Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

of two syllables each) that the grand provocation was thrown to the believers in alexandrines, careful cæsuras, and strictly separated couplets. Les Feuilles d'Automne, Les Chants du Crépuscule, Les Voix Intérieures, Les Rayons et les Ombres, the productions of the next twenty years were quieter in style and tone, but no less full of poetical spirit. The Revolution of 1848, the establishment of the empire, and the poet's exile brought about a fresh determination of his genius to lyrical subjects. Les Châtiments and La Légende des Siècles, the one political, the other historical, reach perhaps the high water mark of French verse; and they were followed by the philosophical Contemplations, the lighter Chansons des Rues et des Bois, the Année Terrible, the second Légende des Siècles, and one or two more volumes which lead us to the present day. We have been thus particular because the literary productiveness of Victor Hugo himself has been the measure and sample of the whole literary productiveness of France on the poetical side. At five-and twenty he was acknowledged as a master, at seventy-five he is a master still. His poetical influence has been represented in three different schools, from which very few of the poetical writers of the century can be excluded. These few we may notice first. Alfred de Musset, a writer of great genius, felt part of the romantic inspiration very strongly, but was on the whole unfortunately influenced by Byron, and partly out of wilfulness, partly from a natural want of persevering industry and vigour, allowed himself to be careless and even slovenly in composition. Notwithstanding this many of his lyrics are among the finest poems in the language, and his verse, careless as it is, has extraordinary natural grace. Auguste Barbier, whose Iambes shows an extraordinary command of nervous and masculine versification, also comes in here; and the Breton poet Brizeux, together with Hégésippe Moreau, an unequal poot possessing some talent, and Pierre Dupont (1821-1870), one of much greater gifts, also deserve mention. Of the school of Lamartine rather than of Hugo are Alfred de Vigny (1799-1865) and Victor de Laprade (b. 1812), the former a writer of little bulk and somewhat over-fastidious, but possessing one of the most correct and elegant styles to be found in French, the latter a meditative and philosophical poet, like De Vigny an admirable writer, but somewhat deficient in pith and substance, as well as in warmth and colour. The poetical schools which more directly derive from the romantic movement as represented by Hugo are three in number, corresponding in point of time with the first outburst of the movement, with the period of reaction already alluded to, and with the closing years of the second empire. Of the first by far the most distinguished member was Théophile Gautier (1811–1872), the most perfect poet in point of form that France has produced. The side of the romantic movement which Gautier developed was its purely pagan and Renaissance aspect. When quite a boy he devoted himself to the study of 16th century masters, and though he acknowledged the supremacy of Hugo, his owu talent was of an individual order, and developed itself more or less independently. Albertus alone of his poems has much of the extravagant and grotesque character with distinguished early romantic literature. The Comédie de la Mort, the Poésies Diverses, and still more the Emaux et Camées, display a distinctly classical tendency-classical, that is to say, not in the party and perverted sense, but in its true acceptation. The tendency to the fantastic and horrible may be taken as best shown by Petrus Borel (18091859), a writer of singular power almost entirely wasted. Gerard Labrunie or de Nerval (1808-1855) adopted a manner also fantastic but more idealist than Borel's, and distinguished himself by his Oriental travels and studies, and by his attention to popular ballads and traditions, while his style has an exquisite but unaffected strangeness hardly inferior

[ocr errors]

