Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

_16th-Century Poetry._--The first few years of the 16th century were naturally occupied rather with the last developments of the medieval forms than with the production of the new model. The clerks of the Bazoche and the Confraternity of the Passion still produced and acted mysteries, moralities and farces. The poets of the "Grands Rhetoriqueurs" school still wrote elaborate allegorical poetry. Chansons de geste, rhymed romances and fabliaux had long ceased to be written. But the press was multiplying the contents of the former in the prose form which they had finally assumed, and in the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_ there already existed admirable specimens of the short prose tale. There even were signs, as in some writers already mentioned and in Roger de Collerye, a lackpenny but light-hearted singer of the early part of the century, of definite enfranchisement in verse. But the first note of the new literature was sounded by Clement Marot (1496/7-1544). The son of an elder poet, Jehan des Mares called Marot (1463-1523), Clement at first wrote, like his father's contemporaries, allegorical and mythological poetry, afterwards collected in a volume with a charming title, _L'Adolescence clementine_. It was not till he was nearly thirty years old that his work became really remarkable. From that time forward till his death, about twenty years afterwards, he was much involved in the troubles and persecutions of the Huguenot party to which he belonged; nor was the protection of Marguerite d'Angouleme, the chief patroness of Huguenots and men of letters, always efficient. But his troubles, so far from harming, helped his literary faculties; and his epistles, epigrams, _blasons_ (descendants of the medieval _dits_), and _coq-a-l'ane_ became remarkable for their easy and polished style, their light and graceful wit, and a certain elegance which had not as yet been even attempted in any modern tongue, though the Italian humanists had not been far from it in some of their Latin compositions. Around Marot arose a whole school of disciples and imitators, such as Victor Brodeau (1470?-1540), the great authority on rondeaux, Maurice Sceve, a fertile author of blasons, Salel, Marguerite herself (1492-1549), of whom more hereafter, and Mellin de Saint Gelais (1491-1558). The last, son of the bishop named above, is a courtly writer of occasional pieces, who sustained as well as he could the _style marotique_ against Ronsard, and who has the credit of introducing the regular sonnet into French. But the inventive vigour of the age was so great that one school had hardly become popular before another pushed it from its stool, and even of the Marotists just mentioned Sceve and Salel are often regarded as chief and member respectively of a Lyonnese coterie, intermediate between the schools of Marot and of Ronsard, containing other members of repute such as Antoine Heroet and Charles Fontaine and claiming Louise Labe (_v. inf._) herself. Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585) was the chief of this latter. At first a courtier and a diplomatist, physical disqualification made him change his career. He began to study the classics under Jean Daurat (1508-1588), and with his master and five other writers, Etienne Jodelle (1532-1573), Remy Belleau (1528-1577), Joachim du Bellay (1525-1560), Jean Antoine de Baif (1532-1589), and Pontus de Tyard (d. 1605, bishop of Chalons-sur-Saone), composed the famous "Pleiade." The object of this band was to bring the French language, in vocabulary, constructions and application, on a level with the classical tongues by borrowings from the latter. They would have imported the Greek licence of compound words, though the genius of the French language is but little adapted thereto; and they wished to reproduce in French the regular tragedy, the Pindaric and Horatian ode, the Virgilian epic, &c. But it is an error (though one which until recently was very common, and which perhaps requires pretty thorough study of their work completely to extirpate it) to suppose that they advocated or practised _indiscriminate_ borrowing. On the contrary both in du Bellay's famous manifesto, the _Deffense et illustration de la langue francaise_, and in Ronsard's own work, caution and attention to the genius and the tradition of French are insisted upon. Being all men of the highest talent, and not a few of them men of great genius, they achieved much that they designed, and even where they failed exactly to achieve it, they very often indirectly produced results as important and more beneficial than those which they intended. Their ideal of a separate poetical language distinct from that intended for prose use was indeed a doubtful if not a dangerous one. But it is certain that Marot, while setting an example of elegance and grace not easily to be imitated, set also an example of trivial and, so to speak, pedestrian language which was only too imitable. If France was ever to possess a literature containing something besides fabliaux and farces, the tongue must be enriched and strengthened. This accession of wealth and vigour it received from Ronsard and the Ronsardists. Doubtless they went too far and provoked to some extent the reaction which Malherbe led. Their importations were sometimes unnecessary. It is almost impossible to read the _Franciade_ of Ronsard, and not too easy to read the tragedies of Jodelle and Garnier, fine as the latter are in parts. But the best of Ronsard's sonnets and odes, the finest of du Bellay's _Antiquites de Rome_ (translated into English by Spenser), the exquisite _Vanneur_ of the same author, and the _Avril_ of Belleau, even the finer passages of d'Aubigne and du Bartas, are not only admirable in themselves, and of a kind not previously found in French literature, but are also such things as could not have been previously found, for the simple reason that the medium of expression was wanting. They constructed that medium for themselves, and no force of the reaction which they provoked was able to undo their work. Adverse criticism and the natural course of time rejected much that they had added. The charming diminutives they loved so much went out of fashion; their compounds (sometimes it must be confessed, justly) had their letters of naturalization promptly cancelled; many a gorgeous adjective, including some which could trace their pedigree to the earliest ages of French literature, but which bore an unfortunate likeness to the new-comers, was proscribed. But for all that no language has ever had its destiny influenced more powerfully and more beneficially by a small literary clique than the language of France was influenced by the example and disciples of that Ronsard whom for two centuries it was the fashion to deride and decry.

