Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities Part 20

4. THE DRAMA.--The endeavor to imitate the ancients in the tragic art displayed itself at a very early period among the French, and they considered that the surest method of succeeding in this endeavor was to observe the strictest outward regularity of form, of which they derived their ideas more from Aristotle, and especially from Seneca, than from any intimate acquaintance with the Greek models themselves. Three of the most celebrated of the French tragic poets, Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, have given, it would seem, an immutable shape to the tragic stage of France by adopting this system, which has been considered by the French critics universally as alone ent.i.tled to any authority, and who have viewed every deviation from it as a sin against good taste. The treatise of Aristotle, from which they have derived the idea of the far-famed three unities, of action, time, and place, which have given rise to so many critical wars, is a mere fragment, and some scholars have been of the opinion that it is not even a fragment of the true original, but of an extract which some person made for his own improvement. From this anxious observance of the Greek rules, under totally different circ.u.mstances, it is obvious that great inconveniences and incongruities must arise; and the criticism of the Academy on a tragedy of Corneille, "that the poet, from the fear of sinning against the rules of art, had chosen rather to sin against the rules of nature," is often applicable to the dramatic writers of France.

Corneille (1606-1684) ushered in a new era in the French drama. It has been said of him that he was a man greater in himself than in his works, his genius being fettered by the rules of the French drama and the conventional state of French verse. The day of mysteries and moralities was past, and the comedies of Hardy, the court poet of Henry IV., had, in their turn, been consigned to oblivion, yet there was an increasing taste for the drama. The first comedy of Corneille, "Melite," was followed by many others, which, though now considered unreadable, were better than anything then known. The appearance of the "Cid," in 1635, a drama constructed on the foundation of the old Spanish romances, const.i.tuted an era in the dramatic history of France. Although not without great faults, resulting from strict adherence to the rules, it was the first time that the depths of pa.s.sion had been stirred on the stage, and its success was unprecedented. For years after, his pieces followed each other in rapid succession, and the history of the stage was that of Corneille's works. In the "Cid," the triumph of love was exhibited; in "Les Horaces," love was represented as punished for its rebellion against the laws of honor; in "Cinna," all more tender considerations are sacrificed to the implacable duty of avenging a father; while in "Polyeucte," duty triumphs alone.

Corneille did not boldly abandon himself to the guidance of his genius; he feared criticism, although he defied it. His success proved the signal for envy and detraction; he became angry at being obliged to fight his way, and therefore withdrew from the path in which he was likely to meet enemies. His decline was as rapid as his success had been brilliant. "The fall of the great Corneille," says Fontenelle, "may be reckoned as among the most remarkable examples of the vicissitudes of human affairs. Even that of Belisarius asking alms is not more striking." As his years increased, he became more anxious for popularity; having been so long in possession of undisputed superiority, he could not behold without dissatisfaction the rising glory of his successors; and, towards the close of his life, this weakness was greatly increased by the decay of his bodily organs.

5. PHILOSOPHY.--During this period, in a region far above court favor, Descartes (1596-1650) elaborated his system of philosophy, in creating a new method of philosophizing. The leading peculiarity of his system was the attempt to deduce all moral and religious truth from self- consciousness. _I think, therefore I am_, was the famous axiom on which the whole was built. From this he inferred the existence of two distinct natures in man, the mental and the physical, and the existence of certain ideas which he called innate in the mind, and serving to connect it with the spiritual and invisible. Besides these new views in metaphysics, Descartes made valuable contributions to mathematical and physical science; and though his philosophy is now generally discarded, it is not forgotten that he opened the way for Locke, Newton, and Leibnitz, and that his system was in reality the base of all those that superseded it. There is scarcely a name on record, the bearer of which has given a greater impulse to mathematical and philosophical inquiry than Descartes, and he embodied his thoughts in such masterly language, that it has been justly said of him, that his fame as a writer would have been greater if his celebrity as a thinker had been less.

The age of Descartes was an interesting era in the annals of the human mind. The darkness of scholastic philosophy was gradually clearing away before the light which an improved method of study was shedding over the natural sciences. A system of philosophy, founded on observation, was preparing the downfall of those traditional errors which had long held the mastery in the schools. Geometricians, physicians, and astronomers taught, by their example, the severe process of reasoning which was to regenerate all the sciences; and minds of the first order, scattered in various parts of Europe, communicated to each other the results of their labors, and stimulated each other to new exertions.

