sance.

Amadis of
Gaul.

the queen's prose works, but also the poems gracefully entitled | commentaries and autobiographies. The well-known and very Les Margueriles de la Marguerite, are often attributed to the agreeable Histoire du gentil seigneur de Bayart (1524) is by literary men whom the sister of Francis I. gathered round an anonymous Loyal Serviteur." Vincent Carloix (fl. 1550), her. However this may be, some single influence of power the secretary of the marshal de Vielleville, composed some enough to give unity and distinctness of savour evidently memoirs abounding in detail and incident. The Lettres of presided over the composition of the Heptaméron. Cardinal d'Ossat (1536-1604) and the Négociations of Pierre The HepLameron. Composed as it is on the model of Boccaccio, its tone Jeannin (1540-1622) have always had a high place among and character are entirely different, and few works documents of their kind. But there are four collections of have a more individual charm. The Tales of des Periers are memoirs concerning this time which far exceed all others in shorter, simpler and more homely; there is more wit in them interest and importance. The turbulent dispositions of the time, and less refinement. But both works breathe, more powerfully the loose dependence of the nobles and even the smaller gentry perhaps than any others, the peculiar mixture of cultivated on any single or central authority, the rapid changes of political and poetical voluptuousness with a certain religiosity and a situations, and the singularly active appetite, both for pleasure vigorous spirit of action which characterizes the French Renais- and for business, for learning and for war, which distinguished Later in time, but too closely connected with Rabelais the French gentleman of the 16th century, place the memoirs in form and spirit to be here omitted, came the Moyen de parvenir of François de Lanoue (1531-1591), Blaise de Montluc (1503of Beroalde de Verville (1558?-1612?), a singular fatrasie, uniting 1577), Agrippa d'Aubigné and Pierre de Bourdeille[s] Brantôme wit, wisdom, learning and indecency, and crammed with anec- (1540-1614) almost at the head of the literature of their class. dotes which are always amusing though rarely decorous. The name of Brantôme is known to all who have the least At the same time a fresh vogue was given to the chivalric tincture of French literature, and the works of the others are not romance by Herberay's translation of Amadis de Gaula. French inferior in interest, and perhaps superior in spirit and conception, writers have supposed a French original for the to the Dames Galantes, the Grands Capitaines and the Hommes Amadis in some lost roman d'aventures. It is of course illustres. The commentaries of Montluc, which Henri Quatre is impossible to say that this is not the case, but there said to have called the soldier's Bible, are exclusively military is not one tittle of evidence to show that it is. At any rate and deal with affairs only. Montluc was governor in Guienne, the adventures of Amadis were prolonged in Spanish through where he repressed the savage Huguenots of the south with a generation after generation of his descendants. This vast work savagery worse than their own. He was, however, a partisan Herberay des Essarts in 1540 undertook to translate or re- of order, not of Catholicism. He hung and shot both parties translate, but it was not without the assistance of several followers with perfect impartiality, and refused to have anything to do that the task was completed. Southey has charged Herberay with the massacre of St Bartholomew. Though he was a man with corrupting the simplicity of the original, a charge which of no learning, his style is excellent, being vivid, flexible and does not concern us here. It is sufficient to say that the French straightforward. Lanoue, who was a moderate in politics, has Amadis is an excellent piece of literary work, and that Herberay left his principles reflected in his memoirs. D'Aubigné, so often deserves no mean place among the fathers of French prose. to be mentioned, gives the extreme Huguenot side as opposed His book had an immense popularity; it was translated into to the royalist partisanship of Montluc and the via media of many foreign languages, and for some time it served as a favourite Lanoue. Brantôme, on the other hand, is quite free Brantôme. reading book for foreigners studying French. Nor is it to be from any political or religious prepossessions, and, doubted that the romancers of the Scudéry and Calprenède indeed, troubles himself very little about any such matters. type in the next century were much more influenced both for He is the shrewd and somewhat cynical observer, moving good and harm by these Amadis romances than by any of the through the crowd and taking note of its ways, its outward earlier tales of chivalry. 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.

