FOOTNOTES:

Bayle.

Bayle was born in the south of France in 1647, and, like almost all the men of letters of his time, was educated by the Jesuits. He was of a Protestant family, and was converted by his teachers, his conversion being however so little of asolid one that he reverted to Protestantism in less than two years. After this he resided for some time in Switzerland, studying Cartesianism. In 1675 he was made Professor of Philosophy at Sedan, a post which he held for six years, moving thence to Rotterdam. Here he began to write numerous articles and works in the periodicals, which were slowly becoming fashionable, especially in Holland. They were mostly critical, and dealt with scientific, historical, philosophical, and theological subjects. Bayle's utterances on the latter subject, and especially his pleas for toleration, brought him into a troublesome controversy with Jurieu, and in 1693 he was deprived of his professorship, or at least of his right to lecture. He then devoted himself to the famous Dictionary which is identified with his name, and which, though by no means the first encyclopædia of modern times (for Alsten, Moreri, Hoffmann, and others had preceded him within the century), was by far the most influential and most original yet produced. It appeared in 1696, and brought him new troubles, which were not however of a serious character. He died in 1706.

The scepticism of which Bayle was the exponent was purely critical and intellectual. He was not in the least an enemy of the moral system of Christianity, nor even, it would appear, an enemy to Christianity itself. But his intellect was constitutionally disposed to see the objections to all things rather than the arguments in their favour, and to take a pleasure in stating these objections. Thus, though he was after his religious oscillations nominally an orthodox Protestant, the tendency of his works was to impugn points held by Protestants and Catholics alike, and though he was nominally a Cartesian, he was equally far from yielding an implicit belief to the doctrines of Descartes. His most famous work is the reverse of methodical. The subjects are chosen almost at random, and are very frequently nothing but pegs on which to hang notes and digressions in which the author indulges his critical and dissolvent faculty. Nor is the style by any means a model. But it is lively, clear, and interesting, and no doubt had a good deal to do with the vast popularity of his book in the eighteenth century. Bayle had a strong influence on Voltaire, and though he had less to do with his follower's style than Saint Evremondand Pascal, he is nearer to him in spirit than either. The difference perhaps may be said to be that Bayle's pleasure in negative criticism is almost purely intellectual. There is but little in him of the half-childish mischievousness which distinguishes Voltaire.

Malebranche.

Cartesianism was not less likely than its opposites to lead to philosophical scepticism, but in the main its professors, taking their master's conduct for model, remained orthodox. In that case, however, the Cartesian idealism had a tendency to pass into mysticism. Of those in whom it took this form Nicolas Malebranche[278]was the unquestioned chief. He was born at Paris, where his father held a lucrative office; in 1638, and from his birth had very feeble health. When he was of age he became an Oratorian, and passed the whole of his long life in study and literary work, sometimes being engaged in controversies on the compatibility of his system—the famous 'Vision in God,' and 'Spiritual Existence in God'—with orthodoxy, but never receiving any formal censure from the Church. Despite his bad health he lived to the age of seventy-seven, dying in 1715. A curious story is told of a verbal argument between him and Berkeley on the eve of his death. He wrote several works in French, such as aTraité de Morale,Conversations Métaphysiques, etc., but his greatest and most remarkable contribution to French literature is hisRecherche de la Vérité, published in 1674, which unfolds his system. From the literary point of view theRechercheis one of the most considerable books of the philosophical class ever produced. Unlike the various works of Descartes it is of very great length, filling three volumes in the original edition, and a thousand pages of close type in the most handy modern reprint. It also deals with subjects of an exceedingly abstract character, and is not diversified by any elaborate illustrations, any machinery like that of Plato or Berkeley, or any passages of set eloquence. The purity and beauty of the style, however, and its extraordinary lucidity, make it a book of which it is difficult to tire. The chief mechanical difference between the style of Malebranche and thatof his master is that his sentences are shorter. They are, however, framed with equal care as to rhythm and to logical arrangement. The metaphor of limpidity is very frequently applied to style, but perhaps there is hardly any to which it may be applied with such propriety as to the style of Malebranche.

