Chapter XLIII: Book V: The Nineteenth Century (3)

The progress of French drama during the last half century is of somewhat less importance to literature, but of even more to social history, than that of poetry. The greatest masters of drama have already been mentioned among the eight typical names of 1830, even Balzac having attempted it, though without much success. The most famous and successful playwrights, however, as distinguished from the producers of literary dramas, have yet to be noticed[293]. Pixerecourt, a melodramatist and a book-collector, achieved his first success with a play on the well-known story of the Dog of Montargis (itself dating back to the earliest days of the Chansons de Gestes), in 1814, and followed it up with a long succession of similar pieces. Two years later Eugene Scribe, who had been born in 1791, made his _debut_, as far as success goes, with _Une Nuit de la Garde Nationale_. Scribe was one of the most prolific, one of the most successful, and one of the least literary of French dramatists. For nearly half a century he continued, sometimes alone, and sometimes in collaboration, to pour forth vaudevilles, dramas, and comedies, almost all of which were favourably received. Scribe was generous to his associates, and would sometimes acknowledge the communication of a bare idea by a share in the profits of the play which it suggested. He had also an almost unrivalled knowledge of the _technique_ of the theatre, and not a little wit. But his style is loose and careless, and his dramas do not bear reading. His most important later plays are _Valerie_, 1822; _Le Mariage d'Argent_, 1827; _Bertrand et Raton_, 1833; _Le Verre d'Eau_, 1840; _Une Chaine_, 1841; _Bataille de Dames_, 1851. One of the less famous partakers in the first Romantic movement, Bouchardy, distinguished himself, in succession to Pixerecourt, as a Romantic melodramatist, his most famous works being _Le Sonneur de Saint Paul_, and _Lazare le Patre_. In 1843 a kind of reaction was supposed to be about to take place, the signs of which were the performance of the _Lucrece_ of Ponsard in that year, and of the _Cigue_ of Emile Augier the year after. Ponsard, however, was only a Romantic whose colour was deadened by his inability to attain more brilliant tones. His succeeding plays, _Agnes de Meranie_, _Charlotte Corday_, _L'Honneur et l'Argent_, showed this sufficiently. M. Emile Augier is a more remarkable and a more independent figure. In so far as he represents a protest against Romanticism at all (which he does only very partially), it is because he shared in the growing tendency towards realism, that is, to a recurrence in the Romantic sense to the _tragedie bourgeoise_ of the preceding century, and because also he gave no countenance to the practice, in which some of the early Romantics indulged, of representing immoral personages as interesting. Almost all M. Augier's dramas, such as _L'Aventuriere_, 1849, which is his masterpiece, _Gabrielle_, 1849, _Diane_, 1852, _Le Mariage d'Olympe_, 1855, _Le Fils de Giboyer_, 1862, and others of more recent date, are distinctly on the side of the angels. But the author does not make the excellence of his intention a reason for passing off inferior work, and he is justly recognised as one of the leaders of French drama in the latter half of the century. About this same time (1845) was the date of the appearance of a fertile and successful playwright of the less exalted class, M. Dennery (_Don Cesar de Bazan_, _L'Aieule_). Auguste Maquet, another of the old guard of Romanticism, distinguished himself by helping to adapt to the stage the novels of Dumas the elder, which he had already helped to write; and one of his colleagues on Dumas' staff, M. Octave Feuillet, who was shortly to make a great reputation for himself as a novelist, appeared on the boards with _Echec et Mat_. During the whole of this decade (1840-1850) Delphine Gay, the beautiful and accomplished wife of the journalist Emile de Girardin, was a frequent and successful play-writer. Soon afterwards M. Legouve, son of the academician of the same name, and himself an academician, began to collaborate with Scribe in works of more importance (_Adrienne Lecouvreur_) than the latter had before attempted; while George Sand and her former friend, Jules Sandeau, were also drawn into the inevitable theatrical vortex. In collaboration with Augier, Sandeau produced, from one of his own novels, one of the best plays of the century, _Le Gendre de M. Poirier_, 1855. Eugene Labiche, who had been born in 1815, distinguished himself, in 1851, by _Le Chapeau de Paille d'Italie_, and in it laid the foundation of a long career of success in the lighter kind of play which, at last, conducted him to the Academy. His best-known play is _Le Voyage de M. Perrichon_. The year 1852 was memorable for the French stage, for it saw the production of _La Dame aux Camelias_, the first important play of Alexandre Dumas _fils_. Without much of his father's talent for novel-writing, M. Dumas has been both a more successful, and perhaps a better, dramatist. Most of his plays have been directed to some burning question of the social or ethical kind, and it has been his practice to re-issue them after a time, with argumentative prefaces, in a very singular style. _Diane de Lys_, _Le Demi-Monde_, _La Question d'Argent_, _Le Fils Naturel_, _Le Supplice d'une Femme_ (nominally composed with Emile de Girardin), _Les Idees de Madame Aubray_, _Une Visite de Noces_, and _L'Etrangere,_ are his chief works. In 1854 appeared a now almost forgotten work by Victorien Sardou, who was destined to be the favourite dramatist of the Second Empire, and to share with MM. Augier and Dumas _fils_ the chief rank among the dramatists of the last half of the century. Seven years later _Nos Intimes_ gave him a great success, and, in 1865, _La Famille Benoiton_ a greater, which he followed up with _Nos Bons Villageois_, 1866. Since that time he has written many plays, of which the finest by far, and one of the few comedies of this age likely to become classical, is the admirable _Rabagas_--a satire of the keenest on the interested politicians, who, in France as elsewhere, take up demagogy as a trade. M. Sardou has attempted serious work in various plays, the best of which is, perhaps, _Patrie_, but it is not his forte. Satirical observation of manners, and especially of the current political and social follies of the day, is what he can do best, and in this peculiar line he has few equals. But he is admitted to be one of the most unequal of writers. A peculiar offspring of the Second Empire are the brilliant burlesques of Offenbach, which owed at least part of their brilliancy to the librettos composed for them by MM. Meilhac and Halevy. The first-named of these had produced successful dramas as far back as 1859. The collaborateurs did not confine themselves to furnishing words for M. Offenbach's music, but attempted the prose drama frequently and with success, _Froufrou_ being their most important work in this way. M. Gondinet and M. Pailleron also deserve notice as successful manufacturers of light plays, the latter in especial having an excellent wit (_Le monde ou l'on s'ennuie_, _Le Chevalier Trumeau_). This may also be asserted of M. Halevy, who has latterly, in _Les Petites Cardinal_ and other non-dramatic sketches, shown himself to even greater advantage than on the stage. Indeed the Cardinal family may be said to be the most striking literary creation of its kind for years.

