Produced by Lee Dawei, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO
DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. LTD.
TORONTO
A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL
(TO THE CLOSE OF THE 19TH CENTURY)
BY GEORGE SAINTSBURY
M.A. AND HON. D.LITT. OXON.; HON. LL.D. ABERD.; HON. D.LITT. DURH.;
FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY; HON. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD;
LATE PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
EDINBURGH
VOL. I
FROM THE BEGINNING TO 1800
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1917
COPYRIGHT
PREFACE
In beginning what, if it ever gets finished, must in all probability be
the last of some already perhaps too numerous studies of literary
history, I should like to point out that the plan of it is somewhat
different from that of most, if not all, of its predecessors. I have
usually gone on the principle (which I still think a sound one) that, in
studying the literature of a country, or in dealing with such general
characteristics of parts of literature as prosody, or such coefficients
of all literature as criticism, minorities are, sometimes at least, of
as much importance as majorities, and that to omit them altogether is to
risk, or rather to assure, an imperfect--and dangerously
imperfect--product.
In the present instance, however, I am attempting something that I have
never, at such length, attempted before--the history of a Kind, and a
Kind which has distinguished itself, as few others have done, by
communicating to readers the _pleasure_ of literature. I might almost
say that it is the history of that pleasure, quite as much as the
history of the kind itself, that I wish to trace. In doing so it is
obviously superfluous to include inferiorities and failures, unless they
have some very special lesson or interest, or have been (as in the case
of the minorities on the bridge of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries) for the most part, and unduly, neglected, though they are
important as experiments and links.[1] We really do want here--what the
reprehensible hedonism of Mr. Matthew Arnold, and his submission to what
some one has called "the eternal enemy, Caprice," wanted in all
cases--"only the chief and principal things." I wish to give a full
history of how what is commonly called the French Novel came into being
and kept itself in being; but I do not wish to give an exhaustive,
though I hope to give a pretty full, account of its practitioners.
In another point, however, I have kept to my old ways, and that is the
way of beginning at the beginning. I disagree utterly with any Balbus
who would build an absolute wall between romance and novel, or a wall
hardly less absolute between verse- and prose-fiction. I think the
French have (what is not common in their language) an advantage over us
in possessing the general term _Roman_, and I have perhaps taken a
certain liberty with my own title in order to keep the noun-part of it
to a single word. I shall extend the meaning of "novel"--that of _roman_
would need no extension--to include, not only the prose books, old and
new, which are more generally called "romance," but the verse romances
of the earlier period.
The subject is one with which I can at least plead almost lifelong
familiarity. I became a subscriber to "Rolandi's," I think, during my
holidays as a senior schoolboy, and continued the subscriptions during
my vacations when I was at Oxford. In the very considerable leisure
which I enjoyed during the six years when I was Classical Master at
Elizabeth College, Guernsey, I read more French than any other
literature, and more novels than anything else in French. In the late
'seventies and early 'eighties, as well as more recently, I had to round
off and fill in my knowledge of the older matter, for an elaborate
account of French literature in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, for a
long series of articles on French novelists in the _Fortnightly Review_,
and for the _Primer_ and _Short History_ of the subject which I wrote
for the Clarendon Press; while from 1880 to 1894, as a _Saturday
Review_er, I received, every month, almost everything notable (and a
great deal hardly worth noting) that had appeared in France.
Since then, the cutting off of this supply, and the extreme and constant
urgency of quite different demands on my time, have made my cultivation
of the once familiar field "_parc_ and infrequent." But I doubt whether
any really good judge would say that this was a serious drawback in
itself; and it ceases to be one, even relatively, by the restriction of
the subject to the close of the last century. It will be time to write
of the twentieth-century novel when the twentieth century itself has
gone more than a little farther.
For the abundance of translation, in the earlier part especially, I
need, I think, make no apology. I shall hardly, by any one worth
hearing, be accused of laziness or scamping in consequence of it, for
translation is much more troublesome, and takes a great deal more time,
than comment or history. The advantage, from all other points of view,
should need no exposition: nor, I think, should that of pretty full
story-abstract now and then.
There is one point on which, at the risk of being thought to "talk too
much of my matters," I should like to say a further word. All my books,
before the present volume, have been composed with the aid of a
library, not very large, but constantly growing, and always reinforced
with special reference to the work in hand; while I was able also, on
all necessary occasions, to visit Oxford or London (after I left the
latter as a residence), and for twenty years the numerous public or
semi-public libraries of Edinburgh were also open to me. This present
_History_ has been outlined in expectation for a very long time; and has
been actually laid down for two or three years. But I had not been able
to put much of it on paper when circumstances, while they gave me
greater, indeed almost entire, leisure for writing, obliged me to part
with my own library (save a few books with a reserve _pretium
affectionis_ on them), and, though they brought me nearer both to Oxford
and to London, made it less easy for me to visit either. The London
Library, that Providence of unbooked authors, came indeed to my aid, for
without it I should have had to leave the book alone altogether; and I
have been "munitioned" sometimes, by kindness or good luck, in other
ways. But I have had to rely much more on memory, and of course in some
cases on previous writing of my own, than ever before, though, except in
one special case,[2] there will be found, I think, not a single page of
mere "rehashing." I mention this without the slightest desire to beg
off, in one sense, from any omissions or mistakes which may be found
here, but merely to assure my readers that such mistakes and omissions
are not due to idle and careless bookmaking. That "books have fates" is
an accepted proposition. In respect to one of these--possession of
materials and authorities--mine have been exceptionally fortunate
hitherto, and if they had any merit it was no doubt largely due to this.