FOOTNOTES:[272]Not fully edited yet. Cousin's edition is the fullest, but the important French works figure in many popular collections and are easily accessible.[273]He was 'as restless as a hyæna,' says De Quincey, not unjustly.[274]Professor Mahaffy,Descartes. Blackwood, 1880.[275]'La philosophie donne moyen de parler vraisemblablement de toutes choses, et se faire admirer des moins savants.'[276]Sainte-Beuve,Port Royal. 6 vols. Paris, 1859-61.[277]These men, such as Saint Ibal, Bardouville, Desbarreaux, and others, figure largely in the anecdotic history of the time. In the persons of Théophile and Saint Evremond they touch on literature: but for the most part they were chiefly distinguished by revolting coarseness and blasphemy of expression, and by a childish delight in outraging religious sentiment, which was often changed into abject terror or hypocritical compliance as death approached. They were commonly calledphilosophes, a degradation of the word which was not much mended in the next century, though it then acquired a more strictly literary meaning.[278]Ed. Simon. 1854.

[272]Not fully edited yet. Cousin's edition is the fullest, but the important French works figure in many popular collections and are easily accessible.

[273]He was 'as restless as a hyæna,' says De Quincey, not unjustly.

[274]Professor Mahaffy,Descartes. Blackwood, 1880.

[275]'La philosophie donne moyen de parler vraisemblablement de toutes choses, et se faire admirer des moins savants.'

[276]Sainte-Beuve,Port Royal. 6 vols. Paris, 1859-61.

[277]These men, such as Saint Ibal, Bardouville, Desbarreaux, and others, figure largely in the anecdotic history of the time. In the persons of Théophile and Saint Evremond they touch on literature: but for the most part they were chiefly distinguished by revolting coarseness and blasphemy of expression, and by a childish delight in outraging religious sentiment, which was often changed into abject terror or hypocritical compliance as death approached. They were commonly calledphilosophes, a degradation of the word which was not much mended in the next century, though it then acquired a more strictly literary meaning.

[278]Ed. Simon. 1854.

There is no period in the whole course of French literature in which theological writers and orators contribute so much to literary history as in the seventeenth century. The causes of this energy can only be summarily indicated here. They were the varioussequelaeof the Reformation and the counter-reformation, the latter of which was in France extraordinarily powerful; the influence of Richelieu and Mazarin in politics, which assured to the Church a great predominance in the State, while its rival, the territorial aristocracy, was depressed and persecuted; the personal inclination of Louis XIV., who made up for his loose manner of life by the straitest doctrinal orthodoxy; but perhaps most of all the accidental determination of various men of great talents and energy to the ecclesiastical profession. Bossuet, Fénelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon, Fléchier, Mascaron, Claude, Saurin, to name no others, could hardly have failed to distinguish themselves in any department of literature which they had chosen. Circumstances of accident threw them into work more or less wholly theological.

St. François de Sales.

This peculiarity of the century, however, belongs chiefly to its third and fourth quarters. The first preacher and theologian of literary eminence in this period belongs about equally to it and to the preceding, but his most remarkable work dates from this time. François de Sales was born at Annecy in 1567. He was destined for the law, and completed his education for it at Paris, but his vocation for the church was stronger, and he took orders in 1593. He soon distinguished himself by reconverting a considerable number of persons to theRoman form of faith in the district of Chablais, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century preached at Paris, and latterly at Dijon. He was soon made bishop of Geneva, an episcopate which, it need hardly be said, might almost be described asin partibus infidelium. But in the south of France, in Savoy, and in Paris itself, his influence was great. His chief works are the 'Introduction to a Devout Life' (1608), theTraité de l'Amour de Dieu, 'Spiritual Letters' (to Madame de Chantal), and sermons. His style is by no means destitute of archaism, but it is clear, fluent, and agreeable. He and Fenouillet, bishop of Marseilles, with other preachers whose names are now forgotten, were the chief instruments in recovering the art of sacred oratory from the low estate into which it had fallen during the heat of the religious wars and the League, when it had been disgraced alternately by violence and buffoonery. But the Thirty Years' War and the Fronde were again unfavourable to theological discussion, except of a quasi-political kind, and the best spirits of this time threw themselves into the unpopular direction of Jansenism. The 'Siècle de Louis Quatorze' proper, that is the period subsequent to 1660, was the palmy time, from the literary point of view, of theological eloquence and discussion in France.

Bossuet.

