The Romantic Movement.—It is time, however, to return to the literary revolution itself, and its more purely literary results. At the accession of Charles X. France possessed three writers, and perhaps only three, of already remarkableBéranger.eminence, if we except Chateaubriand, who was already of a past generation. These three were Pierre Jean de Béranger (1780-1857), Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), and Hugues Félicité Robert Lamennais (1782-1854). The first belongs definitely in manner, despite his striking originality ofnuance, to the past. He has remnants of the old periphrases, the cumbrous mythological allusions, the poetical “properties” of French verse. He has also the older and somewhat narrow limitations of a French poet; foreigners are for him mere barbarians. At the same time his extraordinary lyrical faculty, his excellent wit, which makes him a descendant of Rabelais and La Fontaine, and his occasional touches of pathos made him deserve and obtain something more than successes of occasion. Béranger, moreover, was very far from being the mere improvisatore which those who cling to the inspirationist theory of poetry would fain see in him. His studies in style and composition were persistent, and it was long before he attained the firm and brilliant manner which distinguishes him. Béranger’s talent, however, was still too much a matter of individual genius to have great literary influence, and he formed no school. It was differentLamartine.with Lamartine, who was, nevertheless, like Béranger, a typical Frenchman. TheMéditationsand theHarmoniesexhibit a remarkable transition between the old school and the new. In going direct to nature, in borrowing from her striking outlines, vivid and contrasted tints, harmony and variety of sound, the new poet showed himself an innovator of the best class. In using romantic and religious associations, and expressing them in affecting language, he was the Chateaubriand of verse. But with all this he retained some of the vices of the classical school. His versification, harmonious as it is, is monotonous, and he does not venture into the bold lyrical forms which true poetry loves. He has still the horror of themot propre; he is always spiritualizing and idealizing, and his style and thought have a double portion of the feminine and almost flaccid softness which had come to pass for grace in French. The last of the trio, Lamennais, represents an altogetherLamennais.bolder and rougher genius. Strongly influenced by the Catholic reaction, Lamennais also shows the strongest possible influence of the revolutionary spirit. His earliest work, theEssai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion(1817 and 1818) was a defence of the church on curiously unecclesiastical lines. It was written in an ardent style, full of illustrations, and extremely ambitious in character. The plan was partly critical and partly constructive. The first part disposed of the 18th century; the second, adopting the theory of papal absolutism which Joseph de Maistre had already advocated, proceeded to base it on a supposed universal consent. The after history of Lamennais was perhaps not an unnatural recoil from this; but it is sufficient here to point out that in his prose,especially as afterwards developed in the apocalypticParoles d’un croyant(1839) are to be discerned many of the tendencies of the Romantic school, particularly its hardy and picturesque choice of language, and the disdain of established and accepted methods which it professed. The signs of the revolution itself were, as was natural, first given in periodical literature. The feudalist affectations of Chateaubriand and the legitimists excited a sort of aesthetic affection for Gothicism, and Walter Scott became one of the most favourite authors in France. Soon was started the periodicalLa Muse française, in which the names of Hugo, Vigny, Deschamps and Madame de Girardin appear. Almost all the writers in this periodical were eager royalists, and for some time the battle was still fought on political grounds. There could, however, be no special connexion between classical drama and liberalism; and the liberal journal, the Globe, with no less a person than Sainte-Beuve among its contributors, declared definite war against classicism in the drama. The chief “classical” organs were theConstitutionnel, theJournal des débats, and after a time and not exclusively, theRevue des deux mondes. Soon the question became purely literary, and the Romantic school proper was born in the famouscénacleor clique in which Hugo was chief poet, Sainte-Beuve chief critic, and Gautier, Gérard de Nerval, the brothers Émile (1791-1871) and Antony (1800-1869), Deschamps, Petrus Borel (1809-1859) and others were officers. Alfred de Vigny and Alfred de Musset stand somewhat apart, and so does Charles Nodier (1780-1844), a versatile and voluminous writer, the very variety and number of whose works have somewhat prevented the individual excellence of any of them from having justice done to it. The objects of the school, which was at first violently opposed, so much so that certain academicians actually petitioned the king to forbid the admission of any Romantic piece at the Théâtre Français, were, briefly stated, the burning of everything which had been adored, and the adoring of everything which had been burnt. They would have no unities, no arbitrary selection of subjects, no restraints on variety of versification, no academically limited vocabulary, no considerations of artificial beauty, and, above all, no periphrastic expression. Themot propre, the calling of a spade a spade, was the great commandment of Romanticism; but it must be allowed that what was taken away in periphrase was made up in adjectives. Musset, who was very much of a free-lance in the contest, maintained indeed that thedifferentiaof the Romantic was the copious use of this part of speech. All sorts of epithets were invented to distinguish the two parties, of whichflamboyantandgrisâtreare perhaps the most accurate and expressive pair—the former serving to denote the gorgeous tints and bold attempts of the new school, the latter the grey colour and monotonous outlines of the old. The representation ofHernaniin 1830 was the culmination of the struggle, and during great part of the reign of Louis Philippe almost all the younger men of letters in France were Romantics. The representation of theLucrèceof François Ponsard (1814-1867) in 1846 is often quoted as the herald or sign of a classical reaction. But this was only apparent, and signified, if it signified anything, merely that the more juvenile excesses of the Romantics were out of date. All the greatest men of letters of France since 1830 have been on the innovating side, and all without exception, whether intentionally or not, have had their work coloured by the results of the movement, and of those which have succeeded it as developments rather than reactions.
Drama and Poetry since 1830.—Although the immediate subject on which the battles of Classics and Romantics arose was dramatic poetry, the dramatic results of the movement have not been those of greatest value or most permanent character. The principal effect in the long run has been the introduction of a species of play calleddrame, as opposed to regular comedy and tragedy, admitting of much freer treatment than either of these two as previously understood in French, and lending itself in some measure to the lengthy and disjointed action, the multiplicity of personages, and the absence of stock characters which characterized the English stage in its palmy days. All Victor Hugo’s dramatic works are of this class, and each, as it was produced or published (Cromwell,Hernani,Marion de l’Orme,Le Roi s’amuse,Lucrèce Borgia,Marie Tudor,Ruy BlasandLes Burgraves), was a literary event, and excited the most violent discussion—the author’s usual plan being to prefix a prose preface of a very militant character to his work. A still more melodramatic variety ofdramewas that chiefly represented by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), whoseHenri IIIandAntony, to which may be added laterLa Tour de NesleandMademoiselle de Belleisle, were almost as much rallying points for the early Romantics as the dramas of Hugo, despite their inferior literary value. At the same time Alexandre Soumet (1788-1845), inNorma,Une Fête de Néron, &c., and Casimir Delavigne inMarino Faliero,Louis XI, &c., maintained a somewhat closer adherence to the older models. The classical or semi-classical reaction of the last years of Louis Philippe was represented in tragedy by Ponsard (Lucrèce,Agnes de Méranie,Charlotte Corday,Ulysse, and several comedies), and on the comic side, to a certain extent, by Émile Augier (1820-1889) inL’Aventurière,Le Gendre de M. Poirier,Le Fils de Giboyer, &c. During almost the whole period Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) poured forth innumerable comedies of the vaudeville order, which, without possessing much literary value, attained immense popularity. For the last half-century the realist development of Romanticism has had the upper hand in dramatic composition, its principal representatives being on the one side Victorien Sardou (1831-1909), who inNos Intimes,La Famille Benoîton,Rabagas,Dora, &c., chiefly devoted himself to the satirical treatment of manners, and Alexandre Dumasfils(1824-1895), author in 1852 of the famousDame aux camélias, who in such pieces asLes Idées de Madame AubrayandL’Étrangèrerather busied himself with morals and “problems,” while hisDame aux camélias(1852) is sometimes ranked as the first of such things in “modern” style. Certain isolated authors also deserve notice, such as Joseph Autran (1813-1877), a poet and academician having some resemblance to Lamartine, whoseFille d’Æschylecreated for him a dramatic reputation which he did not attempt to follow up, and Gabriel Legouvé (b. 1807), whoseAdrienne Lecouvreurwas assisted to popularity by the admirable talent of Rachel. A special variety of drama of the first literary importance has also been cultivated in this century under the title ofscènesorproverbes, slight dramatic sketches in which the dialogue and style are of even more importance than the action. The best of all of these are those of Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), whoseIl faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée,On ne badine pas avec l’amour, &c., are models of grace and wit. Among his followers may be mentioned especially Octave Feuillet (1821-1890). Few social dramas of the kind in modern times have attained a greater success thanLe Monde où l’on s’ennuie(1868) of Édouard Pailleron (1834-1899). (See alsoDrama.)
