FOOTNOTES:

especially manifest in Poetry.

Poetry and the drama naturally suffered most from this course of events, and poetry pure and simple suffered even more than the drama. By the opening of the eighteenth century epic and lyric in the proper sense had been rendered nearly impossible by the full and apparently final adoption of the conception of poetry recommended by Malherbe, and finally rendered orthodox by Boileau. The impossibility was not recognised, and France, in the opinion of her own critics, at last got her epic poem in theHenriade, and her perfect lyrists in Rousseau and Lebrun. But posterity has not ratified these judgments. Fortunately, however, the men of the eighteenth century had in La Fontaine a model for lighter work which their principles permitted them to follow, and the irresistible attractions of the song left song-writers tolerably free from the fatal restrictions of dignified poetry. Once, towards the close of the century, a poet of exceptional genius, André Chénier, showed what he might have done under happier circumstances. But for the most part the history of poetry during this time in France is the history of verse almost uninspired by the poetic spirit, and destitute even of the choicer graces of poetic form.

J. B. Rousseau.

For convenience' sake it will be well to separate the graver and the lighter poets, and to treat each in order, with the proviso that in most cases those mentioned in the first division have some claim to figure in the second also, for few poets of the time were wholly serious. The first poet who is distinctively of the eighteenth century, and not the least remarkable, was Jean Baptiste Rousseau[284](1669-1741). Rousseau's life was a singular and rather an unfortunate one. In the first place he was exiled for a piece of scandalous literature, of which in all probability he was quite guiltless; and, in the second, meeting in his exile with Voltaire, who professed (and seems really to have felt) admiration for him, he offended the irritable disciple and was long the butt ofhis attacks. Here, however, Rousseau concerns us as a direct pupil of Boileau, who, with great faculties for the formal part of poetry, and not without some tincture of its spirit, set himself to be a lyric poet after Boileau's fashion. He tried play-writing also, but his dramas are quite unimportant. Rousseau's principal works are certain odes, most of which are either panegyrical after the fashion of the celebrated Namur specimen (though he is seldom so absurd as his master), or else sacred and drawn from the Bible. TheCantatesare of the same kind as the latter. These elaborate and formal works, which owed much of their popularity to the vogue given to piety at court in the later years of Louis XVI., are curiously contrasted with the third principal division of his poems, consisting of epigrams which allow themselves the full epigrammatic licence in subject and treatment. The contrast is, however, probably due to a very simple cause, the state of demand at the time, and perhaps also to the study of Marot, the only pre-seventeenth century poet of France who was allowed to pass muster in the school of Boileau. Rousseau's merits have been already indicated, and his defects may be easily divined, even from this brief notice. He is almost always adroit, often eloquent, sometimes remarkably clever; but he is seldom other than artificial, never passionate, and only once or twice sublime. Nor is it superfluous to mention that he is more responsible than any other person for the intolerable frippery of classical mythology which loads eighteenth-century verse.

La Motte-Houdart (1672-1731), a successful dramatist, an excellent prose-writer, and an ingenious but paradoxical critic, was at the time considered Rousseau's rival in point of ode-making. His work displays the same defects in a greater and the same merits in a lesser degree, but his fables in the style of La Fontaine are not unhappy. Lagrange-Chancel, a partisan of the Duchess du Maine, is chiefly famous for his ferocious satires on the Duke of Orleans. Louis Racine (1692—1763), undeterred by his father's reputation and the dissuasion of the redoubtable Boileau, attempted poetry of a serious kind. He was brought up by the Jansenists, and his two chief works are poems on 'Grace' and 'Religion.' The latter is better than the former; but both exhibit a considerable facultyin the style of verse which his father had made fashionable. The 'Sacred Odes' of Louis Racine are, like most French poetry of the kind, stiff with a double mannerism, literary and devotional.

Voltaire.

