Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

_17th-Century Poetry._--It is not always easy or possible to make the end or the beginning of a literary epoch synchronize exactly with historical dates. It happens, however, that for once the beginning of the 17th century coincides almost exactly with an entire revolution in French literature. The change of direction and of critical standard given by Francois de Malherbe (1556-1628) to poetry was to last for two whole centuries, and to determine, not merely the language and complexion, but also the form of French verse during the whole of that time. Accidentally, or as a matter of logical consequence (it would not be proper here to attempt to decide the question), poetry became almost synonymous with drama. It is true, as we shall have to point out, that there were, in the early part of the 17th century at least, poets, properly so called, of no contemptible merit. But their merit, in itself respectable, sank in comparison with the far greater merit of their dramatic rivals. Theophile de Viau and Racan, Voiture and Saint-Amant cannot for a moment be mentioned in the same rank with Corneille. It is certainly curious, if it is not something more than curious, that this decline in poetry proper should have coincided with the so-called reforms of Malherbe. The tradition of respect for this elder and more gifted Boileau was at one time all-powerful in France, and, notwithstanding the Romantic movement, is still strong. In rejecting a large number of the importations of the Ronsardists, he certainly did good service. But it is difficult to avoid ascribing in great measure to his influence the origin of the chief faults of modern French poetry, and modern French in general, as compared with the older language. He pronounced against "poetic diction" as such, forbade the overlapping (_enjambement_) of verse, insisted that the middle pause should be of sense as well as sound, and that rhyme must satisfy eye as well as ear. Like Pope, he sacrificed everything to "correctness," and, unluckily for French, the sacrifice was made at a time when no writer of an absolutely supreme order had yet appeared in the language. With Shakespeare and Milton, not to mention scores of writers only inferior to them, safely garnered, Pope and his followers could do us little harm. Corneille and Moliere unfortunately came after Malherbe. Yet it would be unfair to this writer, however badly we may think of his influence, to deny him talent, and even a certain amount of poetical inspiration. He had not felt his own influence, and the very influences which he despised and proscribed produced in him much tolerable and some admirable verse, though he is not to be named as a poet with Regnier, who had the courage, the sense and the good taste to oppose and ridicule his innovations. Of Malherbe's school, Honorat de Bueil, marquis de Racan (1589-1670), and Francois de Maynard (1582-1646) were the most remarkable. The former was a true poet, though not a very strong one. Like his master, he is best when he follows the models whom that master contemned. Perhaps more than any other poet, he set the example of the classical alexandrine, the smooth and melodious but monotonous and rather effeminate measure which Racine was to bring to the highest perfection, and which his successors, while they could not improve its smoothness, were to make more and more monotonous until the genius of Victor Hugo once more broke up its facile polish, supplied its stiff uniformity, and introduced vigour, variety, colour and distinctness in the place of its feeble sameness and its pale indecision. But the vigour, not to say the licence, of the 16th century could not thus die all at once. In Theophile de Viau (1591-1626) the early years of the 17th century had their Villon. The later poet was almost as unfortunate as the earlier, and almost as disreputable, but he had a great share of poetical and not a small one of critical power. The _etoile enragee_ under which he complains that he was born was at least kind to him in this respect; and his readers, after he had been forgotten for two centuries, have once more done him justice. Racan and Theophile were followed in the second quarter of the century by two schools which sufficiently well represented the tendencies of each. The first was that of Vincent Voiture (1598-1648), Isaac de Benserade (1612-1691), and other poets such as Claude de Maleville (1597-1647), author of _La Belle Matineuse_, who were connected more or less with the famous literary coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Theophile was less worthily succeeded by a class, it can hardly be called a school of poets, some of whom, like Gerard Saint-Amant (1594-1660), wrote drinking songs of merit and other light pieces; others, like Paul Scarron (1610-1660) and Sarrasin (1603? 4? 5?-1654), devoted themselves rather to burlesque of serious verse. Most of the great dramatic authors of the time also wrote miscellaneous poetry, and there was even an epic school of the most singular kind, in ridiculing and discrediting which Boileau for once did undoubtedly good service. The _Pucelle_ of Jean Chapelain (1595-1674), the unfortunate author who was deliberately trained and educated for a poet, who enjoyed for some time a sort of dictatorship in French literature on the strength of his forthcoming work, and at whom from the day of its publication every critic of French literature has agreed to laugh, was the most famous and perhaps the worst of these. But Georges de Scudery (1601-1667) wrote an _Alaric_, the Pere le Moyne (1602-1671) a _Saint Louis_, Jean Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (1595-1676), a dramatist and critic of some note, a _Clovis_, and Saint-Amant a _Moise_, which were not much better, though Theophile Gautier in his _Grotesques_ has valiantly defended these and other contemporary versifiers. And indeed it cannot be denied that even the epics, especially _Saint Louis_, contain flashes of finer poetry than France was to produce for more than a century outside of the drama. Some of the lighter poets and classes of poetry just alluded to also produced some remarkable verse. The _Precieuses_ of the Hotel Rambouillet, with all their absurdities, encouraged if they did not produce good literary work. In their society there is no doubt that a great reformation of manners took place, if not of morals, and that the tendency to literature elegant and polished, yet not destitute of vigour, which marks the 17th century, was largely developed side by side with much scandal-mongering and anecdotage. Many of the authors whom these influences inspired, such as Voiture, Saint-Evremond and others, have been or will be noticed. But even such poets and wits as Antoine Baudouin de Senece (1643-1737), Jean de Segrais (1624-1701), Charles Faulure de Ris, sieur de Charleval (1612-1693), Antoine Godeau (1605-1672), Jean Ogier de Gombaud (1590-1666), are not without interest in the history of literature; while if Charles Cotin (1604-1682) sinks below this level and deserves Moliere's caricature of him as Trissotin in _Les Femmes savantes_, Gilles de Menage (1630-1692) certainly rises above it, notwithstanding the companion satire of Vadius. Menage's name naturally suggests the _Ana_ which arose at this time and were long fashionable, stores of endless gossip, sometimes providing instruction and often amusement. The _Guirlande de Julie_, in which most of the poets of the time celebrated Julie d'Angennes, daughter of the marquise de Rambouillet, is perhaps the best of all such albums, and Voiture, the typical poet of the coterie, was certainly the best writer of _vers de societe_ who is known to us. The poetical war which arose between the Uranistes, the followers of Voiture, and the Jobistes, those of Benserade, produced reams of sonnets, epigrams and similar verses. This habit of occasional versification continued long. It led as a less important consequence to the rhymed _Gazettes_ of Jean Loret (d. 1665), which recount in octosyllabic verse of a light and lively kind the festivals and court events of the early years of Louis XIV. It led also to perhaps the most remarkable non-dramatic poetry of the century, the _Contes_ and _Fables_ of Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695). No French writer is better known than la Fontaine, and there is no need to dilate on his merits. It has been well said that he completes Moliere, and that the two together give something to French literature which no other literature possesses. Yet la Fontaine is after all only a writer of fabliaux, in the language and with the manners of his own century.