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 of 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 memoirwriting, 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 Popelinière (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. 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

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

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[17TH-CENTURY POETRY

centuries, and to determine, not merely the language and complexion, but also the form of French verse during the whole of that and discrediting which Boileau for once did undoubtedly good was even an epic school of the most singular kind, in ridiculing time. Accidentally, or as a matter of logical consequence (it service. The Pucelle of Jean Chapelain (1595-1674), the unforwould not be proper here to attempt to decide the question), tunate author who was deliberately trained and educated for a poetry became almost synonymous with drama. It is true, poet, who enjoyed for some time a sort of dictatorship in French as we shall have to point out, that there were, in the early part literature on the strength of his forthcoming work, and at whom of the 17th century at least, poets, properly so called, of no con- from the day of its publication every critic of French literature temptible merit. But their merit, in itself respectable, sank in has agreed to laugh, was the most famous and perhaps the worst comparison with the far greater merit of their dramatic rivals. of these. But Georges de Scudéry (1601-1667) wrote an Alaric, Théophile de Viau and Racan, Voiture and Saint-Amant cannot the Père le Moyne (1602-1671) a Saint Louis, Jean Desmarets for a moment be mentioned in the same rank with Corneille. de Saint-Sorlin (1595-1676), a dramatist and critic of some note, It is certainly curious, if it is not something more than curious, a Clovis, and Saint-Amant a Moïse, which were not much better, that this decline in poetry proper should have coincided with the though Théophile Gautier in his Grotesques has valiantly defended so-called reforms of Malherbe. The tradition of respect for this these and other contemporary versifiers. And indeed it cannot elder and more gifted Boileau was at one time all-powerful in | be denied that even the epics, especially Saint Louis, contain France, and, notwithstanding the Romantic movement, is still flashes of finer poetry than France was to produce for more than strong. In rejecting a large number of the importations of the a century outside of the drama. Some of the lighter poets and Ronsardists, he certainly did good service. But it is difficult to classes of poetry just alluded to also produced some remarkable avoid ascribing in great measure to his influence the origin of verse. the chief faults of modern French poetry, and modern French absurdities, encouraged if they did not produce good literary The Précicuses of the Hôtel Rambouillet, with all their in general, as compared with the older language. He pronounced work. In their society there is no doubt that a great reformation against poetic diction" (enjambement) of verse, insisted that the middle pause should be to literature clegant and polished, yet not destitute of vigour, as such, forbade the overlapping of manners took place, if not of morals, and that the tendency of sense as well as sound, and that rhyme must satisfy eye as well as ear. Like Pope, he sacrificed everything to "correctness," side with much scandal-mongering and anecdotage. Many of the which marks the 17th century, was largely developed side by and, unluckily for French, the sacrifice was made at a time when authors whom these influences inspired, such as Voiture, Saintno writer of an absolutely supreme order had yet appeared in the Evremond and others, have been or will be noticed. But even language. With Shakespeare and Milton, not to mention scores such poets and wits as Antoine Baudouin de Sénecé (1643-1737), of writers only inferior to them, safely garnered, Pope and his Jean de Segrais (1624-1701), Charles Faulure de Ris, sieur de followers could do us little harm. Corneille and Molière unfortun- Charleval (1612-1693), Antoine Godeau (1605-1672), Jean Ogier ately came after Malherbe. Yet it would be unfair to this writer, de Gombaud (1590-1666), are not without interest in the history however badly we may think of his influence, to deny him talent, of literature; while if Charles Cotin (1604-1682) sinks below this and even a certain amount of poetical inspiration. He had not level and deserves Molière's caricature of him as Trissotin in felt his own influence, and the very influences which he despised Les Femmes savantes, Gilles de Ménage (1630-1692) certainly and proscribed produced in him much tolerable and some admir-rises above it, notwithstanding the companion satire of Vadius. able 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 François 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. de Viau (1591-1626) the early years of the 17th century had their In Théophile 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 étoile enragée 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 Théophile 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 Hôtel de Rambouillet. Théophile was less worthily succeeded by a class, it can hardly be called a school of poets, some of whom, like Gérard Saint-Amant (1594-1660), wrote drinking songs of merit and other light pieces; others, like Paul Scarron (16101660) and Sarrasin (1603? 4? 5?-1654), devoted themselves rather to burlesque of serious verse. authors of the time also wrote miscellaneous poetry, and there Most of the great dramatic

