New Gem | No More Learning

" Calvin to Francois I.

Il rompt avec la froide allégorie du moyen-âge et Le Grand Testament montre que la poésie française se transforme : de générale, elle devient personnelle. Avec Com m in es, nous voyons le drame dans l'histoire, nous assistons à la lutte entre Louis XI, qui défend la cause de l'unité française, et Charles de Bourgogne, dernier champion de l'esprit féodal qui va disparaître. Ici, plus de récits de tournois, ni de batailles, mais la critique des faits, l'observation et la vue claire des grands intérêts politiques. Commines inaugure la nouvelle histoire.
Deux grands faits se produisent au XVIe siècle : la renaissance des lettres et la réforme religieuse. Mais en France la renaissance ne se produit pas aussi rapidement qu'en Italie, car elle se ressent des agitations qui troublaient encore le pays. " Alors," dit Demogeot, "ceux qui pensent connaissent peu l'art d'écrire ; ceux qui cultivent l'art d'écrire ne songent guères à penser. " Certes on trouve à cette époque des écrivains d'un rare talent ; mais ils ont chacun sa langue propre, et il n'y a pas chez eux de formes universelles et communes à tous. Le premier, c'est Clément Marot, favori du roi François Ier et de Marguerite, sa sœur, qui atteint la perfection dans l'épître familière et surtout dans l'épigramme. A seize ans, indigné par les atrocités que Montmorency commet à Bordeaux, La Boétie écrit son Discours sur la Servitude volontaire. Bodin, dans son livre La République, se montre philosophe et homme d'état. Jacques
Amyot, le traducteur de Plutarque et de Longus, transforme ces auteurs et, les naturalisant presque, enrichit notre langue des idées antiques. Montaigne, dans ses Essais, d'un style si riche, si imagé, donne un traité de morale générale. Eabelais écrit sa Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel, que La Bruyère juge " un monstrueux assemblage d'une morale fine et ingénieuse et d'une sale corruption ; où il est mauvais, il passe bien loin au delà du pire : c'est le charme de la canaille ; où il est bon, il va jusqu'à l'exquis et à l'excellent : il peut être le mets des plus délicats. " Calvin dédie à François Ier son Institution de la Religion chrétienne, œuvre la plus importante qu'eut encore produite la Béforme religieuse, et dans laquelle la
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prose française commence à prendre son véritable caractère. Ronsard et la pléiade tentent leur réforme littéraire, en même temps que surgissent une quantité de pamphlets et de satires, dont
la principale, la Satire ménippée, est à la fois un pamphlet, une comédie et un coup d'état. Quant aux mémoires, longue en est la série. Après ceux du Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche écrits par son Loyal Serviteur, voici les Commentaires du farouche catholique Biaise de Montluc, que Henry IV appelait la Bible du soldat ; voici les Mémoires de La Noue, de Coligny, de Brantôme, de Marguerite de Valois, première femme de Henry IV ; L'Etat de la
II
l'Estoile, l'Histoire de Jacques Auguste de Thou, etc.
En somme la langue française a déjà atteint un degré de précision, une richesse d'expressions tels que l'étranger lui rend
hommage et que nous voyons Charles-Quint la déclarer langue d'état ; plus tard, à partir de la Conférence de Nimègue, tous les peuples de l'Europe se serviront du français pour la rédaction des traités internationaux.
Malherbe, avec lequel commence le XVIIe siècle, joue un rôle considérable comme réformateur du français. Il a le culte de la langue, et la sévérité de ses préceptes lui vaut d'être appelé_ le " tyran des mots et des syllabes. " Son grand mérite est d'avoir posé et imposé les principes de la versification et de la langue poétique. Mathurin Régnier, dans ses satires, excelle à peindre les mœurs et les personnages de son époque, et le portrait qu'il trace de Macette, la vieille hypocrite, est d'un maître écrivain. Racan célèbre la vie champêtre. Voiture brille dans la poésie fugitive et, parmi les beaux esprits des ruelles, nous voyons en première ligne, à côté de lui, Balzac et Benserade. L'Hôtel de Rambouillet devient la première institution littéraire régulièrement organisée en France, et le cardinal de Richelieu fait signer les lettres - patentes qui créent l'Académie française. Pierre Corneille révolutionne le théâtre. Avec Le Cid il fixe la langue de la tragédie ; avec Le Menteur, celle de la comédie. Son Horace est plein de vigueur, d'originalité, et Cinna est considéré comme un chef-d'œuvre. Le
de la Planche, l'Histoire universelle et les Mémoires de d'Aubigné, le Journal de Pierre de
France sous François
de
Régnier
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Discours sur la Méthode et les Méditations de Descartes sont des merveilles de style. Ménage, et Vaugelas dans ses Remarques sur
la Langue française, contribuent à perfectionner notre langue. De son côté, La Rochefoucauld, dans ses Maximes ou Réflexions morales, aide à former le goût de la nation, à lui donner un esprit de justesse et de précision. La Bruyère ne dit que des vérités ordinaires dans ses Caractères, mais il trace ses portraits avec tant de vigueur, tant de concision, d'originalité de style, qu'on ne les oublie plus quand on les a lus. Pascal publie ses Provinciales, qui sont des modèles d'éloquence, et ses Pensées sont d'une puissance philosophique incomparable. Eiche d'esprit, Cyrano de Bergerac a des traits comiques, de l'imagination; et Scarron, le critique malicieux, invente le genre burlesque. L'œuvre de Boileau est faite de bon sens, de goût, de régularité ; dans les Satires nous voyons le critique ; dans L'Art poétique, qui lui a valu le nom de " Législateur du Parnasse," nous trouvons un code de la littérature ; et dans Le Lutrin l'auteur arrive à la perfection de l'art des vers. Observateur profond, moraliste, écrivain hors pair, Molière reste inimitable. Il est le peintre le plus exact de la vie de l'homme, dont il nous expose le caractère et les passions dans des comédies écrites d'un style vif, nerveux, puissant et coloré. Le Misanthrope, Tartufe, Les Femmes savantes, L'Avare, Les Précieuses ridicules sont quelques-unes des perles qui brillent dans son théâtre si riche et si varié. Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Betz, est l'historien de la Fronde ; et St-Simon écrit des Mémoires, qui ne seront imprimés qu'en 1820. Jean de la Fontaine, " fleur de l'esprit gaulois, avec un parfum d'antiquité " a dit Géruzez, est le plus simple, le moins prétentieux de nos poètes. Ses Contes et Nouvelles peuvent friser la licence, ils ne choquent pas l'esprit, tant le " bonhomme " met de finesse, de délicatesse dans le récit. Quant à ses Fables, la vie en action, elles sont œuvre originale et impérissable. Madame de la Fayette, avec La Princesse de Clèves, transforme la roman, tandis que son amie, Madame de Sévigné, trace ses Lettres, magnifique monu ment du genre épistolaire, où se reflète le tableau des mœurs et de la société du XVIIe siècle. Au théâtre Jean Racine règne en
maître incontesté, et ses tragédies Andromaque, Rritannicus, vOl. v. —2
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Bérénice, Mïthridate, Esther, Phèdre, Athalie, sa comédie Les Plaideurs, atteignent une hauteur, une puissance que l'homme aurait de la peine à surpasser. L'Eglise gallicane a aussi des gloires littéraires: Bossuet laisse des chefs-d'œuvre de style et d'éloquence, comme son Discours sur l'Histoire universelle et ses Oraisons funèbres. Bourdaloue s'élève au premier rang par ses Sermons. Le père Malebranche, métaphysicien et moraliste, publie son livre La Recherche de la Vérité. Fléchier prononce son Oraison funèbre de Turenne. Fénélon attache son nom au Traite de l'Education des Filles, aux Dialogues des Morts, au Télémaque; et Massillon enfin ne craint pas de rival à son Petit Carême.