All the writers we have mentioned belong more or less to the first half of the century, and so do Valentin Conrart (1603-1675), Antoine Furetiere (1626-1688), Chapelle (Claude Emmanuel) l'Huillier (1626-1686), and others not worth special mention. The latter half of the century is far less productive, and the poetical quality of its production is even lower than the quantity. In it Boileau (1636-1711) is the chief poetical figure. Next to him can only be mentioned Madame Deshoulieres (1638-1694), Guillaume de Brebeuf (1618-1661), the translator of Lucan, Philippe Quinault (1635-1688), the composer of opera libretti. Boileau's satire, where it has much merit, is usually borrowed direct from Horace. He had a certain faculty as a critic of the slashing order, and might have profitably used it if he had written in prose. But of his poetry it must be said, not so much that it is bad, as that it is not, in strictness, poetry at all, and the same is generally true of all those who followed him.

Hardy.

Rotrou.

Corneille.

Moliere.

Racine.

The Academy.

_17th-Century Drama._--We have already seen how the medieval theatre was formed, and how in the second half of the 16th century it met with a formidable rival in the classical drama of Jodelle and Garnier. In 1588 mysteries had been prohibited, and with the prohibition of the mysteries the Confraternity of the Passion lost the principal part of its reason for existence. The other bodies and societies of amateur actors had already perished, and at length the Hotel de Bourgogne itself, the home of the confraternity, had been handed over to a regular troop of actors, while companies of strollers, whose life has been vividly depicted in the _Roman comique_ of Scarron and the _Capitaine Fracasse_ of Theophile Gautier, wandered all about the provinces. The old farce was for a time maintained or revived by Tabarin, a remarkable figure in dramatic history, of whom but little is known. The great dramatic author of the first quarter of the 17th century was Alexandre Hardy (1569-1631), who surpassed even Heywood in fecundity, and very nearly approached the portentous productiveness of Lope de Vega. Seven hundred is put down as the modest total of Hardy's pieces, but not much more than a twentieth of these exist in print. From these latter we can judge Hardy. They are hardly up to the level of the worst specimens of the contemporary Elizabethan theatre, to which, however, they bear a certain resemblance. Marston's _Insatiate Countess_ and the worst parts of Chapman's _Bussy d'Ambois_ may give English readers some notion of them. Yet Hardy was not totally devoid of merit. He imitated and adapted Spanish literature, which was at this time to France what Italian was in the century before and English in the century after, in the most indiscriminate manner. But he had a considerable command of grandiloquent and melodramatic expression, a sound theory if not a sound practice of tragic writing, and that peculiar knowledge of theatrical art and of the taste of the theatrical public which since his time has been the special possession of the French playwright. It is instructive to compare the influence of his irregular and faulty genius with that of the regular and precise Malherbe. From Hardy to Rotrou is, in point of literary interest, a great step, and from Rotrou to Corneille a greater. Yet the theory of Hardy only wanted the genius of Rotrou and Corneille to produce the latter. Jean de Rotrou (1610-1650) has been called the French Marlowe, and there is a curious likeness and yet a curious contrast between the two poets. The best parts of Rotrou's two best plays, _Venceslas_ and _St Genest_, are quite beyond comparison in respect of anything that preceded them, and the central speech of the last-named play will rank with anything in French dramatic poetry. Contemporary with Rotrou were other dramatic writers of considerable dramatic importance, most of them distinguished by the faults of the Spanish school, its declamatory rodomontade, its conceits, and its occasionally preposterous action. Jean de Schelandre (d. 1635) has left us a remarkable work in _Tyr et Sidon_, which exemplifies in practice, as its almost more remarkable preface by Francois Ogier defends in principle, the English-Spanish model. Theophile de Viau in _Pyrame et Thisbe_ and in _Pasiphae_ produced a singular mixture of the classicism of Garnier and the extravagancies of Hardy. Scudery in _l'Amour tyrannique_ and other plays achieved a considerable success. The _Marianne_ of Tristan (1601-1655) and the _Sophonisbe_ of Jean de Mairet (1604-1686) are the chief pieces of their authors. Mairet resembles Marston in something more than his choice of subject. Another dramatic writer of some eminence is Pierre du Ryer (1606-1648). But the fertility of France at this moment in dramatic authors was immense; nearly 100 are enumerated in the first quarter of the century. The early plays of Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) showed all the faults of his contemporaries combined with merits to which none of them except Rotrou, and Rotrou himself only in part, could lay claim. His first play was _Melite_, a comedy, and in _Clitandre_, a tragedy, he soon produced what may perhaps be not inconveniently taken as the typical piece of the school of Hardy. A full account of Corneille may be found elsewhere. It is sufficient to say here that his importance in French literature is quite as great in the way of influence and example as in the way of intellectual excellence. The _Cid_ and the _Menteur_ are respectively the first examples of French tragedy and comedy which can be called modern. But this influence and example did not at first find many imitators. Corneille was a member of