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=_THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES._=
CLASSIC FRENCH COURSE
IN ENGLISH.
BY
WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON.
NEW YORK:
CHAUTAUQUA PRESS,
C. L. S. C. DEPARTMENT,
805 BROADWAY.
1886.
COPYRIGHT, 1886,
BY PHILLIPS & HUNT.
_OTHER VOLUMES IN THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES_
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
*PREPARATORY GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH $1.00
**PREPARATORY LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH 1.00
*** COLLEGE GREEK COURSE IN ENGLISH 1.00
****COLLEGE LATIN COURSE IN ENGLISH 1.00
_The required books of the C. L. S. C. are recommended by a Council of
six. It must, however, be understood that recommendation does not
involve an approval by the Council, or by any member of it, of every
principle or doctrine contained in the book recommended._
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED
BY RAND, AVERY, & COMPANY.
BOSTON.
PREFACE.
The preparation of the present volume proposed to the author a task more
difficult far than that undertaken in any one of the four preceding
volumes of the group, THE AFTER-SCHOOL SERIES, to which it belongs.
Those volumes dealt with literatures limited and finished: this volume
deals with a literature indefinitely vast in extent, and still in vital
process of growth. The selection of material to be used was, in the case
of the earlier volumes, virtually made for the author beforehand, in a
manner greatly to ease his sense of responsibility for the exercise of
individual judgment and taste. Long prescription, joined to the
winnowing effect of wear and waste through time and chance, had left
little doubt what works of what writers, Greek and Roman, best deserved
now to be shown to the general reader. Besides this, the prevalent
custom of the schools of classical learning could then wisely be taken
as a clew of guidance to be implicitly followed, whatever might be the
path through which it should lead. There is here no similar avoidance of
responsibility possible; for the schools have not established a custom,
and French literature is a living body, from which no important members
have ever yet been rent by the ravages of time.
The greater difficulty seen thus to inhere already in the nature itself
of the task proposed for accomplishment, was gravely increased by the
much more severe compression deemed to be in the present instance
desirable. The room placed at the author's disposal for a display of
French literature was less than half the room allowed him for the
display of either the Greek or the Latin.
The plan, therefore, of this volume, imposed the necessity of
establishing from the outset certain limits, to be very strictly
observed. First, it was resolved to restrict the attention bestowed upon
the national history, the national geography, and the national language,
of the French, to such brief occasional notices as, in the course of the
volume, it might seem necessary, for illustration of the particular
author, from time to time to make. The only introductory general matter
here to be found will accordingly consist of a rapid and summary review
of that literature, as a whole, which is the subject of the book. It was
next determined to limit the authors selected for representation to
those of the finished centuries. A third decision was to make the number
of authors small rather than large, choice rather than inclusive. The
principle at this point adopted, was to choose those authors only whose
merit, or whose fame, or whose influence, might be supposed
unquestionably such that their names and their works would certainly be
found surviving, though the language in which they wrote should, like
its parent Latin, have perished from the tongues of men. The proportion
of space severally allotted to the different authors was to be measured
partly according to their relative importance, and partly according to
their estimated relative capacity of interesting in translation the
average intelligent reader of to-day.
In one word, the single inspiring aim of the author has here been to
furnish enlightened readers, versed only in the English language, the
means of acquiring, through the medium of their vernacular, some
proportioned, trustworthy, and effective knowledge and appreciation, in
its chief classics, of the great literature which has been written in
French. This object has been sought, not through narrative and
description, making books and authors the subject, but through the
literature itself, in specimen extracts illuminated by the necessary
explanation and criticism.
It is proposed to follow the present volume with a volume similar in
general character, devoted to German literature.
CONTENTS.
I.
PAGE
FRENCH LITERATURE 1
II.
FROISSART 18
III.
RABELAIS 28
IV.
MONTAIGNE 44
V.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD (LA BRUYERE; VAUVENARGUES) 66
VI.
LA FONTAINE 81
VII.
MOLIERE 92
VIII.
PASCAL 115
IX.
MADAME DE SEVIGNE 134
X.
CORNEILLE 151
XI.
RACINE 166
XII.
BOSSUET, BOURDALOUE, MASSILLON 182
XIII.
FENELON 205
XIV.
MONTESQUIEU 225
XV.
VOLTAIRE 238
XVI.
ROUSSEAU 255
XVII.
THE ENCYCLOPAEDISTS 282
XVIII.
EPILOGUE 288
INDEX 293
CLASSIC FRENCH COURSE IN ENGLISH.
I.
FRENCH LITERATURE.