Of the authors already named Bossuet deserves precedence in almost every respect except that of private character. Jacques Benigne Bossuet[279]was born at Dijon, in 1627, of a family of distinction in the middle class. He went to school to the Jesuits in his native town, and finished his education at the Collège de Navarre in Paris, receiving his doctor's degree and a canonry at Metz in 1652. He soon distinguished himself both as an orator and a controversialist, preached before the king in Advent 1661, and in 1669 was appointed to the bishopric of Condom. His subsequent appointment to the post of tutor to the Dauphin made him resign his bishopric; but on the completion of his task (in virtue of which he had been elected to the Academy in 1680) he was made almoner to the prince, and in the following year received the bishopric of Meaux. He was soon after engaged inthe Gallican controversy, in which he defended not so much the rights of the Church as the claims of the royal prerogative. The most unfortunate incident of his life was his controversy with Fénelon. Bossuet, though thoroughly learned in some respects, was not a man of the widest culture, and the whole region of mystical theology was unknown to him. He, therefore, mistook certain utterances of the archbishop of Cambray, which were neither new nor alarming, for heterodox innovations, and began a violent polemic against him. Supported by the king, he was able to obtain a nominal victory, but the moral success rested with Fénelon, and still more the advantage in the literary duel. Bossuet died in 1704. His works were very numerous, and of very various kinds. His first reputation was, as has been said, earned as a controversialist (his principal adversaries in this respect were the Protestant ministers Ferri and Claude) and as a preacher on general subjects. On his appointment to the see of Condom, however, he struck out a new line, that of funeral discourses (oraisons funèbres), and produced, on the occasions of the death of the two Henriettas of England, mother and daughter, of the great Condé, of the Princess-Palatine, and of others, works which are undoubtedly triumphs of French eloquence, and which, with the exception of the best passages of Burke, are perhaps the only things of the kind comparable to the masterpieces of antiquity. His controversial work is equal in perfection of execution to his oratory, theExposition de la Doctrine de l'Église Catholique, and still more theHistoire des Variations des Églises Protestantes, being deservedly regarded as models of their kind, notwithstanding the obvious fallacy pervading the latter. Of his other works the most remarkable (perhaps the most remarkable of all if originality of conception and breadth of design be taken into account) is hisDiscours sur l'Histoire Universelle jusqu'à l'Empire de Charlemagne. This has, though not universally, been held to be the first attempt at the philosophy of history, that is to say, the first work in which general history is regarded and expounded from a single comprehensive point of view, and laws of a universal kind drawn from it. In Bossuet's case the point of view is, of course, strictly theological, and the laws are arranged accordingly.

Bossuet's character was unamiable, and, despite the affected frankness with which he spoke to the king, it will always remain a blot on his memory that he did not seriously protest either against the loose life of Louis, or against his ruinous ambition and lawless disregard of the rights of nations. There is, however, no doubt whatever of his perfect sincerity and of the genuineness of his belief in political autocracy, provided that the autocrat was a faithful son of the Church. He was a Cartesian, and was probably not unindebted to Descartes for the force and vigour of his reasonings, though he was hardly so careful as his master in enlarging the field of his knowledge and assuring the validity of his premises. The extraordinary majesty of his rhetoric, perhaps, brings out by force of contrast the occasionally fallacious character of his reasoning, but it must be confessed that even as a controversialist he has few equals. The rhetorical excellence of theOraisonsand the gorgeous sweep, not merely of the language but of the conception, in theHistoire Universelle, show him at what is really his best; while many isolated expressions betray at once an intimate knowledge of the human heart, and a hardly surpassed faculty of clothing that knowledge in words. Bossuet no doubt is more of a speaker than a writer. His excellence lies in the wonderful survey, and grasp of the subject (qualities which make his favourite literary nickname of the 'Eagle of Meaux' more than usually appropriate), in the contagious enthusiasm and energy with which he attacks his point, in his inexhaustible metaphors and comparisons. He has not the unfailing charm of Malebranche, nor that which belongs in a less degree, and with more mannerism, to Fénelon; he is very unequal, and small blemishes of style abound in him. Thus, in his most famous passage, the description of the sudden death of Henrietta of Orleans, occurs the phrase 'comme un coup detonnerrecetteétonnantenouvelle,' a jingle of words as unpleasant as it is easily avoided. But blemishes of this kind (and it is, perhaps, noteworthy that French is more tolerant of them than almost any other language of equal literary perfection) disappear in the volume and force of the torrent of Bossuet's eloquence. It is fair to add that, though he is almost always aiming at the sublime, he scarcely ever oversteps it, or fallsinto the bombastic and the ridiculous. Even his elaborate eulogy (it would hardly be fair to call it flattery) of the great is so cunningly balanced by exposition of the nothingness of men and things, that it does not strike the mind's eye with any immediate sense of glaring impropriety. The lack of formal perfection which is sometimes noticeable in him is made up to a greater degree almost than in any other writer by the intense force and conviction of the speaker and the imposing majesty of his manner. It is pretty certain that most attempts to imitate Bossuet would result in a lamentable failure; and it is not a little significant that the only two Frenchmen who in prose have shown themselves occasionally his rivals, Michelet and Lamennais, are among the most unequal of writers.