In a different class and earlier, Joseph Autran, a poet of the school of Lamartine, obtained a great reputation by his tragedy of _La Fille d'Eschyle_, which procured him a seat in the Academy, and gave him the opportunity of writing not a few volumes of polished, but not very vigorous, poetry. M. Theodore de Banville, who has tried most paths in literature, produced, in 1866, a short play, with the old mystery-writer Gringoire for hero and title-giver; a play which is admirably written, and which has kept its place on the stage. M. Francois Coppee's graceful _Luthier de Cremone_ has already been mentioned. Another literary dramatist, to distinguish the class from those who are playwrights first of all, is M. Henri de Bornier, who obtained some success, in 1875, with _La Fille de Roland_, and, in 1880, with _Les Noces d'Attila_. Both these are good, though not consummate, specimens of the poetical drama.

[Sidenote: Classes of Nineteenth-Century Fiction.]

Active, however, as was the cultivation of poetry proper and of the drama, it is not likely that the nineteenth century will be principally known in French literary history either as a poetical, or as a dramatic age. Its most creative production is in the field of prose fiction. It is particularly noteworthy that every one of the eight names which have been set at its head is the name of a novelist, and that the energy of most of these authors in novel-writing has been very considerable. Their production may be divided into two broad classes--novels of incident, of which Hugo and Dumas were the chief practitioners, and which derive chiefly from Sir Walter Scott; and novels of character, which, with a not inconsiderable admixture of English influence, may be said to be legitimately descended from the indigenous novel created by Madame de la Fayette, continued by Marivaux and still more by Prevost, and maintained, though in diminished vivacity, by later writers. Of this school George Sand and Balzac are the masters, though much importance must also be assigned to Stendhal. At first the novelists of 1830 decidedly preferred the novel of incident, the literary success of which in the hands of Hugo, and its pecuniary success in the hands of Dumas, were equally likely to excite ambitions of different kinds.

[Sidenote: Minor and later Novelists.]

[Sidenote: Jules Janin.]

A rival of both of these in popularity during the reign of Louis Philippe, though infinitely inferior to both in literary skill, was Eugene Sue. With him may be classed another voluminous manufacturer of exciting stories, Frederic Soulie, and somewhat later Paul Feval, with next to them Amedee Achard and Roger de Beauvoir. A better writer than any of these was Jules Janin, whose literary career was long and prosperous, but not uniform. Janin began with a strange story, in the extremest Romantic taste, called _L'Ane Mort et la Femme Guillotinee_. This at a later period he represented as an intentional caricature, which is not on the whole likely. He followed it up with _Barnave_, a historical novel full of exciting incident. Both these books, however, with grave defects, have power perhaps superior to that shown in anything that Janin did later. Being an exceedingly facile writer, and lacking that peculiar quality of style which sometimes precludes popularity with the many as much as it secures it with the few, he became absorbed in journalism, in the furnishing of miscellaneous articles, prefaces, and so forth, to the booksellers, and finally in theatrical criticism, where he reigned supreme for many years. None of his later novels need remark. With Janin may be mentioned M. Alphonse Karr, who however has been more of a journalist than of a novelist. His abundant and lively work has not perhaps the qualities of permanence. But his _Voyage autour de mon Jardin_, his _Sous les Tilleuls_, and the satirical publication known as _Les Guepes_, deserve at least to be named. Here too may be noticed M. Barbey d'Aurevilly whose works critical and fictitious (the chief being probably _L'Ensorcelee_) display a very remarkable faculty of style, perhaps too deliberately eccentric, but full of distinction and vigour.

Under the Empire, a fresh group of novelists of incident sprang up. MM. Erckmann and Chatrian produced in collaboration a large number of tales, chiefly dealing with the events of the Revolution and the First Empire in the north-eastern provinces of France. Criminal and legal subjects were great favourites with the late Emile Gaboriau, who naturalised in France the detective novel. His chief follower is M. Fortune du Boisgobey.

[Sidenote: Charles de Bernard.]