One of the most eminent contemporaries of Descartes was Pascal (1628- 1662). At the age of sixteen he wrote a treatise on conic sections, which was followed by several important discoveries in arithmetic and geometry.

His experiments in natural science added to his fame, and he was recognized as one of the most eminent geometricians of modern times. But he soon formed the design of abandoning science for pursuits exclusively religious, and circ.u.mstances arose which became the occasion of those "Provincial Letters," which, with the "Pensees de la Religion," are considered among the finest specimens of French literature.

The abbey of Port Royal occupied a lonely situation about six leagues from Paris. Its internal discipline had recently undergone a thorough reformation, and the abbey rose to such a high reputation, that men of piety and learning took up their abode in its vicinity, to enjoy literary leisure. The establishment received pupils, and its system of education became celebrated in a religious and intellectual point of view. The great rivals of the Port Royalists were the Jesuits. Pascal, though not a member of the establishment, was a frequent visitor, and one of his friends there, having been drawn into a controversy with the Sorbonne on the doctrines of the Jansenists, had recourse to his aid in replying. Pascal published a series of letters in a dramatic form, in which he brought his adversaries on the stage with himself, and fairly cut them up for the public amus.e.m.e.nt. These letters, combining the comic pleasantry of Moliere with the eloquence of Demosthenes, so elegant and attractive in style, and so clear and popular that a child might understand them, gained immediate attention; but the Jesuits, whose policy and doctrines they attacked, finally induced the parliament of Provence to condemn them to be burned by the common hangman; and the Port Royalists, refusing to renounce their opinions, were driven from their retreat, and the establishment broken up.

Pascal's masterpiece is the "Pensees de la Religion;" it consists of fragments of thought, without apparent connection or unity of design.

These thoughts are in some places obscure; they contain repet.i.tions, and even contradictions, and require that arrangement that could only have been supplied by the hand of the writer. It has often been lamented that the author never constructed the edifice which it is believed he had designed, and of which these thoughts were the splendid materials.

6. THE RISE OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF FRENCH LITERATURE.--When Louis XIV. came to the throne (1638-1715), France was already subject to conditions certain to produce a brilliant period in literature. She had been brought into close relations with Spain and Italy, the countries then the most advanced in intellectual culture; and she had received from the study of the ancient masters the best correctives of whatever might have been extravagant in the national genius. She had learned some useful lessons from the polemical distractions of the sixteenth century. The religious earnestness excited by controversy was gratified by preachers of high endowments, and the political ascendency of France, among the kingdoms of Europe, imparted a general freedom and buoyancy. But of all the influences which contributed to perfect the literature of France in the latter half of the seventeenth century, none was so powerful as that of the monarch himself, who, by his personal power, rendered his court a centre of knowledge, and, by his government, imparted a feeling of security to those who lived under it. The predominance of the sovereign became the most prominent feature in the social character of the age, and the whole circle of the literature bears its impress. Louis elevated and improved, in no small degree, the position of literary men, by granting pensions to some, while he raised others to high offices of state; or they were recompensed by the public, through the general taste, which the monarch so largely contributed to diffuse.

The age, unlike that which followed it, was one of order and specialty in literature; and in cla.s.sifying its literary riches, we shall find the princ.i.p.al authors presenting themselves under the different subjects: Racine with tragedy, Moliere with comedy, Boileau with satirical and mock- heroic, La Fontaine with narrative poetry, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Ma.s.sillon with pulpit eloquence; Patru, Pellisson, and some others with that of the bar; Bossuet, de Retz, and St. Simon with history and memoirs; Rochefoucauld and La Bruyere with moral philosophy; Fenelon and Madame de Lafayette with romance; and Madame de Sevigne with letter-writing.