Un grand génie domine le XVIIIe siècle ; on pourrait presque dire qu'il le représente : Voltaire, à qui tout est familier, histoire, littérature, théâtre, philosophie, et qui brille en tout. Son Histoire de Charles XII est un modèle : ses poésies légères sont de beaucoup supérieures à celles de ses contemporains, et au théâtre ses tragédies, Œdipe, Brutus, Zaire, Alzire, Mérope, Mahomet, Sémiramis et Tancrède, sont des créations puissantes, animées, émouvantes où l'éloquence déborde. Marmontel et La Harpe, disciples de Voltaire, ne sont qu'un reflet de leur protecteur. Jean Baptiste Rousseau se recommande pour l'harmonie et le rhythme de ses vers. Gresset donne Le Méchant ; Piron, Le Métromanie. Le Sage. qui peint les faiblesses humaines dansLeDiable boiteux,présente le type du roman de caractère dans Gil Bias. Louis Racine écrit des Mémoires où il retrace la vie de son père. Rollin publie une Histoire ancienne. Bernardin de St- Pierre produit un chef- d'œuvre littéraire dans le roman si simple, si poétique, Paul et
Virginie. Montesquieu signe des pages inoubliables de haute philosophie : les Lettres persanes ; L'Esprit des Lois et les Considéra tions sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de la Décadence des Romains. Par ses idées philosophiques, Jean -Jacques Bousseau fait pres sentir l'approche de la Bévolution française : YEmile, qui est la déclaration des droits de l'enfant, est un appel aux vertus de la famille ; Le Contrat social part de ce principe que " l'homme est né libre " ; la passion éclate dans les pages étincelantes de La Nouvelle Héloise, et les Confessions donnent l'image vraie du génie de Jean
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Jacques. Caron de Beaumarchais fait jouer au théâtre Le Barbier de Séville ; puis, à la suite d'un procès fameux, il imprime des Mémoires judiciaires, œuvre d'éloquence, d'esprit, de verve et de bon sens. Buffon consacre sa plume et sa brillante imagination à l'analyse de la nature. Les descriptions de l'Histoire naturelle sont des peintures vivantes en même temps que le style noble, pur, est toujours digne de celui qui disait, lors de sa réception à l'Académie : " Le style est l'homme même. " Diderot, l'un des plus puissants esprits de cette époque, conçoit, exécute et mène à bonne fin l'immense travail qu'est l'Encyclopédie, à laquelle collaborent les philosophes Condillac, Helvétius, d'Holbach, et pour laquelle d'Alembert écrit son beau Discours préliminaire, qui sert de préface à l'œuvre et en trace le plan. L'abbé Prévost, historien de la passion, nous lègue sa Manon Lescaut. Le siècle va finir. Il semble que les troubles révolutionnaires doivent éloigner les esprits de toute littérature. Erreur. Au moment même où la guerre est déclarée à l'Autriche, Bouget de Lisle se manifeste ; il improvise son magnifique Chant de Guerre de l'Armée du Rhin,
qui, plus connu sous le titre de La Marseillaise, va faire le tour de l'Europe et devenir l'hymne national des Français.
Dès son aurore le XIXe siècle possède deux grands écrivains. D'abord la baronne de Staël-Holstein, fille de Necker et type de l'esprit français, montre toute sa sensibilité dans le roman Delphine et glorifie la femme moderne et l'Italie dans Corinne. L'autre, Chateaubriand, développe toutes les grâces du style dans Le Génie du Christianisme, ou excite l'admiration de ses contem porains dans Atala, Réné, Les Martyrs et Le Dernier des Abencerages. Sous l'Empire, Jacques Delille, l'élégant traducteur des Géorgiques, est le maître de l'école de la poésie descriptive. Puis voici Brillât- Savarin, qui prouve, par La Physiologie du Goût, que la littérature
rend attrayant même un traité de gastronomie. Henri Beyle, lui, sous le pseudonyme de Stendhal, livre carrière à toute son originalité dans Rouge et Noir. Les publicistes et les hommes d'état ont alors des représentants remarquables comme Alexis de Tocque- ville, dont on admire la science et les qualités dans Le Système
pénitentiaire aux Etats- Unis et dans La Démocratie en Amérique.