Of French literature, taken as a whole, it may boldly be said that it
is, not the wisest, not the weightiest, not certainly the purest and
loftiest, but by odds the most brilliant and the most interesting,
literature in the world. Strong at many points, at some points
triumphantly strong, it is conspicuously weak at only one point,--the
important point of poetry. In eloquence, in philosophy, even in
theology; in history, in fiction, in criticism, in epistolary writing,
in what may be called the pamphlet; in another species of composition,
characteristically, peculiarly, almost uniquely, French,--the Thought
and the Maxim; by eminence in comedy, and in all those related modes of
written expression for which there is scarcely any name but a French
name,--the _jeu d'esprit_, the _bon mot_, _persiflage_, the _phrase_; in
social and political speculation; last, but not least, in scientific
exposition elegant enough in form and in style to rise to the rank of
literature proper,--the French language has abundant achievement to
show, that puts it, upon the whole, hardly second in wealth of letters
to any other language whatever, either ancient or modern.
What constitutes the charm--partly a perilous charm--of French
literature is, before all else, its incomparable clearness, its
precision, its neatness, its point; then, added to this, its lightness
of touch, its sureness of aim; its vivacity, sparkle, life; its
inexhaustible gayety; its impulsion toward wit,--impulsion so strong as
often to land it in mockery; the sense of release that it breathes and
inspires; its freedom from prick to the conscience; its exquisite study
and choice of effect; its deference paid to decorum,--decorum, we mean,
in taste, as distinguished from morals; its infinite patience and labor
of art, achieving the perfection of grace and of ease,--in one word, its
style.
We speak, of course, broadly and in the gross. There are plenty of
French authors to whom some of the traits just named could by no means
be attributed, and there is certainly not a single French author to whom
one could truthfully attribute them all. Voltaire insisted that what was
not clear was not French,--so much, to the conception of this typical
Frenchman, was clearness the genius of the national speech. Still,
Montaigne, for example, was sometimes obscure; and even the tragedist
Corneille wrote here and there what his commentator, Voltaire, declared
to be hardly intelligible. So, too, Rabelais, coarsest of humorists,
offending decorum in various ways, offended it most of all exactly in
that article of taste, as distinguished from morals, which, with
first-rate French authors in general, is so capital a point of regard.
On the other hand, Pascal,--not to mention the moralists by profession,
such as Nicole, and the preachers Bourdaloue and Massillon,--Pascal,
quivering himself, like a soul unclad, with sense of responsibility to
God, constantly probes you, reading him, to the inmost quick of your
conscience. Rousseau, notably in the "Confessions," and in the Reveries
supplementary to the "Confessions;" Chateaubriand, echoing Rousseau; and
that wayward woman of genius, George Sand, disciple she to both,--were
so far from being always light-heartedly gay, that not seldom they
spread over their page a sombre atmosphere almost of gloom,--gloom
flushed pensively, as with a clouded "setting sun's pathetic light." In
short, when you speak of particular authors, and naturally still more
when you speak of particular works, there are many discriminations to be
made. Such exceptions, however, being duly allowed, the literary product
of the French mind, considered in the aggregate, will not be
misconceived if regarded as possessing the general characteristics in
style that we have now sought briefly to indicate.
French literature, we have hinted, is comparatively poor in poetry. This
is due in part, no doubt, to the genius of the people; but it is also
due in part to the structure of the language. The language, which is
derived chiefly from Latin, is thence in such a way derived as to have
lost the regularity and stateliness of its ancient original, without
having compensated itself with any richness and sweetness of sound
peculiarly its own; like, for instance, that canorous vowel quality of
its sister derivative, the Italian. The French language, in short, is
far from being an ideal language for the poet.
In spite, however, of this fact, disputed by nobody, it is true of
French literature, as it is true of almost any national literature, that
it took its rise in verse instead of in prose. Anciently, there were two
languages subsisting together in France, which came to be distinguished
from each other in name by the word of affirmation--_oc_ or _oil_,
yes--severally peculiar to them, and thus to be known respectively as
_langue d'oc_, and _langue d'oil_. The future belonged to the latter of
the two forms of speech,--the one spoken in the northern part of the
country. This, the _langue d'oil_, became at length the French language.
But the _langue d'oc_, a soft and musical tongue, survived long enough
to become the vehicle of lyric strains, mostly on subjects of love and
gallantry, still familiar in mention, and famous as the songs of the
troubadours. The flourishing time of the troubadours was in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. Provencal is an alternative name of the language.
Side by side with the southern _troubadours_, or a little later than
they, the _trouveres_ of the north sang, with more manly ambition, of
national themes, and, like Virgil, of arms and of heroes. Some
productions of the _trouveres_ may fairly be allowed an elevation of aim
and of treatment entitling them to be called epic in character.
_Chansons de geste_ (songs of exploit), or _romans_, is the native name
by which those primitive French poems are known. They exist in three
principal cycles, or groups, of productions,--one cycle composed of
those pertaining to Charlemagne; one, of those pertaining to British
Arthur; and a third, of those pertaining to ancient Greece and Rome,
notably to Alexander the Great. The cycle revolving around the majestic
legend of Charlemagne for its centre was Teutonic, rather than Celtic,
in spirit as well as in theme. It tended to the religious in tone. The
Arthurian cycle was properly Celtic. It dealt more with adventures of
love. The Alexandrian cycle, so named from one principal theme
celebrated,--namely, the deeds of Alexander the Great,--mixed
fantastically the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome with the then
prevailing ideas of chivalry, and with the figments of fairy lore. (The
metrical form employed in these poems gave its name to the Alexandrine
line later so predominant in French poetry.) The volume of this
quasi-epical verse, existing in its three groups, or cycles, is immense.