In poetry proper, as in drama, Victor Hugo showed the way. In him all the Romantic characteristics were expressed and embodied—disregard of arbitrary critical rules, free choice of subject, variety and vigour of metre, splendourVictor Hugo.and sonorousness of diction, abundant “local colour,” and that irrepressible individualism which is one of the chief, though not perhaps the chief, of the symptoms. If the careful attention to form which is also characteristic of the movement is less apparent in him than in some of his followers, it is not because it is absent, but because the enthusiastic conviction with which he attacked every subject somewhat diverts attention from it. As with the merits so with the defects. A deficient sense of the ludicrous which characterized many of the Romantics was strongly apparent in their leader, as was also an equally representative grandiosity, and a fondness for the introduction of foreign and unfamiliar words, especially proper names, which occasionally produces an effect of burlesque. Victor Hugo’s earliest poetical works, his chiefly royalist and politicalOdes, were cast in the older and accepted forms, but already displayed astonishing poetical qualities. But it was in theBallades(for instance, the splendidPas d’armes du roi Jean, written in verses of three syllables) and theOrientales(of which may be taken for a sample the sixth section ofNavarin, a perfecttorrent of outlandish terms poured forth in the most admirable verse, orLes Djinns, where some of the stanzas have lines of two syllables each) that the grand provocation was thrown to the believers in alexandrines, careful caesuras and strictly separated couplets.Les Feuilles d’automne,Les Chants du crépuscule,Les Voix intérieures,Les Rayons et les ombres, the productions of the next twenty years, were quieter in style and tone, but no less full of poetical spirit. The Revolution of 1848, the establishment of the empire and the poet’s exile brought about a fresh determination of his genius to lyrical subjects.Les ChâtimentsandLa Légende des siècles, the one political, the other historical, reach perhaps the high-water mark of French verse; and they were followed by the philosophicalContemplations, the lighterChansons des rues et des bois, theAnnée terrible, the secondLégende des siècles, and the later work to be found noticedsub nom. We have been thus particular here because the literary productiveness of Victor Hugo himself has been the measure and sample of the whole literary productiveness of France on the poetical side. At five-and-twenty he was acknowledged as a master, at seventy-five he was a master still. His poetical influence has been represented in three different schools, from which very few of the poetical writers of the century can be excluded. These few we may notice first. AlfredMusset.de Musset, a writer of great genius, felt part of the Romantic inspiration very strongly, but was on the whole unfortunately influenced by Byron, and partly out of wilfulness, partly from a natural want of persevering industry and vigour, allowed himself to be careless and even slovenly in composition. Notwithstanding this, many of his lyrics are among the finest poems in the language, and his verse, careless as it is, has extraordinary natural grace. Auguste Barbier (1805-1882) whoseIambesshows an extraordinary command of nervous and masculine versification, also comes in here; and the Breton poet, Auguste Brizeux (1803-1858), much admired by some, together with Hégésippe Moreau, an unequal writer possessing some talent, Pierre Dupont (1821-1870), one of much greater gifts, and Gustave Nadaud (1820-1893), a follower of Béranger, also deserve mention. Of the school of Lamartine rather than of Hugo are Alfred de Vigny (1799-1865) and Victor de Laprade (1812-1887), the former a writer of little bulk and somewhat over-fastidious, but possessing one of the most correct and elegant styles to be found in French, with a curious restrained passion and a complicated originality, the latter a meditative and philosophical poet, like Vigny an admirable writer, but somewhat deficient in pith and substance, as well as in warmth and colour. Madame Ackermann (1813-1890) is the chief philosophical poetess of France, and this style has recently been very popular; but for actual poetical powers, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (1786-1859) perhaps excelled her, though in a looser and more sentimental fashion. The poetical schools which more directly derive from the Romantic movement as represented by Hugo are three in number, corresponding in point of time with the first outburst of the movement, with the period of reaction already alluded to, and with the closing years of the second empire. Of the first by far the most distinguished member was Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), the most perfectGautier.poet in point of form that France has produced. When quite a boy he devoted himself to the study of 16th-century masters, and though he acknowledged the supremacy of Hugo, his own talent was of an individual order, and developed itself more or less independently.Albertusalone of his poems has much of the extravagant and grotesque character which distinguished early romantic literature. TheComédie de la mort, thePoésies diverses, and still more theÉmaux et camées, display a distinctly classical tendency—classical, that is to say, not in the party and perverted sense, but in its true acceptation. The tendency to the fantastic and horrible may be taken as best shown by Petrus Borel (1809-1859), a writer of singular power almost entirely wasted. Gerard Labrunie or de Nerval (1808-1855) adopted a manner also fantastic but more idealistic than Borel’s, and distinguished himself by his Oriental travels and studies, and by his attention to popular ballads and traditions, while his style has an exquisite but unaffected strangeness hardly inferior to Gautier’s. This peculiar and somewhat quintessenced style is also remarkable in theGaspard de la nuitof Louis Bertrand (1807-1841), a work of rhythmical prose almost unique in its character. One famous sonnet preserves the name of Félix Arvers (1806-1850). The two Deschamps were chiefly remarkable as translators. The next generation produced three remarkable poets, to whom may perhaps be added a fourth. Théodore de Banville (1823-1891), adopting the principles of Gautier, and combining with them a considerable satiric faculty, composed a large amount of verse, faultless in form, delicate and exquisite in shades and colours, but so entirely neutral in moral and political tone that it has found fewer admirers than it deserved. Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894), carrying out the principle of ransacking foreign literature for subjects, went to Celtic, classical or even Oriental sources for his inspiration, and despite a science in verse not much inferior to Banville’s, and a far wider range and choice of subject, diffused an air of erudition, not to say pedantry, over his work which disgusted some readers, and a pessimism which displeased others, but has left poetry only inferior to that of the greatest of his countrymen. Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), by his choice of unpopular subjects and the terrible truth of his analysis, revolted not a few of those who, in the words of an English critic, cannot take pleasure in the representation if they do not take pleasure in the thing represented, and who thus miss his extraordinary command of the poetical appeal in sound, in imagery and in suggestion generally. Thus, by a strange coincidence, each of the three representatives of the second Romantic generation was for a time disappointed of his due fame. A fourth poet of this time, Joséphin Soulary (1815-1891), produced sonnets of rare beauty and excellence. A fifth, Louis Bouilhet (1822-1869), an intimate friend of Flaubert, pushed even farther the fancy for strange subjects, but showed powers inMelænisand other things. In 1866 a collection of poems, entitled after an old French fashionLe Parnasse contemporain, appeared. It included contributions by many of the poets just mentioned, but the mass of the contributors were hitherto unknown to fame. A similar collection appeared in 1869, and was interrupted by the German war, but continued after it, and a third in 1876.
