The epistles and satires are among the best of their kind, the verse tales are in the same way admirable, and the epigrams, impromptus, and short miscellaneous poems generally are thene plus ultraof verse which is not poetry. The Anglomania of the century extended into poetry, and theSeasonsof Thomson set the example of a whole library of tedious descriptive verse, which in its turn revenged France upon England by producing or helping to produce English poems of the Darwin school. The first of these descriptive performances was theSaisonsof Jean François de Saint-Lambert (1716-1803), identical in title with its model, but of infinitely inferior value. Saint-Lambert was followed by Jacques Delille (1738-1813) inLes Jardins, Antoine Marin le Mierre (1723-1793) inLes Fastes, and Jean Antoine Roucher (1745-1794) inLes Mois. Indeed, everything that could be described was seized upon by these describers. Delille also translated theGeorgics, and for a time was the greatest living poet of France, the title being only disputed by Escouchard le Brun (1729-1807), a lyrist and ode writer of the school of J. B. Rousseau, but not destitute of energy. The only other poets until Chénier who deserve notice are Nicolas Gilbert (1751-1780)—the French Chatterton, or perhaps rather the French Oldham, who died in a workhouse at twenty-nine after producing some vigorous satires and, at the point of death, an elegy of great beauty; Jacques Charles Louis Clinchaut de Malfilâtre (1732-1767), another short-lived poet whose “Ode to the Sun” has a certain stateliness; and Jean Baptiste Gresset (1709-1777), the author ofVer-Vertand of other poems of the lighter order, which are not far, if at all, below theChénier.level of Voltaire. André Chénier (1762-1794) stands far apart from the art of his century, though the strong chain of custom, and his early death by the guillotine, prevented him from breaking finally through the restraints of its language and its versification. Chénier, half a Greek by blood, was wholly one in spirit and sentiment. The manner of his verses, the very air which surrounds them and which they diffuse, are different from those of the 18th century; and his poetry is probably the utmost that its language and versification could produce. To do more, the revolution which followed a generation after his death was required.
18th-Century Drama.—The results of the cultivation of dramatic poetry at this time were even less individually remarkable than those of the attention paid to poetry proper. Here again the astonishing power and literary aptitude of Voltaire gave value to his attempts in a style which, notwithstanding that it counts Racine among its practitioners, was none the less predestined to failure. Voltaire’s own efforts in this kind are indisputably as successful as they could be. Foreigners usually preferMahometandZaïretoBajazetandMithridate, though there is no doubt that no work of Voltaire’s comes up toPolyeucteandRodogune, as certainly no single passage in any of his plays can approach the best passages ofCinnaandLes Horaces. But the remaining tragic writers of the century, with the single exception of Crébillonpère, are scarcely third-rate. C. Jolyot de Crébillon (1674-1762) himself had genius, and there are to be found in his work evidences of a spirit which had seemed to die away withSaint-Genest, and was hardly to revive untilHernani. Of the imitators of Racine and Voltaire, La Motte inInés de Castrowas not wholly unsuccessful. François Joseph de la Grange-Chancel (1677-1758) copied chiefly the worst side of the author ofBritannicus, and Bernard Joseph Saurin (1706-1781) and Pierre-Laurent de Belloy (1727-1775) performed the same service for Voltaire. Le Mierre and La Harpe, mentioned and to be mentioned, were tragedians; but theIphigénie en Taurideof Guimond de la Touche (1725-1760) deserves more special mention than anything of theirs. There was an infinity of tragic writers and tragic plays in this century, but hardly any others of them even deserve mention. The muse of comedy was decidedly more happy in her devotees. Molière was a far safer if a more difficult model than Racine, and the inexorable fashion which had bound down tragedy to a feeble imitation of Euripides did not similarly prescribe an undeviating adherence to Terence. Tragedy had never been, has scarcely been since, anything but an exotic in France; comedy was of thesoil and native. Very early In the century Alain René le Sage (1668-1747), in the admirable comedy ofTurcaret, produced a work not unworthy to stand by the side of all but his master’s best. Philippe Destouches (1680-1754) was also a fertile comedy writer in the early years of the century, and inLe GlorieuxandLe Philosophe mariéachieved considerable success. As the age went on, comedy, always apt to lay hold of passing events, devoted itself to the great struggle between the Philosophes and their opponents. Curiously enough, the party which engrossed almost all the wit of France had the worst of it in this dramatic portion of the contest, if in no other. TheMéchantof Gresset and theMétromanieof Alexis Piron (1689-1773) were far superior to anything produced on the other side, and thePhilosophesof Charles Palissot de Montenoy (1730-1814), though scurrilous and broadly farcical, had a great success. On the other hand, it was to a Philosophe that the invention of a new dramatic style was due, and still more the promulgation of certain ideas on dramatic criticism and construction, which, after being filtered through the German mind, were to return to France and to exercise the most powerful influence on its dramatic productions.Diderot (plays).This was Denis Diderot (1713-1784), the most fertile genius of the century, but also the least productive in finished and perfect work. His chief dramas, theFils natureland thePère de famille, are certainly not great successes; the shorter plays,Est-il bon?est-il méchant?andLa Pièce et le prologue, are better. But it was his follower Michel Jean Sédaine (1719-1797) who, inLe Philosophe sans le savoirand other pieces, produced the best examples of the bourgeois as opposed to the heroic drama. Diderot is sometimes credited or discredited with the invention of theComédie Larmoyante, a title which indeed his own plays do not altogether refuse, but this special variety seems to be, in its invention, rather the property of Pierre Claude Nivelle de la Chaussée (1692-1754). Comedy sustained itself, and even gained ground towards the end of the century; theJeune Indienneof Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794), if not quite worthy of its author’s brilliant talent in other paths, is noteworthy, and so is theBillet perduof Joseph François Edouard de Corsembleu Desmahis (1722-1761), while at the extreme limit of our present period there appears the remarkable figure of Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799). TheMariage de Figaroand theBarbier de Sévilleare well known as having had attributed to them no mean place among the literary causes and forerunners of the Revolution. Their dramatic and literary value would itself have sufficed to obtain attention for them at any time, though there can be no doubt that their popularity was mainly due to their political appositeness. The most remarkable point about them, as about the school of comedy of which Congreve was the chief master in England at the beginning of the century, was the abuse and superfluity of wit in the dialogue, indiscriminately allotted to all characters alike. It is difficult to give particulars, but would be improper to omit all mention, of such dramatic or quasi-dramatic work as the libretti of operas, farces for performance at fairs and the like. French authors of the time from Le Sage downwards usually managed these with remarkable skill.