So is that of the satire and the allegory in metre that followed. From
this latter store of stock and example, Chaucer drew to supply his muse
with material. The _fabliaux_, so called,--fables, that is, or
stories,--were still another form of early French literature in verse.
It is only now, within the current decade of years, that a really ample
collection of _fabliaux_--hitherto, with the exception of a few printed
volumes of specimens, extant exclusively in manuscript--has been put
into course of publication. Rutebeuf, a _trouvere_ of the reign of St.
Louis (Louis IX., thirteenth century), is perhaps as conspicuous a
personal name as any that thus far emerges out of the sea of practically
anonymous early French authorship. A frankly sordid and mercenary
singer, Rutebeuf, always tending to mockery, was not seldom
licentious,--in both these respects anticipating, as probably also to
some extent by example conforming, the subsequent literary spirit of his
nation. The _fabliaux_ generally mingled with their narrative interest
that spice of raillery and satire constantly so dear to the French
literary appetite. Thibaud was, in a double sense, a royal singer of
songs; for he reigned over Navarre, as well as chanted sweetly in verse
his love and longing, so the disputed legend asserts, for Queen Blanche
of Castile. Thibaud bears the historic title of The Song-maker. He has
been styled the Beranger of the thirteenth century. To Thibaud is said
to be due the introduction of the feminine rhyme into French poetry,--a
metrical variation of capital importance. The songs of Abelard, in the
century preceding Thibaud, won a wide popularity.
Prose, meantime, had been making noteworthy approaches to form.
Villehardouin must be named as first in time among French writers of
history. His work is entitled, "Conquest of Constantinople." It gives an
account of the Fourth Crusade. Joinville, a generation later, continues
the succession of chronicles with his admiring story of the life of
Saint Louis, whose personal friend he was. But Froissart of the
fourteenth century, and Comines of the fifteenth, are greater names.
Froissart, by his simplicity and his narrative art, was the Herodotus,
as Philip de Comines, for his political sagacity, has been styled the
Tacitus, of French historical literature. Up to the time of Froissart,
the literature which we have been treating as French was different
enough in form from the French of to-day to require what might be called
translation in order to become generally intelligible to the living
generation of Frenchmen. The text of Froissart is pretty archaic, but it
definitely bears the aspect of French.
With the name of Comines, who wrote of Louis XI. (compare Walter Scott's
"Quentin Durward"). we reach the fifteenth century, and are close upon
the great revival of learning which accompanied the religious
reformation under Luther and his peers. Now come Rabelais, boldly
declared by Coleridge one of the great creative minds of literature; and
Montaigne, with those Essays of his, still living, and, indeed, certain
always to live. John Calvin, meantime, writes his "Institutes of the
Christian Religion" in French as well as in Latin, showing once and for
all, that in the right hands his vernacular tongue was as capable of
gravity as many a writer before him had superfluously shown that it was
capable of levity. Amyot, the translator of Plutarch, is a French writer
of power, without whom the far greater Montaigne could hardly have been.
The influence of Amyot on French literary history is wider in reach and
longer in duration than we thus indicate; but Montaigne's indebtedness
to him is alone enough to prove that a mere translator had in this man
made a very important contribution to the forming prose literature of
France.
"The Pleiades," so called, were a group of seven writers, who, about the
middle of the sixteenth century, banded themselves together in France,
with the express aim of supplying influential example to improve the
French language for literary purposes. Their peculiar appellation, "The
Pleiades," was copied from that of a somewhat similar group of Greek
writers, that existed in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Of course,
the implied allusion in it is to the constellation of the Pleiades. The
individual name by which the Pleiades of the sixteenth century may best
be remembered is that of Ronsard the poet, associated with the romantic
and pathetic memory of Mary, Queen of Scots. Never, perhaps, in the
history of letters was the fame of a poet in the poet's own lifetime
more universal and more splendid than was the fame of Ronsard. A high
court of literary judicature formally decreed to Ronsard the title of
The French Poet by eminence. This occurred in the youth of the poet. The
wine of success so brilliant turned the young fellow's head. He soon
began to play lord paramount of Parnassus, with every air of one born to
the purple. The kings of the earth vied with each other to do him honor.
Ronsard affected scholarship, and the foremost scholars of his time were
proud to place him with Homer and with Virgil on the roll of the poets.
Ronsard's peculiarity in style was the free use of words and
constructions not properly French. Boileau indicated whence he enriched
his vocabulary and his syntax, by satirically saying that Ronsard spoke
Greek and Latin in French. At his death, Ronsard was almost literally
buried under praises. Sainte-Beuve strikingly says that he seemed to go
forward into posterity as into a temple.
