscurity. I mean the
"Moyen de Parvenir." This book, which is full of wit and humour, but
the licentiousness of which is carried to a degree which renders it
unreadable at the present day, is now ascribed by bibliographers, in
its present form, to Béroalde de Verville, a gentleman of a Protestant
family who had embraced Catholicism, and obtained advancements in the
church, and it was not printed until 1610, but it is supposed that in
its present form it is only a revision of an earlier composition,
perhaps even an unacknowledged work of Rabelais himself, which had been
preserved in manuscript in Beroald's family.
Pantagruelism, or, if you like, Rabelaism, did not, during the
sixteenth century, make much progress beyond the limits of France.
In the Teutonic countries of Europe, and in England, the sceptical
sentiment was small in comparison with the religious feeling, and the
only satirical work at all resembling those we have been describing,
was the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More, a work comparatively spiritless,
and which produced a very slight sensation. In Spain, the state of
social feeling was still less favourable to the writings of Rabelais,
yet he had there a worthy and true representative in the author of
Don Quixote. It was only in the seventeenth century that the works of
Rabelais were translated into English; but we must not forget that our
satirists of the last century, such as Swift and Sterne, derived their
inspiration chiefly from Rabelais, and from the Pantagruelistic writers
of the latter half of the sixteenth century. These latter were most of
them poor imitators of their original, and, like all poor imitators,
pursued to exaggeration his least worthy characteristics. There is
still some humour in the writings of Tabourot, the sieur des Accords,
especially in his "Bigarrures," but the later productions, which
appeared under such names as Bruscambille and Tabarin, sink into mere
dull ribaldry.
There had arisen, however, by the side of this satire which smelt
somewhat too much of the tavern, another satire, more serious,
which still contained a little of the style of Rabelais. The French
Protestants at first looked upon Rabelais as one of their towers of
strength, and embraced with gratitude the powerful protection they
received from the graceful queen of Navarre; but their gratitude
failed them, when Marguerite, though she never ceased to give them her
protection, conformed outwardly, from attachment to her brother, to the
forms of the Catholic faith, and they rejected the school of Rabelais
as a mere school of Atheists. Among them arose another school of
satire, a sort of branch from the other, which was represented in its
infancy by the celebrated scholar and printer, Henri Estienne, better
known among us as Henry Stephens.
The remarkable book called an "Apologie pour Herodote," arose out of
an attack upon its writer by the Romanists. Henri Estienne, who was
known as a staunch Protestant, published, at great expense, an edition
of Herodotus in Greek and Latin, and the zealous Catholics, out of
spite to the editor, decried his author, and spoke of Herodotus as a
mere collector of monstrous and incredible tales. Estienne, in revenge,
published what, under the form of an apology for Herodotus, was really
a violent attack on the Romish church. His argument is that all
historians must relate transactions which appear to many incredible,
and that the events of modern times were much more incredible, if
they were not known to be true, than anything which is recorded by
the historian of antiquity. After an introductory dissertation on the
light in which we ought to regard the fable of the Golden Age, and on
the moral character of the ancient peoples, he goes on to show that
their depravity was much less than that of the middle ages and of his
own time, indeed of all periods during which people were governed by
the Church of Rome. Not only did this dissoluteness of morals pervade
lay society, but the clergy were more vicious even than the people, to
whom they ought to serve as an example. A large part of the book is
filled with anecdotes of the immoral lives of the popish clergy of the
sixteenth century, and of their ignorance and bigotry; and he describes
in detail the methods employed by the Romish church to keep the mass
of the people in ignorance, and to repress all attempts at inquiry.
Out of all this, he says, had risen a school of atheists and scoffers,
represented by Rabelais and Bonaventure des Periers, both of whom he
mentions by name.
As we approach the end of the sixteenth century, the struggle of
parties became more political than religious, but not less bitter than
before. The literature of the age of that celebrated "Ligue," which
seemed at one time destined to overthrow the ancient royalty of France,
consisted chiefly of libellous and abusive pamphlets, but in the midst
of them there appeared a work far superior to any purely political
satire which had yet been seen, and the fame of which has never passed
away. Its object was to turn to ridicule the meeting of the Estates
of France, convoked by the duke of Mayenne, as leader of the Ligue,
and held at Paris on the 10th of February, 1503. The grand object of
this meeting was to exclude Henri IV. from the throne; and the Spanish
party proposed to abolish the Salic law, and proclaim the infanta of
Spain queen of France. The French ligueurs proposed plans hardly less
unpatriotic, and the duke of Mayenne, indignant at the small account
made of his own personal pretensions, prorogued the meeting, and
persuaded the two parties to hold what proved a fruitless conference at
Suresne. It was the meeting of the Estates in Paris which gave rise to
that celebrated _Satyre Ménippée_, of which it was said, that it served
the cause of Henri IV. as much as the battle of Ivry itself.