18th-Century Fiction.—With prose fiction the case was altogether different. We have seen how the short tale of a few pages had already in the 16th century attained high if not the highest excellence; how at three different periods the fancy for long-winded prose narration developed itself in the prose rehandlings of the chivalric poems, in theAmadisromances, and in the portentous recitals of Gomberville and La Calprenède; how burlesques of these romances were produced from Rabelais to Scarron; and how at last Madame de Lafayette showed the way to something like the novel of the day. If we add the fairy story, of which Perrault and Madame d’Aulnoy were the chief practitioners, and a small class of miniature romances, of whichAucassin et Nicolettein the 13th, and the delightfulJehan de Paris(of the 15th or 16th, in which a king of England is patriotically sacrificed) are good representatives, we shall have exhausted the list. The 18th century was quick to develop the system of the author of thePrincesse de Clèves, but it did not abandon the cultivation of the romance, that is to say, fiction dealing with incident and with the simpler passions, in devoting itself to the novel, that is to say, fiction dealing with the analysis of sentiment and character. Le Sage, its first great novelist, in hisDiable boiteuxandGil Blas, went to Spain not merely for his subject but also for his inspiration and manner, following the lead of the picaroon romance of Rojas and Scarron. Like Fielding, however, whom he much resembles, Le Sage mingled with the romance of incident the most careful attention to character and the most lively portrayal of it, while his style and language are such as to make his work one of the classics of French literature. The novel of character was really founded in France by the abbé Prévost d’Exilles (1697-1763), the author ofClevelandand of the incomparableManon Lescaut. The popularity of this style was much helped by the immense vogue in France of the works of Richardson. Side by side with it, however, and for a time enjoying still greater popularity, there flourished a very different school of fiction, of which Voltaire, whose name occupies the first or all but the first place in every branch of literature of his time, was the most brilliant cultivator. This was a direct development of the earlierconte, and consisted usually of the treatment, in a humorous, satirical, and not always over-decent fashion, of contemporary foibles, beliefs, philosophies and occupations. These tales are of every rank of excellence and merit both literary and moral, and range from the astonishing wit, grace and humour ofCandideandZadigto the book which is Diderot’s one hardly pardonable sin, and the similar but more lively efforts of Crébillonfils(1707-1777). These latter deeps led in their turn to the still lower depths of La Clos and Louvet. A third class of 18th-century fiction consists of attempts to return to the humorousfatrasieof the 16th century, attempts which were as much influenced by Sterne as the sentimental novel was by Richardson. TheHomme aux quarante écusof Voltaire has something of this character, but the most characteristic works of the style are theJacques le fatalisteof Diderot, which shows it nearly at its best, and theCompère Mathieu, sometimes attributed to Pigault-Lebrun (1753-1835), but no doubt in reality due to Jacques du Laurens (1719-1797), which shows it at perhaps its worst. Another remarkable story-teller was Cazotte (1719-1792), whoseDiable amoureuxdisplays much fantastic power, and connects itself with a singular fancy of the time for occult studies anddiablerie, manifested later by the patronage shown to Cagliostro, Mesmer, St Germain and others. In this connexion, too, may perhaps also be mentioned most appropriatelyRestifde la Bretonne, a remarkably original and voluminous writer, who was little noticed by his contemporaries and successors for the best part of a century. Restif, who was nicknamed the “Rousseau of the gutter,”Rousseau du ruisseau, presents to an English imagination many of the characteristics of a non-moral Defoe. While these various schools busied themselves more or less with real life seriously depicted or purposely travestied, the great vogue and success ofTélémaqueproduced a certain number of didactic works, in which moral or historical information was sought to be conveyed under a more or less thin guise of fiction. Such was theVoyage du jeune Anacharsisof Jean Jacques Barthélemy (1716-1795); such theNuma PompiliusandGonzalve de Cordoueof Florian (1755-1794), who also deserves notice as a writer of pastorals, fables and short prose tales; such theBélisaireandLes Incasof Jean François Marmontel (1723-1799). Between this class and that of the novel of sentiment may perhaps be placedPaul et VirginieandLa Chaumière indienne; though Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) should more properly be noticed after Rousseau and as a moralist. Diderot’s fiction-writing has already been referred to more than once, but hisReligieusedeserves citation here as a powerful specimen of the novel both of analysis and polemic; while his undoubted masterpiece, theNeveu de Rameau, though very difficult to class, comes under this head as well as under any other. There are, however, two of the novelists of this age, and of the most remarkable, who have yet to be noticed, and these are the author ofMarianneand the author ofJulie. We donot mention Pierre de Marivaux (1688-1763) in this connexion as the equal of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), but merely as being in his way almost equally original and equally remote from any suspicion of school influence. He began with burlesque writing, and was also the author of several comedies, of whichLes Fausses Confidencesis the principal. But it is in prose fiction that he really excels. He may claim to have, at least in the opinion of his contemporaries, invented a style, though perhaps the termmarivaudage, which was applied to it, has a not altogether complimentary connotation. He may claim also to have invented the novel without a purpose, which aims simply at amusement, and at the same time does not seek to attain that end by buffoonery or by satire. Gray’s definition of happiness, “to lie on a sofa and read endless novels by Marivaux” (it is true that he added Crébillon), is well known, and the production of mere pastime by means more or less harmless has since become so well-recognized a function of the novelist that Marivaux, as one of the earliest to discharge it, deserves notice. The name,J. J. Rousseau.however, of Jean Jacques Rousseau is of far different importance. His two great works, theNouvelle HéloïseandÉmile, are as far as possible from being perfect as novels. But no novels in the world have ever had such influence as these. To a great extent this influence was due mainly to their attractions as novels, imperfect though they may be in this character, but it was beyond dispute also owing to the doctrines which they contained, and which were exhibited in novel form.
Such are the principal developments of fiction during the century; but it is remarkable that, varied as they were, and excellent as was some of the work to which they gave rise, none of these schools was directly very fertile in results or successors. The period with which we shall next have to deal, that from the outbreak of the Revolution to the death of Louis XVIII., is curiously barren of fiction of any merit. It was not till English influence began again to assert itself in the later days of the Restoration that the prose romance began once more to be written.
18th-Century History.—It is not, however, in any of the departments ofbelles-lettresthat the real eminence of the 18th century as a time of literary production in France consists. In all serious branches of study its accomplishments were, from a literary point of view, remarkable, uniting as it did an extraordinary power of popular and literary expression with an ardent spirit of inquiry, a great speculative ability, and even a far more considerable amount of laborious erudition than is generally supposed. The historical studies and results of 18th-century speculation in France are of especial and peculiar importance. There is no doubt that what is called the science of history dates from this time, and though the beginning of it is usually assigned to the Italian Vico, its complete indication may perhaps with equal or greater justice be claimed by the Frenchman Turgot. Before Turgot, however, there were great names in French historical writing, and perhaps the greatest of all is that of Charles Secondat de Montesquieu (1689-1755). The three principal works of this great writer are all historical and at the same time political in character. In theLettres persaneshe handled, with wit inferior to the wit of no other writer even in that witty age, the corruptions and dangers of contemporary morals and politics. The literary charm of this book—the plan of which was suggested by a work, theAmusements sérieux et comiques, of Dufresny (1648-1724), a comic writer not destitute of merit—is very great, and its plan was so popular as to lead to a thousand imitations, of which all, except those of Voltaire and Goldsmith, only bring out the immense superiority of the original. Few things could be more different from this lively and popular book than Montesquieu’s next work, theGrandeur et décadence des Romains, in which the same acuteness and knowledge of human nature are united with considerable erudition, and with a weighty though perhaps somewhat grandiloquent and rhetorical style. His third and greatest work, theEsprit des lois, is again different both in style and character, and such defects as it has are as nothing when compared with the merits of its fertility in ideas, its splendid breadth of view, and the felicity with which the author, in a manner unknown before, recognizes the laws underlying complicated assemblages of fact. The style of this great work is equal to its substance; less light than that of theLettres, less rhetorical than that of theGrandeur des Romains, it is still a marvellous union of dignity and wit. Around Montesquieu, partly before and partly after him, is a group of philosophical or at least systematic historians, of whom the chief are Jean Baptiste Dubos (1670-1742), and G. Bonnot de Mably (1709-1785). Dubos, whose chief work is not historical but aesthetic (Réflexions sur la poésie et la peinture), wrote a so-calledHistoire