The personal influence of the king was most marked on pulpit eloquence and dramatic poetry. Other branches found less favor, from his dislike to those who chiefly treated them. The recollections of the Fronde had left in his mind a distrust of Rochefoucauld. A similar feeling of political jealousy, with a thorough hatred of _bel esprit_, especially in a woman, prevented him from appreciating Madame de Sevigne; and he seems not even to have observed La Bruyere, in his modest functions as teacher of history to the Duke of Burgundy. He had no taste for the pure mental speculations of Malebranche or Fenelon; and in metaphysics, as in religion, had little patience for what was beyond the good sense of ordinary individuals. The same hatred of excess rendered him equally the enemy of refiners and free- thinkers, so that the like exile fell to the lot of Arnauld and Bayle, the one carrying to the extreme the doctrines of grace, and the other those of skeptical inquiry. Nor did he relish the excessive simplicity of La Fontaine, or deem that his talent was a sufficient compensation for his slovenly manners and inapt.i.tude for court life. Of all these writers it may be said, that they flourished rather in spite of the personal influence of the monarch than under his favor.

7. TRAGEDY.--The first dramas of Racine (1639-1699) were but feeble imitations of Corneille, who advised the young author to attempt no more tragedy. He replied by producing "Andromaque," which had a most powerful effect upon the stage. The poet had discovered that sympathy was a more powerful source of tragic effect than admiration, and he accordingly employed the powers of his genius in a truthful expression of feeling and character, and a thrilling alternation of hope and fear, anger and pity.

"Andromaque" was followed almost every year by a work of similar character. Henrietta of England induced Corneille and Racine, unknown to each other, to produce a tragedy on Berenice, in order to contrast the powers of these ill.u.s.trious rivals. They were represented in the year 1670; that of Corneille proved a failure, but Racine's was honored; by the tears of the court and the city. Soon after, partly disgusted at the intrigues against him, and partly from religious principle, Racine abandoned his career while yet in the full vigor of his life and genius.

He was appointed historiographer to the king, conjointly with Boileau, and after twelve years of silence he was induced by Madame de Maintenon to compose the drama of "Esther" for the pupils in the Maison de St. Cyr, which met with prodigious success. "Athalie," considered the most perfect of his works, was composed with similar views; theatricals having been abandoned at the school, however, the play was published, but found no readers. Discouraged by this second injustice, Racine finally abandoned the drama. "Athalie" was but little known till the year 1716, since when its reputation has considerably augmented. Voltaire p.r.o.nounced it the most perfect work of human genius. The subject of this drama is taken from the twenty-second and twenty-third chapter of II. Chronicles, where it is written that Athaliah, to avenge the death of her son, destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah, but that the young Joash was stolen from among the rest by his aunt Jehoshabeath, the wife of the high-priest, and hidden with his nurse for six years in the temple. Besides numerous tragedies, Racine composed odes, epigrams, and spiritual songs. By a rare combination of talents he wrote as well in prose as in verse. His "History of the Reign of Louis XIV." was destroyed by a conflagration, but there remain the "History of Port Royal," some pleasing letters, and some academic discourses. The tragedies of Racine are more elegant than those of Corneille, though less bold and striking. Corneille's princ.i.p.al characters are heroes and heroines thrown into situations of extremity, and displaying strength of mind superior to their position. Racine's characters are men, not heroes,--men such as they are, not such as they might possibly be.

France produced no other tragic dramatists of the first cla.s.s in this age.

Somewhat later, Crebillon (1674-1762), in such wild tragedies as "Atrea,"

"Electra," and "Rhadamiste," introduced a new element, that of terror, as a source of tragic effect.

Cardinal Mazarin had brought from Italy the opera or lyric tragedy, which was cultivated with success by Quinault (1637-1688). He is said to have taken the bones out of the French language by cultivating an art in which thought, incident, and dialogue are made secondary to the development of tender and voluptuous feeling.

8. COMEDY.--The comic drama, which occupied the French stage till the middle of the seventeenth century, was the comedy of intrigue, borrowed from Spain, and turning on disguises, dark lanterns, and trap-doors to help or hinder the design of personages who were types, not of individual character, but of cla.s.ses, as doctors, lawyers, lovers, and confidants. It was reserved for Moliere (1622-1673) to demolish all this childishness, and enthrone the true Thalia on the French stage. Like Shakspeare, he was both an author and an actor. The appearance of the "Precieuses Ridicules"