Sharp posthumous reprisals awaited the extravagant fame of Ronsard.
Malherbe, coming in the next generation, legislator of Parnassus,
laughed the literary pretensions of Ronsard to scorn. This stern critic
of form, such is the story, marked up his copy of Ronsard with notes of
censure so many, that a friend of his, seeing the annotated volume,
observed, "What here is not marked, will be understood to have been
approved by you." Whereupon Malherbe, taking his pen, with one
indiscriminate stroke drew it abruptly through the whole volume. "There
I Ronsardized," the contemptuous critic would exclaim, when in reading
his own verses to an acquaintance,--for Malherbe was poet himself,--he
happened to encounter a word that struck him as harsh or improper.
Malherbe, in short, sought to chasten and check the luxuriant overgrowth
to which the example and method of the Pleiades were tending to push the
language of poetry in French. The resultant effect of the two contrary
tendencies--that of literary wantonness on the one hand, and that of
literary prudery on the other--was at the same time to enrich and to
purify French poetical diction. Balzac (the elder), close to Malherbe in
time, performed a service for French prose similar to that which the
latter performed for French verse. These two critical and literary
powers brought in the reign of what is called classicism in France.
French classicism had its long culmination under Louis XIV.
But it was under Louis XIII., or rather under that monarch's great
minister, Cardinal Richelieu, that the rich and splendid Augustan age of
French literature was truly prepared. Two organized forces, one of them
private and social, the other official and public, worked together,
though sometimes perhaps not in harmony, to produce the magnificent
literary result that illustrated the time of Louis XIV. Of these two
organized forces, the Hotel de Rambouillet was one, and the French
Academy was the other. The Hotel de Rambouillet has become the adopted
name of a literary society, presided over by the fine inspiring genius
of the beautiful and accomplished Italian wife of the Marquis de
Rambouillet, a lady who generously conceived the idea of rallying the
feminine wit and virtue of the kingdom to exert a potent influence for
regenerating the manners and morals, and indeed the literature, of
France. At the high court of blended rank and fashion and beauty and
polish and virtue and wit, thus established in the exquisitely builded
and decorated saloons of the Rambouillet mansion, the selectest literary
genius and fame of France were proud and glad to assemble for the
discussion and criticism of literature. Here came Balzac and Voiture;
here Corneille read aloud his masterpieces before they were represented
on the stage; here Descartes philosophized; here the large and splendid
genius of Bossuet first unfolded itself to the world; here Madame de
Sevigne brought her bright, incisive wit, trebly commended by stainless
reputation, unwithering beauty, and charming address, in the woman who
wielded it. The noblest blood of France added the decoration and
inspiration of their presence. It is not easy to overrate the diffusive
beneficent influence that hence went forth to change the fashion of
literature, and to change the fashion of society, for the better. The
Hotel de Rambouillet proper lasted two generations only; but it had a
virtual succession, which, though sometimes interrupted, was scarcely
extinct until the brilliant and beautiful Madame Recamier ceased, about
the middle of the present century, to hold her famous _salons_ in Paris.
The continuous fame and influence of the French Academy, founded by
Richelieu, everybody knows. No other European language has been
elaborately and sedulously formed and cultivated like the French.
But great authors are better improvers of a language than any societies,
however influential. Corneille, Descartes, Pascal, did more for French
style than either the Hotel de Rambouillet or the Academy,--more than
both these two great literary societies together. In verse, Racine,
following Corneille, advanced in some important respects upon the
example and lead of that great original master; but in prose, when
Pascal published his "Provincial Letters," French style reached at once
a point of perfection beyond which it never since has gone. Bossuet,
Bourdaloue, Fenelon, Massillon, Moliere, La Fontaine, Boileau, La
Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere,--what a constellation of names are these, to
glorify the age of Louis XIV.! And Louis XIV. himself, royal embodiment
of a literary good sense carried to the pitch of something very like
real genius in judgment and taste,--what a sun was he (with that talent
of his for kingship, probably never surpassed), to balance and to sway,
from his unshaken station, the august intellectual system of which he
alone constituted the despotic centre to attract and repel! Seventy-two
years long was this sole individual reign. Louis XIV. still sat on the
throne of France when the seventeenth century became the eighteenth.
The eighteenth century was an age of universal reaction in France.
Religion, or rather ecclesiasticism,--for, in the France of those times,
religion was the Church, and the Church was the Roman Catholic
hierarchy,--had been the dominant fashion under Louis XIV. Infidelity
was a broad literary mark, written all over the face of the eighteenth
century. It was the hour and power of the Encyclopaedists and the
Philosophers,--of Voltaire, of Diderot, of D'Alembert, of Rousseau.
