have transformed the taste of the public; we would rather say
that the general causes, which were destined to produce this
metamorphosis, excited and inspired, when the proper moment
arrived, the great writers of our time.
What, then, were the causes of the French Revolution?
This, certainly, is neither the time nor the place to make such
an inquiry; but every man of good sense and true wisdom will
unhesitatingly allow that the causes for such an event must have
been, and in fact were, very numerous, very profound, and very
diversified; that they were active and potent causes--causes
which, by reason of their number, their depth, and their
diversity, were beyond all external control, and against which it
were puerile to entertain any spite, and absurd to attempt any
revolt.
And, perchance, no other than these same causes have now changed
the face of our literature--perchance these same causes have now
renovated the theatre, after having reformed, and precisely
because they have reformed the spectators. If so, need we feel
surprise? is there any thing very extraordinary in this? Would it
not argue a ridiculous puerility to take offense at such a
circumstance, and angrily to hurl stones at it?
Indeed, every thing depends upon the state of all other things;
the human mind is one single fabric. The different faculties,
which in their union constitute the entire man, aid and appeal to
one another continually. Rarely do they march in a regular and
parallel advance; but as soon as any one of them has gained
decidedly upon the others, the others hasten to overtake it.
{240}
During two centuries, the French people offered a singular
spectacle to the world; for that time it moved in the foremost
ranks of European civilization, that is to say, so far as it was
intrinsically worthy of occupying such a position; but to any one
who takes merely a superficial glance, it might appear almost to
have solved the problem of being at once the most frivolous and
the most serious of all peoples--the most frivolous in important
matters, the most flippant in all that affects the great
interests of society and humanity, and the most grave, the most
pedantic in puerilities and trifles. It was, by a hierarchical
division, separated into classes, but this classification no
longer corresponded to any thing that was useful or even real; it
had no end out of itself, that is to say, it only existed for the
mere sake of existence, to excite arrogance and vanity in the
higher ranks, and envy in the lower. However, all social
conditions had this in common, that they were all equally
deprived of all political rights, equally estranged from all
public existence, equally excluded from all participation in
affairs of state, and from all active or civic callings.
The first rank was held by the court nobility. This nobility,
excepting some months of occupation in times of war, was, by its
very birth-right, given up to enjoyment; and this was their
glory.
The provincial nobility occupied the second rank. These, in their
smaller circle, imitated their betters at court. While detesting
their brilliant model, they yet copied it; it never entered into
the thoughts of any of their members to seek, by relations with
the people, a credit and importance which they did not possess by
any qualities of their ancestors, or any favors from their
prince.
{241}
The civic robe had its functions; it was absolutely necessary
that the townsmen should embrace different professions; but the
functions of the magistracy were often an object of ridicule and
disdain. In the great parliamentary families, each aimed at
laying aside the civic robe, in order to become invested with the
embroidered dress. The professions of civic life stamped those
who abandoned themselves to it with vulgarity; in the good
families among the townspeople, each aimed at acquiring some
polish by purchasing a position as secretary to the king.
The artisans in the towns, the villagers in the country, worthy
heirs of Jacques Bonhomme--a gentleman subject to taxes and
duties at discretion--counted for nothing, and were nothing.
What must have been the preferences of a society so constituted?
Three things--three, in truth, and no more: ambition, gallantry,
and dissipation. Ambition, that is to say, the disposition to
gain advancement from a master, to obtain favors, distinctions,
eminent positions, pensions, and to obtain them by favoritism and
the power of being agreeable, by intrigues and solicitations.
Gallantry--the gratification of personal vanity or sensuality.
Lastly, dissipation--dissipation under all forms, hunting
parties and gambling parties, assemblies for pleasure or
debauchery, balls, suppers, sights; dissipation as the definitive
aim of existence, the final end of all means--life having
apparently been given to man only for enjoyment, and time only to
be squandered and killed.
We are speaking of society in general, and without forgetting the
fact that these absolute verdicts, by reason of their very
absoluteness, are always somewhat unjust and exaggerated.
{242}
But it is worthy of remark that in this so vain a mode of
existence, in this state of living and acting, of thinking and
feeling, in which vanity was so predominant, nothing was
abandoned to caprice; no one affected a style of independence; on
the contrary, all was done according to rule--every where was
method to be observed.
Louis XIV., while changing his nobles into courtiers, reducing
his Parliaments to the level of dramatic critics, despoiling the
townspeople of their franchises, and, to say all in one word,
while transforming the political order of the entire nation into
a civil order--had nevertheless contrived in some sort to impress
on the manners and habits which resulted therefrom something of
dignity and formality which belonged not to their nature--far
from it--but to his character.
His court was grave, although the morals of the courtiers were in
no respect better on this account; his magistrates were grave
without being independent; the temper of his times was grave, and
yet servile.