The best novelists of the generation of 1830, outside the list of masters, have yet to be noticed. These are Charles de Bernard and Jules Sandeau. Charles de Bernard was at one time Balzac's secretary, but his fashion of work is entirely different from that of his employer. He divides himself for the most part between the representation of the Parisian life of good society and that of country-house manners. His shorter tales are perhaps his best, and many of them, such as _L'Ecueil_, _La Quarantaine_, _Le Paratonnerre_, _Le Gendre_, etc., are admirable examples of a class in which Frenchmen have always excelled. But his longer works, _Gerfaut_, _Les Ailes d'Icare_, _Un Homme Serieux_, etc., are not inferior to them in wit, in accurate knowledge and skilful portraiture of character, in good breeding, and in satiric touches which are always good-humoured.

[Sidenote: Jules Sandeau.]

Jules Sandeau was a novelist of no very different class, but with less wit, with much less satiric intention, and with a greater infusion of sentiment, not to say tragedy. His best novels, _Catherine_, _Mademoiselle de Penarvan_, _Mademoiselle de la Seigliere_, _Le Docteur Herbeau_, are drawn from provincial life, which, from the great size of France and its diversity in scenery and local character, has been a remarkably fertile subject to French novelists. These novels are remarkable for their accurate and dramatic construction (which is such that they have lent themselves in more than one instance to theatrical adaptation with great success) and their pure and healthy morality.

[Sidenote: Octave Feuillet.]

[Sidenote: Murger.]

[Sidenote: Edmond About.]

[Sidenote: Feydeau.]

[Sidenote: Gustave Droz]

Next in order of birth may be mentioned Octave Feuillet, who began, as has been mentioned, by officiating as assistant to Alexandre Dumas. His first independent efforts in novel-writing, _Bellah_ and _Onesta_, were of the same kind as his master's; but they were not great successes, and after a short time he struck into an original and much more promising path. His first really characteristic novel was _La Petite Comtesse_, 1856, and this was followed by others, the best of which are _Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_, 1858; _Sibylle_, 1862; _M. de Camors_, 1867; and _Julia de Trecoeur_, 1872: the two last being perhaps his strongest books, though the _Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_ is the most popular. M. Feuillet wrote in a pure and easy style, and exhibited in his novels acquaintance with the manners of good society, and a considerable command of pathos. He was more studious of the proprieties than most of his contemporaries, but has indulged in a somewhat unhealthy sentimentalism. Henry Murger had a very original, though a somewhat limited, talent. He is the novelist of what is called the Parisian _Boheme_, the reckless society of young artists and men of letters, which has always grouped itself in greater numbers at Paris than anywhere else. The novel, or rather the series of sketches, entitled _La Vie de Boheme_ is one which, from the truth to nature, the pathos, and the wit which accompany its caricature and burlesque of manners, will always hold a position in literature. Murger, who experienced many hardships in his youth, was all his life a careless and reckless liver, and died young. His works (all prose fiction, except a small collection of poems not very striking in form but touching and sincere in sentiment) are tolerably numerous, but the best of them are little more than repetitions of the _Vie de Boheme_. Edmond About, a very lively writer, whose liveliness was not always kept sufficiently in check by good taste, oscillated between fiction and journalism, latterly inclining chiefly to journalism. In his younger days he was better known as a novelist, and some of his works, such as _Tolla_ and _Le Roi des Montagnes_, were very popular. More characteristic perhaps are his shorter and more familiar stories (_L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee_, _Le Nez d'un Notaire_, etc.). In this same group of novelists of the Second Republic and Empire ranks Ernest Feydeau, a morbid and thoroughly unwholesome author, who, however, did not lack power, and once at least (in _Sylvie_) produced work of unquestionable merit. His other novels, _Fanny_, _Daniel_, _La Comtesse de Chalis_, are chiefly remarkable as showing the worst side of the society of the Empire. Among writers of short stories Champfleury, a friend and contemporary of Murger (who has more recently betaken himself to artistic criticism of the historical kind), deserves notice for his amusing extravaganzas, and Gustave Droz for the singularly ingenious and witty series of domestic sketches entitled _Monsieur_, _Madame et Bebe_, and _Entre Nous_. The range of subject in these is wide and not always what is understood by the English word domestic. But the fancy shown in their design and the literary skill of their execution are alike remarkable and worthy of the ancient reputation of France in the short prose tale. Nor have they lacked followers.

[Sidenote: Flaubert.]

The greatest of the Second Empire novelists is unquestionably Gustave Flaubert, who was born in 1821. Having a sufficient income he betook himself early to literature, which he cultivated with an amount of care and elaborate self-discipline rare among authors. In 1848 he contributed to the _Artiste_ newspaper, then edited by Gautier, some fragments of a remarkable fantasy-piece on the legend of St. Anthony, which was not published as a whole till nearly a quarter of a century later. In 1859, being then nearly forty years old, he achieved at once a great success and a great scandal by his novel of _Madame Bovary_, a study of provincial life, as unsparing as any of Balzac's, but more true to actual nature, more finished in construction, and far superior in style. It was the subject of a prosecution, but the author was acquitted. Next, M. Flaubert selected an archaeological subject, and produced, after long study, _Salammbo_, a novel the scene of which is pitched at Carthage in the days of the mercenary war. This book, like the former, has a certain repulsiveness of subject in parts; but the vigour of the drawing and the extraordinary skill in description are as remarkable as ever. _L'Education Sentimentale_, which followed, was Flaubert's least popular work, being too long, and having an insufficiently defined plot and interest. Then appeared the completed _Tentation de St. Antoine_, a book deserving to rank at the head of its class--that of the fantastic romance. Afterwards came _Trois Contes_, exhibiting in miniature all the author's characteristics; and lastly, after his sudden death, in 1881, the unfinished _Bouvard et Pecuchet_. The faults of Flaubert are, in the first place, indiscriminate meddling with subjects best left alone, which he shares with most French novelists; in the second, a certain complaisance in dealing with things simply horrible, which is more peculiar to him; in the third, an occasional prodigality of erudite detail which clogs and impedes the action. His merits are an almost incomparable power of description, a mastery of those types of character which he attempts, an imagination of extraordinary power, and a singular satirical criticism of life, which does not exclude the possession of a vein of romantic and almost poetical sentiment and suggestion. He is a writer repulsive to many, unintelligible to more, and never likely to be generally popular, but sure to retain his place in the admiration of those who judge literature as literature.