It would not be easy to give a clearer idea of the strange conception of poetry which prevailed in France at this time than is given in the simple statement that Voltaire was acknowledged to be its greatest poet. It is probable that few Englishmen think of Voltaire as a poet at all; and he has indeed no claim to the title except such as may be derived from his remarkable skill in the mechanism of the art of poetry, and from the extraordinary felicity of his light occasional pieces. It is, however, as a poet that he was chiefly regarded by his contemporaries; and though he will figure in almost every one of the chapters of this book, such brief notice of his life as can alone be attempted in this volume may best be given here. He was born in Paris in 1694, being the younger son of a wealthy notary. The Jesuits had charge of his education, and he very early displayed inclinations towards verse which were not agreeable to his father. His youth seemed destined to scrapes. He became identified with the party hostile to the Regent, and was twice imprisoned in the Bastile (the second time in consequence of no fault of his own), while he was at least twice bastinadoed by personal enemies. Being sent in the suite of an ambassador to Holland, he became entangled in a foolish love affair, and had to be hastily recalled. But by degrees his literary talent developed itself. His first visit to the Bastile is identified, more or less correctly, with the composition ofŒdipe, his second with that of theHenriade. After his second release he had to go to England, and there the poem was published. He was soon enabled to return to France, and from that time forward was careful to keep himself out of difficulties by residing first with his friend, Madame du Châtelet, at the remote frontier château of Circy, then with Frederick II. at Berlin, then on the neutral territory of Switzerland, or close to its border, at Les Délices and Ferney. During the whole of his long life his literary production was incessant, and the form most congenial to him was poetry, or at least verse. BesidestheHenriade, his only poem of great bulk is the scandalous burlesque epic of thePucelle, nominally imitated from Ariosto, but destitute of the poetical feeling prominent in theOrlando. Voltaire's talent, however, was so much greater in the lighter kinds of poetry than in the severer, that thePucelleis not only more amusing, but actually better as poetry, than theHenriade, the latter being stiff in plan and servilely modelled on the classical epics, declamatory in tone, tedious in action, and commonplace in character. Besides these two long poems Voltaire produced an immense quantity of miscellaneous work, tales in verse, epistles in verse, discourses in verse, satires, epigrams,vers de sociétéof every possible kind. These are almost invariably distinguished by the felicity of expression—spoilt only by too close adherence to the mannerism of the time—the brilliant wit, the keen observation which are identified with the name of Voltaire. The number and the small individual size of these works make it impossible to particularise them here. ButLe Pauvre Diablemay be specified as an almost unique example of easy Horatian satire less conventional than most of its kind; and the verses to the Princess Ulrique of Prussia as a model of artificial but exquisitely polished gallantry in verse.

Descriptive Poets. Delille.

Le Franc de Pompignan had the misfortune to incur the enmity of Voltaire, and has consequently borne in France the traditional ignominy which in England hangs on certain victims of Dryden and Pope. He had, however, some poetical talent, which was shown principally in his ode on the death of J. B. Rousseau. The charming poem ofVer-Vert(the burlesque history of a parrot, the pet of a convent) made, and not unjustly, the reputation of Gresset. This reputation his other poetical works—though he wrote a comedy of much merit—failed to sustain. Saint Lambert, the rival of Voltaire in love if not in literature, imitated Thomson'sSeasonsvery closely in a poem of the same name, which set the fashion of descriptive poetry in France for a considerable time. The three most remarkable of his followers, all considerably superior to himself in power, were Lemierre, Delille, and Roucher. Some paradoxical critics have endeavoured to make Lemierre into a great poet; but his poems (La Peinture,Les Fastes, etc.), writtenon ill-selected subjects and in a style full of conventional mannerism, have at best the occasional striking lines which are to be found in Armstrong and other followers of Young or Thomson in England. Jacques Delille and his extraordinary popularity form, perhaps, the greatest satire on the taste of the eighteenth century in France. His translation of the Georgics was supposed to make him the equal of Virgil, and brought him not merely fame, but solid reward. His principal work was the poem ofLes Jardins, which he followed up with others of a not dissimilar kind. Though he emigrated he did not lose his fame, and to the day of his death was considered to be the first poet of France, or to share that honour with Lebrun-Pindare. Delille has expiated his popularity by a full half-century of contempt, and his work is, indeed, valueless as poetry. But it is interesting as one of the most striking examples of talent, adjusting itself exactly to the demands made on it. The age of Delille wished to see everything described in elegant periphrases, and the periphrases arranged in harmonious verses. Delille did this and nothing more. Chess is 'le jeu réveur qu'inventa Palamède.' Backgammon is 'le jeu bruyant où, le cornet en main, L'adroit joueur calcule un hasard incertain.' Sugar is 'le miel Américain Que du suc des roseaux exprima l'Africain.' In short, poetry becomes an elaborate conundrum; nothing is called by its proper name when a circumlocution is in any way possible. Given the demand, Delille may justly claim the honour of supplying it with unequalled adroitness. Roucher, the author ofLes Mois, who fell a victim to the guillotine, was a member of this school, possessing not a little vigour, though he was not free from the defects of his predecessors. To these may, perhaps, be joined the pastoral and idyllic poet Léonard.

Lebrun.

It has been said that the glory of Delille as the greatest poet of the last quarter of the century was shared by a writer whom his contemporaries surnamed (absurdly enough) Pindar. Escouchard Lebrun had a strange resemblance to J. B. Rousseau, of whom, however, he was by no means a warm admirer. Like his forerunner, he divided his time between bombastic lyrics and epigrams of very considerable merit. Lebrun was notdestitute of a certain force, but his time was too much for him. He was a very long-lived man, and in his old age celebrated by turns the Republic and Bonaparte. His chief rivals as poets of the Republic were M. J. Chénier and the hunchback Desorgues, a voluminous and vigorous but crude and unfinished writer, who died in a madhouse at the age of forty-five.