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Paul Louis Courier se fait une spécialité du pamphlet et son Pamphlet des Pamphlets est regardé comme le modèle du genre. Barthélémy, à la fois poète et homme politique, flétrit chaque semaine, dans la fameuse Némésis, journal en vers, le gouvernement de Louis-Philippe. Béranger, celui qui " ne veut rien être," choisit la chanson qu'il métamorphose en un genre nouveau et dans laquelle il chante la patrie, le peuple, la liberté, ou couvre de ridicule l'ancien régime. Honoré de Balzac, surnommé " le colosse de la littérature" par ses admirateurs enthousiastes, révèle ses qualités de grand romancier avec La Peau de Chagrin. Matérialiste, imbu des idées despotiques, conteur plein de verve et d'imagination, il se fait l'historien des mœurs de la société dont il esquisse de brillants portraits dans Eugénie Grandet, Une Femme de 30 ans, Physiologie du Mariage, La Recherche de l'Absolu, Le Médecin de Campagne, etc. Une autre grande figure, c'est Lamartine, l'un des plus illustres poètes de la France, qui nous émeut d'abord avec ses romans Graziella et Raphaël, récits de ses liaisons de jeunesse. Puis viennent ces poésies d'une mélancolie pénétrante, les Médita tions, auxquelles succèdent les Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, où l'auteur s'élève dans les plus hautes régions de l'idéal. Son
Voyage en Orient abonde en descriptions d'une grande richesse, et l'Histoire des Girondins, qui eut un retentissement immense, peut être considérée comme un véritable poème historique. Aurore Dupin, baronne Du Devant, cache son nom sous le pseudonyme de George Sand, et déploie la splendeur et la précision de son style dans La Mare au Diable, François Champi, La Petite Fadette, romans champêtres qu'on a appelés les " Géorgiques de la France. " Dans un voyage qu'elle fait en Italie, G. Sand se brouille avec Alfred de Musset, poète sentimental, qui a les enthousiasmes et les défauts de la jeunesse. Vigueur, passion, grâce, lyrisme, Musset a tous ces dons et les sème à profusion dans ses œuvres : Contes d'Espagne ; La Coupe et les Lèvres; A quoi rêvent les jeunes Filles; Rolla; Les Nuits, etc. Son émotion toujours communicative s'empare des âmes, pénètre les cœurs. Eugène Sue " risque le roman français en plein Océan," comme dit Sainte-Beuve; mais bientôt il abandonne le roman maritime pour essayer de peindre la société sous son aspect réeL
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Interprète des aspirations qui agitent sa génération, il se lance à la recherche de la vérité politique, philosophique et sociale dans Les Mystères de Paris et Le Juif errant, romans qui lui valent la popu larité et influent beaucoup sur les idées et la littérature du temps. Un autre romancier, c'est Frédéric Soulié, l'auteur des Mémoires du Diable et de la Closerie des Genets. Celui-ci, maître passé dans l'étude des caractères et dans la combinaison des effets, est un créateur et n'abandonne ses lecteurs qu'après les avoir saturés d'émotions. Au contraire le naturel, une spirituelle bonhomie et une philosophie aimable distinguent les romans d'E. Souvestre. Quant à P. Mérimée il est conteur hors ligne dans sa Chronique du Temps de Charles IX, qui met en scène les mœurs et les passions de l'époque, et il donne, dans Colomba, un saisissant tableau des vendettas corses. Historien, romancier et poète, Sainte-Beuve se place au premier rang des critiques littéraires contemporains par ses Causeries, ses Lundis et Nouveaux Lundis, dans lesquels il prodigue sa fine analyse, son esprit et son bon goût. Laboulaye ne se contente pas d'être publiciste et jurisconsulte érudit dans l'Histoire du droit de Propriété foncière en Occident, dans les Recherches sur la Condition civile et politique des Femmes depuis les Romains jusqu'à nos jours, ou encore dans l'Histoire des Etats-
Unis à" Amérique, il sait aussi manier une plume satirique dans ses romans Paris en Amérique et Le Prince Caniche. Flaubert, dans Salammbô, ressuscite l'ancienne Carthage, et par l'observation minutieuse de la vie commune il s'efforce, dans Madame Bovary, d'ouvrir de nouveaux horizons au roman. Taine brille comme philosophe et écrivain dans l'Histoire de la Littérature anglaise, tandis que Renan, dans la Vie de Jésus, les Origines du Chri stianisme, etc. , charme par sa prose qui revêt une forme poétique tout-à-fait spéciale. L'économie politique n'est pas délaissée : elle s'honore des travaux de Lanfrey, lequel apologiste convaincu de la raison et de la liberté dans L'Eglise et la Philosophie dul% siècle, combat le catholicisme dans l'Histoire politique des Papes, le socialisme dans les Lettres cCEverard, et le césarisme dans l'Histoire de Napoléon Ier, son œuvre capitale. Les Fleurs du Mal de Baudelaire sont des vers d'amour, tout à la fois mystiques et
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libertins. Théodore de Banville, qui cisèle des vers remplis de
finesse, d'images et de couleurs dans ses Odes, les Nouvelles Odes funambulesques et les Trente-six Ballades joyeuses, formule les lois de la poétique nouvelle dans son Petit Traité dela Poésie française.
Quant à Théophile Gautier, critique et littérateur, qui joint à un vocabulaire fort riche le culte exclusif du style et de la forme, son œuvre est immense. Les Mariages de Paris, De Pontoise à Stamboul, Le Roman d'un brave Homme sont de beaux spécimens du style clair et spirituel qui ont mérité à Edmond About le surnom de " petit fils de Voltaire," et le classent parmi les écrivains ayant le mieux manié la langue française. Alexandre Dumas père joint à une imagination fort vive une incroyable facilité de rédaction. Ces dons naturels vous les trouverez en abondance dans ses romans et son théâtre. Qui n'a pas lu Le Collier de la Reine, Les Trois Mousquetaires, Le comte de Monte- Cristo ? Dumas fils suit les traces de son père. Lui aussi aborde le théâtre, cultive le roman. L'affaire Clémenceau, La Dame aux Camélias, Le Demi-monde, Le Fils naturel, le montrent écrivain, penseur et moraliste. La grâce est la caractéristique des romans et des drames d'Octave Feuillet. Le comte de Gobineau, qui a laissé un grand poème inachevé, Amadis, est aussi un savant. Il s'attache, par son livre Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l'Asie Centrale, à faire connaître l'histoire des dogmes et des religions de la Perse ; il témoigne de sa profonde érudition par son Histoire des Perses d'après les Auteurs orientaux, grecs et latins, et son Essai sur l'Inégalité des Races humaines devient le point de départ de la nouvelle école ethnologique. Victor Hugo, lui, réforme la poétique, retrempe son mâle langage aux sources vives du XV8 et du XVIe siècle, et est le grand maître de l'école romantique qu'il substitue à la classique. Questions politiques, religieuses, sociales ou artistiques, roman, drame, poésie, tout est son domaine ; partout il est le maître. Proscrit du 2 décembre 1851, il se réfugie à Jersey, puis à Guernesey. Là, en face de l'Océan, ses pensées semblent s'inspirer des tempêtes, de la grandeur et de l'infini de la mer, et il écrit deux pamphlets, Napoléon le Petit et les Châtiments, qui sont à la fois livre d'histoire et œuvre de haute poésie. Plus tard il enfante La
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Légende des Siècles, suite d'épopées et de fantaisies merveilleuses dans lesquelles il ressuscite le tableau de vingt siècles de civilisation disparue. Notre Dame de Paris, c'est la reconstitution de Paris au moyen-âge, tandis que le roman Les Misérables est une émouvante fiction faite d'histoire et d'érudition. Hugo recherche les antithèses les plus outrées, en appelle au paroxysme de la passion et de la terreur. Bien n'est trop élevé pour son imagination, dont la carac téristique est le grandiose et le sublime, ce qui a fait dire à Eenan : " Comme un cyclope à peine dégagé de la matière, il a des secrets d'un monde perdu. Son œuvre immense est le mirage d'un univers qu'aucun œil ne sait plus voir. " La poète sait cependant abandonner la région où le fantasque se mêle au surhumain, et L'Art d'être Grand- père montre qu'il est capable de parler mieux que pas un à l'âme même d'un enfant. La fantaisie Les Prunes, qu'Alphonse Daudet insère dans ses poésies Amoureuses, attire l'attention sur l'auteur, que Le Nabad, Numa Roumestan, etc. , ne tardent pas à placer parmi les meilleurs des romanciers contemporains. Les Vers de Guy de Maupassant sont d'un conteur humoristique qui soigne la forme, et le poète-musicien Verlaine essaie des rythmes inconnus dans Sagesse et Romans sans Paroles, pendant que la plume alerte de Claretie fait à la fois du journalisme, du roman et du théâtre. Erckmann- Chatrian, deux auteurs qu'une collaboration ininterrompue a con fondus en une seule personnalité, conquièrent la popularité avec leurs romans nationaux. Un autre romancier, Jules Verne, doué d'une vive imagination et de beaucoup d'esprit, rompt avec les vieilles merveilles de la féerie et entreprend de créer dans le roman un nouveau merveilleux qui utilise les plus récentes données de la science et de la géographie. Cinq Semaines en Ballon, le premier roman de ce genre, est bientôt suivi du Désert de Glace, de Vingt mille Lieues sous les Mers, du Voyage autour du Monde en 80 jours, ouvrages qui obtiennent beaucoup de succès. Ecrivain d'un grand talent, Louis Viaud signe du pseudonyme de Pierre Loti des livres : Madame Chrysanthème, Mon frère Yves et Pêcheur à" Islande, dont la lecture laisse l'esprit sous le charme. Theuriet est romancier et poète. Exquis dans Raymonde, touchant dans Le Filleul d'un Marquis, psychologue dans Sauvageonne, il est amant de la nature.