I have, in the present, endeavoured to make the best of what was not
quite such good fortune. And if anybody still says, "Why did you not
wait till you could supply deficiencies?" I can only reply that, after
seventy, [Greek: nyx gar erchetai] is a more insistent warrant, and
warning, than ever.[3]
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
[_Edinburgh, 1914-15; Southampton, 1915-16_]
1 ROYAL CRESCENT, BATH, _May 31, 1917_.
ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA
P. 3, _note_.--This note was originally left vague, because, in the
first place, to perform public and personal fantasias with one's spear
on the shield of a champion, with whom one does not intend to fight out
the quarrel, seems to me bad chivalry, and secondly, because those
readers who were likely to be interested could hardly mistake the
reference. The regretted death, a short time after the page was sent to
press, of Mr. W. J. Courthope may give occasion to an acknowledgment,
coupled with a sincere _ave atque vale_. Mr. Courthope was never an
intimate friend of mine, and our agreement was greater in political than
in literary matters: but for more than thirty years we were on the best
terms of acquaintance, and I had a thorough respect for his
accomplishments.
P. 20, l. 5.--_Fuerres de Gadres._ I wonder how many people thought of
this when Englishmen "forayed Gaza" just before Easter, 1917?
P. 46, mid-page.--It so happened that, some time after having passed
this sheet for press, I was re-reading Dante (as is my custom every year
or two), and came upon that other passage (in the _Paradiso_, and
therefore not known to more than a few of the thousands who know the
Francesca one) in which the poet refers to the explanation between
Lancelot and the Queen. It had escaped my memory (though I think I may
say honestly that I knew it well enough) when I passed the sheet: but it
seemed to me that perhaps some readers, who do not care much for
"parallel passages" in the pedantic sense, might, like myself, feel
pleasure in having the great things of literature, in different places,
brought together. Moreover, the _Paradiso_ allusion seems to have
puzzled or misled most of the commentators, including the late Mr. A. J.
Butler, who, by his translation and edition of the _Purgatorio_ in 1880,
was my Virgil to lead me through the _Commedia_, after I had sinfully
neglected it for exactly half a life-time. He did not know, and might
easily not have known, the Vulgate _Lancelot_: but some of those whom he
cites, and who evidently _did_ know it, do not seem to have recognised
the full significance of the passage in Dante. The text will give the
original: the _Paradiso_ (xvi. 13-15) reference tells how Beatrice
(after Cacciaguida's biographical and historical recital, and when
Dante, in a confessed outburst of family pride, addresses his ancestor
with the stately _Voi_), "smiling, appeared like her who coughed at the
first fault which is written of Guinevere." This, of course (see text
once more), is the Lady of Malahault, though Dante does not name her as
he does Prince Galahault in the other _locus_. The older commentators
(who, as has been said, _did_ know the original) do not seem to have
seen in the reference much more than that both ladies noticed, and
perhaps approved, what was happening. But I think there is more in it.
The Lady of Malahault (see note in text) had previously been aware that
Lancelot was deeply in love, though he would not tell her with whom. Her
cough therefore meant: "Ah! I have found you out." Now Beatrice, well as
she knew Dante's propensity to love, knew as well that _pride_ was even
more of a besetting weakness of his. This was quite a harmless instance
of it: but still it _was_ an instance--and the "smile" which is _not_
recorded of the Arthurian lady meant: "Ah! I have _caught_ you out."
Even if this be excessive "reading into" the texts, the juxtaposition of
them may not be unsatisfactory to some who are not least worth
satisfying. (Since writing this, I have been reminded that Mr. Paget
Toynbee did make the "juxtaposition" in his Clarendon Press _Specimens
of Old French_ (October, 1892), printing there the "Lady of Malahault"
passage from MSS. copied by Professor Ker. But there can be no harm in
duplicating it.)
P. 121, ll. 8-10. Perhaps instead of, or at least beside, Archdeacon
Grantly I should have mentioned a more real dignitary (as some count
reality) of the Church, Charles Kingsley. The Archdeacon and the Canon
would have fought on many ecclesiastical and some political grounds, but
they might have got on as being, in Dr. Grantly's own words at a
memorable moment "both gentlemen." At any rate, Kingsley was soaked in
Rabelais, and one of the real curiosities of literature is the way in
which the strength of _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ helped to beget the
sweetness of _The Water Babies_.
Chap. viii. pp. 163-175.--After I had "made my" own "siege" of the
_Astree_ on the basis of notes recording a study of it at the B.M., Dr.
Hagbert Wright of the London Library was good enough to let me know that
his many years' quest of the book had been at last successful, and to
give me the first reading of it. (It was Southey's copy, with his own
unmistakable autograph and an inserted note, while it also contained a
cover of a letter addressed to him, which had evidently been used as a
book-mark.) Although not more than four months had passed since the
previous reading, I found it quite as appetising as (in the text itself)
I had expressed my conviction that it would be: and things not noticed
before cropped up most agreeably. There is no space to notice all or
many of them here. But one of the earliest, due to Hylas, cannot be
omitted, for it is the completest and most sententious vindication of
polyerotism ever phrased: "Ce n'etait pas que je n'aimasse les autres:
mais j'avais encore, outre leur place, celle-ci vide dans mon ame." And
the soul of Hylas, like Nature herself, abhorred a vacuum! (This
approximation is not intended as "new and original": but it was some
time after making it that I recovered, in _Notre Dame de Paris_, a
forgotten anticipation of it by Victor Hugo.)
