A Short History of French Literature
patronising young men of genius. During the reign of Louis Philippe he
was one of the most influential of men of letters, though curiously
enough, he combined with his political liberalism a certain tendency to
reaction in matters of pure literature. After 1848 he retired from
public life, and, though he survived for nearly twenty years, produced
little more in philosophy. His brilliant but patchy eclecticism had had
its day, and he saw it; but he earned new and perhaps more lasting
laurels by betaking himself to the study of French literary history, and
producing some charming essays on the ladies of the Fronde. Cousin's
history is interesting as an instance of the accidental prosperity which
in the first half of this century the mixture of politics and
literature brought to men of letters. But his own literary merits are
very considerable. Without the freedom and originality of the great
writers who were for the most part his juniors by ten or twenty years,
he possessed a style studied from the best models of the seventeenth
century, which, despite a certain artificiality, has great beauty.
Besides editions of philosophical classics, the chief works of his
earlier period are _Fragments Philosophiques_, 1827, _Cours de
l'Histoire de la Philosophie_, 1827; of his later, _Du Vrai_, _Du Beau
et Du Bien_, and his studies on the women of the seventeenth century.
[Sidenote: Beyle.]
The author now to be noticed has found little place hitherto in
histories of literature, and estimates of his positive value are even
yet much divided. Henri Beyle, who wrote under the name of De Stendhal,
was born at Grenoble, in January, 1783. His family belonged to the
middle class, though, unfortunately, Beyle allowed himself during the
Empire to be called M. _de_ Beyle, and incurred not a little ridicule in
consequence. His literary _alias_ was also, it may be noticed, arranged
so as to claim nobility. He was a clever boy, but manifested no special
predilection for any profession. At last he entered the army, and served
in it (chiefly in the non-combatant branches) on some important
occasions, including the campaigns of the St. Bernard, of Jena, and of
Moscow. He also held some employments in the civil service of the
Empire. At the Restoration he went to Italy, which was always his
favourite place of residence; but when in 1821 political troubles began
to arise, he was 'politely' expelled by the Austrian police. After this
he lived chiefly in Paris, making part of his living by the unexpected
function of contributing to the London _New Monthly Magazine_. He knew
English well, admired our literature, and visited London more than once.
Being, as far as he was a politician at all, a Bonapartist, he was not
specially interested in the Revolution of 1830; but it was profitable to
him, for through some of his friends he was appointed French consul,
first at Trieste, and then (the Austrians objecting) at Civita Vecchia.
He lived, however, chiefly at Rome, and travelled a good deal. Latterly
his health was weak, and he died at Paris, in 1842, of apoplexy. He was
buried at Montmartre; but, with his usual eccentricity, his epitaph was
by his direction written in Italian, and he was described as a Milanese.
Beyle's character, personal and literary, was very peculiar. In
temperament, religious views, and social ideas he was a belated
_philosophe_ of the Diderot school. But in literature he had improved
even on Diderot, and very nearly anticipated the full results of the
Romantic movement, while in politics, as has been said, he was an
imperialist. His works are pretty voluminous. They consist of novels
(_La Chartreuse de Parme_, _Armance_, _Le Rouge et le Noir_, _Memoires
d'un Touriste_, etc.); of criticism (_Histoire de la Peinture en
Italie_, _Racine et Shakespeare_, _Melanges_); of biography (Lives of
Napoleon, Haydn, Mozart, Metastasio, etc.); of topographical writing of
a miscellaneous kind (_Promenades dans Rome, Naples et Florence_, etc.);
and lastly, of a singular book entitled _De l'Amour_, which unites
extraordinary acuteness and originality of thought with cynicism of
expression and paradox of theory. In this book, and in his novels, Beyle
made himself the ancestor of what has been called successively realism
and naturalism in France. Perhaps, however, his most remarkable work was
Merimee, of whose family he was a friend, and who, far excelling him in
merit of style if not in freshness of thought, learnt beyond all doubt
from him his peculiar and half-affected cynicism of tone, his curious
predilection for the apparently opposed literatures of England and
Southern Europe, and not improbably also his imperialism. Beyle is a
difficult author to judge briefly, the contradictions, affectations, and
oddities in him demanding minute examination. Of his power, intrinsic
and exerted on others, there is no doubt.
[Sidenote: Nodier.]
[Sidenote: Delavigne.]
[Sidenote: Soumet.]
The three remaining writers require shorter notice. Charles Nodier, who
was born at Besancon in 1780, and died at Paris in 1844, is one of the
most remarkable failures of a great genius in French literary history.
He did almost everything--lexicography, text-editing, criticism, poetry,
romance--and he did everything well, but perhaps nothing supremely well.
If an exception be made to this verdict, it must be in favour of his
short tales, some of which are exquisite, and all but, if not quite,
masterpieces. As librarian of the Mazarin Library, Nodier was a kind of
centre of the early Romantic circle, and, though he was more than
twenty years older than most of its members, he identified himself
thoroughly with their aims and objects. His consummate knowledge of the
history and vocabulary of the French tongue probably had no mean
influence on that conservative and restorative character which was one
of the best sides of the movement. Casimir Delavigne was born at Havre
in 1793. He first distinguished himself by his _Messeniennes_, a series
of satires or patriotic jeremiads on the supposed degradation of France
under the Restoration. Then he took to the stage, and produced
successively _Les Vepres Siciliennes_, _Marino Faliero_, _Louis XI_.