The Ronsardists.

Du Bartas.

D'Aubigne.

In a sketch such as the present it is impossible to give a separate account of individual writers, the more important of whom will be found treated under their own names. The effort of the "Pleiade" proper was continued and shared by a considerable number of minor poets, some of them, as has been already noted, belonging to different groups and schools. Olivier de Magny (d. 1560) and Louise Labe (b. 1526) were poets and lovers, the lady deserving far the higher rank in literature. There is more depth of passion in the writings of "La Belle Cordiere," as this Lyonnese poetess was called, than in almost any of her contemporaries. Jacques Tahureau (1527-1555) scarcely deserves to be called a minor poet. There is less than the usual hyperbole in the contemporary comparison of him to Catullus, and he reminds an Englishman of the school represented nearly a century later by Carew, Randolph and Suckling. The title of a part of his poem--_Mignardises amoureuses de l'admiree_--is characteristic both of the style and of the time. Jean Doublet (c. 1528-c. 1580), Amadis Jamyn (c. 1530-1585), and Jean de la Taille (1540-1608) deserve mention at least as poets, but two other writers require a longer allusion. Guillaume de Salluste, seigneur du Bartas (1544-1590), whom Sylvester's translation, Milton's imitation, and the copious citations of Southey's _Doctor_, have made known if not familiar in England, was partly a disciple and partly a rival of Ronsard. His poem of _Judith_ was eclipsed by his better-known _La Divine Sepmaine_ or epic of the Creation. Du Bartas was a great user and abuser of the double compounds alluded to above, but his style possesses much stateliness, and has a peculiar solemn eloquence which he shared with the other French Calvinists, and which was derived from the study partly of Calvin and partly of the Bible. Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne (1552-1630), like du Bartas, was a Calvinist. His genius was of a more varied character. He wrote sonnets and odes as became a Ronsardist, but his chief poetical work is the satirical poem of _Les Tragiques_, in which the author brands the factions, corruptions and persecutions of the time, and in which there are to be found alexandrines of a strength, vigour and original cadence hardly to be discovered elsewhere, save in Corneille and Victor Hugo. Towards the end of the century, Philippe Desportes (1546-1606) and Jean Bertaut (1552-1611), with much enfeebled strength, but with a certain grace, continue the Ronsardizing tradition. Among their contemporaries must be noticed Jean Passerat (1534-1602), a writer of much wit and vigour and rather resembling Marot than Ronsard, and Vauquelin de la Fresnaye (1536-1607), the author of a valuable _Ars poetica_ and of the first French satires which actually bear that title. Jean le Houx (fl. c. 1600) continued, rewrote or invented the vaux de vire, commonly known as the work of Olivier Basselin, and already alluded to, while a still lighter and more eccentric verse style was cultivated by Etienne Tabourot des Accords (1549-1590), whose epigrams and other pieces were collected under odd titles, _Les Bigarrures, Les Touches_, &c. A curious pair are Guy du Faur de Pibrac (1529-1584) and Pierre Mathieu (b. 1563), authors of moral quatrains, which were learnt by heart in the schools of the time, replacing the distichs of the grammarian Cato, which, translated into French, had served the same purpose in the middle ages.

Regnier.

The nephew of Desportes, Mathurin Regnier (1573-1613), marks the end, and at the same time perhaps the climax, of the poetry of the century. A descendant at once of the older Gallic spirit of Villon and Marot, in virtue of his consummate acuteness, terseness and wit, of the school of Ronsard by his erudition, his command of language, and his scholarship, Regnier is perhaps the best representative of French poetry at the critical time when it had got together all its materials, had lost none of its native vigour and force, and had not yet submitted to the cramping and numbing rules and restrictions which the next century introduced. The satirical poems of Regnier, and especially the admirable epistle to Rapin, in which he denounces and rebuts the critical dogmas of Malherbe, are models of nervous strength, while some of the elegies and odes contain expression not easily to be surpassed of the softer feelings of affection and regret. No poet has had more influence on the revival of French poetry in the last century than Regnier, and he had imitators in his own time, the chief of whom was Courval-Sonnet (Thomas Sonnet, sieur de Courval) (1577-1635), author of satires of some value for the history of manners.

Regular tragedy and comedy.

Garnier.

Larivey.