Montesquieu, though contemporary, belongs apart from these writers. More
really original, more truly philosophical, he was far less
revolutionary, far less destructive, than they. Still, his influence
was, on the whole, exerted in the direction, if not of infidelity, at
least of religious indifferentism. The French Revolution was laid in
train by the great popular writers whom we have now named, and by their
fellows. It needed only the spark, which the proper occasion would be
sure soon to strike out, and the awful, earth-shaking explosion would
follow. After the Revolution, during the First Empire, so called,--the
usurpation, that is, of Napoleon Bonaparte,--literature was well-nigh
extinguished in France. The names, however, then surpassingly brilliant,
of Chateaubriand and Madame de Stael, belong to this period.
Three centuries have now elapsed since the date of "The Pleiades."
Throughout this long period, French literature has been chiefly under
the sway of that spirit of classicism in style which the reaction
against Ronsardism, led first by Malherbe and afterwards by Boileau, had
established as the national standard in literary taste and aspiration.
But Rousseau's genius acted as a powerful solvent of the classic
tradition. Chateaubriand's influence was felt on the same side,
continuing Rousseau's. George Sand, too, and Lamartine, were forces that
strengthened this component. Finally, the great personality of Victor
Hugo proved potent enough definitively to break the spell that had been
so long and so heavily laid on the literary development of France. The
bloodless warfare was fierce between the revolutionary Romanticists and
the conservative Classicists in literary style, but the victory seemed
at last to remain with the advocates of the new romantic revival. It
looked, on the face of the matter, like a signal triumph of originality
over prescription, of genius over criticism, of power over rule. We
still live in the midst of the dying echoes of this resonant strife.
Perhaps it is too early, as yet, to determine on which side, by the
merit of the cause, the advantage truly belongs. But, by the merit of
the respective champions, the result was, for a time at least,
triumphantly decided in favor of the Romanticists, against the
Classicists. The weighty authority, however, of Sainte-Beuve, at first
thrown into the scale that at length would sink, was thence withdrawn,
and at last, if not resolutely cast upon the opposite side of the
balance, was left wavering in a kind of equipoise between the one and
the other. But our preliminary sketch has already passed the limit
within which our choice of authors for representation is necessarily
confined.
With first a few remarks, naturally suggested, that may be useful, on
the general subject thus rather touched merely than handled, the present
writer gives way to let now the representative authors themselves,
selected for the purpose, supply to the reader a just and lively idea of
French literature.
The first thing, perhaps, to strike the thoughtful mind in a
comprehensive view of the subject, is not so much the length--though
this is remarkable--as the long _continuity_ of French literary history.
From its beginning down to the actual moment, French literature has
suffered no serious break in the course of its development. There have
been periods of greater, and periods of less, prosperity and fruit; but
wastes of marked suspension and barrenness, there have been none.
The second thing noticeable is, that French literature has, to a
singular degree, lived an independent life of its own. It has found
copious springs of health and growth within its own bosom.
But then, a third thing to be also observed, is that, on the other hand,
the touch of foreign influence, felt and acknowledged by this most
proudly and self-sufficiently national of literatures, has proved to it,
at various epochs, a sovereign force of revival and elastic expansion.
Thus, the great renascence in the sixteenth century of ancient Greek and
Latin letters was new life to French literature. So, again, Spanish
literature, brought into contact with French through Corneille and
Moliere with others, gave to the national mind of France a new literary
launch. But the most recent and perhaps the most remarkable example of
foreign influence quickening French literature to make it freshly
fruitful, is supplied in the great romanticizing movement under the lead
of Victor Hugo. English literature--especially Shakspeare--was largely
the pregnant cause of this attempted emancipation of the French literary
mind from the burden of classicism.
A fourth very salient trait in French literary history consists in the
self-conscious, elaborate, persistent efforts put forth from time to
time by individuals, and by organizations, both public and private, in
France, to improve the language, and to elevate the literature, of the
nation. We know of nothing altogether comparable to this anywhere else
in the literature of the world.
A fifth striking thing about French literature is, that it has to a
degree, as we believe beyond parallel, exercised a real and vital
influence on the character and the fortune of the nation. The social,
the political, the moral, the religious, history of France is from age
to age a faithful reflex of the changing phases of its literature. Of
course, a reciprocal influence has been constantly reflected back and
forth from the nation upon its literature, as well as from its
literature upon the nation. But where else in the world has it ever been
so extraordinarily, we may say so appallingly, true as in France, that
the nation was such because such was its literature?
French literature, it will at once be seen, is a study possessing,
beyond the literary, a social, a political, and even a religious,
interest.
Readers desiring to push their conversance with the literary history of
France farther than the present volume will enable them to do, will
consult with profit either the Primer, or the Short History, of French
Literature, by Mr. George Saintsbury. Mr. Saintsbury is a well-informed
writer, who, if the truth must be told, diffuses himself too widely to
do his best possible work. He has, however, made French literature a
specialty, and he is in general a trustworthy authority on the subject.