(well known in England from the affection which several English tragic
actors have shown for the title part), _Les Enfants d'Edouard_, etc. He
also wrote other non-dramatic poems, most of them of a political
character. Casimir Delavigne is a writer of little intrinsic worth. He
held aloof from the Romantic movement, less from dislike to its
extravagances and its cliquism, than from genuine weakness and inability
to appreciate the defects of the classic tradition. He is in fact the
direct successor of Ducis and Marie Joseph Chenier, having forgotten
something, but learned little. The defects of his poems are parallel to
those of his plays. His patriotism is conventional, his verse
conventional, his expression conventional, though the convention is in
all three cases slightly concealed by the skilful adoption of a certain
outward colouring of energy and picturesqueness. He was not unpopular in
his day, being patronised to a certain extent by the extreme classical
party, and recommended to the public by his liberal political
principles. But he is almost entirely obsolete already, and is never
likely to recover more than the reputation due to fair literary
workmanship in an inferior style. Alexandre Soumet was another dramatist
of the same kind, but perhaps of a less artificial stamp. He adhered to
the old model of drama, or to something like it, more, apparently,
because it satisfied his requirements, than from abstract predilection
for it, or from dislike to the new models. His _Norma_ has the merit of
having at least suggested the libretto of one of the most popular of
modern operas, and his _Une Fete sous Neron_ is not devoid of merit.
Soumet was in the early days of the movement a kind of outsider in it,
and it cannot be said that at any time he became an enemy, or that his
work is conspicuous for any fatal defects according to the new method of
criticism. A deficiency of initiative, rather than, as in Delavigne's
case, a preference of inferior models, seems to have been the reason why
he did not advance further.
[Sidenote: The Romantic Propaganda in Periodicals.]
It was, however, reserved for a younger generation actually to cross the
Rubicon, and to achieve the reform which was needed. The assistance
which the vast spread of periodical literature lent to such an attempt
has been already noted, and it was in four periodical publications that
the first definite note of the literary revolution was sounded. In these
the movement was carried on for many years before the famous
representation of _Hernani_, which announced the triumph of the
innovators. These four publications were: first, _Le Conservateur
Litteraire_ (a journal published as early as 1819, before the _Odes_ of
Victor Hugo, who was one of its main-stays, or even the _Meditations_ of
Lamartine had appeared); secondly, the _Annales Romantiques_, which
began in 1823, with perhaps the most brilliant list of contributors that
any periodical--with the possible exception of the nearly contemporary
_London Magazine_--ever had; a list including Chateaubriand, Lamennais,
Lamartine, Joseph de Maistre (posthumously), Alfred de Vigny, Henri de
Latouche, Hugo, Nodier, Beranger, Casimir Delavigne, Madame
Desbordes-Valmore, and Delphine Gay, afterwards Madame de Girardin.
Although not formally, this was practically a kind of annual of the
_Muse Francaise_, which had pretty nearly the same contributors, and
conducted the warfare in more definitely polemical manner by criticism
and precept, as well as by example. Lastly, there was the important
newspaper--a real newspaper this--called _Le Globe_, which appeared in
1822. The other Romantic organs had been either colourless as regards
politics, or else more or less definitely conservative and monarchical,
the middle age influence being still strong. The _Globe_ was avowedly
liberal in politics. Men of the greatest eminence in various ways,
Jouffroy, Damiron, Pierre Leroux, and Charles de Remusat, wrote in it;
but its literary importance in history is due to the fact that here
Sainte-Beuve, the critic of the movement, began, and for a long time
carried out the vast series of critical studies of French and other
literature which, partly by destruction and partly by construction, made
the older literary theory for ever obsolete. The various names in poetry
and prose of this romantic movement must now be reviewed.
[Sidenote: Victor Hugo.]
Victor Marie Hugo was born at Besancon on the 28th of February, 1802.
His father was an officer of distinction in Napoleon's army, his mother
was of Vendean blood and of royalist principles, which last her son for
a long time shared. His literary activity began extremely early. He was,
as has been seen, a contributor to the _Conservateur Litteraire_ at the
age of seventeen, and, with much work which he did not choose to
preserve, some which still worthily finds a place in his published
collections appeared there. Indeed, with his two brothers, Abel and
Eugene, he took a principal share in the management of the periodical.
His _Odes et Poesies Diverses_ appeared in 1822, when he was twenty, and
were followed two years afterwards by a fresh collection. In these
poems, though great strength and beauty of diction are apparent, nothing
that can be called distinct innovation appears. It is otherwise with the
_Odes et Ballades_ of 1826, and the _Orientales_ of 1829. Here the
Romantic challenge is definitely thrown down. The subjects are taken by
preference from times and countries which the classical tradition had
regarded as barbarous. The metres and rhythm are studiously broken,