to Gautier's. This peculiar and somewhat quintessenced style is also remarkable in the Gaspard de la Nuit of Louis Bertrand, a work of rhythmical prose almost unique in its character. The two Deschamps were chiefly remarkable as translators. The next generation produced three remarkable poets, to whom may perhaps be added a fourth. Théodore de Banville (b. 1820), adopting the principles of Gautier, and combining with them a considerable satiric faculty, composed a large amount of verse, faultless in form, delicate and exquisite in shades and colours, but so entirely neutral in moral and political tone that it has found com. paratively few admirers. Leconte de Lisle (b. 1819), carrying out the principle of ransacking foreign literatures for subjects, has gone to Celtic, lassical, or even Oriental sources for his inspiration, and despite a science in verse not much inferior to De Bauville's, and a far wider range and choice of subject, has diffused an air of erudition, not to say pedantry, over his work which has disgusted some readers. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), by his choice of unpopular subjects and the terrible truth of his analysis, has revolted not a few of those who, in the words of an English critic, cannot take pleasure in the representation if they do not take pleasure in the thing represented. Thus by a strange coincidence each of the three representatives of the second romantic generation has for various reasons been hitherto disappointed of his due fame. The fourth poet of this time, Joséphin Soulary, is probably little known in England. His sonnets, however, are of rare beauty and excellence. In 1866 a collection of poems, entitled after an old French fashion Le Parnasse Contemporain, appeared. It included contributions by many of the poets just mentioned, but the mass of the contributors were hitherto unknown to fame. A similar collection appeared in 1869, and was interrupted by the German war, but continued after it, and a third in 1876. The contributors to these collections, who have mostly published separate works, were very numerous, and have become collectively known, half seriously and half in derision, as Les Parnassiens. From time to time aspirants to poetry, such as MM. Bouchor and Lafagette, have attempted to revolt against this society, but they have ended by being absorbed into it. The cardinal principle of the Parnassiens is, in continuation of Gautier and Baudelaire, a devotion to poetry as an art, but under this general principle there is a considerable diversity of aim and object, and a still greater diversity of subject. François Coppée has devoted himself chiefly to domestic and social subjects. Sully Prudhomme has a certain classical tinge. Catulle Mendes has followed Leconte de Lisle in going far afield for his subjects; Louisa Siefert indulges in the poetry of despair; while Albert Glatigny, a poet who lived as a strolling actor, and died young, perhaps excelled any of the others in individuality of poetical treatment. As the Parnassiens, however, muster some three or four score poets, it is impossible to deal with them at length here. It is sufficient to say that the average merit of their work is decidedly high, though it is difficult to assign the first rank to any poet among them. Assuming that their work is to be classed as minor poetry, there has assuredly not even in the Elizabethan age in England been such a school of minor poets. It is fair to add that they appear to be little read in France, and hardly at all elsewhere. To complete the history of French poetry in the 19th century we must add that considerable efforts have been made to give Provençal rank once more as a literary tongue. The Gascon poet Jacques Jasmin has produced a good deal of verse in the western dialect of the language. Within the last twenty years a more cultivated and literary school of poets has arisen in Provence itself, the chief of whom are Frédéric Mistral (Mirèio, Calendau) and Théodore Aubanel,