critique de l’établissement de la monarchie française, which is as far as possible from being in the modern sense critical, inasmuch as, in the teeth of history, and in order to exalt theTiers état, it pretends an amicable coalition of Franks and Gauls, and not an irruption by the former. Mably (Observations sur l’histoire de la France) had a much greater influence than either of these writers, and a decidedly mischievous one, especially at the period of the Revolution. He, more than any one else, is responsible for the ignorant and childish extolling of Greek and Roman institutions, and the still more ignorant depreciation of the middle ages, which was for a time characteristic of French politicians. Montesquieu was, as we have said, followed by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-1781), whose writings are few in number, and not remarkable for style, but full of original thought. Turgot in his turn was followed by Condorcet (1743-1794), whose tendency is somewhat more sociological than directly historical. Towards the end of the period, too, a considerable number of philosophical histories were written, the usual object of which was, under cover of a kind of allegory, to satirize and attack the existing institutions and government of France. The most famous of these was theHistoire des Indes, nominally written by the Abbé Guillaume Thomas François Raynal (1713-1796), but really the joint work of many members of the Philosophe party, especially Diderot. Side by side with this really or nominally philosophical school of history there existed another and less ambitious school, which contented itself with the older and simpler view of the science. The Abbé René de Vertot (1655-1735) belongs almost as much to the 17th as to the 18th century; but his principal works, especially the famousHistoire des Chevaliers de Malte, date from the later period, as do also theRévolutions romaines. Vertot is above all things a literary historian, and the well-known “Mon siège est fait,” whether true or not, certainly expresses his system. Of the same school, though far more comprehensive, was the laborious Charles Rollin (1661-1741), whose works in the original, or translated and continued in the case of theHistoire romaineby Jean Baptiste Louis Crévier (1693-1765), were long the chief historical manuals of Europe. The president Charles Jean François Hénault (1685-1770), and Louis Pierre Anquetil (1723-1806) were praiseworthy writers, the first of French history, the second of that and much else. In the same class, too, far superior as is his literary power, must be ranked the historical works of Voltaire,Charles XII.,Pierre le Grand, &c. A very perfect example of the historian who is literary first of all is supplied by Claude Carloman de Rulhière (1735-1791), whoseRévolution en Russie en 1762is one of the little masterpieces of history, while his larger and posthumous work on the last days of the Polish kingdom exhibits perhaps some of the defects of this class of historians. Lastly must be mentioned the memoirs and correspondence of the period, the materials of history if not history itself. The century opened with the most famous of all these, the memoirs of the duc de Saint-Simon (1675-1755), an extraordinary series of pictures of the court of Louis XIV. and the Regency, written in an unequal and incorrect style, but with something of the irregular excellence of the great 16th-century writers, and most striking in the sombre bitterness of its tone. The subsequent and less remarkable memoirs of the century are so numerous that it is almost impossible to select a few for reference, and altogether impossible to mention all. Of those bearing on public history the memoirs of Madame de Staël (Mlle Delaunay) (1684-1750), of PierreLouis de Voyer, marquis d’Argenson (1694-1757), of Charles Pinot Duclos (1704-1772), of Stephanie Félicité de Saint-Aubin, Madame de Genlis (1746-1830), of Pierre Victor de Bésenval (1722-1791), of Madame Campan (1752-1822) and of the cardinal de Bernis (1715-1794), may perhaps be selected for mention; of those bearing on literary and private history, the memoirs of Madame d’Épinay (1726-1783), those of Mathieu Marais (1664-1737) the so-calledMémoires secretsof Louis Petit de Bachaumont (1690-1770), and the innumerable writings having reference to Voltaire and to the Philosophe party generally. Here, too, may be mentioned a remarkable class of literature, consisting of purely private and almost confidential letters, which were written at this time with very remarkable literary excellence. As specimens may be selected those of Mademoiselle Aissé (1694-1757), which are models of easy and unaffected tenderness, and those of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse (1732-1776) the companion of Madame du Deffand and afterwards of d’Alembert. These latter, in their extraordinary fervour and passion, not merely contrast strongly with the generally languid and frivolous gallantry of the age, but also constitute one of its most remarkable literary monuments. It has been said of them that they “burn the paper,” and the expression is not exaggerated. Madame du Deffand’s (1697-1780) own letters, many of which were written to Horace Walpole, are noteworthy in a very different way. Of lighter letters the charming correspondence of Diderot with Mademoiselle Voland deserves special mention. But the correspondence, like the memoirs of this century, defies justice to be done to it in any cursory or limited mention. In this connexion, however, it may be well to mention some of the most remarkable works of the time, theConfessions,Rêveries, andPromenades d’un solitaireof Rousseau. In these works, especially in theConfessions, there is not merely exhibited passion as fervid though perhaps less unaffected than that of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse—there appear in them two literary characteristics which, if not entirely novel, were for the first time brought out deliberately by powers of the first order, were for the first time made the mainspring of literary interest, and thereby set an example which for more than a century has been persistently followed, and which has produced some of the finest results of modern literature. The first of these was the elaborate and unsparing analysis and display of the motives, the weaknesses and the failings of individual character. This process, which Rousseau unflinchingly performed on himself, has been followed usually in respect to fictitious characters by his successors. The other novelty was the feeling for natural beauty and the elaborate description of it, the credit of which latter must, it has been agreed by all impartial critics, be assigned rather to Rousseau than to any other writer. His influence in this direction was, however, soon taken up and continued by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the connecting link between Rousseau and Chateaubriand, some of whose works have been already alluded to. In particular the author ofPaul et Virginieset himself to develop the example of description which Rousseau had set, and his word-paintings, though less powerful than those of his model, are more abundant, more elaborate, and animated by a more amiable spirit.
18th-Century Philosophy.—The Anglomania which distinguished the time was nowhere morestronglyshown than in the cast and direction of its philosophical speculations. As Montesquieu and Voltaire had imported into France a vivid theoretical admiration for the British constitution and for British theories in politics, so Voltaire, Diderot and a crowd of others popularized and continued in France the philosophical ideas of Hobbes and Locke and even Berkeley, the theological ideas of Bolingbroke, Shaftesbury and the English deists, and the physical discoveries of Newton. Descartes, Frenchman and genius as he was, and though his principles in physics and philosophy were long clung to in the schools, was completely abandoned by the more adventurous and progressive spirits. At no time indeed, owing to the confusion of thought and purpose to which we have already alluded, was the word philosophy used with greater looseness than at this time. Using it, as we have hitherto used it, in the sense of metaphysics, the majority of the Philosophes have very little claim to their title. There were some who manifested, however, an aptitude for purely philosophical argument, and one who confined himself strictly thereto. Among these the most remarkable are Julien Offroy de la Mettrie (1709-1751) and Denis Diderot. La Mettrie in his worksL’Homme machine,L’Homme plante, &c., applied a lively and vigorous imagination, a considerable familiarity with physics and medicine, and a brilliant but unequal style, to the task of advocating materialistic ideas on the constitution of man. Diderot, in a series of early works,Lettre sur les aveugles,Promenade d’un sceptique,Pensées philosophiques, &c., exhibited a good acquaintance with philosophical history and opinion, and gave sign in this direction, as in so many others, of a far-reaching intellect. As in almost all his works, however, the value of the thought is extremely unequal, while the different pieces, always written in the hottest haste, and never duly matured or corrected, present but few specimens of finished and polished writing. Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), a Swiss of Geneva, wrote a large number of works, many of which are purely scientific. Others, however, are more psychological, and these, though advocating the materialistic philosophy generally in vogue, were remarkable for uniting materialism with an honest adherence to Christianity. The half mystical writer, Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (1743-1803) also deserves notice. But the French metaphysician of the century is undoubtedly Étienne Bonnot, abbé deCondillac.Condillac (1714-1780), almost the only writer of the time in France who succeeded in keeping strictly to philosophy without attempting to pursue his system to its results in ethics, politics and theology. In theTraité des sensations, theEssai sur l’origine des connaissances humainesand other works Condillac elaborated and continued the imperfect sensationalism of Locke. As his philosophical view, though perhaps more restricted, was far more direct, consecutive and uncompromising than that of the Englishman, so his style greatly exceeded Locke’s in clearness and elegance and as a good medium of philosophical expression.