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dans le Journal de Tristan et fin analyste dans Michel Verneuû. Thibault, dit Anatole France, publie de beaux vers, les Poèmes dorés et se range parmi les conteurs délicats avec Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard. De même, Catulle Mendès a de beaux vers : Le Soleil de Minuit, les Soirs moroses et des nouvelles étincelantes. Mais en tête des écrivains réalistes il faut placer Emile Zola, qui, dans ses romans Thérèse Baquin, les Rougon Macquart, La Terre, etc. , peint tout sans reculer devant le moindre détail, si brutal soit-iL Ces études si puissantes sont écrites d'un style vigoureux, coloré, et leur influence sur le roman contemporain est considérable. Paul Bourget a de l'originalité et fait de la psychologie dans Cruelle Enigme, L'Irréparable, Un Crime d'Amour, tandis que Sully- Prud- homme donne à ses pensées une forme savante dans Justice, Vaines Tendresses et Le Bonheur. L'idiome poétique du midi renaît avec le poète provençal Mistral, dont l'épopée rustique Mireille et le poème Calendan ont tant de retentissement, cependant que Fr. Coppée, observateur de la nature et de la réalité, réussit des scènes familières et charmantes dans Les Intimités, Les Humbles, La Grève des Forgerons. Si nous rappelons que la critique littéraire a main tenant deux brillants représentants : J. Lemaître avec Contempo rains, puis Brunetière, qui montre toute sa science dans Racine Diderot, Le Roman Naturaliste, Histoire et Littérature, nous ne devons pas oublier non plus que l'Histoire proprement dite compte à son actif des œuvres capitales telles que l'Histoire racontée à mes petits Enfants par Guizot, Le Consulat et l'Empire par Thiers, l'Histoire de la Révolution française par Louis Blanc, l'Histoire de France par Michelet, et une quantité de monographies, mémoires, lettres ou souvenirs.
En somme le XIXe siècle a produit une grande variété d'œuvres
importantes. Mais si l'on ne saurait caractériser d'un mot leur
ensemble, on peut cependant faire quelques remarques générales. La première, c'est que le roman et le naturalisme tiennent une large place dans la littérature de cette époque ; la seconde, c'est que plus on avance vers la fin du siècle, plus l'individualisme tend à se substituer aux anciens groupements par écoles. On constate en outre chez tous les écrivains, avec la recherche du terme exact et
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du document, un souci constant de la forme, laquelle n'a jamais
Enfin l'érudition figure toujours à côté de la fantaisie, et la critique exerce de plus en plus son savant
été plus soignée. contrôle.
/. (AM Paris, March 1899.
FEENCH LITEEATUEE A SUMMAKT
Translated from the French of Leon Vallee
The French language is the product of three essential elements : the influences of ancient Bome, the influence of Christianity, and the modification of the Germanic stock. . The fusion of these three factors was the work of several centuries, and the chansons de gestes were the first literary products of the new language. The most famous of these, the Chanson de Roland, may be called the starting- point of all French literature. These ballads of war were soon followed by true narrative poetry, and then, in turn, prose began to show its vitality in the Breton romances and the tales of Ville- hardouin.
The twelfth century was the period of the troubadours, and the " trouveres. " It was also the period of the Courts of Love, over which women exercised their gracious despotism of beauty and of
To this century we owe a series of romances based upon ancient legend, some belonging to the Greek or the Byzantine School ; the Breton romances of adventure, the Lais of Marie de France ; the first collections of poetry, devoted to the deeds of such heroes as Tristan, Perceval, Gauvain, Lancelot du Lac. The fabliaux were of this period too, and then came the Roman de la Rose, with its profane influence, to put an end to the reign of chivalrous poetry.
In the thirteenth century, Geoffroy de Villehardouin, the first of the French chroniclers, took part in the expedition which he describes, with simple grandeur, in the Conquéte de Constantinople.
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song.
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Soon after, the Sire de Joinville, faithful companion of St. Louis, wrote his Memoires, a brilliant and impassioned narrative of the events of his time.
Messire Jehan Froissart, the historian of the Hundred Years' War, next appears. His Chronique enables us to grasp the feudal and military life of the fourteenth century ; and it may be said of him that he left us a complete and faithful picture of mediaeval civilisation; always exact, admirably descriptive, full of variety. Several other writers combined to make this century a noble epoch in our literature. Christine de Pisan, a poetess of infinite charm and delicacy, defended her sex against the aspersions of Jehan de Meung. Alain Chartier, profoundly moved by the sufferings of France after the disaster of Agincourt, stirred by his eloquence the fallen courage of his compatriots, and his Quadriloge invectif is still the noblest of all manifestations of love for the Fatherland and of intense national pride. Eustache Deschamps was another of the galaxy, and so was Oliver Basselin, by trade a fuller, who improvised, wine-cup in hand, the songs known as the Vaux de
Vire, to which the Vaudeville owes its origin.
We cannot turn from the consideration of this period until we
have recalled the fact that the mysteries were in high favour all through the Middle Ages. They took the place of the Miracle- plays, and to them modern tragedy owes its origin. The first play presented in the language of the people Le Mystere des Vierges
folks et des Vierges sages, in the eleventh century. The " Brother hood of the Passion " had the exclusive privilege of producing these Mysteries, which became more frequent and more brilliant during the succeeding centuries. The "Clercs de la Basoche" created, somewhat later, the Moralities, in which we find the germ of modern comedy. The " sotie " or brief lyric poem of the " trouveres " and the "jongleurs" gave place, at the end of the Middle Ages, to dramatic plays produced by an association of young Parisian artists called the " Enfants-sans-souci," whose chief bore the title of the " Prince des Sots. " The farces of the same period, a new form of the old Mysteries, retained their vogue until the end of Louis XIV. 's reign.