Prose Fiction since 1830.-Even more remarkable, | Chatrian. The last and one of the most splendid instances because more absolutely novel, was the outburst of prose of the old style was Le Capitaine Fracasse, which Théophile fiction which followed 1830. We have said that in this Gautier wrote in his old age as a kind of tour de force. department the productions of France since the discrediting The last-named writer in his earlier days had modified the of the Scudéry romances had not on the whole been remark- incident novel in many short tales, a kind of writing for able, and had been produced at considerable intervals. which French has always been famous, and in which Madame de Lafayette, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire, the Abbé Gautier's sketches are masterpieces. His only other long Prévost, Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, Bernardin de St Pierre, novel, Mademoiselle de Maupin, belongs rather to the class of and Fiévée had all of them produced work excellent in its way, analysis. With Gautier as a writer, whose literary characterand comprising in a more or less rudimentary condition most istics even excel his purely tale-telling powers, may be classed varieties of the novel. But none of them had, in the French Prosper Mérimée (1803–1871), one of the most exquisite phrase, made a school, and at no time had prose fiction been 19th century masters of the language. Already, however, composed in any considerable quantities. The immense in 1830 the tide was setting strongly in favour of novels of influence which, as we have seen, Walter Scott exercised contemporary life and manners. These were of course suswas perhaps the direct cause of the attention paid to prose ceptible of extremely various treatment. For many years fiction; the facility, too, with which all the fancies, tastes, Paul de Kock, a writer who did not trouble himself about and beliefs of the time could be embodied in such work classics or romantics or any such matter, continued the tramay have had considerable importance. But it is difficult dition of Marivaux, Crebillon fils, and Pigault Lebrun, in a on any theory of cause and effect to account for the appear series of not very moral or polished but lively and amusing ance in less than ten years of such a group of novelists as sketches of life, principally of the bourgeois type. Later Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Mérimée, Balzac, George Sand, Charles de Bernard (1805-1850), with infinitely greater Jules Sandeau, and Charles de Bernard, names to which wit, elegance, propriety, and literary skill, did the same might be added others scarcely inferior. There is hardly thing for the higher classes of French society. But the two anything else resembling it in literature, except the great great masters of the novel of character and manners as opcluster of English dramatists in the beginning of the 17th posed to that of history and incident are Honoré de Balzac century, and of English poets at the beginning of the 19th; (1799-1850) and Aurore Dudevant, commonly called and it is remarkable that the excellence of the first group George Sand (1793-1876). Their influence affected the has been maintained by a fresh generation,—Murger, About, entire body of novelists who succeeded them, with very few Feuillet, Flaubert, Erckmann-Chatrian, Droz, Daudet, exceptions. At the head of these exceptions may be placed Cherbuliez, and Gaboriau, forming a company of diadochi Jules Sandeau (b. 1811), who, after writing a certain numnot far inferior to their predecessors. The romance writing ber of novels in a less individual style, at last made for of France during the period has taken two different direc- himself a special subject in a certain kind of domestic novel, tions, the first that of the novel of incident, the second where the passions set in motion are less boisterous than that of analysis and character. The first, now mainly those usually preferred by the French novelist, and reliance deserted, was that which, as was natural when Scott was the is mainly placed on minute character drawing and shades model, was formerly most trodden; the second required the of colour sober in hue but very carefully adjusted (Catherine astonishing genius of George Sand and of Balzac to attract Mademoiselle de Penarvan, Mademoiselle de la Seiglière). students to it. The novels of Victor Hugo are novels of In the same class of the more quiet and purely domestic incident, with a strong infusion of purpose, and considerable novelists may be placed X. B. Saintine (Picciola), Madame but rather ideal character drawing. They are in fact C. Reybaud (Clementine, Le Cadet de Colobrières), J. T. lengthy prose drames rather than romances proper, and de St Germain (Pour un Epingle, La Feuille de Coudrier), they have found no imitators, probably because no other Madame Craven (Récit d'une Sœur, Fleurange). Henri genius was equal to the task. They display, however, the Beyle, who wrote under the nom de plume of Stendhal, also powers of the master at their fullest. On the other hand, stands by himself. His chief work in the line of fiction is Alexandre Dumas originally composed his novels in cluse La Chartreuse de Parme, an exceedingly powerful novel of imitation of Scott, and they are much less dramatic than the analytical kind, and 'he also composed a considerable narrative in character, so that they lend themselves to number of critical and miscellaneous works. Last among almost indefinite continuation, and there is often no particu- the independents must be mentioned Henry Murger (1822lar reason why they should terminate even at the end of 1861), the painter of what is called Bohemian life, that is the score or so of volumes to which they sometimes actually to say, the struggles, difficulties, and amusements of extend. Of this purely narrative kind, which hardly even students, youthful artists, and men of letters. In this attempts anything but the boldest character drawing, the peculiar style, which may perhaps be regarded as an irregubest of them, such as Vingt Ans Après, Les Trois Mousque-lar descendant of the picaroon romance, Murger has no taires, La Reine Margot, are probably the best specimens rival; and he is also, though on no extensive scale, a poei extant. Dumas possesses almost alone among novelists the of great pathos. But with these exceptions, the influences secret of writing interminable dialogue without being tedious. of the two writers we have mentioned, sometimes combined, Of something the same kind, but of a far lower stamp, are more often separate, may be traced throughout the whole the novels of Eugene Sue (1804-1857). Dumas and Sue were of later novel literature. George Sand began with books accompanied and followed by a vast crowd of companions, strongly tinged with the spirit of revolt against moral and independent or imitative. Alfred de Vigny had already social arrangements, and she sometimes diverged into very attempted the historical novel in Cing-Mars. Henri de La curious paths of pseudo-philosophy, such as was popular in Touche, an excellent critic who formed George Sand, but a the second quarter of the century. At times, too, as in mediocre novelist, may be mentioned, and perhaps also Lucrezia Floriani and some other works, she did not hesiRoger de Beauvoir and Frédéric Soulié. Paul Féval and tate to draw largely on her own personal adventures and Amédée Achard are of the same school, and some of the at- experiences. But latterly she devoted herself rather to tempts of Jules Janin (1804-1874), more celebrated as a sketches of country life and manners, and to novels involving critic, may also be connected with it. By degrees, however, bold if not very careful sketches of character and more or the taste for the novel of incident, at least of an historical less dramatic situations. She was one of the most fertile kind, died out till it was revived in another form, and with of novelists, continuing to the end of her long life to pour an admixture of domestic interest, by MM. Erckmann- forth fiction at the rate of many volumes a year. This