[Sidenote: The Naturalists. Emile Zola.]

The name of Flaubert has been much invoked, and his reputation has been not a little compromised, by a small but noisy school of novelists and critics who call themselves naturalists, and affect to preach and practice a new crusade for the purpose of revolutionising poetry, fiction, and the drama. These persons, whose leader is M. Emile Zola, a busy and popular novelist, an unsuccessful dramatist, and a critic of great industry, include the brothers Goncourt (one of whom is now dead) and a number of younger writers who deserve no notice, except M. Guy de Maupassant, whose prose, if too often ill employed, is as vigorous as his verse, and who in his excellent _Pierre et Jean_ broke his naturalist chains. The naturalists affect to derive from Stendhal, through Balzac and Flaubert. That is to say, they adopt the analytic method, and devote themselves chiefly to the study of character. But they go farther than these great artists by objecting to the processes of art. According to them, literature is to be strictly 'scientific,' to confine itself to anatomy, and, it would appear, to morbid anatomy only. The Romantic treatment, that is to say, the presentation of natural facts in an artistic setting, is rigidly proscribed. Everything must be set down on the principle of a newspaper report, or, to go to another art for an illustration, as if by a photographic camera, not by an artist's pencil. Now it will be obvious to any impartial critic that the pursuance of this method is in itself fatal to the interest of a book. The reader, unless of the very lowest order of intellect, does not want in a novel a mere reproduction of the facts of life, still less a mere scientific reference of them to causes. Accordingly, the naturalist method inevitably produces an extreme dulness. In their search for a remedy, its practitioners have observed that there are certain divisions of human action, usually classed as vice and crime, in which, for their own sake, and independently of pleasure in artistic appreciation of the manner in which they are presented, a morbid interest is felt by a large number of persons. They therefore, with businesslike shrewdness, invariably, or almost invariably, select their subjects from these privileged classes. The ambition of the naturalist, briefly described without epigram or flippancy, but as he would himself say scientifically, is to mention the unmentionable with as much fulness of detail as possible. In this business M. Emile Zola has not hitherto been surpassed, though many of his pupils have run him hard. Unfortunately, for those who are proof against the attraction of disgusting subjects merely because they are disgusting, M. Zola is one of the dullest of writers. His style is also very bad, possessing for its sole merits a certain vulgar vigour which is occasionally not ineffective, and a capacity for vivid description. He is deeply learned in _argot_, or slang, the use of which is one of the naturalist instruments, and his works are therefore not useless as repertories of expressions to be avoided. M. Zola's criticisms are more interesting than his novels, consisting chiefly of vigorous denunciations of all the good writers of his own day.

M. Victor Cherbuliez, besides political and miscellaneous work of inferior relative power, has produced a series of novels (_Le Comte Kostia_, _Le Roman d'une Honnete Femme_, _Meta Holdenis_, _Samuel Brohl et Cie_) which are remarkable for style, construction, and wit. M. Alphonse Daudet, beginning early, produced in his first stage a charming collection of _Lettres de mon Moulin_, and a pathetic autobiographic novel _Le Petit Chose_. In his second, attempting the manner of Dickens, he obtained with _Jack_, 1873, and _Froment Jeune et Risler Aine_, 1874, great popularity. His later works, _Le Nabab_, _Les Rois en Exil_, _Numa Roumestan_, _L'Evangeliste_, _L'Immortel_, shew, in their condescending to the satisfaction of vulgar curiosity as to living or lately dead persons, a great falling off. The capacity of M. Daudet (whose _Tartarin de Tarascon_ with its sequel is wholly admirable extravaganza) cannot be doubted: his taste is deplorable. Of still more recent novelists two only can be mentioned: M. Georges Ohnet (_Serge Panine_, _Le Maitre de Forges_, _La Grande Marniere_) whose popularity with readers is only equalled by the unanimous disfavour with which all competent critics regard him, and M. Viaud ('Pierre Loti'), a naval officer, whose work (_Aziyade_, _Le Mariage de Loti_, _Mon Frere Yves_, _Madame Chrysantheme_), midway between the novel, the autobiography, and the travel-book displays some elegance and much 'preciousness' of style and fancy.

[Sidenote: Journalists and Critics.]

[Sidenote: Paul de Saint-Victor.]

[Sidenote: Hippolyte Taine.]