This satire originated among a party of friends, of men distinguished
by learning, wit, and talent, though most of their names are obscure,
who used to meet in an evening in the hospitable house of one of
them, Jacques Gillot, on the Quai des Orfèvres in Paris, and there
talk satirically over the violence and insolence of the ligueurs.
They all belonged either to the bar or to the university, or to the
church. Gillot himself, a Burgundian, born about the year 1560, had
been a dean in the church of Langres, and afterwards canon of the
Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and was at this time conseiller-clerc to
the parliament of Paris. In 1589 he was committed to the Bastille,
but was soon afterwards liberated. Nicolas Rapin, one of his friends,
was born in 1535, and was said to have been the son of a priest, and
therefore illegitimate. He was a lawyer, a poet, and a soldier, for he
fought bravely in the ranks of Henri IV. at Ivry, and his devotion to
that prince was so well known, that he was banished from Paris by the
ligueurs, but had returned thither before the meeting of the Estates in
1593. Jean Passerat, born in 1534, was also a poet, and a professor in
the Collège Royal. Florent Chrestien, born at Orleans in 1540, had been
the tutor of Henri IV., and was well known as a man of sound learning.
The most learned of the party was Pierre Pithou, born at Troyes in
1539, who had abjured Calvinism to return to Romanism, and who held
a distinguished position at the French bar. The last of this little
party of men of letters was a canon of Rouen named Pierre le Roy, a
patriotic ecclesiastic, who held the office of almoner to the cardinal
de Bourbon. It was Le Roy who drew up the first sketch of the "Satyre
Ménippée," each of the others executed his part in the composition, and
Pithou finally revised it. For several years this remarkable satire
circulated only secretly, and in manuscript, and it was not printed
until Henri IV. was established on the throne.
The satire opens with an account of the virtues of the "Catholicon,"
or nostrum for curing all political diseases, or the _higuiero
d'infierno_, which had been so effective in the hands of the Spaniards,
who invented it. Some of these are extraordinary enough. If, we are
told, the lieutenant of Don Philip "have some of this Catholicon on
his flags, he will enter without a blow into an enemy's country, and
they will meet him with crosses and banners, legates and primates; and
though he ruin, ravage, usurp, massacre, and sack everything, and carry
away, ravish, burn, and reduce everything to a desert, the people of
the country will say, 'These are our friends, they are good Catholics;
they do it for our peace, and for our mother holy church.'" "If an
indolent king amuse himself with refining this drug in his escurial,
let him write a word into Flanders to Father Ignatius, sealed with
the Catholicon, he will find him a man who (_salva conscientia_) will
assassinate his enemy whom he has not been able to conquer by arms in
twenty years." This, of course, is an allusion to the murder of the
prince of Orange. "If this king proposes to assure his estates to his
children after his death, and to invade another's kingdom at little
expense, let him write a word to Mendoza, his ambassador, or to Father
Commelet (one of the most seditious orators of the Ligue), and if he
write with the _higuiero del infierno_, at the bottom of his letter,
the words _Yo el Rey_, they will furnish him with an apostate monk, who
will go under a fair semblance, like a Judas, and assassinate in cold
blood a great king of France, his brother-in-law, in the middle of his
camp, without fear of God or men; they will do more, they will canonise
the murderer, and place this Judas above St. Peter, and baptise this
prodigious and horrible crime with the name of a providential event,
of which the godfathers will be cardinals, legates, and primates." The
allusion here is to the assassination of Henri III. by Jacques Clement.
These are but a few of the marvellous properties of the political drug,
after the enumeration of which the report of the meeting of the Estates
is introduced by a burlesque description of the grand procession
which preceded it. Then we are introduced to the hall of assembly, and
different subjects pictured on the tapestries which cover its walls,
all having reference to the politics of the Ligue, are described fully.
Then we come to the report of the meeting, and to the speeches of the
different speakers, each of which is a model of satire. It is not known
which of the little club of satirists wrote the open speech of the duke
of Mayenne, but that of the Roman legate is known to be the work of
Gillot, and that of the cardinal de Pelvé, a masterpiece of Latin in
the style of the "Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum," was written by Florent
Chrestien. Nicolas Rapin composed the "harangue" placed in the mouth
of the archbishop of Lyons, as well as that of Rose, the rector of
the university; and the long speech of Claude d'Aubray was by Pithou.
Passerat composed most of the verses which are scattered through the
book, and it is understood that Pithou finally revised the whole. This
mock report of the meeting of the Estates closes with a description of
a series of political pictures which are arranged on the wall of the
staircase of the hall.
These pictures, as well as those on the tapestries of the hall of
meeting, are simply so many caricatures, and the same may be said of
another set of pictures, of which a description is given in one of the
satirical pieces which followed the "Satyre Ménippée," on the same
side, entitled, "Histoire des Singeries de la Ligue." It was amid
the political turmoil of the sixteenth century in France that modern
political caricature took its rise.