18th-Century Theology.—To devote a section to the history of the theological literature of the 18th century in France may seem something of a contradiction; for, indeed, all or most of such literature was anti-theological. The magnificent list of names which the church had been able to claim on her side in the 17th century was exhausted before the end of the second quarter of the 18th with Massillon, and none came to fill their place. Very rarely has orthodoxy been so badly defended as at this time. The literary championship of the church was entirely in the hands of the Jesuits, and of a few disreputable literary freelances like Élie Fréron (1719-1776) and Pierre François Guyot, abbé Desfontaines (1685-1745). The Jesuits were learned enough, and their principal journal, that of Trévoux, was conducted with much vigour and a great deal of erudition. But they were in the first place discredited by the moral taint which has always hung over Jesuitism, and in the second place by the persecutions of the Jansenists and the Protestants, which were attributed to their influence. But one single work on the orthodox side has preserved the least reputation; while, on the other hand, the names of Père Nonotte (1711-1793) and several of his fellows have been enshrined unenviably in the imperishable ridicule of Voltaire, one only of whose adversaries, the abbé Antoine Guénée (1717-1803), was able to meet him in theLettres de quelques Juifswith something like his own weapons. It has never been at all accuratelyVoltaire (theology).decided how far what may be called the scoffing school of Voltaire represents a direct revolt against Christianity, and how far it was merely a kind of guerilla warfare against the clergy. It is positively certain that Voltaire was not an atheist, and that he did not approve of atheism. But hisDictionnaire philosophique, which is typical of a vast amount of contemporary and subsequent literature, consists of a heterogeneous assemblage of articles directed against various points of dogma and ritual and various characteristics of the sacred records. From the literary point of view, it is one of the most characteristic of all Voltaire’s works, though it is perhaps not entirely his. The desultory arrangement, the lightand lively style, the extensive but not always too accurate erudition, and the somewhat captious and quibbling objections, are intensely Voltairian. But there is little seriousness about it, and certainly no kind of rancorous or deep-seated hostility. With many, however, of Voltaire’s pupils and younger contemporaries the case was altered. They were distinctively atheists and anti-supernaturalists. The atheism of Diderot, unquestionably the greatest of them all, has been keenly debated; but in the case of Étienne Damilaville (1723-1768), Jacques André Naigeon (1738-1810), Paul Henri Dietrich, baron d’Holbach, and others there is no room for doubt. By these persons a great mass of atheistic and anti-Christian literature was composed and set afloat. The characteristic work of this school, its lastThe “System of Nature.”word indeed, is the famousSystème de la nature, attributed to Holbach (1723-1789), but known to be, in part at least, the work of Diderot. In this remarkable work, which caps the climax of the metaphysical materialism or rather nihilism of the century, the atheistic position is clearly put. It made an immense sensation; and it so fluttered not merely the orthodox but the more moderate freethinkers, that Frederick of Prussia and Voltaire, perhaps the most singular pair of defenders that orthodoxy ever had, actually set themselves to refute it. Its style and argument are very unequal, as books written in collaboration are apt to be, and especially books in which Diderot, the paragon of inequality, had a hand. But there is an almost entire absence of the heterogeneous assemblage of anecdotes, jokes good and bad, scraps of accurate or inaccurate physical science, and other incongruous matter with which the Philosophes were wont to stuff their works; and lastly, there is in the best passages a kind of sombre grandeur which recalls the manner as well as the matter of Lucretius. It is perhaps well to repeat, in the case of so notorious a book, that this criticism is of a purely literary and formal character; but there is little doubt that the literary merits of the work considerably assisted its didactic influence. As the Revolution approached, and the victory of the Philosophe party was declared, there appeared for a brief space a group of cynical and accomplished phrase-makers presenting some similarity to that of which, a hundred years before, Saint-Évremond was the most prominent figure. The chief of this group wereChamfort. Rivarol.Nicolas Chamfort (1747-1794) on the republican side, and Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801) on that of the royalists. Like the older writer to whom we have compared them, neither can be said to have produced any one work of eminence, and in this they stand distinguished from moralists like La Rochefoucauld. The floating sayings, however, which are attributed to them, or which occur here and there in their miscellaneous work, yield in no respect to those of the most famous of their predecessors in wit and a certain kind of wisdom, though they are frequently more personal than aphoristic.
18th-Century Moralists and Politicians.—Not the least part, however, of the energy of the period in thought and writing was devoted to questions of a directly moral and political kind. With regard to morality proper the favourite doctrine of the century was what is commonly called the selfish theory, the only one indeed which was suitable to the sensationalism of Condillac and the materialism of Holbach. The pattern book of thisHelvétius.doctrine was theDe l’espritof Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715-1771), the most amusing book perhaps which ever pretended to the title of a solemn philosophical treatise. There is some analogy between the principles of this work and those of theSystème de la nature. With the inconsistency—some would say with the questionable honesty—which distinguished the more famous members of the Philosophe party when their disciples spoke with what they considered imprudent outspokenness, Voltaire and even Diderot attacked Helvétius as the former afterwards attacked Holbach. But whatever may be the general value ofDe l’esprit, it is full of acuteness, thoughThomas.that acuteness is as desultory and disjointed as its style. As Helvétius may be taken as the representative author of the cynical school, so perhaps Alexandre Gérard Thomas (1732-1785) may be taken as representative of the votaries of noble sentiment to whom we have also alluded. The works of Thomas chiefly took the form of academicélogesor formal panegyrics, and they have all the defects, both in manner and substance, which are associated with that style. Of yet a third school, corresponding in form to La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère, and possessed of some of the antique vigour of preceding centuries, was Luc de Clapiers, marquis deVauvenargues.Vauvenargues (1715-1747). This writer, who died very young, has produced maxims and reflections of considerable mental force and literary finish. From Voltaire downwards it has been usual to compare him with Pascal, from whom he is chiefly distinguished by a striking but somewhat empty stoicism. Between the moralists, of whom we have taken these three as examples, and the politicians may be placed Rousseau, who in his novels and miscellaneous works is of the first class, in his famousContrat socialof the second. All his theories, whatever their originality and whatever their value, were made novel and influential by the force of their statement and the literary beauties of its form. Of direct and avowed political writings there were few during the century, and none of anything like the importance of theContrat social, theoretical acceptance of the established French constitution being a point of necessity with all Frenchmen. Nevertheless it may be said that almost the whole of the voluminous writings of the Philosophes, even of those who, like Voltaire, were sincerely aristocratic and monarchic in predilection, were of more or less veiled political significance. There was one branch of political writing, moreover, which could be indulged in without much fear. Political economy and administrative theories received much attention. The earliest writer of eminence on these subjects was the great engineer Sébastien le Prestre, marquis de Vauban (1633-1707), whoseOisivetésandDîme royaleexhibit both great ability and extensive observation. A more utopian economist of the same time was Charles Irénée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658-1743), not to be confounded with the author ofPaul et Virginie. Soon political economy in the hands of François Quesnay (1694-1774) took a regular form, and towards the middle of the century a great number of works on questions connected with it, especially that of free trade in corn, on which Ferdinand Galiani (1728-1787), André Morellet (1727-1819), both abbés, and above all Turgot, distinguished themselves. Of writers on legal subjects and of the legal profession, the century, though not less fertile than in other directions, produced few or none of any great importance from the literary point of view. The chief name which in this connexion is known is that of Chancellor Henri François d’Aguesseau (1668-1751), at the beginning of the century, an estimable writer of the Port Royal school, who took the orthodox side in the great disputes of the time, but failed to display any great ability therein. He was, as became his profession, more remarkable as an orator than a writer, and his works contain valuable testimonies to the especially perturbed and unquiet condition of his century—a disquiet which is perhaps also its chief literary note. There were other French magistrates, such as Montesquieu, Hénault (1685-1770), de Brosses (1706-1773) and others, who made considerable mark in literature; but it was usually (except in the case of Montesquieu) in subjects not even indirectly connected with their profession. TheEsprit des loisstands alone; but as an example of work barristerial in kind, famous partly for political reasons but of some real literary merit, we may mention theMémoirefor Calas written by J. B. J. Élie de Beaumont (1732-1786).