Richelieu's band of five poets. Of the other four Rotrou alone deserves the title; the remaining three, the prolific abbe de Boisrobert, Guillaume Colletet (whose most valuable work, a MS. _Lives of Poets_, was never printed, and burnt by the Communards in 1871), and Claude de Lestoile (1597-1651), are as dramatists worthy of no notice, nor were they soon followed by others more worthy. Yet before many years had passed the examples which Corneille had set in tragedy and in comedy were followed up by unquestionably the greatest comic writer, and by one who long held the position of the greatest tragic writer of France. Beginning with mere farces of the Italian type, and passing from these to comedies still of an Italian character, it was in _Les Precieuses ridicules_, acted in 1659, that Moliere (1622-1673), in the words of a spectator, hit at last on "la bonne comedie." The next fifteen years comprise the whole of his best known work, the finest expression beyond doubt of a certain class of comedy that any literature has produced. The tragic masterpieces of Racine (1639-1699) were not far from coinciding with the comic masterpieces of Moliere, for, with the exception of the remarkable aftergrowth of _Esther_ and _Athalie_, they were produced chiefly between 1667 and 1677. Both Racine and Moliere fall into the class of writers who require separate mention. Here we can only remark that both to a certain extent committed and encouraged a fault which distinguished much subsequent French dramatic literature. This was the too great individualizing of one point in a character, and the making the man or woman nothing but a blunderer, a lover, a coxcomb, a tyrant and the like. The very titles of French plays show this influence--they are _Le Grondeur_, _Le Joueur_, &c. The complexity of human character is ignored. This fault distinguishes both Moliere and Racine from writers of the very highest order; and in especial it distinguishes the comedy of Moliere and the tragedy of Racine from the comedy and tragedy of Shakespeare. In all probability this and other defects of the French drama (which are not wholly apparent in the work of Moliere and Corneille, are shown in their most favourable light in those of Racine, and appear in all their deformity in the successors of the latter) arise from the rigid adoption of the Aristotelian theory of the drama with its unities and other restrictions, especially as transmitted by Horace through Boileau. This adoption was very much due to the influence of the French Academy, which was founded unofficially by Conrart in 1629, which received official standing six years later, and which continued the tradition of Malherbe in attempting constantly to school and correct, as the phrase went, the somewhat disorderly instincts of the early French stage. Even the Cid was formally censured for irregularity by it. But it is fair to say that Francois Hedelin, abbe d'Aubignac (1604-1676), whose _Pratique du theatre_ is the most wooden of the critical treatises of the time, was not an academician. It is difficult to say whether the subordination of all other classes of composition to the drama, which has ever since been characteristic of French literature, was or was not due to the predilection of Richelieu, the main protector if not exactly the founder of the Academy, for the theatre. Among the immediate successors and later contemporaries of the three great dramatists we do not find any who deserve high rank as tragedians, though there are some whose comedies are more than respectable. It is at least significant that the restrictions imposed by the academic theory on the comic drama were far less severe than those which tragedy had to undergo. The latter was practically confined, in respect of sources of attraction, to the dexterous manipulation of the unities; the interest of a plot attenuated as much as possible, and intended to produce, instead of pity a mild sympathy, and instead of terror a mild alarm (for the purists decided against Corneille that "admiration was not a tragic passion"); and lastly the composition of long tirades of smooth but monotonous verses, arranged in couplets tipped with delicately careful rhymes. Only Thomas Corneille (1625-1709), the inheritor of an older tradition and of a great name, deserves to be excepted from the condemnation to be passed on the lesser tragedians of this period. He was unfortunate in possessing his brother's name, and in being, like him, too voluminous in his compositions; but _Camma_, _Ariane_, _Le Comte d'Essex_, are not tragedies to be despised. On the other hand, the names of Jean de Campistron (1656-1723) and Nicolas Pradon (1632-1698) mainly serve to point injurious comparisons; Joseph Francois Duche (1668-1704) and Antoine La Fosse (1653-1708) are of still less importance, and Quinault's tragedies are chiefly remarkable because he had the good sense to give up writing them and to take to opera. The general excellence of French comedy, on the other hand, was sufficiently vindicated. Besides the splendid sum of Moliere's work, the two great tragedians had each, in _Le Menteur_ and _Les Plaideurs_, set a capital example to their successors, which was fairly followed. David Augustin de Brueys (1640-1723) and Jean Palaprat (1650-1721) brought out once more the ever new _Advocat Patelin_ besides the capital _Grondeur_ already referred to. Quinault and Campistron wrote fair comedies. Florent Carton Dancourt (1661-1726), Charles Riviere Dufresny (c. 1654-1724), Edmond Boursault (1638-1701), were all comic writers of considerable merit. But the chief comic dramatist of the latter period of the 17th century was Jean Francois Regnard (1655-1709), whose _Joueur_ and _Legataire_ are comedies almost of the first rank.