fertility, and the inexhaustible supply of comparatively novel imaginations with which she kept it up, is one of the most remarkable characteristics of her work, and in this respect she is perhaps second only to Sir Walter Scott; but there is at the same time a certain want of finish about her fertility, and she is not generally found to be an author whose readers return to her individual works, as in the case with less productive but more laborious writers. Of her different styles may be mentioned as fairly characteristic, Lélia, Lucrezia Floriani, Consuelo, La Mare au Diable, La Petite Fadette, François le Champy, Mademoiselle de la Quintinie. Considering the shorter length of his life the productiveness of Balzac was almost more astonishing, especially if we consider that much of his early work is never reprinted, and has passed entirely out of remembrance. He is, moreover, the most remarkable example in literature of untiring work and determination to achieve success despite the greatest discouragements. His early work was, as we have said, worse than unsuccessful, it was positively bad; and even the partiality which is usually shown to the early work of a man of genius has found it impossible to reverse the verdict of his first readers. After more than a score of unsuccessful attempts, Les Chouans at last made its mark, and for twenty years from that time the astonishing productions composing the so-called Comédie Humaine were poured forth successively. The sub-titles which Balzac imposed upon the different batches, Scènes de la Vie Parisienne, De la Vie de Province, De la Vie Intime, &c., show like the general title a deliberate intention on the author's part to cover the whole ground of human, at least of French life. Such an attempt could not succeed wholly; yet the amount of success attained is astonishing. Balzac has, however, with some justice been accused of creating the world which he described, and his personages, wonderful as is the accuracy and force with which many of the characteristics of humanity are exemplified in them, are somehow not altogether human, owing to the specially French fault which we noticed in Racine and Molière of insisting too much on the ruling passion. Since these two great novelists, many others have arisen, partly to tread in their steps, partly to strike out independent paths. Octave Feuillet, beginning his career by apprenticeship to Alexandre Dumas and the historical novel, soon found bis way in a very different style of composition, the roman intime of fashionable life, in which, notwithstanding some grave defects, he has attained much popularity. The so-called realist side of Balzac has been developed by Gustave Flaubert (b. 1821), who, to all his master's acuteness, and more than his knowledge of human nature, adds culture, scholarship, and a literary power over the language inferior to that of no writer of the century. Madame Bovary and L'Education Sentimentale are studies of contemporary life; in Salammbo and La Tentation de St Antoine erudition and antiquarian know ledge furnish the subjects for the display of the highest literary skill. Of about the same date (b. 1828) Edmond About, before he abandoned novel-writing, devoted himself chiefly to sketches of abundant but always refined wit (L'Homme à l'Oreille cassée, Le Nez d'un Notaire), and sometimes to foreign scenes (Tolla, le Roi des Montagnes). Champfleury (b. 1821), an associate of Murger, deserves notice for stories of the extravaganza kind. During the whole of the second empire one of the most popular writers was Ernest Feydeau (1821-1874), a writer of great ability, but morbid and affected in the choice and treatment of his subjects (Fanny, Sylvie, Catherine d'Overmeire). In the last ten years many writers of the realist school have endeavoured to outdo their predecessors in unflinching fidelity, nominally carrying out the principles of Balzac and Flaubert, but in reality rather reverting to the extravagance of the very earliest romantic school, such as that of Jules