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The fifteenth century was made glorious by three great names : Charles d'Orléans, Francois Villon, and Commines. Charles d'Orléans, who was made a prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, and who found consolation during his captivity in literary pursuits, left us poems distinguished by their grace, their beauty of form, and the exquisite harmony of their structure. Villon's French, richly coloured and varied, was the medium of expression for a singularly direct habit of thought. He broke away from the lifeless allegories of the mediaeval tradition, and the Grand Testament marks the change in the spirit of French poetry from an impersonal to a personal art. Commines gave us the dramatic view of history ; he showed us the struggle between Louis XL, the defender of the unity of France, and Charles de Bourgogne, the last champion of the feudal system which was about to be obliterated. The new art of history may indeed be said to have begun with Commines ; the scrutiny of facts, the study and perceptions of broad political interests, as opposed to the mere recital of battles and feats of arms.
In the sixteenth century two great movements took form : the literary renaissance and the religious reformation. But in France, where the conditions of life were still disturbed and unsettled by agitation, the renaissance developed less rapidly than in Italy. " It was," as Demogeot says, " a period at which the men whose thoughts were worth preserving did not know how to write, and the men who cultivated the literary art did not think it needful that they should have any thoughts to express. " There were writers of great talent, but there was no accepted and universal form of expression, each writer used a language of his own. Clement Marot, the favourite of Francois and of Marguerite, the king's sister, wrote familiar letters and epigrams of unsurpassed beauty. La Boétie, when only sixteen years old, was fired by the atrocities committed by Montmorency on Bordeaux, and wrote the Discours sur la Servitude volontaire. Bodin in his R&publique shows himself philosopher and statesman. Jacques Amyot, the translator of Plutarch and of Longus, transformed these authors, naturalised them almost; enriching the French language from the stores of antiquity.
a
a
I. ,
FRENCH LITERATURE xxix
Montaigne clothed a moral theory in the rich and pictorial diction of his Essais. Eahelais wrote the Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel, which La Bruyere described as " a monstrous combination ; lofty and ingenious thought sullied by foulness of expression. At his worst, no one can be worse ; he is the ideal of the gutter. At his best he attains an exquisite excellence, and he can be the food of the most delicate.
" Calvin dedicated to Francois I. his Institu tion de la Religion chrétienne, the most important literary pro duct of the Keformation; the work in which French prose first takes definite form. Eonsard and "the pleiads" make their attempt at a literary renovation. At the same time the air was thick with pamphlets and satires, of which the most important was the Satire mdnippée; a political pamphlet, a comedy, and a piece of great policy all in one. Of memoirs there was a long train; after those of the Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, written by his Loyal serviteur, came the Commentaires of that violent Catholic, Blaise de Montluc, the book which Henry IV called " The Soldier's Bible " ; the memoirs of La Noue, of Coligny, of Brantome, of Marguerite de Valois, the first wife of Henry IV. , the Mat de la France sous Francois II, by Begnier de la Planche, the Histoire universelle and the Mémoires of d'Aubigny, the Journal of Pierre de l'Estoile, the Histoire of Jacques Auguste de Thou, and many more.
The French language had at this time already attained such definiteness of form and such richness of expression that foreigners recognised its beauty. Charles-Quint declared that it was the State language of Europe, and later, at the conference of Nimegue, all the powers drew up their international treaties in French.
Malherbe, with whom the seventeenth century commences, played an important part in the reformation of the language Diction was, to him, almost a religion, and the severity of his precepts earned for him the title of the Tyrant of Words and Syllables. His great merit is that he both regulated and enforced upon his contemporaries the principles of French poetry. Mathurin Kegnier, in his satires, excelled in the description of the men and the customs of his day. The picture he draws of
FRENCH LITERATURE
Macette, the aged hypocrite, is a masterpiece. Racan celebrated the charms of rural life. Voiture shines in his fugitive verses, and among the wits of the ruelles, Balzac and Benserade appear in the first rank by Voiture's side. The Hotel de Rambouillet was the first literary institution regularly organised in France, and Cardinal Eichelieu procured the issue of the letters patent which created the French Academy. Pierre Corneille revolutionised the French drama. With the Cid he established French tragic style, with the Menteur, the French of comedy. His Horace is full of vigour and originality, and Cinna is an accepted masterpiece. Descartes's Discours sur la Méthode and his Méditations are marvels of style. Menage, and Vaugelas in his Pemarques sur la Langue francaise, helped to perfect the language. La Rochefoucauld, for his part, did much to form the national taste, and give to it the necessary accuracy and perception and soundness of judgment, by the influence of his Maximes and inflexions Morales. La Bruyere enunciated no new truths in his Caracteres, but he draws his portraits with such vigour, concision, and originality of style,
that it is impossible to forget anything of his that one has read. Pascal published his Provinciales, models of eloquence, and his Pensées, of incomparable philosophic power. Cyrano de Bergerac showed a brilliant wit, a wealth of comedy ; and Scarron, the most malicious of critics, originated the burlesque. Boileau's writings are marked by good sense, taste, and evenness ; and in his Satires we perceive his critical power; while his Art Poétique, which earned for him the title of the " Lawgiver of Parnassus," contains a whole code of literature. In his Lutrin he attains perfection in the poetic art. Moliere is inimitable : a profound observer, a great moralist, an incomparable writer. He is the most exact of all painters of human life; he depicts the human character and human passions in comedies of the most vivid, forcible, nervous
and richly coloured style. The Misanthrope, Tartufe, Les Femmes savantes, L'Avare, Les Precieuses ridicules are among the gems of his brilliant and varied product. Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Ketz, was the historian of the Fronde, and St. Simon wrote his Mémoires, which were not printed until 1820. Jean de la Fontaine
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" the flower of French wit, endowed with the perfume of antiquity," as GWruzez called him, is the simplest and the least pretentious of our poets. Free as are his Contes et nouvelles, they never offend the taste, for the author's finesse and delicacy never deserted him. His Fables are life itself, they are original and imperishable. Madame de la Fayette in the Princesse de Cleves, gave a new form to fiction, while her friend, Madame de Sévigné, was writing her Lettres, that magnificent model of the epistolary art in which the customs and the personages of the seventeenth century are mirrored. Jean Racine held undisputed sway over the stage, and his trage dies: Andromaque, Britannicus^ Bérénice, Mithridate, Esther, Phedre, Athalie, as well as his comedy, the Plaideurs, reached a standard which it will not be easy for human genius to surpass. The Gallic church is not without its literary glories. Bossuet left his masterpieces of style and of eloquence, such as his Discours sur l'Hisloire universelle and his Oraisons funebres. Bourdaloue raises himself to the first rank by his Sermons. Father Male- branche, at once a metaphysician and a moralist, published his Recherche de la Verite". Fleshier delivered his Oraison funebre de
Turenne. Fenelon coupled his name with the TraiU de Educa tion des files, the Dialogues des Marts, T&emaque, and finally, Massillon had no rival to fear when he wrote his Petit Caréme.