was the first of the comedies in which the gifted poet a.s.sailed the follies of his age. The object of this satire was the system of solemn sentimentality which at this time was considered the perfection of elegance. It will be remembered that there existed at Paris a coterie of fas.h.i.+onable women who pretended to the most exalted refinement both of feeling and expression, and that these were waited upon and wors.h.i.+ped by a set of n.o.bles and litterateurs, who used towards them a peculiar strain of high-flown, pedantic gallantry. These ladies adopted fict.i.tious names for themselves and gave enigmatical ones to the commonest things. They lavished upon each other the most tender appellations, as though in contrast to the frigid tone in which the Platonism of the Hotel required them to address the gentlemen of their circle. _Ma chere, ma precieuse_, were the terms most frequently used by the leaders of this world of folly, and a _precieuse_ came to be synonymous with a lady of the clique; hence the t.i.tle of the comedy. The piece was received with unanimous applause; a more signal victory could not have been gained by a comic poet, and from the time of its first representation this bombastic nonsense was given up.

Moliere, perceiving that he had struck the true vein, resolved to study human nature more and Plautus and Terence less. Comedy after comedy followed, which were true pictures of the follies of society; but whatever was the theme of his satire, all proved that he had a falcon's eye for detecting vice and folly in every shape, and talons for pouncing upon all as the natural prey of the satirist. On the boards he always took the princ.i.p.al character himself, and he was a comedian in every look and gesture. The "Malade Imaginaire" was the last of his works. When it was produced upon the stage, the poet himself was really ill, but repressing the voice of natural suffering, to affect that of the hypochondriac for public amus.e.m.e.nt, he was seized with a convulsive cough, and carried home dying. Though he was denied the last offices of the church, and his remains were with difficulty allowed Christian burial, in the following century his bust was placed in the Academy, and a monument erected to his memory in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. The best of Moliere's works are, "Le Misanthrope," "Les Femmes Savantes," and "Tartuffe;" these are considered models of high comedy. Other comedians followed, but at a great distance from him in point of merit.

9. FABLE, SATIRE, MOCK-HEROIC, AND OTHER POETRY.--La Fontaine (1621-1695) was the prince of fabulists; his fables appeared successively in three collections, and although the subjects of some of these are borrowed, the dress is entirely new. His versification const.i.tutes one of the greatest charms of his poetry, and seems to have been the result of an instinctive sense of harmony, a delicate taste, and rapidity of invention. There are few authors in France more popular, none so much the familiar genius of every fireside. La Fontaine himself was a mere child of nature, indolent, and led by the whim of the moment, rather than by any fixed principle. He was desired by his father to take charge of the domain of which he was the keeper, and to unite himself in marriage with a family relative. With unthinking docility he consented to both, but neglected alike his official duties and domestic obligations with an innocent unconsciousness of wrong.

He was taken to Paris by the d.u.c.h.ess of Bouillon and pa.s.sed his days in her coteries, and those of Racine and Boileau, utterly forgetful of his home and family, except when his pecuniary necessities obliged him to return to sell portions of his property to supply his wants. When this was exhausted, he became dependent on the kindness of female discerners of merit. Henrietta of England attached him to her suite; and after her death, Madame de la Sabliere gave him apartments at her house, supplied his wants, and indulged his humors for twenty years. When she retired to a convent, Madame d'Hervart, the wife of a rich financier, offered him a similar retreat. While on her way to make the proposal, she met him in the street, and said, "La Fontaine, will you come and live in my house?" "I was just going, madame," he replied, as if his doing so had been the simplest and most natural thing in the world. And here he remained the rest of his days. France has produced numerous writers of fables since the time of La Fontaine, but none worthy of comparison with him.

The writings of Descartes and Pascal, with the precepts of the Academy and Port Royal, had established the art of prose composition, but the destiny of poetry continued doubtful. Corneille's masterpieces afforded models only in one department; there was no specific doctrine on the idea of what poetry ought to be. To supply this was the mission of Boileau (1636-1711); and he fulfilled it, first by satirizing the existing style, and then by composing an "Art of Poetry," after the manner of Horace. In the midst of men who made verses for the sake of making them, and composed languis.h.i.+ng love-songs upon the perfections of mistresses who never existed except in their own imaginations, Boileau determined to write nothing but what interested his feelings, to break with this affected gallantry, and draw poetry only from the depths of his own heart. His debut was made in unmerciful satires on the works of the poetasters, and he continued to plead the cause of reason against rhyme, of true poetry against false.