Janin in L'Âne Mort, and Petrus Borel in Champavert. Emile Zola, for instance, in parts of his long series Les Rougon-Macquart, descends to mere thieves' Latin and rhyparography. Emile Gaboriau, taking up that side of Balzac's talent which devoted itself to inextricable mysteries, criminal trials, and the like,' produced M. Le Coq, Le Crime d'Orcival, La Degringolade, &c.; and Adolphe Belot for a time endeavoured to out-Feydeau Feydeau in La Femme de Feu and other works. Of a different stamp, and less of a mere exaggerator, is Victor Cherbuliez, who has produced in Le Roman d'une honnête Femme a good novel of the analytic class, and in Le Comte Kostia, Ladislas Bolski, &c., less successful romances of incident. Gustave Droz deserves praise for extraordinarily witty and finely drawn domestic sketches, and Alphonse Daudet has written novels of manners the popularity of which is too recent to allow us to judge its chances of continuance. Periodical Literature since 1830.-Criticism.-One of the causes which led to this extensive composition of novels was the great spread of periodical literature in France, and the custom of including in almost all periodicals, daily, weekly, or monthly, a feuilleton or instalment of fiction. The same spread of periodical literature, together with the increasing interest in the literature of the past, led also to a very great development of criticism. Almost all French authors of any eminence during the last half century have devoted themselves more or less to criticism of literature, of the theatre, or of art, and sometimes, as in the case of Janin and Gautier, the comparatively lucrative nature of journalism and the smaller demands which it made for labour and intellectual concentration have diverted to feuilleton-writing abilities which might perhaps have been better employed. At the same time it must be remembered that from this devotion of men of the best talents to critical work has arisen an immense elevation of the standard of such work. Before the romantic movement in France Diderot in that country, Lessing and some of his successors in Germany, Hazlitt, Coleridge, and Lamb in England, had been admir. able critics and reviewers. But the theory of criticism, though these men's principles and practice had set it aside, still remained more or less what it had been for centuries. The critic was merely the administrator of certain hard and fast rules. There were certain recognized kinds of literary composition; every new book was bound to class itself under one or other of these. There were certain recognized rules for each class; and the goodness or badness of a book consisted simply in its obedience or disobedier ce to these rules. Even the kinds of admissible subjects and the modes of admissible treatment were strictly noted and numbered. This was especially the case in France and with regard to French belles lettres, so that, as we have seen, certain classes of composition had been reduced to unimportant variations of a registered pattern. The romantic protest against this absurdity was specially loud and completely victorious. It is said that a publisher advised the youthful Lamartine to try "to be like somebody else” if he wished to succeed. The romantic standard of success was, on the contrary, to be as individual as possible. Victor Hugo himself composed a good deal of criticism, and in the preface to his Orientales he states the critical principles of the new school clearly. The critic, he says, has nothing to do with the subject chosen, the colours employed, the materials used. Is the work, judged by itself and with regard only to the ideal which the worker had in his mind, good or bad? It will be seen that as a legitimate corollary of this theorem the critic becomes even more of an interpreter than of a judge. He can no more satisfy himself or his readers by comparing the work before him with some abstract and accepted standard, and marking off its shortcomings. He has to reconstruct, more or less conjecturally, the special