18th-century Criticism and Periodical Literature.—We have said that literary criticism assumes in this century a sufficient importance to be treated under a separate heading. Contributions were made to it of many different kinds and from many different points of view. Periodical literature, the chief stimulus to its production, began more and more to come into favour. Even in the 17th century theJournal des savants, the JesuitJournal de Trévoux, and other publications had set the example of different kinds of it. Just before the Revolution theGazette de Francewas in the hands of J. B. A. Suard (1734-1817), a man who was nothing if not a literary critic. Perhaps, however, the mostremarkable contribution of the century to criticism of the periodical kind was theFeuilles de Grimm, a circular sent for many years to the German courts by Frédéric Melchior Grimm (1723-1807), the comrade of Diderot and Rousseau, and containing acompte renduof the ways and works of Paris, literary and artistic as well as social. TheseLeavesnot only include much excellent literary criticism by Diderot, but also gave occasion to the incomparablesalonsor accounts of the exhibition of pictures from the same hand, essays which founded the art of picture criticism, and which have hardly been surpassed since. The prize competitions of the Academy were also a considerable stimulus to literary criticism, though the prevailing taste in such compositions rather inclined to elegant themes than to careful studies of analyses. The most characteristic critic of the mid-century was the abbé Charles Batteux (1713-1780) who illustrated a tendency of the time by beginning with a treatise onLes Beaux Arts réduits à un même principe(1746); reduced it and others intoPrincipes de la littérature(1764) and added in 1771Les Quatres Poétiques(Aristotle, Horace, Vida and Boileau). Batteux is a very ingenious critic and his attempt to conciliate “taste” and “the rules,” though inadequate, is interesting. Works on the arts in general or on special divisions of them were not wanting, as, for instance, that of Dubos before alluded to, theEssai sur la peintureof Diderot and others. Critically annotated editions of the great French writers also came into fashion, and were no longer written by mere pedants. Of these Voltaire’s edition of Corneille was the most remarkable, and his annotations, united separately under the title ofCommentaire sur Corneille, form not the least important portion of his works. Even older writers, looked down upon though they were by the general taste of the day, received a share of this critical interest. In the earlier portion of the century Nicolas Lenglet-Dufresnoy (1674-1755) and Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-1728) devoted their attention to Rabelais, Regnier, Villon, Marot and others. Étienne Barbazan (1696-1770) and P. J. B. Le Grand d’Aussy (1737-1800) gathered and brought into notice the long scattered and unknown rather than neglected fabliaux of the middle ages. Even the chansons de geste attracted the notice of the Comte de Caylus (1692-1765) and the Comte de Tressan (1705-1783). The latter, in hisBibliothèque des romans, worked up a large number of the old epics into a form suited to the taste of the century. In his hands they became lively tales of the kind suited to readers of Voltaire and Crébillon. But in this travestied form they had considerable influence both in France and abroad. By these publications attention was at least called to early French literature, and when it had been once called, a more serious and appreciative study became merely a matter of time. The method of much of the literary criticism of the close of this period was indeed deplorable enough. Jean François de la Harpe (1739-1803), who though a little later in time as to most of his critical productions is perhaps its most representative figure, shows criticism in one of its worst forms. The critic specially abhorred by Sterne, who looked only at the stop-watch, was a kind of prophecy of La Harpe, who lays it down distinctly that a beauty, however beautiful, produced in spite of rules is a “monstrous beauty” and cannot be allowed. But such a writer is a natural enough expression of an expiring principle. The year after the death of La Harpe Sainte-Beuve was born.
18th-Century Savants.—In science and general erudition the 18th century in France was at first much occupied with the mathematical studies for which the French genius is so peculiarly adapted, which the great discoveries of Descartes had made possible and popular, and which those of his supplanter Newton only made more popular still. Voltaire took to himself the credit, which he fairly deserves, of first introducing the Newtonian system into France, and it was soon widely popular—even ladies devoting themselves to the exposition of mathematical subjects, as in the case of Gabrielle de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet (1706-1749) Voltaire’s “divine Émilie.” Indeed ladies played a great part in the literary and scientific activity of the century, by actual contribution sometimes, but still more by continuing and extending the tradition of “salons.” The duchesse du Maine, Mesdames de Lambert, de Tencin, Geoffrin, du Deffand, Necker, and above all, the baronne d’Holbach (whose husband, however, was here the principal personage) presided over coteries which became more and more “philosophical.” Many of the greatest mathematicians of the age, such as de Moivre and Laplace, were French by birth, while others like Euler belonged to French-speaking races, and wrote in French. The physical sciences were also ardently cultivated, the impulse to them being given partly by the generally materialistic tendency of the age, partly by the Newtonian system, and partly also by the extended knowledge of the world provided by the circumnavigatory voyage of Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), and other travels. P. L. de Moreau Maupertuis (1698-1759) and C. M. de la Condamine (1701-1774) made long journeys for scientific purposes and duly recorded their experiences. The former, a mathematician and physicist of some ability but more oddity, is chiefly known to literature by the ridicule of Voltaire in theDiatribe du Docteur Akakia. Jean le Rond, called d’Alembert (1717-1783), a great mathematician and a writer of considerable though rather academic excellence, is principally known from his connexion with and introduction to theEncyclopédie, of which more presently. Chemistry was also assiduously cultivated, the baron d’Holbach, among others, being a devotee thereof, and helping to advance the science to the point where, at the conclusion of the century, it was illustrated by Berthollet and Lavoisier. During all this devotion to science in its modern acceptation, the older and more literary forms of erudition were not neglected, especially by the illustrious Benedictines of the abbey of St Maur. Dom Augustin Calmet (1672-1757) the author of the well-knownDictionary of the Bible, belonged to this order, and to them also (in particular to Dom Rivet) was due the beginning of the immenseHistoire littéraire de la France, a work interrupted by the Revolution and long suspended, but diligently continued since the middle of the 19th century. Of less orthodox names distinguished for erudition, Nicolas Fréret (1688-1749), secretary of the Academy, is perhaps the most remarkable. But in the consideration of the science and learning in the 18th century from a literary point of view, there is one name and one book which require particular and, in the case of the book, somewhat extended mention. The man is Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon (1717-1788), the book theEncyclopédie. The immenseNatural Historyof Buffon,Buffon.though not entirely his own, is a remarkable monument of the union of scientific tastes with literary ability. As has happened in many similar instances, there is in parts more literature than science to be found in it; and from the point of view of the latter, Buffon was far too careless in observation and far too solicitous of perfection of style and grandiosity of view. The style of Buffon has sometimes been made the subject of the highest eulogy, and it is at its best admirable; but one still feels in it the fault of all serious French prose in this century before Rousseau—the presence, that is to say, of an artificial spirit rather than of natural variety and power. TheThe Encyclopédie.Encyclopédie, unquestionably on the whole the most important French literary production of the century, if we except the works of Rousseau and Voltaire, was conducted for a time by Diderot and d’Alembert, afterwards by Diderot alone. It numbered among its contributors almost every Frenchman of eminence in letters. It is often spoken of as if, under the guise of an encyclopaedia, it had been merely aplaidoyeragainst religion, but this is entirely erroneous. Whatever anti-ecclesiastical bent some of the articles may have, the book as a whole is simply what it professes to be, a dictionary—that is to say, not merely an historical and critical lexicon, like those of Bayle and Moreri (indeed history and biography were nominally excluded), but a dictionary of arts, sciences, trades and technical terms. Diderot himself had perhaps the greatest faculty of any man that ever lived for the literary treatment in a workman-like manner of the most heterogeneous and in some cases rebellious subjects; and his untiring labour, not merely in writing original articles, but in editing the contributions of others, determined the character of the whole work. There is no doubt that it had,quite independently of any theological or political influence, an immense share in diffusing and gratifying the taste for general information.