Another early point of interest was that the frontispiece portrait of
Astree (the edition, see _Bibliography_, appears to be the latest of the
original and ungarbled ones, _imprimee a Rouen, et se vend a Paris_
(1647, 10 vols.)) is evidently a portrait, though not an identical one,
of the same face given in the Abbe Reure's engraving of Diane de
Chateaumorand herself. The nose, especially, is hardly mistakable, but
the eyes have rather less expression, and the mouth less character,
though the whole face (naturally) looks younger.
On the other hand, the portrait here--not of Celadon, but admittedly of
Honore d'Urfe himself--is much less flattering than that in the Abbe's
book.
Things specially noted in the second reading would (it has been said)
overflow all bounds here possible: but we may perhaps find room for
three lines from about the best of the very numerous but not very
poetical verses, at the beginning of the sixth (_i.e._ the middle of the
original _third_) volume:
_Le prix d'Amour c'est l'Amour meme._
Change d'humeur qui s'y plaira,
Jamais Hylas ne changera,
the two last being the continuous refrain of a "villanelle" in which
this bad man boasts his constancy in inconstancy.
P. 265, _note_ 1.--It ought perhaps to be mentioned that Mlle. de
Lussan's paternity is also, and somewhat more probably, attributed to
Eugene's elder brother, Thomas of Savoy, Comte de Soissons. The lady is
said to have been born in 1682, when Eugene (b. 1663) was barely
nineteen; but of course this is not decisive. His brother Thomas
_Amedee_ (b. 1656) was twenty-six at the time. The attribution above
mentioned gave no second name, and did not specify the relationship to
Eugene: so I had some difficulty in identifying the person, as there
were, in the century, three Princes Thomas of Savoy, and I had few books
of reference. But my old friend and constant helper in matters
historical, the Rev. William Hunt, D.Litt., cleared the point up for me.
Of the other two--Thomas _Francois_, who was by marriage Comte de
Soissons and was grandfather of Eugene and Thomas Amedee, died in the
same year in which Thomas Amedee was born, therefore twenty-six before
Mlle. de Lussan's birth: while the third, Thomas _Joseph_, Eugene's
cousin, was not born till 1796, fourteen years after the lady. The
matter is, of course, of no literary importance: but as I had passed the
sheet for press before noticing the diversity of statements, I thought
it better to settle it.
P. 267. Pajon. I ought not to have forgotten to mention that he bears
the medal of Sir Walter Scott (Introduction to _The Abbot_) as "a
pleasing writer of French Fairy Tales."
Page 453.--Choderlos de Laclos. Some surprise has been expressed by a
friend of great competence at my leaving out _Les Liaisons Dangereuses_.
I am, of course, aware that "persons of distinction" have taken an
interest in it; and I understand that, not many years ago, the
unfortunate author of the beautiful lines _To Cynara_ wasted his time
and talent on translating the thing. To make sure that my former
rejection was not unjustified, I have accordingly read it with care
since the greater part of this book was passed for press; and it shall
have a judgment here, if not in the text. I am unable to find any
redeeming point in it, except that some ingenuity is shown in bringing
about the _denouement_ by a rupture between the villain-hero and the
villainess-heroine, M. le Vicomte de Valmont and Mme. la Marquise de
Merteuil. Even this, though fairly craftsmanlike in treatment, is banal
enough in idea--that idea being merely that jealousy, in both sexes,
survives love, shame, and everything else, even community in
scoundrelism--in other words, that the green-eyed monster (like "Vernon"
and unlike "Ver") _semper viret_. But it is scarcely worth one's while
to read six hundred pages of very small print in order to learn this. Of
amusement, as apart from this very elementary instruction, I at least
can find nothing. The pair above mentioned, on whom practically hangs
the whole appeal, are merely disgusting. Their very voluptuousness is
accidental: the sum and substance, the property and business of their
lives and natures, are compact of mischief, malice, treachery, and the
desire of "getting the better of somebody." Nor has this diabolism
anything grand or impressive about it--anything that "intends greatly"
and glows, as has been said, with a black splendour, in Marlowesque or
Websterian fashion. Nor, again, is it a "Fleur du Mal" of the
Baudelairian kind, but only an ugly as well as noxious weed. It is
prosaic and suburban. There is neither tragedy nor comedy, neither
passion nor humour, nor even wit, except a little horse-play. Congreve
and Crebillon are as far off as Marlowe and Webster; in fact, the
descent from Crebillon's M. de Clerval to Laclos' M. de Valmont is
almost inexpressible. And, once more, there is nothing to console one
but the dull and obvious moral that to adopt love-making as an
"occupation" (_vide_ text, p. 367) is only too likely to result in the
[Greek: techne] becoming, in vulgar hands, very [Greek: banausos]
indeed.
The victims and _comparses_ of the story do nothing to atone for the
principals. The lacrimose stoop-to-folly-and-wring-his-bosom Mme. de
Tourvel is merely a bore; the _ingenue_ Cecile de Volanges is, as Mme.
de Merteuil says, a _petite imbecile_ throughout, and becomes no better
than she should be with the facility of a predestined strumpet; her
lover, Valmont's rival, and Mme. de Merteuil's plaything, M. le
Chevalier Danceny, is not so very much better than _he_ should be, and
nearly as much an imbecile in the masculine way as Cecile in the
feminine; her respectable mother and Valmont's respectable aunt are not
merely as blind as owls are, but as stupid as owls are not. Finally, the
book, which in many particular points, as well as in the general
letter-scheme, follows Richardson closely (adding clumsy notes to
explain the letters, apologise for their style, etc.), exhibits most of
the faults of its original with hardly any of that original's merits.