ideal at which each of his authors aimed, and to do this he has to study their idiosyncracies with the utmost care, and set them before his readers in as full and attractive a fashion as he can manage. The first writer who thoroughly grasped this necessity and successfully dealt with it was Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), who has indeed identified his name with the method of criticism just described. SainteBeuve's first remarkable work (his poems and novels we may leave out of consideration) was the sketch of 16th century literature already alluded to which he contributed to the Globe. But it was not till later that his style of criticism became fully developed and accentuated. During the first decade of Louis Philippe's reign his critical papers, united under the title of Critiques et Portraits Littéraires, show a gradual advance. During the next ten years he was mainly occupied with his studies of the writers of the Port Royal school, But it was during the last twenty years of his life, when the famous Causeries du Lundi appeared weekly in the columns of the Constitutionnel and the Moniteur, that his most remarkable productions came out. Sainte-Beuve's style of criticism (which is the key to so much of French literature of the last half century that it is necessary to dwell on it at some length), excellent and valuable as it is, lent itself to two corruptions. There is, in the first place, in making the careful investigations into the character and circumstances of each writer which it demands, a dauger ot paying too much attention to the man and too little to his work, and of substituting for a critical study a mere collection of personal anecdotes and traits, especially if the author dealt with belongs to a foreign country or a past age. The other danger is that of connecting the genius and character of particular authors too much with their conditions and circunstances so as to regard them as merely so many products of the age. These faults, and especially the latter, have been very noticeable in many of SainteBeuve's successors, particularly in M. Henri Taine, the most brilliant of living French critics, and owing to his Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise, the best known in England. A large number of other critics during the period deserve notice because they have, though acting more or less on the newer system of criticism, manifested considerable originality in its application. As far as merely critical faculty goes, and still more in the power of giving literary expression to criticism, Théophile Gautier yields to no one. His Les Grotesques, an early work dealing with Villon, De Viau, and other enfants terribles of French literature, has served as a model to many subsequent writers, such as Charles Monselet and Charles Asselineau, the affectionate historian of the less famous promoters of the romantic movement. On the other hand, Gautier's picture criticisms, and his short reviews of books, obituary notices, and other things of the kind contributed to daily papers, are in point of style among the finest of all such fugitive compositions. Janin, chiefly a theatrical critic, excelled in light and easy journalism, but his work has neither weight of substance nor careful elaboration of manner sufficient to give it permanent value. This sort of light critical comment has become almost a specialty of the French press, and among its numerous practitioners the names of Armand de Pontmartin (an imitator and assailant of Sainte-Beuve), Arsène Houssaye, Fiorentino, may be mentioned. Edmond Scherer and Paul de St Victor -the former of whom was born in 1812, the latter in 1827-represent different sides of Sainte-Beuve's style in literary criticism; and in theatrical censure Francisque Sarcey, an acute but somewhat severe judge, has | succeeded to the good-natured sovereignty of Janin. The criticism of the Revue des Deux Mondes has played a sufficiently important part in French literature to deserve separate notice in passing. Founded in 1829, the Revue, after some vicissitudes, soon attained, under the direction of the Swiss

|

Buloz, the character of being one of the first of European critical periodicals. Its style of criticism has on the whole inclined rather to the classical side,—that is, to classicism as modified by, and possible after, the romantic movement. Besides some of the authors already named, its principal critical contributors have been Gustave Planche, an acute but somewhat truculent critic, Henri Étienne, St René Taillaudier. Lastly we must notice the important section of professorial or university critics, whose critical work has taken the form either of regular treatises or of courses of republished lectures, books somewhat academic and rhetorical in character, but often representing an amount of influence which has served largely to stir up attention to literature. The most prominent name among these is that of Villemain (1790-1870), who was one of the earliest critics of the literature of his own country that obtained a hearing out of it. M. Nisard (b. 1806) has perhaps been more fortunate in his dealings with Latin than with French, and in his History of the latter literature represents too much the classical tradition; Alexandre Vinet (1797–1847), a Swiss critic of considerable eminence, Saint-Marc-Girardin (1801-1873), whose Course de Littérature Dramatique is his chief work, and Eugène Géruzez (1799-1865), who is the author not only of an extremely useful and wellwritten handbook to French literature before the Revolution, but also of other works dealing with separate por tions of the subject, must also be mentioned.