After the Revolution the fortune of journalism was assured, and though under the subsequent forms of government it was subjected to a rigid censorship, it was too firmly established to be overthrown. Almost all men of letters flocked to it. The leading article or unsigned political and miscellaneous essay has never been so strong a feature of French journalism as it has been of English. On the other hand, the _feuilleton_, or daily, weekly, and monthly instalment of fiction or criticism, has been one of its chief characteristics. Many, if not most, of the most celebrated novels of the last half century have originally appeared in this form, publication in independent parts, which was long fashionable in England, never having found favour in France. In the same way, though weekly reviews devoted wholly or mainly to literary criticism have, for some reason, never been successful with the French as they have with us, daily journalism has given a greater space to criticism, and especially to theatrical criticism. All French criticism subsequent to 1830 may be said to derive, whether it deals with literature, with the theatre, or with art, from three masters, Sainte-Beuve, Gautier, and Janin. The method of the first has been sufficiently explained. Gautier's was rather the expression of a fine critical appreciation in the most exquisite style, and Janin's, the far easier, and, after a short time, unimportant plan of gossiping amiably and amusingly about, it might be the subject, it might be something quite different. The only successor to Gautier was Paul de Saint-Victor, who, however, was inferior to his master in appreciative power, and exaggerated his habit of relying on style to carry him through. Paul de Saint-Victor was not a frequent writer, and his collected works as yet do not fill many volumes. _Hommes et Dieux_, which is perhaps the principal of them, exhibits a deficiency of catholicity in literary appreciation. His latest book, _Les Deux Masques_, an unfinished study of the history of the stage, contains much brilliant writing, but is wanting in solid qualities. As a theatrical critic, Janin was succeeded by a curiously different person, M. Francisque Sarcey, who has chiefly been noteworthy for severity and a kind of pedagogic common sense, as unlike as possible to the good-humoured gossip of Janin. M. de Pontmartin was an acrid but vigorous critic on the royalist and orthodox side. M. Hippolyte Taine, chief of Sainte-Beuve's followers, has somewhat caricatured his master's method. Sainte-Beuve's principle was, it must be remembered, to examine carefully the circumstances of his author's time, in order to ascertain their bearing upon him. In M. Taine's hands this wise practice changed itself into a theory--the theory that every man is a kind of product of the circumstances, and that, by examining the latter, the man is necessarily explained. M. Taine chose for his principal exercising ground the history of English literature. He produced under that title a series of studies often acute, always brilliant in style, but constantly showing the faults of the critical method just indicated. Of other literary critics, the two chief besides M. Taine are M. Edmond Scherer and M. Emile Montegut. The latter is a critic of a very fine and delicate appreciation. A short essay of his on Boccaccio may be specified as one of the best of French contemporary critical exercises. M. Scherer has a good deal of common sense, a considerable acquaintance with literature, and a clear, straightforward, and vigorous style. His judgment, however, is much limited by prejudice, and some of his studies, such as those on Baudelaire and Diderot, show that he is an untrustworthy judge of what is not commonplace.

[Sidenote: Academic Critics.]

A separate school of criticism, of a more academic character than that represented by most of the names just mentioned, has existed in France during the greater part of the century, and during a great part of it has found its means of utterance partly in the University chairs and in treatises crowned by the Academy, partly in a well-known fortnightly periodical, the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_. The master of this school of criticism may be said to have been Villemain, 1790-1870, who represents the classical tradition corrected by a very considerable study of other European languages besides French. Not the least part of the narrowness of the older classical school was due to its ignorance of these languages, and its consequent incapacity to make the necessary comparisons. Villemain's criticism, though not quite so flexible as it might have been, was on the whole sound, and the same variety of the art, though with more limitations, was represented by Guizot. Not a few critics of merit of the same kind were born at the close of the last century, or at the beginning of this. Among them may be mentioned M. Nisard, a bitter opponent of the Romantic movement, and a prejudiced critic of French literature, but a writer of very considerable knowledge, and of some literary merit; Eugene Geruzez, author of by far the best history of French literature in a small compass, and of many separate treatises of value; Alexandre Vinet, a Swiss, and a Protestant, who died at no very advanced age, leaving much work of merit; and Saint-Marc Girardin, who busied himself nearly as much in journalism and politics as in literary criticism proper, but whose professorial _Cours de Litterature Dramatique_ is a work of interest, exhibiting a kind of transition style between the older and newer criticism. Michelet, Quinet, M. Renan, and others, who will be mentioned under other heads, have also been considerable as critics. Philarete Chasles was a lively writer, who devoted himself especially to English literature, and whose judgment in matters literary was not quite equal to his affection for them. The critics of the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_ proper include, besides not a few authors named elsewhere, Gustave Planche, a person of curious idiosyncrasy, chiefly remarkable for the ferocity of his critiques; Saint Rene Taillandier, a dull man of industry; and M. Caro, a man of industry who was not dull. Latterly some younger writers have endeavoured (chiefly in its pages) to set up a kind of neo-classical school, which is equally opposed to modern innovations, and to the habit of studying old French, that is, French before the sixteenth century. The chief of these advocates of a return to the Malherbe-Boileau dungeon is M. Ferdinand Brunetiere. We must not omit among the older generation M. Lenient, the author of two admirable volumes on the History of French Satire; among the younger, M. Paul Stapfer, the author of an excellent study of 'Shakespeare et l'Antiquite,' M. Jules Lemaitre, a brilliant critic, who is perhaps a little more brilliant than critical, and M. Emile Faguet, whose criticism is as sound as it is accomplished.

Among the representatives of art criticism Viollet-le-Duc as a writer on architecture, and Charles Blanc (brother of Louis) as an authority on decorative art generally, made before their deaths reputations sufficiently exceptional to be noticed here. Here also, as representatives of other classes of literature, the names of Hector Berlioz, the great composer, author of letters and memoirs of great interest; of Henri Monnier, an artist not much less skilful with his pen than with his pencil in satirical sketches of Parisian types (especially his famous 'Joseph Prudhomme'); of Charles Monselet, a miscellaneous writer whose sympathies were as wide and his temper as genial as his literary faculty was accomplished; of X. Doudan, whose posthumous remains and letters attracted much attention after a life of silence; and of the Genevese diarist Amiel, selections from whose vast journal of philosophical sentimentalism and miscellaneous reflection have also been popular, may be cited.