Valmont, for instance, is that intolerable creature, a pattern Bad
Man--a Grandison-Lovelace--a prig of vice. Indeed, I cannot see how any
interest can be taken in the book, except that derived from its
background of _tacenda_; and though no one, I think, who has read the
present volume will accuse me of squeamishness, _I_ can find in it no
interest at all. The final situations referred to above, if artistically
led up to and crisply told in a story of twenty to fifty pages, might
have some; but ditchwatered out as they are, I have no use for them. The
letter-form is particularly unfortunate, because, at least as used, it
excludes the ironic presentation which permits one almost to fall in
love with Becky Sharp, and quite to enjoy _Jonathan Wild_. Of course, if
anybody says (and apologists _do_ say that Laclos was, as a man, proper
in morals and mild in manners) that to hold up the wicked to mere
detestation is a worthy work, I am not disposed to argue the point.
Only, for myself, I prefer to take moral diatribes from the clergy and
aesthetic delectation from the artist. The avenging duel between
Lovelace and Colonel Morden is finely done; that between Valmont and
Danceny is an obvious copy of it, and not finely done at all. Some,
again, of the riskiest passages in subject are made simply dull by a
Richardsonian particularity which has no seasoning either of humour or
of excitement. Now, a Richardson _de mauvais lieu_ is more than a
bore--it is a nuisance, not pure and simple, but impure and complex.
I have in old days given to a few novels (though, of course, only when
they richly deserved it) what is called a "slating"--an
_ereintement_--as I once had the honour of translating that word in
conversation, at the request of a distinguished English novelist, for
the benefit of a distinguished French one. Perhaps an example of the
process is not utterly out of place in a _History_ of the novel itself.
But I have long given up reviewing fiction, and I do not remember any
book of which I shall have to speak as I have just spoken. So _hic
caestus_, etc.--though I am not such a coxcomb as to include _victor_ in
the quotation.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] For the opposite or corresponding reasons, it has seemed unnecessary
to dwell on such persons, a hundred and more years later, as Voisenon
and La Morliere, who are merely "corrupt followers" of Crebillon _fils_;
or, between the two groups, on the numerous failures of the
quasi-historical kind which derived partly from Mlle. de Scudery and
partly from Mme. de la Fayette.
[2] That of the minor "Sensibility" novelists in the last chapter.
[3] I have once more to thank Professors Ker, Elton, and Gregory Smith
for their kindness in reading my proofs and making most valuable
suggestions; as well as Professor Fitzmaurice-Kelly and the Rev. William
Hunt for information on particular points.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1
The early history of prose fiction--The late classical
stage--A _nexus_ of Greek and French romance?--the facts
about the matter--The power and influence of the "Saint's
Life"--The Legend of St. Eulalia--The _St. Alexis_.
CHAPTER II
THE MATTERS OF FRANCE, ROME, AND BRITAIN 9
The _Chanson de Geste_--The proportions of history and
fiction in them--The part played by language, prosody, and
manners--Some drawbacks--But a fair balance of actual story
merit--Some instances of this--The classical borrowings:
Troy and Alexander--_Troilus_--_Alexander_--The Arthurian
Legend--Chrestien de Troyes and the theories about him--His
unquestioned work--Comparison of the _Chevalier a la
Charette_ and the prose _Lancelot_--The constitution of the
Arthuriad--Its approximation to the novel proper--Especially
in the characters and relations of Lancelot and
Guinevere--Lancelot--Guinevere--Some minor
points--Illustrative extracts translated from the "Vulgate":
the youth of Lancelot--The first meeting of Lancelot and
Guinevere--The scene of the kiss--Some further remarks on
the novel-character of the story--And the personages--Books.
CHAPTER III
ROMANS D'AVENTURES 55
Variety of the present group--Different views held of
it--_Partenopeus of Blois_ selected for analysis and
translation.
CHAPTER IV
THE BEGINNINGS OF PROSE FICTION 73
Prose novelettes of the thirteenth century: _Aucassin et
Nicolette_ not quite typical--_L'Empereur Constant_ more
so--_Le Roi Flore et la Belle Jehane_--_La Comtesse de
Ponthieu_--Those of the fourteenth:
_Asseneth_--_Troilus_--_Foulques Fitzwarin_--Something on
these--And on the short story generally.
CHAPTER V
ALLEGORY, FABLIAU, AND PROSE STORY OF COMMON LIFE 89
The connection with prose fiction of allegory--And of the
_fabliaux_--The rise of the _nouvelle_ itself--_Les Cent
Nouvelles Nouvelles_--Analysis of "La Demoiselle
Cavaliere"--The interest of _namea_ personages--_Petit Jehan
de Saintre_--_Jehan de Paris._
CHAPTER VI
RABELAIS 105
The anonymity, or at least impersonality, of authorship up
to this point--Rabelais unquestionably the first very great
known writer--But the first great novelist?--Some objections
considered--And dismissed as affecting the general
attraction of the book--Which lies, largely if not wholly,
in its story-interest--Contrast of the _Moyen de
Parvenir_--A general theme possible--A reference, to be
taken up later, to the last Book--Running survey of the
whole--_Gargantua_--The birth and education--The war--The
Counsel to Picrochole--The peace and the Abbey of
Thelema--_Pantagruel_ I. The contrasted
youth--Panurge--Short view of the sequels in Book
II.--_Pantagruel_ II. (Book III.) The marriage of Panurge
and the consultations on it--_Pantagruel_ III. (Book IV.)