The eighteenth century was dominated, one might almost say that it is represented, by one towering genius. To Voltaire every form of literary activity seemed easy — history, criticism, drama, philosophy; and he shone in every one of them. His Sistoire de Charles XII is a model, his light verses are vastly superior to those of his contemporaries, and his plays, CEdipe, Brutus, Zaire, Alzire, M&rope, Mahomet, Sémiramis and Tancrede are powerful, animated, affecting, and overflowing with eloquence. Marmontel and La Harpe, disciples of Voltaire, are little reflections of their master's power. Jean Baptiste Rousseau is noteworthy for the melody and the rhythm of his verse. Gresset wrote the Méchant ; Piron, the Métromanie. Le Sage, who portrays human weaknesses in the Diable boiteux, gives us the type of the character study in Gil Bias. Louis Racine wrote the Mémoires in which he
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FRENCH LITERATURE
retraces his father's life. Rollin published his Histoire ancienne. Bernardin de St- Pierre produced a masterpiece in his simple and poetic romance, Paul et Virginie. Montesquieu signed his immortal pages of elevated philosophy, the Lettres persanes, L'Esprit des Lois, and the Considérations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et de la Decadence des Romains. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, by his theory of philosophy, indicates to us the approach of the French Revolu tion. His Emile is a declaration of the rights of childhood, and an incitement to the domestic virtues ; while the Contrat social takes its departure from the principle that "all men are born equal. " The most vivid passion glows in the pages of the Nouvelle Hdoise and the Confessions yield a true impression of the writer's genius. Caron de Beaumarchais gave the Barbier de Seville to the French stage, and after the famous trial he printed his Mémoires judiciaires, a work characterised by eloquence, wit, spirit, and sound sense. Buffon devoted his imaginative pen to the analysis of nature. The description of which his Histoire naturelle is composed, are not only vivid pictures, but noble and pure in style as well, worthy of the writer who said, when he was received into the Academy, that " the style is the very essence of the man. " Diderot, one of the most powerful intellects of his age, conceived, and successfully executed, the immense task of the Encyclopédie, with the collabora tion of the philosophers Condillac, Helvétius, and d'Hollach. D'Alembert wrote for the same work his beautiful Diseours pré- liminaire which serves as its preface and its outline. The Abbe" Prevost, a true historian of passion, left us Manon Lescaut. And now the century was nearly at an end. It seemed as if the storm of the Bevolution must silence all literary effort. Yet this was not the case. At the moment when war was declared against Austria, Rouget de Lisle asserted himself, improvised his magnifi cent Chant de Guerre de l'Armée du Rhin, which, better known under the title of the Marseillaise, was to make the tour of Europe and at last become the national hymn of France.
The nineteenth century possessed, at its very dawn, two great writers. The Baroness Stael-Holstein, the daughter of Necker, and yet the type of French wit, displayed all her sensibility in
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Delphine, and glorified both Italy and the modern world of femininity in Corinne. Chateaubriand manifested every possible grace of style in the Génie du Christianisme, and excited the admiration of his contemporaries in Atala, R&né, the Martyrs and
the Dernier des Abencerages. Under the Empire, Jacques Delille, the elegant translator of the Georgics, was the master of the descriptive school of poetry. Then came Brillat-Savarin to show, in his Physiologie du Gout, that literary art may render attractive even a treatise on gastronomy. Henri Beyle, under the pseudonym of Stendhal, gave play to all his originality in Rouge et Noir. Publicists and statesmen were nobly represented in the person of Alexis de Tocqueville, whose learning and talent one cannot but admire in the Systtme pénitentiaire aux Etats-Unis, and in the Démocratie en Amérique. Paul Louis Courier made the pamphlet his speciality, and his Pamphlet des Pamphlets is regarded as the model of this form of literature. Barthdldmy, at once a poet and a politician, in his famous rimed newspaper, Ntmesis, held up the government of Louis Philippe. Beranger, whose ambition it was " to be nobody," selected for his vehicle the chanson to which he gave a new form. He sang of the Fatherland, of the people, of liberty, and he covered the old regime with ridicule. Honore" de Balzac, " the Colossus of Literature," as his enthusiasts called him, showed his qualities as a great writer of fiction in the Peau de Chagrin. A materialist, imbued with ideas which absolutely mastered him, a story-teller full of spirit and imagination, he constitutes himself the historian of the customs of the society he so brilliantly depicts in Eugénie Grandet, Une femme de 30 ans, Physiologie du Mariage, the Recherche de I'Absolu, the Mtdecin de Campagne and other works. Another towering figure is that of Lamartine, one of the most illustrious of French poets, who first moved us with Graziella and Raphael, narratives of his youthful
Then came poems of penetrating sadness, the Méditations, and to them in turn succeeded the Harmonies pottiques et religieuses, in which the author reaches the loftiest regions of the ideal. His Voyage en Orient abounds in rich
descriptions, and the Histoire des Girondins, which had a re- vol. v. —3
intrigues.
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Bounding success, was a true historic poem. Aurore Dupin, Baroness Du Devant, hid her name under the pseudonym of " George Sand," while she displayed all the splendour and precision of style in the Mare au Diable, Francois Champi, and the Petite Fadette, rural romances which have been called the Georgics of French literature. In the course of an Italian voyage she quarrelled with Alfred de Musset, a sentimental poet who displayed the enthusiasms and the defects of youth. Vigour, passion, grace, melody —Musset had all these gifts ; and gave profusely of his wealth in such works as Contes d'Espagne, the Coupe et les Ltores; A quoi rSvent lesjeunes Filles ; Rolla ; and the Nuits. His emotion seizes all hearts, penetrates all souls. Eugene Sue " gave French fiction to the hazard of the open sea," as Sainte-Beuve said, but he soon abandoned the nautical novel, and tried to portray society in its true colours. The interpreter of the aspirations which moved his generation, he threw himself into the search for political, philosophical, and social truths, in his Mysteres de Paris, and his Juif errant, romances which won for him a wide popularity and a great influence over the opinions and the literature of his time. Another novelist was Frederic Soulié, the author of the Mémoires du Diable, and of the Closerie des Genets. A past master in the study of character, and in the art of gaining broad effects, he was a truly creative writer, and never releases his reader until the emotions have been played upon to the point of saturation. The romances of E. Souvestre were, on the other hand, distinguished by close adherence to nature, kindly wit, and genial philosophy. Prosper Mérimée showed himself an incomparable story-teller in his Chronique du Temps de Charles IX, where he brings upon the scene the customs and the passions of his day, and in his Colomba that striking picture of a Corsican vendetta. Sainte-Beuve takes his place in the first rank of contemporary critics by his Causeries, his Lundis, and his Nouveaux Lundis, in which he lavishes his subtle analysis, his wit, and his good taste. Laboulaye was not content to show himself an erudite publicist and jurisconsult in his Histoire du droit de PropriéU fonciere en Occident, in the Pecherches sur la Condition civile et politique des Femmes depuis les
FRENCH LITERATURE XXXV