Heroic Romance.

_17th-Century Fiction._--In the department of literature which comes between poetry and prose, that of romance-writing, the 17th century, excepting one remarkable development, was not very fertile. It devoted itself to so many new or changed forms of literature that it had no time to anticipate the modern novel. Yet at the beginning of the century one very curious form of romance-writing was diligently cultivated, and its popularity, for the time immense, prevented the introduction of any stronger style. It is remarkable that, as the first quarter of the 17th century was pre-eminently the epoch of Spanish influence in France, the distinctive satire of Cervantes should have been less imitated than the models which Cervantes satirized. However this may be, the romances of 1600 to 1650 form a class of literature vast, isolated, and, perhaps, of all such classes of literature most utterly obsolete and extinct. Taste, affectation or antiquarian diligence have, at one time or another, restored to a just, and sometimes a more than just, measure of reputation most of the literary relics of the past. Romances of chivalry, fabliaux, early drama, Provencal poetry, prose chronicles, have all had, and deservedly, their rehabilitators. But _Polexandre_ and _Cleopatre_, _Clelie_ and the _Grand Cyrus_, have been too heavy for all the industry and energy of literary antiquarians. As we have already hinted, the nearest ancestry which can be found for them is the romances of the _Amadis_ type. But the _Amadis_, and in a less degree its followers, although long, are long in virtue of incident. The romances of the _Clelie_ type are long in virtue of interminable discourse, moralizing and description. Their manner is not unlike that of the _Arcadia_ and the _Euphues_ which preceded them in England; and they express in point of style the tendency which simultaneously manifested itself all over Europe at this period, and whose chief exponents were Gongora in Spain, Marini in Italy, and Lyly in England. Everybody knows the _Carte de Tendre_ which originally appeared in _Clelie_, while most people have heard of the shepherds and shepherdesses who figure in the _Astree_ of Honore D'Urfe (1568-1625), on the borders of the Lignon; but here general knowledge ends, and there is perhaps no reason why it should go much further. It is sufficient to say that Madeleine de Scudery (1607-1701) principally devotes herself in the books above mentioned to laborious gallantry and heroism, La Calprenede (1610-1663) in _Cassandre et Cleopatre_ to something which might have been the historical novel if it had been constructed on a less preposterous scale, and Marin le Roy de Gomberville (1600-1647) in _Polexandre_ to moralizings and theological discussions on Jansenist principles, while Pierre Camus, bishop of Belley (1582-1652), in _Palombe_ and others, approached still nearer to the strictly religious story. In the latter part of the century, the example of La Fontaine, though he himself wrote in poetry, helped to recall the tale-tellers of France to an occupation more worthy of them, more suitable to the genius of the literature, and more likely to last. The reaction against the _Clelie_ school produced first Madame de Villedieu (Catherine Desjardins) (1632-1692), a fluent and facile novelist, who enjoyed great but not enduring popularity. The form which the prose tale took at this period was that of the fairy story. Perrault (1628-1703) and Madame d'Aulnoy (d. 1705) composed specimens of this kind which have never ceased to be popular since. Hamilton (1646-1720), the author of the well-known _Memoires du comte de Gramont_, wrote similar stories of extraordinary merit in style and ingenuity. There is yet a third class of prose writing which deserves to be mentioned. It also may probably be traced to Spanish influence, that is to say, to the picaresque romances which the 16th and 17th centuries produced in Spain in large numbers. The most remarkable example of this is the _Roman comique_ of the burlesque writer Scarron. The _Roman bourgeois_ of Antoine Furetiere (1619-1688) also deserves mention as a collection of pictures of the life of the time, arranged in the most desultory manner, but drawn with great vividness, observation and skill. A remarkable writer who had great influence on Moliere has also to be mentioned in this connexion rather than in any other. This is Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655), who, besides composing doubtful comedies and tragedies, writing political pamphlets, and exercising the task of literary criticism in objecting to Scarron's burlesques, produced in his _Histoires comiques des etats et empires de la lune et du soleil_, half romantic and half satirical compositions, in which some have seen the original of _Gulliver's Travels_, in which others have discovered only a not very successful imitation of Rabelais, and which, without attempting to decide these questions, may fairly be ranked in the same class of fiction with the masterpieces of Swift and Rabelais, though of course at an immense distance below them. One other work, and in literary influence perhaps the most remarkable of its kind in the century, remains. Madame de Lafayette, Marie de la Vergne (1634-1692), the friend of La Rochefoucauld and of Madame de Sevigne, though she did not exactly anticipate the modern novel, showed the way to it in her stories, the principal of which are _Zaide_ and still more La _Princesse de Cleves_. The latter, though a long way from _Manon Lescaut_, _Clarissa_, or _Tom Jones_, is a longer way still from _Polexandre_ or the _Arcadia_. The novel becomes in it no longer a more or less fictitious chronicle, but an attempt at least at the display of character. _La Princesse de Cleves_ has never been one of the works widely popular out of their own country, nor perhaps does it deserve such popularity, for it has more grace than strength; but as an original effort in an important direction its historical value is considerable. But with this exception, the art of fictitious prose composition, except on a small scale, is certainly not one in which the century excelled, nor are any of the masterpieces which it produced to be ranked in this class.