The first part of the voyage--_Pantagruel_ IV. (Book V.) The
second part of the voyage: the "Isle Sonnante"--"La
Quinte"--The conclusion and The Bottle.
CHAPTER VII
THE SUCCESSORS OF RABELAIS AND THE INFLUENCE OF THE
"AMADIS" ROMANCES 134
Subsidiary importance of Brantome and other
character-mongers--The _Heptameron_--Note on
Montaigne--Character and "problems"--Parlamente on human and
divine love--Desperiers--_Contes et Joyeux Devis_--Other
tale-collections--The "provincial" character of these--The
_Amadis_ romances--Their characteristics--Extravagance in
incident, nomenclature, etc.--The "cruel" heroine--Note on
Helisenne de Crenne.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--I. 152
_The Pastoral and Heroic Romance, and the Fairy Story._
Immense importance of the seventeenth century in our
subject--The divisions of its contribution--Note on marked
influence of Greek Romance--The Pastoral in general--Its
beginnings in France--Minor romances preceding the
_Astree_--Their general character--Examples of their
style--Montreux and the _Bergeries de Juliette_--Des
Escuteaux and his _Amours Diverses_--Francois de Moliere:
_Polyxene_--Du Perier: _Arnoult et Clarimonde_--Du Croset:
_Philocalie_--Corbin: _Philocaste_--Jean de Lannoi and his
_Roman Satirique_--Beroalde de Verville outside the _Moyen
de Parvenir_--The _Astree_: its author--The book--Its
likeness to the _Arcadia_--Its philosophy and its general
temper--Its appearance and its author's other work--Its
character and appeals--Hylas and Stella and their
Convention--Narrative skill frequent--The Fountain of the
Truth of Love--Some drawbacks: awkward history--But
attractive on the whole--The general importance and
influence--The _Grand Cyrus_--Its preface to Madame de
Longueville--The "Address to the Reader"--The opening of the
"business"--The ups and downs of the general conduct of the
story--Extracts: the introduction of Cyrus to Mandane--His
soliloquy in the pavilion--The Fight of the Four
Hundred--The abstract resumed--The oracle to
Philidaspes--The advent of Araminta--Her correspondence with
Spithridates--Some interposed comments--Analysis
resumed--The statue in the gallery at Sardis--The judgment
of Cyrus in a court of love--Thomyris on the
warpath--General remarks on the book and its class--The
other Scudery romances:
_Ibrahim_--_Almahide_--_Clelie_--Perhaps the liveliest of
the set--Rough outline of it--La Calprenede: his
comparative cheerfulness--_Cleopatre_: the Cypassis and
Arminius episode--The book
generally--_Cassandre_--_Faramond_--Gomberville: _La
Caritee_--_Polexandre_--Camus: _Palombe_, etc.--Hedelin
d'Aubignac: _Macarise_--Gombauld: _Endimion_--Mme. de
Villedieu--_Le Grand Alcandre Frustre_--The collected
love-stories--Their historic liberties--_Carmente_,
etc.--Her value on the whole--The fairy tale--Its _general_
characteristics: the happy ending--Perrault and Mme.
d'Aulnoy--Commented examples: _Gracieuse et
Percinet_--_L'Adroite Princesse_--The danger of the
"moral"--Yet often redeemed--The main _Cabinet des Fees_:
more on Mme. d'Aulnoy--Warning against disappointment--Mlle.
de la Force and others--The large proportion of Eastern
Tales--_Les Voyages de Zulma_--Fenelon--Caylus--_Prince
Courtebotte et Princesse Zibeline_--_Rosanie_--_Prince
Muguet et Princesse Zaza_--Note on _Le Diable Amoureux_.
CHAPTER IX
THE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL--II. 274
_From "Francion" to "La Princesse de Cleves"--Anthony Hamilton._
The material of the chapter--Sorel and _Francion_--The
_Berger Extravagant_ and _Polyandre_--Scarron and the _Roman
Comique_--The opening scene of this--Furetiere and the
_Roman Bourgeois_--Nicodeme takes Javotte home from
church--Cyrano de Bergerac and his _Voyages_--Mme. de la
Fayette and _La Princesse de Cleves_--Its central
scene--Hamilton and the Nymph--The opening of _Fleur
d'Epine_--_Les Quatre Facardins_.
CHAPTER X
LESAGE, MARIVAUX, PREVOST, CREBILLON 325
The subjects of the chapter--Lesage: his Spanish
connections--Peculiarity of his work generally--And its
variety--_Le Diable Boiteux_--Lesage and Boileau--_Gil
Blas_: its peculiar cosmopolitanism--And its adoption of the
_homme sensuel moyen_ fashion--Its inequality, in the Second
and Fourth Books especially--Lesage's quality: not requiring
many words, but indisputable--Marivaux: _Les Effets de la
Sympathie_ (?)--His work in general--_Le Paysan
Parvenu_--_Marianne_: outline of the story--Importance of
Marianne herself--Marivaux and Richardson:
"Marivaudage"--Examples: Marianne on the _physique_ and
_moral_ of Prioresses and Nuns--She returns the
gift-clothes--Prevost--His minor novels: the opinions on
them of Sainte-Beuve--And of Planche--The books themselves:
_Histoire d'une Grecque Moderne_--_Cleveland_--_Le Doyen de
Killerine_--_The Memoires d'un Homme de Qualite_--Its
miscellaneous curiosities--_Manon Lescaut_--Its
uniqueness--The character of its heroine--And that of the
hero--The inevitableness of both and the inestimableness of
their history--Crebillon _fils_--The case against him--For
the defendant: the veracity of his artificiality and his
consummate cleverness--The Crebillonesque atmosphere and
method--Inequality of his general work; a survey of it.