History since 1830.-The remarkable development of historical studies which we have noticed as taking place under the Restoration was accelerated and intensified in the reigns of Charles X. and Louis Philippe. Both the scope and the method of the historian underwent a sensible alters tion. For something like 150 years historians had been divided into two classes, those who produced elegant literary works pleasant to read, and those who produced works of laborious erudition, but not even intended for general perusal. The Vertots and Voltaires were on one side, the Mabillons and Tillemonts on another. Now, although the duty of a French historian to produce works of literary merit was not forgotten, it was recognized as part of that duty to consult original documents and impart original observation. At the same time, to the merely political events which had formerly been recognized as forming the historian's province were added the social and literary phenomena which had long been more or less neglected Old chronicles and histories were re-read and re-edited; innumerable monographs on special subjects and periods were produced, and these latter were of immense service to romance writers at the time of the popularity of the historical novel. Not a few of the works, for instance, which were signed by Alexandre Dumas consist mainly of extracts or condensations from old chronicles, or modern monographs ingeniously united by dialogue and varnished with a little description. History, however, had not to wait for this second-hand popularity, and its cultivators had fully sufficient literary talent to maintain its dignity. Sismondi, whom we have already noticed, continued during this period his great Histoire des Français, and produced his even better known Histoire des Republiques Italiennes au Moyen Age. The brothers Thierry devoted themselves to early French history, Amédée Thierry (1787-1875) producing a Histoire des Gaulois and other works concerning the Roman period, and Augustin Thierry (1795-1856) the well-known history of the Norman Conquest, the equally attractive Récits des Temps Mérovingiens, and other excellent works. Philippe de Ségur (1780-1875) gave a history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon, and some other works chiefly dealing with Russian history. The voluminous Histoire de Francs of Henri Martin (b. 1810) is perhaps the best and most impartial work dealing in detail with the whole subject,

De Barante, after beginning with literary criticism, turned to history, and in his Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne produced a work of capital importance. As was to be expected, many of the most brilliant results of this devotion to historical subjects consisted of works dealing with the French Revolution. No, series of historical events has ever perhaps received treatment at the same time from so many different points of view, and by writers of such varied literary excellence, among whom it must, however, be said that the purely royalist side is hardly at all represented. One of the earliest of these histories is that of Mignet (b. 1796), a sober and judicious historian of the older school. About the same time was begun the brilliant work of M. Thiers (1797-1877) on the Revolution, which established the literary reputation of the future president of the French republic, and was at a later period completed by the Histoire du Consulat et de Empire. The downfall of the July monarchy and the early years of the empire witnessed the publication of several works of the first importance on this subject. De Barante contributed histories of the Convention and the Directory, but the three books of greatest note were those of Lamartine, Michelet (1798-1873), and Louis Blanc (b. 1813). Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins is written from the constitutional republican point of view, and is sometimes considered to have had much influence in producing the events of 1848. It is, perhaps, rather the work of an orator and poet than of a historian. The work of Michelet is of a more original character. Besides his history of the Revolution, Michelet wrote an extended history of France, and a very large number of smaller works on historical, political, and social subjects. His imaginative powers are of the highest order, and his style stands alone in French for its strangely broken and picturesque character, its turbid abundance of striking images, and its somewhat sombre magnificence, qualities which, as may easily be supposed, found fuil occupation in a history of the Revolution. The work of Louis Blanc is that of a sincere but ardent republican, and is useful from this point of view, but possesses no extraordinary literary merit. The principal contributious to the history of the Revolution during the last twenty years are those of Quinet, Lanfrey, and Taine. Edgar Quinet (1803-1875), like Louis Blanc a devotee of the Republic and an exile for its sake, brought to this one of his latest works a mind and pen long trained to literary and historical studies; but La Révolution is not considered his best work. Lanfrey devoted himself with extraordinary patience and acuteness to the destruction of the Napoleonic legend, and the setting of the character of Napoleon I. in a new, authentic, and very far from favourable light. Quite recently M. Taine, after distinguishing himself, as we have mentioned, in literary criticism (Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise), and attaining less success in philosophy (De l'Intelligence), has begun an elaborate discussion of the Revolution, its causes, character, and consequences, which has excited some comnotion among the more ardent devotees of the principles of '89. To return from this group, we must notice Michaud (1767-1839), the historian of the crusades, and Guizot (1787-1876), who, like his rival Thiers, devoted himself much to historical study. His earliest works were literary and linguistic, but he soon turned to political history, and for the last half-century of his long life his contributions to historical literature were almost incessant and of the most various character. The most important are the histories Des Origines du Gouvernement Représentatif, De la Révolution d'Angleterre, De la Civilisation en France, and latterly a Histoire de France, which he was writing at the time of his death. Among minor historians of the century may be mentioned Duvergier de Hauranne (Gouvernement Parlementaire France), Mignet (Histoire de Marie Stuart), Ampère (Histoire Romaine à Rome), Bengnot