[Sidenote: Linguistic and Literary Study of French.]

The revived study of old French literature just noticed is the only department of the literature of erudition which can receive notice here, for prose science and classical study fall equally out of our range of possible treatment here. The _Histoire Litteraire_ was revived, and has been steadily proceeded with. Every department of old French literature has been studied, latterly in vigorous rivalry with the Germans. The most important single name in this study has been that of the late M. Paulin Paris, who edited reprints of all sorts with untiring energy, and in a thoroughly literary spirit. The Chansons de Gestes have been the especial care of M. Paulin Paris, his son M. Gaston Paris (_Histoire Poetique de Charlemagne_), and M. Leon Gautier, who has written, and is now republishing in an altered and improved form, a great work on the early French epics. The Arthurian romances have been more studied in Germany and Belgium than in France, though valuable work has been done in them by M. Paulin Paris, M. Hucher, and others. The Fabliaux have recently appeared in a nearly complete edition, by M. de Montaiglon. M. P. Meyer has thrown new light on the _Roman d'Alixandre_. The _Roman du Renart_, also published by Meon, has been undertaken again by M. Ernest Martin. The separate authors of the later ages have, in almost every case, been the subject of much careful work, and for some years past a 'Societe des Anciens Textes Francais' has existed for the express purpose of publishing unprinted MSS. This society has undertaken the great collection of _Miracles de Notre Dame_, the works of Eustache Deschamps, and other important tasks. A great deal of excellent work in the same direction has been done in Belgium by members of the various Academies. The great classics of France, from the sixteenth century onward, have been the object of constant and careful editing, such as the classics of no other country have enjoyed. Nor has the linguistic part of the study been omitted. The two chief monuments of this are the great dictionary of Littre, and the complement of it, now in course of publication, by M. Godefroy, which contains a complete lexicon of the older tongue. Among the collections of old French literature, the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne may be especially noticed. This, besides many reprints of isolated authors, contains invaluable examples of the early theatre, a still more precious collection of scattered poems of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and one of miscellanies of the sixteenth and seventeenth. Under the Empire the government began the publication of all the Chansons de Gestes, but the enterprise was unfortunately interrupted at the tenth volume.

[Sidenote: Philosophical Writers.]

[Sidenote: Comte.]

The branches of literature, other than the Belles Lettres, which naturally retain, longer than those which busy themselves with science as it is now understood, the literary interest, are philosophy, theology, and history. In philosophy France has produced, during the present century, only one name of the first importance. As has been the case with all other European nations, her philosophical energies have chiefly been devoted to the historical side of philosophy, a tendency specially encouraged by the already-mentioned influence of Cousin. Damiron, the chief authority in French on the materialist schools of the eighteenth century; M. Jules Simon and Vacherot, who busied themselves chiefly with the Alexandrian philosophers--Cousin it should be remembered was the editor of Proclus--and Charles de Remusat, a man of great capacity, who, among other rather unexpected literary occupations, devoted himself to Abelard, Thomas a Becket, and other representatives of scholasticism, illustrate this tendency. The philosophy of the middle ages was also the subject of one of the clearest and best-written of philosophical studies, the _De la Philosophie Scolastique_ of B. Haureau. The name, however, of the century in French philosophical literature is that of Auguste Comte, the founder of what is called Positivism. He was born at Montpelier three or four years before the end of the last century, and died at Paris in September, 1857. Comte passed through the discipline of initiation in the Saint Simonian views--Saint Simon was a descendant of the great writer of that name, who developed a curious form of communism very interesting politically, but important to literature only from the remarkable influence it had upon his contemporaries--but, like most of Saint Simon's disciples, soon emancipated himself. To discuss Comte's philosophical views would be impossible here. It is sufficient to say that the cardinal principle of his earlier work, the _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, is that the world of thought has passed through successively a theological stage and a metaphysical stage, and is now reduced to the observation and classification of phenomena and their relations. On the basis cleared by this sweeping hypothesis, Comte, in his later days (under the inspiration of a lady, Madame Clotilde de Vaux, if he himself be believed), developed a remarkable construction of positive religion. This was indignantly rejected by his most acute followers, the chief of whom was the philologist and critic Littre. Outside of Comtism, France has not produced many writers on philosophy, except philosophical historians. M. Taine, in his _De l'Intelligence_, turned his acute intellect and ready pen in this direction for a moment, but not with much success. Perhaps from the literary view the most important philosophical writer in French for the last half century is M. Renan, who will find his place more appropriately in the next paragraph. Between Saint Simon and Comte, if space allowed, notice would have to be taken of many political writers of the middle of the century, whose visionary and for the most part communistic views had a considerable but passing influence, such as Cabet, Fourier, Pierre Leroux, and the violent and not wholly sane but vigorous Proudhon. Here, however, nothing but bare mention, and that only for completeness' sake, can be given to them.

[Sidenote: Theological Writers. Montalembert.]

[Sidenote: Ozanam.]

[Sidenote: Lacordaire.]

[Sidenote: Ernest Renan.]