Two young poets, who lived about the middle of the century, are usually mentioned together, from the fact of the younger of them having used the misfortunes of the elder to point his own complaints. Malfilâtre, a Norman by birth, had the ill-luck to write a piece of verse which gained a provincial success. He at once set out for Paris to make his fortune. He obtained the post of secretary to the Count de Lauraguais, wrote verses not without grace and full of a certain tender melancholy, and died at the age of thirty, his health broken by privations and disappointment. Gilbert, a stronger man, but who has been somewhat honoured by being called the French Chatterton, died still younger, after writing some vigorous satire, and a 'complaint' or elegy which has a good deal of pathos. But he did not, as is generally said, die of want, though he did die in a public hospital, having been carried thither after a fall from his horse.

Parny.

The places accorded by their contemporaries to Delille and Lebrun really belonged to two writers of very different character and fortune, Parny and André Chénier. Evariste de Parny, a native of the island of Bourbon, was called by the aged Voltaire 'mon cher Tibulle,' and displays, with much of the frivolity and false gallantry of the time, an extraordinary command of simple elegiac verse, and a manner almost antique in its simplicity and sweetness. Parny's best piece, a short epitaph on a young girl, is one of the best things of its kind in literature. His merits, however, are confined to his early works. In his maturer years he wrote long poems, on the model of thePucelle, against England, Christianity, and Monarchism, which are equally remarkable for blasphemy, obscenity, extravagance, and dulness. His friend Bertin, like him a creole, resembled him in the command of graceful elegiac and epistolary verse, but had not what Parny sometimes had, genuine passion.

Chénier.

André Marie de Chénier[285], beyond question the greatest poet of the eighteenth century in France, was born at Constantinople, where his father was consul-general, in 1762. His mother was a Greek. His family returned to France when he was a child; he was educated carefully, and for a short time served in the army, but soon left it. After a time he was attached (in 1787) to the French embassy in London. Here he spent four years. Returning to France he sympathised, but on the moderate side, with the Revolution. The growth of the Jacobin spirit horrified him, and the excesses of the summer of 1792 decided his attitude and his fate. He wrote frequently in theJournal de Paris, the organ of the moderate royalist party. Although he did not in any way put himself forward, he was at last arrested in March, 1794, and was guillotined on the seventh Thermidor, two days only before the event which would have saved him, the fall of Robespierre. His poems were not published till long after his death, and the text of them is even now in an unsatisfactory condition, many having been left unfinished and uncorrected by the author. André Chénier is sometimes considered as a precursor of the Romantic reform, but this is a mistake. His critical comments on Shakespeare and other writers, his favourite studies, which were confined to the Greek and Latin classics and the humanists of the Italian Renaissance, above all his poems themselves, prove the contrary. A Greek by birthplace, and half a Greek by blood, his tastes and standards were wholly classical. But the fire and force of his poetical genius made the blood circulate afresh in the veins of the old French classical tradition, without, however, permanently strengthening or renovating it. The poetry of Chénier is still in the main the poetry of Racine, though with infinitely more glow of colour and variety of harmony. His poems are mostly antique in their titles and plan, eclogues, elegies, and so forth, and are not free from a certain artificiality inseparable from the style.La Jeune Tarentine,La Jeune Captive,L'Aveugle, and some others, are of extreme merit, and all overhis work (much of which is in the most fragmentary condition) lines and phrases of extraordinary beauty are scattered. The nobleIambes, or political and satirical poems, which he wrote in prison, just before his death, bear out, perhaps better than anything else, his well-known saying, as he touched his head when sentence had been passed, 'et pourtant il y avait quelque chose là.'

Minor Poets.

A few other poets or verse-makers of merit before the revival of poetry proper must be rapidly noticed. The fable of La Fontaine was cultivated vigorously, in particular by Florian, a favourite pupil of Voltaire, who will reappear in these pages. Florian's fables are graceful copies of his master. Those of Arnault, with less grace, have more originality; often, indeed, Arnault's short moral poems are not so much fables as what used to be called in English 'emblems.' The most famous of these, which of itself deserves to keep Arnault's memory green, is 'La Feuille.' Marie Joseph Chénier, the younger brother of André, and, unlike him, a fervent republican, is chiefly known as a dramatist. He had, however, a vein of satirical verse, which was not commonplace. Another dramatist, Andrieux, also deserves mention in passing. Superior to either of these as a poet, and wanting only the good-fortune of having been born a little later, was Nepomucène Lemercier, a playwright of no small merit, and a poet of extraordinary but unequal vigour. ThePanhypocrisiade, a kind of satirical epicpar personnages(to use the old French expression for a dramatic narrative), is his principal work, and a very remarkable one. Last of all have to be mentioned Fontanes and Chênedollé, who are the characteristic poets of the Empire, with the exception of an epic school of no value. The chief importance of Fontanes in literature is derived not from any performances of his own, but from the fact that he was the appointed intermediary between Napoleon and the men of letters of the time, and was able to exercise a good deal of useful patronage. Chênedollé was in production, if not in publication, for he published late in life, a precursor of Lamartine, much of whose style and manner may be found in him. An amiable appreciation of natural beauty, and a tendency to facile pathos, derived fromthe contemplation of natural objects, distinguish him from his predecessors.