The firstParnassehad been projected by MM. Xavier de Ricard (b. 1843) and Catulle Mendès (1841-1909) as a sort of manifesto of a school of young poets: but its contents were largely coloured by the inclusion among them of work by representatives of older generations—Gautier, Laprade, Leconte de Lisle, Banville, Baudelaire and others. The continuation, however, of the title in the later issues, rather than anything else, led to the formation and promulgation of the idea of a “Parnassien” or an “Impassible” school which was supposed to adopt as its watchword the motto of “Art for Art’s sake,” to pay especial attention to form, and also to aim at a certain objectivity. As a matter of fact the greater poets and the greater poems of the Parnasse admit of no such restrictive labelling, which can only be regarded as mischievous, though (or very mainly because) it has been continued. Another school, arising mainly in the later ’eighties and calling itself that of “Symbolism,” has been supposed to indicate a reaction against Parnassianism and even against the main or Hugonic Romantic tradition generally; with a throwing back to Lamartine and perhaps Chénier. This idea of successive schools (“Decadents,” “Naturists,” “Simplists,” &c.) has even been reduced to such anabsurdumas the statement that “France sees a new school of poetry every fifteen years.” Those who have studied literature sufficiently widely, and from a sufficient elevation, know that these systematisings are always more or less delusive. Parnassianism, symbolism and the other things are merely phases of the Romantic movement itself—as may be proved to demonstration by the simple process of taking, say, Hugo and Verlaine on the one hand, Delille or Escouchard Lebrun on the other, and comparing the two first mentioned with each other and with the older poet. The differences in the first case will be found to bedifferences at most of individuality: in the other of kind. We shall not, therefore, further refer to these dubious classifications: but specify briefly the most remarkable poets whom they concern, and all the older of whom, it may be observed, were represented in theParnasseitself. Of these the most remarkable were Sully Prudhomme (1839-1907), François Coppée (1842-1908) and Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). The first (Stances et poèmes, 1865,Vaines Tendresses, 1875,Bonheur, 1888, &c.) is a philosophical and rather pessimistic poet who has very strongly rallied the suffrages of the rather large present public who care for the embodiment of these tendencies in verse; the second (La Grève des forgerons, 1869,Les Humbles, 1872,Contes et vers, 1881-1887, &c.) a dealer with more generally popular subjects in a more sentimental manner; and the third (Sagesse, 1881,Parallèlement, 1889,Poèmes saturniens, including early work, 1867-1890), by far the most original and remarkable poet of the three, starting with Baudelaire and pushing farther the fancy for forbidden subjects, but treating both these and others with wonderful command of sound and image-suggestion. Verlaine in fact (he was actually well acquainted with English) endeavoured, and to a small extent succeeded in the endeavour, to communicate to French the vague suggestion of visual and audible appeal which has characterized English poetry from Blake through Coleridge. Others of the original Parnassiens who deserve mention are Albert Glatigny (1839-1873), a Bohemian poet of great talent who died young; Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), afterwards chief of the Symbolists, also a true poet in his way, but somewhat barren, and the victim of pose and trick; José Maria de Heredia (1842-1905), a very exquisite practitioner of the sonnet but with perhaps more art than matter in him; Henri Cazalis (1840-1909), who long afterwards, under his name of Jean Lahor, appeared as a Symbolist pessimist; A. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, another eccentric but with a spark of genius; Emmanuel des Essarts; Auguste de Châtillon (1810-1882); Léon Dierx (b. 1838) who, after producing even less than Mallarmé, succeeded him as Symbolist chief; Jean Aicard (b. 1848), a southern bard of merit; and lastly Catulle Mendès himself, who has been a brilliant writer in verse and prose ever since, and whoseMouvement poétique français de 1867 à 1900(1903), an official report largely amplified so that it is in fact a history and dictionary of French poetry during the century, forms an almost unique work of reference on the subject. Among the later recruits the most specially noticeable was Armand Silvestre (1837-1901), whose verse (La Chanson des heures, 1878,Ailes d’or, 1880,La Chanson des étoiles, 1885), of an ethereal beauty, was contrasted with prose admirably written and sometimes most amusing, but “Pantagruelist,” and more, in manners and morals. This declension from poetry to prose fiction was also noticeable in Guy de Maupassant, André Theuriet, Anatole France and even Alphonse Daudet.
Yet another flight of poets may be grouped as those specially representing the last quarter of the century and (whether Parnassian, Symbolist or what not) the latest development of French poetry. Verlaine and Mallarmé already mentioned were in a manner the leaders of these. Perhaps something of the influence of Whitman may be detected in the irregular verses of Gustave Kahn (b. 1859), Francis Viélé Griffin, actually an American by birth (b. 1864), Stuart Merrill, of like origin, and Paul Fort (b. 1872). But the whole tendency of the period has been to relax the stringency of French prosody. Albert Samain (1859-1900), a musical versifier enough; Jean Moréas (1856-1910) who began with a volume calledLes Syrtesin 1884; Laurent Tailhade (b. 1854) and others are more or less Symbolist, and contributed to the Symbolist periodical (one of many such since the beginning of the Romantic movement which would almost require an article to themselves), theMercure de France. An older man than many of these, M. Jean Richepin (b. 1849), made for a time considerable noise with poetical work of a colour older even than his age, and harking back somewhat to the Jeune-France and “Bousingot” type of early Romanticism—La Chanson des gueux,Les Blasphèmes, &c. Other writers of note are M. Paul Déroulède (b. 1846), a violently nationalist poet; M. Maurice Bouchor (b. 1864), who started his serious and respectable work withLes Symbolesin 1888; while M. Henri de Regnier, born in the same year, has received very high praise for work fromLendemainsin 1886 and other volumes up toLes Jeux rustiques et divins(1897) andLes Médailles d’argile(1900). The truth, however, perhaps is that this extraordinary abundance of verse (for we have not mentioned a quarter of the names which present themselves, or a twentieth part of those who figure in M. Mendès’s catalogue for the last half-century) reminds the literary historian somewhat too much of similar phenomena in other times. There is undoubtedly a great diffusion of poetical dexterity, and not perhaps a small one of poetical spirit, but it requires the settling, clarifying and distinguishing effects of time to separate the poet from the minor poet. Still more perhaps must we look to time to decide whether thevers libreas it is called—that is to say, the verse freed from the minute traditions of the elder prosody, admitting hiatus, neglecting to a greater or less extentcaesura, and sometimes relying upon mere rhythm to the neglect of strict metre altogether—can hold its ground. It has as yet been practised by no poet at all approaching the first class, except Verlaine, and not by him in its extremer forms. And the whole history of prosody and poetry teaches us that though similar changes often come in as it were unperceived, they scarcely ever take root in the language unless a great poet adopts them. Or rather it should perhaps be said that when they are going to take root in the language a great poet always does adopt them before very long.
Prose Fiction since 1830.—Even more remarkable, because more absolutely novel, was the outburst of prose fiction which followed 1830. Madame de Lafayette, Le Sage, Marivaux, Voltaire, the Abbé Prévost, Diderot, J. J. Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Fiévée had all of them produced work excellent in its way, and comprising in a more or less rudimentary condition most varieties of the novel. But none of them had, in the French phrase, made a school, and at no time had prose fiction been composed in any considerable quantities. The immense influence which Walter Scott exercised was perhaps the direct cause of the attention paid to prose fiction; the facility, too, with which all the fancies, tastes and beliefs of the time could be embodied in such work may have had considerable importance. But it is difficult on any theory of cause and effect to account for the appearance in less than ten years of such a group of novelists as Hugo, Gautier, Dumas, Mérimée, Balzac, George Sand, Jules Sandeau and Charles de Bernard, names to which might be added others scarcely inferior. There is hardly anything else resembling it in literature, except the great cluster of English dramatists in the beginning of the 17th century, and of English poets at the beginning of the 19th; and it is remarkable that the excellence of the first group was maintained by a fresh generation—Murger, About, Feuillet, Flaubert, Erckmann-Chatrian, Droz, Daudet, Cherbuliez and Gaboriau, forming a company ofdiadochinot far inferior to their predecessors, and being themselves not unworthily succeeded almost up to the present day. The romance-writing of France during the period has taken two different directions—the first that of the novel of incident, the second that of analysis and character. The first, now mainly deserted, was that which, as was natural when Scott was the model, was formerly most trodden; the second required the genius of George Sand and of Balzac and the more problematical talent of Beyle to attract students to it. The novels of Victor Hugo are novels of incident, with a strong