_16th-Century Drama._--The change which dramatic poetry underwent during the 16th century was at least as remarkable as that undergone by poetry proper. The first half of the period saw the end of the religious mysteries, the licence of which had irritated both the parliament and the clergy. Louis XII., at the beginning of the century, was far from discouraging the disorderly but popular and powerful theatre in which the Confraternity of the Passion, the clerks of the Bazoche, and the Enfans sans souci enacted mysteries, moralities, soties and farces. He made them, indeed, an instrument in his quarrel with the papacy, just as Philippe le Bel had made use of the allegorical poems of Jehan de Meung and his fellows. Under his patronage were produced the chief works of Gringore or Gringoire (c. 1480-1547), by far the most remarkable writer of this class of composition. His _Prince des sots_ and his _Mystere de St Louis_ are among the best of their kind. An enormous volume of composition of this class was produced between 1500 and 1550. One morality by itself, _L'Homme juste et l'homme mondain_, contains some 36,000 lines. But in 1548, when the Confraternity was formally established at the Hotel de Bourgogne, leave to play sacred subjects was expressly refused it. Moralities and soties dragged on under difficulties till the end of the century, and the farce, which is immortal, continually affected comedy. But the effect of the Renaissance was to sweep away all other vestiges of the medieval drama, at least in the capital. An entirely new class of subjects, entirely new modes of treatment, and a different kind of performers were introduced. The change naturally came from Italy. In the close relationship with that country which France had during the early years of the century, Italian translations of the classical masterpieces were easily imported. Soon French translations were made afresh of the _Electra_, the _Hecuba_, the _Iphigenia in Aulis_, and the French humanists hastened to compose original tragedies on the classical model, especially as exhibited in the Latin tragedian Seneca. It was impossible that the "Pleiade" should not eagerly seize such an opportunity of carrying out its principles, and one of its members, Jodelle (1532-1573), devoting himself mainly to dramatic composition, fashioned at once the first tragedy, _Cleopatre_, and the first comedy, _Eugene_, thus setting the example of the style of composition which for two centuries and a half Frenchmen were to regard as the highest effort of literary ambition. The amateur performance of these dramas by Jodelle and his friends was followed by a Bacchic procession after the manner of the ancients, which caused a great deal of scandal, and was represented by both Catholics and Protestants as a pagan orgy. The _Cleopatre_ is remarkable as being the first French tragedy, nor is it destitute of merit. It is curious that in this first instance the curt antithetic [Greek: stichomuthia], which was so long characteristic of French plays and plays imitated from them, and which Butler ridicules in his _Dialogue of Cat and Puss_, already appears. There appears also the grandiose and smooth but stilted declamation which came rather from the imitation of Seneca than of Sophocles, and the tradition of which was never to be lost. _Cleopatre_ was followed by _Didon_, which, unlike its predecessor, is entirely in alexandrines, and observes the regular alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes. Jodelle was followed by Jacques Grevin (1540?-1570) with a _Mort de Cesar_, which shows an improvement in tragic art, and two still better comedies, _Les Ebahis_ and _La Tresoriere_ by Jean de la Taille (1540-1608), who made still further progress towards the accepted French dramatic pattern in his _Saul furieux_ and his _Corrivaux_, Jacques, his brother (1541-1562), and Jean de la Peruse (1529-1554), who wrote a _Medee_. A very different poet from all these is Robert Garnier (1545-1601). Garnier is the first tragedian who deserves a place not too far below Rotrou, Corneille, Racine, Voltaire and Hugo, and who may be placed in the same class with them. He chose his subjects indifferently from classical, sacred and medieval literature. _Sedecie_, a play dealing with the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, is held to be his masterpiece, and _Bradamante_ deserves notice because it is the first tragi-comedy of merit in French, and because the famous confidant here makes his first appearance. Garnier's successor, Antoine de Monchretien or Montchrestien (c. 1576-1621), set the example of dramatizing contemporary subjects. His masterpiece is _L'Ecossaise_, the first of many dramas on the fate of Mary, queen of Scots. While tragedy thus clings closely to antique models, comedy, as might be expected in the country of the fabliaux, is more independent. Italy had already a comic school of some originality, and the French farce was too vigorous and lively a production to permit of its being entirely overlooked. The first comic writer of great merit was Pierre Larivey (c. 1550-c. 1612), an Italian by descent. Most if not all of his plays are founded on Italian originals, but the translations or adaptations are made with the greatest freedom, and almost deserve the title of original works. The style is admirable, and the skilful management of the action contrasts strongly with the languor, the awkward adjustment, and the lack of dramatic interest found in contemporary tragedians. Even Moliere found something to use in Larivey.