Despite the anger of the poets and their friends, his satires enjoyed immense favor, and he consolidated his victory by writing the "Art of Poetry," in which he attempted to restore it to its true dignity. This work obtained for him the t.i.tle of Legislator of Parna.s.sus. The mock- heroic poem of the "Lutrin" is considered as the happiest effort of his muse, though inferior to the "Rape of the Lock," a composition of a similar kind. The occasion of this poem was a frivolous dispute between the treasurer and the chapter of a cathedral concerning the placing of a reading-desk (_lutrin_). A friend playfully challenged Boileau to write a heroic poem on the subject, to verify his own theory that the excellence of a heroic poem depended upon the power of the inventor to sustain and enlarge upon a slender groundwork. Boileau was the last of the great poets of the golden age.

The horizon of the poets was at this time somewhat circ.u.mscribed. Confined to the conventional life of the court and the city, they enjoyed little opportunity for the contemplation of nature. The policy of Louis XIV.

proscribed national recollections, so that the social life of the day was alone open to them. Poetry thus became abstract and ideal, or limited to the delineation of those pa.s.sions which belong to a highly artificial state of society. Madame Deshoulieres (1634-1694) indeed wrote some graceful idyls, but she by no means entered into the spirit of rural life and manners, like La Fontaine.

10. ELOQUENCE OF THE PULPIT AND OF THE BAR.--Louis XIV. afforded to religious eloquence the most efficacious kind of encouragement, that of personal attendance. The court preachers had no more attentive auditor than their royal master, who was singularly gifted with that tenderness of conscience which leads a man to condemn himself for his sins, yet indulge in their commission; to feel a certain pleasure in self-accusation, and to enjoy that reaction of mind which consists in occasionally holding his pa.s.sions in abeyance. This attention on the part of a great monarch, the liberty of saying everything, the refined taste of the audience, who could on the same day attend a sermon of Bourdaloue and a tragedy of Racine, all tended to lead pulpit eloquence to a high degree of perfection; and, accordingly, we find the function of court preacher exercised successively by Bossuet (1627-1704), Bourdaloue (1632-1704), and Ma.s.sillon (1663-1742), the greatest names that the Roman Catholic Church has boasted in any age or country. Bossuet addressed the conscience through the imagination, Bourdaloue through the judgment, and Ma.s.sillon through the feelings.

Flechier (1632-1710), another court preacher, renowned chiefly as a rhetorician, was not free from the affectation of Les Precieuses; but Bossuet was perhaps the most distinguished type of the age of Louis XIV., in all save its vices. For the instruction of the Dauphin, to whom he had been appointed preceptor, he wrote his "Discourse upon Universal History,"

by which he is chiefly known to us. The Protestant controversy elicited his famous "Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine." A still more celebrated work is the "History of the Variations," the leading principle of which is, that to forsake the authority of the church leads one knows not whither, that there can be no new religious views except false ones, and that there can be no escape from the faith transmitted from age to age, save in the wastes of skepticism. In his controversy with Fenelon, in relation to the mystical doctrines of Madame Guyon, Bossuet showed himself irritated, and at last furious, at the moderate and submissive tone of his opponent. He procured the banishment of Fenelon from court, and the disgrace of his friends; and through his influence the pope condemned the "Maxims of the Saints," in which Fenelon endeavored to show that the views of Madame Guyon were those of others whom the church had canonized. The sermons of Bossuet were paternal and familiar exhortations; he seldom prepared them, but, abandoning himself to the inspiration of the moment, was now simple and touching, now energetic and sublime, His familiarity with the language of inspiration imparted to his discourses a tone of almost prophetic authority; his eloquence appeared as a native instinct, a gift direct from heaven, neither marred nor improved by the study of human rules. France does not acknowledge the Protestant Saurin (1677-1730), as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes expatriated him in childhood; but his sermons occupy a distinguished place in the theological literature of the French language.