infusion of purpose, and considerable but rather ideal character drawing. They are in fact lengthy prosedramesrather than romances proper, and they have found no imitators. They display, however, the powers of the master at their fullest.Dumas.On the other hand, Alexandre Dumas originally composed his novels in close imitation of Scott, and they are much less dramatic than narrative in character, so that they lend themselves to almost indefinite continuation, and there is often no particular reason why they should terminate even at the end of the score or so of volumes to which they sometimes actually extend. Of this purely narrative kind, which hardlyeven attempts anything but the boldest character drawing, the best of them, such asLes Trois Mousquetaires,Vingt ans après,La Reine Margot, are probably the best specimens extant. Dumas possesses, almost alone among novelists, the secret of writing interminable dialogue without being tedious, and of telling the story by it. Of something the same kind, but of a far lower stamp, are the novels of Eugène Sue (1804-1857). Dumas and Sue were accompanied and followed by a vast crowd of companions, independent or imitative. Alfred de Vigny had already attempted the historical novel inCinq-Mars. Henri de La Touche (1785-1851) (Fragoletta), an excellent critic who formed George Sand, but a mediocre novelist, may be mentioned: and perhaps also Roger de Beauvoir, whose real name was Eugène Auguste Roger de Bully (1806-1866) (Le Chronique de Saint Georges), and Frédéric Soulié (Les Mémoires du diable) (1800-1847). Paul Féval (La Fée des grèves) (1817-1877) and Amédée Achard (Belle-Rose) (1814-1875) are of the same school, and some of the attempts of Jules Janin (1804-1874), more celebrated as a critic, may also be connected with it. By degrees, however, the taste for the novel of incident, at least of an historical kind, died out till it was revived in another form, and with an admixture of domestic interest, by MM. Erckmann-Chatrian. The last and one of the most splendid instances of the old style wasLe Capitaine Fracasse, which Théophile Gautier began early and finished late as a kind oftour de force. The last-named writer in his earlier days had modified the incident novel in many short tales, a kind of writing for which French has always been famous, and in which Gautier’s sketches are masterpieces. His only other long novel,Mademoiselle de Maupin, belongs rather to the class of analysis. With Gautier, as a writer whose literary characteristics even excel his purely tale-telling powers, may be classed Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870), one of the most exquisite 19th-century masters of the language. Already, however, in 1830 the tide was setting strongly in favour of novels of contemporary life and manners. These were of course susceptible of extremely various treatment. For many years Paul de Kock (1793-1871), a writer who did not trouble himself about Classics or Romantics or any such matter, continued the tradition of Marivaux, Crébillonfils, and Pigault Lebrun (1753-1835) in a series of not very moral or polished but lively and amusing sketches of life, principally of the bourgeois type. Later Charles de Bernard (1804-1850) (Gerfaut) with infinitely greater wit, elegance, propriety and literary skill, did the same thing for the higher classes of French society. But the two great masters of the novel of character and manners as opposed to that of history and incident are Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) and Aurore Dudevant, commonly called George Sand (1804-1876). Their influence affected the entire body of novelists who succeeded them, with very few exceptions. At the head of these exceptions may be placed Jules Sandeau (1811-1883), who, after writing a certain number of novels in a less individual style, at last made for himself a special subject in a certain kind of domestic novel, where the passions set in motion are less boisterous than those usually preferred by the French novelist, and reliance is mainly placed on minute character drawing and shades of colour sober in hue but very carefully adjusted (Catherine,Mademoiselle de Penarvan,Mademoiselle de la Seiglière). In the same class of the more quiet and purely domestic novelists may be placed X. B. Saintine (1798-1865) (Picciola), Madame C. Reybaud (1802-1871) (Clémentine,Le Cadet de Colobrières), J. T. de Saint-Germain (Pour en épingle,La Feuille de coudrier), Madame Craven (1808-1891) (Récit d’une sœur,Fleurange). Henri Beyle (1798-1865), who wrote under thenom de plumeof Stendhal and belongs to an older generation than most of these, also stands by himself. His chief book in the line of fiction isLa Chartreuse de Parme, an exceedingly powerful novel of the analytical kind, and he also composed a considerable number of critical and miscellaneous works. Of little influence at first (though he had great power over Mérimée) and never master of a perfect style, he has exercised ever increasing authority as a master of pessimist analysis. Indeed much of his work was never published till towards the close of the century. Last among the independents must be mentioned Henry Murger (1822-1861), the painter of what is called Bohemian life, that is to say, the struggles, difficulties and amusements of students, youthful artists, and men of letters. In this peculiar style, which may perhaps be regarded as an irregular descendant of the picaroon romance, Murger has no rival; and he is also, though on no extensive scale, a poet of great pathos. But with these exceptions, the influences of the two writers we have mentioned, sometimes combined, more often separate, may be traced throughout the whole of later novel literature. George Sand began with books strongly tinged with the spirit of revolt against moral and social arrangements, and she sometimes diverged into very curious paths of pseudo-philosophy, such as was popular in the second quarter of the century. At times, too, as inLucrezia Florianiand some other works, she did not hesitate to draw largely on her own personal adventures and experiences. But latterly she devoted herself rather to sketches of country life and manners, and to novels involving bold if not very careful sketches of character and more or less dramatic situations. She was one of the most fertile of novelists, continuing to the end of her long life to pour forth fiction at the rate of many volumes a year. Of her different styles may be mentioned as fairly characteristic,Lélia,LucreziaFloriani,Consuelo,La Mare au diable,La Petite Fadette,François le champi,Mademoiselle de la Quintinie. Considering the shorterBalzac the younger.length of his life the productiveness of Balzac was almost more astonishing, especially if we consider that some of his early work was never reprinted, and that he left great stores of fragments and unfinished sketches. He is, moreover, the most remarkable example in literature of untiring work and determination to achieve success despite the greatest discouragements. His early work was worse than unsuccessful, it was positively bad. After more than a score of unsuccessful attempts,Les Chouansat last made its mark, and for twenty years from that time the astonishing productions composing the so-calledComédie humainewere poured forth successively. The sub-titles which Balzac imposed upon the different batches,Scènes de la vie parisienne,de la vie de province,de la vie intime, &c., show, like the general title, a deliberate intention on the author’s part to cover the whole ground of human, at least of French life. Such an attempt could not succeed wholly; yet the amount of success attained is astonishing. Balzac has, however, with some justice been accused of creating the world which he described, and his personages, wonderful as is the accuracy and force with which many of the characteristics of humanity are exemplified in them, are somehow not altogether human. Since these two great novelists, many others have arisen, partly to tread in their steps, partly to strike out independent paths. Octave Feuillet (1821-1890), beginning his career by apprenticeship to Alexandre Dumas and the historical novel, soon found his way in a very different style of composition, theroman intimeof fashionable life, in which, notwithstanding some grave defects, he attained much popularity and showed remarkable skill in keeping abreast of his time. The so-called realist side of Balzac was developed (but, as he himself acknowledged, with a double dose of intermixed if somewhat transformed Romanticism) by Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), who showed culture, scholarship and a literary power over the language inferior to that of no writer of the century. No novelist of his generation has attained a higher literary rank than Flaubert.Madame BovaryandL’Éducation sentimentaleare studies of contemporary life; inSalammbôandLa Tentation de Saint Antoineerudition and antiquarian knowledge furnish the subjects for the display of the highest literary skill. Of about the same date Edmond About (1828-1885), before he abandoned novel-writing, devoted himself chiefly to sketches of abundant but not always refined wit (L’Homme à l’oreille cassée,Le Nez d’un notaire), and sometimes to foreign scenes (Tolla,Le Roi des montagnes). Champfleury (Henri Husson, 1829-1889), a prolific critic, deserves notice for stories of the extravaganza kind. During the whole of the Second Empire one of the most popular writers was Ernest Feydeau (1821-1873), a writer of great ability, but morbid and affected in the choice and treatment of his subjects (Fanny,Sylvie,Catherine d’Overmeire). Émile Gaboriau (1833-1873), taking up that side of Balzac’s talent which devoted itself to inextricable mysteries, criminal trials, and the like, producedM. Le Coq,Le Crime d’Orcival,La Dégringolade, &c.; and Adolphe Belot (b. 1829) for a time endeavoured to out-Feydeau Feydeau inLa Femme de feuand other works. Eugène Fromentin (1820-1876), best known as a painter, wrote a novel,Dominique, which was highly appreciated by good judges.