In theology, as represented in literature, the dominant interest of the period belongs at first to the continuators of the Liberal-Catholic school of Lamennais. The greatest of these, beyond all question, was Charles Forbes de Montalembert, whose mother was a Scotchwoman, and his father French ambassador in Sweden. He was born in April, 1810, and died on the 13th of March, 1870. Montalembert was young enough to come under the influence of Lamennais only indirectly, and at the extreme end of that writer's orthodox period. His immediate master was rather the eloquent Abbe Lacordaire. His father was a peer of France, and Montalembert succeeded early to his position, which gave him an opportunity of supporting the great contention of the Liberal Catholics under Louis Philippe, the right to establish schools for themselves. Being devoted first of all to the defence of ecclesiastical interests by every legitimate means, and having no anti-Republican prejudices, Montalembert was able to accept the second Revolution, though not the Second Empire, and he continued to be one of the most moderate, but dangerous, opponents of the government of Napoleon III. His chief works, which have much brilliancy and vigour, are his 'Life of Elizabeth of Hungary,' his 'Life and Times of St. Anselm,' his _Avenir Politique de l'Angleterre_, and, most of all, his great work on 'The Monks of the West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard.' A fellow worker with Montalembert, though earlier cut off, was Frederic Ozanam, a brilliant student and lecturer in mediaeval history, who was the chief literary critic of the Neo-Catholic movement during the later years of Louis Philippe's reign. Ozanam's chief work was his study on Dante. About this time a considerable resurrection of pulpit eloquence took place. Its chief representative was the already-mentioned Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, who was born in 1802, and died in 1861. Lacordaire was a partner of Lamennais in the _Avenir_. But, unlike his master, he took the papal reproof obediently, and continued to preach in the orthodox sense. He entered the order of St. Dominic in 1840, but was nevertheless elected to the Assembly, in 1848, as a compliment, doubtless, to the fervent radicalism he had displayed earlier. Lacordaire's literary reputation is almost entirely confined to his sermons, the most famous of which were preached at Notre Dame. Other celebrated preachers of the middle of the century were, on the Catholic side, the Pere Felix, and on the Protestant, Athanase Coquerel. Of the extreme orthodox party, during the Second Empire, the chief names from the point of view of literature were those of Monseigneur Dupanloup, bishop of Orleans, and the journalist, Louis Veuillot. The former, one of the most eloquent and one of the ablest men of his time in France, began with a certain liberalism, but gradually hardened into extremer views, distinguishing himself in his place in the Academy by violent opposition to the admission of M. Littre, as a positivist. The latter, as editor of the journal _L'Univers_, brought remarkable wit and a faculty of slashing criticism, not often equalled, to the service of his party, indulging, however, too often in mere scurrility. From this same literary point of view, the chief name in the theological literature of this period is once more on the unorthodox side. Since the days of Joseph de Maistre the church had far more than held her own in the literary arena; but the discouragement given at Rome to the followers of Lamennais seemed to bring ill luck with it. Ernest Renan, who, with some faults, is one of the most remarkable masters of French style in our time, was born in 1823, at Treguier in Britanny. He was intended for the priesthood, and was educated for the most part at clerical seminaries. On arriving, however, at manhood, he did not feel inclined to take orders; accepted the place of usher at a school, and soon distinguished himself by linguistic studies, especially on the Semitic languages. He also exercised himself a good deal in literary criticism and as a journalist of all work on the staffs of the _Journal des Debats_ and the _Revue des Deux-Mondes_. His first really remarkable work, published in 1850, is _Averroes et l'Averroisme_, a book injured by the author's want of sympathy with the thought of the middle ages, but full of research and of reflection. This gained him a post in the Paris Library. He then produced several works, dealing more or less with the Hebrew Scriptures. In 1860 he had a government mission to Phoenicia and Palestine, which enabled him to examine the Holy Land very attentively. On his return he was appointed to the chair of Hebrew at the College de France, but the outcry against his unorthodoxy was so great that he was suspended. He began about this time to publish his famous series of _Origines du Christianisme_ with, for a first volume, a _Vie de Jesus_, imbued with a curious kind of eclectic and romantic rationalism. This has been followed by numerous volumes dealing with the early ages of Christianity. In 1870 he made himself conspicuous by a letter to Strauss on the subject of the Franco-German War. After the catastrophe he confined himself for a time to literary and philosophical studies. Recently, however, besides working at his _Origines_, which are now completed, he has produced some half-political, half-fanciful studies of great literary excellence, such as _Caliban_, a satire on democracy, and _La Fontaine de Jouvence_, a brilliant mediaeval fantasy-piece, covering a violent attack on Germany. M. Renan is, in point of style, perhaps the most considerable prose writer of France now living who is a prose writer only. His prejudices are strong, and his strictly argumentative and logical faculty rather weak. In temperament he is what may be called a sentimental rationalist. But his literary knowledge is extraordinarily wide and very accurate, while his literary sympathies, though somewhat irregular in their operation, are warm. These peculiarities reflect themselves in his style, which is a direct descendant of that of Rousseau through M. Renan's own countryman, Chateaubriand. As a describer of scenery he is unmatched among his contemporaries. He has an extraordinary power of vivid and interesting narration inclining somewhat to the over-picturesque. No one is able more cleverly to seize on the most striking and telling features of a landscape, a book, a character, and, by adroit dwelling on these, to present the whole as vividly as possible to his readers. No one again is more thoroughly master of a certain rather vague but telling eloquence which deals chiefly with the moral feelings and the domestic affections, and exercises an amiably softening influence on those who submit themselves to it. M. Renan in style is rather an orator than a writer, though the extreme care and finish which he bestows on his work give him a high place in literature proper.

[Sidenote: Historians. Thierry.]