Political or parliamentary oratory was as yet unknown, for the parliament no sooner touched on matters of state and government, than Louis XIV entered, booted and spurred, with whip in hand, and not figuratively, but literally, lashed the refractory a.s.sembly into silence and obedience. But the eloquence of the bar enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom in this age. Law and reason, however, were too often overlaid by worthless conceits and a fantastic abuse of cla.s.sic and scriptural citations. Le Maitre (1608-1658), Patru (1604-1681), Pellisson (1624-1693), Cochin (1687-1749), and D'Aguesseau (1668-1751), successively purified and elevated the language of the tribunals.

11. MORAL PHILOSOPHY.--The most celebrated moralist of the age was the Duke de Rochefoucauld (1613-1680). He was early drawn into those conflicts known as the wars of the Fronde, though he seems to have had little motive for fighting or intriguing, except his restlessness of spirit and his attachment to the d.u.c.h.ess de Longueville. He soon quarreled with the d.u.c.h.ess, dissolved his alliance with Conde, and being afterwards included in the amnesty, he took up his residence at Paris, where he was one of the brightest ornaments of the court of Louis XIV. His chosen friends, in his declining years, were Madame de Sevigne, one of the most accomplished women of the age, and Madame de Lafayette, who said of him, "He gave me intellect, and I reformed his heart." But if the taint was removed from his heart, it continued in the understanding. His famous "Maxims,"

published in 1665, gained for the author a lasting reputation, not less for the perfection of his style, than for the boldness of his paradoxes.

The leading peculiarity of this work is the principle that self-interest is the ruling motive in human nature, placing every virtue, as well as every vice, under contribution to itself. It is generally agreed that Rochefoucauld's views of human nature were perverted by the specimens of it which he had known in the wars of the Fronde, which were stimulated by vice, folly, and a restless desire of power. His "Memoirs of the Reign of Anne of Austria" embody the story of the Fronde, and his "Maxims" the moral philosophy he deduced from it.

While Pascal, in proving all human remedies unworthy of confidence, had sought to drive men upon faith by pursuing them with despair, and Rochefoucauld, by his pitiless a.n.a.lysis of the disguises of the human heart, led his readers to suspect their most natural emotions, and well- nigh took away the desire of virtue by proving its impossibility, La Bruyere (1639-1696) endeavored to make the most of our nature, such as it is, to render men better, even with their imperfections, to a.s.sist them by a moral code suited to their strength, or rather to their weakness. His "Characters of our Age" is distinguished for the exactness and variety of the portraits, as well as for the excellence of its style. The philosophy of La Bruyere is unquestionably based on reason, and not on revelation.

In the moral works of Nicole, the Port Royalist (1611-1645), we find a system of truly Christian ethics, derived from the precepts of revelation; they are elegant in style, though they display little originality.

The only speculative philosopher of this age, worthy of mention, is Malebranche (1631-1715), a disciple of Descartes; but, unlike his master, instead of admitting innate ideas, he held that we see all in Deity, and that it is only by our spiritual union with the Being who knows all things that we know anything. He professed optimism, and explained the existence of evil by saying that the Deity acts only as a universal cause. His object was to reconcile philosophy with revelation; his works, though models of style, are now little read.

12. HISTORY AND MEMOIRS.--History attained no degree of excellence during this period. Bossuet's "Discourse on Universal History" was a sermon, with general history as the text. At a somewhat earlier date, Mezeray (1610- 1683) compiled a history of France. The style is clear and nervous, and the spirit which pervades it is bold and independent, but the facts are not always to be relied on. The "History of Christianity," by the Abbe Fleury (1640-1723), was p.r.o.nounced by Voltaire to be the best work of the kind that had ever appeared. Rollin (1661-1741) devoted his declining years to the composition of historical works for the instruction of young people. His "Ancient History" is more remarkable for the excellence of his intentions than for the display of historical talent. Indeed, the historical writers of this period may be said to have marked, rather than filled a void.

The writers of memoirs were more happy. At an earlier period, Brantome (1527-1614), a gentleman attached to the suite of Charles IX. and Henry III., employed his declining years in describing men and manners as he had observed them; and his memoirs are admitted to embody but too faithfully a representation of that singular mixture of elegance and grossness, of superst.i.tion and impiety, of chivalrous feelings and licentious morals, which characterized the sixteenth century. The Duke of Sully (1559-1641), the skillful financier of Henry IV., left valuable memoirs of the stirring events of his day. The "Memoirs" of the Cardinal de Betz (1614-1679), who took so active a part in the agitations of the Fronde, embody the enlarged views of the true historian, and breathe the impetuous spirit of a man whose native element is civil commotion, and who looks on the chieftains.h.i.+p of a party as worthy to engage the best powers of his head and heart; but his style abounds with negligences and irregularities which would have shocked the litterateurs of the day.