During the last decade of the Second Empire there arose, continuing for varying lengths of time till nearly the end of the century, another remarkable group of novelists, most of whom are dealt with under separate headings, but who must receive combined treatment here; with the warning that even more danger than in the case of the poets is incurred by classing them in “schools.” Undoubtedly, however, the “Naturalist” tendency, starting from Balzac and continued through Flaubert, but taking quite a new direction under some of those to be mentioned, is in a manner dominant. Flaubert himself and Feuillet (an exact observer of manners but an anti-Naturalist) have already been mentioned. Victor Cherbuliez (1829-1899), a constant writer in theRevue des deux mondeson politics and other subjects, also accomplished a long series of novels fromLe Comte Kostia(1863) onwards, of which the most remarkable are that just named,Le Roman d’une honnête femme(1866), andMeta Holdenis(1873). With something of Balzac and more of Feuillet, Cherbuliez mixed with his observation of society a dose of sentimental and popular romance which offended the younger critics of his day, but he had solid merits. Gustave Droz (b. 1832) devoted himself chiefly to short stories sufficiently “free” in subject (Monsieur, madame et bébé,Entre nous, &c.) but full of fancy, excellently written, and of a delicate wit in one sense if not in all. André Theuriet (1833-1907) began with poetry but diverged to novels, in which the scenery of France and especially of its great forests is used with much skill;Le Fils Maugars(1879) may be mentioned out of many as a specimen. Léon Cladel (1835-1892), whose most remarkable work wasLes Va-nu-pieds(1874), had, as this title of itself shows, Naturalist leanings; but with a quaint Romantic tendency in prose and verse.
The Naturalists proper chiefly developed or seemed to develop one side of Balzac, but almost entirely abandoned his Romantic element. They aimed first at exact and almost photographic delineation of the accidents of modern life, and secondly at still more uncompromising non-suppression of the essential features and functions of that life which are usually suppressed. This school may be represented in chief by four novelists (reallythree, as two of them were brothers who wrote together till the rather early death of one of them), Émile Zola (1840-1903), Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897), and Edmond (1822-1897) and Jules (1830-1870) de Goncourt. The first, of Italian extraction and Marseillais birth, began by work of undecided kinds and was always a critic as well as a novelist. Of this first stageContes à Ninon(1864) andThérèse Raquin(1867) deserve to be specified. But after 1870 Zola entered upon a huge scheme (suggested no doubt by theComédie humaine) of tracing the fortunes in every branch, legitimate and illegitimate, and in every rank of society of a family,Les Rougon-Macquart, and carried it out in a full score of novels during more than as many years. He followed this with a shorter series on places,Paris,Rome,Lourdes, and lastly by another of strangely apocalyptic tone,Fécondité,Travail,Vérité, the last a story of the Dreyfus case, retrospective and, as it proved, prophetic. The extreme repulsiveness of much of his work, and the overdone detail of almost the whole of it, caused great prejudice against him, and will probably always prevent his being ranked among the greatest novelists; but his power is indubitable, and in passages, if not in whole books, does itself justice.
MM. de Goncourt, besides their work in Naturalist (they would have preferred to call it “Impressionist”) fiction, devoted themselves especially to study and collection in the fine arts, and produced many volumes on the historical side of these, volumes distinguished by accurate and careful research. This quality they carried, and the elder of them after his brother’s death continued to carry, into novel-writing (Renée Mauperin,Germinie Lacerteux,Chérie, &c.) with the addition of an extraordinary care for peculiar and, as they called it, “personal” diction. On the other hand, Alphonse Daudet (who with the other three, Flaubert to some extent, and the Russian novelist Turgenieff, formed a sort ofcénacleor literary club) mixed with some Naturalism a far greater amount of fancy and wit than his companions allowed themselves or could perhaps attain; and in theTartarinseries (dealing with the extravagances of his fellow-Provençaux) added not a little to the gaiety of Europe. His other novels (Fromont jeune et Risler aîné,Jack,Le Nabab, &c.), also very popular, have been variously judged, there being something strangely like plagiarism in some of them, and in others, in fact in most, an excessive use of that privilege of the novelist which consists in introducing real persons under more or less disguise. It should be observed in speaking of this group that the Goncourts, or rather the survivor of them, left an elaborateJournaldisfigured by spite and bad taste, but of much importance for the appreciation of the personal side of French literature during the last half of the century.
In 1880 Zola, who had by this time formed a regular school of disciples, issued with certain of them a collection of short stories,Les Soirées de Médan, which contains one of his own best things,L’Attaque du moulin, and also the capital story,Boule de suif, by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), who in the same year published poems,Des vers, of very remarkable if not strictly poetical quality. Maupassant developed during his short literary career perhaps the greatest powers shown by any French novelist since Flaubert (his sponsor in both senses) in a series of longer novels (Une Vie,Bel Ami,Pierre et Jean,Fort comme la mort) and shorter stories (Monsieur Parent,Les Sœurs Rondoli,Le Horla), but they were distorted by the Naturalist pessimism and grime, and perhaps also by the brain-disease of which their author died. M. J. K. Huysmans (b. 1848), also a contributor toLes Soirées de Médan, who had begun a little earlier withMarthe(1876) and other books, gave his most characteristic work in 1884 withAu reboursand in 1891 withLà-bas, stories of exaggerated and “satanic” pose, decorated with perhaps the extremest achievements of the school in mere ugliness and nastiness. Afterwards, by an obvious reaction, he returned to Catholicism. Of about the same date as these two are two other novelists of note, Julien Viaud (“Pierre Loti,” b. 1850), a naval officer who embodied his experiences of foreign service with a faint dose of story and character interest, and a far larger one of elaborate description, in a series of books (Aziyadé,Le Mariage de Loti,Madame Chrysanthème, &c.), and M. Paul Bourget (b. 1852), an important critic as well as novelist who deflected the Naturalist current into a “psychological” channel, connecting itself higher with Stendhal, and composed in its books very popular in their way—Cruelle Énigme(1885),Le Disciple,Terre promise,Cosmopolis. As a contrast or complement to Bourget’s “psychological” novel may be taken the “ethical” novel of Edouard Rod (1857-1909)—La Vie privée de Michel Tessier(1893),Le Sens de la vie,Les Trois Cœurs. Contemporary with these as a novelist though a much older man, and occupied at different times of his life with verse and with criticism, came Anatole France (b. 1844), who inLe Crime de Silvestre Bonnard,La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque,Le Lys rouge, and others, has made a kind of novel as different from the ordinary styles as Pierre Loti’s, but of far higher appeal in its wit, its subtle fancy, and its perfect French. Ferdinand Fabre (1830-1898) and René Bazin (b. 1853) represent the union, not too common in the French novel, of orthodoxy in morals and religion with literary ability. Further must be mentioned Paul Hervieu (b. 1857), a dramatist rather than a novelist; the brothers Margueritte (Paul, b. 1860, Victor, b. 1866), especially strong in short stories and passages; another pair of brothers of Belgian origin writing under the name of “J. H. Rosny”—Zolaists partly converted not to religion but to science and a sort of non-Christian virtue; the ingenious and amusing, if not exactly moral, brilliancy of Marcel Prévost (b. 1862); thecontorted but rather attractive style and the perverse sentiment of Maurice Barrès (b. 1862); and, above all, the audacious and inimitable dialogue pieces of “Gyp” (Madame de Martel, b. 1850), worthy of the best times of French literature for gaiety, satire, acuteness and style, and perhaps likely, with the work of Maupassant, Pierre Loti and Anatole France, to represent the capital achievement of their particular generation to posterity.