_16th-Century Prose Fiction._--Great as is the importance of the 16th century in the history of French poetry, its importance in the history of French prose is greater still. In poetry the middle ages could fairly hold their own with any of the ages that have succeeded them. The epics of chivalry, whether of the cycles of Charlemagne, Arthur, or the classic heroes, not to mention the miscellaneous romans d'aventures, have indeed more than held their own. Both relatively and absolutely the _Franciade_ of the 16th century, the _Pucelle_ of the 17th, the _Henriade_ of the 18th, cut a very poor figure beside _Roland_ and _Percivale_, _Gerard de Roussillon_, and _Parthenopex de Blois_. The romances, ballads and pastourelles, signed and unsigned, of medieval France were not merely the origin, but in some respects the superiors, of the lyric poetry which succeeded them. Thibaut de Champagne, Charles d'Orleans and Villon need not veil their crests in any society of bards. The charming forms of the rondel, the rondeau and the ballade have won admiration from every competent poet and critic who has known them. The fabliaux give something more than promise of La Fontaine, and the two great compositions of the _Roman du Renart_ and the _Roman de la rose_, despite their faults and their alloy, will always command the admiration of all persons of taste and judgment who take the trouble to study them. But while poetry had in the middle ages no reason to blush for her French representatives, prose (always the younger and less forward sister) had far less to boast of. With the exception of chronicles and prose romances, no prose works of any real importance can be quoted before the end of the 15th century, and even then the chief if not the only place of importance must be assigned to the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, a work of admirable prose, but necessarily light in character, and not yet demonstrating the efficacy of the French language as a medium of expression for serious and weighty thought. Up to the time of the Renaissance and the consequent reformation, Latin had, as we have already remarked, been considered the sufficient and natural organ for this expression. In France as in other countries the disturbance in religious thought may undoubtedly claim the glory of having repaired this disgrace of the vulgar tongue, and of having fitted and taught it to express whatever thoughts the theologian, the historian, the philosopher, the politician and the savant had occasion to utter. But the use of prose as a vehicle for lighter themes was more continuous with the literature that preceded, and serves as a natural transition from poetry and the drama to history and science. Among the prose writers, therefore, of the 16th century we shall give the first place to the novelists and romantic writers.

Rabelais.

Among these there can be no doubt of the precedence, in every sense of the word, of Francois Rabelais (c. 1490-1553), the one French writer (or with Moliere one of the two) whom critics the least inclined to appreciate the characteristics of French literature have agreed to place among the few greatest of the world. With an immense erudition representing almost the whole of the knowledge of his time, with an untiring faculty of invention, with the judgment of a philosopher, and the common sense of a man of the world, with an observation that let no characteristic of the time pass unobserved, and with a tenfold portion of the special Gallic gift of good-humoured satire, Rabelais united a height of speculation and depth of insight and a vein of poetical imagination rarely found in any writer, but altogether portentous when taken in conjunction with his other characteristics. His great work has been taken for an exercise of transcendental philosophy, for a concealed theological polemic, for an allegorical history of this and that personage of his time, for a merely literary utterance, for an attempt to tickle the popular ear and taste. It is all of these, and it is none--all of them in parts, none of them in deliberate and exclusive intention. It may perhaps be called the exposition and commentary of all the thoughts, feelings, aspirations and knowledge of a particular time and nation put forth in attractive literary form by a man who for once combined the practical and the literary spirit, the power of knowledge and the power of expression. The work of Rabelais is the mirror of the 16th century in France, reflecting at once its comeliness and its uncomeliness, its high aspirations, its voluptuous tastes, its political and religious dissensions, its keen criticism, its eager appetite and hasty digestion of learning, its gleams of poetry, and its ferocity of manners. In Rabelais we can divine the "Pleiade" and Marot, the _Cymbalum mundi_ and Montaigne, Amyot and the _Amadis_, even Calvin and Duperron.

Des Periers.

The Heptameron.

It was inevitable that such extraordinary works as _Gargantua_ and _Pantagruel_ should attract special imitators in the direction of their outward form. It was also inevitable that this imitation should frequently fix upon these Rabelaisian characteristics which are least deserving of imitation, and most likely to be depraved in the hands of imitators. It fell within the plan of the master to indulge in what has been called _fatrasie_, the huddling together, that is to say, of a medley of language and images which is best known to English readers in the not always successful following of Sterne. It pleased him also to disguise his naturally terse, strong and nervous style in a burlesque envelope of redundant language, partly ironical, partly the result of superfluous erudition, and partly that of a certain childish wantonness and exuberance, which is one of his raciest and pleasantest characteristics. In both these points he was somewhat corruptly followed. But fortunately the romancical writers of the 16th century had not Rabelais for their sole model, but were also influenced by the simple and straightforward style of the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_. The joint influence gives us some admirable work. Nicholas of Troyes, a saddler of Champagne, came too early (his _Grand Parangon des nouvelles nouvelles_ appeared in 1536) to copy Rabelais. But Noel du Fail (d. c. 1585?), a judge at Rennes, shows the double influence in his _Propos rustiques_ and _Contes d'Eutrapel_, both of which, especially the former, are lively and well-written pictures of contemporary life and thought, as the country magistrate actually saw and dealt with them. In 1558, however, appeared two works of far higher literary and social interest. These are the _Heptameron_ of the queen of Navarre, and the _Contes et joyeux devis_ of Bonaventure des Periers (c. 1500-1544). Des Periers, who was a courtier of Marguerite's, has sometimes been thought to have had a good deal to do with the first-named work as well as with the second, and was also the author of a curious Lucianic satire, strongly sceptical in cast, the _Cymbalum mundi_. Indeed, not merely the queen's prose works, but also the poems gracefully entitled _Les Marguerites de la Marguerite_, are often attributed to the literary men whom the sister of Francis I. gathered round her. However this may be, some single influence of power enough to give unity and distinctness of savour evidently presided over the composition of the _Heptameron_. Composed as it is on the model of Boccaccio, its tone and character are entirely different, and few works have a more individual charm. The _Tales_ of des Periers are shorter, simpler and more homely; there is more wit in them and less refinement. But both works breathe, more powerfully perhaps than any others, the peculiar mixture of cultivated and poetical voluptuousness with a certain religiosity and a vigorous spirit of action which characterizes the French Renaissance. Later in time, but too closely connected with Rabelais in form and spirit to be here omitted, came the _Moyen de parvenir_ of Beroalde de Verville (1558?-1612?), a singular _fatrasie_, uniting wit, wisdom, learning and indecency, and crammed with anecdotes which are always amusing though rarely decorous.