CHAPTER XI
THE _PHILOSOPHE_ NOVEL 377
The use of the novel for "purpose"; Voltaire--General
characteristics of his tales--_Candide_--_Zadig_ and its
satellites--_Micromegas_--_L'Ingenu_--_La Princesse de
Babylone_--Some minors--Voltaire, the Kehl edition, and
Plato--An attempt at different evaluation of
himself--Rousseau: the novel character of the
_Confessions_--The ambiguous position of _Emile_--_La
Nouvelle Heloise_--Its numerous and grave faults--The minor
characters--The delinquencies of Saint-Preux--And the less
charming points of Julie; her redemption--And the better
side of the book generally--But little probability of more
good work in novel from its author--The different case of
Diderot--His gifts and the waste of them--The various
display of them--_Le Neveu de Rameau_--_Jacques le
Fataliste_--Its "Arcis-Pommeraye" episode--_La
Religieuse_--Its story--A hardly missed, if missed,
masterpiece--The successors--Marmontel--His "Telemachic"
imitations worth little--The best of his _Contes Moraux_
worth a good deal--_Alcibiade ou le Moi_--_Soliman the
Second_--_The Four Flasks_--_Heureusement_--_Le Philosophe
Soi-disant_--A real advance in these--Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre.
CHAPTER XII
"SENSIBILITY." MINOR AND LATER NOVELISTS. THE FRENCH
NOVEL, _c._ 1800 428
"Sensibility"--A glance at Miss Austen--The thing
essentially French--Its history--Mme. de Tencin and _Le
Comte de Comminge_--Mme. Riccoboni and _Le Marquis de
Cressy_--Her other work: _Milady Catesby_--Mme. de Beaumont:
_Lettres du Marquis de Roselle_--Mme. de Souza--Xavier de
Maistre--His illustrations of the lighter side of
Sensibility--A sign of decadence--Benjamin Constant:
_Adolphe_--Mme. de Duras's "postscript"--_Sensibilite_ and
_engouement_--Some final words on the matter--Its importance
here--Restif de la Bretonne--Pigault-Lebrun: the difference
of his positive and relative importance--His life and the
reasons for giving it--His general
characteristics--_L'Enfant du Carnaval_ and _Les Barons de
Felsheim_--_Angelique et Jeanneton_--_Mon Oncle
Thomas_--_Jerome_--The redeeming points of these--Others:
_Adelaide de Meran and Tableaux de
Societe_--_L'Officieux_--Further examples--Last words on
him--The French novel in 1800.
CHRONOLOGICAL CONSPECTUS OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF FRENCH
FICTION NOTICED IN THIS VOLUME 475
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 479
INDEX 483
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
[Sidenote: The early history of prose fiction.]
Although I have already, in two places,[4] given a somewhat precise
account of the manner in which fiction in the modern sense of the term,
and especially prose fiction, came to occupy a province in modern
literature which had been so scantily and infrequently cultivated in
ancient, it would hardly be proper to enter upon the present subject
with a mere reference to these other treatments. It is matter of
practically no controversy (or at least of none in which it is worth
while to take a part) that the history of prose fiction, before the
Christian era, is very nearly a blank, and that, in the fortunately
still fairly abundant remains of poetic fiction, "the story is the least
part" (as Dryden says in another sense), or at least the _telling_ of
the story, in our modern sense, is so. Homer (in the _Odyssey_ at any
rate), Herodotus (in what was certainly not intentional fiction at all),
and Xenophon[5] are about the only Greek writers who can tell a story,
for the magnificent narrative of Thucydides in such cases as those of
the Plague and the Syracusan cataclysm shows all the "headstrong"
_ethos_ of the author in its positive refusal to assume a "story"
character. In Latin there is nothing before Livy and Ovid;[6] of whom
the one falls into the same category with Herodotus and Xenophon, and
the other, admirable _raconteur_ as he is, thinks first of his poetry.
Scattered tales we have: "mimes" and other things there are some, and
may have been more. But on the whole the schedule is not filled: there
are no entries for the competition.
[Sidenote: The late classical stage.]
In later classical literature, both Greek and Latin, the state of things
alters considerably, though even then it cannot be said that fiction
proper--that is to say, either prose or verse in which the
accomplishment of the form is distinctly subordinate to the interesting
treatment of the subject--constitutes a very large department, or even
any regular department at all. If Lucius of Patrae was a real person,
and much before Lucian, he may dispute with Petronius--that
first-century Maupassant or Meredith, or both combined--the actual
foundation of the novel as we have it; but Lucian himself and Apuleius
(strangely enough handling the same subject in the two languages) give
securer and more solid starting-places. Yet nothing follows Apuleius;
though some time after Lucian the Greek romance, of which we have still
a fair number of examples (spread, however, over a still larger number
of centuries), establishes itself in a fashion. It does one thing,
indeed, which in a way refounds or even founds the whole conception--it
establishes the heroine. There are certainly feminine persons, sometimes
not disagreeable, who play conspicuous and by no means mute or
unpractical parts in both Greek and Latin versions of the Ass-Legend;
but one can hardly call them heroines. There need be no chicane about
the application of that title to Chloe or to Chariclea, to Leucippe or
to her very remarkable rival, to Anthia or to Hysmine. Without the
heroine you can hardly have romance: the novel without her (though her
individuality may be put in commission) is an absolute impossibility.