Periodical Literature since 1830.Criticism.—One of the causes which led to this extensive composition of novels was the great spread of periodical literature in France, and the custom of including in almost all periodicals, daily, weekly or monthly, afeuilletonor instalment of fiction. Of the contributors of these periodicals who were strictly journalists and almost political journalists only, the most remarkable after Carrel were his opponent in the fatal duel,—Émile de Girardin, Lucien A. Prévost-Paradol (1829-1870), Jean Hippolyte Cartier, called de Villemessant (1812-1879), and, above all, Louis Veuillot (1815-1883), the most violent and unscrupulous but by no means the least gifted of his class. The same spread of periodical literature, together with the increasing interest in the literature of the past, led also to a very great development of criticism. Almost all French authors of any eminence during nearly the last century have devoted themselves more or less to criticism of literature, of the theatre, or of art. And sometimes, as in the case of Janin and Gautier, the comparatively lucrative nature of journalism, and the smaller demands which it made for labour and intellectual concentration, have diverted to feuilleton-writing abilities which might perhaps have been better employed. At the same time it must be remembered that from this devotion of men of the best talents to critical work has arisen an immense elevation of the standard of such work. Before the romantic movement in France Diderot in that country, Lessing and some of his successors in Germany, Hazlitt, Coleridge and Lamb in England, had been admirable critics and reviewers. But the theory of criticism, though these men’s principles and practice had set it aside, still remained more or less what it had been for centuries. The critic was merely the administrator of certain hard and fast rules. There were certain recognized kinds of literary composition; every new book was bound to class itself under one or other of these. There were certain recognized rules for each class; and the goodness or badness of a book consisted simply in its obedience or disobedience to these rules. Even the kinds of admissible subjects and the modes of admissible treatment were strictly noted and numbered. This was especially the case in France and with regard to Frenchbelles-lettres, so that, as we have seen, certain classes of composition had been reduced to unimportant variations of a registered pattern. The Romantic protest against this absurdity was specially loud and completely victorious. It is said that a publisher advised the youthful Lamartine to try “to be like somebody else” if he wished to succeed. The Romantic standard of success was, on the contrary, to be as individual as possible. Victor Hugo himself composed a good deal of criticism, and in the preface to hisOrientaleshe states the critical principles of the new school clearly. The critic, he says, has nothing to do with the subject chosen, the colours employed, the materials used. Is the work, judged by itself and with regard only to the ideal which the worker had in his mind, good or bad? It will be seen that as a legitimate corollary of this theorem the critic becomes even more of an interpreter than of a judge. He can no longer satisfy himself or his readers by comparing the work before him with some abstract and accepted standard, and marking off its shortcomings. He has to reconstruct, more or less conjecturally, the special ideal at which each of his authors aimed, and to do this he has to study their idiosyncrasies with the utmost care, and set them before his readers in as full and attractive a fashion as he can manage. The first writer who thoroughly grasped this necessity and successfullySainte-Beuve.dealt with it was Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), who has indeed identified his name with the method of criticism just described. Sainte-Beuve’s first remarkable work (his poems and novels we may leave out of consideration) was the sketch of 16th-century literature already alluded to, which he contributed to theGlobe. But it was not till later that his style of criticism became fully developed and accentuated. During the first decade of Louis Philippe’s reign his critical papers, united under the title ofCritiques et portraits littéraires, show a gradual advance. During the next ten years he was mainly occupied with his studies of the writers of the Port Royal school. But it was during the last twenty years of his life, when the famousCauseries du lundiappeared weekly in the columns of theConstitutionneland theMoniteur, that his most remarkable productions came out. Sainte-Beuve’s style of criticism (which is the key to so much of French literature of the last half-century that it is necessary to dwell on it at some length), excellent and valuable as it is, lent itself to two corruptions. There is, in the first place, in making the careful investigations into the character and circumstances of each writer which it demands, a danger of paying too much attention to the man and too little to his work, and of substituting for a critical study a mere collection of personal anecdotes and traits, especially if the author dealt with belongs to a foreign country or a past age. The other danger is that of connecting the genius and character of particular authors too much with their conditions and circumstances, so as to regard them as merely so many products of the age. These faults, and especially the latter, have been very noticeable in many of Sainte-Beuve’s successors, particularly in, perhaps, Hippolyte Taine, who, however, besides his work on English literature, did much of importance on French, and has been regarded as the first critic who did thorough honour to Balzac in his own country. A large number of other critics during the period deserve notice because, though acting more or less on the newer system of criticism, they have manifested considerable originality in its application. As far as merely critical faculty goes, and still more in the power of giving literary expression to criticism, Théophile Gautier yields to no one. HisLes Grotesques, an early work dealing with Villon, the earlier “Théophile” de Viau, and otherenfants terriblesof French literature, has served as a model to many subsequent writers, such as Charles Monselet (1825-1888), and Charles Asselineau (1820-1874), the affectionate historian, in hisBibliographie romantique(1872-1874), of the less famous promoters of the Romantic movement. On the other hand, Gautier’s picture criticisms, and his short reviews of books, obituary notices, and other things of the kind contributed to daily papers, are in point of style among the finest of all such fugitive compositions. Jules Janin (1804-1874), chiefly a theatrical critic, excelled in light and easy journalism, but his work has neither weight of substance nor careful elaboration of manner sufficient to give it permanent value. This sort of light critical comment has become almost a speciality of the French press, and among its numerous practitioners the names of Armand de Pontmartin (1811-1890) (an imitator and assailant of Sainte-Beuve), Arsène Houssaye, Pierangelo Fiorentino (1806-1864), may be mentioned. Edmond Scherer (1815-1889) and Paul de Saint-Victor (1827-1881) represent different sides of Sainte-Beuve’s style in literary criticism, Scherer combining with it a martinet and somewhat prudish precision, while Saint-Victor, with great powers of appreciation, is the most flowery and “prose-poetical” of French critics. In theatrical censure Francisque Sarcey (1827-1899), an acute but somewhat severe and limited judge, succeeded to the good-natured sovereignty of Janin. The criticism of theRevue des deux mondeshas played a sufficiently important part in French literature to deserve separate notice in passing. Founded in 1829, theRevue, after some vicissitudes, soon attained, under the direction of the Swiss Buloz, the character of being one of the first of European critical periodicals. Its style of criticism has, on the whole, inclined rather to the classical side—that is, to classicism as modified by, and possible after, the Romantic movement. Besides some of the authors already named, its principal critical contributors were Gustave Planche (1808-1857), an acute but somewhat truculent critic, Saint-René Taillandier (1817-1879), and Émile Montégut (1825-1895), a man of letters whom greater leisure would have made greater, but who actually combined much and varied critical power withan agreeable style. Lastly we must notice the important section of professorial or university critics, whose critical work has taken the form either of regular treatises or of courses of republished lectures, books somewhat academic and rhetorical in character, but often representing an amount of influence which has served largely to stir up attention to literature. The most prominent name among these is that of Abel Villemain (1790-1867), who was one of the earliest critics of the literature of his own country to obtain a hearing out of it. Désiré Nisard (1806-1888) was perhaps more fortunate in his dealings with Latin than with French, and in hisHistoryof the latter literature represents too much the classical tradition, but he had dignity, erudition and an excellent style. Alexandre Vinet (1797-1847), a Swiss critic of considerable eminence, Saint-Marc-Girardin (1801-1873), whoseCours de littérature dramatiqueis his chief work, and Eugène Géruzez (1799-1865), the author not only of an extremely useful and well-written handbook to French literature before the Revolution, but also of other works dealing with separate portions of the subject, must also be mentioned. One remarkable critic, Ernest Hello (1818-1885), attracted during his life little attention even in France, and hardly any out of it, his work being strongly tinctured with the unpopular flavour and colour of uncompromising “clericalism,” and his extremely bad health keeping him out of the ordinary fraternities of literary society. It was, however, as full of idiosyncrasy as of partisanship, and is exceedingly interesting to those who regard criticism as mainly valuable because it gives different aspects of the same thing.
Perhaps in no branch ofbelles-lettresdid the last quarter of the century maintain the level at which predecessors had arrived better than in criticism; though whether this fact is connected with something of decadence in the creative branches, is a question which may be better posed than resolved here. A remarkable writer whose talent, approaching genius, was spoilt by eccentricity and pose, and who belonged to a more modern generation, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly (1808-1889), poet, novelist and critic, produced much of his last critical work, and corrected more, in these later days. Not only did the critical work in various ways of Renan, Taine, Scherer, Sarcey and others continue during parts of it, but a new generation, hardly in this case inferior to the old, appeared. The three chiefs of this were the already mentioned Anatole France, Émile Faguet (b. 1847), and Ferdinand Brunetière (1849-1906), to whom some would add Jules Lemaître (b. 1853). The last, however, though a brilliant writer, was but an “interim” critic, beginning with poetry and other matters, and after a time turning to yet others, while, brilliant as he was, his criticism was often ill-informed. So too Anatole France, after compiling four volumes ofLa Vie littérairein his own inimitable style and with singular felicity of appreciation, also turned away. The phenomenon in both cases may be associated, though it must not be too intimately connected in the relation of cause and effect, with the fact that both were champions and practitioners of “impressionist criticism”—of the doctrine (unquestionably sound if not exaggerated) that the first duty of the critic is to reproduce the effect produced on his own mind by the author. Brunetière and Faguet, on the other hand, are partisans of the older academic style of criticism by kind and on principle. Faguet, besides regular volumes on each of the four great centuries of French literature, has produced much other work—all of it somewhat “classical” in tendency and frequently exhibiting something of a want of comprehension of the Romantic side. Brunetière was still more prolific on the same side but with still greater effort after system and “science.” In the books definitely calledL’Évolution des genres, in hisManuelof French literature, and in a large number of other volumes of collected essays he enforced with great learning and power of argument, if with a somewhat narrow purview and with some prejudice against writers whom he disliked, a new form of the old doctrine that the “kind” not the individual author or book ought to be the main subject of the critic’s attention. He did not escape the consequential danger of taking authors and books not as they are but as in relation to the kinds which they in fact constitute and to his general views. But he was undoubtedly at his death the first critic of France and a worthy successor of her best.