Fénelon.

The contrast between Bossuet and his chief rival was in all respects great. To begin with, Fénelon was a much younger man than Bossuet, belonging it might be said almost to another generation. He inherited some of the noblest blood in France, while Bossuet was but aroturier, and this may have had something to do with the more independent character of Fénelon. Bossuet was a vigorous student of certain defined branches of knowledge, but of general literature he took little heed. Fénelon was a man of almost universal reading, and one of the most original and soundest literary critics of his time. Fénelon felt deeply for the misery of the French people; Bossuet does not appear to have troubled himself about it. Finally Bossuet, with all his merits, had grave faults of moral character, while to Fénelon—quite as justly as to Berkeley—every virtue under heaven may be assigned. François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon[280]was born at the castle of the same name in the province of Perigord, on August 16th, 1661. He was educated first at home, then at Cahors, and then at the Collége de Plessis at Paris. He finally studied in a theological seminary for some years, and did not formally enter the Church till he was four-and-twenty. He then devoted himself partly to the poor, partly to education, especially of girls, and his treatise on this latter subject was his first work.In 1687 he was appointed preceptor to the Duke de Bourgogne, son of Bossuet's pupil, and heir to the throne. For the duke he wrote a great number of books, among themTélémaque(or at least the first sketch of it). In 1697 he was appointed archbishop of Cambray. Into his connection with Madame Guyon, the celebrated apostle of quietism, and his consequent quarrel with Bossuet, there is no need to enter further. Whichever of the two may have been theologically in the right, there are no two opinions on the question that Bossuet was in the wrong, both in the acrimony of his conduct and the violence of his language. In the latter respect, indeed, he brought down upon himself a well-deserved punishment. Fénelon was the mildest of men, but he possessed a faculty of quiet irony inferior to that of no man then living, and he used it with effect in the controversy against Bossuet's declamatory denunciations. When, at last, the matter had been referred to the Pope, and judgment had been given against himself, Fénelon at once bowed to the decision and acknowledged his error. Louis, however, had many more reasons for disliking him than the mere odium theologicum with which Bossuet had inspired him. Fénelon was known to disapprove of much in the actual government of France, and the surreptitious publication ofTélémaquecompleted his disgrace. He was banished from court and confined to his diocese, in which he accordingly spent the last part of his life, doing his best to alleviate the misery caused on the borders by the war of the Spanish succession, and dying at Cambray in 1715.

Fénelon was an industrious writer. Few of his finished sermons have been preserved; but these are excellent, as are also his fables written for the Duke de Bourgogne, his already-mentionedEducation des Filles, and hisDialogues des Morts, also written for the Duke, in which the form is borrowed from Lucian, but in which moral lessons are substituted for mere satire. Like Bossuet, Fénelon was a Cartesian, and hisTraité de l'Existence de Dieuis a philosophico-religious work of no small merit. In literary history he is remarkable for having directly opposed the victorious work of Boileau. He has left several exercises in literary criticism, such as hisLettre sur les Occupations de l'Académie Française, one of the latest ofhis works; hisDialogues sur l'Eloquence, and a contribution to the famous dispute of ancients and moderns in correspondence with La Motte. He regretted the impoverishment of the language, and the loss of much of the energy and picturesque vigour of the sixteenth century. In his controversy with Bossuet, though the matter is not strictly literary, there is, as has been noticed, much admirable literary work; but his chief claim to a place in literary history is, of course,Télémaque, which work he had anticipated by the somewhat similarAventures d'Aristonous. It has often been regretted that classics in any language should be used for purposes of instruction in the rudiments, and hardly any single work has suffered more from this practice thanTélémaque, for learners of French are usually set to read it long before they have any power of literary appreciation. A continuous narrative, moreover, is about the least suited of all literary forms to bear that process of cutting up in short pieces which is necessary in education. The pleasure of the story is either lost altogether, or anticipated by surreptitious reading on the part of the pupil, after which the mechanical plodding through matter of which he has already exhausted the interest is disgusting enough. Yet it can hardly be doubted that ifTélémaquehad not, in the case of most readers, this fatal disadvantage, its beauties would be generally acknowledged. Its form is somewhat artificial, and the author has, perhaps, not escaped the error of most moral fiction writers, that of making his hero too much of a model of what ought to be, and too little of a copy of what is. But the story is excellently managed, the various incidents are drawn with remarkable vividness and picturesqueness, the descriptions are uniformly excellent, and the style is almost impeccable. Even were the moral sentiments and the general tendency of the book less excellent than they are, its value as a model of French composition would probably have secured it something like its present place side by side with La Fontaine's Fables as a school-book. It is fair to add that in the character of Calypso, where the need of the author for a 'terrible example' freed him from his restraints, very considerable powers of character-drawing are shown, and the same may be said of not a few of the minor personages.