Light verse. Piron.

Désaugiers.

The vigorous, if not always edifying, work of the song-writers and authors ofvers de sociétéduring this century remains to be noticed. The example of La Fontaine's tales was followed by many writers of more talent than scruple, but their literary value is not sufficient to entitle them to a place here. No history of French literature, however, would be complete without a notice of Piron, the greatest epigrammatist of France, and one of her keenest and brightest wits. Piron's temper was an idle one, and he did little solid work in literature, except his epigrams and one comedy,La Métromanie. He wrote many vaudevilles and operettas, and no one, with the possible exception of Catullus, has ever excelled him in the art of packing in a few light and graceful lines the greatest possible quantity of malicious wit. Panard, also a vaudevillist, is remarkable for the number and excellence of his drinking songs, and the variety and melody of their rhythm. Collé, author of amusing but spiteful memoirs, and, like Piron and Panard, a writer of comic operettas, excelled rather in the political chanson. Gentil Bernard, the Cardinal de Bernis, the Abbé Boufflers, and Dorat, were all writers ofvers de société, the last being much the best. Their style of writing was frivolous and conventional in the extreme, but long practice and the vogue which it enjoyed in French society had brought it to something like the condition of a fine art. Dorat was surnamed by a contemporary the 'glowworm of Parnassus.' The expression was not an unhappy one, and may be fairly applied to the other authors who have been mentioned in his company. He himself was a rather voluminous author in different styles. The literary baggage of the others is not heavy. Vadé, a writer of light and trifling verse, who died comparatively young, devoted himself to composing poems in the 'poissard' dialect of Paris, which are among the best of such things. At the close of the century, and deserving more particular notice, appeared Désaugiers, the best light song-writer of France, with the single exception of Béranger, and preferred to him by some critics. Désaugiers escaped therevolution by good fortune, had a short but rather adventurous career of foreign travel, and then settled down to vaudeville-writing, song-making, and jovial living in Paris. He was a great frequenter of the Caveau, a kind of irregular club of men of letters which had been instituted by Piron and his friends, and which long continued to be a literary and social rendezvous. Désaugiers was the last of the older class ofChansonniers, who relied chiefly on love and wine for their subjects, and who, if they touched on politics at all, touched on them merely from the personal and satirical point of view, with occasional indulgence in cheap patriotism. His songs have great sweetness and ease, but they contain nothing that can compare with Béranger in his more serious and pathetic mood[286].

This is a sketch, necessarily and designedly rapid, of the poetical history of the eighteenth century in France. The matter thus rapidly treated is of no small interest to professed students of literature; it abounds in curious social indications; it gives frequent instances of the extremest ingenuity applied to somewhat unworthy use. But in the history of the literature as a whole, and to those who have to regard it not as a collection of curiosities, but as a fruitful field of great and noble work, it cannot but be of subordinate interest, and as such requires but cursory treatment here[287].

FOOTNOTES:[284]Editions of almost all authors of any merit from the beginning of the eighteenth century are common and accessible enough. They will, therefore, not be specially indicated henceforward unless there is some special reason for the citation, such as the peculiar elegance or literary merit of a particular edition, or else the comparative rarity of the book in any form.[285]Chénier has been somewhat unfortunate in his editors. The only complete and accurate edition (though it is far from perfect) is that of M. Gabriel de Chénier. 3 vols. 1879.[286]Excellent selections from many of these lighter poets have recently been put forth under the editorship of M. Octave Uzanne.[287]Rouget de L'Isle, the author of the famousMarseillaise, deserves mention for that only. He published poems, but their singular difference from, and inferiority to, his masterpiece were the chief causes of the scepticism (apparently ill-founded) which has sometimes been displayed as to his authorship of it.

[284]Editions of almost all authors of any merit from the beginning of the eighteenth century are common and accessible enough. They will, therefore, not be specially indicated henceforward unless there is some special reason for the citation, such as the peculiar elegance or literary merit of a particular edition, or else the comparative rarity of the book in any form.

[285]Chénier has been somewhat unfortunate in his editors. The only complete and accurate edition (though it is far from perfect) is that of M. Gabriel de Chénier. 3 vols. 1879.

[286]Excellent selections from many of these lighter poets have recently been put forth under the editorship of M. Octave Uzanne.

[287]Rouget de L'Isle, the author of the famousMarseillaise, deserves mention for that only. He published poems, but their singular difference from, and inferiority to, his masterpiece were the chief causes of the scepticism (apparently ill-founded) which has sometimes been displayed as to his authorship of it.

Divisions of Drama.

La Motte.