J. G. de Balzac and modern French prose.

_17th-Century Prose._--If, however, this was the case, it cannot be said that French prose as a whole was unproductive at this time. On the contrary, it was now, and only now, that it attained the strength and perfection for which it has been so long renowned, and which has perhaps, by a curious process of compensation, somewhat deteriorated since the restoration of poetry proper in France. The prose Malherbe of French literature was Jean Guez de Balzac (1594-1654). The writers of the 17th century had practically created the literary language of prose, but they had not created a prose style. The charm of Rabelais, of Amyot, of Montaigne, and of the numerous writers of tales and memoirs whom we have noticed, was a charm of exuberance, of naivete, of picturesque effect--in short, of a mixture of poetry and prose, rather than of prose proper. Sixteenth-century French prose is a delightful instrument in the hands of men and women of genius, but in the hands of those who have not genius it is full of defects, and indeed is nearly unreadable. Now, prose is essentially an instrument of all work. The poet who has not genius had better not write at all; the prose writer often may and sometimes must dispense with this qualification. He has need, therefore, of a suitable machine to help him to perform his task, and this machine it is the glory of Balzac to have done more than any other person to create. He produced himself no great work, his principal writings being letters, a few discourses and dissertations, and a work entitled _Le Socrate chretien_, a sort of treatise on political theology. But if the matter of his work is not of the first importance, its manner is of a very different value. Instead of the endless diffuseness of the preceding century, its ill-formed or rather unformed sentences, and its haphazard periods, we find clauses, sentences and paragraphs distinctly planned, shaped and balanced, a cadence introduced which is rhythmical but not metrical, and, in short, prose which is written knowingly instead of the prose which is unwittingly talked. It has been well said of him that he "_ecrit pour ecrire_"; and such a man, it is evident, if he does nothing else, sets a valuable example to those who write because they have something to say. Voiture seconded Balzac without much intending to do so. His prose style, also chiefly contained in letters, is lighter than that of his contemporary, and helped to gain for French prose the tradition of vivacity and sparkle which it has always possessed, as well as that of correctness and grace.

_17th-century History._--In historical composition, especially in the department of memoirs, this period was exceedingly rich. At last there was written, in French, an entire history of France. The author was Francois Eudes de Mezeray (1610-1683), whose work, though not exhibiting the perfection of style at which some of his contemporaries had already arrived, and though still more or less uncritical, yet deserves the title of history. The example was followed by a large number of writers, some of extended works, some of histories in part. Mezeray himself is said to have had a considerable share in the _Histoire du roi Henri le grand_ by the archbishop Perefixe (1605-1670); Louis Maimbourg (1610-1686) wrote histories of the Crusades and of the League; Paul Pellisson (1624-1693) gave a history of Louis XIV. and a more valuable _Memoire_ in defence of the superintendent Fouquet. Still later in the century, or at the beginning of the next, the Pere d'Orleans (1644-1698) wrote a history of the revolutions of England, the Pere Daniel (1649-1728), like d'Orleans a Jesuit, composed a lengthy history of France and a shorter one on the French military forces. Finally, at the end of the period, comes the great ecclesiastical history of Claude Fleury (1640-1723), a work which perhaps belongs more to the section of erudition than to that of history proper. Three small treatises, however, composed by different authors towards the middle part of the century, supply remarkable instances of prose style in its application to history. These are the _Conjurations du comte de Fiesque_, written by the famous Cardinal de Retz (1613-1679), the _Conspiration de Walstein_ of Sarrasin, and the _Conjuration des Espagnols contre Venise_, composed in 1672 by the abbe de Saint-Real (1639-1692), the author of various historical and critical works deserving less notice. These three works, whose similarity of subject and successive composition at short intervals leave little doubt that a certain amount of intentional rivalry animated the two later authors, are among the earliest and best examples of the monographs for which French, in point of grace of style and lucidity of exposition, has long been the most successful vehicle of expression among European languages. Among other writers of history, as distinguished from memoirs, need only be noticed Agrippa d'Aubigne, whose _Histoire universelle_ closed his long and varied list of works, and Varillas (1624-1696), a historian chiefly remarkable for his extreme untrustworthiness. In point of memoirs and correspondence the period is hardly less fruitful than that which preceded it. The _Registres-Journaux_ of Pierre de l'Etoile (1540-1611) consist of a diary something of the Pepys character, kept for nearly forty years by a person in high official employment. The memoirs of Sully (1560-1641), published under a curious title too long to quote, date also from this time.