P.

[ocr errors]

(Destruction du Paganisme d'Occident), Haussonville (La Réunion de la Lorraine à la France), Vaulabelle (Les Deux Restaurations.) Summary and Conclusion.-We have in these last pages given such an outline of the 19th century literature of France as seemed convenient for the completion of what has gone before. It has been already remarked that the nearer approach is made to our own time the less is it possible to give exhaustive accounts of the individual cultivators of the different branches of literature. It may be added, perhaps, that such exhaustiveness becomes, as we advance, less and less necessary, as well as less and less possible. The individual Parnassien may and does produce work that is in itself of greater literary value than that of the individual trouvère. As a matter of literary history his contribution is less remarkable because of the examples he has before him and the circumstances which he has around him. Yet we have endeavoured to draw such a sketch of French literature from the Chanson de Roland to the Légende des Siècles that no important development and hardly any important partaker in such development should be left out. A few lines may, perhaps, be now profitably given to summing up the aspects of the whole, remembering always that, as in no generalization easier than in the case of the literary aspects and tendencies of periods and nations, so in no case is it apt to be more delusive unless corrected and supported by ample information of fact and detail.

case

At the close of the 11th century and at the beginning of the 12th we find the vulgar tongue in France not merely in fully organized use for literary purposes, but already employed in most of the forms of poetical writing. An immense outburst of epic and narrative verse has taken place, and lyrical poetry, not limited as in the case of the epics to the north of France, but extending from Roussillon to the Pas de Calais, completes this. The 12th century adds to these earliest forms the important development of the mystery, extends the subjects and varies the manner of epic verse, and begins the compositions of literary prose with the chronicles of St Denis and of Villehardouin, and the prose romances of the Arthurian cycle. All this literature is so far connected purely with the knightly and priestly orders, though it is largely composed and still more largely dealt in by classes of men, trouvères and jongleurs, who are not necessarily either knights or priests, and in the case of the jongleurs are certainly neither. With a possible ancestry of Romance and Teutonic cantilence, Breton lais, and vernacular legends, the new literature has a certain pattern and model in Latin and for the most part ecclesiastical compositions. It has the sacred books and the legends of the saints for examples of narrative, the rhythm of the hymns for a guide to metre, and the ceremonies of the church for a stimulant to dramatic performance. By degrees also in this 12th century forms of literature which busy themselves with the unprivileged classes begin to be born. The fabliau takes every phase of life for its subject; the folk-song acquires elegance and does not lose raciness and truth. In the next century, the 13th, mediæval literature in France arrives at its prime-a prime which lasts until the first quarter of the 14th. The early epics lose something of their savage charms, the polished literature of Provence quickly perishes. But in the provinces which speak the more prevailing tongue nothing is wanting to literary development. The language itself has shaken off all its youthful incapacities, and, though not yet well adapted for the requirements of modern life and study, is in every way equal to the demands made upon it by its own time. The dramatic germ contained in the fabliau and quickened by the mystery produces the profane drama. Ambitious works of merit in the most various kinds are published; Aucassin et Nicolette stands side by side with the Vie de

[blocks in formation]
« EelmineJätka »