[Sidenote: A _nexus_ of Greek and French romance? The facts about the
matter.]
The connection between these curious performances (with the much larger
number of things like them which we know to have existed) on the one
side, and the Western mediaeval romance on the other, has been at
various times matter of considerable controversy; but it need not
trouble us much here. The Greek romance was to have very great influence
on the French novel later: on the earlier composition, generally called
by the same name as itself, it would seem[7] to have had next to none.
Until we come to _Floire et Blanchefleur_ and perhaps _Parthenopex_,
things of a comparatively late stage, obviously post-Crusade, and so
necessarily exposed to, and pretty clearly patient of, Greek-Eastern
influence, there is nothing in Old French which shows even the same
kinship to the Greek stories as the Old English _Apollonius of Tyre_,
which was probably or rather certainly in the original Greek itself. The
sources of French "romance"--I must take leave to request a "truce of
God" as to the application of that term and of "epic" for present
purposes--appear to have been two--the Saint's Life and the patriotic or
family _saga_, the latter in the first place indelibly affected by the
Mahometan incursions of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. The
story-telling instinct--kindled by, or at first devoted to, these
subjects--subsequently fastened on numerous others. In fact almost all
was fish that came to the magic net of Romance; and though two great
subjects of ours, the "Matter of Britain" (the Arthurian Legend) and the
"Matter of Rome" (classical story generally, including the Tale of
Troy), came traditionally to rank themselves with the "Matter of France"
and with the great range of hagiology which it might have been dangerous
to proclaim a fourth "matter" (even if anybody had been likely to take
the view that it was so), these classifications are, like most of their
kind, more specious than satisfactory.
[Sidenote: The power and influence of the "Saint's Life."]
Any person--though indeed it is to be feared that the number of such
persons is not very large--who has some knowledge of hagiology _and_
some of literature will admit at once that the popular notion of a
Saint's Life being necessarily a dull and "goody" thing is one of the
foolishest pieces of presumptuous ignorance, and one of the most
ignorant pieces of foolish presumption. Not only have modern novelists
sometimes been better informed and better inspired--as in the case of
more than one version of the Legends of St. Mary of Egypt, of St.
Julian, of Saint Christopher, and others--but there remain scores if not
hundreds of beautiful things that have been wholly or all but wholly
neglected. It is impossible to imagine a better romance, either in verse
or in prose, than might have been made by William Morris if he had kept
his earliest loves and faiths and had taken the _variorum_ Legend of St.
Mary Magdalene, as we have it in divers forms from quite early French
and English to the fifteenth-century English Miracle Play on the
subject. That of St. Eustace ("Sir Isumbras"), though old letters and
modern art have made something of it, has also never been fully
developed in the directions which it opens up; and one could name many
others. But it has to be admitted that the French (whether, as some
would say, naturally enough or not) never gave the Saint's Life pure and
simple the development which it received in English. It started them--I
at least believe this--in the story-telling way; but cross-roads, to
them more attractive, soon presented themselves.
[Sidenote: The Legend of St. Eulalia.]
Still, it started them. I hope it is neither intolerably fanciful nor
the mere device of a compiler anxious to make his arrows of all wood, to
suggest that there is something noteworthy in the nature of the very
first piece of actual French which we possess. The Legend of St. Eulalia
can be tried pretty high; for we have[8] the third hymn of the
_Peristephanon_ of Prudentius to compare it with. The metre of this
Germine nobilis Eulalia
is not one of the best, and contrasts ill with the stately
decasyllables--perhaps the very earliest examples of that mighty metre
that we have--which the infant daughter-tongue somehow devised for
itself some centuries later. But Prudentius is almost always a poet, if
a poet of the decadence, and he had as instruments a language and a
prosody which were like a match rifle to a bow and arrows--_not_ of yew
and _not_ cloth-yard shafts--when contrasted with the dialect and
speech-craft of the unknown tenth-century Frenchman. Yet from some
points of view, and especially from ours, the Anonymus of the Dark Ages
wins. Prudentius spins out the story into two hundred and fifteen lines,
with endless rhetorical and poetical amplification. He wants to say that
Eulalia was twelve years old; but he actually informs us that
Curriculis tribus atque novem,
Tres hyemes quater attigerat,
and the whole history of the martyrdom is attitudinised and bedizened in
the same fashion.
Now listen to the noble simplicity of the first French poet and
tale-teller:
A good maiden was Eulalia: fair had she the body, but the
soul fairer. The enemies of God would fain conquer
her--would fain make her serve the fiend. She listened not
to the evil counsellors, that she should deny God, who
abideth in Heaven aloft--neither for gold, nor for silver,
nor for garments; for the royal threatenings, nor for
entreaties. Nothing could ever bend the damsel so that she
should not love the service of God. And for that reason she
was brought before Maximian, who was the King in those days
over the pagans. And he exhorted her--whereof she took no
care--that she should flee from the name of Christian. But
she assembled all her strength that she might rather sustain
the torments than lose her virginity: for which reason she
died in great honour. They cast her in the fire when it
burnt fiercely: but she had no fault in her, and so it
pained her [_or_ she burnt[9]] not.