Massillon.

The third greatest name of the period in this class of men ofletters is beyond all question that of Massillon. He, like Fénelon, belongs to the second, if not the third, generation of the Siècle de Louis Quatorze, being nearly forty years younger than Bossuet. He was a long liver, and his death did not occur till far into the reign of Louis XV., when the reputation of Voltaire was established, and the eighteenth-century movement was in full swing. But his literary and oratorical activity had ceased for nearly a quarter of a century at the time of his death. Jean Baptiste Massillon[281]was a native of Hières, and was born on June 24, 1663. His father was a notary, and he himself was destined for the same profession; but his vocation for the Church was strong, and he was at last permitted to enter the Oratorian Congregation. His aptitude for preaching was soon discovered, and when very young he distinguished himself byOraisons Funèbreson the archbishops of Lyons and Vienne. He was of a retiring disposition, and, wishing to avoid publicity, joined a stricter order than that of the Oratory, but was induced, and indeed ordered, by the Cardinal de Noailles, who heard him preach in his new abode, not to hide his light under a bushel, but to come to Paris and do the Church service. He obeyed, and was established in the capital in 1696. His fame soon became great, and he preached before the king more than one course of sermons. He was appointed bishop of Clermont in 1717, and in the same year preached the celebratedPetit Caréme, or course of Lent sermons, before Louis XV. In 1719 he was elected of the Academy. He preached his last sermon at Paris in 1723, and then retired to his diocese, where he spent the last twenty years of his life, dying of apoplexy at the age of eighty, Sept. 28, 1742.

Massillon has usually, and justly, been considered the greatest preacher, in the strict sense of the word, of France. Only Bossuet and Bourdaloue could contest this position; and though both preceded him, and he owed much to both, he excels both in sermons properly so called. Bossuet was, perhaps, a greater orator, if the finest parts of his work only are taken; but he was, as has been said, unequal, and in the two great objects of the preacher, expositionof doctrine and effect upon the consciences of his hearers, he was admittedly inferior to Massillon. The latter, moreover, has, of all French preachers (for Fénelon, it must be remembered, has left but few sermons), the purest style, and possesses the greatest range. His special function was considered to be persuasion; yet few pulpit orators have managed the sterner parts of their duty more forcibly. Massillon's sermon on the Prodigal Son, and that on the Deaths of the Just and the Unjust, are models of his style. It is, moreover, very much to his credit that he was the most uncompromising, despite his gentleness, of all the great preachers of the time, and, therefore, the least popular at court. Louis the Fourteenth's famous epigram, to the effect that other preachers made him contented with them, but Massillon made him discontented with himself, was somewhat comically illustrated by the fact that, after the second course of sermons preached before him, that of Lent 1704, the preacher, though then in the very height of his powers, was never asked again to preach at court. We are, however, more concerned with the manner than with the matter of his orations. He had (after the example of Bourdaloue, it is true) entirely discarded the frippery of erudition with which most of his predecessors had been wont to load their sermons, as well as the occasional oddities of gesticulation and anecdote which had once been fashionable. His style is simple, straightforward, and yet extremely elegant. In the commonplaces of French literary history of the old school he is called the Racine of the pulpit, a compliment determined by the extreme purity and elegance of his style, but not otherwise very applicable, inasmuch as one chief characteristic of Massillon is an energy and masculine vigour of expression in which Racine is, for the most part, wanting.

Bourdaloue.