Bomains jusqu'a nos jours, or in the Histoire des State-Unit d'Ame'rique, he showed also that he could wield the satirist's pen in such romances as Paris en Amérique, and the Prince Caniche. Flaubert in Salammbd restored to life the civilisation of ancient Carthage, and his minute observation of life in Madame Bovary opened new horizons to French fiction. Taine shines as a philosopher and as a writer in the Histoire de la Littlrature anglaise, while Eenan, in the Vie de Jésus, the Origines du Christianisme, and similar studies, gives us a prose endowed with a poetic wealth altogether his own. Political economy was not neglected ; since it was honoured by the works of Lanfrey, the earnest defender of reason and of freedom, in the Eglise et la Philosophie du 18* siècle, the sturdy opponent of Catholicism in the Histoire politique des Papes, of Socialism in the Lettres cFEverard, and of Caesarism in the Histoire de Napoléon I, his greatest work. The Fleurs du Mai of Baudelaire are poems of love, at once mystical and licentious. Theodore de Banville gave us exquisitely chiselled verses, full of elaboration, imagery, and colour, in his Odes, his Nouvelles Odes funambulesques, and his Trente- six Ballades joyeuses ; and formulated a new code of poetic laws in his Petit Traits' de la poesie francaise. As for Th^ophile Gautier, at once a critic and a creator, who adds to his rich vocabulary the special study of style and form, his work is of immense importance. The Manages de Paris, De Pontoise a Stamboul, the Roman d'un brave Homme, are all beautiful specimens of the clear and witty style which earned for Edmond About the nickname of " Voltaire's grandson. " Alexandre Dumas, the elder, possessed at once a vivid imagination and an incredible facility of production; gifts abundantly displayed in both his novels and his plays. Who has not read the Collier de la Reine, the Trois Mousquetaires, and the Comte de Monte-Cristo ? Dumas, the younger, follows in his father's footsteps. He, too, wrote both plays and novels. L'affaire Clémenceau, the Dame aux Gamélias, the Demi-monde, the Fils naturel, reveal him as a writer, a thinker, and a moralist. Grace is the marked characteristic of both the plays and the novels of Octave Feuillet. The Comte de Gobineau, who left one
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great poem unfinished, Amadis, is a scholar as well as a poet. He undertook, in his Religions et les Philosophies dans VAsie centrale, to make known the history and the doctrines of Persian cults ; he displays his profound erudition in his Histoire des Perses d'après les Auteurs orientaux, grecs et latins, and his Essai sur I'Inégalité des Paces humaines was the starting-point of a new school of chronology. Victor Hugo reformed French poetry, found new virility hy saturating his vocabulary with the wealth of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He is the great master of the Komantic School, which he substituted for the Classic School. Whether he dealt with political, religious, social, or artistic matters, whether he wrote fiction, drama, or verse, he is at home in every department of literary activity, everywhere a master. Exiled by the events of the 2nd December 1851, he took refuge first in Jersey and later in Guernsey. There, face to face with the waves, he seems to have found inspiration in the storms, in the grandeur of the sea. In that environment he wrote two pamphlets, Napoléon le Petit and the Chdtiments, which are at once histories and poems of the highest rank. Later, he wrote the Légende des Siecles, a series of epopees and marvellous fancies in which he brings back to life the extinct civilisations of twenty centuries. Notre-Dame
de Paris, gives us again the Paris of the Middle Ages, while the Misérables is a moving tale based upon an erudite historical conception. Hugo sought for the most striking antitheses, evoking the paroxysms of love and of fear. Nothing is too lofty for his imagination, characterised as it is by the most sublime grandeur. Benan well said that Hugo, " like a Cyclops still half buried in the earth, possesses the secrets of a lost world. His tremendous writings reflect, as in a mirage, a universe which no other eye but his can still see. " Yet he could leave these regions of the super natural and the fantastic, and the Art d'Stre Grand-pere shows that he can commune, as no one else could, with the pure soul of a child. The fanciful verses, entitled the Prunes, which Alphonse Daudet included in his volume of Amoureuses, first drew attention to the author whom the Ndbad, Kuma Roumestan, and other successful works soon placed among the list of contemporary
FRENCH LITERATURE xxxvii
novelists. The Vers of Guy de Maupassant are the work of a writer of humorous tales, and the poet-musician Verlaine finds new rhythms in Sagesse and the Romans sans paroles, while the fertile pen of Claretie produces novels, plays, and columns of
journalism. Erckmann-Chatrian are two authors whose unbroken association has merged into a single personality, and who achieved great popularity by their Romans nationaux. Another novelist, Jules Verne, gifted with a vivid imagination and a ready wit, breaks away from the old traditions of the fairy-tale, and finds a new world of marvels, based upon the latest scientific and geo graphical researches. Cinq Semaines en Ballon, the first story of this sort, was soon followed by the Désert de Glace, Vingt mille Lieues sous les Mers, the Voyage autour du Monde en 80 jours, all of which won unbounded popularity. Louis Viaud, a writer of great talent, signs the pseudonym of Pierre Loti to Madame Chrysanthlme, Mon frere Yves, and the Pécheur d'Islande, all charming books. Theuriet is at once a novelist and a poet. Exquisite in Raymonde, touching in the Filleul d'un Marquis, psychological in Sauvageonne, he shows his love for nature in the Journal de Tristan, and his keen analysis in Michel Verneuil. Thibault, who writes under the name of " Anatole France," has published some fine verses, the Poèmes dorés, and he takes his place among the delicate writers of short stories in his Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard. Catulle Mendes has written some beautiful verse ; his Soleil de Minuit, the Soirs moroses; and some brilliant fiction, too. At the head of the Realistic School stands Emile Zola, who, in Thérlse Raquin, Rougon Macquart, La Terre, and other novels depicts everything he sees, without recoiling from the least important detail, however brutal it may be. These powerful studies are written in a rich and vigorous style, and they exercise a considerable influence upon contemporary fiction. Paul Bourget shows originality and psycho logical insight in Cruelle Enigme, l'Irreparable, and Un Crime a"Amour, while Sully-Prudhomme gives his thoughts masterly expression in Justice, Vaines Tendresses, and Le Bonheur. The poetic idiom of Southern France was restored to life by the Provencal poet, Mistral, whose grand rustic epopee Mireille, and
xxxviii FRENCH LITERATURE
whose Calendan, too, enjoyed an immediate success ; while Fran- qois Coppee, an observer of nature and of the life about him, gives us a picture of delightful and familiar scenes in the Intimités, Les Humbles, and La Grcve des Forgerons. Criticism has its shining lights in the person of J. Lemaitre with his Contemporains, and Brunetiere, who displays his learning in Racine, Diderot, Le Roman Naturaliste, Histoire et Litte'rature. Nor must we forget that history has recently been enriched by such important works as Guizot's L'Histoire raconUe d mes petits Enfants ; Le Consulat et l' Empire by Thiers; Louis Blanc's L' Histoire de la Révolution francaise ; and Michelet's L'Histoire de France, as well as a mass of
monographs, memoirs, and volumes of letters and of recollections. On the whole, the nineteenth century haj produced a great variety of important works. It is not possible to sum up in one word their general character, but some general observations suggest themselves. The first is that romance and the naturalistic school
occupy an important place in the literature of our time ; and the second is, that as we approach the close of the century, indivi duality of product tends more and more to replace the system by which the writers of an earlier day grouped themselves in schools. It becomes evident, too, that the seeking for the exact word, and for the " document " is accompanied on all sides by a scrupulous study of form, which has never been more sedulously cultivated. Erudition appears hand in hand with fancy, and criticism exercises more and more its sapient influence.