After his reign, that imperious necessity by which man is
impelled to exalt into maxims the motives, whatever they may be,
which determine his conduct, and to refer his own conduct to
certain principles, were it only in order that he may know what
he has done and whither he is tending--which also leads him thus
to regard the actions of others, were it only that he may be able
to approve or condemn them--this necessity operated, if not in
the same sense, yet in one analogous to that in which it had
operated under Louis XIV. Thus the best method of making way in
the world became a science which the old courtier taught _ex
cathedra_ to his children--a science which had its dogmas, its
precepts, and its traditions.
{243}
Not more methodically does an engineer make his approaches to a
place which he is besieging, than did those ambitious of
vindicating the worthiness of their descent push their researches
into the offices of the minister and the cabinets of Versailles.
The Duke De Saint Simon, the most severe, the sincerest, and the
most honorable man that ever lived at the court, devoted three
fourths of his honorable life to the decision of points of
precedence or respect, on his own account or for those connected
with him--questions of which even the most important could, at
the present day, only induce us to shrug our shoulders and to
smile derisively. Sometimes he displayed more character than
would have been necessary, on the other side of the Channel, to
enable a Marlborough or a Bolingbroke to impose peace or war on
their sovereign, and more erudition and research than a
Benedictine would put into a folio volume.
Gallantry was a perpetual war between the two sexes--a war which
had its tactics and stratagems, its principles of attack and
defense, its appropriate times for resistance and surrender, its
rights of conquest, and its law of nations.
In fact, the life of society was obliged to submit to all the
exigencies of a conventional morality, very different from true
morality, often in direct opposition to it, but quite as
rigorous, and even more inaccessible to repentance. It recognized
as the supreme law, even in its most minute details, a certain
code of proprieties, the yoke of which must be borne
gracefully--the sensibilities were to be controlled, while the
scholar must appear perfectly at ease.
Good breeding was the highest of human attainments, and the art
of living the first of all arts.
{244}
It is said that literature expresses the life of society--
especially is this affirmed of dramatic literature. If this be
true, and, in a certain sense, it undoubtedly is true, due
limitations being conceded, then our general literature, and more
especially our drama, must have reflected more or less accurately
this two-fold character of frivolity as to the essence of things,
and pedantry as to their forms.
Accordingly it has done both. Here, too, undoubtedly, exceptions
must be made, and that to a considerable extent. Our literature
has ruled in Europe for a hundred years, and never has it
demanded from men an admiration to which it was not reasonably
and justly entitled; but still, with regard to its most general
features, we may admit that it has been neither learned, as the
literature of Germany at the present time is, and as was Italian
literature in the times of Petrarch and Politian, nor popular as
the literature of Spain was during the period of its greatest
vigor. It was essentially and pre-eminently a polite literature,
in which the main result aimed at was conversation.
The same may be said of our drama. Regarded in its most general
features, it was not so much a national drama as an elegant and
fashionable amusement, a pastime for gentlemen of respectable
station and bearing, at which the public might assist if it paid
liberally for the honor; nearly as it is allowed occasionally to
look on from the outer side of the barriers, and watch the
progress of a dress ball or a state dinner.
Admiration for the ancients was universally affected; our
watch-word was, "Imitate the Ancients;" this was our "Montjoie
Saint-Denis!" in literature. And yet a true appreciation of
antiquity was not possessed by really learned men, even by those
who really did possess a hearty appreciation of the refinements
of Greek and Latin idiom. It is, however, well known that the
period of erudition quickly passed.
{245}
It is not to be denied that, by the middle of the seventeenth
century, sound learning and substantial erudition were every
where on the decline, and that, at the end of the eighteenth,
they had fallen almost into entire neglect. Accordingly, our
dramatic productions only resembled the master-pieces of Greece
in name and in the choice of subjects, by certain purely external
characteristics, by the blind observance of certain maxims, whose
origin was not cared for and whose relative importance was not
appreciated, and by a punctilious deference to the distinction
between different species of the drama. So far as the real
character of the works was concerned, as to the characters,
sentiments, ideas, and colorings introduced, all this was not
only modern, but belonged to the existing state of society--not
only French, but the French of Paris, or even of Versailles.
The appreciation of national history and monuments was hardly in
a better position. There was no taste for antiquities; no
sympathy with the recollections of the masses and the traditions
of the country; there was nothing fresh and living in the study
of foreign languages and literatures.
And how can we wonder at it? In mental culture, as in all other
things, the thread of destiny was in the keeping of good society.