If we have postponed Bourdaloue to Massillon, despite the order of chronology, it has been in accordance with Bourdaloue's own remark when Massillon made his first reputation, 'He must increase, but I must decrease.' This remark is characteristic of the disposition of the man, which was as stainless as Massillon's own. Louis Bourdaloue was born at Bourges on the 20th August, 1632, and was thus not many years the junior of Bossuet. He entered the Society of Jesus early, andserved it as professor of philosophy and kindred subjects. But his superiors soon discovered his talents as a preacher, and he was sent to make his way before the court, where he became a great favourite, especially with Madame de Sévigné, who was no mean critic. He died in 1704.

The chief characteristic of Bourdaloue's eloquence is a remarkable absence of ornament, and a strict adherence to dialectical order. None of the great French preachers admit of logical abstraction andprécisso well as he. Another peculiarity is his preference for ethical subjects. More than any of his contemporaries he was an expounder of Christian morality, and his sermons are wont to deal with simple virtues and vices rather than with points of devotional piety. He was, like Massillon, and even more than Massillon, absolutely fearless and uncompromising, preaching against adultery in the very face of Louis XIV. in his early days, and sparing no vice or folly of the court. But, perhaps owing to the somewhat severe and exclusively intellectual character of his oratory, it does not appear to have produced the effects, salutary doubtless for the hearers, but somewhat inconvenient for the preacher, which attended the more cunningly-aimed attacks of Massillon.

The example of the three great preachers—Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon—raised up many imitators, some of whom, such as De la Rue, Cheminais, and others, were popular in their day. There are, however, four orators—two Roman Catholics, and two belonging to the French Protestant Church—to whom is usually and rightly accorded the second rank, while sectarian partiality sometimes claims even the first for them. These were Fléchier, Mascaron, Claude, and Saurin.

Minor Preachers.

Esprit Fléchier was born at Pesmes in 1632. For a time he was a member of the congregation of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine, which, however, on an alteration of its constitution by a new superior-general (he had been introduced to it by his uncle, who held that office), he quitted. He then went to Paris and tried various methods of gaining a livelihood, such as writing verses in Latin and French, and teaching in a school. In these early days he indulged in various forms of miscellaneous literature. The most curious and interesting of theseworks is a little account of theGrands Jours d'Auvergne, a sort of provincial assize which he visited. This has much liveliness, and the sketches of character and manners show a good deal of skill. But at length he found his proper sphere in the pulpit. He acquired reputation by hisOraison Funèbreon Turenne. He became a member of the Academy (being admitted on the same day as Racine); and he was appointed, first, to the bishopric of Lavaur, then to that of Nîmes, where, in a very difficult position (for the revocation of the edict of Nantes had exasperated the Protestants, who were numerous in the diocese), he made himself universally beloved. He died in 1710. The most famous of Fléchier's discourses are those on Madame de Montausier (the heroine of theGuirlande de Julie[282]and the idol of the Hôtel de Rambouillet), that on Madame de Montausier's husband, and that on Turenne. Fléchier represents a somewhat older style of diction and expression than either of his great contemporaries, Bossuet and Bourdaloue; and his style, unlike some other work of this older school, is not characterised by many striking occasional phrases, but his sermons as a whole are vigorous and well expressed.

Jean Mascaron was born at Marseilles in 1634. It is worth noticing that almost all these orators came from the south of France. He preached frequently before the king, and did not hesitate to rebuke his vices, notwithstanding or because of which he was appointed to the bishopric of Tulle, whence he was afterwards translated to Agen. He died in 1703. Mascaron is chiefly remembered for hisOraisonon that same death of Turenne which gave occasion to so many orators. He is usually reproached with a certain affectation of style, and there is justice in the reproach.

Of the two Protestant divines who have been mentioned Claude was the less distinguished, though he sustained on pretty even terms a public controversy with Bossuet himself. Jacques Saurin was of less political influence with his own sect, but he possessed greater eloquence, and critics of his own persuasion in France and Switzerland have equalled him to Bossuet. His works, moreover,long continued to be the most popular body of household divinity with French Protestants. He was born at Nîmes, 1677, and was thus considerably younger even than Massillon. The revocation of the edict of Nantes (which had formed the subject of some of Claude's most famous discourses) prevented him from making a name for himself in France. He was at first appointed, in 1701, after studying at Geneva, to a Walloon congregation in London, but soon moved, in consequence of weak health, to the Hague. He there became a victim of the petty dissensions which seem to have been more frequent among Dutch Protestant sects than anywhere else, and to the vexation of these is said to have been partly due his comparatively early death in 1730. He left a very considerable number of sermons and some theological treatises. He was admittedly a great orator, excelling in striking pictures and forcible imagery.