1789-1830—General Sketch.—The period which elapsed between the outbreak of the Revolution and the accession of Charles X. has often been considered a sterile one in point of literature. As far as mere productiveness goes, this judgment is hardly correct. No class of literature was altogether neglected during these stirring five-and-thirty years, the political events of which have so engrossed the attention of posterity that it has sometimes been necessary for historians to remind us that during the height of the Terror and the final disasters of the empire the theatres were open and the booksellers’ shops patronized. Journalism, parliamentary eloquence and scientific writing were especially cultivated, and the former in its modern sense may almost be said to have been created. But of the higher products of literature the period may justly be considered to have been somewhat barren. During the earlier part of it there is, with the exception of André Chénier, not a single name of the first or even second order of excellence. Towards the midst those of Chateaubriand (1768-1848) and Madame de Staël (1766-1817) stand almost alone; and at the close those of Courier, Béranger and Lamartine are not seconded by any others to tell of the magnificent literary burst which was to follow the publication ofCromwell. Of all departments of literature, poetry proper was worst represented during this period. André Chénier was silenced at its opening by the guillotine. Le Brun and Delille, favoured by an extraordinary longevity, continued to be admired and followed. It was the palmy time of descriptive poetry. Louis, marquis de Fontanes (1757-1821, who deserves rather more special notice as a critic and an official patron of literature), Castel, Boisjolin, Esmenard, Berchoux, Ricard, Martin, Gudin, Cournaud, are names which chiefly survive as those of the authors of scattered attempts to turn the Encyclopaedia into verse. Charles Julien de Chênedollé (1769-1833) owes his reputation rather to amiability, and to his association with men eminent in different ways, such as Rivarol and Joubert, than to any real power. He has been regarded as a precursor of Lamartine; but the resemblance is chiefly on Lamartine’s weakest side; and the stress laid on him recently, as on Lamartine himself and even on Chénier, is part of a passing reaction against the school of Hugo. Even more ambitiously, Luce de Lancival, Campenon, Dumesnil and Parseval de Grand-Maison endeavoured to write epics, and succeeded rather worse than the Chapelains and Desmarets of the 17th century. The characteristic of all this poetry was the description of everything in metaphor and paraphrase, and the careful avoidance of anything like directness of expression; and the historians of the Romantic movement have collected many instances of this absurdity. Lamartine will be more properly noticed in the next division. But about the same time as Lamartine, and towards the end of the present period, there appeared a poet who may be regarded as the last important echo of Malherbe. This was Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843), the author ofLes Messéniennes, a writer of very great talent, and, according to the measure of J. B. Rousseau and Lebrun, no mean poet. It is usual to reckon Delavigne as transitionary between the two schools, but in strictness he must be counted with the classicists. Dramatic poetry exhibited somewhat similar characteristics. The system of tragedy writing had become purely mechanical, and every act, almost every scene and situation, had its regular and appropriate business and language, the former of which the poet was not supposed to alter at all, and the latter only very slightly. Poinsinet, La Harpe, M. J. Chénier, Raynouard, de Jouy, Briffaut, Baour-Lormian, all wrote in this style. Of these Chénier (1764-1811) had some of the vigour of his brother André, from whom he was distinguished by more popular political principles and better fortune. On the other hand, Jean François Ducis (1733-1816), who passes with Englishmen as a feeble reducer of Shakespeare to classical rules, passed with his contemporaries as an introducer into French poetry of strange and revolutionary novelties. Comedy, on the other hand, fared better, as indeed it had always fared. Fabre d’Églantine (1755-1794) (the companion in death of Danton), Collin d’Harleville (1755-1806), François G. J. S. Andrieux (1759-1833), Picard, Alexandre Duval, and Népomucène Lemercier (1771-1840) (the most vigorous of all as a poet and a critic of mark) were the comic authors of the period, and their works have not suffered the complete eclipse of the contemporary tragedies which in part they also wrote. If not exactly worthy successors of Molière, they are at any rate not unworthy children of Beaumarchais. In romance writing there is again, until we come to Madame de Staël, a great want of originality and even of excellence in workmanship. The works of Madame de Genlis (1746-1830) exhibit the tendencies of the 18th century to platitude and noble sentiment at their worst. Madame Cottin (1770-1807), Madame de Souza (1761-1836), and Madame de Krudener, exhibited some of the qualities of Madame de Lafayette and more of those of Madame de Genlis. Joseph Fiévée (1767-1839), inLe Dot de Suzetteand other works, showed some power over the domestic story; but perhaps the most remarkable work in point of originality of the time was Xavier de Maistre’s (1763-1852)Voyage autour de ma chambre, an attempt in quite a new style, which has been happily followed up by other writers. Turning to history we find comparatively little written at this period. Indeed, until quite its close, men were too much occupied in making history to have time to write it. There is, however, a considerable body of memoir writers, especially in the earlier years of the period, and some great names appear even in history proper. Many of Sismondi’s (1773-1842) best works were produced during the empire. A. G. P. Brugière, baron de Barante (1782-1866), though his best-known works date much later, belongs partially to this time. On the other hand, the production of philosophical writing, especially in what we may call applied philosophy, was considerable. The sensationalist views of Condillac were first continued as by Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836) and Laromiguière (1756-1837) and subsequently opposed, in consequence partly of a religious and spiritualist revival, partly of the influence of foreign schools of thought, especially the German and the Scotch. The chief philosophical writers from this latter point of view were Pierre Paul Royer Collard (1763-1845), F. P. G. Maine de Biran (1776-1824), and Théodore Simon Jouffroy (1796-1842). Their influence on literature, however, was altogether inferior to that of the reactionist school, of whom Louis Gabriel, vicomte de Bonald (1754-1840), and Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) were the great leaders. These latter were strongly political in their tendencies, and political philosophy received, as was natural, a large share of the attention of the time. In continuation of the work of the Philosophes, the most remarkable writer was Constantin François Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney (1757-1820), whoseRuinesare generally known. On the other hand, others belonging to that school, such as Necker and Morellet, wrote from the moderate point of view against revolutionary excesses. Of the reactionists Bonald is extremely royalist, and carries out in hisLégislations primitivessomewhat the same patriarchal and absolutist theories as our own Filmer, but with infinitely greaterMaistre.genius. As Bonald is royalist and aristocratic, so Maistre is the advocate of a theocracy pure and simple, with the pope for its earthly head, and a vigorous despotism for its system of government. Pierre Simon Ballanche (1776-1847), often mentioned in the literary memoirs of his time, wrote among other thingsEssais de palingénésie sociale, good in style but vague in substance. Of theology proper there is almost necessarily little or nothing, the clergy being in the earlier period proscribed, in the latter part kept in a strict and somewhat discreditable subjection by the Empire. In moralizing literature there is one work of the very highest excellence, which, though not published till long afterwards, belongs in point of composition to this period. This is thePenséesof JosephJoubert.Joubert (1754-1824), the most illustrious successor of Pascal and Vauvenargues, and to be ranked perhaps above both in the literary finish of his maxims, and certainly above Vauvenargues in the breadth and depth of thought whichthey exhibit. In pure literary criticism more particularly, Joubert, though exhibiting some inconsistencies due to his time, is astonishingly penetrating and suggestive. Of science and erudition the time was fruitful. At an early period of it appeared the remarkable work of Pierre Cabanis (1757-1808), theRapports du physique et du morale de l’homme, a work in which physiology is treated from the extreme materialist point of view but with all the liveliness and literary excellence of the Philosophe movement at its best. Another physiological work of great merit at this period was theTraité de la vie et de la mortof Bichat, and the example set by these works was widely followed; while in other branches of science Laplace, Lagrange, Haüy, Berthollet, &c., produced contributions of the highest value. From the literary point of view, however, the chief interest of this time is centred in two individual names, those of Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël, and in three literary developments of a more or less novel character, which were all of the highest importance in shaping the course which French literature has taken since 1824. One of these developments was the reactionary movement of Maistre and Bonald, which in its turn largely influenced Chateaubriand, then Lamennais and Montalembert, and was later represented in French literature in different guises, chiefly by Louis Veuillot (1815-1883) and Mgr Dupanloup (1802-1878). The second and third, closely connected, were the immense advances made by parliamentary eloquence and by political writing, the latter of which, by the hand of Paul Louis Courier (1773-1825), contributed for the first time an undoubted masterpiece to French literature. The influence of the two combined has since raised journalism to even a greater pitch of power in France than in any other country. It is in the development of these new openings for literature, and in the cast and complexion which they gave to its matter, that the real literary importance of the Revolutionary period consists; just as it is in the new elements which they supplied for the treatment of such subjects that the literary value of the authors ofRenéandDe l’Allemagnemainly lies. We have already alluded to some of the beginnings of periodical and journalistic letters in France. For some time, in the hands of Bayle, Basnage, Des Maizeaux, Jurieu, Leclerc, periodical literature consisted mainly of a series, more or less disconnected, of pamphlets, with occasional extracts from forthcoming works, criticaladversariaand the like. Of a more regular kind were the often-mentionedJournal de TrévouxandMercure de France, and later theAnnée littéraireof Fréron and the like. TheCorrespondanceof Grimm also, as we have pointed out, bore considerable resemblance to a modern monthly review, though it was addressed to a very few persons. Of political news there was, under a despotism, naturally very little. 