At the cost of living and dying ignorant, it was necessary to be
fashionable, first in the _ruelles_, then in the circles and
entertainments of social life. Poets, orators, historians, or
moralists, under the influence of the court during the reign of
Louis XIV., who honored them increasingly with his notice, but
who always kept them at a proper distance, became all-powerful
under his successor, so as to be in some sort a fourth order in
the state, astonishing at that time France and Europe by the
boldness of their thoughts and the ascendency of their talent:
they were not ashamed to affect the lofty airs of nobles of high
rank, and the petty dignities of coxcombs.
{246}
Thus the writers of France have always ruled the life of men of
the world, and have by their intrigues gained successes in
society, degraded their genius to the limits of its narrow and
confined atmosphere, and flattered those very whims which they
professed to ridicule. No country has shown itself more fertile
in men of great mind than ours; no country has, so much as our
own, compelled these minds, whether they like it or not, to
muffle themselves up in the livery of respectability. We may find
even books of the greatest literary weight which seem, like their
authors, to have adopted the fineries of the time, in order to
adorn their exterior. Can we forbear smiling, for example, when
we see the illustrious Montesquieu sometimes decking his great
work with spangles, and oftener still using epigrams for the
purpose of giving smartness to it; and all in order that the
leaves of his immortal work might enjoy the rare advantage of
being turned over by flippant spirits, and read aloud at ladies'
toilets.
And then, what immeasurable importance was attached to light
literature! What an event was the publication of a new piece, or
of a collection of fugitive poems! What a hit for some election
to a chair, or for some green-room intrigues! What a swarm of
poetasters of all dimensions! What a herd of pretentious
prose-writers on all subjects of interest! And what a conviction
on the part of all these, that the human race ought, laying aside
every other occupation, to fix its eyes upon them alone; and that
the world had been created, five or six thousand years before,
merely that it might enjoy their small productions, assist in
their small triumphs, and take part in their small controversies!
{247}
The French Revolution cast down the whole of this social edifice;
and it has, so to speak, razed it to the ground!
Whether this is an evil or a good, each man must determine for
himself. Certain it is that we owe to this revolution the
restitution of men to their proper ranks, and of things to their
appropriate places; this it is that has restored the true
relation of names and things. Henceforth the serious is serious,
the frivolous is frivolous. Conventionalities have given place to
realities.
The French are equal among themselves; they have their individual
rights to carry out; and they have duties to fulfill toward the
state. All honorable professions are honored; each leads to a
worthy end. No longer are there legal distinctions which are not
derived from any diversity of rights and functions; no longer are
there social distinctions which rest upon no superior merit,
education, or enlightenment. Ambition is obliged to exhibit its
titles, and to show itself in open daylight; depraved habits must
seek concealment; crime must shelter itself under excuses.
In presence of such a new condition of men and things, that which
was formerly denominated the great world must consent that its
star should decline. It has finished as the monarchy of the great
King Louis has finished; it has abdicated as did the Emperor
Napoleon, who regarded the great king as his predecessor, and
neglected no means of reviving the state that existed in his
time. We have seen this great world pass away, with its fantastic
prohibitions and its immoral indulgences, with its flimsy
proprieties and its scrupulous injunctions, with its heroes of
good fortune and its jurisdiction of old women.
{248}
Our court is now only a coterie, if, indeed, it can claim even to
be so much as that; a thousand other coteries share the town
among them; each city of any considerable extent has its own
coteries; all these partial societies are independent of each
other, and make no foolish pretensions to mutual domination or
remonstrance; every one amuses himself where and how he can, and
no one finds fault with him; and, accordingly, no one attempts to
extract glory out of his pleasures, and to believe himself on
this account a great man.
With a change of manners there has been a change of tastes.
General life has become simple and active, laborious and
animated. Every man occupies his place, has a distinct aim, and
aims at that which is worth the labor he bestows upon it. Public
discussions and a free press afford an uninterrupted stream of
information concerning the greatest human and national interests.
The bloodless, but ardent and vehement, struggles of the tribune
divide, excite, irritate, or enliven every day, and carry us
onward from fear to hope, from triumph to defeat.
In order to beguile the attention of the public from these
powerful attractions, literature must present something else
besides distractions which it no longer needs; and must afford a
means of passing the time which shall not impose any extra
burden. Literature must either attract or instruct--it must raise
man from himself and from all around him, or it must powerfully
urge him to reflection and meditation. The rivalries of poets are
no longer any thing to him; academic disputes lie out of his
world. He has no disposition to engage in the controversy which
would determine,
"Des deux Poinsinet lequel fait le mieux les vers;"
nor to subsist for a fortnight on that which is worth no more
than one of Chamfort's epigrams, one of Panard'a songs, or one of
Dorat's heroics.