Henri IV. himself has left a considerable correspondence, which is not destitute of literary merit, though not equal to the memoirs of his wife. What are commonly called Richelieu's _Memoirs_ were probably written to his order; his _Testament politique_ may be his own. Henri de Rohan (1579-1638) has not memoirs of the first value. Both this and earlier times found chronicle in the singular _Historiettes_ of Gedeon Tallemant des Reaux (1619-1690), a collection of anecdotes, frequently scandalous, reaching from the times of Henri IV. to those of Louis XIV., to which may be joined the letters of Guy Patin (1602-1676). The early years of the latter monarch and the period of the Fronde had the cardinal de Retz himself, than whom no one was certainly better qualified for historian, not to mention a crowd of others, of whom we may mention Madame de Motteville (1621-1689), Jean Herault de Gourville (1625-1703), Mademoiselle de Montpensier ("La Grande Mademoiselle") (1627-1693), Conrart, Turenne and Mathieu Mole (1584-1663), Francois du Val, marquis de Fontenay-Mareuil (1594-1655), Arnauld d'Andilly (1588-1670). From this time memoirs and memoir writers were ever multiplying. The queen of them all is Madame de Sevigne (1626-1696), on whom, as on most of the great and better-known writers whom we have had and shall have to mention, it is impossible here to dwell at length. The last half of the century produced crowds of similar but inferior writers. The memoirs of Roger de Bussy-Rabutin (1618-1693) (author of a kind of scandalous chronicle called _Histoire amoureuse des Gaules_) and of Madame de Maintenon (1635-1719) perhaps deserve notice above the others. But this was in truth the style of composition in which the age most excelled. Memoir-writing became the occupation not so much of persons who made history, as was the case from Comines to Retz, as of those who, having culture, leisure and opportunity of observation, devoted themselves to the task of recording the deeds of others, and still more of regarding the incidents of the busy, splendid and cultivated if somewhat frivolous world of the court, in which, from the time of Louis XIV.'s majority, the political life of the nation and almost its whole history were centred. Many, if not most, of these writers were women, who thus founded the celebrity of the French lady for managing her mother-tongue, and justified by results the taste and tendencies of the blue-stockings and precieuses of the Hotel Rambouillet and similar coteries. The life which these writers saw before them furnished them with a subject to be handled with the minuteness and care to which they had been accustomed in the ponderous romances of the _Clelie_ type, but also with the wit and terseness hereditary in France, and only temporarily absent in those ponderous compositions. The efforts of Balzac and the Academy supplied a suitable language and style, and the increasing tendency towards epigrammatic moralizing, which reached its acme in La Rochefoucauld (1663-1680) and La Bruyere (1639-1696), added in most cases point and attractiveness to their writings.

Descartes.

Malebranche.

Bayle.

_17th-Century Philosophers and Theologians._--To these moralists we might, perhaps, not inappropriately pass at once. But it seems better to consider first the philosophical and theological developments of the age, which must share with its historical experiences and studies the credit of producing these writers. Philosophy proper, as we have already had occasion to remark, had hitherto made no use of the vulgar tongue. The 16th century had contributed a few vernacular treatises on logic, a considerable body of political and ethical writing, and a good deal of sceptical speculation of a more or less vague character, continued into our present epoch by such writers as Francois de la Mothe le Vayer (1588-1672), the last representative of the orthodox doubt of Montaigne and Charron. But in metaphysics proper it had not dabbled. The 17th century, on the contrary, was to produce in Rene Descartes (1596-1650), at once a master of prose style, the greatest of French philosophers, and one of the greatest metaphysicians, not merely of France and of the 17th century, but of all countries and times. Even before Descartes there had been considerable and important developments of metaphysical speculation in France. The first eminent philosopher of French birth was Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655). Gassendi devoted himself to the maintenance of a modernized form of the Epicurean doctrines, but he wrote mainly, if not entirely, in Latin. Another sceptical philosopher of a less scientific character was the physicist Gabriel Naude (1600-1653), who, like many others of the philosophers of the time, was accused of atheism. But as none of these could approach Descartes in philosophical power and originality, so also none has even a fraction of his importance in the history of French literature. Descartes stands with Plato, and possibly Berkeley and Malebranche, at the head of all philosophers in respect of style; and in his case the excellence is far more remarkable than in others, inasmuch as he had absolutely no models, and was forced in a great degree to create the language which he used. The _Discours de la methode_ is not only one of the epoch-making books of philosophy, it is also one of the epoch-making books of French style. The tradition of his clear and perfect expression was taken up, not merely by his philosophical disciples, but also by Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and the school of Port Royal, who will be noticed presently. The very genius of the Cartesian philosophy was intimately connected with this clearness, distinctness and severity of style; and there is something more than a fanciful contrast between these literary characteristics of Descartes, on the one hand, and the elaborate splendour of Bacon, the knotty and crabbed strength of Hobbes, and the commonplace and almost vulgar slovenliness of Locke. Of the followers of Descartes, putting aside the Port Royalists, by far the most distinguished, both in philosophy and in literature, is Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715). His _Recherche de la verite_, admirable as it is for its subtlety and its consecutiveness of thought, is equally admirable for its elegance of style. Malebranche cannot indeed, like his great master, claim absolute originality. But his excellence as a writer is as great as, if not greater than, that of Descartes, and the _Recherche_ remains to this day the one philosophical treatise of great length and abstruseness which, merely as a book, is delightful to read--not like the works of Plato and Berkeley, because of the adventitious graces of dialogue or description, but from the purity and grace of the language, and its admirable adjustment to the purposes of the argument. Yet, for all this, philosophy hardly flourished in France. It was too intimately connected with theological and ecclesiastical questions, and especially with Jansenism, to escape suspicion and persecution. Descartes himself was for much of his life an exile in Holland and Sweden; and though the unquestionable orthodoxy of Malebranche, the strongly religious cast of his works, and the remoteness of the abstruse region in which he sojourned from that of the controversies of the day, protected him, other followers of Descartes were not so fortunate. Holland, indeed, became a kind of city of refuge for students of philosophy, though even in Holland itself they were by no means entirely safe from persecution. By far the most remarkable of French philosophical sojourners in the Netherlands was Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), a name not perhaps of the first rank in respect of literary value, but certainly of the first as regards literary influence. Bayle, after oscillating between the two confessions, nominally remained a Protestant in religion. In philosophy he in the same manner oscillated between Descartes and Gassendi, finally resting in an equally nominal Cartesianism. Bayle was, in fact, both in philosophy and in religion, merely a sceptic, with a scepticism at once like and unlike that of Montaigne, and differenced both by temperament and by circumstance--the scepticism of the mere student, exercised more or less in all histories, sciences and philosophies, and intellectually unable or unwilling to take a side. His style is hardly to be called good, being diffuse and often inelegant. But his great dictionary, though one of the most heterogeneous and unmethodical of compositions, exercised an enormous influence. It may be called the Bible of the 18th century, and contains in the germ all the desultory philosophy, the ill-ordered scepticism, and the critical but negatively critical acuteness of the _Aufklarung_.