Another writer on the subject is Mr. H. Van Laun. Him, although a
predecessor of his own in the field, Mr. Saintsbury severely ignores, by
claiming that he is himself the first to write in English a history of
French literature based on original and independent reading of the
authors. We are bound to say that Mr. Van Laun's work is of very poor
quality. It offers, indeed, to the reader one advantage not afforded by
either of Mr. Saintsbury's works, the advantage, namely, of illustrative
extracts from the authors treated,--extracts, however, not unfrequently
marred by wretched translation. The cyclopaedias are, some of them, both
in articles on particular authors and in their sketches of French
literary history as a whole, good sources of general information on the
subject. Readers who command the means of comparing several different
cyclopaedias, or several successive editions of some one cyclopaedia, as,
for example, the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," will find enlightening and
stimulating the not always harmonious views presented on the same
topics. Hallam's "History of Literature in Europe" is an additional
authority by no means to be overlooked.
II.
FROISSART.
1337-1410.
French literature, for the purposes of the present volume, may be said
to commence with Froissart. Froissart is a kind of mediaeval Herodotus.
His time is, indeed, almost this side the middle ages; but he belongs by
character and by sympathy rather to the mediaeval than to the modern
world. He is delightfully like Herodotus in the style and the spirit of
his narrative. Like Herodotus, he became a traveller in order to become
an historian. Like Herodotus, he was cosmopolite enough not to be
narrowly patriotic. Frenchman though he was, he took as much pleasure in
recounting English victories as he did in recounting French. His
countrymen have even accused him of unpatriotic partiality for the
English. His Chronicles have been, perhaps, more popular in their
English form than in their original French. Two prominent English
translations have been made, of which the later, that by Thomas Johnes,
is now most read. Sir Walter Scott thought the earlier excelled in charm
of style.
Jehan or Jean Froissart was a native of Valenciennes. His father meant
to make a priest of him, but the boy had other tastes of his own. Before
he was well out of his teens, he began writing history. This was under
the patronage of a great noble. Froissart was all his life a natural
courtier. He throve on the patronage of the great. It was probably not a
fawning spirit in him that made him this kind of man; it was rather an
innate love of splendor and high exploit. He admired chivalry, then in
its last days, and he painted it with the passion of an idealizer. His
father had been an heraldic painter, so it was perhaps an hereditary
strain in the son that naturally attached him to rank and royalty. The
people--that is, the promiscuous mass of mankind--hardly exist to
Froissart. His pages, spacious as they are, have scarcely room for more
than kings and nobles, and knights and squires. He is a picturesque and
romantic historian, in whose chronicles the glories of the world of
chivalry--a world, as we have said, already dying, and so soon to
disappear--are fixed forever on an ample canvas, in moving form and
shifting color, to delight the backward-looking imagination of mankind.
Froissart, besides being chronicler, was something of a poet. It would
still be possible to confront one who should call this in question, with
thirty thousand surviving verses from the chronicler's pen. Quantity,
indeed, rather than quality, is the strong point of Froissart as poet.
He had no sooner finished the first part of his Chronicles, a
compilation from the work of an earlier hand, than he posted to England
for the purpose of formally presenting his work to the Queen, a princess
of Hainault. She rewarded him handsomely. Woman enough, too, she was,
woman under the queen, duly to despatch him back again to his native
land, where the young fellow's heart, she saw, was lost to a noble lady,
whom, from his inferior station, he could woo only as a moth might woo
the moon. He subsequently returned to Great Britain, and rode about on
horseback gathering materials of history. He visited Italy under
excellent auspices, and, together with Chaucer and with Petrarch,
witnessed a magnificent marriage ceremonial in Milan. Froissart
continued to travel far and wide, always a favorite with princes, but
always intent on achieving his projected work. He finally died at
Chimay, where he had spent his closing years in rounding out to their
completeness his "Chronicles of England, France, and the Adjoining
Countries."
Froissart is the most leisurely of historians, or, rather, he is a
writer who presupposes the largest allowance of leisure at the command
of his readers. He does not seek proportion and perspective. He simply
tells us all he had been able to find out respecting each transaction in
its turn as it successively comes up in the progress of his narrative.
If he goes wrong to-day, he will perhaps correct himself to-morrow, or
day after to-morrow,--this not by changing the first record where it
stands, to make it right, but by inserting a note of his mistake at the
point, whatever it may be, which he shall chance to have reached in the
work of composition when the new and better light breaks in on his eyes.
The student is thus never quite certain but that what he is at one
moment reading in his author, may be an error of which at some
subsequent moment he will be faithfully advised. A little discomposing,
this, but such is Froissart; and it is the philosophical way to take
your author as he is, and make the best of him.
Of such an historian, an historian so diffuse, and so little selective,
it would obviously be difficult to give any suitably brief specimen that
should seem to present a considerable historic action in full. We go to
Froissart's account of the celebrated battle of Poitiers (France). This
was fought in 1356, between Edward the Black Prince on the English side,
and King John on the side of the French.