At the beginning, and indeed during the whole course, of the eighteenth century, the theatre continued to enjoy all the vogue which the extraordinary brilliancy of the authors of the preceding age had conferred on it. There were three tolerably distinct kinds of dramatic work—tragedy, comedy, and opera—the latter either artificial or comic, and subdividing itself into a great many classes, from the dignified opera of the Comédie Française and the Comédie Italienne, down to the vaudevilles and operettas of the so-called 'fair' theatre,Théâtre de la Foire. Towards the middle of the century there grew up a fourth class, to which the not very appropriate and still less definite name ofdrameis applied. This was subdivided, also somewhat arbitrarily, intotragédie bourgeoiseandcomédie larmoyante. Thus the dramatic author had considerable liberty of choice except in tragedy proper, where the model of Racine was enforced on him with pitiless rigour. La Motte, who was, as has been said, a brilliant writer of prose, endeavoured to break these bonds, first, by decrying the alleged superiority of the ancients; secondly, by attacking the theory of the unities; and, lastly, by boldly denying the necessity of verse in tragedy, and still more the necessity of rhyme. He was, of course, answered, and the only one of the answers which has much interest for posterity is that which Voltaire prefixed to the second edition ofŒdipe. This is, as always with its author, lively and ingenious, but ill-informed, destitute of true critical principles, and entirely inconclusive. La Motte himself wrote a tragedy,Inès de Castro, in which he did not venture to carry out his own principles, and which had some success. But the justice of hisstrictures was best shown by the increasing feebleness of French tragedy throughout the century. Were it not for the prodigious genius of Voltaire, not a single tragedy of the age would now have much chance of being read, still less of being performed; and were it not for that genius, and the unequal but still remarkable talent of Crébillon the elder, not a single tragedy of the age would be worth reading for any motive except curiosity, simple or studious.

Crébillon the Elder.

Crébillon was born in 1674, and lived to the age of eighty-nine. His family name was Jolyot, and the most remarkable thing about his private history is, that, being clerk to a lawyer, he was enthusiastically encouraged by his master in his poetical attempts. His first acted tragedy,Idoménée, appeared in 1703; his last, 'The Triumvirate,' more than fifty years later. In the interval he was irregularly busy, and the duel of tragedies, which in his old age his partisans got up between him and Voltaire, was not entirely in favour of the more famous and gifted writer. Crébillon's best works wereAtrée, 1707, andRhadamiste et Zénobie, 1711, the latter being his masterpiece. He had in the eyes of the minute critics of his time some technical defects of style and construction. But, despite the restraints of the French stage, he succeeded in being truly tragical and truly natural; and not a few of his verses have a grandeur which has been said to be hardly discoverable elsewhere in French tragedy between Corneille and Hugo.

Voltaire and his followers.

Voltaire's own tragedies have been very differently judged by different persons. It has been said that they owed their popularity chiefly to the adroit manner in which, without going too far, the author made them opportunities for insinuating the popular opinions of the time. YetZaïreat least is still a successful and popular play on the stage; and it is admitted that Voltaire had both a most intimate acquaintance with the objects and methods of the playwright, and an extraordinary affection for the theatre. If to this be added his astonishing dexterity as a literary workman, his acuteness in discerning the taste of the public, and his complete mastery of the language, and if it be remembered that the classical Frenchtragedy is almost wholly atour de force, it will appear that it would have been very surprising if he had not succeeded in it. His tragedies, however, are by no means of equal merit. The best is, beyond all doubt, the already-mentionedZaïre, 1732, in which Voltaire took just so much from theOthelloof that Shakespeare whom he was never tired of decrying as would suffice to animate and support his own skilful workmanship. The earlier play,Œdipe, 1718, was astonishingly successful, and is still astonishingly clever.La Mort de César, another Shakespearian adaptation, is less happy. InAlzire, a play written in the time of the poet's greatest intimacy with Madame du Châtelet, and dedicated to her, his extraordinary talent once more appears, as also inLe Fanatisme, better known asMahomet, 1742. The best, however, of his plays, next toZaïre, is probablyMérope, 1743, which is a prodigy of ingenuity. The author has deliberately eschewed the means whereby both Corneille and Racine respectively alleviated the dryness and dulness of the Senecan model—the heroic virtues of the one, and the sighs and flames of the other. The play probably is the most perfect carrying out of the model pure and simple, and its inferiority is the inferiority of the kind, not of the individual. Indeed it may be questioned whether, on the mere technical merits, Voltaire is not superior to both Corneille and Racine, though he is of course very far inferior to them as a poet, and as a draughtsman of character. Voltaire wrote many other plays, earlier and later, of whichTancrèdeis the only one which requires special mention. Nor, except Crébillon, do the tragic contemporaries and successors of Voltaire require more than very short notice. Le Franc de Pompignan wrote a respectableDidon; Saurin, who was in some sort a follower of Voltaire, a more than respectableSpartacus. The subject had perhaps the chief part in the success of theSiège de Calaisof Pierre Burette, who called himself De Belloy, and who followed it up by other patriotic tragedies or dramas. But he had the merit of attempting, though not with much success, some innovations on the meagreness of the established model. The tragedies of La Harpe are written throughout with the cold correctness (as correctness was then held) which characterised his work generally.Almost all the men of letters of this time wrote plays of this kind, but they are for the most part valueless. Ducis is remarkable for a serious, and to a certain extent successful, attempt to inoculate the French tragedy with Shakespearian force. Versions ofHamlet, ofMacbeth, and other plays appeared from his hands, which were also busy during a long life with dramatic work of all sorts. These versions have naturally been regarded in England as mere travesties, but there seems no reason to doubt that they really operated favourably as schoolmasters to bring their audience somewhat nearer to dramatic truth. The classical tragedy was indeed expiring of simple old age, and most of the names of its practitioners, which emerge during the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth century, are those of innovators in their measure and degree, whose innovations, however, were obliterated and made forgotten by the great romantic reform. Marie Joseph Chénier followed Voltaire's manner very closely (substituting for Voltaire's bait of insinuated free-thinking that of republicanism more or less violently expressed) inCharles IX.,Cyrus,Caius Gracchus,Henry VIII.,Tibère, the last a work of some merit. Legouvé dramatised Gessner'sDeath of Abelon the principles of Boileau. Nepomucène Lemercier, the strange failure of a genius who has been already noticed in the last chapter, produced much more remarkable work. HisAgamemnon, hisFrédégonde et Brunehaultand some others display his merits, and show that he was striving after something better. But, like most transitional work, they are unsatisfactory as a whole. TheHectorof Luce de Lancival, theTempliersof Raynouard, and many other pieces, were once popular, but are now utterly forgotten.