To this would not trust the pagan king: but with a sword he
bade them take off her head. The damsel did not gainsay this
thing: she would fain let go this worldly life if Christ
gave command. And in shape of a dove she flew to heaven. Let
us all pray that she may deign to intercede for us; that
Christ may upon us have mercy after death, and of His
clemency may allow us to come to Him.
[Sidenote: The _St. Alexis_.]
Of course this is story-telling in its simplest form and on its smallest
scale: but the essentials are there, and the non-essentials can be
easily supplied--as indeed they are to some extent in the _Life of St.
Leger_ and to a greater in the _Life of St. Alexis_, which almost follow
the _Sainte-Eulalie_ in the making of French literature. The _St.
Alexis_ indeed provides something like a complete scheme of romance
interest, and should be, though not translated (for it runs to between
600 and 700 lines), in some degree analysed and discussed. It had, of
course, a Latin original, and was rehandled more than once or twice. But
we have the (apparently) first French form, probably of the eleventh
century. The theme is one of the commonest and one of the least
sympathetic in hagiology. Alexis is forced by his father, a rich Roman
"count," to marry; and after (not before) the marriage, though of course
before its consummation, he deserts his wife, flies to Syria, and
becomes a beggar at Edessa. After a time, long enough to prevent
recognition, he goes back to Rome, and obtains from his own family alms
enough to live on, though these alms are dispensed to him by the
servants with every mark of contempt. At last he dies, and is recognised
forthwith as a saint. This hackneyed and somewhat repulsive _donnee_
(there is nothing repulsive to the present writer, let it be observed,
either in Stylites or in Galahad) the French poet takes and makes a
rather surprising best of it. He is not despicable even as a poet, all
things considered; but he is something very different indeed from
despicable as a tale-teller. To begin, or, strictly speaking, to end
with (R. L. Stevenson never said a wiser thing than that the end must be
the necessary result of, and as it were foretold in, the beginning), he
has lessened if not wholly destroyed the jar of the situation by (most
unusually and considering the mad chastity-worship of the time rather
audaciously) associating the deserted wife directly with the Saint's
"gustation of God" above:
Without doubt is St. Alexis in Heaven,
With him has he God in the company of the Angels,
_With him the maiden to whom he made himself strange,_
_Now he has her close to him--together are their souls,_
_I know not how to tell you how great their joy is._[10]
But there are earlier touches of that life which makes all literature,
and tale-telling most of all. An opening on Degeneracy is scarcely one
of these, for this was, of course, a commonplace millenniums earlier,
and it had the recent belief about the approaching end of the world at
the actual A.D. 1000 to prompt it. The maiden is "bought" for Alexis
from her father or mother. Instead of the not unusual and rather
distasteful sermons on virginity which later versions have, the future
saint has at least the grace to accompany the return of the ring[11]
with only a few words of renunciation of his spouse to Christ, and of
declaration that in this world "love is imperfect, life frail, and joy
mutable." A far more vivid touch is given by the mother who, when search
for the fugitive has proved futile, ruins the nuptial chamber, destroys
its decorations, and hangs it with rags and sackcloth,[12] and who, when
the final discovery is made, reproaches the dead saint in a fashion
which is not easy to reply to: "My son, why hadst thou no pity of _us_?
Why hast thou not spoken to me _once_?" The bride has neither forgotten
nor resented: she only weeps her deserter's former beauty, and swears to
have no other spouse but God. The poem ends--or all but ends--in a
hurly-burly of popular enthusiasm, which will hardly resign its new
saint to Pope or Emperor, till at last, after the usual miracles of
healing, the body is allowed to rest, splendidly entombed, in the Church
of St. Boniface.
Now the man who could thus, and by many other touches not mentioned, run
blood into the veins of mummies,[13] could, with larger range of subject
and wider choice of treatment, have done no small things in fiction.
But enough talk of might-have-beens: let us come to the things that were
done.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The article "Romance" in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th ed.;
and the volume on _The English Novel_ in Messrs. Dent's series "Channels
of English Literature," London, 1913.
[5] Plato (or Socrates?) does it only on a small scale and partially,
though there are the makings of a great novelist in the _Dialogues_.
Apollonius Rhodius is the next verse-tale teller to Homer among the
prae-Christian Greeks.
[6] Virgil, in the only parts of the _Aeneid_ that make a good story, is
following either Homer or Apollonius.
[7] To me at least the seeming seems to approach demonstration; and I
can only speak as I find, with all due apologies to those who find
differently.
[8] There is, of course, a Latin "sequence" on the Saint which is nearer
to the French poem; but that does not affect our present point.
[9] The literal "cooked," with no burlesque intention, was used of
punitory burning quite early; but it is not certain that the transferred
sense of _cuire_, "to _pain_," is not nearly or quite as old.
[10] Not the least interesting part of this is that it is almost
sufficient by itself to establish the connection between Saint's Life
and Romance.
[11] By a very curious touch he gives her also "les renges de s'espide,"
_i.e._ either the other ring by which the sword is attached to the
sword-belt, or the belt itself. The meaning is, of course, that with her
he renounces knighthood and all worldly rank.
[12] She addresses the room itself, dramatically enough: "Chamber! never
more shalt thou bear ornament: never shall any joy in thee be enjoyed."
[13] Let me repeat that I mean no despite to the "Communion of Saints"
or to their records--much the reverse. But the hand of any _purpose_,
Religious, Scientific, Political, what not, is apt to mummify story.