King John of the French was, of course, a great prize to be secured by
the victorious English. There was eager individual rivalry as to what
particular warrior should be adjudged his true captor. Froissart thus
describes the strife and the issue:--
There was much pressing at this time, through eagerness to take the
king; and those who were nearest to him, and knew him, cried out,
"Surrender yourself, surrender yourself, or you are a dead man!" In
that part of the field was a young knight from St. Omer, who was
engaged by a salary in the service of the King of England; his name
was Denys de Morbeque; who for five years had attached himself to
the English, on account of having been banished in his younger days
from France, for a murder committed in an affray at St. Omer. It
fortunately happened for this knight, that he was at the time near
to the King of France, when he was so much pulled about. He, by
dint of force, for he was very strong and robust, pushed through
the crowd, and said to the king, in good French, "Sire, sire,
surrender yourself!" The king, who found himself very disagreeably
situated, turning to him, asked, "To whom shall I surrender myself?
to whom? Where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales? If I could see
him, I would speak to him."--"Sire," replied Sir Denys, "he is not
here; but surrender yourself to me, and I will lead you to
him."--"Who are you?" said the king. "Sire, I am Denys de Morbeque,
a knight from Artois; but I serve the King of England because I
cannot belong to France, having forfeited all I possessed there."
The king then gave him his right-hand glove, and said, "I surrender
myself to you." There was much crowding and pushing about; for
every one was eager to cry out, "I have taken him!" Neither the
king nor his youngest son Philip were able to get forward, and free
themselves from the throng....
The Prince [of Wales] asked them [his marshals] if they knew any
thing of the King of France: they replied, "No, sir, not for a
certainty; but we believe he must be either killed or made
prisoner, since he has never quitted his battalion." The prince
then, addressing the Earl of Warwick and Lord Cobham, said, "I beg
of you to mount your horses, and ride over the field, so that on
your return you may bring me some certain intelligence of him." The
two barons, immediately mounting their horses, left the prince, and
made for a small hillock, that they might look about them. From
their stand they perceived a crowd of men-at-arms on foot, who were
advancing very slowly. The King of France was in the midst of them,
and in great danger; for the English and Gascons had taken him from
Sir Denys de Morbeque, and were disputing who should have him, the
stoutest bawling out, "It is I that have got him."--"No, no,"
replied the others: "we have him." The king, to escape from this
peril, said, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, I pray you conduct me and my
son in a courteous manner to my cousin the prince; and do not make
such a riot about my capture, for I am so great a lord that I can
make all sufficiently rich." These words, and others which fell
from the king, appeased them a little; but the disputes were always
beginning again, and they did not move a step without rioting. When
the two barons saw this troop of people, they descended from the
hillock, and, sticking spurs into their horses, made up to them. On
their arrival, they asked what was the matter. They were answered,
that it was the King of France, who had been made prisoner, and
that upward of ten knights and squires challenged him at the same
time, as belonging to each of them. The two barons then pushed
through the crowd by main force, and ordered all to draw aside.
They commanded, in the name of the prince, and under pain of
instant death, that every one should keep his distance, and not
approach unless ordered or desired so to do. They all retreated
behind the king; and the two barons, dismounting, advanced to the
king with profound reverences, and conducted him in a peaceable
manner to the Prince of Wales.
We continue our citation from Froissart with the brief chapter in which
the admiring chronicler tells the gallant story of the Black Prince's
behavior as host toward his royal captive, King John of France (it was
the evening after the battle):--
When evening was come, the Prince of Wales gave a supper in his
pavilion to the King of France, and to the greater part of the
princes and barons who were prisoners. The prince seated the King
of France, and his son the Lord Philip, at an elevated and
well-covered table: with them were Sir James de Bourbon, the Lord
John d'Artois, the earls of Tancarville, of Estampes, of Dammartin,
of Graville, and the Lord of Partenay. The other knights and
squires were placed at different tables. The prince himself served
the king's table, as well as the others, with every mark of
humility, and would not sit down at it, in spite of all his
entreaties for him so to do, saying that "he was not worthy of such
an honor, nor did it appertain to him to seat himself at the table
of so great a king, or of so valiant a man as he had shown himself
by his actions that day." He added, also, with a noble air, "Dear
sir, do not make a poor meal, because the Almighty God has not
gratified your wishes in the event of this day; for be assured that
my lord and father will show you every honor and friendship in his
power, and will arrange your ransom so reasonably, that you will
henceforward always remain friends. In my opinion, you have cause
to be glad that the success of this battle did not turn out as you
desired; for you have this day acquired such high renown for
prowess, that you have surpassed all the best knights on your side.
I do not, dear sir, say this to flatter you; for all those of our
side who have seen and observed the actions of each party, have
unanimously allowed this to be your due, and decree you the prize
and garland for it." At the end of this speech, there were murmurs
of praise heard from every one; and the French said the prince had
spoken nobly and truly, and that he would be one of the most
gallant princes in Christendom if God should grant him life to
pursue his career of glory.