Lesage.

The list of comic writers, along with whom, for convenience' sake, those of the authors of opera anddramemay be included, is far longer and more important. It includes two men, Lesage and Beaumarchais, of European reputation, half-a-dozen others, Destouches, Marivaux, Piron, Gresset, Sedaine, who have produced work of remarkable character and merit, and a crowd of clever playwrights who amused their own times, and would amuse ours, if it were not that all comedy, save the very highest, is of its nature ephemeral. The list is worthily opened by Lesage,who, during the greater part of his life, earned by vaudevilles and operettas, composed either alone or in co-operation for the Théâtre de la Foire, the bread which his incomparable novels would hardly have sufficed to procure him. This lighter dramatic work is, it may be observed, among the chief products of the century, and it has continued up to the present day to form one of the staple elements in the journey-work of French literature. Little of it has permanent qualities, yet the remarkable talents of many of the men who composed it make it, ephemeral as it is, interesting historically and even intrinsically. It derived partly from the indigenous farce, partly from the Italian comedy of stock personages, and partly from the merry-andrew performances already mentioned. The theatres at which it was performed were the object of much jealousy from the Comédie Française, and restrictions of the most annoying kind were placed on it. Once an edict forbade more than a single actor to appear—a condition surmounted by the ingenuity of Piron. Sometimes it was confined to dumb show, illustrated by songs on placards which the audience chanted. Often the audience joined in the chorus, and it may be said generally that singing was always included. Besides this rapid and perishable kind of work Lesage has left two pieces in the true style of Molière. The more extravagant and farcical side of the master's genius is represented byCrispin Rival de son Maître, 1707, a lively piece, the subject of which is indicated by its title, and which carries off the extreme and probably intentional improbability of its plot by its brisk and rapid action, its vivid pictures of character, and the shower of wit which the dialogue everywhere pours out.Turcaret, 1709, is a regular comedy of the highest merit. It has been found fault with by some French critics, enamoured of the ruling passion and central situation theory; but this is really a testimony to its merit.Turcaretis in the strictest sense a criticism of life at the time, and the author shows the true prodigality of genius in filling his canvas. It is often described as a satire on the corruption and vices of the financiers, who were the curse of France at the time; and this it is in part. But there are combined with this satire of the loose morals of the nobility, the follies of provincial coteries, the meanness of the trading classes; while eachcharacter, instead of being an abstraction, is as sharp and individual as Gil Blas himself. Like Lesage, Piron worked much for the theatre; indeed he made hisdébut, as has been said, by venturing on a task which even Lesage had declined,—the writing of a comic opera with a single actor only. Like Lesage, too, he has left one comedy of durable reputation,La Métromanie, which, if it falls short ofTurcaretin holding up the mirror to nature, equals it in wit, and has for a French audience the attraction of being written in very good verse, whileTurcaretis in prose. With perhaps less genius than Piron, and certainly with less than Lesage, Destouches devoted himself to a higher class of work on the whole, and has left more pieces that are remembered.Le Philosophe Marié, 1727, andLe Glorieux, 1732, are among the classics of French comedy.Le Dissipateur,Le Tambour Nocturne,L'Obstacle Imprévuhave also much merit; and ifLa Fausse Agnèshas something of the farcical in it, it is farce of the right kind. Destouches wrote seventeen comedies; and, if bulk and general merit of work are taken together, he deserves the first place among the comic dramatists of the century in France.