Amadis of Gaul.

At the same time a fresh vogue was given to the chivalric romance by Herberay's translation of _Amadis de Gaula_. French writers have supposed a French original for the _Amadis_ in some lost roman d'aventures. It is of course impossible to say that this is not the case, but there is not one tittle of evidence to show that it is. At any rate the adventures of Amadis were prolonged in Spanish through generation after generation of his descendants. This vast work Herberay des Essarts in 1540 undertook to translate or retranslate, but it was not without the assistance of several followers that the task was completed. Southey has charged Herberay with corrupting the simplicity of the original, a charge which does not concern us here. It is sufficient to say that the French _Amadis_ is an excellent piece of literary work, and that Herberay deserves no mean place among the fathers of French prose. His book had an immense popularity; it was translated into many foreign languages, and for some time it served as a favourite reading book for foreigners studying French. Nor is it to be doubted that the romancers of the Scudery and Calprenede type in the next century were much more influenced both for good and harm by these Amadis romances than by any of the earlier tales of chivalry.

_16th-Century Historians._--As in the case of the tale-tellers, so in that of the historians, the writers of the 16th century had traditions to continue. It is doubtful indeed whether many of them can risk comparison as artists with the great names cf Villehardouin and Joinville, Froissart and Comines. The 16th century, however, set the example of dividing the functions of the chronicler, setting those of the historian proper on one side, and of the anecdote-monger and biographer on the other. The efforts at regular history made in this century were not of the highest value. But on the other hand the practice of memoir-writing, in which the French were to excel every nation in the world, and of literary correspondence, in which they were to excel even their memoirs, was solidly founded.

One of the earliest historical writers of the century was Claude de Seyssel (1450-1520), whose history of Louis XII. aims not unsuccessfully at style. De Thou (1553-1617) wrote in Latin, but Bernard de Girard, sieur du Haillan (1537-1610), composed a _Histoire de France_ on Thucydidean principles as transmitted through the successive mediums of Polybius, Guicciardini and Paulus Aemilius. The instance invariably quoted, after Thierry, of du Haillan's method is his introduction, with appropriate speeches, of two Merovingian statesmen who argue out the relative merits of monarchy and oligarchy on the occasion of the election of Pharamond. Besides du Haillan, la Popeliniere (c. 1540-1608), who less ambitiously attempted a history of Europe during his own time, and expended immense labour on the collection of information and materials, deserves mention.

Brantome.

There is no such poverty of writers of memoirs. Robert de la Mark, du Bellay, Marguerite de Valois (the youngest or third Marguerite, first wife of Henri IV., 1553-1615), Villars, Tavannes, La Tour d'Auvergne, and many others composed commentaries and autobiographies. The well-known and very agreeable _Histoire du gentil seigneur de Bayart_ (1524) is by an anonymous "Loyal Serviteur." Vincent Carloix (fl. 1550), the secretary of the marshal de Vielleville, composed some memoirs abounding in detail and incident. The _Lettres_ of Cardinal d'Ossat (1536-1604) and the _Negociations_ of Pierre Jeannin (1540-1622) have always had a high place among documents of their kind. But there are four collections of memoirs concerning this time which far exceed all others in interest and importance. The turbulent dispositions of the time, the loose dependence of the nobles and even the smaller gentry on any single or central authority, the rapid changes of political situations, and the singularly active appetite, both for pleasure and for business, for learning and for war, which distinguished the French gentleman of the 16th century, place the memoirs of Francois de Lanoue (1531-1591), Blaise de Mon[t]luc (1503-1577), Agrippa d'Aubigne and Pierre de Bourdeille[s] Brantome (1540-1614) almost at the head of the literature of their class. The name of Brantome is known to all who have the least tincture of French literature, and the works of the others are not inferior in interest, and perhaps superior in spirit and conception, to the _Dames Galantes_, the _Grands Capitaines_ and the _Hommes illustres_. The commentaries of Montluc, which Henri Quatre is said to have called the soldier's Bible, are exclusively military and deal with affairs only. Montluc was governor in Guienne, where he repressed the savage Huguenots of the south with a savagery worse than their own. He was, however, a partisan of order, not of Catholicism. He hung and shot both parties with perfect impartiality, and refused to have anything to do with the massacre of St Bartholomew. Though he was a man of no learning, his style is excellent, being vivid, flexible and straightforward. Lanoue, who was a moderate in politics, has left his principles reflected in his memoirs. D'Aubigne, so often to be mentioned, gives the extreme Huguenot side as opposed to the royalist partisanship of Montluc and the _via media_ of Lanoue. Brantome, on the other hand, is quite free from any political or religious prepossessions, and, indeed, troubles himself very little about any such matters. He is the shrewd and somewhat cynical observer, moving through the crowd and taking note of its ways, its outward appearance, its heroisms and its follies. It is really difficult to say whether the recital of a noble deed of arms or the telling of a scandalous story about a court lady gave him the most pleasure, and impossible to say which he did best. Certainly he had ample material for both exercises in the history of his time.

