(_From the "Ode to Louis XIII setting out against La Rochelle,"
and the "Sonnet on his son's death."_)
It has been remarked that Malherbe in his most vigorous years
deliberately employed the strength of his mind to the repression of
emotion in his verse, and used it only to fashion, guide, control, and
at last fix permanently the rules of the language. It is certainly true
that as his bodily vigour declined, a certain unexpected anger and
violence enters into his verse, to the great relief of us moderns: not
to that of his contemporaries.
Of this feature in him, the two following extracts are sufficient proof.
They were written, the first at the close of his seventy-second, the
other at the entry of his seventy-third year. In each, something close
to his heart was at issue, and in each he gives some vent--far more than
had been his wont--to passion.
The first is a cry to Louis XIII to have done with the Huguenot. It was
written to the camp before La Rochelle. I know of nothing in French
literature which more expresses the intense current of national feeling
against the nobility and rich townsmen who had attempted to warp the
national tradition and who had re-introduced into French life the
element which France works perpetually to throw out as un-European,
ill-cultured and evil. Indeed, the reading of it is of more value to the
comprehension of the national attitude than any set history you may
read.
The second is in its way a thing equally religious and equally catholic.
This call for vengeance to God was not only an expression of anger
called forth by his son's death, it was also, and very largely, the
effect of a reaction against the ethics of Geneva: an attack on the
idolatry at once of meekness and of fatality which was to him so
intolerable a corruption of the Christian religion.
There is some doubt as to whether it is his last work. I believe it to
be so; but Blaise, in his excellent edition, prints the dull and
unreadable ode to Lagade later, and ascribes it to the same year.
_ODE TO LOUIS XIII._
_Fais choir en sacrifice au démon de la France
Les fronts trop élevés de ces ames d'enfer;
Et n'épargne contre eux, pour notre délivrance,
Ni le feu ni le fer.
Assez de leurs complots l'infidèle malice
A nourri le désordre et la sédition:
Quitte le nom de Juste, ou fais voir ta justice
En leur punition.
Le centième décembre a les plaines ternies,
Et le centième avril les a peintes de fleurs,
Depuis que parmi nous leurs brutales manies
Ne causent que des pleurs.
Dans toutes les fureurs des siècles de tes pères,
Les monstres les plus noirs firent-ils jamais rien
Que l'inhumanité de ces coeurs de vipères
Ne renouvelle au tien?
Par qui sont aujourd'hui tant de villes désertes,
Tant de grands bâtiments en masures changes,
Et de tant de chardons les campagnes couvertes,
Que par ces enrages?
Marche, va les détruire, éteins-en la semence,
Et suis jusqu'à leur fin ton courroux généreux,
Sans jamais écouter ni pitié ni clémence
Qui te parle pour eux.
Toutes les autres morts n'ont mérite ni marque;
Celle-ci porte seule un éclat radieux,
Qui fait revivre l'homme, et le met de la barque
A la table des dieux._
_SONNET ON HIS SON'S DEATH._
_Que mon fils ait perdu sa dépouille mortelle,
Ce fils qui fut si brave, et que j'aimai si fort,
Je ne l'impute point à l'injure du sort,
Puis que finir à l'homme est chose naturelle.
Mais que de deux marauds la surprise infidèle
Ait terminé ses jours d'une tragique mort,
En cela ma douleur n'a point de réconfort,
Et tous mes sentiments sont d'accord avec elle.
O mon Dieu, mon Sauveur, puisque, par la raison,
Le trouble de mon ame étant sans guérison,
Le voeu de la vengeance est un voeu légitime,
Fais que de ton appui je sois fortifié;
Ta justice t'en prie, et les auteurs du crime
Sont fils de ces bourreaux qui t'ont crucifié._