Of others older and younger must be mentioned Paul Stapfer (b. 1840), professor of literature, and the author of divers excellent works fromShakespeare et l’antiquitéto volumes of the first value on Montaigne and Rabelais; Paul Bourget and Edouard Rod, already noticed; Augustin Filon (b. 1841), author of much good work on English literature and an excellent book on Mérimée; Alexandre Beljame (1843-1906), another eminent student of English literature, in which subject J. A. Jusserand (b. 1855), Legouis, K. A. J. Angellier (b. 1848), and others have recently distinguished themselves; Gustave Larroumet, especially an authority on Marivaux; Eugène Lintilhac (b. 1854); Georges Pellissier; Gustave Lanson, author of a compact history of French literature in French; Marcel Schwob, who had done excellent work on Villon and other subjects before his early death; René Doumic, a frequent writer in theRevue des deux mondes, who collected four volumes ofÉtudes sur la littérature françaisebetween 1895 and 1900; and the Vicomte Melchior de Vogüé (b. 1848), whose interests have been more political-philosophical than strictly literary, but who has done much to familiarize the French public with that Russian literature to which Mérimée had been the first to introduce them. But the body of recent critical literature in France is perhaps larger in actual proportion and of greater value when considered in relation to other kinds of literature than has been the case at any previous period.
History since 1830.—The remarkable development of historical studies which we have noticed as taking place under the Restoration was accelerated and intensified in the reigns of Charles X. and Louis Philippe. Both the scope and the method of the historian underwent a sensible alteration. For something like 150 years historians had been divided into two classes, those who produced elegant literary works pleasant to read, and those who produced works of laborious erudition, but not even intended for general perusal. The Vertots and Voltaires were on one side, the Mabillons and Tillemonts on another. Now, although the duty of a French historian to produce works of literary merit was not forgotten, it was recognized as part of that duty to consult original documents and impart original observation. At the same time, to the merely political events which had formerly been recognized as forming the historian’s province were added the social and literary phenomena which had long been more or less neglected. Old chronicles and histories were re-read and re-edited; innumerable monographs on special subjects and periods were produced, and these latter were of immense service to romance writers at the time of the popularity of the historical novel. Not a few of the works, for instance, which were signed by Alexandre Dumas consist mainly of extracts or condensations from old chronicles, or modern monographs, ingeniously united by dialogue and varnished with a little description. History, however, had not to wait for this second-hand popularity, and its cultivators had fully sufficient literary talent to maintain its dignity. Sismondi, whom we have already noticed, continued during this period his greatHistoire des Français, and produced his even better-knownHistoire des républiques italiennes au moyen âge. The brothers Thierry devoted themselves to early French history, Amédée Thierry (1797-1873) producing aHistoire des Gauloisand other works concerning the Roman period, and Augustin Thierry (1795-1856) the well-known history of the Norman Conquest, the equally attractiveRécits des temps Mérovingiensand other excellent works. Philippe de Ségur (1780-1873) gave a history of the Russian campaign of Napoleon, and some other works chiefly dealing with Russian history. The voluminousHistoire de Franceof Henri Martin (1810-1883) is perhaps the best and most impartial work dealing in detail with the whole subject. A. G. P. Brugière, baron de Barante (1782-1866), after beginning with literary criticism, turned to history, and in hisHistoire des ducs de Bourgogneproduced a work of capital importance. As was to be expected, many of the most brilliant results of this devotion to historical subjects consisted of works dealing with the French Revolution. Noseries of historical events has ever perhaps received treatment at the same time from so many different points of view, and by writers of such varied literary excellence, among whom it must, however, be said that the purely royalist side is hardly at all represented. One of the earliest of these histories is that of François Mignet (1796-1884), a sober and judicious historian of the older school, also well known for hisHistoire de Marie Stuart. About the same time was begun the brilliant if not extremely trustworthy work of Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) on the Revolution, which established the literary reputation of the future president of the French republic, and was at a later period completed by theHistoire du consulat et de l’empire. The downfall of the July monarchy and the early years of the empire witnessed the publication of several works of the first importance on this subject. Barante contributed histories of the Convention and the Directory, but the three books of greatest note were those of Lamartine, Jules Michelet (1798-1874), and Louis Blanc (1811-1882). Lamartine’sHistoire des Girondinsis written from the constitutional-republican point of view, and is sometimes considered to have had much influence in producing the events of 1848. It is, perhaps, rather the work of an orator and poet than of an historian. The work of Michelet is of a more original character. Besides his history of the Revolution, Michelet wrote an extended history of France, and a very large number of smaller works on historical, political and social subjects. His imaginative powers are of the highest order, and his style stands alone in French for its strangely broken and picturesque character, its turbid abundance of striking images, and its somewhat sombre magnificence, qualities which, as may easily be supposed, found full occupation in a history of the Revolution. The work of Louis Blanc was that of a sincere but ardent republican, and is useful from this point of view, but possesses no extraordinary literary merit. The principal contributions to the history of the Revolution of the third quarter of the century were those of Quinet, Lanfrey and Taine. Edgar Quinet (1803-1875), like Louis Blanc a devotee of the republic and an exile for its sake, brought to this one of his latest works a mind and pen long trained to literary and historical studies; butLa Révolutionis not considered his best work. P. Lanfrey devoted himself with extraordinary patience and acuteness to the destruction of the Napoleonic legend, and the setting of the character of Napoleon I. in a new, authentic and very far from favourable light. And Taine, after distinguishing himself, as we have mentioned, in literary criticism (Histoire de la littérature anglaise), and attaining less success in philosophy (De l’intelligence), turned inLes Origines de la France moderneto an elaborate discussion of the Revolution, its causes, character and consequences, which excited some commotion among the more ardent devotees of the principles of ’89. To return from this group, we must notice J. F. Michaud (1767-1839), the historian of the crusades, and François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (1787-1874), who, like his rival Thiers, devoted himself much to historical study. His earliest works were literary and linguistic, but he soon turned to political history, and for the last half-century of his long life his contributions to historical literature were almost incessant and of the most various character. The most important are the historiesDes Origines du gouvernement représentatif,De la révolution d’Angleterre,De la civilisation en France, and latterly aHistoire de France, which he was writing at the time of his death. Among minor historians of the earlier century may be mentioned Prosper Duvergier de Hauranne (1798-1881) (Gouvernement parlementaire en France), J. J. Ampère (1800-1864) (Histoire romaine à Rome), Auguste Arthur Beugnot (1797-1865) (Destruction du paganisme d’occident), J. O. B. de Cléron, comte d’Haussonville (La Réunion de la Lorraine à la France), Achille Tendelle de Vaulabelle (1799-1870) (Les Deux Restaurations). In the last quarter of the century, under the department of history, the most remarkable names were still those of Taine and Renan, the former being distinguished for thought and matter, the latter for style. Indeed it may be here proper to remark that Renan, in the kind of elaborated semi-poetic style which has most characterized the prose of the 19th century in all countries of Europe, takes pre-eminence among French writers even in the estimation of critics who are not enamoured of his substance and tone. But, under the influence of Taine to some extent and of a general European tendency still more, France during this period attained or recovered a considerable place for what is called “scientific” history—the history which while, in some cases, though not in all, not neglecting the development of style attaches itself particularly to “the document,” on the one hand, and to philosophical arrangement on the other. The chief representative of the school was probably Albert Sorel (1842-1906), whose various handlings of the Revolutionary period (including an excursion into partly literary criticism in the shape of an admirable monograph on Madame de Staël) have established themselves once for all. In a wider sweep Ernest Lavisse (b. 1842), who has dealt mainly with the 18th century, may hold a similar position. Of others, older and younger, the duc de Broglie (1821-1901), who devoted himself also to the 18th century and especially to its secret diplomacy; Gaston Boissier (b. 1823), a classical scholar rather than an historian proper, and one of the latest masters of the older French academic style; Thureau-Dangin (b. 1837), a student of mid 19th-century history; Henri Houssaye (b. 1848), one of the Napoleonic period; Gabriel Hanotaux (b. 1853), an historian of Richelieu and other subjects, and a practical politician, may be mentioned. A large accession has also been made to the publication of older memoirs—that important branch of French literature from almost the whole of its existence since the invention of prose.