A splendid and a gracious figure the Black Prince makes in the pages of
Froissart. It was great good fortune for the posthumous fame of
chivalry, that the institution should have come by an artist so gifted
and so loyal as this Frenchman, to deliver its features in portrait to
after-times, before the living original vanished forever from the view
of history. How much the fiction of Sir Walter Scott owes to Froissart,
and to Philip de Comines after Froissart, those only can understand who
have read both the old chronicles and the modern romances.
It was one of the congenial labors of Sidney Lanier--pure flame of
genius that late burned itself out so swiftly among us!--to edit a
reduction or abridgment of Froissart's Chronicles dedicated especially
to the use of the young. "The Boy's Froissart," he called it. This book
is enriched with a wise and genial appreciation of Froissart's quality
by his American editor.
Whoever reads Froissart needs to remember that the old chronicler is too
much enamoured of chivalry, and is too easily dazzled by splendor of
rank, to be a rigidly just censor of faults committed by knights and
nobles and kings. Froissart, in truth, seems to have been nearly
destitute of the sentiment of humanity. War to him was chiefly a game
and a spectacle.
Our presentation of Froissart must close with a single passage
additional, a picturesque one, in which the chronicler describes the
style of living witnessed by him at the court--we may not unfitly so
apply a royal word--of the Count de Foix. The reader must understand,
while he reads what we here show, that Froissart himself, in close
connection, relates at full, in the language of an informant of his, how
this magnificent Count de Foix had previously killed, with a knife at
his throat, his own and his only son. "I was truly sorry," so, at the
conclusion of the story, Froissart, with characteristic direction of his
sympathy, says, "for the count his father, whom I found a magnificent,
generous, and courteous lord, and also for the country that was
discontented for want of an heir." Here is the promised passage; it
occurs in the ninth chapter of the third volume:--
Count Gaston Phoebus de Foix, of whom I am now speaking, was at
that time fifty-nine years old; and I must say, that although I
have seen very many knights, kings, princes, and others, I have
never seen any so handsome, either in the form of his limbs and
shape, or in countenance, which was fair and ruddy, with gray and
amorous eyes, that gave delight whenever he chose to express
affection. He was so perfectly formed, one could not praise him too
much. He loved earnestly the things he ought to love, and hated
those which it was becoming him so to hate. He was a prudent
knight, full of enterprise and wisdom. He had never any men of
abandoned character with him, reigned prudently, and was constant
in his devotions. There were regular nocturnals from the Psalter,
prayers from the rituals to the Virgin, to the Holy Ghost, and
from the burial service. He had every day distributed as alms, at
his gate, five florins in small coin, to all comers. He was liberal
and courteous in his gifts, and well knew how to take when it was
proper, and to give back where he had confidence. He mightily loved
dogs above all other animals, and during the summer and winter
amused himself much with hunting....
When he quitted his chamber at midnight for supper, twelve servants
bore each a lighted torch before him, which were placed near his
table, and gave a brilliant light to the apartment. The hall was
full of knights and squires, and there were plenty of tables laid
out for any person who chose to sup. No one spoke to him at his
table, unless he first began a conversation. He commonly ate
heartily of poultry, but only the wings and thighs; for in the
daytime, he neither ate nor drank much. He had great pleasure in
hearing minstrels; as he himself was a proficient in the science,
and made his secretaries sing songs, ballads, and roundelays. He
remained at table about two hours, and was pleased when fanciful
dishes were served up to him, which having seen, he immediately
sent them to the tables of his knights and squires.
In short, every thing considered, though I had before been in
several courts of kings, dukes, princes, counts, and noble ladies,
I was never at one that pleased me more, nor was I ever more
delighted with feats of arms, than at this of the Count de Foix.
There were knights and squires to be seen in every chamber, hall,
and court, going backwards and forwards, and conversing on arms and
amours. Every thing honorable was there to be found. All
intelligence from distant countries was there to be learnt, for the
gallantry of the count had brought visitors from all parts of the
world. It was there I was informed of the greater part of those
events which had happened in Spain, Portugal, Arragon, Navarre,
England, Scotland, and on the borders of Languedoc; for I saw,
during my residence, knights and squires arrive from every nation.
I therefore made inquiries from them, or from the count himself,
who cheerfully conversed with me.
The foregoing is one of the most celebrated passages of description in
Froissart. At the same time that it discloses the form and spirit of
those vanished days, which will never come again to the world, it
discloses likewise the character of the man, who must indeed have loved
it all well, to have been able so well to describe it.
We take now a somewhat long forward step, in going, as we do, at once
from Froissart to Rabelais. Comines, lying between, we must reluctantly
pass, with thus barely mentioning his name.
III.
RABELAIS.
1495-1553.
Rabelais is one of the most famous of writers. But he is at the same
time incomparably the coarsest.
The real quality of such a writer, it is evidently out of the question
to exhibit at all adequately here. But equally out of the question it is
to omit Rabelais altogether from an account of French literature.