It will have been observed that, though this age contributes more to theology of the literary kind than almost any other, its most memorable contributions are almost exclusively oratorical. Incidentally, however, much that was intended to be read, not heard, was of course written. But less of it has been thought worthy the attention of posterity. The chief theological names in this department have already been named in naming those of the other. Of the school of Port Royal, who preached little but wrote much, J. J. Duguet, a man of great talent and saintly life, deserves mention.

FOOTNOTES:[279]Bossuet's works are extremely voluminous. The most important of them are easily obtainable in theCollection Didotand similar libraries.[280]There is a fairly representative edition of Fénelon in five vols. large 8vo. Didot. Separate works are easily accessible.[281]Edition as in Fénelon's case. Selections of all the orthodox sermon-writers are abundant.[282]This was an album to which the poets of the day, from Corneille downwards, contributed verses, each on a different flower.

[279]Bossuet's works are extremely voluminous. The most important of them are easily obtainable in theCollection Didotand similar libraries.

[280]There is a fairly representative edition of Fénelon in five vols. large 8vo. Didot. Separate works are easily accessible.

[281]Edition as in Fénelon's case. Selections of all the orthodox sermon-writers are abundant.

[282]This was an album to which the poets of the day, from Corneille downwards, contributed verses, each on a different flower.

The tendencies of the period which has been surveyed in the foregoing book must be sufficiently obvious from the survey itself. They had been, as far as the unsatisfactory result of them went, indicated with remarkably prophetic precision by Regnier in lines quoted above[283]. The work, not merely of Malherbe, which the satirist had directly in view, but of Boileau, who succeeded Malherbe and completed his task, had tended far too much in the direction of substituting a formal regularity for an elastic freedom and of discouraging the more poetical utterances of thought. In prose, however, the operation of not dissimilar tendencies had been almost wholly good. For it is in the nature of prose not to admit of too absolute regulation, and it is at the same time in its nature to require that regulation up to a certain point. If the French vocabulary had been somewhat impoverished, it had been considerably refined. All good authorities admit that the influence of the salon-coteries and theprécieuses—mischievous as it was in some ways—was of no small benefit in purifying not merely manners but speech. A single book, theHistoriettesof Tallemant des Réaux, shows sufficiently the need of this double purification. French literature has at no time been distinguished by prudery, but from the fifteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century (for, as has been pointed out, the courtly literature at least of the middle ages is free from this defect) it had added to its liberty in choice and treatment of subjects a liberty which amounted to the extremest licence in the choice of words. It had become in fact exceedinglycoarse. The poetry of the Pléiade was not as a rule open to this charge, but the early poetry and prose of the seventeenth century must submit to it. One effect of the process of correction and reform was a decided improvement in this matter.

But the vocabulary was by no means the only thing that underwent revision. Other constituents of literature shared in the same experience, and much more beneficially, for the expurgation of the dictionary was unfortunately made to involve the weeding out of many terms which were not open to the slightest exception, and the loss of which deprived the tongue of much of its picturesqueness. No such concomitant defect attended the reformations in grammar which, begun by the grammarians of the sixteenth century, were pursued still more systematically by Vaugelas and his followers. There can hardly be too much precision observed in matters of accidence and syntax; while it is desirable that the vocabulary should be as rich as possible, provided that its terms are vernacular or properly naturalised. The same may be said of some at least of the reforms of Malherbe in prosody and the minutiæ of poetical art. So too the advance made to something like a uniform orthography was of no small importance. The result of this general criticism was the group (or rather groups, for they may be divided into at least two, the earlier comprising Descartes, Corneille, Pascal, Saint Evremond, La Rochefoucauld, Bossuet, Madame de Sévigné, La Fontaine, and Molière, in other words, most of the greatest names) illustrating the so-calledGrand Siècle, or Siècle de Louis Quatorze. The two names that stand first in this list, Descartes and Corneille, represent at once the initial change and in addition the greatest accomplishment in the direction of change effected by any individual. The others worthily followed where they led. This group, as has been more than once pointed out, does not shine in poetry proper. But it has hardly a rival in prose and in that measured and declamatory or easy and pedestrian verse which is half prose, half poetry.