1789, however, saw a vast change in this respect. An enormous efflorescence of periodical literature at once took place, and a few of the numerous journals founded in that year or soon afterwards survived for a considerable time. A whole class of authors arose who pretended to be nothing more than journalists, while many writers distinguished for more solid contributions to literature took part in the movement, and not a few active politicians contributed. Thus to the original staff of theMoniteur, or, as it was at first called,La Gazette Nationale, La Harpe, Lacretelle, Andrieux, Dominique Joseph Garat (1749-1833) and Pierre Ginguené (1748-1826) were attached. Among the writers of theJournal de ParisAndré Chénier had been ranked. Fontanes contributed to many royalist and moderate journals. Guizot and Morellet, representatives respectively of the 19th and the 18th century, shared in theNouvelles politiques, while Bertin, Fievée and J. L. Geoffroy (1743-1814), a critic of peculiar acerbity, contributed to theJournal de l’empire, afterwards turned into the still existingJournal des débats. With Geoffroy, François Bénoit Hoffman (1760-1828), Jean F. J. Dussault (1769-1824) and Charles F. Dorimond, abbé de Féletz (1765-1850), constituted a quartet of critics sometimes spoken of as “theDébatsfour,” though they were by no means all friends. Of active politicians Marat (L’Ami du peuple), Mirabeau (Courrier de Provence), Barère (Journal des débats et des décrets), Brissot (Patriote français), Hébert (Père Duchesne), Robespierre (Défenseur de la constitution), and Tallien (La Sentinelle) were the most remarkable who had an intimate connexion with journalism. On the other hand, the type of the journalist pure and simple is Camille Desmoulins (1759-1794), one of the most brilliant, in a literary point of view, of the short-lived celebrities of the time. Of the same class were Pelletier, Durozoir, Loustalot, Royou. As the immediate daily interest in politics drooped, there were formed periodicals of a partly political and partly literary character. Such had been thedécade philosophique, which counted Cabanis, Chénier, and De Tracy among its contributors, and this was followed by theRevue françaiseat a later period, which was in its turn succeeded by theRevue des deux mondes. On the other hand, parliamentary eloquence was even more important than journalism during the early period of the Revolution. Mirabeau naturally stands at the head of orators of this class, and next to him may be ranked the well-known names of Malouet and Meunier among constitutionalists; of Robespierre, Marat and Danton, the triumvirs of the Mountain; of Maury, Cazalès and the vicomte de Mirabeau, among the royalists; and above all of the Girondist speakers Barnave, Vergniaud, and Lanjuinais. The last named survived to take part in the revival of parliamentary discussion after the Restoration. But the permanent contributions to French literature of this period of voluminous eloquence are, as frequently happens in such cases, by no means large. The union of the journalist and the parliamentary spirit produced, however, in Paul Louis Courier aCourier.master of style. Courier spent the greater part of his life, tragically cut short, in translating the classics and studying the older writers of France, in which study he learnt thoroughly to despise the pseudo-classicism of the 18th century. It was not till he was past forty that he took to political writing, and the style of his pamphlets, and their wonderful irony and vigour, at once placed them on the level of the very best things of the kind. Along with Courier should be mentioned Benjamin Constant (1767-1830), who, though partly a romance writer and partly a philosophical author, was mainly a politician and an orator, besides being fertile in articles and pamphlets. Lamennais, like Lamartine, will best be dealt with later, and the same may be said of Béranger; but Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël must be noticed here. The former represents, in the influence which changed the literature of the 18th century into the literature of the 19th, the vague spirit of unrest and “Weltschmerz,” the affection for the picturesque qualities of nature, the religious spirit occasionally turning into mysticism, and the respect, sure to become more and more definite and appreciative, for antiquity. He gives in short the romantic and conservativeMadame de Staël.element. Madame de Staël (1766-1817) on the other hand, as became a daughter of Necker, retained a great deal of the Philosophe character and the traditions of the 18th century, especially its liberalism, itssensibilité, and its thirst for general information; to which, however, she added a cosmopolitan spirit, and a readiness to introduce into France the literary and social, as well as the political and philosophical, peculiarities of other countries to which the 18th century, in France at least, had been a stranger, and which Chateaubriand himself, notwithstanding his excursions into English literature, had been very far from feeling. She therefore contributed to the positive and liberal side of the future movement. The absolute literary importance of the two was very different. Madame de Staël’s early writings were of the critical kind, half aesthetic half ethical, of which the 18th century had been fond, and which their titles,Lettres sur J. J. Rousseau,De l’influence des passions,De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales, sufficiently show. Her romances,DelphineandCorinne, had immense literary influence at the time. Still more was this the case withDe l’Allemagne, which practically opened up to the rising generation in France the till then unknownChateaubriand.treasures of literature and philosophy, which during the most glorious half century of her literary history Germany had, sometimes on hints taken from France herself, been accumulating. The literary importance of Chateaubriand (1768-1848) is far greater, while his literary influencecan hardly be exaggerated. Chateaubriand’s literary father was Rousseau, and his voyage to America helped to develop the seeds which Rousseau had sown. InRenéand other works of the same kind, the naturalism of Rousseau received a still further development. But it was not in mere naturalism that Chateaubriand was to find his most fertile and most successful theme. It was, on the contrary, in the rehabilitation of Christianity as an inspiring force in literature. The 18th century had used against religion the method of ridicule; Chateaubriand, by genius rather than by reasoning, set up against this method that of poetry and romance. “Christianity,” says he, almost in so many words, “is the most poetical of all religions, the most attractive, the most fertile in literary, artistic and social results.” This theme he develops with the most splendid language, and with every conceivable advantage of style, in theGénie du Christianismeand theMartyrs. The splendour of imagination, the summonings of history and literature to supply effective and touching illustrations, analogies and incidents, the rich colouring so different from the peculiarly monotonous and grey tones of the masters of the 18th century, and the fervid admiration for nature which were Chateaubriand’s main attractions and characteristics, could not fail to have an enormous literary influence. Indeed he has been acclaimed, with more reason than is usually found in such acclamations, as the founder of comparativeandimaginative literary criticism in France if not in Europe. The Romantic school acknowledged, and with justice, its direct indebtedness to him.
Literature since 1830.—In dealing with the last period of the history of French literature and that which was introduced by the literary revolution of 1830 and has continued, in phases of only partial change, to the present day, a slight alteration of treatment is requisite. The subdivisions of literature have lately become so numerous, and the contributions to each have reached such an immense volume, that it is impossible to give more than cursory notice, or indeed allusion, to most of them. It so happens, however, that the purely literary characteristics of this period, though of the most striking and remarkable, are confined to a few branches of literature. The character of the 19th century in France has hitherto been at least as strongly marked as that of any previous period. In the middle ages men of letters followed each other in the cultivation of certain literary forms for long centuries. Thechanson de geste, the Arthurian legend, theroman d’aventure, thefabliau, the allegorical poem, the rough dramaticjeu, mystery and farce, served successively as moulds into which the thought and writing impulse of generations of authors were successively cast, often with little attention to the suitability of form and subject. The end of the 15th century, and still more the 16th, owing to the vast extension of thought and knowledge then introduced, finally broke up the old forms, and introduced the practice of treating each subject in a manner more or less appropriate to it, and whether appropriate or not, freely selected by the author. At the same time a vast but somewhat indiscriminate addition was made to the actual vocabulary of the language. The 17th and 18th centuries witnessed a process of restriction once more to certain forms and strict imitation of predecessors, combined with attention to purely arbitrary rules, the cramping and impoverishing effect of this (in Fénelon’s words) being counterbalanced partly by the efforts of individual genius, and still more by the constant and steady enlargement of the range of thought, the choice of subjects, and the familiarity with other literature, both of the ancient and modern world. The literary work of the 19th century and of the great Romantic movement which began in its second quarter was to repeat on a far larger scale the work of the 16th, to break up and discard such literary forms as had become useless or hopelessly stiff, to give strength, suppleness and variety to such as were retained, to invent new ones where necessary, to enrich the language by importations, inventions and revivals, and, above all, to bring into prominence the principle of individualism. Authors and even books, rather than groups and kinds, demand principal attention.