The Duke de St. Simon (1675-1755) is another of those who made no pretensions to cla.s.sical writing. All the styles of the seventeenth century are found in him. His language has been compared to a torrent, which appears somewhat inc.u.mbered by the debris which it carries, yet makes its way with no less rapidity.

Count Hamilton (1646-1720) narrates the adventures of his brother-in-law, Count de Grammont, of which La Harpe says, "Of all frivolous books, it is the most diverting and ingenious." Much lively narration is here expended on incidents better forgotten.

13. ROMANCE AND LETTER-WRITING.--The growth of kingly power, the order which it established, and the civilization which followed in its train, restrained the development of public life and increased the interests of the social relations. From this new state of things arose a modified kind of romance, in which elevated sentiments replaced the achievements of mediaeval fiction and the military exploits of Mademoiselle de Scudery's tales. Madame de Lafayette introduced that kind of romance in which the absorbing interest is that of conflicting pa.s.sion, and external events were the occasion of developing the inward life of thought and feeling.

She first depicted manners as they really were, relating natural events with gracefulness, instead of narrating those that never could have had existence.

The ill.u.s.trious Fenelon (1651-1715) was one of the few authors of this period who belonged exclusively to no one cla.s.s. He appears as a divine in his "Sermons" and "Maxims;" as a rhetorician in his "Dialogues on Eloquence;" as a moralist in his "Education of Girls;" as a politician in his "Examination of the Conscience of a King;" and it may be said that all these characters are combined in "Telemachus," which has procured for him a widespread fame, and which cla.s.ses him among the romancers. Telemachus was composed with the intention of its becoming a manual for his pupil, the young Duke of Burgundy, on his entrance into manhood. Though its publication caused him the loss of the king's favor, it went through numerous editions, and was translated into every language of Europe. It was considered, in its day, a manual for kings, and it became a standard book, on account of the elegance of its style, the purity of its morals, and the cla.s.sic taste it was likely to foster in the youthful mind.

Madame de Sevigne made no pretensions to authors.h.i.+p. Her letters were written to her daughter, without the slightest idea that they would be read, except by those to whom they were addressed; but they have immortalized their gifted author, and have been p.r.o.nounced worthy to occupy an eminent place among the cla.s.sics of French literature. The matter which these celebrated letters contain is multifarious; they are sketches of Madame de Sevigne's friends, Madame de Lafayette, Madame Scarron, and all the princ.i.p.al personages of that brilliant court, from which, however, she was excluded, in consequence of her early alliance with the Fronde, her friends.h.i.+p for Fouquet, and her Jansenist opinions.

All the occurrences, as well as the characters of the day, are touched in these letters; and so graphic is the pen, so clear and easy the style, that we seem to live in those brilliant days, and to see all that was going on. Great events are detailed in the same tone as court gossip; Louis XIV., Turenne, Conde, the wars of France and of the empire are freely mingled with details of housewifery, projects of marriage,--in short, the seventeenth century is depicted in the correspondence of two women who knew nothing so important as their own affairs.

Considerable interest attaches also to the letters of Madame de Maintenon (1635-1719), a lady whose life presents singular contrasts, worthy of the time. To her influence on the king, after her private marriage to him, is attributed much that is inauspicious in the latter part of his reign, the combination of ascetic devotion and religious bigotry with the most flagrant immorality, the appointment of unskillful generals and weak- minded ministers, the persecution of the Jansenists, and, above all, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which had secured religious freedom to the Protestants.

PERIOD THIRD.

LITERATURE OF THE AGE OF THE REVOLUTION AND OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (1700-1885).