The branches of literature of which we have just given an account may be fairly connected, from the historical point of view, with work of the same kind that went before as well as with work of the same kind that followed them. It was not so with the literature of theology, law, politics and erudition, which the 16th century also produced, and with which it for the first time enlarged the range of composition in the vulgar tongue. Not only had Latin been invariably adopted as the language of composition on such subjects, but the style of the treatises dealing with such matters had been traditional rather than original. In speculative philosophy or metaphysics proper even this century did not witness a great development; perhaps, indeed, such a development was not to be expected until the minds of men had in some degree settled down from their agitation on more practical matters. It is not without significance that Calvin (1509-1564) is the great figure in serious French prose in the first half of the century, Montaigne the corresponding figure in the second half. After Calvin and Montaigne we expect Descartes.

Calvin.

_16th-Century Theologians._--In France, as in all other countries, the Reformation was an essentially popular movement, though from special causes, such as the absence of political homogeneity, the nobles took a more active part both with pen and sword in it than was the case in England. But the great textbook of the French Reformation was not the work of any noble. Jean Calvin's _Institution of the Christian Religion_ is a book equally remarkable in matter and in form, in circumstances and in result. It is the first really great composition in argumentative French prose. Its severe logic and careful arrangement had as much influence on the manner of future thought, both in France and the other regions whither its widespread popularity carried it, as its style had on the expression of such thought. It was the work of a man of only seven-and-twenty, and it is impossible to exaggerate the originality of its manner when we remember that hardly any models of French prose then existed except tales and chronicles, which required and exhibited totally different qualities of style. It is indeed probable that had not the _Institution_ been first written by its author in Latin, and afterwards translated by him, it might have had less dignity and vigour; but it must at the same time be remembered that this process of composition was at least equally likely, in the hands of any but a great genius, to produce a heavy and pedantic style neither French nor Latin in character. Something like this result was actually produced in some of Calvin's minor works, and still more in the works of many of his followers, whose lumbering language gained for itself, in allusion to their exile from France, the title of "style refugie." Nevertheless, the use of the vulgar tongue on the Protestant side, and the possession of a work of such importance written therein, gave the Reformers an immense advantage which their adversaries were some time in neutralizing. Even before the _Institution_, Lefevre d'Etaples (1455-1537) and Guillaume Farel (1489-1565) saw and utilized the importance of the vernacular. Calvin (1509-1564) was much helped by Pierre Viret (1511-1571), who wrote a large number of small theological and moral dialogues, and of satirical pamphlets, destined to captivate as well as to instruct the lower people. The more famous Beza (Theodore de Beze) (1519-1605) wrote chiefly in Latin, but he composed in French an ecclesiastical history of the Reformed churches and some translations of the Psalms. Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde (1530-1593), a gentleman of Brabant, followed Viret as a satirical pamphleteer on the Protestant side. On the other hand, the Catholic champions at first affected to disdain the use of the vulgar tongue, and their pamphleteers, when they did attempt it, were unequal to the task. Towards the end of the century a more decent war was waged with Philippe du Plessis Mornay (1549-1623) on the Protestant side, whose work is at least as much directed against freethinkers and enemies of Christianity in general as against the dogmas and discipline of Rome. His adversary, the redoubtable Cardinal du Perron (1556-1618), who, originally a Calvinist, went over to the other side, employed French most vigorously in controversial works, chiefly with reference to the eucharist. Du Perron was celebrated as the first controversialist of the time, and obtained dialectical victories over all comers. At the same time the bishop of Geneva, St Francis of Sales (1567-1622), supported the Catholic side, partly by controversial works, but still more by his devotional writings. The _Introduction to a Devout Life_, which, though actually published early in the next century, had been written some time previously, shares with Calvin's _Institution_ the position of the most important theological work of the period, and is in remarkable contrast with it in style and sentiment as well as in principles and plan. It has indeed been accused of a certain effeminacy, the appearance of which is in all probability mainly due to this very contrast. The 16th century does not, like the 17th, distinguish itself by literary exercises in the pulpit. The furious preachers of the League, and their equally violent opponents, have no literary value.

Montaigne.