The result of this revolution is naturally most remarkable in thebelles-lettresand the kindred department of history. Poetry, not dramatic, has been revived; prose romance and literary criticism have been brought to a perfection previously unknown; and history has produced works more various, if not more remarkable, than at any previous stage of the language. Of all these branches we shall therefore endeavour to give some detailed account. But the services done to the language were not limited to the strictly literary branches of literature. Modern French, if it lacks, as it probably does lack, the statuesque precision and elegance of prose style to which between 1650 and 1800 all else was sacrificed, has become a much more suitable instrument for the accurate and copious treatment of positive and concrete subjects. These subjects have accordingly been treated in an abundance corresponding to that manifested in other countries, though the literary importance of the treatment has perhaps proportionately declined. We cannot even attempt to indicate the innumerable directions of scientific study which this copious industry has taken, and must confine ourselves to those which come more immediately under the headings previously adopted. In philosophy proper France, like other nations, has been more remarkable for attention to the historical side of the matter than for the production of new systems; and the principal exception among her philosophical writers, Auguste Comte (1793-1857), besides inclining, as far as his matter went to the political and scientific rather than to the purely philosophical side (which indeed he regarded as antiquated), was not very remarkable merely as a man of letters. Victor Cousin (1792-1867), on the other hand, almost a brilliant man of letters and for a time regarded as something of a philosophical apostle preaching “eclecticism,” betook himself latterly to biographical and other miscellaneous writing, especially on the famous French ladies of the 17th century, and is likely to be remembered chiefly in this department, though not to be forgotten in that of philosophical history and criticism. The same curious declension was observable in the much younger Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893), who, beginning with philosophical studies, and always maintaining a strong tincture of philosophical determinism, applied himself later, first to literary history and criticism in his famousHistoire de la littérature anglaise(1864), and then to history proper in his still more famous and far more solidly basedOrigines de la France contemporaine(1876). To him, however, we must recur under the head of literary criticism. And not dissimilar phenomena, not so much of inconstancy to philosophy as of a tendency towards the applied rather than the pure branches of the subject, are noticeable in Edgar Quinet (1803-1875), in Charles de Rémusat (1797-1875), and in Ernest Renan (1823-1892), the first of whom began by translating Herder while the second and third devoted themselves early to scholastic philosophy, de Rémusat dealing with Abelard (1845) and Anselm (1856), Renan with Averroes (1852). More single-minded devotion to at least the historical side was shown by Jean Philibert Damiron (1794-1862), who published in 1842 aCours de philosophieand many minor works at different times; but the inconstancy recurs in Jules Simon (1814-1896), who, in the earlier part of his life a professor of philosophy and a writer of authority on the Greek philosophers (especially inHistoire de l’école d’Alexandrie, 1844-1845), began before long to take an active and, towards the close of his life-work, all but a foremost part in politics. In theology the chief name of great literary eminence in the earlier part of the century is that of Lamennais, of whom more presently, in the later, that of Renan again. But Charles Forbes de Montalembert (1810-1870), an historian with a strong theological tendency, deserves notice; and among ecclesiastics who have been orators and writers the père Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire (1802-1861), a pupil of Lamennais who returned to orthodoxy but always kept to the Liberal side; the père Célestin Joseph Félix (1810-1891), a Jesuit teacher and preacher of eminence; and the père Didon (1840-1900), a very popular preacher and writer who, though thoroughly orthodox, did not escape collision with his superiors. On the Protestant side Athanase Coquerel (1820-1875) is the most remarkable name. Recently Paul Sabatier (b. 1858) has displayed, especiallyin dealing with Saint Francis of Assisi, much power of literary and religious sympathy and a style somewhat modelled on that of Renan, but less unctuous and effeminate. There are strong philosophical tendencies, and at least a revolt against the religious as well as philosophical ideas of the Encyclopédists, in thePenséesof Joubert, while the hybrid position characteristic of the 19th century is particularly noticeable in Étienne Pivert de Sénancour (1770-1846), whose principal work,Obermann(1804), had an extraordinary influence on its own and the next generation in the direction of melancholy moralizing. This tone was notably taken up towards the other end of the century by Amiel (q.v.), who, however, does not strictly belong toFrenchliterature: while in Ximénès Doudon (1800-1872), author ofMélanges et lettresposthumously published, we find more of a return to the attitude of Joubert—literary criticism occupying a very large part of his reflections. Political philosophy and its kindred sciences have naturally received a large share of attention. Towards the middle of the century there was a great development of socialist and fanciful theorizing on politics, with which the names of Claude Henri, comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), Charles Fourier (1772-1837), Étienne Cabet (1788-1856), and others are connected. As political economists Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850), L. G. L. Guilhaud de Lavergne (1809-1880), Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881), and Michel Chevalier (1806-1879) may be noticed. In Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) France produced a political observer of a remarkably acute, moderate and reflective character, and Armand Carrel (1800-1836), whose life was cut short in a duel, was a real man of letters, as well as a brilliant journalist and an honest if rather violent party politician. The name of Jean Louis Eugène Lerminier (1803-1857) is of wide repute for legal and constitutional writings, and that of Henri, baron de Jomini (1779-1869) is still more celebrated as a military historian; while that of François Lenormant (1837-1883) holds a not dissimilar position in archaeology. With the publications devoted to physical science proper we do not attempt to meddle. Philology, however, demands a brief notice. In classical studies France has till recently hardly maintained the position which might be expected of the country of Scaliger and Casaubon. She has, however, produced some considerable Orientalists, such as Champollion the younger, Burnouf, Silvestre de Sacy and Stanislas Julien. The foundation of Romance philology was due, indeed, to the foreigners Wolf and Diez. But early in the century the curiosity as to the older literature of France created by Barbazan, Tressan and others continued to extend. Dominique Martin Méon (1748-1829) published many unprinted fabliaux, gave the whole of the FrenchRenartcycle, with the exception ofRenart le contrefait, and edited theRoman de la rose. Charles Claude Fauriel (1772-1844) and François Raynouard (1761-1836) dealt elaborately with Provençal poetry as well as partially with that of the trouvères; and the latter produced his comprehensiveLexique romane. These examples were followed by many other writers, who edited manuscript works and commented on them, always with zeal and sometimes with discretion. Foremost among these must be mentioned Paulin Paris (1800-1881) who for fifty years served the cause of old French literature with untiring energy, great literary taste, and a pleasant and facile pen. His selections from manuscripts, hisRomancero français, his editions ofGarin le LoherainandBerte aus grans piés, and hisRomans de la table rondemay especially be mentioned. Soon, too, the BenedictineHistoire littéraire, so long interrupted, was resumed under M. Paris’s general management, and has proceeded nearly to the end of the 14th century. Among its contents M. Paris’s dissertations on the laterchansons de gestesand the early song writers, M. Victor le Clerc’s on thefabliaux, and M. Littré’s on theromans d’aventuresmay be specially noticed. For some time indeed the work of French editors was chargeable with a certain lack of critical and philological accuracy. This reproach, however, was wiped off by the efforts of a band of younger scholars, chiefly pupils of the École des Chartes, with MM. Gaston Paris (1839-1903) and Paul Meyer at their head. Of M. Paris in particular it may be said that no scholar in the subject has ever combined literary and linguistic competence more admirably. The Société des Anciens Textes Français was formed for the purpose of publishing scholarly editions of inedited works, and a lexicon of the older tongue by M. Godefroy at last supplemented, though not quite with equal accomplishment, the admirable dictionary in which Émile Littré (1801-1881), at the cost of a life’s labour, embodied the whole vocabulary of the classical French language. Meanwhile the period between the middle ages proper and the 17th century has not lacked its share of this revival of attention. To the literature between Villon and Regnier especial attention was paid by the early Romantics, and Sainte-Beuve’sTableau historique et critique de la poésie et du théâtre au seizième sièclewas one of the manifestoes of the school. Since the appearance of that work in 1828 editions with critical comments of the literature of this period have constantly multiplied, aided by the great fancy for tastefully produced works which exists among the richer classes in France; and there are probably now few countries in which works of old authors, whether in cheap reprints or inéditions de luxecan be more readily procured.