Jansenists.

Port Royal.

Pascal.

We have said that the philosophical, theological and moral tendencies of the century, which produced, with the exception of its dramatic triumphs, all its greatest literary works, are almost inextricably intermingled. Its earliest years, however, bear in theological matters rather the complexion of the previous century. Du Perron and St Francis of Sales survived until nearly the end of its first quarter, and the most remarkable works of the latter bear the dates of 1608 and later. It was not, however, till some years had passed, till the counter-Reformation had reconverted the largest and most powerful portion of the Huguenot party, and till the influence of Jansenius and Descartes had time to work, that the extraordinary outburst of Gallican theology, both in pulpit and in press, took place. The Jansenist controversy may perhaps be awarded the merit of provoking this, as far as writing was concerned. The astonishing eloquence of contemporary pulpit oratory may be set down partly to the zeal for conversion of which du Perron and de Sales had given the example, partly to the same taste of the time which encouraged dramatic performances, for the sermon and the tirade have much in common. Jansenius himself, though a Dutchman by birth, passed much time in France, and it was in France that he found most disciples. These disciples consisted in the first place of the members of the society of Port Royal des Champs, a coterie after the fashion of the time, but one which devoted itself not to sonnets or madrigals but to devotional exercises, study and the teaching of youth. This coterie early adopted the Cartesian philosophy, and the Port Royal _Logic_ was the most remarkable popular handbook of that school. In theology they adopted Jansenism, and were in consequence soon at daggers drawn with the Jesuits, according to the polemical habits of the time. The most distinguished champions on the Jansenist side were Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbe de St Cyran (1581-1643), and Antoine Arnauld (1560-1619), but by far the most important literary results of the quarrel were the famous _Provinciales_ of Pascal, or, to give them their proper title, _Lettres ecrites a un provincial_. Their literary importance consists, not merely in their grace of style, but in the application to serious discussion of the peculiarly polished and quiet irony of which Pascal is the greatest master the world has ever seen. Up to this time controversy had usually been conducted either in the mere bludgeon fashion of the Scaligers and Saumaises--of which in the vernacular the Jesuit Francois Garasse (1585-1631) had already contributed remarkable examples to literary and moral controversy--or else in a dull and legal style, or lastly under an envelope of Rabelaisian buffoonery such as survives to a considerable extent in the _Satire Menippee_. Pascal set the example of combining the use of the most terribly effective weapons with good humour, good breeding and a polished style. The example was largely followed, and the manner of Voltaire and his followers in the 18th century owes at least as much to Pascal as their method and matter do to Bayle. The Jansenists, attacked and persecuted by the civil power, which the Jesuits had contrived to interest, were finally suppressed. But the _Provinciales_ had given them an unapproachable superiority in matter of argument and literature. Their other literary works were inferior, though still remarkable. Antoine Arnauld (the younger, often called "the great") (1612-1694) and Pierre Nicole (1625-1695) managed their native language with vigour if not exactly with grace. They maintained their orthodoxy by writings, not merely against the Jesuits, but also against the Protestants such as the _Perpetuite de la foi_ due to both, and the _Apologie des Catholiques_ written by Arnauld alone. The latter, besides being responsible for a good deal of the _Logic_ (_L'Art de penser_) to which we have alluded, wrote also much of a _Grammaire generale_ composed by the Port Royalists for the use of their pupils; but his principal devotion was to theology and theological polemics. To the latter Nicole also contributed _Les Visionnaires_, _Les Imaginaires_ and other works. The studious recluses of Port Royal also produced a large quantity of miscellaneous literary work, to which full justice has been done in Sainte-Beuve's well-known volumes.

Bossuet.

Fenelon.