_16th-Century Moralists and Political Writers._--The religious dissensions and political disturbances of the time could not fail to exert an influence on ethical and philosophical thought. Yet, as we have said, the century was not prolific of pure philosophical speculation. The scholastic tradition, though long sterile, still survived, and with it the habit of composing in Latin all works in any way connected with philosophy. The _Logic_ of Ramus in 1555 is cited as the first departure from this rule. Other philosophical works are few, and chiefly express the doubt and the freethinking which were characteristic of the time. This doubt assumes the form of positive religious scepticism only in the _Cymbalum mundi_ of Bonaventure des Periers, a remarkable series of dialogues which excited a great storm, and ultimately drove the author to commit suicide. The _Cymbalum mundi_ is a curious anticipation of the 18th century. The literature of doubt, however, was to receive its principal accession in the famous essays of Michel Eyguem, seigneur de Montaigne (1533-1592). It would be a mistake to imagine the existence of any sceptical propaganda in this charming and popular book. Its principle is not scepticism but egotism; and as the author was profoundly sceptical, this quality necessarily rather than intentionally appears. We have here to deal only very superficially with this as with other famous books, but it cannot be doubted that it expresses the mental attitude of the latter part of the century as completely as Rabelais expresses the mental attitude of the early part. There is considerably less vigour and life in this attitude. Inquiry and protest have given way to a placid conviction that there is not much to be found out, and that it does not much matter; the erudition though abundant is less indiscriminate, and is taken in and given out with less gusto; exuberant drollery has given way to quiet irony; and though neither business nor pleasure is decried, both are regarded rather as useful pastimes incident to the life of man than with the eager appetite of the Renaissance. From the purely literary point of view, the style is remarkable from its absence of pedantry In construction, and yet for its rich vocabulary and picturesque brilliancy. The follower and imitator of Montaigne, Pierre Charron (1541-1603), carried his master's scepticism to a somewhat more positive degree. His principal book, _De la sagesse_, scarcely deserves the comparative praise which Pope has given it. On the other hand Guillaume du Vair (1556-1621), a lawyer and orator, takes the positive rather than the negative side in morality, and regards the vicissitudes in human affairs from the religious and theological point of view in a series of works characterized by the special merit of the style of great orators.

The revolutionary and innovating instinct which showed itself in the 16th century with reference to church government and doctrine spread naturally enough to political matters. The intolerable disorder of the religious wars naturally set the thinkers of the age speculating on the doctrines of government in general. The favourite and general study of antiquity helped this tendency, and the great accession of royal power in all the monarchies of Europe invited a speculative if not a practical reaction. The persecutions of the Protestants naturally provoked a republican spirit among them, and the violent antipathy of the League to the houses of Valois and Bourbon made its partisans adopt almost openly the principles of democracy and tyrannicide.

Bodin.

The greatest political writer of the age is Jean Bodin (1530-1596), whose _Republique_ is founded partly on speculative considerations like the political theories of the ancients, and partly on an extended historical inquiry. Bodin, like most lawyers who have taken the royalist side, is for unlimited monarchy, but notwithstanding this, he condemns religious persecution and discourages slavery. In his speculations on the connexion between forms of government and natural causes, he serves as a link between Aristotle and Montesquieu. On the other hand, the causes which we have mentioned made a large number of writers adopt opposite conclusions. Etienne de la Boetie (1530-1563), the friend of Montaigne's youth, composed the _Contre un or Discours de la servitude volontaire_, a protest against the monarchical theory. The boldness of the protest and the affectionate admiration of Montaigne have given la Boetie a much higher reputation than any extant work of his actually deserves. The _Contre un_ is a kind of prize essay, full of empty declamation borrowed from the ancients, and showing no grasp of the practical conditions of politics. Not much more historically based, but far more vigorous and original, is the _Franco-Gallia_ of Francois Hotmann (1524-1590), a work which appeared both in Latin and French, which extols the authority of the states-general, represents them as direct successors of the political institutions of Gauls and Franks, and maintains the right of insurrection. In the last quarter of the century political animosity knew no bounds. The Protestants beheld a divine instrument in Poltrot de Mere, the Catholics in Jacques Clement. The Latin treatises of Hubert Languet (1518-1581) and Buchanan formally vindicated--the first, like Hotmann, the right of rebellion based on an original contract between prince and people, the second the right of tyrannicide. Indeed, as Montaigne confesses, divine authorization for political violence was claimed and denied by both parties according as the possession or the expectancy of power belonged to each, and the excesses of the preachers and pamphleteers knew no bounds.

Satire Menippee.