Summary and Conclusion.—We have in these last pages given such an outline of the 19th-century literature of France as seemed convenient for the completion of what has gone before. It has been already remarked that the nearer approach is made to our own time the less is it possible to give exhaustive accounts of the individual cultivators of the different branches of literature. It may be added, perhaps, that such exhaustiveness becomes, as we advance, less and less necessary, as well as less and less possible. The individual poet of to-day may and does produce work that is in itself of greater literary value than that of the individual trouvère. As a matter of literary history his contribution is less remarkable because of the examples he has before him and the circumstances which he has around him. Yet we have endeavoured to draw such a sketch of French literature from theChanson de Rolandonwards that no important development and hardly any important partaker in such development should be left out. A few lines may, perhaps, be now profitably given to summing up the aspects of the whole, remembering always that, as in no case is generalization easier than in the case of the literary aspects and tendencies of periods and nations, so in no case is it apt to be more delusive unless corrected and supported by ample information of fact and detail.
At the close of the 11th century and at the beginning of the 12th we find the vulgar tongue in France not merely in fully organized use for literary purposes, but already employed in most of the forms of poetical writing. An immense outburst of epic and narrative verse has taken place, and lyrical poetry, not limited as in the case of the epics to the north of France, but extending from Roussillon to the Pas de Calais, completes this. The 12th century adds to these earliest forms the important development of the mystery, extends the subjects and varies the manner of epic verse, and begins the compositions of literary prose with the chronicles of St Denis and of Villehardouin, and the prose romances of the Arthurian cycle. All thisliteratureis so far connected purely with the knightly and priestly orders, though it is largely composed and still more largely dealt in by classes of men, trouvères and jongleurs, who are not necessarily either knights or priests, and in the case of the jongleurs are certainly neither. With a possible ancestry of Romance and Teutoniccantilenae, Bretonlais, and vernacular legends, the new literature has a certain pattern and model in Latin and for the most part ecclesiastical compositions. It has the sacred books and the legends of the saints for examples of narrative, the rhythm of the hymns for a guide to metre, and the ceremonies of the church for a stimulant to dramatic performance. By degreesalso, in this 12th century, forms of literature which busy themselves with the unprivileged classes begin to be born. The fabliau takes every phase of life for its subject; the folk-song acquires elegance and does not lose raciness and truth. In the next century, the 13th, medieval literature in France arrives at its prime—a prime which lasts until the first quarter of the 14th. The early epics lose something of their savage charms, the polished literature of Provence quickly perishes. But in the provinces which speak the more prevailing tongue nothing is wanting to literary development. The language itself has shaken off all its youthful incapacities, and, though not yet well adapted for the requirements of modern life and study, is in every way equal to the demands made upon it by its own time. The dramatic germ contained in the fabliau and quickened by the mystery produces the profane drama. Ambitious works of merit in the most various kinds are published;Aucassin et Nicolettestands side by side with theVie de Saint Louis, theJeu de la feuilliewithLe Miracle de Théophile, theRoman de la rosewith theRoman du Renart. The earliest notes of ballads and rondeau are heard; endeavours are made with zeal, and not always without understanding, to naturalize the wisdom of the ancients in France, and in the graceful tongue that France possesses. Romance in prose and verse, drama, history, songs, satire, oratory and even erudition, are all represented and represented worthily. Meanwhile all nations of western Europe have come to France for their literary models and subjects, and the greatest writers in English, German, Italian, content themselves with adaptations of Chrétien de Troyes, of Benoit de Sainte More, and of a hundred other known and unknown trouvères and fabulists. But this age does not last long. The language has been put to all the uses of which it is as yet capable; those uses in their sameness begin to pall upon reader and hearer; and the enormous evils of the civil and religious state reflect themselves inevitably in literature. The old forms die out or are prolonged only in half-lifeless travesties. The brilliant colouring of Froissart, and the graceful science of ballade and rondeau writers like Lescurel and Deschamps, alone maintain the literary reputation of the time. Towards the end of the 14th century the translators and political writers import many terms of art, and strain the language to uses for which it is as yet unhandy, though at the beginning of the next age Charles d’Orléans by his natural grace and the virtue of the forms he used emerges from the mass of writers. Throughout the 15th century the process of enriching or at least increasing the vocabulary goes on, but as yet no organizing hand appears to direct the process. Villon stands alone in merit as in peculiarity. But in this time dramatic literature and the literature of the floating popular broadsheet acquire an immense extension—all or almost all the vigour of spirit being concentrated in the rough farce and rougher lampoon, while all the literary skill is engrossed by insipidrhétoriqueursand pedants. Then comes the grand upheaval of the Renaissance and the Reformation. An immense influx of science, of thought to make the science living, of new terms to express the thought, takes place, and a band of literary workers appear of power enough to master and get into shape the turbid mass. Rabelais, Amyot, Calvin and Herberay fashion French prose; Marot, Ronsard and Regnier refashion French verse. The Pléiade introduces the drama as it is to be and the language that is to help the drama to express itself. Montaigne for the first time throws invention and originality into some other form than verse or than prose fiction. But by the end of the century the tide has receded. The work of arrangement has been but half done, and there are no master spirits left to complete it. At this period Malherbe and Balzac make their appearance. Unable to deal with the whole problem, they determine to deal with part of it, and to reject a portion of the riches of which they feel themselves unfit to be stewards. Balzac and his successors make of French prose an instrument faultless and admirable in precision, unequalled for the work for which it is fit, but unfit for certain portions of the work which it was once able to perform. Malherbe, seconded by Boileau, makes of French verse an instrument suited only for the purposes of the drama of Euripides, or rather of Seneca, with or without its chorus, and for a certain weakened echo of those choruses, under the name of lyrics. No French verse of the first merit other than dramatic is written for two whole centuries. The drama soon comes to its acme, and during the succeeding time usually maintains itself at a fairly high level until the death of Voltaire. But prose lends itself to almost everything that is required of it, and becomes constantly a more and more perfect instrument. To the highest efforts of pathos and sublimity its vocabulary and its arrangement likewise are still unsuited, though the great preachers of the 17th century do their utmost with it. But for clear exposition, smooth and agreeable narrative, sententious and pointed brevity, witty repartee, it soon proves itself to have no superior and scarcely an equal in Europe. In these directions practitioners of the highest skill apply it during the 17th century, while during the 18th its powers are shown to the utmost of their variety by Voltaire, and receive a new development at the hands of Rousseau. Yet, on the whole, it loses during this century. It becomes more and more unfit for any but trivial uses, and at last it is employed for those uses only. Then occurs the Revolution, repeating the mighty stir in men’s minds which the Renaissance had given, but at first experiencing more difficulty in breaking up the ground and once more rendering it fertile. The faulty and incomplete genius of Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël gives the first evidence of a new growth, and after many years the Romantic movement completes the work. Whether the force of that movement is now, after three-quarters of a century, spent or not, its results remain. The poetical power of French has been once more triumphantly proved, and its productiveness in all branches of literature has been renewed, while in that of prose fiction there has been almost created a new class of composition. In the process of reform, however, not a little of the finish of French prose style has been lost, and the language itself has been affected in something the same way as it was affected by the less judicious innovations of the Ronsardists. The pedantry of the Pléiade led to the preposterous compounds of Du Bartas; the passion of the Romantics for foreign tongues and for themot proprehas loaded French with foreign terms on the one hand and withargoton the other, while it is questionable whether thevers libreis really suited to the French genius. There is, therefore, room for new Malherbes and Balzacs, if the days for Balzacs and Malherbes had not to all appearance passed. Should they be once more forthcoming, they have the failure as well as the success of their predecessors to guide them.