1. THE DAWN OF SKEPTICISM.--In the age just past we have seen religion, antiquity, and the monarchy of Louis XIV., each exercising a distinct and powerful influence over the buoyancy of French genius, which cheerfully submitted to their restraining power. A school of taste and elegance had been formed, under these circ.u.mstances, which gave law to the rest of Europe and const.i.tuted France the leading spirit of the age. On the other hand, the dominant influences of the eighteenth century were a skeptical philosophy, a preference for modern literature, and a rage for political reform. The transition, however, was not sudden nor immediate, and we come now to the consideration of those works which occupy the midway position between the submissive age of Louis XIV. and the daring infidelity and republicanism of the eighteenth century.

The eighteenth century began with the first timid protestation against the splendid monarchy of Louis XIV., the domination of the Catholic Church, and the cla.s.sical authority of antiquity, and it ended when words came to deeds, in the sanguinary revolution of 1789. When the first generation of great men who sunned themselves in the glance of Louis XIV. had pa.s.sed away, there were none to succeed them; the glory of the monarch began to fade as the n.o.ble _cortege_ disappeared, and admiration and enthusiasm were no more. The new generation, which had not shared the glory and prosperity of the old monarch, was not subjugated by the recollections of his early splendor, and was not, like the preceding, proud to wear his yoke. A certain indifference to principle began to prevail; men ventured to doubt opinions once unquestioned; the habit of jesting with everything and unblus.h.i.+ng cynicism appeared almost under the eyes of the aged Louis; even Ma.s.sillon, who exhorted the people to obedience, at the same time reminded the king that it was necessary to merit it by respecting their rights. The Protestants, exiled by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, revenged themselves by pamphlets against the monarch and the church, and these works found their way into France, and fostered there the rising discontent and contempt for the authority of the government.

Among these refugees was Bayle (1647-1706), the coolest and boldest of doubters. He wrote openly against the intolerance of Louis XIV., and he affords the first announcement of the characteristics of the century. His "Historical and Critical Dictionary," a vast magazine of knowledge and incredulity, was calculated to supersede the necessity of study to a lively and thoughtless age. His skepticism is learned and philosophical, and he ridicules those who reject without examination still more than those who believe with docile credulity. Jean Baptiste Rousseau (1670- 1741), the lyric poet of this age, displayed in his odes considerable energy, and a kind of pompous harmony, which no other had imparted to the language, yet he fails to excite the sympathy. In his writings we find that free commingling of licentious morals with a taste for religious sublimities which characterized the last years of Louis XIV. The Abbe Chaulieu (1639-1720) earned the appellation of the Anacreon of the Temple, but he did not, like Rousseau, prost.i.tute poetry in strains of low debauchery.

The tragedians followed in the footsteps of Racine with more or less success, and comedy continued, with some vigor, to represent the corrupt manners of the age. Le Sage (1668-1747) applied his talent to romance; and, like Moliere, appreciated human folly without a.n.a.lyzing it. "Gil Blas" is a picture of the human heart under the aspect at once of the vicious and the ridiculous.

Fontenelle (1657-1757), a nephew of the great Corneille, is regarded as the link between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he having witnessed the splendor of the best days of Louis XIV., and lived long enough to see the greatest men of the eighteenth century. He made his debut in tragedy, in which, however, he found little encouragement. In his "Plurality of Worlds," and "Dialogues of the Dead," there is much that indicates the man of science. His other works are valued rather for their delicacy and impartiality than for striking originality.

Lamotte (1672-1731) was more distinguished in criticism than in any other sphere of authors.h.i.+p. He raised the standard of revolt against the wors.h.i.+p of antiquity, and would have dethroned poetry itself on the ground of its inutility. Thus skepticism began by making established literary doctrines matters of doubt and controversy. Before attacking more serious creeds it fastened on literary ones.

Such is the picture presented by the earlier part of the eighteenth century. Part of the generation had remained attached to the traditions of the great age. Others opened the path into which the whole country was about to throw itself. The faith of the nation in its political inst.i.tutions, its religious and literary creed, was shaken to its foundation; the positive and palpable began to engross every interest hitherto occupied by the ideal; and this disposition, so favorable to the cultivation of science, brought with it a universal spirit of criticism.

The habit of reflecting was generally diffused, people were not afraid to exercise their own judgment, every man had begun to have a higher estimate of his own opinions, and to care less for those hitherto received as undoubted authority. Still, literature had not taken any positive direction, nor had there yet appeared men of sufficiently powerful genius to give it a decisive impulse.