Every one, however, was not carried away. The literary merits of the chancellor Michel de l'Hopital (1507-1573) are not very great, but his efforts to promote peace and moderation were unceasing. On the other side Lanoue, with far greater literary gifts, pursued the same ends, and pointed out the ruinous consequences of continued dissension. Du Plessis Mornay took a part in political discussion even more important than that which he bore in religious polemics, and was of the utmost service to Henri Quatre in defending his cause against the League, as was also Hurault, another author of state papers. Du Vair, already mentioned, powerfully assisted the same cause by his successful defence of the Salic law, the disregard of which by the Leaguer states-general was intended to lead to the admission of the Spanish claim to the crown. But the foremost work against the League was the famous _Satire Menippee_ (1594), in a literary point of view one of the most remarkable of political books. The _Menippee_ was the work of no single author, but was due, it is said, to the collaboration of five, Pierre Leroi, who has the credit of the idea, Jacques Gillot, Florent Chretien, Nicolas Rapin (1541-1596) and Pierre Pithou (1539-1596), with some assistance in verse from Passerat and Gilles Durand. The book is a kind of burlesque report of the meeting of the states-general, called for the purpose of supporting the views of the League in 1593. It gives an account of the procession of opening, and then we have the supposed speeches of the principal characters--the duc de Mayenne, the papal legate, the rector of the university (a ferocious Leaguer) and others. But by far the most remarkable is that attributed to Claude d'Aubray, the leader of the _Tiers Etat_, and said to be written by Pithou, in which all the evils of the time and the malpractices of the leaders of the League are exposed and branded. The satire is extraordinarily bitter and yet perfectly good-humoured. It resembles in character rather that of Butler, who unquestionably imitated it, than any other. The style is perfectly suited to the purpose, having got rid of almost all vestiges of the cumbrousness of the older tongue without losing its picturesque quaintness. It is no wonder that, as we are told by contemporaries, it did more for Henri Quatre than all other writings in his cause. In connexion with politics some mention of legal orators and writers may be necessary. In 1539 the ordinance of Villers-Cotterets enjoined the exclusive use of the French language in legal procedure. The bar and bench of France during the century produced, however, besides those names already mentioned in other connexions, only one deserving of special notice, that of Etienne Pasquier (1529-1615), author of a celebrated speech against the right of the Jesuits to take part in public teaching. This he inserted in his great work, _Recherches de la France_, a work dealing with almost every aspect of French history whether political, antiquarian or literary.

Amyot.

_16th-Century Savants._--One more division, and only one, that of scientific and learned writers pure and simple, remains. Much of the work of this kind during the period was naturally done in Latin, the vulgar tongue of the learned. But in France, as in other countries, the study of the classics led to a vast number of translations, and it so happened that one of the translators deserves as a prose writer a rank among the highest. Many of the authors already mentioned contributed to the literature of translation. Des Periers translated the Platonic dialogue _Lysis_, la Boetie some works of Xenophon and Plutarch, du Vair the _De corona_, the _In Ctesiphontem_ and the _Pro Milone_. Salel attempted the _Iliad_, Belleau the false _Anacreon_, Baif some plays of Plautus and Terence. Besides these Lefevre d'Etaples gave a version of the Bible, Saliat one of Herodotus, and Louis Leroi (1510-1577), not to be confounded with the part author of the _Menippee_, many works of Plato, Aristotle and other Greek writers. But while most if not all of these translators owed the merits of their work to their originals, and deserved, much more deserve, to be read only by those to whom those originals are sealed, Jacques Amyot (1513-1593), bishop of Auxerre, takes rank as a French classic by his translations of Plutarch, Longus and Heliodorus. The admiration which Amyot excited in his own time was immense. Montaigne declares that it was thanks to him that his contemporaries knew how to speak and to write, and the Academy in the next age, though not too much inclined to honour its predecessors, ranked him as a model. His Plutarch, which had an enormous influence at the time, and coloured perhaps more than any classic the thoughts and writings of the 16th century, both in French and English, was then considered his masterpiece. Nowadays perhaps, and from the purely literary standpoint, that position would be assigned to his exquisite version of the exquisite story of Daphnis and Chloe. It is needless to say that absolute fidelity and exact scholarship are not the pre-eminent merits of these versions. They are not philological exercises, but works of art.

On the other hand, Claude Fauchet (1530-1601) in two antiquarian works, _Antiquites gauloises et francoises_ and _L'Origine de la langue et de la poesie francaise_, displays a remarkable critical faculty in sweeping away the fables which had encumbered history. Fauchet had the (for his time) wonderful habit of consulting manuscripts, and we owe to him literary notices of many of the trouveres. At the same time Francois Grude, sieur de la Croix du Maine (1552-1592), and Antoine Duverdier (1544-1600) founded the study of bibliography in France. Pasquier's _Recherches_, already alluded to, carries out the principles of Fauchet independently, and besides treating the history of the past in a true critical spirit, supplies us with voluminous and invaluable information on contemporary politics and literature. He has, moreover, the merit which Fauchet had not, of being an excellent writer. Henri Estienne [Stephanus] (1528-1598) also deserves notice in this place, both for certain treatises on the French language, full of critical crotchets, and also for his curious _Apologie pour Herodote_, a remarkable book not particularly easy to class. It consists partly of a defence of its nominal subject, partly of satirical polemics on the Protestant side, and is filled almost equally with erudition and with the buffoonery and _fatrasie_ of the time. The book, indeed, was much too Rabelaisian to suit the tastes of those in whose defence it was composed.

The 16th century is somewhat too early for us to speak of science, and such science as was then composed falls for the most part outside French literature. The famous potter, Bernard Palissy (1510-1590), however, was not much less skilful as a fashioner of words than as a fashioner of pots, and his description of the difficulties of his experiments in enamelling, which lasted sixteen years, is well known. The great surgeon Ambrose Pare (c. 1510-1590) was also a writer, and his descriptions of his military experiences at Turin, Metz and elsewhere have all the charm of the 16th-century memoir. The only other writers who require special mention are Olivier de Serres (1539-1619), who composed, under the title of _Theatre d'agriculture_, a complete treatise on the various operations of rural economy, and Jacques du Fouilloux (1521-1580), who wrote on hunting (_La Venerie_). Both became extremely popular and were frequently reprinted.

Malherbe.