A Short History of French Literature
most of these authors in novel-writing has been very considerable. Their
production may be divided into two broad classes--novels of incident, of
which Hugo and Dumas were the chief practitioners, and which derive
chiefly from Sir Walter Scott; and novels of character, which, with a
not inconsiderable admixture of English influence, may be said to be
legitimately descended from the indigenous novel created by Madame de la
Fayette, continued by Marivaux and still more by Prevost, and
maintained, though in diminished vivacity, by later writers. Of this
school George Sand and Balzac are the masters, though much importance
must also be assigned to Stendhal. At first the novelists of 1830
decidedly preferred the novel of incident, the literary success of which
in the hands of Hugo, and its pecuniary success in the hands of Dumas,
were equally likely to excite ambitions of different kinds.
[Sidenote: Minor and later Novelists.]
[Sidenote: Jules Janin.]
A rival of both of these in popularity during the reign of Louis
Philippe, though infinitely inferior to both in literary skill, was
Eugene Sue. With him may be classed another voluminous manufacturer of
exciting stories, Frederic Soulie, and somewhat later Paul Feval, with
next to them Amedee Achard and Roger de Beauvoir. A better writer than
any of these was Jules Janin, whose literary career was long and
prosperous, but not uniform. Janin began with a strange story, in the
extremest Romantic taste, called _L'Ane Mort et la Femme Guillotinee_.
This at a later period he represented as an intentional caricature,
which is not on the whole likely. He followed it up with _Barnave_, a
historical novel full of exciting incident. Both these books, however,
with grave defects, have power perhaps superior to that shown in
anything that Janin did later. Being an exceedingly facile writer, and
lacking that peculiar quality of style which sometimes precludes
popularity with the many as much as it secures it with the few, he
became absorbed in journalism, in the furnishing of miscellaneous
articles, prefaces, and so forth, to the booksellers, and finally in
theatrical criticism, where he reigned supreme for many years. None of
his later novels need remark. With Janin may be mentioned M. Alphonse
Karr, who however has been more of a journalist than of a novelist. His
abundant and lively work has not perhaps the qualities of permanence.
But his _Voyage autour de mon Jardin_, his _Sous les Tilleuls_, and the
satirical publication known as _Les Guepes_, deserve at least to be
named. Here too may be noticed M. Barbey d'Aurevilly whose works
critical and fictitious (the chief being probably _L'Ensorcelee_)
display a very remarkable faculty of style, perhaps too deliberately
eccentric, but full of distinction and vigour.
Under the Empire, a fresh group of novelists of incident sprang up. MM.
Erckmann and Chatrian produced in collaboration a large number of tales,
chiefly dealing with the events of the Revolution and the First Empire
in the north-eastern provinces of France. Criminal and legal subjects
were great favourites with the late Emile Gaboriau, who naturalised in
France the detective novel. His chief follower is M. Fortune du
Boisgobey.
[Sidenote: Charles de Bernard.]
The best novelists of the generation of 1830, outside the list of
masters, have yet to be noticed. These are Charles de Bernard and Jules
Sandeau. Charles de Bernard was at one time Balzac's secretary, but his
fashion of work is entirely different from that of his employer. He
divides himself for the most part between the representation of the
Parisian life of good society and that of country-house manners. His
shorter tales are perhaps his best, and many of them, such as
_L'Ecueil_, _La Quarantaine_, _Le Paratonnerre_, _Le Gendre_, etc., are
admirable examples of a class in which Frenchmen have always excelled.
But his longer works, _Gerfaut_, _Les Ailes d'Icare_, _Un Homme
Serieux_, etc., are not inferior to them in wit, in accurate knowledge
and skilful portraiture of character, in good breeding, and in satiric
touches which are always good-humoured.
[Sidenote: Jules Sandeau.]
Jules Sandeau was a novelist of no very different class, but with less
wit, with much less satiric intention, and with a greater infusion of
sentiment, not to say tragedy. His best novels, _Catherine_,
_Mademoiselle de Penarvan_, _Mademoiselle de la Seigliere_, _Le Docteur
Herbeau_, are drawn from provincial life, which, from the great size of
France and its diversity in scenery and local character, has been a
remarkably fertile subject to French novelists. These novels are
remarkable for their accurate and dramatic construction (which is such
that they have lent themselves in more than one instance to theatrical
adaptation with great success) and their pure and healthy morality.
[Sidenote: Octave Feuillet.]
[Sidenote: Murger.]
[Sidenote: Edmond About.]
[Sidenote: Feydeau.]