_17th-Century Preachers._--When we think of Gallican theology during the 17th century, it is always with the famous pulpit orators of the period that thought is most busied. Nor is this unjust, for though the most prominent of them all, Jacques Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704) was remarkable as a writer of matter intended to be read, not merely as a speaker of matter intended to be heard, this double character is not possessed by most of the orthodox theologians of the time; and even Bossuet, great as is his genius, is more of a rhetorician than of a philosopher or a theologian. In no quarter was the advance of culture more remarkable in France than in the pulpit. We have already had occasion to notice the characteristics of French pulpit eloquence in the 15th and 16th centuries. Though this was very far from destitute of vigour and imagination, the political frenzy of the preachers, and the habit of introducing anecdotic buffoonery, spoilt the eloquence of Maillard and of Raulin, of Boucher and of Rose. The powerful use which the Reformed ministers made of the pulpit stirred up their rivals; the advance in science and classical study added weight and dignity to the matter of their discourses. The improvement of prose style and language provided them with a suitable instrument, and the growth of taste and refinement purged their sermons of grossness and buffoonery, of personal allusions, and even, as the monarchy became more absolute, of direct political purpose. The earliest examples of this improved style were given by St Francis de Sales and by Fenouillet, bishop of Marseilles (d. 1652); but it was not till the latter half of the century, when the troubles of the Fronde had completely subsided, and the church was established in the favour of Louis XIV., that the full efflorescence of theological eloquence took place. There were at the time pulpit orators of considerable excellence in England, and perhaps Jeremy Taylor, assisted by the genius of the language, has wrought a vein more precious than any which the somewhat academic methods and limitations of the French teachers allowed them to reach. But no country has ever been able to show a more magnificent concourse of orators, sacred or profane, than that formed by Bossuet, Fenelon (1651-1715), Esprit Flechier (1632-1710), Jules Mascaron (1634-1703), Louis Bourdaloue (1632-1704), and Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663-1742), to whom may be justly added the Protestant divines, Jean Claude (1619-1687) and Jacques Saurin (1677-1730). The characteristics of all these were different. Bossuet, the earliest and certainly the greatest, was also the most universal. He was not merely a preacher; he was, as we have said, a controversialist, indeed somewhat too much of a controversialist, as his battle with Fenelon proved. He was a philosophical or at least a theological historian, and his _Discours sur l'histoire universelle_ is equally remarkable from the point of view of theology, philosophy, history and literature. Turning to theological politics, he wrote his _Politique tiree de l'ecriture sainte_, to theology proper his _Meditations sur les evangiles_ and his _Elevations sur les mysteres_. But his principal work, after all, is his _Oraisons funebres_. The funeral sermon was the special oratorical exercise of the time. Its subject and character invited the gorgeous if somewhat theatrical commonplaces, the display of historical knowledge and parallel, and the moralizing analogies, in which the age specially rejoiced. It must also be noticed, to the credit of the preachers, that such occasions gave them an opportunity, rarely neglected, of correcting the adulation which was but too frequently characteristic of the period. The spirit of these compositions is fairly reflected in the most famous and often quoted of their phrases, the opening "Mes freres, Dieu seul est grand" of Massillon's funeral discourse on Louis XIV.; and though panegyric is necessarily by no means absent, it is rarely carried beyond bounds. While Bossuet made himself chiefly remarkable in his sermons and in his writings by an almost Hebraic grandeur and rudeness, the more special characteristics of Christianity, largely alloyed with a Greek and Platonic spirit, displayed themselves in Fenelon. In pure literature he is not less remarkable than in theology, politics and morals. His practice in matters of style was admirable, as the universally known _Telemaque_ sufficiently shows to those who know nothing else of his writing. But his taste, both in its correctness and its audacity, is perhaps more admirable still. Despite of Malherbe, Balzac, Boileau and the traditions of nearly a century, he dared to speak favourably of Ronsard, and plainly expressed his opinion that the practice of his own contemporaries and predecessors had cramped and impoverished the French language quite as much as they had polished or purified it. The other doctors whom we have mentioned were more purely theological than the accomplished archbishop of Cambray. Flechier is somewhat more archaic in style than Bossuet or Fenelon, and he is also more definitely a rhetorician than either. Mascaron has the older fault of prodigal and somewhat indiscriminate erudition. But the two latest of the series, Bourdaloue and Massillon, had far the greatest repute in their own time purely as orators, and perhaps deserved this preference. The difference between the two repeated that between du Perron and de Sales. Bourdaloue's great forte was vigorous argument and unsparing denunciation, but he is said to have been lacking in the power of influencing and affecting his hearers. His attraction was purely intellectual, and it is reflected in his style, which is clear and forcible, but destitute of warmth and colour. Massillon, on the other hand, was remarkable for his pathos, and for his power of enlisting and influencing the sympathies of his hearers. Of minor preachers on the same side, Charles de la Rue, a Jesuit (1643-1725), and the Pere Cheminais (1652-1680), according to a somewhat idle form of nomenclature, "the Racine of the pulpit," may be mentioned. The two Protestant ministers whom we have mentioned, though inferior to their rivals, yet deserve honourable mention among the ecclesiastical writers of the period. Claude engaged in a controversy with Bossuet, in which victory is claimed for the invincible eagle of Meaux. Saurin, by far the greater preacher of the two, long continued to occupy, and indeed still occupies, in the libraries of French Protestants, the position given to Bossuet and Massillon on the other side.

_17th-Century Moralists._--It is not surprising that the works of Montaigne and Charron, with the immense popularity of the former, should have inclined the more thoughtful minds in France to moral reflection, especially as many other influences, both direct and indirect, contributed to produce the same result. The constant tendency of the refinements in French prose was towards clearness, succinctness and precision, the qualities most necessary in the moralist. The characteristics of the prevailing philosophy, that of Descartes, pointed in the same direction. It so happened, too, that the times were more favourable to the thinker and writer on ethical subjects than to the speculator in philosophy proper, in theology or in politics. Both the former subjects exposed their cultivators, as we have seen, to the suspicion of unorthodoxy; and to political speculation of any kind the rule of Richelieu, and still more that of Louis XIV., were in the highest degree unfavourable. No successors to Bodin and du Vair appeared; and even in the domain of legal writings, which comes nearest to that of politics, but few names of eminence are to be found.

Pascal and pensee-writing.

Saint-Evremond.

La Rochefoucauld.

La Bruyere.