Paris, March 1899.
SalammbO
From the Statue in the Louvre
salammbo and her lover. By GUSTAVE FLAUBERT.
[Gustave Flaubebt, leading French novelist, noted for minute "real- tern" and highly elaborated style, was born at Rouen, December 12, 1821 ; died May 8, 1880. His first two novels, " Madame Bovary " and "The Temptation of St. Anthony," were published serially in 1857 ; he was prosecuted for immor ality on account of the former, but acquitted. " SalammbO " (scene laid about b. c. 240) appeared in 1862, after a visit to the site of ancient Carthage ; " Senti mental Education, a Young Man's Romance," In 1869 ; " Three Tales " in 1877. He wrote also unsuccessful plays. Posthumously were published "Bouvard and Pecuchet," "Letters to George Sand," and others. ]
MXTHO was bound on the elephant's back, his four limbs crosswise, and all the unwounded escorted him, hurrying with a great commotion back to Carthage.
The water-clock of Khamoun marked the fifth hour of the night when they reached Malqua. Here Matho reopened his eyes. There were such vast numbers of lights on the houses that the city seemed to be all in flames.
A mighty clamor came confusedly to him, and lying on his back he gazed at the stars. Then a door closed upon him, and darkness enveloped him. . . . —
There were rejoicings at Carthage rejoicings deep, uni versal, extravagant, frantic ; the holes of the ruins had been stopped up, the statues of the Gods had been repainted, the streets were strewn with myrtle branches, incense smoked at the corners of the crossways, and the throng on the terraces looked, in their variagated garments, like heaps of flowers blooming in the air.
The people accosted one another, and embraced one an other with tears ; — the Tyrian towns were taken, the Nomads dispersed, and all the Barbarians annihilated. The Acropolis
89
40 salammbO and her lover.
was hidden beneath colored velaria; the beaks of the triremes, drawn up in line outside the mole, shone like a dike of dia monds; everywhere there was a sense of the restoration of order, the beginning of a new existence, and the diffusion of vast happiness: it was the day of Salammbd's marriage with the king of the Numidians.
On the terrace of the temple of Khamon there were three long tables laden with gigantic plates, at which the Priests, Ancients, and Rich were going to sit, and there was a fourth and higher one for Hamilcar, Narr' Havas, and Salammbo" ; for as she had saved her country by the restoration of the zaimph, the people turned her wedding into a national rejoicing, and were waiting in the square below till she should appear.
But their impatience was excited by another and more acrid longing: Matho's death had been promised for the ceremony.
It had been proposed at first to flay him alive, to pour lead into his entrails, to kill him with hunger; he should be tied to a tree, and an ape behind him should strike him on the head with a stone; he had offended Tanith, and the cynocephaluses of Tanith should avenge her. Others were of opinion that he should be led about on a dromedary after linen wicks, dipped in oil, had been inserted in his body in several places — and they took pleasure in the thought of the large animal wander ing through the streets with this man writhing beneath the fires like a candelabrum blown about by the wind.
But what citizens should be charged with his torture, and why disappoint the rest? They would have liked a kind of death in which the whole town might take part, in which every hand, every weapon, everything Carthaginian, to the very paving stones in the streets and the waves in the gulf, could rend him, and crush him, and annihilate him. Accord ingly the Ancients decided that he should go from his prison to the square of Khamon without any escort, and with his arms fastened to his back ; it was forbidden to strike him to the heart, in order that he might live the longer ; to put out his eyes, so that he might see his torture through ; to hurl anything against his person, or to lay more than three fingers upon him at a time.
Although he was not to appear until the end of the day, the people sometimes fancied that he could be seen, and the crowd would rush toward the Acropolis, and empty the streets, to return with lengthened murmurings. Some people had re mained standing in the same place since the day before, and
SALAMMBO AND HER LOVER
41
they would call on one another from a distance and show their nails, which they had allowed to grow, the better to bury them in his flesh. Others walked restlessly up and down; some were as pale as though they were awaiting their own execution.
Suddenly lofty feather fans rose above the heads, behind the Mappalian district. It was Salammbo" leaving her palace; a sigh of relief found vent.
But the procession was long in coming; it marched with deliberation.
First there filed past the priests of the Pataec Gods, then those of Eschmoun, of Melkarth, and all the other colleges in succession, with the same insignia, and in the same order as had been observed at the time of the sacrifice. The pontiffs of Moloch passed with heads bent, and the multitude stood aside from them in a kind of remorse. But the priests of Rabbetna advanced with a proud step, and with lyres in their hands ; the
followed them in transparent robes of yellow or black, uttering cries like birds and writhing like vipers, or else whirling round to the sound of flutes to imitate the dance of the stars, while their light garments wafted puffs of delicate scents through the streets.
The Kedeschim, with painted eyelids, who symbolized the hermaphroditism of the Divinity, received applause among these women, and, being perfumed and dressed like them, they re sembled them in spite of their flat breasts and narrower hips. Moreover, on this day the female principle dominated and con fused all things ; a mystic lasciviousness moved in the heavy air; the torches were already lighted in the depths of the sacred woods; there was to be a great prostitution there during the night; three vessels had brought courtesans from Sicily, and others had come from the desert.
As the colleges arrived they ranged themselves in the courts of the temples, on the outer galleries, and along double stair cases which rose against the walls, and drew together at the top. Files of white robes appeared between the colonnades, and the architecture was peopled with human statues, motion less as statues of stone.
Then came the masters of the exchequer, the governors of the provinces, and all the Rich. A great tumult prevailed below. Adjacent streets were discharging the crowd, hier- odules were driving it back with blows of sticks; and then SalammbQ appeared in a litter surmounted by a purple canopy,
priestesses
43 SALAMMB6 and her lover.
and surrounded by the Ancients crowned with their golden tiaras.
Thereupon an immense shout arose ; the cymbals and crotala sounded more loudly, the tambourines thundered, and the great purple canopy sank between the two pylons.
It appeared again on the first landing. Salammbfi was walking slowly beneath it ; then she crossed the terrace to take her seat behind on a kind of throne cut out of the carapace of a tortoise. An ivory stool with three steps was pushed beneath her feet ; two negro children knelt on the edge of the first step, and sometimes she would rest both arms, which were laden with rings of excessive weight, upon their heads.
From ankle to hip she was covered with a network of narrow meshes which were in imitation of fish scales, and shone like mother-of-pearl ; her waist was clasped by a blue zone, which allowed her breasts to be seen through two crescent-shaped slashings; the nipples were hidden by carbuncle pendants. She had a headdress made of peacock's feathers studded with gems ; an ample cloak, as white as snow, fell behind her — and with her elbows at her sides, her knees pressed together, and circles of diamonds on the upper part of her arms, she remained perfectly upright in a hieratic attitude.

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