Comédie Larmoyante. La Chaussée. Diderot.

In contrast to these three writers, who all followed the traditions of the comedy of Molière and Regnard, Nivelle de la Chaussée invented, or at least brought into fashion, what was calledcomédie larmoyante, ordrame. La Chaussée was a good deal ridiculed by his contemporaries, notably by Piron, who devoted to him some of his most admirable epigrams. But he was popular, and not altogether undeservedly popular, though his drama occupied in French literary history something of the same place as that of Lillo and Moore in English. La Chaussée was followed by a greater writer, but a worse dramatist, than himself. While La Chaussée was a clever versifier and an adroit playwright, Diderot understood the theory both of poetry and of the theatre much better than he understood the practice. ThusL'École des Mères,La Gouvernante,Le Préjugé à la Modeare better plays thanLe Père de FamilleorLe Fils Naturel. It ought to be said that Diderot succeeded better in two small pieces,La Pièce et le PrologueandEst-il Bon? Est-il Méchant?which were never acted. It should perhaps alsobe explained that the peculiarity of what was almost indifferently calledtragédie bourgeoiseandcomédie larmoyanteis the choice of possible situations in real life, which neither of the two conventional treatments of heroic tragedy and comedy purely comic can afford. Many writers followed La Chaussée and Diderot. Of these the most important perhaps was Saurin, who, not content with regular tragedy and comedy, obtained much success withBeverley, an adaptation of Moore'sGamester, of which Diderot wrote an unacted version.

L'École des BourgeoisandL'Embarras des Richesses, by D'Allainval, one of the few French writers who experienced the privations of their English contemporaries in Grub Street, are good pieces, and so are the shortLa Pupilleand theOriginauxof Fagan, a clerk in the public service, who, like Lesage and Piron (Collé and Panard may be added), wrote vaudevilles,parades, etc. for the Théâtre de la Foire. In the titles of most of these pieces the close following of Molière, which was usual, and wisely usual, during the first half of the century, may be noticed.

Marivaux.

The same tradition is observed in one of the best comedies of the century, theMéchantof Gresset, which, like his poem ofVer-Vert, had a great success, and deserved it, being equally good as literature and as drama. Marivaux, without, perhaps, attaining as positive an excellence, was more original, and very much more productive. The fullest edition of his dramatic works contains thirty-two pieces, and even this is not complete. Several of them,Le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard, 1730,Le Legs, 1736,Les Fausses Confidences, 1737, have continued to be popular. All the work of Marivaux, dramatic and non-dramatic, is pervaded more or less by a peculiarity which at the time received the name of Marivaudage. This peculiarity consists partly in the sentiment, and partly in the phraseology. The former is characteristic of the eighteenth century, disguising a considerable affectation under a mask of simplicity, and the latter (sparkling with abundant, if somewhat precious wit) is ingeniously constructed to suit it and carry it off.

Of the three greatest literary names of the time, Diderot, it has been seen, tried the theatre not too happily. Voltaire, assuccessful in tragedy as his models permitted him to be, was not successful at all in comedy, and, indeed, rarely tried it. His best piece,Nanine, a dramatisation ofPamela, or at least suggested by it, is chiefly remarkable for being written in decasyllabic verse. The third, Rousseau, who lived to denounce the theatre, wrote a short operetta,Le Devin du Village, which is not without merit. Desmahis, a protégé of Voltaire, produced, in 1750, a good comedy,L'Impertinent, on a small scale; and La Noue, another of his favourites (for he was as indulgent to his juniors as he was jealous of men of his own standing), theCoquette Corrigée. A third member of the same class, Saurin, already twice mentioned, must be mentioned again, and still more deservedly, forLes Mœurs du Temps. The best dramatists, however, among the immediate followers of thePhilosopheswere Sedaine and Marmontel. Sedaine is, indeed, with the possible exception of Beaumarchais, the best dramatist of the last half of the century.Le Philosophe sans le Savoir, 1765, andLa Gageure Imprévue, 1768, are both admirable pieces. The author, like many of his predecessors, was a constant worker for the Opéra Comique, and one of the best of the class. Marmontel also adopted this line of composition, to which the musical talent of Grétry gave, at the time, great advantages. His best light dramatic work is a kind of comedy vaudeville, theAmi de la Maison.

Beaumarchais.