Long, however, before the century ended, the evils which invariably attend upon a critical period, especially—it is paradoxical but true—when it is at the same time a period of considerable creative power, began to manifest themselves. These evils may bebriefly described as the natural results of the drawing up of too straight and definite rules for each department of literature, and the following with too great exactness of the more brilliant examples in each kind. The one practice leads to what is called, in Sterne's well-known phrase, 'looking at the stop-watch;' the other, to an endeavour to be like somebody. It was not till the eighteenth century that these evils were fully patent; and then, though they were somewhat mitigated in departments other than the Belles Lettres by the eager spirit of enquiry and adventure which characterised the time, they are evident enough. The mischief showed itself in various ways. Besides the two which have been already indicated, there was a third and subtler form, which has produced some curious and interesting work, but which is obviously an indication of decadence. Those who did not resign themselves to the mere recasting of old material in the old moulds, or to simple following of the great models, were apt to echo, aloud or silently, La Bruyère's opening sentence, 'tout est dit,' and to draw from this discouraging fact the same conclusion that he did—that the only way to innovate was to vary in cunning fashion the manners of saying. In itself there might be no great harm in the conclusion, especially if it had led to a revolt against the narrow limits imposed by current criticism. But it did not, it only led to an attempt to innovate within those limits, which could only be done by a kind of new 'preciousness'—an affectation in short. This affectation showed itself first (though La Bruyère himself is not quite free from it, enemy of Fontenelle as he was) in Fontenelle, who was a descendant of the oldprécieuseschool itself, and reached a climax in the author from whose name it thenceforward took its name ofMarivaudage.

Thus the literary produce of the seventeenth century was better than its tendency. The latter has been sufficiently described; a very few words will suffice for the former. In the special characteristics of the genius of French, which may be said to be clearness, polish of form and expression, and a certain quality which perhaps cannot be so well expressed by any other word as by alertness, the best work of the seventeenth century has no rivals. Except in Corneille and Bossuet, it is not often grand, it is still seldomer passionate, or suggestively harmonious, or quaintly humorous, or evenpicturesquely narrative. But the charm of precision, of elegance, of expressing what is expressed in the best possible manner, belongs to it in a supreme degree. There are not many things in literature more absolutely incapable of improvement in their own style, and as far as they go, than a scene of Molière, atiradeof Racine, a maxim of La Rochefoucauld, a letter of Madame de Sévigné, a character of La Bruyère, a peroration of Massillon, when each is at his or her best. The reader may in some cases feel that he likes something else better, but he is incapable of pointing out a blemish. If he objects, he must object to something extra-literary, to the writer's conception of human nature, his political views, his range of thought, his selection of subject. When the one supreme question of criticism formulated by Victor Hugo, 'l'ouvrage est-il bon ou est-il mauvais?' (not 'aimez-vous l'ouvrage?' which is the illegitimate question which nine critics out of ten put to themselves), is set in reference to the best work of this time, the answer cannot be dubious for one moment in the case of any one qualified to give an answer at all. It is good, and in very many cases it could not possibly be better.

FOOTNOTES:[283]p. 267.

[283]p. 267.

Literary Degeneracy of the Eighteenth Century.

The literature of the eighteenth century, despite the many great names which adorn it, and the extraordinary practical influence which it exercised, is, from the point of view of strict literary criticism, which busies itself with form rather than matter, a period of decadence. In all the departments of Belles Lettres a servile imitation of the models of the great classical period is observable. The language, according to an inevitable process which the more clearsighted of the men of Louis the Fourteenth's time, such as Fénelon and La Bruyère, themselves foresaw and deprecated, became more and more incapable of expressing deep passion, varied scenery, the intricacies and eccentricities of character. For a time a few survivors of the older class and manner, such as Fontenelle, Saint Simon, Massillon, resisted the tendency of the age more or less successfully. As they one by one dropped off, the militant energy of the greatphilosophemovement, which may be said to coincide with the second and third quarters of the century, communicated a temporary brilliance to prose. But during the reign of Louis XVI., the Revolution and the Empire (for in the widest sense the eighteenth century of literature does not cease till the Restoration, or even later), the average literary value of what is written in French is but small, and, with few exceptions, what is valuable belongs to those who, consciously or unconsciously, were in an attitude of revolt, and were clearing the way for the men of 1830.

Back to Index Next