Ménage'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 who is known to us. The poetical war which arose between the of the coterie, was certainly the best writer of vers de société 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. Jean Loret (d. 1665), which recount in octosyllabic verse of a It led as a less important consequence to the rhymed Gazettes of 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 known than la Fontaine, and there is no need to dilate on his Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695). No French writer is better merits. It has been well said that he completes Molière, 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.

first half of the century, and so do Valentin Conrart (1603-1675), All the writers we have mentioned belong more or less to the Antoine Furetière (1626-1688), Chapelle (Claude Emmanuel) l'Huillier (1626-1686), and others not worth special mention. The latter half of the century poetical quality of its production is even lower than the quantity. In it Boileau (1636-1711) is the chief poetical figure. Next to far less productive, and the him can only be mentioned Madame Deshoulières (1638-1694), Guillaume de Brébeuf (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 in prose. But of his poetry it must be said, not so much that it is slashing order, and might have profitably used it if he had written

bad, as that it is not, in strictness, poetry at all, and the same is generally true of all those who followed him.

Racine.

may be found elsewhere. It is sufficient to say here that his importance in French literature is quite as great in the way of 17th-Century Drama.-We have already seen how the medieval influence and example as in the way of intellectual excellence. theatre was formed, and how in the second half of the 16th century The Cid and the Menteur are respectively the first examples of it met with a formidable rival in the classical drama of Jodelle French tragedy and comedy which can be called modern. But and Garnier. In 1588 mysteries had been prohibited, and with this influence and example did not at first find many imitators. the prohibition of the mysteries the Confraternity of the Passion Corneille was a member of Richelieu's band of five poets. Of lost the principal part of its reason for existence. The other the other four Rotrou alone deserves the title; the remaining bodies and societies of amateur actors had already perished, and three, the prolific abbé de Boisrobert, Guillaume Colletet (whose at length the Hôtel de Bourgogne itself, the home of the con→ most valuable work, a MS. Lives of Poets, was never printed, and fraternity, had been handed over to a regular troop of actors, burnt by the Communards in 1871), and Claude de Lestoile while companies of strollers, whose life has been vividly depicted (1597-1651), are as dramatists worthy of no notice, nor were they in the Roman comique of Scarron and the Capitaine Fracasse soon followed by others more worthy. Yet before many years of Théophile Gautier, wandered all about the provinces. The old had passed the examples which Corneille had set in tragedy and farce was for a time maintained or revived by Tabarin, a remark- in comedy were followed up by unquestionably the greatest comic able figure in dramatic history, of whom but little is known. writer, and by one who long held the position of the greatest The great dramatic author of the first quarter of the 17th century tragic writer of France. Beginning with mere farces of the was Alexandre Hardy (1569-1631), who surpassed even Heywood Italian type, and passing from these to comedies still of an Italian in fecundity, and very nearly approached the por- character, it was in Les Précieuses ridicules, acted in 1659, that Hardy. tentous productiveness of Lope de Vega. Seven Molière (1622-1673), in the words of a spectator, hit Molière. hundred is put down as the modest total of Hardy's pieces, but at last on " la bonne comédie." The next fifteen years not much more than a twentieth of these exist in print. From comprise the whole of his best known work, the finest expression these latter we can judge Hardy. They are hardly up to the | beyond doubt of a certain class of comedy that any literature level of the worst specimens of the contemporary Elizabethan has produced. The tragic masterpieces of Racine theatre, to which, however, they bear a certain resemblance. (1639-1699) were not far from coinciding with the Marston's Insatiate Countess and the worst parts of Chapman's comic masterpieces of Molière, for, with the exception of the Bussy d'Ambois may give English readers some notion of them. remarkable aftergrowth of Esther and Athalie, they were produced Yet Hardy was not totally devoid of merit. He imitated and chiefly between 1667 and 1677. Both Racine and Molière fall adapted Spanish literature, which was at this time to France into the class of writers who require separate mention. Here what Italian was in the century before and English in the century we can only remark that both to a certain extent committed after, in the most indiscriminate manner. But