{249}
Accordingly, for the last twelve or fifteen years, that is to
say, since the time when France first began to breathe quietly
again after the horrors of anarchy and the confusions of
conquest, while we see all that small, affected literature which
had its summer of _Saint Martin_ under the empire, fall into
insignificance and disrepute, at the same time that we see
genteel garbs, court manners, and beautiful monarchical
principles abandoned, we also see springing up on all sides a
taste for whatever is solid and true. Erudition is being
restored; there is a more real appreciation of the ancients now
than there ever was in any former time; the knowledge of foreign
languages is being extended every day; voyages are being
multiplied; scientific and literary correspondence is being
extended on all sides; central institutions for intellectual
pursuits are established in our departments, and are beginning to
undertake laborious inquiries respecting our national
antiquities. The Normal School glittered only for a season, but
it has left permanent memorials of its existence; it has founded,
for example, a philosophical school, which now occupies a
foremost position in Europe, which does not swear by the words of
any master, which does not despise the labors of any of its
predecessors, which does not blink any of the great problems of
the world and of humanity; while it neither arrogantly attempts
to decide them by a few phrases, nor infatuatedly dismisses them
with disdain. Side by side with this philosophical school, a
historical school has arisen, in which a union is often effected
between that vast erudition which allows no details to escape it,
and that powerful imagination, we would willingly say, that
half-creative imagination, which knows how to revive times and
men that have passed away, and presents them before us glowing
with the colors of life and of truth
{250}
The admirable romances of the most original and fertile genius of
our period, so riveting and instructive, filled at once with
reality and poetic invention, with the idiosyncrasy of the writer
and the erudition of the schools, with ability and
gracefulness--these romances all testify, by their immense
popularity, to the not less popularity of that mental disposition
which they inspire. For, in fact, the delight felt by the upper
classes, and the admiration expressed for them by those of high
culture is but a small part of their success; they penetrate into
counting-houses, they descend into shops, answering a universal
and imperious necessity, and affording it an aliment which
entertains without completely satisfying it.
Can we seriously believe that, in this general forward movement,
the theatre will remain stationary? Can it be that the public
will bring to the drama other ideas, other tastes, other
dispositions than those which it carries into all other places
and all other things?
The play must, in these times, address itself to the public; it
must interest and excite them; no longer is it designed to
relieve the monotony of a couple of hours for a select number of
languid, lounging, fashionable gentlemen, or to supply materials
for conversation to four or five recognized cliques and their
dozens of humbler imitators who may frequent the coffee-houses.
And this change must inevitably influence, sooner or later, the
general tone of all dramatic writings. Those immortal beauties--
beauties for all times and all places--with which our theatre
abounds, have not, thank Heaven! lost their power over our minds;
but where, henceforth, will an audience be found to relish the
precious metaphysical gallantry, the comic or tragic balderdash,
the philosophical and sentimental declamation which so often
disfigure it?
{251}
Can we really think, for instance, that if the great Corneille
were to return to earth, the Romans which he might exhibit would
not be somewhat sensible of the increased efficiency of our
colleges? Can we believe that the illustrious Racine, if he
should revisit us, would still make Achilles talk like a French
chevalier, and put madrigals into the mouth of Pyrrhus,
Mithridates, or Nero? Can we believe that Voltaire, the brilliant
and pathetic Voltaire, if he should once again take his place
among us, would make Zaire profess indifference to all matters of
religion, and declaim to the savages of America on toleration
--that he would represent Mohammed employing the inflated periods
of a Tartuffe, and depict Gengis-Khan under the guise of a faded
libertine and a philosopher disappointed with human greatness?
No! Emphatically No! Every thing in its place and time! Voltaire
himself was the first to ridicule the heroes who preceded
him--_tender, mild, and discreet;_ he was the first to hold
up to scorn the ridiculous fashion of describing
"Caton galant et Brutus dameret."
He has attempted tragedies in which there are no love scenes; he
has proposed to restore to us, once for all, the Greeks of Greece
and the Romans of Rome; and the reason why he did not completely
succeed was only that he was not sufficiently acquainted with
them. Chenier, in his turn, has thought good to remodel
Voltaire's "Œdipe." Still, Voltaire was the first who attempted
to appeal to national sentiments and popular recollections, and
many others since his time have followed in his track. We might
trace back to a time considerably anterior to the beginning of
this century, a confused sense of the necessity for a reform in
the theatre, a dim consciousness how much there was in the
existing state of the theatre that was formal, narrow, and
contemptible.
{252}
Grimm's correspondence indicates this in every page. More than
seventy years ago, Collé lampooned the French tragedy in a
satiric poem full of wit, in which great good sense is contained
beneath an inexhaustible vein of drollery. And if this want was
felt thus strongly at this period, what must be the case now,
when authors, as we have just said, have to do no longer with a
fictitious, but with a real public? when that same public has,
for more than forty years, taken its part in all the great
realities of public as well as private life.