[Sidenote: Gustave Droz]
Next in order of birth may be mentioned Octave Feuillet, who began, as
has been mentioned, by officiating as assistant to Alexandre Dumas. His
first independent efforts in novel-writing, _Bellah_ and _Onesta_, were
of the same kind as his master's; but they were not great successes, and
after a short time he struck into an original and much more promising
path. His first really characteristic novel was _La Petite Comtesse_,
1856, and this was followed by others, the best of which are _Le Roman
d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_, 1858; _Sibylle_, 1862; _M. de Camors_, 1867;
and _Julia de Trecoeur_, 1872: the two last being perhaps his
strongest books, though the _Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre_ is the most
popular. M. Feuillet wrote in a pure and easy style, and exhibited in
his novels acquaintance with the manners of good society, and a
considerable command of pathos. He was more studious of the proprieties
than most of his contemporaries, but has indulged in a somewhat
unhealthy sentimentalism. Henry Murger had a very original, though a
somewhat limited, talent. He is the novelist of what is called the
Parisian _Boheme_, the reckless society of young artists and men of
letters, which has always grouped itself in greater numbers at Paris
than anywhere else. The novel, or rather the series of sketches,
entitled _La Vie de Boheme_ is one which, from the truth to nature, the
pathos, and the wit which accompany its caricature and burlesque of
manners, will always hold a position in literature. Murger, who
experienced many hardships in his youth, was all his life a careless and
reckless liver, and died young. His works (all prose fiction, except a
small collection of poems not very striking in form but touching and
sincere in sentiment) are tolerably numerous, but the best of them are
little more than repetitions of the _Vie de Boheme_. Edmond About, a
very lively writer, whose liveliness was not always kept sufficiently in
check by good taste, oscillated between fiction and journalism, latterly
inclining chiefly to journalism. In his younger days he was better known
as a novelist, and some of his works, such as _Tolla_ and _Le Roi des
Montagnes_, were very popular. More characteristic perhaps are his
shorter and more familiar stories (_L'Homme a l'Oreille Cassee_, _Le Nez
d'un Notaire_, etc.). In this same group of novelists of the Second
Republic and Empire ranks Ernest Feydeau, a morbid and thoroughly
unwholesome author, who, however, did not lack power, and once at least
(in _Sylvie_) produced work of unquestionable merit. His other novels,
_Fanny_, _Daniel_, _La Comtesse de Chalis_, are chiefly remarkable as
showing the worst side of the society of the Empire. Among writers of
short stories Champfleury, a friend and contemporary of Murger (who has
more recently betaken himself to artistic criticism of the historical
kind), deserves notice for his amusing extravaganzas, and Gustave Droz
for the singularly ingenious and witty series of domestic sketches
entitled _Monsieur_, _Madame et Bebe_, and _Entre Nous_. The range of
subject in these is wide and not always what is understood by the
English word domestic. But the fancy shown in their design and the
literary skill of their execution are alike remarkable and worthy of the
ancient reputation of France in the short prose tale. Nor have they
lacked followers.
[Sidenote: Flaubert.]
The greatest of the Second Empire novelists is unquestionably Gustave
Flaubert, who was born in 1821. Having a sufficient income he betook
himself early to literature, which he cultivated with an amount of care
and elaborate self-discipline rare among authors. In 1848 he contributed
to the _Artiste_ newspaper, then edited by Gautier, some fragments of a
remarkable fantasy-piece on the legend of St. Anthony, which was not
published as a whole till nearly a quarter of a century later. In 1859,
being then nearly forty years old, he achieved at once a great success
and a great scandal by his novel of _Madame Bovary_, a study of
provincial life, as unsparing as any of Balzac's, but more true to
actual nature, more finished in construction, and far superior in style.
It was the subject of a prosecution, but the author was acquitted. Next,
M. Flaubert selected an archaeological subject, and produced, after long
study, _Salammbo_, a novel the scene of which is pitched at Carthage in
the days of the mercenary war. This book, like the former, has a certain
repulsiveness of subject in parts; but the vigour of the drawing and the
extraordinary skill in description are as remarkable as ever.
_L'Education Sentimentale_, which followed, was Flaubert's least popular
work, being too long, and having an insufficiently defined plot and
interest. Then appeared the completed _Tentation de St. Antoine_, a book
deserving to rank at the head of its class--that of the fantastic
romance. Afterwards came _Trois Contes_, exhibiting in miniature all the
author's characteristics; and lastly, after his sudden death, in 1881,
the unfinished _Bouvard et Pecuchet_. The faults of Flaubert are, in the
first place, indiscriminate meddling with subjects best left alone,
which he shares with most French novelists; in the second, a certain
complaisance in dealing with things simply horrible, which is more
peculiar to him; in the third, an occasional prodigality of erudite
detail which clogs and impedes the action. His merits are an almost
incomparable power of description, a mastery of those types of character
which he attempts, an imagination of extraordinary power, and a singular
satirical criticism of life, which does not exclude the possession of a
vein of romantic and almost poetical sentiment and suggestion. He is a
writer repulsive to many, unintelligible to more, and never likely to
be generally popular, but sure to retain his place in the admiration of
those who judge literature as literature.
[Sidenote: The Naturalists. Emile Zola.]
The name of Flaubert has been much invoked, and his reputation has been
not a little compromised, by a small but noisy school of novelists and
critics who call themselves naturalists, and affect to preach and
practice a new crusade for the purpose of revolutionising poetry,
fiction, and the drama. These persons, whose leader is M. Emile Zola, a
busy and popular novelist, an unsuccessful dramatist, and a critic of
great industry, include the brothers Goncourt (one of whom is now dead)
and a number of younger writers who deserve no notice, except M. Guy de
Maupassant, whose prose, if too often ill employed, is as vigorous as
his verse, and who in his excellent _Pierre et Jean_ broke his
naturalist chains. The naturalists affect to derive from Stendhal,
through Balzac and Flaubert. That is to say, they adopt the analytic