he had a consider- and encouraged a fault which distinguished much subsequent able command of grandiloquent and melodramatic expression, French dramatic literature. This was the too great individualiz a sound theory if not a sound practice of tragic writing, and that ing of one point in a character, and the making the man or woman peculiar knowledge of theatrical art and of the taste of the nothing but a blunderer, a lover, a coxcomb, a tyrant and the theatrical public which since his time has been the special posses- like. The very titles of French plays show this influence-they sion of the French playwright. It is instructive to compare the are Le Grondeur, Le Joueur, &c. The complexity of human influence of his irregular and faulty genius with that of the regular character is ignored. This fault distinguishes both Molière and and precise Malherbe. From Hardy to Rotrou is, in point of Racine from writers of the very highest order; and in especial literary interest, a great step, and from Rotrou to Corneille a it distinguishes the comedy of Molière and the tragedy of Racine greater. Yet the theory of Hardy only wanted the genius of from the comedy and tragedy of Shakespeare. In all probability Rotrou and Corneille to produce the latter. Jean de Rotrou this and other defects of the French drama (which are not wholly (1610-1650) has been called the French Marlowe, and, there is apparent in the work of Molière and Corneille, are shown in a curious likeness and yet a curious contrast between their most favourable light in those of Racine, and appear in all the two poets. The best parts of Rotrou's two best their deformity in the successors of the latter) arise from the plays, Venceslas and St Genest, are quite beyond comparison rigid adoption of the Aristotelian theory of the drama with its in respect of anything that preceded them, and the central unities and other restrictions, especially as transmitted by Horace speech of the last-named play will rank with anything in through Boileau. This adoption was very much due to the inFrench dramatic poetry. Contemporary with Rotrou were fluence of the French Academy, which was founded unofficially other dramatic writers of considerable dramatic importance, by Conrart in 1629, which received official standing six years later, most of them distinguished by the faults of the Spanish and which continued the tradition of Malherbe in The school, its declamatory rodomontade, its conceits, and its attempting constantly to school and correct, as the occasionally preposterous action. Jean de Schélandre (d. phrase went, the somewhat disorderly instincts of 1635) has left us a remarkable work in Tyr et Sidon, which the early French stage. Even the Cid was formally censured exemplifies in practice, as its almost more remarkable preface by for irregularity by it. But it is fair to say that François Hédélin, François Ogier defends in principle, the English-Spanish model. abbé d'Aubignac (1604-1676), whose Pratique du théâtre is the Théophile de Viau in Pyrame et Thisbé and in Pasiphae produced most wooden of the critical treatises of the time, was not an a singular mixture of the classicism of Garnier and the extra-academician. It is difficult to say whether the subordination vagancies of Hardy. Scudéry in L'Amour tyrannique and other of all other classes of composition to the drama, which has ever plays achieved a considerable success. The Marianne of Tristan since been characteristic of French literature, was or was not (1601-1655) and the Sophonisbe of Jean de Mairet (1604-1686) due to the predilection of Richelieu, the main protector if not are the chief pieces of their authors. Mairet resembles Marston exactly the founder of the Academy, for the theatre. Among in something more than his choice of subject. Another dramatic the immediate successors and later contemporaries of the three writer of some eminence is Pierre du Ryer (1606-1648). But great dramatists we do not find any who deserve high rank as the fertility of France at this moment in dramatic authors tragedians, though there are some whose comedies are more than was immense; nearly 100 are enumerated in the first quarter respectable. It is at least significant that the restrictions imof the century. The early plays of Pierre Corneille posed by the academic theory on the comic drama were far less Cornellle. (1606-1684) showed all the faults of his contemporaries severe than those which tragedy had to undergo. The latter was combined with merits to which none of them except Rotrou, practically confined, in respect of sources of attraction, to the and Rotrou himself only in part, could lay claim. His first play dexterous manipulation of the unities; the interest of a plot was Mélite, a comedy, and in Clitandre, a tragedy, he soon pro- attenuated as much as possible, and intended to produce, instead duced what may perhaps be not inconveniently taken as the of pity a mild sympathy, and instead of terror a mild alarm typical piece of the school of Hardy. A full account of Corneille (for the purists decided against Corneille that “admiration was not

Rotrou.

Academy.