Beyond all doubt, however, the most remarkable, if not the best, dramatist of the late eighteenth century is Beaumarchais. Some critics have seen in the enormous success of theBarbier de Séville, 1775, and theMariage de Figaro, 1784, nothing but asuccès de circonstanceconnected with the political ideas which were then fermenting in men's minds. This seems to be unjust, or rather it is unjust not to recognise something very like genius in the manner in which the author has succeeded in shaping his subject, without choosing a specially political one, so as to produce the effect acknowledged. The wit of these two plays, moreover, is indisputable. But it may be allowed that Beaumarchais' other productions are inferior, and that hisMémoires, which are not dramatic at all, contain as much wit as the Figaro plays. As a satirist of society and a contributor ofillustrations to history, Beaumarchais must always hold a very high place, higher perhaps than as an artist in literature. Of his life, it is enough to say that he was born in 1731; became music master to the daughters of Louis XV.; engaged in a law-suit, the subject of theMémoires, with some high legal functionaries; made a fortune by speculating and by contracts in the American war, and lost it by further speculations, one of which was the preparation of a sumptuous edition of Voltaire. Besides the Figaro plays, his chief dramatic works areEugénie,Les Deux Amis, and lastly,La Mère Coupable, in which the characters of his two famous works reappear.

After Beaumarchais, but few comic authors demand mention. Collin d'Harleville, one of the pleasantest writers of light comedies in verse, producedLes Châteaux en Espagne,L'Inconstant,L'Optimiste, andLe Vieux Célibataire, 1792, all sparkling pieces, which only need freeing from the restraints of rhyme. Andrieux, the author ofLes Étourdis, 1787,Le Trésor,Le Vieux Fat, and others, has something of the same character. Nepomucène Lemercier distinguished himself in comedy, chiefly byPlaute, in irregular verse, and by a comedy-drama,Pinto, in prose. These have his usual characteristics of somewhat spasmodic genius. Fabre d'Eglantine, the companion of Danton and Camille Desmoulins on the scaffold, is better remembered for his death than for his life. But hisIntrigue EpistolaireandPhilinte de Molièreshew talent.Le Sourd, by Desforges, is an amusing play.

Characteristics of Eighteenth-century Drama.

It will be seen that the positive achievements of drama during this period were considerably superior to those of poetry. The tragedies of Voltaire are prodigies of literary cleverness. In comedy proper Lesage produced work of enduring value; Destouches, Marivaux, Piron, Gresset, and some others, work which does not require any very great indulgence to entitle it to the name, in the right sense, of classical; Beaumarchais, work which is indissolubly connected with great historical events, and which is not unworthy the connection. Moreover, as a matter of general literary history, the drama during this time displays numerous evidences of life and promise, as well as of decadence. Thegradual recognition of the vaudeville as a separate literary kind gave occasion to much work, the ephemeral character of which should not be allowed to obscure its real literary excellence, and founded a school which is still living and flourishing with by no means simulated life. The attempt of La Chaussée and Diderot to widen the range and break down the barriers of legitimate drama was premature, and not altogether well directed; but it was the forerunner of the great and durable reaction of nearly a century later. Still the actual dramatic accomplishment of this period, though in many ways interesting, and to a certain extent positively valuable, is not of the first class. It is made up either of clever imitations and variations of modes which had already been expressed with greater perfection, and with far greater genius, by the preceding century, or of what may be fairly called dramatic pamphleteering, or else of tentative and immature experiments in reform, which came to nothing, or to very little, for the time being. Even its most gifted practitioners regarded it as a kind of journey-work, which was understood to lead to honour and profit, rather than as an art, in which honour and profit, if not entirely to be ignored, are altogether secondary considerations. Hence, in a lesser degree, the drama of the eighteenth century shares the same disadvantage which has been noted as characterising its poetry. Its value is a value of curiosity chiefly, a relative value. Indeed, as a mere mechanical art, drama sank even lower than poetry proper ever sank; and for fifty years at least before the romantic revival it may be doubted whether a single play was written, the destruction of which need greatly grieve even the most sensitive and appreciative student of French literary history.

The peculiarity of the eighteenth century in France as regards literature——that is to say, the application of great talents to almost every branch of literary production without the result of a distinct original growth in any one department——is nowhere more noticeable than in the department of prose fiction[288]. The names of Lesage, Prévost, Marivaux, Voltaire, Rousseau, are deservedly recorded among the list of the best novel writers. Yet, with the exception ofManon Lescaut, which for the time had no imitators, of the great works of Lesage which, admirable in execution, were by no means original in conception, and of the exquisite but comparatively insignificant variety of the proseConte, of which Voltaire was the chief practitioner, nothing in the nature of a masterpiece, still less anything in the nature of an epoch-making work, was composed. The example ofManonwas left for the nineteenth century to develop, the others either died out (the adventure romance,after Lesage's model, flourishing brilliantly in England, but hardly at all in France), or else were subordinated to a purpose, the purpose of advocatingphilosopheviews, or of pandering to the not very healthy cravings of an altogether artificial society. Yet, so far as merely literary merits are concerned, few branches of literature were more fertile than this during the period.

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