In history a group of distinguished names, besides a still larger number of names only less individually distinguished, deserve notice. First among these, in order of time, may be mentioned the two brothers Amedee and Augustin Thierry, the former of whom was born in 1787, and died in 1873, while the latter, born in 1795, died in 1856. Both devoted themselves to historical studies. But, while Amedee employed himself almost wholly on the history of Gaul during Roman times and on Roman history, Augustin, who was by far the more gifted of the two, took a wider range. He was born and educated at Blois, and for some time devoted himself to politics and sociology, being a disciple of Saint Simon, and a fellow-worker of Comte. He soon, however, betook himself to history, and in 1825 published his 'History of the Norman Conquest in England.' Blindness followed, but he was able to continue his work. In 1835 he published _Dix Ans d'Etudes Historiques_, and in 1840, what is perhaps his best work, _Recits des Temps Merovingiens_, a book which has few rivals as exhibiting in a fascinating light, but without any sacrifice of historical accuracy to mere picturesqueness, the circumstances and events of an unfamiliar time. His last work of importance was an essay on the Tiers Etat and its origin. Thierry is an excellent example of an historian handling, with little guidance from predecessors, a difficult and neglected but important age.

[Sidenote: Thiers.]

Far less important as a historian, but distinguished by his double character of statesman and _litterateur_, in which he was more fortunate than his two rivals in the same double career, Guizot and Lamartine, was Louis Adolphe Thiers, who was born at Marseilles, of the lower middle class, in 1797. He was brought up for the law, being educated at Marseilles and at Aix. Then he went to Paris, and after a short time obtained work on the _Constitutionnel_ as supporter of the liberal opposition during the Restoration. His _Histoire de la Revolution Francaise_ appeared between 1823-1827, and brought him much reputation, which was very ill deserved as far as fulness and accuracy of information are concerned. French readers, however, have ever been indifferent to mere accuracy, and are given to admire even a superficial appearance of order and clearness; at any rate, the book, added to his considerable reputation as a political writer, made him famous. A paper, which he founded in the beginning of 1830, the _National_, had much share in bringing about the Revolution of that year. After it Thiers was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Aix, and in a short time became a renowned debater. He held office again and again under Louis Philippe, and was believed to be in favour of a warlike policy. When he retired from office he began his principal literary work (a continuation of his first), 'The History of the Consulate and the Empire.' He took no part in the Revolution of 1848, and accepted the Republic, but was banished at the _coup d'etat_, though not for long. In 1863 he re-entered the Chamber, having constantly worked at his History, which tended not a little to reconstruct the Napoleonic legend. Yet he was a steady though a moderate opponent of the Second Empire. On its downfall, Thiers, as the most distinguished statesman the country possessed, undertook the negotiations with the enemy--a difficult task, which he performed with extreme ability. He then became President of the Republic, which post he held till 1873. He died on the 3rd of September, 1877. The chief fault of Thiers as a historian is his misleading partiality, which is especially displayed in his account of Napoleon's wars, and reaches its climax in that of the battle of Waterloo. He has, however, great merits in lucidity of arrangement, in an eloquent, if rather declamatory style, and in a faculty of conveying a considerable amount of information without breaking the march of his narrative.

[Sidenote: Guizot]

By a curious coincidence, the chief rival of Thiers in politics (at least during the greater part of his life) was of his own class and condition, and, like him, primarily a man of letters. Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot was, however, ten years the senior of Thiers, having been born in 1787, at Nimes. Guizot was a Protestant, and his father perished in the Terror. He was educated at Geneva, but went to Paris early, and produced in 1809 (being then only twenty-two) a dictionary of synonyms. After this he did miscellaneous literary work of various kinds, and at the Restoration filled, as a moderate Royalist, various posts under government, being appointed, among other things, to a history professorship at the Sorbonne. He became more and more liberal, and in 1824 his lectures were forbidden. His literary activity, was, however, incessant, his greatest work being a collection of early French historical writings in thirty-one volumes. He also paid much attention to the history of England, and published, in 1826, a _Histoire de la Revolution d'Angleterre_. This was followed by many other works, of which his 'History of Civilisation in Europe,' and 'History of Civilisation in France,' are the best known. He had been elected a member of the Chamber before the Revolution of 1830, and after it he was appointed minister of Public Instruction, having the powerful support of the Broglie family. He was afterwards ambassador to London, and then Prime Minister, being, it is said, very much to blame for the Revolution of February. He escaped to London with some difficulty, and, though he revisited France, had to return to England at the advent of Louis Napoleon. He was not, however, a permanent exile, but was allowed to enjoy his estate at Val Richer in Normandy. He died in 1874, having been incessantly occupied on literary work of all kinds (chiefly connected with French and English history) for the last half century of his life. The chief of these in bulk was a voluminous history of France not completed till after his death. Guizot's enormous fertility (for not a twentieth of his works has been mentioned) perhaps injuriously affected his style, which is not remarkable. Sound common sense and laborious acquaintance with facts are his chief characteristics.

[Sidenote: Mignet.]

A companion of Thiers at college, and a _protege_ of his during his years of power, was Francois Mignet. Born a year before his friend, he outlived him. Mignet, too, wrote, and at the same time as Thiers, a History of the French Revolution of curiously different character. He became secretary of the Institute, and in 1837 a member of the Academy. His chief later works were on the 'Spanish Succession,' on Mary Stuart, and on Charles the Fifth after his abdication, with, last of all, the rivalry of Charles V. and Francis I. Mignet is as trustworthy as Thiers is the reverse. But his historical manner is exceedingly dry, as also is his style, though it is correct and not inelegant.

[Sidenote: Michelet.]